I stared at the dress I found hanging in the closet. Liam and I were searching a house for supplies when I came across what looked like a teenage girl’s room would look like. There was only one dress in the closet, but there was make up on the vanity dresser. I wanted to mess with them.

“Liam?” I called out. When he didn’t reply I quickly pulled the dress out of the closet and changed into it. It was a bright blue sundress that was gorgeous, but looked pretty bad on me. It was three sizes too big and I didn’t have the right curves to fill it out. I was too bony and thin and I was still waiting on my breasts to fill out like women had them in the magazines. I barely grew an A cup when I hit puberty, but I guess the nice thing about that was I didn’t have to wear a bra if I couldn’t find one.

I went and sat at the vanity and looked into the mirror. I tied my long brown hair up in a bun before rummaging through the make up on the dresser. I didn’t know what any of it was. My knowledge of this stuff was what I could remember when watching my mother do her morning routine and what I saw in magazines I found lying around.

I had a vivid memory of my mother sitting at her own vanity with me in her lap when I was probably around six years old. She never wore heavy makeup and usually wore blush, eyeliner, and lipstick. In this memory she had let me play with her blush and lipstick and I had tried to imitate her movements. She was giggling as I made my cheeks super rosy and then put lipstick around my lips instead of on them. I remember her wiping away the makeup and then putting it on for me. When I had looked in the mirror again I remember feeling so beautiful just like my mother.

I pulled an eye pencil and looked at it. There was no way I’d be able to figure out how to use that, but I put it aside. Then there was a silvery eyeshadow. I rubbed some on my finger before dabbing it onto one eyelid. After making an even layer, I looked at myself in the mirror comparing the two eyes. The silver matched my grey eyes and I liked the way it looked. I applied more to the other eyelid. I pulled out a red lipstick and put some of that on too. It was fun playing dress up.

“Hey, I think this place is empty...“ Liam stopped speaking when he walked into the bedroom and saw me. He looked at me with his golden hazel eye and smiled at me. His eye looked me up and down seeing the blue dress.

“Sorry! Um, it’s ugly right? I’ll change right away,” I said getting embarrassed. I stood and went to grab my other clothes, but Liam put a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s not ugly,” he stated. He pushed me back to sit down on the vanity chair. “Let’s see what you’ve found here.” He started going through the make up bag.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m deciding what color to put on you,” he smiled. Holding up a thing that had four different pink colors on it. I guessed it was blush.

“You want to put makeup on me?”

“Why not? Guys can be interested in this stuff too.”

“It’s not that. I’m just surprised you know what that stuff is,” I giggled.

“I don’t know what it is. I was just going to paint your face. Do you know what it is?” Liam put his pinky on the darkest pink, getting it on his finger.

“I think that goes on cheeks to make them rosy,” I commented. He started to rub it gently on my cheeks and I felt excited. The look of concentration on Liam’s face was cute. His gentle touch gave me goosebumps and I hoped he didn’t notice. Over the years I had developed a crush on Liam and I did my best to hide it because we were friends. When he was sitting this close to me, touching my face, it made my heart race in my chest. I knew he probably still saw me as the little girl that causes trouble. There was no way he would see me as a young woman after all we had been through.

I couldn’t believe Liam was putting makeup on me. I could tell by the funny expression on his face that it was turning out badly though. “You’re making me into a clown aren’t you?”

“You bet! Oh a pencil. Perfect!” He grabbed the eye pencil and started drawing on my face. I swatted his hand away laughing.

“I’m not done yet!” I looked at myself in the mirror and I burst out laughing. I had bright pink cheeks, a monocle, and a mustache. I held the sides of my torso because they were hurting from laughing so hard. Then I took the lipstick and caught Liam off guard, getting it on his nose and cheek.

“You’re in for it now,” he laughed grabbing my wrists. I squealed in joy when he pulled me and threw me on to the bed. He started to tickle at my feet and I kicked and screamed while laughing at the same time.

“I’m going to kick you if you don’t stop!” I yelled, trying to squirm away.

“We can’t have you kicking me.” He sat on top on my legs and tickled my sides. I kept hitting at his arms until I was crying from laughing so hard. He seemed to notice that and stopped his friendly assault.

“I forgot that it hurts to laugh this hard,” I sighed, catching my breath. Liam flopped on the bed beside me and I was really content. “Can we stay like this for a while?” I asked.

Liam grabbed my hand and I turned to look at him in his beautiful golden eye. “We’ll stay like this forever.”

“Oh, you’re so romantic,” I teased.

“You think so? I’ve been practicing on Blue. He never responds so I never knew if I was good at flirting.”

That caused me to giggle again. No matter what situation, Liam always made me laugh. He was a big clumsy jokester and I wouldn’t have him any other way. Even in times like these where we didn’t know if we would have enough food to make it through the night he could make me forget of our circumstances and feel like I was a normal teenage girl. “Well, I can give you a few pointers on how to flirt,” I offered.

“And how do you know how to flirt?” Liam asked.

“I’m a girl. I could tell you what a girl wants to hear. I’ve also watched those romantic comedies we found.” I was referring to the little entertainment center we made. We found a working television and a DVD player. We only had about five movies that we watched over and over again. DVDs were hard to come by now.

