Chapter Fourteen
~Michael's POV~
I sat in class working on the stupid worksheet and wanting to die. I don't understand any of this, but maybe it's just because I'm not actually paying attention to it. My mind kept trailing off to Liam and all the sweet touches and kisses from a few weeks ago. God, waking up with him and getting ready together had never been so perfect. It almost pained me to think of the fact that he didn't actually live with me and that we couldn't do that everyday.
But Liam had agreed to going on the trip which I was excited about. I wanted to get out of town for a while and Winter Break was only a few days away. Although, we would have to make a slight detour for me that I hadn't really talked about to Liam. I was taken out of my thoughts when a little piece of paper landed on my desk. What is this third grade? I looked up and saw Sean looking at me.
Oh.
I grabbed the piece of paper and opened it. I read simply, "sorry". I bit my lip. Why was he apologizing? I'm the one that let it happen. I mean, yeah I was drunk and my judgment wasn't the best, but I was somewhat purposely trying to get the kind of attention that Sean was showing me. It was there at the back of my mind. All because I was trying to run away from love and Liam.
Looking back up at Sean I smiled lightly. "It's cool. It was partly my fault too."
Sean blinked and looked away before looking back at me. He seemed to be asking me if it really was okay but I just continued to smile at him and he slowly turned away and returned back to his seat. I stared at him a little bit wondering why he was with Veronica. It was apparent that he liked guys, or at least me, so why did he tie himself to Veronica? It wasn't really my business, but maybe it was since I almost made out with Sean.
I sighed. Something to ask Veronica about. I wonder if she knew. Although, every time Sean did get handsy they both where drunk – or at least Veronica was. Sean didn't really change his emotions and when he did they were only visible for a moment. And then it was back to Stone Faced Sean. My phone buzzed and I smiled at the text message from Liam asking how my day was going. I quickly replied and spent the rest of class not paying attention.
After school I met up with Liam and we walked home together as always. He kissed me when we stood in front of my door. My arms wrapping around his neck and his arms around my waist. My hands ran through his hair and lightly tugged at it. His hands teasing the sides of my hips and stomach. I moaned when I felt his tongue start to slide into my mouth.
I broke the kiss panting a little, "Hmm... Liam stop. We're still outside." I said a little breathlessly as his lips trailed down my neck.
"Then should we go inside?" Liam asked chuckling as he finally pulled away, but he still held me close.
"I would love to babe, but I have somethings I need to do." I said. Liam pouted a little, straightening up. I stood slightly on tip toes and kissed him lightly. Why is he getting taller? This is not okay with me.
"Is there a reason I can't tag along?" He asked. I shrugged.
"Not particularly. It's just, I'm probably going over to Veronica's." I said. Liam stiffened a little. "Sean came to me today. Said he was sorry. Well, you know, he didn't actually speak but he wrote it down. And I think it's pretty obvious that he's interested in males and he doesn't look too thrilled about being with Veronica. Though he's not completely disgusted. I was just going to try and ask Veronica what all that was about. Not something that I thought you would like to be apart of." I said.
Liam hummed and kissed me again. "Well you have fun with that. Tell me all about it afterwords."
"Will do." I replied laughing. Liam kissed me goodbye and started to leave but I pulled him back to me. He looked confused for a moment, and it was so cute I reached to kiss him again. "You didn't say it." I said, blushing softly.
"What?" Liam asked confused. I blushed further and looked away from his gaze, finding the ground rather interesting. I mumbled out something and Liam laughed, turning my head back towards him. "Hmm? What is it you want me to say?"
He had to know by now and was just trying to draw it out of me. "S-Say that y-you love me." I stuttered out quietly. Liam chuckled again and kissed me softly. I moaned as he pulled me closer and squeezed me tightly.
Liam pulled away from my lips just barely, leaving me breathless. "I love you."
I smiled and blushed further, my heart rate picking up. I hugged Liam tightly to me and kissed him again and said goodbye. Then I finally headed into my house. I went into the kitchen and grabbed from the meat and cheese platter Richard had left for me. I sent a text message to Veronica asking if I could come over. She replied back a minute later with her address.
