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Chapter 1
‘WHAT?! You met Harry Styles?’ Blaze was standing in front of her mirror carefully putting her mascara on, but turned around to look at me in disbelief as I stormed through her door screaming ‘Blaze I met Harry Styles oh my god.’ I let myself fall onto her bed and sighed, the excitement slowly going away, ‘Well, yes, kinda…’. Blaze looked confused, ‘What do you mean? Did you meet him or not?’ I proceeded to tell her what happened.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t recognize him, you’re the biggest One Direction fan I know!’ Blaze was still busy with her make-up and texting people while she was talking to me, although we should’ve met outside an hour ago. ‘I know right,’ I responded, ‘But he was wearing sunglasses and a beanie and it was dark’. I sighed. ‘Talking about it being dark outside, you know we should’ve been at the bowling centre an hour ago?’ Blaze sighed and turned around. ‘Ok, I’m finished. Is it cold outside?’ ‘Yeah, if I were you I’d take a scarf with me.’
While we were walking outside there was an awkward silence, but I didn’t notice, I was thinking about what Harry had told me. “ ‘It would bother me if my friends kept on arriving too late.’ ‘Yeah, it kind of bothers me.’ I answered. ‘Well tell her then!’ “ I did want to tell her. The problem was, I was scared to annoy her. Scared to lose her. I didn’t have a lot of friends, I had some people I’d hang out with, but no one I really trusted with everything or did random fun things with. I had fun in the breaks at school, but outside of school I rarely hung out with people. No one seemed to be interested. Most of the time I didn’t really care, I’d just spend my evenings on the internet, but every time I would come across of a picture of a party I wasn’t invited to, or I saw my “friends” had hung out together without me I cried. I felt so lonely and Blaze was the closest to a real best friend I had. I didn’t want to lose her.
‘Have you done anything nice today?’ Blaze asked, obviously trying to kill the silence. ‘Ehm.. Yea I hung out with a friend’ I lied. I wasn’t going to tell her I spent my whole Saturday doing basically nothing. ‘O cool, what did you guys do?’ ‘We eh.. baked cupcakes.’ I hate lies. I’m bad at telling them. ‘O really? Can I try one after we are done with bowling?’ Shit. Think. Think. ‘No sorry, I gave half of them to my friend and my family and I ate the rest.’ ‘O ok, were they nice?’ ‘Yeah they were.’ She totally fell for it. I didn’t know if I should be happy or not. Then Blaze said something I didn’t expect; ‘We could bake cupcakes together too sometime.’ My heart exploded with happiness. Even though this was something really small, her taking the initiative to hang out sometime was rare. It was always me trying to get her to hang out with me. ‘Yes, sure!’ I said, trying to hide the extreme excitement inside of me.
I really needed to get more social.
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I slammed the door shut behind me and hung my coat in the wardrobe. I opened the door to the living room and walked in. ‘Hi guys I’m back!’ Louis walked past me and quickly messed my curls up with his hand. ‘Hi Curly, where have you been?’ Louis said while he kept on walking, obviously busy with something else. ‘I just went for a walk.’ I let myself fall onto the couch next to the three other boys, who were watching TV. ‘You guys got any plans for tonight?’ I didn’t feel like spending a whole Saturday night on a couch watching TV. ‘Louis thought it might be a good idea to go to a club tonight.’ Zayn mumbled, most of his attention drawn to the TV. I looked over to Louis, who was now in the bathroom fixing his hair and smiled. ‘What are we going to eat this evening?’ Niall asked. I looked at him and replied with ‘I can cook if you guys want to?’
‘As much as we would appreciate that Curly,’ Louis said while leaving the bathroom and walking towards us, with a smirk on his face, ‘I arranged something for this evening.’ ‘Should we be scared?’ I asked, smirking back at Louis. He gave a small kick against my leg. I laughed. ‘Yes you should, now get off your lazy asses and dress somewhat classy!’ Louis turned around again and grabbed a black blazer and put it on and fixed his hair again afterwards. They always say Zayn is the vain one, but Louis cares about his appearance just as much. Liam started getting up from the couch, pulling Zayn with him. I walked towards my closet and put on black skinny jeans and a white V-neck. Finishing it up with a black blazer I walked towards the bathroom and ran my hands through my curls until they looked right.