“Alright, lady. Pretend I’m a girl and hit on me.” Liam sat up on the bed and batted his eyelashes at me. “Oh, fancy meeting you here, handsome stranger.”

I cleared my throat to keep from laughing, trying to take this seriously. “You are quite beautiful, my fair maiden,” I said in a manly voice.

Liam laughed, not able to take me seriously. “I think watching the Princess Bride a thousand times has your flirting outdated.”

“Fine. I can be more direct. You, me, bed, now,” I said changing my flirting tactic.

“You are never going to get laid.”

“Um, once again I’m a girl. All I have to do is ask a guy and I’ll get laid,” I stated. “Brian, my classmate, tells me he’d bang me all the time.”

“Brian? How have I never heard of this Brian kid before? I’m more than happy to teach him some manners if you introduce us. He shouldn’t say those kinds of things to girls.” If I didn't know any better, I’d imagine Liam was jealous. But Liam never saw me as anything but a younger sister so I bet he was just being protective of me.

“I can take care of myself. Brian is no threat to me,” I replied.

“All men are threats to you. Remember that.” Liam got serious all of a sudden. I had no idea why though.

“You aren’t a threat to me,” I stated trying to make a point. Before I could say anything else, Liam grabbed both on my wrists in one of his hands and pushed me against the bed. I struggled against his hold, but he wouldn’t budge.

“If I decided to hurt you, you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself.”

“That’s not fair. Your power makes you stronger than a normal human,” I said.

“My power isn’t activated right now. It doesn’t activate unless I uncover my left eye,” he informed me. My eyes grew wide when he said this. I’d never seen him uncover his left eye in all the years I had known him. That meant whenever we went on raids and fought for our lives, he was using his normal strength. The thought of him not using his full potential and still being stronger than anyone I met was truly amazing.

“Are you serious? You’ve never used your power in front of me? I thought I had it figured out,” I sighed. He let me go and patted my head.

“I try to avoid using it, especially in front of you. If you knew what I was capable of you’d never speak to me again.” He gave me a sad smile and the expression hurt my chest. Seeing him sad made me feel hurt for him.

“That’s not true. I could never hate you. The world we live in requires us to do horrible things.” I was trying to make him feel better, but it didn’t seem to work. I realized it wasn’t just me he was afraid that would never forgive him. He probably couldn’t forgive himself for some of the things he’s had to do. I reach up and lightly touched the band that always covered his left eye. “Will you show me? I always thought that you were just blind in that eye. What happens when you uncover it?”

“It’s hard to explain how I see through that eye. I don’t see normally out of it. It allows me to scan the environment and powers another person has. It negates other powers. Then it helps in predicting outcomes so I am faster and stronger when fighting.” He reached up and took the band off of his head. When he opened his eye I was surprised to see it was a red color. Even though it looked normal, with a red iris, it was apparent that it wasn’t seeing things normally. It was almost like it was looking at me in a more intense way. I felt naked under his gaze.

“It’s not so scary. It’s kind of cool looking, having two different colored eyes,” I said. “Let’s see how accurate you are.”

I swung my fist, aiming to punch him in the face. He moved to the side so fast that my hand hit nothing. I tried with my other fist, but he dodged that one too. “Even without my power, you’re too slow,” he laughed putting the band over his eye again. “Let’s get going. It’s not good to stay in one spot too long.”

Liam used his shirt to wipe off the make up on me and I moved to change out of the dress. “Don’t. I think you look pretty in the dress,” Liam said. I felt a blush spread across my cheeks. I stuck my other clothes in my pack. We went to leave, but then the house started to shake. It felt like an earthquake.

“I can feel someone nearby,” I stated feeling fear coming from someone close to us.

“An earth user. We’re going to have to jump or the house will collapse on us,” Liam said pulling me to the window. We were on the second floor and I knew I wouldn’t be able to jump without injuring myself. Liam threw me over his shoulder before jumping out of the window. It felt nostalgic in a way since he did this when we first met too. I clung to him as we flew through the air. He hit the wall of the house next door, using his shoes against the wall to slow down our fall. He threw me off of him and I landed on a pile of trash bags that broke my fall, while he hit the ground hard.

“Liam!” I cried scrambling to my feet. He was always getting hurt trying to protect me. I ran over to him and helped him stand. That’s when I saw a young girl standing on the front lawn of the house we were just in. She was the one that was emitting the fear I was feeling. She saw us and started crying. I went over to her and knelt down in front of her.

“Wait, Ash!” Liam called after me.

“Are you lost?” I asked the girl. Then malicious intent formed inside of her and an evil smirk crossed her face. Right before my eyes she transformed into a grown woman and I stumbled back.

“So naive,” the woman sneered grabbing my arm. She twisted me so I was trapped against her body.

“Let her go!” Liam demanded. “I’m sure you know what this is about, Liam. I’ll be taking her as payback for killing Joseph!” Her grip tightened around my throat and I was scared. She knew Liam somehow even though I had no idea who she was.

“If you want payback then take me!” Liam shouted. I’d never seen him so distressed before. He never lost his cool.

“Losing someone you love is a different kind of pain that you should experience! I’m taking her with me. If you try anything I’ll kill her!” Pain erupted on the back of my neck before everything went black.