Twenty-Two ➳ l.p.

Chapter Fourteen: Against the Wall

                  Liam had me trapped against the wall, fingers tickling at my sides. “Li, stop!”

                  “Make me!” He harrumphed, and I sagged against him, gasping and panting and crying out.

                  “Liam James Payne! I hate you!”

                  And it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Chapter Fourteen: Against the Wall

Sometimes there’s nothing like waking up in a giant bed; the taste of clean linen and velvet sheets cocooning you in. But on some other times you’re waking up on the floor—dust and dirt and hard confusion—and sometimes that’s better than any cocoon-based life that you could ever dream of.

                  That’s how Liam and I used to be, like waking up in a cocoon of everything nice and sweet; a butterfly in metamorphosis—a thirteen letter word for change. And now we were more like the latter, sharp glances and cold touches and tattoos and muscles, but it’s almost better than any way that we used to be. The Liam that I used to know isn’t the same Liam as now—whether it’s because of me or something else, I don’t know, but the Liam with the world on his shoulders was now the Liam on top. He wasn’t Liam Payne from Wolverhampton—the boy to be bullied or picked on or laughed at. He was Liam Payne from One Direction, and everything that he ever strived to be. And I was really, really proud of him for that.

                  But thinking about Liam—about what he turned out to be, also made me think about myself. I wasn’t truly any different. Yes, my attitude had changed a bit and I was a bit more guarded, but what did I have to show for myself? In three years Liam had made a bigger name for himself than I would ever hope to have, and I had nothing to show. In three years all I could show off was a handful of friends and a potential best-friend-turned-enemy-possibly-friend-again.

                  Liam was so much better than me in so many ways, and all it really did show was how much I didn’t deserve him. I told Niall this, too, and yes I felt bad for spilling my feelings out to him of all people, but it’s not like I could talk to Abbie anymore, and all of the other boys were out of the question, considering that they didn’t know about the complications between Liam and I at all—though I suspected Zayn knew. I definitely wasn’t going to talk to my brother or dad about my boy problems, and my mum was automatically out—the only thing coming from that talk would be how Liam and I needed to produce children—so Niall was my only option. I felt horrible for doing this, talking about the guy I fancied to the guy that fancied me, but I couldn’t bottle up my emotions anymore. I had tried that for the past three years—longer even—and it did nobody any good.

                  “Just because Liam’s famous doesn’t make him better than you,” Niall murmured, sipping his lemonade and sighing, staring up at the clouds. We were in my backyard for a change, seated in my crappy patio furniture with a cliché pitcher of ice-cold lemonade beside us.

                  I swirled my glass, the ice clinking the side of the cup before I spoke. “Liam’s not better than me because he’s famous. He’s better than me because he’s better than me.” And that sounded ridiculously stupid to my own ears, but it made so much sense at the same time. “Liam… He’s good. Perfect, even. Everybody likes him—how can you not like Liam? He’s sweet and nice and really, Niall, you can’t say he’s not better than me because he is.”

                  Niall let out a soft exhale, tilting his lemonade from his lips and letting the cup sag against the table. His hand found mine, cool and damp from his drink and his fingertips skimmed the back of my hand softly. “If Liam was really better than you, then I’d be falling for him instead of you.”