*Mackenzie’s POV (Friday, March 25th)

Zayn’s radio interview just ended and my phone starts ringing. It’s Niall. I decide to go out of the room to answer it. “Hey, Ni. What’s up?” “We’re in trouble, lovely.” he says. My heart immediately sinks into my stomach. “What’s going on?” I ask cautiously, “I mean if it’s about the end of Zayn’s interview he didn’t make it seem like we’re dating.”

“It’s not that. I was at the store standing in line looking at the magazines, and there was a picture of us on the cover.” I do not like where this is going at all. “It was a picture of us at the mini golf course on Valentine’s Day. The caption is ‘Does Niall Horan Have a New Girl?’ Mackenzie, my dad is going to see this eventually. He’s gonna find out about our secret.”

This cannot be happening. Things were going so well with us. We finally took that big step of consummating our relationship and it’s only 2 more months before it will have been 1 year of us being together. We are the only ones for each other and we know it. Now it’s all going to be ruined as soon as Mr. Horan reads that magazine cover. Who knows how it will affect my career!

“Niall what are we gonna do? This is gonna ruin everything!” I say on the verge of tears. “Baby, don’t cry. It’s gonna be fine. I’ll tell mum about it and we’ll do our best to keep this story at bay at least until you get back home. Let me take care of it.” That calms me down a little bit. “Okay, thank you so much, Nialler. I should get back to the girls. I love you.” “I love you too, Mackers. Have some fun this week! Bye!” he says. Mackers…that’s a new one.

“I’ll try. Bye.” I hang up and go back to the living room where I see the girls hugging Emily. “You guys are not going to believe this.” I say. I tell them everything and how I’m so worried about what Mr. Horan will say. “Even if he finally approves, he’ll still be angry that we disobeyed him for so long. If he doesn’t approve, not only will he make Niall and I break up again and make sure he and I don’t do anything; my career could be in jeopardy.”

The girls all come and hug me this time. It makes me feel good for the moment to have them with me. A minute later, there’s a knock on the door. Emily answers it and it’s Sammie! Now all of us are together again. She comes over and we all say hi. She can tell that I’m upset so I fill her in.

“Put your trust in Niall. He seems like a great guy, especially for you. If he says it’s taken care of, it is. And until this whole mess is figured out you have all of us. And don’t forget you can always talk to Louis. He gives great advice and support.” she says. “Thanks, girls. You’re the best friends in the world.” We all bring it in for a group hug.

“Sooooo Sammie, how are you and Luke?” Susan asks. “We’re good. It’s nice that we see each other every day at school and have the majority of our classes together. I really like him. He’s got it all. He just doesn’t know yet about my situation or Louis…” she finishes. “That’s a pretty big part of your life. Are you gonna tell him soon?” Hannah asks.

“Yeah..I think I can trust him now. I’m seeing him sometime next week so I’ll tell him then. I just know I really want him to meet Louis because it’s important that they get along. They’re the only two guys that I have in my life besides your boyfriends.” she says. “Speaking of boyfriends, how are you two doing with your long distance affairs?” Em asks Hannah and Susan.

“As good as it can go.” Susan says, “I haven’t Skyped with Liam since Valentine’s Day. We still chat whenever we can on weekends, but it’s really hard for us not having a time in mind for us to reunite in person.” Damn. “That can’t be very easy for either of you.” I say. “How about you, Hannah?” Sammie asks.

“Harry and I don’t even chat a lot. He’s busy all the time. But he sent me a message when I was sleeping a few weeks ago saying that he would Skype me over spring break so I’m getting pumped for it. He said it should be early in the week so it’s within the next few days!” she says excited.

“That’s great, Han! You’ll have to let us know what happens.” Emily says. We look at Susan and see she’s looking sad now so I say “Well now that we’re all here, how about adding Sammie to our Cards Against Humanity game?” Everyone agrees and we deal her in. We’re having fun and laughing together just like old times.

Emily is probably receiving hate for dating Zayn already, Niall and I could be breaking up when we get back home, Susan and Liam are struggling with long distance, Sammie needs to tell Luke her biggest aspect of her life and introduce him to Louis, and Hannah is also trying to get a handle on long distance with Harry. But it seems like when we’re all together having some laughs, we all forget about our personal problems for a while and just enjoy each other’s company.

This hangout is even better than Christmas, honestly. It’s just the five of us without any of our boyfriends or guys in general. It’s perfect because there’s nothing to distract us from each other and Hannah and Susan don’t feel bad about their guys not even being in the country. It feels like we haven’t spent time together like this in months and we probably haven’t, but it feels really nice. A refresher from how hectic and stressful our lives have gotten since we met the guys.

I bet once we’re all 21, we’ll spend nights playing this game while drinking alcohol. Boy, won’t that be interesting. Anyway, I’m so thankful for these girls. We have our pairs within the group: Hannah/Emily, Susan/Me, Susan/Sammie and now also Hannah/Susan and Emily/Me. But it’s times like these when we’re all going through something that we really come together as a group. And like we did tonight, I hope that our lives end up coming back together and turning out okay too.

Notes