I knew it was early when I woke up. I didn't feel at all rested and the light filtering in through the window wasn't nearly bright enough.

I had no way of knowing until I went downstairs, so that is exactly what I did.

I went to get out of bed but was held back by an arm around my waist.

The lines were too blurred and I needed to fix that.

So I gently pried Max's arm off me and got out of bed, padding across the room to the stairs.

I took one last glance at a sleeping Max, looking perfect as per usual, and sighed. I had to let go.

Meaning I needed to go home.

I went downstairs to see Hazel and Hayley sitting at the kitchen counter with breakfast in front of them.

"Speak of the devil," I heard Hazel mutter with a smirk on her face. "Goodmorning Rylie."

"Morning," I responded, sitting in the same stool as I did this morning.

"Did you have a good sleep?" Hayley smirked and I shook my head while rolling my eyes.

"Is there any chance you could take me home?" I asked her, not wanting to ask for fear of being impolite, but the only shoes I had were heels and I didn't particularly want to walk home in them.

A frown lit Hayley's face. "Did something happen?"

I wish.

"No, I just," I paused, not knowing what to say. "I just need to go."

Hayley immediately got up. "Go get your dress and shoes. I'll just go grab my keys."

I nodded, silently thanking her for not asking questions right away.

I smiled at Hazel before I ran upstairs, picking my dress and heels from the couch then met Hayley at the front door.

"Uh," I glanced down at the pyjamas I was wearing that were hers.

"Just give them to Max tomorrow," she said, still frowning, as she led me to her car.

“So what really happened?” Hayley asked when we were both seated in the car. She was frowning with concern and I shrugged.

“Oh come on, something must have happened for you to leave before Max woke up,” she told me, inching her way out the driveway. “I promise I’ll only tell Hazel.”

I sighed, not knowing how to explain and not sure if I could trust her. I mean, she seemed pretty trustworthy but I hardly knew her.

After a moment of conflicted thoughts, I decided to tell her. “Nothing really happened,” I told her truthfully, running a hand through my tangled hair. I tried explaining about the line between friends and more than friends and she nodded in understanding. “The lines are blurring and they need to stop,” I finished just as she drove past my street.

She didn’t seem affected, even though I had told her where I lived.

“Were there even lines to start with?” She asked, making me frown.

“Of course there was. I hated him to start with,” I informed her, feeling guilty for some reason.

I didn’t know how to explain that I hated his mask, not the real him, without sounding like a total weirdo. 

Hayley's laugh was amused. "That doesn't surprise me. But he has never hated you."

She did a U-turn at the roudabout then went back to my street, turning at the right place this time. "Just, be careful with him?" Hayley asked after I indicated where to pull over. "He's been through a rough time with our dad and he doesn't really trust people not to... Hurt him," she winced at the last words but recovered her expression with a careful smile. 

"I will," I told her. "And thanks for dropping me off. Just, I dunno, tell him I felt sick or something."

"Will do. Bye Rylie," Hayley smiled as she drove off. 

I found Kye in the kitchen, frowning over his cereal, when I walked in. "What's up?" I asked, sitting at the counter opposite him and ruffling his dark hair, much like mine. 

He smiled when he saw me, but a frown almost instantaneously took over. "Where were you?" He asked, halfway between concerned and curious. 

"I was at Max's," I told him, then frowned myself. 

He was doing it again. 

"Kye, you don't have to do this," I put my hand on his forearm and tried to look into his eyes, but he averted his gaze. 

"It's a habit," he told me, his eyes glued to his cereal as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. 

I smiled softly, not that he'd seen it. "I know. Mum had her affect on us all."

Kye looked up then, his blue eyes filled with emotion. "You and Charlie got it worse. She liked me," he grimaced. 

To someone else, Kye would have sounded as though he was rubbing it in. But for us, it was a bad thing to be loved by someone who we all viewed as evil. 

"Yes, she did," I said. 

"So while you and Charlie were copping insults left right and centre, what could I do? Dad was always working so I stepped in," he explained again. 

Unfortunately, he was completely right. 

When we were younger, Dad worked as part of a huge company that always needed him to work late and travel. So while he was away, Mum was critisizing us and telling us we weren't good enough. So for lack of anyone else to go to, he had to grow up and act like the older brother. He matured in the last two years of our life with our mother and he was always worrying about me and Charlie. Always acting like the big brother that needed to look out for his little sisters.

And I loved that he did it, but he needed to be a normal sixteen year old as well, who just thinks about girls and sports and school. 

He didn't need to worry anymore. 

"I know. But you don't need to do it anymore," I told him, walking around the bench and wrapping my arms around him from behind. "We really appreciate it, but you need to be a normal sixteen year old boy, who only thinks about girls and sports and whatever else teenage boys do," I whispered into his ear. 

"It's a habit." he repeated. 

Taking my arms from him, I turned to the kettle and nodded. "Yeah, but it's time you try to break it."

I left it at that, making a chai latte and walking out to my shed. But this time not to play. 

Today I felt like painting. 

So that's what I did. 

I got all my supplies out and got out a big canvas, starting to paint a scene that formed in my head from last night. In all honesty, I had no idea how it looked from the outside so I texted Leah. 

Hey Leah. You want to come over and paint?

I put my phone down on the table and frowned at the canvas. 

