I Thought You'd Care
Chapter 24: Twitter
Chapter 24: Twitter
Niall’s POV
I was getting worried, now. I hadn’t seen Nell in five days, and she wouldn’t answer any of my texts. I knew we weren’t supposed to be attached at the hip, but going this long without talking to her made me hurt a little bit. I was too easily distracted, checking my phone every ten minutes. It was like she had given me a taste of something amazing and then walked out the door.
When she left, the morning before the party and the other less PG activities, she did leave me a note, which I was glad for. It, at the very least, relieved me of a bit of the worry that she wouldn’t talk to me was because we had sex. It had read, “Hey Niall! I’ve got to go home now, to pick up Clyde and all, but last night was really fun. You guys were great performing, and the things that happened when we got home were also…nice (here, she put a winky face). See you later! –Nell”. It had left me feeling warm inside, and I had texted her.
To: Nell
Hey! Just got your note. I had fun too :) when can we hang out again?
She had yet to reply to that, and the thirteen other texts I had sent her. It would have been far more, but I told myself I could only message her twice a day. I had broken that rule three times, though. She was hard to ignore.
I sighed and stood up, stretching my back. I had been sitting on the couch, watching Louis dominate Zayn in FIFA, for a full two hours, occasionally commenting on the game, but my mind really on Nell. I was just about to go to the kitchen, in another attempt to distract myself, when I saw Harry rushing out of his room, fully dressed with his shoes on and keys in hand.
“Niall! There you are. Let’s go.” He turned away and started walking towards the door, as if that was enough information.
“Go where, Harry?” I had forgiven him for his little stunt at the party. Nell wasn’t my girlfriend, so technically, he hadn’t really done anything wrong. I knew he liked her, too, and being honest with myself, I might have done the same thing. Especially after I got a few beers in me.
“We’re going to Nell’s house,” he called over his shoulder, fumbling with his coat.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because, I want to. Come get your shoes on. We weren’t going to do anything today, anyways.”
Sighing, I did as he asked. I don’t know why I didn’t question it; perhaps I should have. But I only pulled on my shoes and coat, grabbed my phone, and went with him out the door.
We drove in silence for a little while. Things between us had been tense, to say the least, as they always were when a girl came between us. Except this time was different. This time neither of us could shake off the subtle annoyance that we had with each other. I watched us pass by shops and people hurriedly rushing around. Slowly, the buildings spread apart more and more, and we were out of what most would call London. It was here when I first said something. “For real, Harry, why are we doing this?”
“Nell’s been texting Liam.” My eyes widened at that, and my heart sank a bit. That hurt.
“So?” Harry wasn’t giving very clear answers.
“She’s going to be staying with us for a month.”
I sat there, stunned, for a while, as we passed our first cow. We were now officially in the country. “Excuse me, what?”
“Nell’s going to be staying in our guest bedroom for a month. Liam invited her. Because her mum and brother are going to be away, and he didn’t want her to be alone for that long. So she’s going to stay with us.”
That was something. “And Liam didn’t tell any of us?” I had no objection to a very sexy and amazing girl staying in the room between Harry and I’s, but it was surprising of Liam to drop something like this so suddenly.
“Louis and Zayn knew. He told me about three hours ago. And now I’m telling you. He asked Lou and Zayn before he offered, and they were okay with it, and he assumed that you and I would. I don’t know about you, but he assumed right for me.”
“Well, I mean, I’d love her to be here, it’s just, that’s pretty weird. Like, Liam letting her stay. It doesn’t really seem like something he’d offer, and she’d accept.”
“He said that he had reasons that he wouldn’t tell us. And I’m just going to assume that those are reasonable.” Harry still didn’t take his eyes off the road.
“A month?” I asked. I was still trying to wrap my brain around this. It was so sudden, and we didn’t know her all that well, really. If Liam would offer this to her, I assumed that it would be okay, but it was still all so strange.
“Yeah, Niall, a month. Think of her as like a roommate, okay? Don’t act weird about it. She probably already feels bad enough about it—he said she was really reluctant. So just…pretend it’s no big deal. Even though it is.”