It wasn't too far away from where I lived, so it wouldn't be that long of a walk thankfully. My parents tried to convinced me to use my car to actually drive places, and I did but I actually liked walking more. It was calming to me and since it was getting cold, it felt great. Something about being cold but wanting to stay outside.
Walking out the door I quickly made my way over to Veronica's place. It was a nice gray two-story house with a pale blue door. The lawn was overly green and the house felt a little too perfect. I rang the doorbell before knocking on the door. About ten seconds afterwords the door was opened by Sean. He seemed to freeze when he saw me. I smiled up at him at him softly because that boy was tall. Apparently, everyone is taller than me right now. Well, not Zack. He's really short. Don't know how Dylan does it, being over half a foot taller than him. But anyways, I was now just standing here. Having a staring contest with Sean.
"Sean, why do you just have the door open?" Veronica's voice drifted in as she walked towards the door. She smiled when she saw me. "Hey Michael!"
"Hi." I replied.
Veronica looked back at Sean and they seemed to exchange a silent conversation. Eventually, Veronica rolled her eyes and pushed him away from the door. Inviting me inside and closing the door. We greeted her parents very briefly before going upstairs to her room. Door closed. Interesting. I sat awkwardly on her bed with her while Sean took a seat in her desk chair. He fiddled around with the laptop and quietly turned on some music.
I looked at the white bed spread and multitude of tiny plants around her room. A rack of beanies and various pictures of her and Sean, Valentine, and Jade were posted on the walls. The room looked like something off of Tumblr, but it fit Veronica. She sighed and laid back on the bed.
"So you're probably here because of Sean." She stated. The room felt even more awkward.
I looked over at Sean who didn't turn away from the computer even though he wasn't doing anything. Sighing, I laid back against Veronica's bed as well and looked at her. "Well yeah. Just wanted to make sure this didn't put a dent in our friendship or anything. Don't have many of them here, so..." I trailed off. She laughed slightly.
"Of course not!" She smiled. Veronica sat up and I just watched her from the bed. "Sean... Do you mind if I tell him?" She asked.
Sean looked at her and at the last second looked at me before turning around. I had to strain to hear the quiet, rough, sound of what sounded like 'whatever'. Veronica smiled softly and her eyes looked sad before she looked back at me.
"Sean and I are best friends. Have been since we were born. When we got older, I started to realize that I might be just a little bit in love with him. Of course, I didn't tell him. But both our parents, they have this thing about marriage. I was originally supposed to marry Ethan, you know the twin brother to Emily. And she kind of hated me because of that and because I had told her off one day about something stupid. So that didn't really work out. And my parents aren't that unreasonable. So of course when I told them I had feelings for Sean they were ecstatic. So they set everything up for us to get married. I didn't care. Well, actually I am very happy to marry Sean. And maybe it's also a silent thing about being able to know that I will never have to worry about being alone." She paused for a second.
I stared with wide eyes and so did Sean. Apparently, he hadn't heard that last part before.
Veronica continued,"Sean on the other hand, he was a lot more verbal about the whole arranged marriage thing. He got into a lot of fights with his parents about it. And they told us at the worse possible time. It was a train wreck because, Sean literally had just told me that he might be bi and wanted to try somethings out. And when our parents dropped the bombshell on us, he kind of cracked. After all the yelling he stopped talking. He only talks to me when we're alone. Our parents haven't called off the arrangement and he stopped trying to make them. Sean said that he was doing it for me, that if it had been anyone else he wouldn't have stopped until the arrangement was destroyed. And guiltily, that made me fall in love with him a bit more." Veronica stopped.
By now I was sitting up and deeply paying attention to the story. So many thoughts were going through my brain. Arranged marriage? Or really just marriage in general. Were their parents nuts? Who the fuck decides to get engaged in high school? Well there was that time that Aden asked if I would marry him one day, but it wasn't like he had bought a ring and purposed to me! I glanced at her hand and noticed the ring. Damn, I must have been not paying attention at all because that was a fucking rock. How could I have missed that?
