I walked into the study room for my Monday morning free period and couldn’t keep the smile from my lips at the sight of Harry. He was sat alone in the room at a desk over a small pile of music sheets, scribbling away in pencil. He was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t seem to even notice me. I stood quietly watching as he bit the end of the pencil thoughtfully before tapping it on the table and frowning slightly.

“Hey you…” I said quietly instantly drawing him from his trance. He looked up at me and the frown was replaced with a smile that lit up his eyes.

“Hey!” He said as he quickly shoved the papers into the folder sitting on the desk beside him, “Come sit?” he asked as he gestured to the empty seat next to him. I sat and smiled as he immediately leaned over and planted a small kiss on my cheek making me blush.

“How’s your morning been?” He asked brightly, relaxing back in his chair.

“Good… what about you? What were you working on?” I asked with a smile as I glanced curiously over at his folder. Harry’s eyes followed mine before pushing the folder away from us and looking back at me nervously.

“Oh, nothing… it was just something I’ve been working on for music…” He said awkwardly with a dismissive wave. I was going to ask more questions about it when, much to Harry’s visible relief, Louis burst through the door excitedly with Eleanor following close behind.

“Mate, you need to see this!” He spluttered excitedly at Harry as he slammed a piece of paper on to the desk. Harry raised his eyebrow suspiciously before averting his eyes down to the piece of paper. I looked at Eleanor who was grinning as excitedly as Louis before doing the same.

At the top of the page was a familiar red ‘X’ that I recognised instantly. It was the logo for the popular televised singing competition: The X Factor. Underneath that were the words ‘Bring your sound!’ in bold, followed by the tagline ‘The auditions are coming to you!” and then information about where they would be held.

I looked up at Harry who’s eyes were lighting up as he read the words on the page and then without warning he was standing with Louis, his hand placed on his shoulder as they both started speaking excitedly like children allowed to run amuck in a sweet shop. They were both talking so excitedly, over one another that I couldn’t even understand half of what they were saying.

“I’ve already shown Niall and Liam and they think we should!”

“Do you think we could?”

“We need to give it a go, at least! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us!”

I looked up at Eleanor with a small smile and shook my head at how excited they were. A minute or so later, they seemed to calm down enough to sit down and include us in the conversation.

“Really though, I think we have a chance at this… don’t you?” Louis said with a beaming grin, looking at Harry.

Harry looked down at the paper in front of him again and It was like I could see the future he was imagining for himself if they were to win. He smiled and nodded.

“We have as much chance as anyone else, fuck it, let’s do it!”

“I’m so excited for you guys!” El said and kissed Louis on the cheek, drawing his attention to her and they began talking about the competition. They looked so sweet together.

“What do you think?” Harry’s voice came quietly beside me as he gently took my hand in his.

“I think you guys could do it… I don’t think you should give up on going to university or anything though…” I said gently. The brightness faded from Harry’s eyes a little and although his smile didn’t falter, I knew that wasn’t the answer he had wanted.

“Yeah I know, of course, this is just another possibility, you know?” He said and squeezed my hand. I smiled and leant in, planting a small kiss on his cheek.

“You’ll be amazing at whatever you decide to do, I know it.” I whispered softly so only he could hear. He turned his face and caught my lips with his own, sending the butterflies in my stomach into a frenzy. I could have stayed kissing him forever if it wasn’t for the bell bringing us back to reality and shipping us all off to music.

---

“Okay, ladies and gents as you know the recital is less than three weeks away and you should have at least selected and be well on the way to practicing your songs by now… you should be using these lessons for practice in front of other people… not for socialising with girls that are way out of your league, Mr Horan!” There was a small chuckle from the class as Niall leant back to his table with a small roll of his eyes. Mr. Ford gave a few pointers for the best ways to rehearse as he handed out the ticket order forms to take back to our parents and then sent us off to practice.

Eleanor and I walked over to the table of boys, where they were looking over a sheet of music that looked very similar to the one that Harry had been scribbling away on this morning. I put my hand on Harry’s shoulder as we came up behind them.

“So, we going to all go and find a room?” I asked as Harry stood and put his arm around me.

“No, actually, we were kind of hoping to work on something new… on our own, if that’s okay?” Harry asked softly. I frowned, a little disappointed but nodded. Harry smiled and reached his finger to my pouted lips and pushed it in gently with a small laugh.

“Don’t look at me like that, you’ll hear it when it’s perfect.” He said as he leant down and pressed his lips softly to mine.

“Are you taking the piss?”

I froze at the voice behind us as my heart sank. Harry pulled away and looked up with an icy glare as I built up the courage to turn around and face Taylor. Her blue eyes were colder than I had ever seen them and it still pained me that I was the one she was looking at like that. I moved to pull away from Harry but he kept his arms around me protectively.

“Taylor, I… I’m so-“ She cut me off as I tried to apologise.

“No Selena, you’re not fucking sorry, so don’t you dare apologise! I always knew you were jealous of me, but I never thought you would stoop so low to steal a guy I was dating! I knew you wanted him from the second I had him!” She hissed before turning her attention to Harry, “And don’t think people don’t know what game you’re playing! You only chased her for the challenge, everyone’s saying you thought she was the only girl who wasn’t interested in you and that’s the only reason you’re wasting your time with a fucking loser like her!”

I felt an ache in my chest at her words. I knew it wasn’t true but it still hurt that people thought that was the only way that Harry would be with someone like me. I could feel the rage building in Harry as his arms seemed to tense up around me. I looked up to see that stone cold look that I knew so well, telling me his anger was about to get the better of him. He opened his mouth to speak when another voice chimed in instead.

“No, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to stand here and listen to this crap! Harry and Selena are together because they like each other, simple as! He chased her because he wanted her, and why shouldn’t he? She’s great! They make a great couple! And as for jealousy, if anyone is coming across as jealous here, it’s you! So, why don’t you just walk away and we’ll all pretend that you were the bigger person and didn’t say anything in the first place, hmm?”

I turned to look at Eleanor in surprise who was staring at Taylor expectantly. I mouthed a quick thank you as she glanced over and couldn’t help but think I was lucky to have a friend like her.

Taylor, on the other hand was seething. If it had been a cartoon, she would have had steam coming out of her ears with how angry she was, yet she didn’t seem to know how to respond to this new girl who had just told her off. She stood for a moment before muttering something under her breath and then walking away.

“Thanks Eleanor.” Harry said quietly with a small smile as we watched her strut from the room.

“Don’t mention it. You guys have already had enough obstacles, I think you deserve five minutes of peace just to make it work…” She shrugged with a kind smile before grabbing her guitar at her feet, “S, we better go and find a practice space if these guys don’t want us in with them!”

I smiled, gave Harry a quick peck on the cheek before following the best friend I had ever had from the room.

Notes

I'M SORRY OKAY, I AM BAD AT UPDATING SOMETIMES!

Please forgive me, but I had really bad writers block and even considered ending the story at their date because I couldn't get past it... but as you can see, I found a way to continue and will be writing the original ending that I always had planned for this story!

So, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy it <3

All my love,

Lola xo