I sighed and sat back in my seat, leaning into the passenger seat of Harry’s car. We finally reached her house, after a very long awkward silence, and we got out of the car and knocked on the door. I heard some giggling from upstairs, before a few pairs of feet thumped down the stairs. Before they came into view, though, I heard a whispered conversation, which obviously was not intended for our ears.
“But, Taylor, what if it’s Jake.” A voice said solemnly, and I realized that it was Nell.
“You can’t hide from him forever,” Another voice said, this one different.
“Yeah, Nell. I mean, it’s just Jake…he’s not so scary.”
“He is when you’re talking to him.” That was Nell, again.
“Go answer the door! If it’s Jake we’re right behind you.”
All of a sudden Nell opened the door. She stared at us blankly for a moment, her eyes flitting back and forth between us. “Harry? Niall?” She asked. “What are you guys doing here?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “We’re here to pick you up. And take you to the flat.”
“I though Liam was picking me up at eight?” I looked at Harry, who seemed to have an answer for that question.
“He got held up with Dani, and he asked us to come now. I’m not quite sure why. Um, can we come in?” He asked.
“Oh, yeah, of course.” She stepped aside and led us in, where we made our way over to the living room. There were two girls sitting on the couch, one with red hair and one brunette. Nell walked in after us. “Harry, Niall, these are my friends Hannah and Taylor.” She motioned to both of them. “Girls, this is Harry and Niall, but you already knew that.”
She left to go upstairs, presumably to grab her stuff. At least that’s what I hoped. The girls on the couch stood up and walked over to us. They looked like they were trying to stay calm.
“Oh, my god, I totally love you guys.” Taylor, the red haired one, said. “You’re my favorite band.”
“Yeah, you guys are great.” Hannah said. “Um, can we get a picture?”
I smiled and laughed. Being used to fans asking for that, I assumed the signature pose with them, and they both snapped a picture of the four of us with their phones.
“Well, it was really nice meeting you, but Nell’s going to kill us if we stay, so we should probably go.” Hannah said. On a whim, I kissed her on the cheek, and watched Harry do the same to Taylor, who squeaked.
“Well, hopefully we’ll see you lovely ladies later!” Harry said, winking a bit.
“Yeah, we’d love to see you at one of our concerts someday!” I added, mimicking Harry’s gesture.
The girls squealed a bit and left, yelling goodbye to Nell. They had only been gone a few seconds when Nell yelled from upstairs, “If you two are done flirting with my friends, would you come up here and help me?”
As we started to climb up the stairs, I said, “We weren’t flirting, love.”
“So kissing people is no longer flirting?” I wasn’t sure how she knew about the kiss, but I only sighed. Harry and I looked into the bedroom right next to the stairs and gasped. There was a suitcase on the bed, but strewn on the floor were a pair of lace underwear and a pair of boxers. We stood there, mouths agape. Too many thoughts went through my head at once: Why is her underwear on the ground? Why is there a guy’s underwear on the ground? Why isn’t she wearing it? Did they have sex? Who did she just have sex with?
I heard Nell from behind us. “Guys, what are you doing?” She asked. Harry and I glanced at each other and tried to look nonchalant. “Nothing,” I managed to say.
She raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, if you don’t mind coming into my room, I need a bit of help.” She walked over to another door on the other side of the hallway and opened it, as Harry and I turned to walk into the room we’d been gaping at. She stuck her head out the door. “What the hell are you guys doing?”
“Going into your room,” I said, perplexed.
“That’s not my room.”
“Oh, thank god,” I said, audibly exhaling. I
“Why?” She asked, walking over to where we were. “Is there something—oh.” She saw what we had been staring at and blushed. “Um, this is my mother’s room.” She said quietly, closing the door. My eyes widened, before I frowned a bit. She bit her lip. “Sorry. This is my room.”
We went into the room that she’d entered before, and I smiled. This room was so completely her that I couldn’t contain myself. There were posters of old bands all over the walls, and comic books stacked up neatly on the desk. I saw a superhero action figure or two, guarding the dresser, and clothes piled up in the corner. There were two open suitcases on her bed—I was still unsure as to why there had been one in her mom’s room had one—which had some clothes and linens in them.
