When no one's watching

Chapter 19

Zayn's pov:

I expected everything to be normal.
Well, maybe not completely normal since me and Liam had kissed but at least normal as always.

It wasn't. Not a single bit.
As I came to school on Friday morning I expected to meet all of my friends at the lockers.
I met them but Liam was missing.

And a minute later I saw him and thought I was struck by a lightning.
There was Liam, walking with his "cool friends" and some girls of the cheerleader team.
The classic clichée. Liam was obviously flirting with one of the girls.

I couldn't believe that this was the Liam I knew. The Liam that had confessed his love to me just a day earlier. The Liam who had kissed me and confided his darkest secrets to me.
This wasn't even him anymore it was like another person, completely fake.

He purposely ignored me and went on like he didn't even know me.
Harry must've seen my disbelieving glance and nudged me.
"Don't worry Z, he's always like that. It's just Liam."

I wanted to protest and say that this wasn't Liam at all. Not a single bit of this person was Liam.
Or was it? Was this the real Liam and everything was just a stupid act?

The whole day went by with Liam not even wasting a single glance on me.

At lunch, he sat with his popular football friends, acting like we never existed.

Niall and Harry seemed to start to wonder as well but it didn't bother them all too much.

The entire evening I spent waiting for Liam to text or call. But he didn't do anything.
Instead, he was chilling with his 'friends' and showed it off on Instagram.

I was annoyed by him, I was actually fuming.

Who did he think he was?! One day kissing me and telling me all those love promises and the next day ignoring me and chilling with the homophobic, selfish idiots.

Even on Saturday I tried to call Liam and every single call he declined and every single text he left on read.

I was furious but slowly the doubts came up.
What if it had been a bet?
What if Liam had a bet with his real friends to gain my trust and play me?
Was he really just playing with my feelings and I didn't even notice it?
Was he really just intentionally trying to break my heart?

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was.
Now it all made sense.
That one day, he didn't expect me to listen to their homophobic talk in the lockers room. They thought I could find out their plans and so Liam took plan B and told me that he was 'gay'.
And as soon as he had me say 'I love you' and had broken my heart, the bet was completed.
He had won. Because the plan had worked. Smooth acting, Liam.

Niall's pov:

It was lunch break on Monday and Liam was still ignoring us.
He was acting like he didn't know any of us and like we were embarrassing.

And as much as I loved Liam, too much was too much.
Especially how he had hurt Zayn with that.

Harry and I had discussed it earlier and we were pretty sure that Zayn at least had a tiny soft spot for Liam.

And so the more I felt sorry for him. As he came to school, he was looking like he hadn't slept in way too long.

At lunch, he didn't eat but just buried his face in his hoodie.

Louis knew exactly why Zayn was acting like this and he definitely wasn't happy about it.
"That little piece of shit. I swear I'm gonna kill that motherfucker."