I just realized there are like five or so chapters until the end um

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"Uh, I don't know what else, you have food in the fridge, soda if you're thirsty, and we also have cable TV-"

"No, no, it's alright," I interrupted Karen before she could continue rambling, "I brought my books with me from school, I'll just... study while she sleeps, or something."

"Okay then," She smiled at me, and let out a small sigh – presumably in relief. "I wouldn't have even called you, but she's gotten sick over the past few days – she couldn't stop asking Geoff to take her out to play in the snow, and now she wakes up every ten minutes because her nose is stuffy and just... just..."

I bit my lip, and watched her as she scurried around the room, gathering all the stuff she needs before leaving the house. "I really need to go to work, I can't ask for more days off, and Geoff is at work too, and Liam is useless in this department-"

"Seriously," I cut her off again, "There's no need to apologize, or anything. I'm completely fine with doing this." I gave her a polite smile, and once again she smiled at me. I was just hoping she wouldn't start freaking out within a few seconds again.

"Thank you, really, you're a lifesaver," She placed her hand on my arm for a couple seconds. "And, you know, if you need to leave sooner rather than later, you can leave Karlie with Liam. I'm sure he's not that handicapped when it comes to babysitting."

"No, I'm sure I'll be able to stay until Geoff comes." One of the reasons I accepted babysitting Karlie instead of going to work that day in the first place, is because Karen told me Liam would come home from his apartment around this time. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to see him; but this was better than constantly having to ask myself, 'what if?' if I didn't do it.

"Well, he should be here any minute now," She said in such a casual tone, it was obvious that she had no clue what was going on between her son and I. "To be frank, I think you'd want to leave when he comes, anyway. He's been so moody lately, whenever he comes. The only thing that's missing is a literal rainy cloud over his head."

I nodded at that; she didn't know it, but I myself had a rainy cloud above my head too.

"I swear, I've no idea what's going on. Has he been hanging out with odd people lately?" Karen frowned at me as she stood up, and adjusted her coat. I just shrugged; it's not like I'd want to tell her, or anything.

Fortunately, she just lightly shook her head. "Weird. He's always been weird, but this is just..." With another shake of her head, she trailed off. "Anyway, you know what you have to do, right?"

"Yes, check on Karlie every five to ten minutes and give her tea when she wakes up for good," I said, placing my hands behind my back as I stood next to the front door. "Not let her sit on the floor, and, if I can, play with her."

"Good. Great," Karen mumbled to herself, looking around the house one last time before leaving. "Well, thanks again. You sure your boss is okay with you not going to work, though?"

"He's fine with it," I reassured her. "I'll just work an extra shift on the weekend, or something."

"Alright," She nodded, and opened the door. "Then I better get- oh, look who decided to show up."

And, yeah, it was definitely my rainy-cloud-buddy. "Hi mum," He smiled, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Sally," He muttered as he walked inside the house, barely glancing at me. I'm guessing he knew I'd be there.

"See what I mean?" Karen almost whispered. "Well, if you're okay with staying with him, then good luck. I'll be on my way."

"Alright, goodbye. Have a good day," I smiled at her one last time, and closed the door. And mentally prepared myself for whatever that was going to happen.

After our little encounter in the police station, I hadn't seen Liam for a week straight. That is, until we started school again on Monday; I was anxious out of my mind that I'd be seeing him again in class, but somehow, we both ended up pretending as if nothing had happened. We didn't speak, hell, I couldn't even look at him, but that's all it was. He didn't avoid me, I also doubt he'd said anything to his friends, but it was the constant silence that was driving me insane.

Like, did we hate each other? Were we enemies now? What? I had no idea what was going on, or where we stood. If I didn't want to make everything better so badly, I would have probably let things stay that way, but I wasn't exactly pleased with just seeing him in the hallways. I wanted things to go back to how they used to be; with a few small changes, that is.

"Hi," I said in a flat tone as I slowly – hesitantly – walked into the living room, and saw him sitting on the couch, watching TV. And ignoring me, at that.

"Okay then," I said to myself through a small sigh, and walked over to the sofa at a faster pace, sitting as far from Liam as I could. He didn't seem to mind; he didn't seem to acknowledge my existence, either.

I pulled my legs up in the couch – the same one which I told him he was a horrible kisser on, a seemingly long time ago. I wondered how things would have turned out if I just kept my mouth closed, and he didn't kiss me for the second time that day. We wouldn't be in this situation, that's for sure.