“What did you need help with?” I asked, still admiring the room.
“I need another opinion.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, the only place not covered in clothes. “Do you really think I should do this?”
“Do what?” Harry asked.
“You know, come to your flat. It’s a little weird,” She mumbled, suddenly transfixed with her fingernails.
Before I could say anything, Harry sat next to her and put an arm around her. Damn you, Styles. “We’d love to have you.” He said, and I growled at how charming he was.
She sighed. “What about you, Niall?”
I tried to bit back the smile that I got from her asking for my opinion. I grabbed her hand and pulled her up, so she was standing. “You should definitely, for sure do it. It’ll be awesome. I promise. We really want you to.” Take that, Harry.
She finally smiled. “Okay. Well, I’m almost done packing. I’ll be down in two minutes.” We left the room and Harry and I trudged down the stairs.
“That was smooth, Niall.” Harry said, sighing.
“You too, Hazza.” I told him.
We didn’t say anything else, just sat in the living room waiting for her to come downstairs. I smiled as I remembered her cuddled up to me, watching Up. I smiled wider remembering the moment that we’d had in the last week.
My happy feeling didn’t last for long. I remembered Harry, and I felt a surge of jealousy pump through me. I knew that it seemed irrational—I was the one who had almost had her—but she hadn’t been texting me, and we most certainly weren’t acting like a couple today, so I envied every scrap of attention she gave Harry. And I was worried—worried he would win her, worried he would hurt her, worried he would throw her away and she wouldn’t want to see any of us again. I didn’t like to think about Harry this way, but he’d given me reason to be wary. It had happened too many times before.
We sat in silence, again, unable to think of anything to say to each other. Usually, we would joke about, and by the time Nell came downstairs we would have broken something, but all I did was scroll through my phone. I had two texts from Zayn, one from Louis, four from Liam, and one from Ed, but I ignored them all and went to twitter, which I hadn’t been on since I last so Nell. I headed over to my mentions, expecting the usual, but gasped when I saw what people had been posting. Obviously, the pictures of Nell and I kissing had surfaced, because there were tons of mentions with the tag 'mysterygirlfriend'.
@1D4Everr: oh my goddd @NiallOfficial you could be doing soo much better than #mysterygirlfriend.
@liamsgirl: @NiallOfficial who the fuck is she? #mysterygirlfriend #shesabitch
@Niallerlovesnandos: #mysterygirlfriend she’s not even pretty @NiallOfficial
@ilovezarry: Have sex with me @NiallOfficial. #mysterygirlfriend doesn’t deserve you!
Harry looked at me and looked up from his phone. “Go to twitter,” I said. “And look up the tag mystery girlfriend.” I watched him do what I told, and his eyes widened.
“This is very bad,” he managed to say, and I nodded. I decided to see if sugarscape had anything to do with this, so I headed over to their twitter page and gulped as I saw their most recent tweet.
@SugarScape: hey sugarscape readers! @NiallOfficial’s #mysterygirlfriend has been identified as @Nell_Davison. Neither have released public statements, but we know!
This was my fault. I had followed her, the day that we had met, and then I had kissed her at the party. I shouldn’t have held hands with her. I shouldn’t have danced with her. I shouldn’t have put her in this position. I put my head in my hands. I hoped that she hadn’t seen this.
Harry looked up at me. “They found her, Niall. They know who she is.”
“I know,” I groaned. “I hate it when they do this. When they give hate to every girl we’re seen with. Do you think she’s seen it?”
“No. She doesn’t seem torn up or anything.”
“She’s going to find out sometime.” I said.
“Find out what?” I heard someone ask from the stairs. She entered the room, a bag slung over her shoulder.
“Uh, nothing.” I stuttered. “Have you been on twitter recently?”
“No,” she answered. “I don’t check it that often. Why?” She was looking at me, perplexed.
“Oh, well, I followed you.” I said, as if that had been the reason behind the question.
She laughed. “Okay, thanks, I guess, Niall. Should we get going? I’m all packed. Whenever you guys are ready, we can leave.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, jumping in, noticing that I wasn’t being very subtle. “Here, we’ll help you load up your stuff.
