Falling Without Caution

Chapter 6 ~ Elise

  "We can't break up."

I'm propping the door open with my foot, Liam standing before me, his eyes pleading and desperate, all traces of the cool, nonchalant boy from yesterday erased. However, I can't help feeling sympathetic when I note his eye bags and windblown hair. It can be pretty tough to fall asleep after a particularly rough day.

"You seemed pretty happy with it last night." Still, I cross my arms, refusing to let myself fall for his soft brown eyes that remind me of chocolate pudding, or the warm smell of brownies that seems to be oozing out of him. How does he smell like brownies? He looks ridiculously attractive but pitifully weary and tired at the same time, and I have to focus extremely hard to remind myself that Liam isn't an ordinary teenager. No, Liam Winters is an actor. And if us actors excel at one thing, it's lying. Schooling our features into a mask of calm? Easy. Pretending to be angry? Even easier. Acting worried and needy? The easiest.

Liam winces, twiddling with his fingers nervously, and I'll give him this—it's a rather odd look on him. Nerves. He's always so put together, charm dialed up to the maximum so that everyone on set loves him. And here he is in front of me, his eyes on the ground and his long, soft fingers rubbing together anxiously. Long, soft fingers that were holding mine just yesterday. Good lord, am I ever going to get over that?

"Well, Elise..."

His use of my name sends a painful pang through my chest. Not Ellie, firefly, feisty, or something else equally ridiculous, just Elise. Not that I don't like my name, but coming from his mouth... it feels wrong. Too formal. Too much like what things used to be.

"...press will hate it." That's all I manage to catch whilst my thoughts are swept elsewhere. To a place where we are friends. To a place where we are more than friends. God, it's always about the media with him. How will his image look? How will our movie play out? Who gives a damn?

"I don't care. If this movie is meant to be, it will go on. People who hate each other can't date." My words come out sharper than I intended, and I feel a twinge of guilt when hurt sparks in Liam's eyes. He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, the evident stress on his face and that cute little wrinkle between his eyebrows begging me to listen.

"Elise," he begins in that deep voice of his, and, for a moment, I find my resolve weakening before I pull myself together, remembering that this is all an elaborate performance by an extremely talented actor.

"No."

"But-"

"You said all there was to say last night."

"No, I damn didn't!" Liam pushes his bangs out of his eyes, locking his gaze with mine for the first time in this conversation. "Elise, my dad was lying. You have to believe me," he begs, and it takes everything I have not to cave right then.

I faintly register Mom retreating back inside, muttering something about having to tidy up the kitchen. And then it's just the two of us.

"I don't care, Liam," I start, switching my voice to sound more like his. "Which is precisely what I was explaining to her when you walked up," I mock, in case he's already forgotten his part in the whole debacle.

"I only said that because you suggested that we break up and were glaring like I deserved to die a brutal death," he quips, "You didn't even let me defend myself!"

"Your face said enough."

"I act as a profession!" He throws his hands in the air in irritation. "You know what I think, Elise? I think you're so scared that I'm going to leave you, that you don't even want to give me a chance to stay. Not everything that sounds believable is true. But you want to believe it, don't you? That's why you're pushing me away? So that you can stay alone? You say you don't want to, but I think you'd rather be alone than be left."