I pretty much made a mad dash for the arena as soon as I left Harry’s room. I vaguely registered Cameron saying he’d meet me there and saying those three words again to him.

Honestly, I wanted to keep the use of them down to a minimum, as if that would make me less horrible of a person, but Cameron kept saying them with such an optimistic look on his face that I couldn’t kept them from leaving my mouth. I wanted him to be happy at least.

The ride from the hotel to the arena was very short, I probably could have walked if my mind wasn’t in a thousand different places right then.

As I neared the back entrance to the arena, which was already barricaded off, I noticed a pair of arms flailing rather franticly at me out of the corner of my eye. I turned, fully expecting it to be a fan or something along those lines but was pleasantly surprised to see my grinning mother.

I walked up to where she was nestled in a cluster of fans, who I greeted with a polite smile as I leaned closer to my mother. “Mom what are you doing here? They set you up with passes. They should be at will call.”

“I have them, I was on my way over to the restaurant across the street when I saw you walking with a purpose.”

I sighed. Mothers and their damn raider for their children in need. I looked over at the security guard that I had just shown my all access pass to and pointed to my mother, he nodded and walked over to let her through the barricade.

I waved at the fans one last time before locking arms with my mom and walking into the arena.

“So what’s wrong?” She cut right to the chase.

“Harry.” I answered simply. Like I said before, she knew all about that mess.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her roll her eyes and pursed her lips. “What did that boy do this time?”

“I think he likes my assistant. He spends a lot of time with her, he goes to her where he used to go to me.” I bit my lip and looked down at our feet as we walked. “Why her? Why not me?”

“Baby, did it ever occur to you that he does that because what he has to talk about, he can’t talk to you about?”

I rolled my eyes. She wasn’t really grasping me and Harry’s friendship. “Mom, we talk about everything.”

She mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like not this.

I would have questioned her if it wasn’t for the arms that wrapped around my waist from behind causing me to jump about a mile into the air.

The chuckles behind me calmed me a bit but not much. How much had he heard? Then I realized he wouldn’t be quite so happy if he had heard anything damaging.

I spun around and slapped Cameron’s chest. “That wasn’t funny, jerk.”

He only grinned as he leaned down to place his lips over mine. I pulled away first and looked over to my mother who had one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed over her chest, she relaxed a bit when Cameron looked over at her and even smiled at him.

“Hello. You must be Cameron, I’m Lydia, Dawn’s mom.” She held out her hand to him which he quickly placed his in.

“Hello ma’am. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

I didn’t miss the little side glance Cameron sent to me as he said this, I just choose to ignore it.

“I wish I could stick around and catch up but we have sound check before One Direction so I have to go. I’ll see you ladies later?” He looked at me questioningly and I nodded making a smile appear on his face.

“Alright, nice meeting you Lydia.” He said waving at my mom then grabbed my hips one more time and kissed me again. “Later. I love you.”

And there those words were again.

It was like he was trying to break some record for the most times it could be said in a day or something. Each time I felt like less of a decent person as I answered but I always answered anyway.

“Love you too.”

As he walked away, my mother’s smile dropped and she turned to me with the most menacing look on her face. I felt like a little kid again, like I was about to be reprimanded for using a dirty word. I guess, in this case, I love you were dirty words.

“Did you just tell that poor, clueless boy that you love him?” She said narrowing her eyes and pointing in the direction Cameron took off in.

“Mom, not right now.” I tried to get out of it.

“No, yes right now. I taught you better then to mislead people, Dawn Adeline Grey. You are lying to him.”

I sighed and kept walking down the hall, not wanting to have that conversation in that location, even if it was deserted at the moment. I didn’t responded until I let her past me into the empty dressing room One Direction would soon be meeting us in.

“I know that. I feel terrible.” I hissed threw my teeth. “But, mom, Cameron actually wants to be with me. I can’t keep hoping Harry changes his mind.”

“You have only known you had feelings for Harry for what, a few weeks, some people have dealt with those kinds of feelings for much, much longer and they have managed to keep themselves from telling the first person to show interest in them that they loved them.”