Niall’s POV
I was getting worried, now. I hadn’t seen Nell in five days, and she wouldn’t answer any of my texts. I knew we weren’t supposed to be attached at the hip, but going this long without talking to her made me hurt a little bit. I was too easily distracted, checking my phone every ten minutes. It was like she had given me a taste of something amazing and then walked out the door.
When she left, the morning before the party and the other less PG activities, she did leave me a note, which I was glad for. It, at the very least, relieved me of a bit of the worry that she wouldn’t talk to me was because we had sex. It had read, “Hey Niall! I’ve got to go home now, to pick up Clyde and all, but last night was really fun. You guys were great performing, and the things that happened when we got home were also…nice (here, she put a winky face). See you later! –Nell”. It had left me feeling warm inside, and I had texted her.
To: Nell
Hey! Just got your note. I had fun too :) when can we hang out again?
She had yet to reply to that, and the thirteen other texts I had sent her. It would have been far more, but I told myself I could only message her twice a day. I had broken that rule three times, though. She was hard to ignore.
I sighed and stood up, stretching my back. I had been sitting on the couch, watching Louis dominate Zayn in FIFA, for a full two hours, occasionally commenting on the game, but my mind really on Nell. I was just about to go to the kitchen, in another attempt to distract myself, when I saw Harry rushing out of his room, fully dressed with his shoes on and keys in hand.
“Niall! There you are. Let’s go.” He turned away and started walking towards the door, as if that was enough information.
“Go where, Harry?” I had forgiven him for his little stunt at the party. Nell wasn’t my girlfriend, so technically, he hadn’t really done anything wrong. I knew he liked her, too, and being honest with myself, I might have done the same thing. Especially after I got a few beers in me.
“We’re going to Nell’s house,” he called over his shoulder, fumbling with his coat.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because, I want to. Come get your shoes on. We weren’t going to do anything today, anyways.”
Sighing, I did as he asked. I don’t know why I didn’t question it; perhaps I should have. But I only pulled on my shoes and coat, grabbed my phone, and went with him out the door.
We drove in silence for a little while. Things between us had been tense, to say the least, as they always were when a girl came between us. Except this time was different. This time neither of us could shake off the subtle annoyance that we had with each other. I watched us pass by shops and people hurriedly rushing around. Slowly, the buildings spread apart more and more, and we were out of what most would call London. It was here when I first said something. “For real, Harry, why are we doing this?”
“Nell’s been texting Liam.” My eyes widened at that, and my heart sank a bit. That hurt.
“So?” Harry wasn’t giving very clear answers.
“She’s going to be staying with us for a month.”
I sat there, stunned, for a while, as we passed our first cow. We were now officially in the country. “Excuse me, what?”
“Nell’s going to be staying in our guest bedroom for a month. Liam invited her. Because her mum and brother are going to be away, and he didn’t want her to be alone for that long. So she’s going to stay with us.”
That was something. “And Liam didn’t tell any of us?” I had no objection to a very sexy and amazing girl staying in the room between Harry and I’s, but it was surprising of Liam to drop something like this so suddenly.
“Louis and Zayn knew. He told me about three hours ago. And now I’m telling you. He asked Lou and Zayn before he offered, and they were okay with it, and he assumed that you and I would. I don’t know about you, but he assumed right for me.”
“Well, I mean, I’d love her to be here, it’s just, that’s pretty weird. Like, Liam letting her stay. It doesn’t really seem like something he’d offer, and she’d accept.”
“He said that he had reasons that he wouldn’t tell us. And I’m just going to assume that those are reasonable.” Harry still didn’t take his eyes off the road.
“A month?” I asked. I was still trying to wrap my brain around this. It was so sudden, and we didn’t know her all that well, really. If Liam would offer this to her, I assumed that it would be okay, but it was still all so strange.
“Yeah, Niall, a month. Think of her as like a roommate, okay? Don’t act weird about it. She probably already feels bad enough about it—he said she was really reluctant. So just…pretend it’s no big deal. Even though it is.”
