Twenty-Two ➳ l.p.

Chapter Eleven: Weather Changes

                “But it was just sunny!” Liam pouted at me, and I shrugged. I didn’t really want to go outside anyway.

                Liam was such a boy sometimes.

                “It’s the weather changes, that’s what Mum told me.”

                “Well weather changes is a stupid idea,” he huffed, jutting out his chin.

                “You’re a stupid idea!”

                (Not my best comeback.)

Chapter Eleven: Weather Changes

Things change, and it’s crazy.

                People change, feelings change—everything. It all changes.

                And it’s not like I didn’t know that, because I did. It’s just, ever since Liam got here, I couldn’t figure out what had changed with him.

                But now, I’m realizing that it might not even be Liam that changed at all.

                It might just be me.

                It’s comical in a way that’s not really funny at all in the way that I realized this.

                I was lying on my bed, something that I seemed to be fond of doing, book in my hands. I was the kind of girl that liked to read crappy romance novels, because you always know that everything will work out in the end. You don’t know how, but always, everybody gets their happy-ever-after.

                And so that’s what I was doing. It was a good book, Beastly by Alex Flinn, and it’s not like I hadn’t seen the movie. I knew what was going to happen, but the great thing about reading was that it’s almost as if you’re there as it happens. You’re not just looking through an ersatz glass screen as the people go by. No, you’re there.

                And the book was one of those that you couldn’t put down. Or at least I couldn’t, anyway. I was pressed up with my back against my window, frizzy red hair in an untamed ponytail and legs crossed. I wasn’t wearing anything special—a tank top, some pajama bottoms and a funky pair of retro fuzzy socks that Matt had gifted me for Christmas last year.

                And I wasn’t really surprised when I first heard the rain tapping against my window. It was more than common for dark and drizzly weather here, so it wasn’t exactly a shock. And it did actually add to the scene of the wretched New York City streets that I was reading about.

                It was really the first crack of thunder that did it for me. It was rather loud and ominous, rattling the thick rope of rain into my window and piercing my ears. A blinding white flash of lightning burned in my eyes only moments later, and without a thought I reached behind me with one hand to pull the curtains shut, all the while gripping the next page to Beastly with the other.

                I read even as the thunder and lightning and split the murky cerulean gem above, and I didn’t stop until I noticed my phone flashing with a text by the end of my bed just as I finished a chapter.

                From Tommo: whyd you close your window? me and harry were having a nice time staring at you (;

                I chuckled to myself, peeling the curtain back just enough to peek out and see Louis pressed flush against Liam’s window, pointing at his phone; signaling me to text him back.