The Voice

It was another night of packing. This one wasn’t as bad as the last one because, as nice as Eleanor and Zane were, I wasn’t really close to them. They had given it their all. No one was forcing them to throw it all away.

Madi was sad to see Eleanor go, and I think Brinley was the only one sad to see Caleb go. From what I gathered, he was her only play toy left, so now she had to stop having sex all the time. Unless she got a prostitute or something.

I didn’t really notice until Harry brought two suitcases in here, though, that they were leaving, too. That was surprising to me.

Liam was the next to bring suitcases, and he smiled sheepishly at me when he noticed me gawking at them. “It’s been fun, Ev, but we’ve got some promoting to do in various places in the U.S. Niall will have to remain here, and we’ll be back soon. We just have to go now.”

Harry came over and put his hands firmly on my shoulders. “Remember what we talked about earlier? You have to.”

“I know,” I sighed. “You said you would help.”

“Oh, he got help,” Niall informed me, surprising us all with his silent appearance in the room. Noticing our surprise actually made him grin in delight. “That’s fun.”

I made a face. “You haven’t gotten the best of it yet.”

“I bet,” he laughed.

Noah, dressed in his pajamas, came walking down the stairs with a delighted grin. “Speaking of the help . . . heard you were a little naughty, Ev.”

My cheeks were on fire as I immediately began studying my feet, finding them to be quite fascinating. “Does everyone know now?”

“Oh, no, no,” Harry said quickly. “Just Liam. Noah. Kiley. Madi. And of course, you and Niall.”

“You said no one else needed to know,” I reminded him with a frown. “Why’d you tell Liam and Noah?”

“Well, I figured it out,” Liam told me, and he sounded quite proud of himself.

“And I’m the help,” Noah said with a smirk. “I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for the fact I needed to know what to prevent. Kiley and Madi are helping, too, though.”

Niall sighed. “I’m a big boy, guys. I know how to handle myself.”

“Yeah, that worked out well for you,” Liam agreed, and he rolled his eyes as Niall frowned.
“Things are different, Niall. Any other circumstances, we would let you do what you want to do. These are special circumstances, however, and we’re not going to take any chances.”

I very carefully slid out of my shoes and sighed. “Alright. Well, while you guys work out babysitting details, I’m gonna go change out of this stupid dress.”

“It’s not stupid,” Niall blurted out, before he could think about it. When he did, they all looked at him with raised eyebrows, almost as if they were saying, “Remember? None of that.” So, he made a face and shrugged. “You can fill in the rest, I guess.”

My lips quirked to the side. “I guess if I knew what to fill in, I probably could.”

Now, they were giving me funny looks, but I just hurried—at a normal pace—up the stairs and away from that so I didn’t feel so out of place.

I barely even got my dress off before I heard Niall say something downstairs that caught my attention.

“Max, Mr. Eberly,” Niall greeted, voice specifically loud enough so he was sure I would hear it. “And Harley! Hi. Everit just went upstairs. She said something about food, though, so she’ll be back.”

At my version of a quick pace, I changed into a pair of red Captain America boxers—they were red with his shield all over them—a dark blue Captain America t-shirt, and my Captain America socks with little wings on them. I forgot all about the tiara thing on my head, so I just rushed down there like that.

Harley was super excited to see me, and I knelt down to see him. What I saw, though, surprised me. Yes, it was Dad and Max, but there was something about Dad that shocked me.

Anger.

Uh oh.

Niall didn’t really understand, but I don’t know if he noticed much as Harley rushed over to see him, too. “Here she is.”

I used every ounce of willpower in myself as I walked over to Max, my eyes on Dad. I kept my expression confused, my eyes curious, so that it would look like I had no idea what he was so mad about. I knew, though.

He could tell Niall was transitioning.

I hugged Dad tightly. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“Step outside for a second?” he asked, but he tried to sound casual. “I need to ask you something.”

I nodded and followed him out, still acting quite innocent very well. Honestly, I was surprised I was able to do this, but here was where the real test was.

He was going to ask me.

“What are you thinking?” he hissed. “Look, this is already too much for me to handle without this, but you’re changing him?”

“No,” I said slowly, my eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“His eyes aren’t the same color blue as they were the other day,” he said, but now, he looked and sounded just as confused as I pretended to be. “At least I thought . . . .”

“They’re the same blue, Dad,” I assured him, though I knew they were far from it. “If I ever try to change him, it won’t be now. Trust me.”

He let out a deep breath. “Okay, Ev. I believe you. Just be careful, okay? We don’t know what it is or what will change him, so be extra careful.”

“I will,” I promised, and with a smile, I gave him one last very tight hug. Now, with all of the Niall stuff aside, it really did hurt to realize that they were leaving. Honestly, I didn’t know when I would see them again, so it made me very sad. “I miss you already, Daddy.”

“I miss you too, princess,” he whispered. “Take care and have fun.”

I released him to hug Max one more time, and I nodded. “I will.”

And they left, just like that. I watched them let me go and go climb into the cab they had waiting, watched as it drove away to take them to the airport. I didn’t like it, but it was a reality I had accepted when I first thought about auditioning for this show.

I would see them again.

