Door Number One

Home

As soon as Liam entered his house, he made a beeline for the living room and flopped on the couch feeling the exhaustion. His mother who was in the middle of doing ironing and watching countdown of all things looked at him with a scowl. He instantly knew she was complaining about him still being in his uniform.

He rolled his eyes, "I'll get changed before dinner. Just give me five minutes".

"Liam, I know you. You'll forget"said his mum patiently.

"I'm soooo tired!".

His mum continued to look unimpressed as she picked up one of his freshly washed and dried school shirts to iron. His mum still in her nurses uniform having finished her shift over an hour ago. His mum was permanently in a state of exhaustion. His dad wasn't much better as worked as a lorry driver so was often doing long trips or stuck for hours on the m25. They were like two passing ships.

"What's for dinner?"asked Liam retrieving his phone from his back pocket and started scrolling through his Facebook page.

"Lasagna. Your dad should be home soon fingers crossed and Sarah should be on her way home from netball practise by now"answered his mum.

Liam nodded absentmindedly. He had been slightly surprised not to spot his sixteen year old sister on the bus with all the other St Augustus pupils although she purposely went out of her way to avoid him when they did bump into each other. He'd completely forgotten about netball but then he had trouble remembering all her sporting activities. He was completely different compared to Sarah and Adam his oldest brother in that regard and sometimes he wondered if he really was the black sheep of the family. His brother Adam had just started Brighton university this year and Liam was enjoying slowly moving out from his brothers shadow and having the large bedroom all to himself.

His mum unplugged the iron and took down the ironing board disappearing with a pile of clothes and leaving Liam alone with his thoughts. He could hear her climb the stairs and disappear off into one of the bedrooms. He looked at his phone hesitantly, his fingers pausing on the screen.

Taking a deep breath he downloaded the app he had deleted a week ago almost as quickly as it appeared on his screen. Feeling slightly braver he opened up the account he had registered Romeo63 and went into his profile.

The profile was still there which surprised him even though he was the one who set it up. There was no profile picture or personal details which probably explained why there were no messages. He moved the app into another folder so that it could be hidden from others. He dreaded to think what would happen if his friends spotted it.

Shaking his head in disbelief he quickly expanded his profile, cringing slightly at the cheesiness of it all. He highly doubted he would find a relationship from this app as it was more designed for casual hookups. Still he would be dipping his toe in metaphorically speaking and getting himself out there. He still wasn't sure if he wanted to be "out there" but there was no harm in taking a few baby steps to try and find out. As long as nobody tried to murder him in his sleep, he thought dryly to himself. He looked through his photo album trying to find something that showed off his body in a positive light without revealing his identity which proved harder than he originally anticipated. He managed to find a photo of him in a pair of trunks on a beach in Turkey from last summer. Cropping off the head he was finally satisfied that no one would be able to work out who he was and posted it onto the app. The thought did occur to him if anyone did recognise him and the odds were a billion to one, there was also the fact that they were also on the app as well.

He drew in a deep breath, his fingers trembling and he pressed the update profile button.

He was now ready to go.

697 words