I would have laughed if this wasn’t such a serious topic. She almost sounded like she knew these people she spoke of personally.

“Yea well mom, I’m not some people. I do like Cameron.... just-”

“You’re not in love with him Dawn, and that means that telling him you love him right now is about as hurtful as telling him you hate him. You know you have to tell him the truth.”

I covered my eyes with the palms of my hands.

This all just got so out of hand. I wished I could go back to the start, back to that day in the rehearsal studio when everything was normal, before I met Cameron and entered his life just to hurt him with out him even knowing it yet.

I choose to remain silent after that, occupying myself by setting up for the boys. I really had nothing to say to justify what I was doing to Cameron.

It wasn’t long before Caroline, Christine, and Jena joined us. My mother chatted with them as I continued to silently keep myself busy arranging and then rearranging everything.

I almost felt bad for actively ignoring Jena anytime she spoke to me, which in turn meant ignoring the looks my mother shot at me. I couldn’t really bring myself to be nice to her right then.

Jealousy was a bitch like that.

To make matters worse as soon as the boys burst into the room, followed closely by Eleanor and Danielle, I continued my trend of ignoring people by pretending to not notice Harry staring at me with his hands in his pockets from across the room while the others warmly greeted my mother.

“Look at all of you. You’re all grown ups now.” I heard my mother gush over the others.

I smiled to myself at her words as I moved the hair wax jar for the thousandth time, my back turned to the group.

“Can we talk later?”

I jumped nearly out of my skin at the warm breath that fanned over my neck. It sent shivers down my spine and the new sensation of a jolt in my stomach I had begun to associate with Harry.

“Now you want to talk?” I answered still not turning around.

“I wanted to talk before, you were the one who ran out.”

We were talking low enough so that no one could really hear but I also noticed that although they kept talking the conversation in the room had lowered in volume.

Nosy people.

I did turn around at that. My eyes scanned the room, everyone was trying their hardest not to look but I could tell they were all focused on our conversation. My eyes landed on my assistant, who was trying the hardest to look busy, before shifting back to Harry.

I don’t know why I was so mad at, maybe it was just jealousy, maybe I was angry at not being good enough for him, maybe I was just mad at myself still for all the lying I was doing, or maybe I was just PMSing, who knew. As I looked at him I could feel the anger flowing out of my eyes.

“Why don’t you just talk to Jena then? You seem to be doing that a lot. Maybe she can just take everything over for me when I...”

I clamped my mouth shut. I had asked Cameron to keep quite so I wouldn’t have to explain myself, I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to blab it now.

“When you what?” Harry asked in a slightly panicky voice. Everyone else had abandoned their pretenses and were all out staring at us.

“Nothing.” I looked around at their faces once more before shaking my head. I finally looked at Jena. “You think you can handle this on your own today.” I said it a little harshly but I honestly didn’t care at the moment. I needed to get out of that suffocating room.

Jena nodded slowly, letting her eyes slid over to the back of Harry’s head worriedly. I scoffed at that, they made me sick. It was all I needed to leave the room.

I knew, before she made her presence known, that my mother was going to follow me. She was a good mom and that is what good mom’s did.

“What is the matter with you?” She demanded as I leaned up against the wall when I finally decided I was far enough away.

“I can’t... I can’t do this.” I waved around the hall, hoping she understood that I meant the whole situation.

“I love you.” She said bringing her hands up to cup my face between them. “But you are a grown ass woman now and you need to act like it. Stop running from anything that makes you slightly uncomfortable. You’re going to be miserable if you keep at it.” She pulled one of her hands away and gently patted my cheek. “And do NOT mess up that friendship you have with Harry. It is too special for you to be sabotaging because you feel a little green with envy over nothing. That boy loves you.”

I clamped my eyes shut and bit my lip. “Just not enough.”

She was silent until I opened my eyes.

When I did she stared into them for a second before softening her features and whispering. “You’d be surprised.” She patted my cheek again before pulling away walking a few feet down the hall before turning to me. “Now are you coming back with me?”