When everyone was finally finished we got into the car. Louis decided to drive himself so he could keep the destination a secret. When he finally pulled over we were in a very chic neighbourhood near the centre of London. Several expensive looking restaurants circled a tranquil park, full of different coloured, harmonious roses and a small fountain in the middle. I looked questioning at Louis, who was already heading towards a restaurant that looked like it was built a few centuries ago. Pillars decorated with curls and roses framed the door. A small red carpet headed us towards the entrance and a posh doorkeeper opened it for us. I looked at the other boys who seemed just as confused as I was. Did we miss his birthday or something? Was this a special date for Louis?
The table Louis reserved was in a corner of the restaurant. As we sat down we all curiously looked at Louis, waiting for an explanation of this all. Louis opened his mouth, thought for a second and closed it again, searching for words.
‘Well, you guys are probably wondering why I brought you here?’ Louis started, waiting for an answer for a bit. We just stared at him, encouraging him to go on. ‘Well.. um..’ Louis tried again, ‘This isn’t actually a special day or anything, but I felt like I should put this out there since I don’t say this much. I am so grateful to have friends like you guys.’ He held my gaze for a second. ‘You guys always support me even though I can be a pain in the ass sometimes.’ He laughed and we smiled at him, knowing that this was a vulnerable moment for him. Louis never really talked about how he felt, he would rather joke around. Most of the time what’s on his mind is just a mystery. ‘I just really wanted to thank you guys for being the best friends in the world, so I thought I’d organize a nice evening for you.’ He looked at us with a little insecure smile before a loud ‘Awwhh’ raised from the table. We stood up and basically jumped at Louis to form a big group hug.
After almost falling we sat down again. A waiter put a bottle of champagne in the middle of the table and served us our appetizers. Louis apparently chose some special menu for the occasion. After popping the champagne we enjoyed our dinner, happily chatting about our upcoming tour, which was starting in a week, and things we did last week.
When dessert came our mouths dropped open. A big cake with four layers arrived to the table, with five little fondant puppets on top. Louis’ grinned when he saw our reactions. ‘Louis, I love you so much.’ Niall said, his mouth watering at the sight of the cake. Louis let out a small laugh. He took the knife and cut five big pieces of the cake. A lot of it was still left at the end of dinner, but it most definitely impressed us. Louis smiled at me when he saw I enjoyed it. I don’t know why he was doing this, but I loved him for it, making us all feel special.
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“Gutter ball” flashed onto the screen above the bowling lane as I, again, did not hit any pins. I suck at bowling, but it is fun. When I looked at the score board I got kind of depressed though, seeing Blaze had 40 points more than I had. ‘Come on! You can do it!’ Blaze shouted from the seat she was sitting in. I tried to concentrate on getting the ball straight to the pins this time, but it decided to take a left turn and end up in the gutter again. ‘Fuck’ I whispered, falling back into my seat. Blaze laid her hand on my shoulder, ‘It’s just a game!’ I smiled, ‘Yeah I know, it’s ok haha, I just need to accept I’ll never win the world cup in bowling.’
When we finished the game we sat down at the bar in the bowling centre for a bit. We wanted to order some drinks when two guys walked over to us. In my head I kept repeating please don’t come here, please just walk the other way , but one of them asked us already if he could buy us drinks. Damn. I’m way too socially awkward for this kind of situations. Especially with boys. Blaze however smiled flirtingly at the boy and answered with ‘sure’. ‘So what do you ladies want?’ To be honest I was a bit scared of him. He was tall and muscled and looked way older than I was. ‘Ehm.. A diet coke please.’ I said. He laughed at me. ‘Don’t you want a cocktail or something?’ The other boy said. Great. This was going wrong already. What is it with me and getting into difficult situations with boys?
Blaze answered for me. ‘We would like piña coladas please,’ she said with a perfect smile. How could she keep so calm in this kind of situations? Two creepy guys walked up to us and she just orders some cocktails? I guessed I should just play along, not wanting to be the boring friend. After talking for a bit, sipping on my cocktail, one of the guys, whose name I now knew was Sam, asked; ‘So what are you girls up to tonight?’ I threw away all my common sense, or maybe it was the alcohol, and answered, ‘Well we don’t know yet, do you have an idea?’ I tried to copy Blaze’s challenging smile. It worked.