"You know..." I jumped in my seat as he spoke, nearly ten minutes later. Good, I thought, I was going to go check on Karlie anyway. "You can just leave."

But that little sentence of his made me stay in my seat. "I can't," I said, ignoring the tiny amount of pain he'd just caused me. "I have to keep an eye on Karlie," I explained, which once again reminded me that I should really go see Karlie.

"I can do that," But then he said another ridiculous thing. "You can just-"

"Yeah, right," I interrupted him, shaking my head as I smiled. "You gave her soda the last time you babysat her, and wanted to wipe her tears away with baby wipes. I don't think you can do that."

"Oh, well I'm sorry my maternal instincts aren't as good as yours," He retorted, voice so full of sarcasm, I actually thought he got offended for a second. "You're not that brilliant at it, anyway."

"Please," I said, a small grimace on my face, "My maternal instincts are stronger than your Wi-Fi connection."

"My Wi-Fi connection sucks," He said – though I doubted it was true.

"It reflects you, then," I muttered – making sure he heard me – and then noticed him look at me from the corner of my eye. For those few seconds I just kept staring at the TV, while he kept staring at me.

"You left me at the party," He said loudly, causing me to slowly look at him, eyes wide.

"What the hell are you on about?" I said with a frown, my face holding a ridiculously freaked out expression.

Liam looked away from me; this time he was watching the television, and I was watching him. "Adelaide's birthday." I immediately thought of last year, "You left me at the party."

"What? No, I-" I stopped myself when I remembered – the night I realized I had feelings for Liam, which got me so angry I had asked Briana to drive me home immediately.

Which led Liam to being left alone at the party, yes, I remember it now. Now. "Fuck," I muttered to myself, and ignored him as he snorted.

"Right. So if you ever wanna brag about how responsible you are, just remember I had to ask fourteen different strangers to give me a ride home, before I actually got a ride home."

"I'm... sorry?" I bit my lip and closed my eyes tightly shut when he didn't respond; I had a feeling he'd been waiting for the right moment to bring that up. "Yeah, but..." I trailed off for a few seconds, thinking of what to say. "You crashed your car."

"What?"

"Since we're reminiscing, I thought I'd remind you that you almost got us killed."

"It was your fault!" He snapped, "You... you made me laugh."

"Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Cause of death – girlfriend made him laugh."

"I didn't-" He stopped talking as soon as he started, and I could tell he'd realized something I had too, at about the same time; I just called myself his girlfriend. By honest accident, but there was no turning back now. Gulp.

"Fine, you can have that one," He said, obviously trying to cover up the fact that he'd noticed what I'd said, with his way-too-casual tone. I was glad about it too. "But you liked spending the night with me, you don't even have to admit it, I know it."

I narrowed my eyes and slowly turned my head so I was facing the side of his; were we really teasing each other now? Was two weeks of being apart all that we needed to get us here?

The thought made me shake my head and concentrate on the TV again. "Dickhead," I mumbled to myself, "You still nearly killed us anyway."

"Yeah, well, you... you flirted with Zayn."

"You flirted with Emily!"

I looked at him again and noticed he was looking at the ceiling, "It's a tie, then."

I smiled at that, satisfied with his answer. "But you tried strangling me, a little more than once," He continued, causing me to groan.

"Well it's not my fault that you always got on my nerves!" The smirk on his face annoyed me even more. "Besides, consider yourself lucky. If I tried strangling you every time you pissed me off, you'd be dead by now."

"Well then," He said in a fake cheery tone, "Aren't I just the luckiest man on Earth?"

I shot him another glare, only to see that his eyes were already narrowed at me. "You... you shaved," I said, lacking things to say. For some reason, I couldn't remember anything else that's dumb and done by him.

At my words though, the look in his eyes softened, and he just kept looking at me for a minute. "You cut your hair," He said, after a silence that was so long, I got scared when he spoke.

But I couldn't even concentrate on that; not when he'd noticed the two inches of hair that were missing. Only two inches. That is how well he knew me. "Well, I..."

I jumped again when my phone rang, and for a second I got scared because I thought it was Karen, who wanted to check on Karlie. But I was relieved – though I don't think I should have been – when I saw Dominick's name on my screen.