So, I went back inside after wiping the tears from my eyes. Niall was in his pajamas, and Noah, Kiley, and Madi were down here helping him cook something. Zayn, Liam, Louis, and Harry were all standing by their bags, and when I came inside, Harry was the first to come over and hug me.

“Kick ass, Ev,” he said. “I’ll be cheering for you from wherever we are. For all of you, really.”

And they left, too. With just a hug and a goodbye. It was really sad, and the house seemed strangely empty, all things considered.

Niall noticed my slumped shoulders and smiled sheepishly. “I have food?”

Just like he was playfully trying to do, it cheered me up a little. So, of course, I hurried over to
the island and climbed up on a bar stool. “What are you making?”

“Pizza,” Kiley said, and she looked quite proud. “Your dad looked pissed. Wonder what that was about.”

Niall was casually eating some chips while he jumped on the counter and winked at me. “Me too.”

Madi rolled her eyes at him and snorted. “Uh huh. Like you don’t already know.”

He just smirked at her and shrugged his shoulders a little. “I don’t know, lass. I’m just the cute Irish one over here.”

Noah snorted. “You’re the cute Irish one? What does that make Ev?”

“The sexy Irish one,” Niall said, as if it should be obvious. “Duh. Come on, Noah. You came up with that one yourself.”

I stared down at my feet again as if they were the most interesting things in the world. “You guys suck. Let me know when the pizza’s ready, please? I have things to do.”

“We will,” Niall promised with a smile. “I would tell you to see if Brinley wants some, but that probably wouldn’t be wise.”

I shrugged and headed up the stairs. “I’ll ask.”

When I got to her door, it took a few seconds of preparing myself for the worst so I could just knock. And I did. Honestly, I hoped she was asleep or something, but after a few seconds, I heard her heading towards the door.

She looked pleasant until she saw it was me. “Oh. What do you want?”

“Niall’s making pizza and told me to let you know it’s there if you want some,” I said, having to use all of my remaining willpower to hold myself back from smirking at her. Rude as it was, she deserved to be put back in her place.

She smirked, though, which shocked me. “Bet that stings, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all,” I said as my eyebrows pulled together. “Is it supposed to?”

“He told you to invite me down for pizza, which means he cares more about me than you,” she gloated, and as my eyebrows rose, she just got smugger. “Does it hurt?”

I rolled my eyes. “You can twist any facts around to make them what you want. I was down there first, which using your logic means he likes me more. Using, you know, facts and reality, we walked down there, found out about pizza, and he wanted to make sure you weren’t left out. He woulda done it for any of us.”

While she just rolled her eyes and shut her door back in my face, I made my way into my bedroom to do what I was going to do—get on my social media sites.

It wasn’t surprising that my Twitter had gone from, like, twelve followers to more, but what was surprising was how many followers it had gone to . . . over a million.

I actually let out a quick yelp before grabbing my computer and running downstairs, not even thinking not to go full speed. I got lucky, and only Niall noticed me running that fast. The others, however, noticed my presence when I sat my laptop on the counter and began bouncing around.

“That’s not natural!”

Niall started laughing, really hard. “Oh, Everit, yes it is. Welcome to my world. That happened overnight for me, too. You learn to get used to it.”

I shook my head and immediately logged onto my Facebook as well. To my surprise, however, when I began looking through Twitter, at some of the things said about me and such, I found a tweet Max had sent out to me. Normally, I would’ve seen it immediately, but I didn’t due to the fan response I had.

His tweet: @EvieEbbs Haha. Ev, this is crazy! All this stuff on your page! Remember, I followed you first. ;)

His next tweet right after that: @EvieEbbs I meant to ask you while there but forgot! Have you run into @ChrisEvans yet? ;)

That made me smile, so I immediately responded back to that one.

@MaxGuthrey-17 @ChrisEvans No! Sadly, I haven’t yet! My hopeless fan girl dream has yet to come true. You’ll be the first to know if I ever do. :)

There were so many people trying to be my friend on Facebook, but instead of letting them all be my friend, I only accepted the people I knew. Having fans as friends could be . . . bad. I was in no mood to be stalked or anything, so I kept it to people I knew.

I got requests from Noah, Madi, Kiley, Liam, Harry, Zayn, Louis, and even Niall. There were some from other contestants, such as Jesse or Zane, but those weren’t the ones that stuck out the most. So, like I said, if I knew the person . . . such as Adam Levine . . . I added them.
So, my friends list was pretty stacked.

Before adding each said celebrity, I made sure it was the actual person before adding them.
And it was, so of course, I added them.

I spent that night checking social media sights for the first time, eating amazing pizza, and having fun with the remaining people. Brinley came down, so Niall and I couldn’t act normal, but she was surprisingly nicer. So, we all six had a lot of fun together.

It was one of the best nights of the competition. Notice I said one of . . . . Nothing could beat the night before.

Except maybe another, more extensive night. That would be fantastic as well.

Notes

The lyrics are from What You Need by the Weeknd.

So, I got a job, and on weekends, updates might be a little slow. I work at a skating rink, and my first weekend, there was a lock-in. So I had to pull an all nighter, and I'm still trying to recover. x3 But more updates to come!

Let me know what you guys think. :)