I looked down at my hands, contemplating if I really wanted to go back and face Harry.

“Actually, Jena’s got it covered, I think I’m going to go back to the hotel.”

She knit her brow together. “Do you want me to go with you?”

I shook my head. I really wanted to be alone. All this tension was starting to get to me and a massive headache was starting to compose itself right between my eyes.

“No I’m probably just going to sleep anyway. I feel a headache coming on, besides I know you want to watch your boys up on stage.” I half smiled at her. “I’ll text Cameron to keep you company, but please mom don’t say anything to him. If anything is said it should come from me.”

She nodded. “Only if you promise you will say something to him soon.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose and nodded again. I wasn’t going to say the words, not I promise, because if I did then that meant I actually promised to do as she asked. I wasn’t sure yet what I was going to do.

She walked back to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and kissing my forehead. “I better see you soon Dawn Adeline. You better take time out of your busy schedule to visit me.”

I hadn’t even thought about this being the last night in Orlando. We would be leaving tomorrow morning, bright and early, and that meant that I wouldn’t be seeing my mom later.

I kind of felt like a jerk for leaving now.

“Go.” She instructed, using her mom super powers of reading my expressions.

“I promise I will see you soon.”

She smiled and hugged me tightly. I really just wanted to cry. I hated saying goodbye to my mom. It was probably one of the main reasons why moving back stateside actually seemed like a valid option.

As soon as I was sure my mom was back down the hall and where I was supposed to be, I was back in a van and on my way to the hotel.

As I had suspected by the time I was safely back in my room, my head was full on throbbing. I literally fell into bed and curled up into a ball after taking painkillers.

It didn’t take long for me to pass out.

The door clicking shut was the next thing I registered and I wasn’t even sure I had heard it.

I didn’t open my eyes until I heard someone crash into my neatly arranged luggage.

A string of slurred curse words followed.

I shifted in my bed to squint into the darkness, vaguely making out a tall, slim figure limping towards my bed.

“Why do you always have a key to my room?” I hissed, my voice still raspy from just waking up.

The figure stood straight and ran his hands through the messy curls atop his head.

“Erm... dunno.”

“Harry, go to bed.”

He didn’t say anything but kept walking towards me. I eyed him as he walked to the vacant side of the bed and pulled the sheets back.

“What are you doing?”

Even in the dark I could make out his dimples while he smiled at me. “Going to bed.”

I huffed. “You’re bed Harry. Not mine.”

“I don’t wanna go back to mine.” He pouted, slipping into the bed and sliding closer to me. “I like yours better.”

As he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer I got a whiff of his breath and gagged.

“Holy hell, you’ve been drinking?” I accused.

He held his free hand up to my face and place his thumb and pointed a few centimeters apart. “Only a little.”

“You smell like you bathed in vodka.” I scrunched my nose up. “What the hell where you thinking? We have an early roll out tomorrow. You are going to be hung over, and I’m not dealing with your moody ass.”

“Daaaaaawwnnnn.” He whined causing me to stop talking and glare at him. “Shut up.”

“I hate you.”

He looked me in the eyes, for a moment it seemed like he was completely sober as his face became serious.

“I know.”

I felt a pang of hurt in my chest at his words. “I don’t really hate you, Harry.”

He leaned his forehead against mine and shut his eyes tightly. “I know.”

We were both silent for a few minutes. I thought he had passed out.

“Dawn I love you.” He whispered out.

“I know.” I sighed. “Just not enough.” I repeated the words I had said to my mother earlier.

His arms tightened around me. I opened my eyes only to find his staring intently into mine. “It’s enough. It’s so much more then enough.”

I bit my lip, taking his face in. I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. It hurt too much.

With a weak smile I turned my back to Harry letting his arm stay around my waist.

He snuggled closer to me, placing a kiss on my shoulder before settling next to me.

“I love you too Harry.” I finally spoke when I was sure he was asleep. I meant it too.

And it felt more right then any of the number of times I had said it to Cameron.

Notes

Enjoy <3