"Hello?" I said and slowly looked to my right, to see Liam staring at me. He didn't look like he planned to look away from me, even though I was talking on the phone. Why was that scaring me?

"Hey, Sal?" Nick said, and in that moment, Liam looked away at the TV. "Sally, you there?"

"Um, yeah, what is it?" I asked, a little dumbfounded for a second or two.

"You sure you're not gonna come to work today?" He asked, "You were supposed to get your first salary today."

"Oh," I said, relieved, "Nah, I'm just, I'll just get it tomorrow. I'm gonna come to work tomorrow." I frowned at what I'd said; why did I need to tell my boss I was going to come to work on a workday?

"Okay," Dominick said slowly, "Actually, you're supposed to get your salary tomorrow. I just wanted you to come here because I'm dying of boredom."

I breathed out a chuckle, "No, I'm babysitting, I told you. I'm sure you can get through the day by yourself. It's what you've been doing for the past few years, anyway."

"Yeah, doesn't mean I like it this way," He laughed lightly in the speaker, "Alright, now if you'll excuse me, I'll go clean the drum set for the fifth time today."

"Okay, you do that," I smiled, "Bye."

"See you, Sal."

"It was him, wasn't it?" Liam said, nearly before I'd even hung up.

"Um..." I shouldn't have thought that things were slowly going back to how they used to be; now I was feeling a little uncomfortable, since we were teasing each other just two minutes ago. "Who?"

"You know who," He said, not moving his eyes from the television. "It was him."

This time he didn't even ask; he just stated it. As if Dominick was the default person to cross his mind. "You know what?" He muttered, and stood up – I knew what was coming. "I'm just gonna..."

But he never finished what he had to say; instead, started making large and quick steps toward the exit of the room.

And that is when I'd officially had enough of his shit.

"Alright," I said, a lot louder than I should have, and stood up myself, "Stop right there."

But that didn't stop him either. "Liam," I walked behind him, and was able to grip his arm and pull him backwards just before he started climbing the stairs. "Get back here."

"What are you- Sally, what the fuck are you doing?" He almost whined as I pulled and pushed him back in the living room. Damn, I could already feel my heart beating a lot faster than it should have.

"I'm sick of your slut-shaming. Sit down," I told him, keeping my voice as firm as I could, and tried pushing him down on the middle of the sofa. Surprisingly, he let me – but as he sat down, he gave me one of the most creeped out looks I'd ever seen on someone's face.

"Give me your phone," I said, ignoring his expression - that only hardened after my request.

"What?" He said; his confusion was even audible. "Why'd you need-"

"Just give me your damned phone," I interrupted him, speaking through gritted teeth.

It wasn't until he'd unlocked his phone and slowly put it in my hand, that I noticed how badly my hands were already shaking. Even so, I could manage to open the browser and type in the name of the site.

My hands were impossibly sweaty by the time that I'd typed in the tags, and was scrolling down the page. For a second I thought I'd have to turn away from Liam, because I was also beginning to feel my eyes burn just the slightest, meaning that tears were forming. I'm pretty sure I looked like I was going to have a panic attack, overall – which I probably was, anyway.

"Here you go." I managed not to vomit right there when I found it, and handed Liam his phone back. I quickly jogged to the dining room where I'd left my backpack, and struggled to button my coat up due to my shaky hands – that had somehow become even shakier than before.

When I walked out of the room and back into the living room, I saw Liam, looking at the screen of his phone with more horror in his eyes than I'd ever witnessed someone. Good, I thought, he was asking for the truth and I showed him the truth.

"What..." He began quietly, his tone about five pitches higher than his usual voice. "What is..?"

"Enjoy watching me lose my virginity," I said before walking out of the room, and the house entirely. I tried focusing on untangling my headphones as I walked down the street, but I couldn't; my feeling were all over the place, and I was quite literally feeling everything. Everything, from relief that Liam now knew – or could at least guess – what had happened to me, to fear that he was never going to look at me again because of it.

Dammit, I thought as I stopped in the middle of the street, and placed my hands over my eyes when the tears became too heavy to hold in. Karen's gonna kill me for not checking on Karlie.

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NOW EVERYONE CAN STOP COMPLAINING AND JUST BE HAPPY

This was originally supposed to happen a little (a lot) later, but I didn't want to drag the thing out :] what do you think about everything now? x