I Can Change Your Life

I heard a honk from outside my window. I picked up my purse and looked out my window to see Harry’s car sitting at the end of my driveway. I huffed and rushed outside, not bothering to lock the door since my mom would be leaving for work in a few minutes, anyway.

“What are you doing here?” I asked through the passenger’s window.

“Picking you up for school,” he said. “Now get in.”

I groaned and threw my arms into the air. “Another one of Louis’s ideas?”

Harry nodded without a word.

“Well, I already asked Kelly to give me a ride. So you can leave and just tell Louis that you picked me up.”

This was when I really needed my own car. On the weekends I was free to use my mom’s car since she didn’t work. Louis was usually the one who would pick me up and take me to school. And of course Harry would be there, too. But he would usually sit in the backseat with his headphones in. He’d listen away to the music while Louis and I either cranked up our own music or just talked to each other.

“She’s not picking you up. I was driving behind her on the way here. She had three other people in the car with her and she didn’t turn in to come get you. You’re lucky I’m here or you’d be fucked. Now get in, and hurry.” Harry finally turned to look at me. His eyes were covered by black sunglasses and his hair was hidden behind a beanie.

I grunted loudly and stomped my left foot before giving up and getting into the car. I set my bag on top of my lap so I could dig through it to find my own sunglasses. “This is bullshit,” I muttered.

“Get a smaller bag then maybe you’d find your shit.”

“I’m not talking about that.” I pulled my sunglasses out of my bag and rammed them up my nose. I turned to look out the window and crossed my arms over my chest. I spent the rest of the car ride to school like that.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Harry said as we stood in front of his car.

We both stopped to stare at our high school. It was sad to think that this was going to be our last year at the school, but it was also such a fantastic feeling to be a senior.

I took a deep breath and nodded. We walked up to the campus together with our eyes dead set on the doors at the top of the stairs.

Nobody said hello to us. Nobody acknowledged us.

As we walked through the doors I saw Kelly and my group of friends sitting down in the courtyard. A few people in the group moved over to reveal a few new people that must have joined the group over the summer. Since I spent my time with Louis, Liam, and Niall I didn’t get to see my friends from school much during breaks or weekends.

“Oh, shit,” Harry said as we neared the group. “Our enemies have joined forces,” he said. He motioned toward the three cheerleaders and two football players that were standing beside Kelly. One of them was the girl who Harry hooked up with.

“They’re not my enemies. They’re my friends,” I corrected. “Hey, Kelly!” I waved to Kelly and walked up to her. Harry followed behind me but kept his head low.

“What’s on your arm?” Kelly asked as she stared and my right arm in disgust.

I tried to see what she was looking at, but couldn’t see anything. “Are you talking about my tattoos?” I asked. “I’ve always had those.”

“I’ve never seen them before,” Amber said. She walked up beside Kelly and grabbed my arm to better examine the black ink. “When did you get them?”

“When I was like sixteen, I think. I guess you haven’t seen them because I didn’t wear short sleeves at all last year when we started hanging out.” I let out a small laugh, but nobody seemed to care.

“Tattoos are trashy.” I felt Harry tense up behind me as Stasia spoke up. She straightened out her cheer skirt before walking up me. “And ugly.”

“You didn’t seem to think mine were ugly last year,” Harry said with a smirk.

I put my hand on his arm and squeezed it to try and tell him to behave. He shook me off and walked up to Stasia’s new boyfriend that was behind the group. This was going to get ugly really fast. I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to try and play it off like it was nothing. He could do whatever he wanted, right? But the other part of me continued to recite Louis’s words in my head.

Before I could try to talk Harry out of what he was about to do, it happened. He pulled his right arm back and launched it right into Dale’s face. Stasia, Kelly, and a few other girls screamed at the sudden action. I pushed through the people that were starting to surround the scene and began to push Harry out of the crowd.

Everyone closed the circle and helped Dale up. Everybody began to ask if he was okay, people suggested taking him to the nurse, and one guy even offered to “beat the shit out of the prick who did this”.

Harry and I went to the other side of campus where the classrooms were a lot closer. We would be safer here – only the teachers and kids who wanted to be first to class hung out here.

Harry jumped up and down with excitement. A smile spread across his face. He traced his tongue over his lip piercing and jumped once more. “Man! That felt awesome. Did you see him? I think he started to cry. What a fucking pussy!” Harry shook my shoulders gently. “Woo!” He shoved his fists into the air.

“That was not okay, Harry. You just punched Dale! Do you realize what is going to happen to you now? It’s going to be worse than before. They’re not going to leave you alone.”

Harry put his hands on my shoulders and gently shook me again. “You have to admit that was fucking awesome.”

“Well…” I laughed a bit. I couldn’t bite back my smile in time. Harry saw it and began to jump around once again. I had never seen him so happy and loud. And I had to admit, Dale was a huge dick. He deserved that punch to the face. “You shouldn’t have put your hips into it. You probably broke his nose.”

“Even better,” Harry smiled and picked me up. He gave me a strong hug and spun me in a circle. When he set me back down I just stared at him, unsure of what he was doing. “Sorry, I just, I’m so pumped. I needed to hug somebody.”