I had done the rough outline of two bodies, one much taller than the other and holding up his arm so that the smaller figure could twirl under it. 

I remembered that I was laughing, so that's what I outlined on my face, but I had no idea what Max's face looked like when I turned away from him. That's part of why I needed Leah. 

She also helped me get the proportions of the face right. Not that she could paint for shit but she knew about painting itself. 

My phone buzzed with a text and I smiled at the response. 

On my way x

I went to the front door and waited for Leah's knock. I checked my phone for the time and it read 10:30am, meaning either Leah had no sleep or woke up early like I had. 

Oh great, she'll probably be hung over!

Oh well, I asked for it. Literally. 

The knock came pounding on the door a few minutes later. "Hey Leah!" I exclaimed, purposefully happy and loud. 

I laughed when she winced. "Inside voice, Rylie, jeez."

We walked to the shed - after I got her a bottle of water to take - and sat down, looking at what I had started of the painting. 

It wasn't much in all honesty, I had basically just done the background and the shapes of the two figures in the foreground. 

"You and Max dancing, right?" She asked, taking a sip of water. 

I nodded, distracted. I was trying to figure out how to do Max's eyes. I don't think I had a green that was... Right. 

"Not that I remember much about last night," Leah started, causing me to bite my lip to stop myself smiling. "But Max looked different. Drunk, obviously. But he looked, peaceful? If that makes any sense," she frowned, leaning her head against the back of the couch, her black hair fanning out around her. 

"No, I get it," I reassured her, but had a brainwave that perfectly represented us. I picked up a paintbrush and my paint-filled newspaper and stood in front of the canvas, painting a mask around my eyes and a full mask covering his whole face. 

Masks. To Max, my mask was fading, bit by bit. He knew almost every bit about me that formed my mask, hence the reason I only had one around my eyes. 

But I hadn't uncovered much about why Max had a mask. I mean, Hayley had said something when she dropped me off about their dad, but that didn't really give me much to go off, if anything. 

I was going for probably an hour until I had done the base of the masks. I still planned on going over them with details but for the moment, my mask was plain white and Max's was a deep blue. 

"You're phone has been buzzing for the past five minutes," Leah groaned, getting up to snatch it off the stool beside me before I could get to it. 

"Uh... Rylie?" Leah asked as I put my brushes in the water bucket to soak, her tone a mix of amusement and surprise. 

"Yeah?" I asked, moving to clean up the rest of the mess I had made. 

"What happened with you and Max last night?" She asked, clearly distracted with reading the texts. I dropped the used newspaper in the bin and went over to sit next to her on the couch. 

"Why? What did he say?" I asked, wanting to see the text but also not wanting to. 

It was like that bit in horror movies where you cover your eyes with your hands, but you have to peek through the gaps in your fingers to see what happens. 

I was peeking through the gaps by Leah reading the text out. 

"Well, he wants to know why you left and asked what happened last night," Leah read, handing me my phone. 

"Of course he doesn't remember..." I mumbled. I don't know why, but I was pissed he forgot. Last night was one of the first times in years that I fet like I belonged, and he was the freaking reason.

I unlocked my phone and typed in a quick response:

Nothing happened. I was just feeling a bit sick so Hayley took me home.

Lies. 

"So what happened?" Leah prompted me, turning on the side to face me. 

"Nothing. We were at Tessa's and he wouldn't move from the gutter. He said he'd only move if I stayed the night so I did. End of story," I sighed. 

It wasn't exactly a lie. But it wasn't the end of the story. 

"No, something else happened," she said, her suspicious words sinking in. 

I ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah. He got drunk. We danced. We kissed. He forgot," I said bitterly. 

Why was I so pissed off that he forgot? I mean, the only reason I let it happen was because I was betting that he wouldn't remember. 

But in all honesty, the more time I spent with Max, the harder I started to fall.

How had I let this happen?

I was always so careful about guys. Ever since Zane I hadn't trusted them. I'd kept my distance and shut myself off, not wanting to make too much contact with boys so that I wouldn't have a chance to develop feelings for them. 

I think it's because my feelings for Max snuck up on me. I hated him when I first met him, then all of a sudden I had feelings for him. It didn't make sense and it wasn't fair. 

It wasn't fair that I couldn't stop myself from falling for him, but he wasn't being put through any such torture. 

"You kissed?" Leah's voice brought me out of my reverie and I blinked my vision back into focus.

"He was drunk," I sighed, emotionally drained. 

"He was, but people do things when they're drunk that they don't have enough courage to do when they're sober," she informed me, but then she frowed, scrutinizing. "You're right though, you don't like him."

What?? I'm pretty sure I do. 

"No, you have completely fallen for him."

"What? No, I haven't," I shook my head violently, not accepting that. 

Nope, I didn't. I knew what happened when you were in love; you got your heart broken. And I just don't think my heart could take another break. 

"No, hear me out," she held up her hands, cautioning me to calm down. "For starters, he's not Zane. He won't break your heart. Secondly, you think about him all the time. You see him pretty much every day and you put up with him when he's being a prick."

"So? That doesn't mean I'm in love with him!" I shrieked, standing up and pacing around the room. 

"Rylie, stop freaking out," Leah said soothingly, following me with her eyes. "It's okay. You might not. I could be wrong," she retracted, worry lining her features. 

I turned to face her, running a hand through my hair constantly.

"Leah," I said. "You're not wrong."