Zara
Dating Liam Hunter was like touching fire—beautiful, warm, and terrifying all at once.
I never thought I'd find myself here. Not with him. Not with the boy who once mocked me in the hallways, who I spent an entire semester resenting with my whole chest. And yet, here I was—three days into being his girlfriend—and somehow, the world felt different. Lighter. Like someone had dimmed all the background noise just enough for me to hear my own heartbeat again.
Liam didn't act like he was faking it.
That was the part that scared me most.
He walked me to my locker every morning now. Waited outside my classes even when he didn't have to. Texted me good morning before the sun even rose, and followed up with random "thinking of you" messages throughout the day that made my chest feel tight.
He was present in a way I didn't know guys like him could be.
And it wasn't just performative romance, either.
It was the little things.
Like the way he noticed when I didn't eat lunch and showed up later with a protein bar and a guilty look. Or how he learned I couldn't stand loud chewing, and now chewed like a mime whenever we ate together, just to make me laugh. Or how he remembered I always wore socks to bed and started showing up with the weirdest pairs he could find—avocados with sunglasses, pigs with wings, planets in love.
He made me laugh. Genuinely laugh.
And I hated that I wanted it to last.
Because every time I smiled at him, a small voice in the back of my head whispered: It won't.
Maybe it was the years of being second best. Maybe it was living in Kaylee's guest room after finding out my dad had a secret son and then pretending like Nick's presence in our house wasn't an open wound. Or maybe it was the way Kaylee—my best friend—was now dating him, all cuddled up on the couch like betrayal didn't live in their skin.
I had a lot of reasons not to trust people.
And Liam? He was the biggest reason of all.
But the thing was… he hadn't done anything wrong.
Not yet.
Not since the night he asked me to be his girlfriend under that starry sky, where his voice sounded real and his eyes looked soft and true. I could still feel the way my name sounded in his mouth when he said it like a secret. Like it mattered.
He made me feel seen.
And it terrified me.
Because I didn't know what to do with kindness that didn't have strings attached.
At school, people stared now. Whispers floated through the hallways like confetti no one could clean up.
"Is Zara dating Liam?"
"I thought he was with Beatrice?"
"Is this a prank?"
And Beatrice?
She hadn't said a word since the day at the ice cream shop.
But her eyes followed me everywhere. Calculating. Cold.
She'd backed off, for now. But I knew better than to trust the silence.
Still, when I was with Liam, it was easy to forget all of that.
He made me feel like the only girl in the room.
One afternoon, I was sitting on the bleachers while he finished practice, pretending to study but mostly just watching him move. He kept glancing at me between plays, his eyes always finding mine like they were drawn by instinct.
After, he walked straight up to me, sweat on his neck, hair damp, and kissed my cheek without warning.
"You're staring," he teased.
"You're sweaty."
"Flattered, anyway."
He handed me his water bottle, and I pretended not to care that our fingers brushed.
"What are we doing, Liam?" I asked suddenly.
He paused, eyes narrowing just slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… why me?"
He leaned against the railing, eyes never leaving mine. "Because you don't want anything from me."
I blinked. "What?"
"You don't care about the popularity. Or the image. Or the fact that people pay attention when I walk down the hall."
He tilted his head.
"You see right through it all, Zara. That's why it terrifies me how much I want to keep you."
I didn't know how to respond.
So I didn't.
Later that night, lying in bed in the house I was still trying to call home again—walls filled with tension and the silence of a family I barely recognized—I stared at the ceiling and tried to make sense of it all.
Liam Hunter , the boy who once made fun of my style of dressing, had kissed my forehead today and held my hand like it was something sacred.
And I… I'd let him.
Worse, I'd wanted him to.
I didn't know how to explain the way he made me feel. Like I was something he chose. Like maybe the broken parts of me weren't so ugly after all. Like maybe, just maybe, someone saw past the sharp edges and still wanted to stay.
But I also knew something else.
I knew love didn't come easy for girls like me.
And even if Liam was different now—even if he was trying—I couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming.
Something that could ruin this.
So I decided not to give him all of me just yet.
Not until I knew for sure that I wasn't just another game.
Not until I was sure he wasn't still wearing a mask.
Because I'd played tough for years to survive, and I wasn't about to let my heart be the next casualty.
Still…
When his name lit up my phone with a simple, "Can't stop thinking about you," I smiled like a fool.
And texted back: "Same."