I sighed and sat back in my seat, leaning into the passenger seat of Harry’s car. We finally reached her house, after a very long awkward silence, and we got out of the car and knocked on the door. I heard some giggling from upstairs, before a few pairs of feet thumped down the stairs. Before they came into view, though, I heard a whispered conversation, which obviously was not intended for our ears.
“But, Taylor, what if it’s Jake.” A voice said solemnly, and I realized that it was Nell.
“You can’t hide from him forever,” Another voice said, this one different.
“Yeah, Nell. I mean, it’s just Jake…he’s not so scary.”
“He is when you’re talking to him.” That was Nell, again.
“Go answer the door! If it’s Jake we’re right behind you.”
All of a sudden Nell opened the door. She stared at us blankly for a moment, her eyes flitting back and forth between us. “Harry? Niall?” She asked. “What are you guys doing here?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “We’re here to pick you up. And take you to the flat.”
“I though Liam was picking me up at eight?” I looked at Harry, who seemed to have an answer for that question.
“He got held up with Dani, and he asked us to come now. I’m not quite sure why. Um, can we come in?” He asked.
“Oh, yeah, of course.” She stepped aside and led us in, where we made our way over to the living room. There were two girls sitting on the couch, one with red hair and one brunette. Nell walked in after us. “Harry, Niall, these are my friends Hannah and Taylor.” She motioned to both of them. “Girls, this is Harry and Niall, but you already knew that.”
She left to go upstairs, presumably to grab her stuff. At least that’s what I hoped. The girls on the couch stood up and walked over to us. They looked like they were trying to stay calm.
“Oh, my god, I totally love you guys.” Taylor, the red haired one, said. “You’re my favorite band.”
“Yeah, you guys are great.” Hannah said. “Um, can we get a picture?”
I smiled and laughed. Being used to fans asking for that, I assumed the signature pose with them, and they both snapped a picture of the four of us with their phones.
“Well, it was really nice meeting you, but Nell’s going to kill us if we stay, so we should probably go.” Hannah said. On a whim, I kissed her on the cheek, and watched Harry do the same to Taylor, who squeaked.
“Well, hopefully we’ll see you lovely ladies later!” Harry said, winking a bit.
“Yeah, we’d love to see you at one of our concerts someday!” I added, mimicking Harry’s gesture.
The girls squealed a bit and left, yelling goodbye to Nell. They had only been gone a few seconds when Nell yelled from upstairs, “If you two are done flirting with my friends, would you come up here and help me?”
As we started to climb up the stairs, I said, “We weren’t flirting, love.”
“So kissing people is no longer flirting?” I wasn’t sure how she knew about the kiss, but I only sighed. Harry and I looked into the bedroom right next to the stairs and gasped. There was a suitcase on the bed, but strewn on the floor were a pair of lace underwear and a pair of boxers. We stood there, mouths agape. Too many thoughts went through my head at once: Why is her underwear on the ground? Why is there a guy’s underwear on the ground? Why isn’t she wearing it? Did they have sex? Who did she just have sex with?
I heard Nell from behind us. “Guys, what are you doing?” She asked. Harry and I glanced at each other and tried to look nonchalant. “Nothing,” I managed to say.
She raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, if you don’t mind coming into my room, I need a bit of help.” She walked over to another door on the other side of the hallway and opened it, as Harry and I turned to walk into the room we’d been gaping at. She stuck her head out the door. “What the hell are you guys doing?”
“Going into your room,” I said, perplexed.
“That’s not my room.”
“Oh, thank god,” I said, audibly exhaling. I
“Why?” She asked, walking over to where we were. “Is there something—oh.” She saw what we had been staring at and blushed. “Um, this is my mother’s room.” She said quietly, closing the door. My eyes widened, before I frowned a bit. She bit her lip. “Sorry. This is my room.”
We went into the room that she’d entered before, and I smiled. This room was so completely her that I couldn’t contain myself. There were posters of old bands all over the walls, and comic books stacked up neatly on the desk. I saw a superhero action figure or two, guarding the dresser, and clothes piled up in the corner. There were two open suitcases on her bed—I was still unsure as to why there had been one in her mom’s room had one—which had some clothes and linens in them.
