"He looked exactly like me! That boy looked like me!!", Cole kept on yelling as he paced from one end of his office to the other in rage.
Liam had no hand in whatever he was talking about, but beads of sweat kept on forming on his head, as he watched his friend ramble.
"Cole, you need to calm down. Your hothead attitude is giving me anxiety already", he pleaded as he wiped his forehead for the upteenth time. Despite the pleas, Cole didn't calm down one bit.
"But we really need to be sure. It could be a coincidence. It could be that he just happened to look a little bit like you. Or it could be that you were assuming. We can't jump into conclusions-"
"Liam, are you taking me for a fool?", Cole questioned through clenched teeth as he shot a death glare at him.
"Do you think I'm a little child? That I didn't know what I was saying? You think I was hallucinating? I didn't take any alcohol that night, Liam. I'm telling you that he looks exactly like me. He's... He's a carbon copy of the person standing in front of you!", He explained with so much intense enthusiasm, he used his hands to gesture at himself.
Liam sighed out of frustration. He stared at his friend in silent pity.
Liam was this close to concluding that Cole had ran mad. He didn't know why he was so obsessed with her, when he had Shantel. It was a something that happened seven years ago for Moon Goddess's sake!
He was suspecting two things. Either the obsession had bitten too deep in him that he was forcing himself to manipulate his thoughts and eyes, or he was using this as an excuse to get close to her.
Believing his words was not an option on the table.
However, he couldn't ask this things to Cole. At least not now. If he asked him he reason for his obsession, he would rather stab himself that admit to it. Besides, asking questions like that was only going to aggravate the matter.
"You don't believe me", he heard Cole's low voice jolt him out of his thoughts.
Liam looked up at him.
"What?"
"You don't believe me", he repeated.
"Of course I do! I just-"
"Spare me that bullshit, Liam. I know you. I know that look. It's the look you give me when you think I've ran mad. Tell me the truth. You don't believe me,"
Liam sighed.
"Cole, you know this is too hard to believe. I have a lot of skepticism about your allegation. How do you expect me to believe that he's your son?"
"But why can't you beli-", Cole was so tensed up and frustrated, he couldn't complete his question. He ran his hand through his hair in sheer frustration.
"Okay. What do I have to do to make you believe me?"
"You want to prove to me that woman's son is your son?", Liam scoffed.
"Yes. Tell me what I have to do to prove it to you", he repeated.
Liam was appalled by his friend's seriousness and desperation to prove it to him. He'd never seen Cole this stone-faced before. "You don't even know her name," Liam reminded him.
"I'll find out. So, tell me how do I prove to you that child is mine?" Cole asked
Cole's eyes were still on Liam unwavering, and so he knew he was waiting for an answer.
He gave it a thought for a minute.
"There's only one thing that's coming to my mind,"
"And what's that?" Cole asked.
"I have to see it to believe it", Liam shrugged and reclined on the chair with a coy smile. He knew Cole would bail at this point, because he was fabricating a lie-
"Okay. I'll show you,"
Liam's eyes widened in surprise. "You'll show me? Are you being for real?"
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Cole demanded. He definitely didn't look like it!
"Meet me here at my office by 6:00 am tomorrow. I'll take you to her place", Cole said as he took his seat.
"After then, I hope you'd believe me"
****
Cole yawned for the hundredth time in his car.
The day had come to prove to Liam that he wasn't running mad or telling a lie.
Early in the morning, they both drove in Cole's car to the address Liam gave him. They reached Amy's neighborhood, and they strategically parked a metres away from her house to avoid been seen.
Someone finally came out with Amy's son to take him to school, but unfortunately for them, they couldn't see his face from where they parked. "Who's that?" Liam asked when he saw the young lady holding the boy.
"I don't know," Cole replied.
Insisting on proving it to Liam, they followed the bus the unfamiliar person boarded to take the boy to school.
They got there and when the young woman came down with the boy, they still couldn't see him. Adamant on making sure that Liam saw the boy, he insisted that they wait until the school's closing time came.
They waited for six hours, and Liam began wailing.
"You've proven your point, Cole. Okay, I believe you now. We don't need to see him. Please let's just go back home. I'm tired of waiting for this school to close", Liam begged.
"No! We're going to wait here until the young boy comes back and heads back home", he insisted.
He checked his wristwatch and see that it was past three already.
"How long do these children spend in school? Why do you have to stay there for such a long time? School isn't fun anyways", he muttered tired to himself. He took a glance at Liam. He was busy snoring himself away in the passenger seat.
Just when he was about giving up, he heard a bell ring.
All of sudden, the school compound that was devoid of wolves were filled with little happy children. Soon, the lonely streets where flooded with noisy children going back home.
Cole became alert immediately, his eyes frantically scanning the swarm of little children for the boy he saw with Amy that night.
After minutes and minutes of searching, his eyes rested on the young lad.
"Liam! Liam!! Wake up!!", He slapped the chest of his friend to consciousness.