‘Well,’ Sam said, ‘We wanted to go to this club just outside the centre tonight, it’s called ‘The Beach’.’ ‘We know the owner,’ Justin, the other guy, added, ‘so we can get you in.’ Blaze looked at me with an expression in her eyes that said ‘let’s do this’. I had heard about The Beach. It was near a posh neighbourhood and only rich people really went to it, or students who saved up enough to waste it on “the night of their lives”. Before I could realize that I really couldn’t go, me and Blaze accepted the offer already. I felt like I ended up in some yolo-tweet situation. Just partying and drinking with two creepy strangers while my mom wants me home at 12 #yolo, but I chose to accept the consequences. My life was boring enough already to let this opportunity slip away.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t recognize him, you’re the biggest One Direction fan I know!’ Blaze was still busy with her make-up and texting people while she was talking to me, although we should’ve met outside an hour ago. ‘I know right,’ I responded, ‘But he was wearing sunglasses and a beanie and it was dark’. I sighed. ‘Talking about it being dark outside, you know we should’ve been at the bowling centre an hour ago?’ Blaze sighed and turned around. ‘Ok, I’m finished. Is it cold outside?’ ‘Yeah, if I were you I’d take a scarf with me.’
While we were walking outside there was an awkward silence, but I didn’t notice, I was thinking about what Harry had told me. “ ‘It would bother me if my friends kept on arriving too late.’ ‘Yeah, it kind of bothers me.’ I answered. ‘Well tell her then!’ “ I did want to tell her. The problem was, I was scared to annoy her. Scared to lose her. I didn’t have a lot of friends, I had some people I’d hang out with, but no one I really trusted with everything or did random fun things with. I had fun in the breaks at school, but outside of school I rarely hung out with people. No one seemed to be interested. Most of the time I didn’t really care, I’d just spend my evenings on the internet, but every time I would come across of a picture of a party I wasn’t invited to, or I saw my “friends” had hung out together without me I cried. I felt so lonely and Blaze was the closest to a real best friend I had. I didn’t want to lose her.
‘Have you done anything nice today?’ Blaze asked, obviously trying to kill the silence. ‘Ehm.. Yea I hung out with a friend’ I lied. I wasn’t going to tell her I spent my whole Saturday doing basically nothing. ‘O cool, what did you guys do?’ ‘We eh.. baked cupcakes.’ I hate lies. I’m bad at telling them. ‘O really? Can I try one after we are done with bowling?’ Shit. Think. Think. ‘No sorry, I gave half of them to my friend and my family and I ate the rest.’ ‘O ok, were they nice?’ ‘Yeah they were.’ She totally fell for it. I didn’t know if I should be happy or not. Then Blaze said something I didn’t expect; ‘We could bake cupcakes together too sometime.’ My heart exploded with happiness. Even though this was something really small, her taking the initiative to hang out sometime was rare. It was always me trying to get her to hang out with me. ‘Yes, sure!’ I said, trying to hide the extreme excitement inside of me.
I really needed to get more social.
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I slammed the door shut behind me and hung my coat in the wardrobe. I opened the door to the living room and walked in. ‘Hi guys I’m back!’ Louis walked past me and quickly messed my curls up with his hand. ‘Hi Curly, where have you been?’ Louis said while he kept on walking, obviously busy with something else. ‘I just went for a walk.’ I let myself fall onto the couch next to the three other boys, who were watching TV. ‘You guys got any plans for tonight?’ I didn’t feel like spending a whole Saturday night on a couch watching TV. ‘Louis thought it might be a good idea to go to a club tonight.’ Zayn mumbled, most of his attention drawn to the TV. I looked over to Louis, who was now in the bathroom fixing his hair and smiled. ‘What are we going to eat this evening?’ Niall asked. I looked at him and replied with ‘I can cook if you guys want to?’
‘As much as we would appreciate that Curly,’ Louis said while leaving the bathroom and walking towards us, with a smirk on his face, ‘I arranged something for this evening.’ ‘Should we be scared?’ I asked, smirking back at Louis. He gave a small kick against my leg. I laughed. ‘Yes you should, now get off your lazy asses and dress somewhat classy!’ Louis turned around again and grabbed a black blazer and put it on and fixed his hair again afterwards. They always say Zayn is the vain one, but Louis cares about his appearance just as much. Liam started getting up from the couch, pulling Zayn with him. I walked towards my closet and put on black skinny jeans and a white V-neck. Finishing it up with a black blazer I walked towards the bathroom and ran my hands through my curls until they looked right.
When everyone was finally finished we got into the car. Louis decided to drive himself so he could keep the destination a secret. When he finally pulled over we were in a very chic neighbourhood near the centre of London. Several expensive looking restaurants circled a tranquil park, full of different coloured, harmonious roses and a small fountain in the middle. I looked questioning at Louis, who was already heading towards a restaurant that looked like it was built a few centuries ago. Pillars decorated with curls and roses framed the door. A small red carpet headed us towards the entrance and a posh doorkeeper opened it for us. I looked at the other boys who seemed just as confused as I was. Did we miss his birthday or something? Was this a special date for Louis?
