Enchanted [Liam Payne AU]

Don't you ever wonder, if life is actually real? Do you ever look down at your hands, and just have a little moment of your own, marveling at how odd it all is? Do you ever just stop and think about what could have been? What would be different if you had different parents? Different friends? Did something different at any given point in time? How much one action could affect everything and everyone? 

Not many people do.

Liam Payne isn't one for unrealism, but when it comes down to things like this, he just can't help but wonder. Who would he be if he was more ... interesting? Better looking? Dumber? Smarter? Just ... different?

He can't help but let his thoughts drift to these could-have-been moments. He gets lost. Almost as if in a trance, even. It's odd, and quite uncommon for a person of his personnel, being best friends with the "Populars" of his school, to dwell on insubstantial things such as these. He wasn't a loner. He wasn't bullied. He wasn't unattractive. Quite the opposite, actually. Nonetheless, his mind is an enigma.

His thoughts are his only haven. In the real world, he recieves nothing but expectations. How he should look. How he should act. How he dresses. Who he associates with. How well his grades are. What he does after school. What he eats. Everything.

Reality doesn't really like Liam Payne, and these past couple of months, he's begun to realize, he didn't like it very much either.

A child at heart, all he wants is to have fun. He wants to get in trouble. Do something dangerous. Feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins, rushing to his head. He wants to sneak out at night and go to the bar. He wants to take a girl home and pretend like he's felt love, for just one itty bitty moment.

But he's Liam. He's supposed to be perfect. And that's not what perfect boys do.

Perhaps things wouldn't be so tough if he didn't have such a huge shadow to fill. Nicole and Ruth Payne were the perfect sisters, and with them off at Uni, he was the one left to endure their parents' high raised expectations and unattainable goals.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, he was jealous of his friends. Of everyone who didn't have to go through what he did. Liam's story wasn't even as half as bad as other people's may be, but it sure was stressful.

It was almost as if a weight rested on his shoulders, leaving him hunched, pained, and unhappy. Until he found something that would help him lift that weight, unhappy would be how Liam remained.

But of course, no one actually knew he was unhappy. Liam James Payne was a master at deception, and false smiles were for sure the way to go.

No one suspected a thing, much to his liking. Everyone continued to believe he was just an average, content, teenage boy living the last couple of his "memorable" years of high school with skip in his step and a (fake) smile on his face.

Ha, they didn't really know him, he thought. They were all just using him.

Every single one of them.

Fakes.

Posers.

Con artists.

Filthy little gold diggers.

Yes, that's what they were.

They

were

using

him.

Or, at least, that's what he thought.