“What did you need help with?” I asked, still admiring the room.
“I need another opinion.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, the only place not covered in clothes. “Do you really think I should do this?”
“Do what?” Harry asked.
“You know, come to your flat. It’s a little weird,” She mumbled, suddenly transfixed with her fingernails.
Before I could say anything, Harry sat next to her and put an arm around her. Damn you, Styles. “We’d love to have you.” He said, and I growled at how charming he was.
She sighed. “What about you, Niall?”
I tried to bit back the smile that I got from her asking for my opinion. I grabbed her hand and pulled her up, so she was standing. “You should definitely, for sure do it. It’ll be awesome. I promise. We really want you to.” Take that, Harry.
She finally smiled. “Okay. Well, I’m almost done packing. I’ll be down in two minutes.” We left the room and Harry and I trudged down the stairs.
“That was smooth, Niall.” Harry said, sighing.
“You too, Hazza.” I told him.
We didn’t say anything else, just sat in the living room waiting for her to come downstairs. I smiled as I remembered her cuddled up to me, watching Up. I smiled wider remembering the moment that we’d had in the last week.
My happy feeling didn’t last for long. I remembered Harry, and I felt a surge of jealousy pump through me. I knew that it seemed irrational—I was the one who had almost had her—but she hadn’t been texting me, and we most certainly weren’t acting like a couple today, so I envied every scrap of attention she gave Harry. And I was worried—worried he would win her, worried he would hurt her, worried he would throw her away and she wouldn’t want to see any of us again. I didn’t like to think about Harry this way, but he’d given me reason to be wary. It had happened too many times before.
We sat in silence, again, unable to think of anything to say to each other. Usually, we would joke about, and by the time Nell came downstairs we would have broken something, but all I did was scroll through my phone. I had two texts from Zayn, one from Louis, four from Liam, and one from Ed, but I ignored them all and went to twitter, which I hadn’t been on since I last so Nell. I headed over to my mentions, expecting the usual, but gasped when I saw what people had been posting. Obviously, the pictures of Nell and I kissing had surfaced, because there were tons of mentions with the tag 'mysterygirlfriend'.
@1D4Everr: oh my goddd @NiallOfficial you could be doing soo much better than #mysterygirlfriend.
@liamsgirl: @NiallOfficial who the fuck is she? #mysterygirlfriend #shesabitch
@Niallerlovesnandos: #mysterygirlfriend she’s not even pretty @NiallOfficial
@ilovezarry: Have sex with me @NiallOfficial. #mysterygirlfriend doesn’t deserve you!
Harry looked at me and looked up from his phone. “Go to twitter,” I said. “And look up the tag mystery girlfriend.” I watched him do what I told, and his eyes widened.
“This is very bad,” he managed to say, and I nodded. I decided to see if sugarscape had anything to do with this, so I headed over to their twitter page and gulped as I saw their most recent tweet.
@SugarScape: hey sugarscape readers! @NiallOfficial’s #mysterygirlfriend has been identified as @Nell_Davison. Neither have released public statements, but we know!
This was my fault. I had followed her, the day that we had met, and then I had kissed her at the party. I shouldn’t have held hands with her. I shouldn’t have danced with her. I shouldn’t have put her in this position. I put my head in my hands. I hoped that she hadn’t seen this.
Harry looked up at me. “They found her, Niall. They know who she is.”
“I know,” I groaned. “I hate it when they do this. When they give hate to every girl we’re seen with. Do you think she’s seen it?”
“No. She doesn’t seem torn up or anything.”
“She’s going to find out sometime.” I said.
“Find out what?” I heard someone ask from the stairs. She entered the room, a bag slung over her shoulder.
“Uh, nothing.” I stuttered. “Have you been on twitter recently?”
“No,” she answered. “I don’t check it that often. Why?” She was looking at me, perplexed.
“Oh, well, I followed you.” I said, as if that had been the reason behind the question.
She laughed. “Okay, thanks, I guess, Niall. Should we get going? I’m all packed. Whenever you guys are ready, we can leave.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, jumping in, noticing that I wasn’t being very subtle. “Here, we’ll help you load up your stuff.
8/19/13