"I don't wear it at school." Veronica said as she saw me looking at the ring. I blushed, slightly embarrassed for staring. "I only wear it around the house and when we go out sometimes to make the 'rents happy. But anyways, I kind of just turn a blind eye to Sean's fooling around because I know that he's not with me by choice. I only ask that he stays my 'boyfriend'. And you know, most of the time I get drunk because it stops me from feeling bad – when I see Sean with others that is. It's fine, and I know he does it ... still doesn't make it hurt less." She mumbled out that last part.
I heard Sean get up from the chair and suddenly he was in front of Veronica. She looked at him with a sad smile and he grabbed her cheeks and kissed her. It seemed to surprise her but she accepted it. I looked away and felt bad for being here. I had never seen Sean actually kiss Veronica before. It was always her kissing him. And he normally just stared blankly into space. He never really looked at her either. So now, Veronica was practically crying and subtly had let him know how she really felt.
When I glanced over I saw the Veronica had in fact started crying during their kiss. I quietly got up and left the room. I don't think they noticed, but that was fine. Now I felt even more shitty for almost making out with Sean. But at the same time, I didn't know how to feel. I just witnessed something so personal and real. And it made me think about how lucky I was to be with someone of my own choosing. Not that Sean didn't care for Veronica or anything, because he obviously did. But the fact that Veronica had fallen in love with him and Sean carefully stepped around her feelings trying to be nice, but it only had made thing worse.
Oh god. Had I done that to Liam? Was that what it seemed like? Every time he told me that he loved me, I just tried to carefully step around the subject. Tried to push it away. Did it seem like I didn't want to be with him? Why didn't he tell me that it hurt him? Well, it is Liam. He wouldn't tell me if I was hurting him. Even if I were to stab him he would still say that he loved me with a smile and not care about any type of pain he was in. Shit. He's in love with me. He's fucking in love with me.
Why am I just now realizing this? I literally told him to tell me he loves me earlier. What, did my brain just not get it? Was I stupid or something? Liam Foster was in love with me. And I'm just now noticing this. Holy shit. He is in love with me. I couldn't breath and my body felt feverish. I sat down on the floor and watched the world spin around me. How could I not see how dangerously in love he was with me. Every time he looked at me, it felt like I was the only thing around him. He always held me with such care and he never turned away from me. He was always right there. I completely had him wrapped around my finger. He would do anything for me.
And why was I so happy about that? Why did it make me feel absolutely scared, terrified even, but so damn happy? Why was I so stupid to not see this sooner? I feel like I've been blind this whole time. I only ever thought about how I wasn't good enough and that he could do so much better than me. I kept thinking that he would always be the one to break my heart and leave me. Not the other way around. I never thought that I could possibly be the one hurting him. Noah told me and I heard him, but I still didn't get it. I knew that it probably hurt, but I just couldn't feel it.
I was so focused on not getting hurt that I ended up hurting him. I ended up hurting someone I love. I froze listening to my own thoughts. Love? I'm pretty sure I love him. No, scratch that. I know I love him. Because he's been the only thing I can think about. And I don't even want to do anything with him but just sit in the same room. I just want him around. And I smile a lot more around him. And he makes me feel happy. Even when I'm not with him. Just knowing that he's going to be around and be there for me. Knowing that at any moment I could call him and he would come running. It makes me happy and I've felt better being with him.
Especially since I told him about Aden. I've never felt happier. I couldn't go a moment without felling like everything was right and okay in the world. And when Liam smiled at me. That perfect smile and those beautiful and kind eyes. When he kissed me until I was lightheaded and couldn't breathe. Nothing was better than those moments. Spending time with him was amazing. Going to sleep with him, waking up together, clean the freaking dishes together. Everything was absolutely perfect. And Liam was so, so, so lovely. And nice.
He was amazing. Completely and utterly amazing. And he was mine.
A/N: Birthday upload! Yay, So happy to get this out before people start showing up. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter <3 Can you believe there are only 6 more chapters left!? *gasp* I'm gonna miss my babies! Especially Michael. Goodness, this is the third book he's been in. And there's one more on the way. The story of Michael and Aden *-* Soooo many tears. But yeah. Sean is cute and Michael has finally come to terms with his feelings and Liam's. Good work! Until next time my lovelies. Gif is of Michael!