I felt a bit weird about Harry hugging me. In fact, this had to be the longest conversation we’d ever had. Sure he’d been around the conversations I had with the rest of the boys, but I had never hung out with Harry one on one before today. Louis had always been my best friend, and for some reason Harry just never volunteered himself to me as a friend. I had a feeling that Louis would be right though – Harry needed me. And now that Kelly and Amber were hanging out with Stasia and Dale, I think that I might need Harry, too. Especially after that stunt he pulled, I doubt that I’d ever be welcomed by them again. I looked up at Harry and stared at the start of his tattoo sleeves that were shown off the shirt he was wearing. He ripped off the sleeves of almost all of his shirts so they were tank tops.

The bell rang and Harry’s face fell just a bit. “Fuck,” he vocalized his disappointment. “That’s a buzz kill.”

I laughed a bit before tugging on Harry’s arm. “C’mon,” I said, “Let’s get this over with.”

The first four class periods went by in a blur. All of them were just “here’s your syllabus”, and introductions to the class and the teachers. When the bell rang for lunch my entire government class stood up and left even though the teacher was still talking. When I exited my class, Harry was standing at the end of the hall, looking over the people to try and find somebody. I thought about maybe trying to sit with Kelly and Amber for lunch, thinking that maybe they wouldn’t take their anger out on me, but when Harry’s eyes found me, he stopped his searching and instead headed straight toward me.

“Where are we going to sit?” he asked.

I didn’t know how to respond to him. I wanted to sit with Kelly and Amber and rightfully claim my thrown in the group. As a senior, we were guaranteed to be treated the best in the group. Now, I realize that I sound like a total preppy bitch, but that’s not it. With them I just feel accepted and appreciated. I wanted my seniority and I wanted my appreciation.

We walked toward the lunch tables and stopped just before we could enter the large, outdoor seating. I loved having an outside school, but on hot days such as today, everybody was swarming the lunch tables to try and get a spot under the shade.

“Let’s just sit where you guys sat last year,” I finally suggested. I saw Kelly in the distance sitting on top of the lunch table. Amber was walking up holding an apple and Stasia soon walked up, too. But no Dale.

We walked past the tables and headed straight to the back. The table was worn down so it was mostly metal. The boys used to spend their summers here, using this table to skate on and do bike tricks on. Because the table was always found in different positions, the school decided to chain it to the supporting pillars of the awning. After this, the boys retaliated and spray painted the table with bright pink. The janitors tried to scrub the paint off, but ultimately gave up. Nobody but Louis, Niall, Liam and Harry ever sit here – it’s almost like they had claimed their territory and everybody knew not to go near it.

“Looks like Dale had to go home,” Harry laughed. He had to lean down so I could hear him. The feeling of his breath on my neck sent shivers down my spine.

We took a seat at the table and just as I was about to pull out my wallet to go hit the lunch lines, Harry placed a small, brown bag in front of me. He pulled out his own and slowly began to empty its contents.

“What’s this?” I asked as I hesitantly picked up my bag. This whole arrangement was quite strange, but if Harry had packed me a lunch things would be at an entirely new level.

“I didn’t do it,” Harry explained as if he could read my mind. “Louis packed it.”

I got a sudden burst of excitement. Louis knew all of my favorite foods and I really hoped that he had packed me a roast beef sandwich with swiss cheese, sprouts, cucumber and vinegar. I pulled out the small baggie that was labeled with an “RB” scribbled on the front. I immediately ripped open the baggie and took a bite of the sandwich. “Oh my god,” I said through the food, “he makes the best sandwiches.”

“Psh,” Harry huffed. “Bitch, you’ve never had one of my sandwiches.”

“A PB and J hardly counts as a sandwich,” I retorted as I looked down at the sandwich he held in his hands.

“No, not this. I’m talking like gourmet shit. Meatballs, pastrami – I get crazy.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in the kitchen.” I took another bite of my sandwich while I pulled out the rest of my lunch with my free hand.

“You don’t know me,” Harry said sarcastically.

I laughed at his comment as I felt a piece of paper at the bottom of the bag. I pulled it out and saw that Louis had even written me a note.

Gianna Elizabeth,
Enjoy your first day of school. Make the boys cry and the girls jealous.
Love you to the moon and back (times infinity),
Louis

PS-times infinity plus one, actually.

Harry read the note over my shoulder and pretended to gag at the note. “I don’t see why he is so obsessed with you,” he said as he finished his last bite of his sandwich.

“You don’t know me,” I mocked.

Harry smirked at my response and continued to dig into his lunch. The rest of lunch was silent. Harry was texting on his cell phone and I was people watching. Every now and then I would nudge Harry and point something out to him, but for the most part he seemed too invested in his phone to care. I couldn’t help but hope that the rest of the school year wouldn’t be like this.

I looked over to Kelly and Amber. I was never particularly close with them, but when they started asking me to hang out last year, I took this as my chance to be accepted into the school. To actually be somebody. After my break-up, they reached out to me. They wanted to know more about me, and they helped me through the rumors that somehow started to spread. I was hesitant to become friends with Kelly because I was afraid that she would be just as bad as her brother, Josh. Josh and I dated for two years and had a lot of problems toward the last six months of our relationship. Louis was the only person I trusted with everything and I think that’s when our friendship really became as strong as it is now.

Kelly and Amber were laughing and having fun with the rest of the people in the group. Most of which I didn’t recognize. I looked over to Harry who was staring down at his phone. Then back over to Kelly’s laughter. I tried to bring myself back to reality, but the truth was that reality was boring. Harry was boring. And I missed Louis.

Notes

Chapter 2!
Sorry for the long wait.