The table Louis reserved was in a corner of the restaurant. As we sat down we all curiously looked at Louis, waiting for an explanation of this all. Louis opened his mouth, thought for a second and closed it again, searching for words.
‘Well, you guys are probably wondering why I brought you here?’ Louis started, waiting for an answer for a bit. We just stared at him, encouraging him to go on. ‘Well.. um..’ Louis tried again, ‘This isn’t actually a special day or anything, but I felt like I should put this out there since I don’t say this much. I am so grateful to have friends like you guys.’ He held my gaze for a second. ‘You guys always support me even though I can be a pain in the ass sometimes.’ He laughed and we smiled at him, knowing that this was a vulnerable moment for him. Louis never really talked about how he felt, he would rather joke around. Most of the time what’s on his mind is just a mystery. ‘I just really wanted to thank you guys for being the best friends in the world, so I thought I’d organize a nice evening for you.’ He looked at us with a little insecure smile before a loud ‘Awwhh’ raised from the table. We stood up and basically jumped at Louis to form a big group hug.
After almost falling we sat down again. A waiter put a bottle of champagne in the middle of the table and served us our appetizers. Louis apparently chose some special menu for the occasion. After popping the champagne we enjoyed our dinner, happily chatting about our upcoming tour, which was starting in a week, and things we did last week.
When dessert came our mouths dropped open. A big cake with four layers arrived to the table, with five little fondant puppets on top. Louis’ grinned when he saw our reactions. ‘Louis, I love you so much.’ Niall said, his mouth watering at the sight of the cake. Louis let out a small laugh. He took the knife and cut five big pieces of the cake. A lot of it was still left at the end of dinner, but it most definitely impressed us. Louis smiled at me when he saw I enjoyed it. I don’t know why he was doing this, but I loved him for it, making us all feel special.
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“Gutter ball” flashed onto the screen above the bowling lane as I, again, did not hit any pins. I suck at bowling, but it is fun. When I looked at the score board I got kind of depressed though, seeing Blaze had 40 points more than I had. ‘Come on! You can do it!’ Blaze shouted from the seat she was sitting in. I tried to concentrate on getting the ball straight to the pins this time, but it decided to take a left turn and end up in the gutter again. ‘Fuck’ I whispered, falling back into my seat. Blaze laid her hand on my shoulder, ‘It’s just a game!’ I smiled, ‘Yeah I know, it’s ok haha, I just need to accept I’ll never win the world cup in bowling.’
When we finished the game we sat down at the bar in the bowling centre for a bit. We wanted to order some drinks when two guys walked over to us. In my head I kept repeating please don’t come here, please just walk the other way , but one of them asked us already if he could buy us drinks. Damn. I’m way too socially awkward for this kind of situations. Especially with boys. Blaze however smiled flirtingly at the boy and answered with ‘sure’. ‘So what do you ladies want?’ To be honest I was a bit scared of him. He was tall and muscled and looked way older than I was. ‘Ehm.. A diet coke please.’ I said. He laughed at me. ‘Don’t you want a cocktail or something?’ The other boy said. Great. This was going wrong already. What is it with me and getting into difficult situations with boys?
Blaze answered for me. ‘We would like piña coladas please,’ she said with a perfect smile. How could she keep so calm in this kind of situations? Two creepy guys walked up to us and she just orders some cocktails? I guessed I should just play along, not wanting to be the boring friend. After talking for a bit, sipping on my cocktail, one of the guys, whose name I now knew was Sam, asked; ‘So what are you girls up to tonight?’ I threw away all my common sense, or maybe it was the alcohol, and answered, ‘Well we don’t know yet, do you have an idea?’ I tried to copy Blaze’s challenging smile. It worked.
‘Well,’ Sam said, ‘We wanted to go to this club just outside the centre tonight, it’s called ‘The Beach’.’ ‘We know the owner,’ Justin, the other guy, added, ‘so we can get you in.’ Blaze looked at me with an expression in her eyes that said ‘let’s do this’. I had heard about The Beach. It was near a posh neighbourhood and only rich people really went to it, or students who saved up enough to waste it on “the night of their lives”. Before I could realize that I really couldn’t go, me and Blaze accepted the offer already. I felt like I ended up in some yolo-tweet situation. Just partying and drinking with two creepy strangers while my mom wants me home at 12 #yolo, but I chose to accept the consequences. My life was boring enough already to let this opportunity slip away.
6/3/13