During The X Factor (One Direction)

Chapter 9 - The Corridor

I’m just about to push my way through the big wooden doors at the end of the corridor when I hear someone behind me shout,

“So you’re not going to say bye?” 

I turn to see Harry bounding down the corridor towards me looking utterly peeved. His hands are balled up into little fists and he looks like he’s on the verge of crying.

“Harry…what’s wrong?” I say, quickly wiping a tear from my face before he has the chance to see.

“You’ve been acting really weird with me recently.” He stops a few feet away from me and refuses to look right at me. He looks like he’s really angry at the black stars and musical notes on my shoe.

“Me? What’ve I done?!” I refuse to look at him, too, and he probably thinks that his tie is offending me, or something.

“Ever since I started this X Factor thing, you’ve been really distant, barely talking to me or anything. And I’m fed up, to be honest, Chaz.” He looks down on me and I can see that his eyes look grey, not the usual beautiful blue. They shine in the bright light, like he is actually about to cry.

What? I’m the one who’s been distant, ignoring him? He’s fed up? Did we randomly switch places without me noticing?

“What on Earth are you on about?” I fire at him, “I have been trying to talk to you every time I saw you, but no, you go off with your new friends and forget I even exist! And you have the cheek to blame this all on me. Mature.” I spin on the spot and put my hand to the door handle, preparing to push it open and make my dramatic exit.

But Harry stops me. He jumps in front of the door and blocks my way.

“Oh, come on! You don’t come here for me! You’d rather hang out with-” he stops himself, like he was about to utter something forbidden, something he’d promised he wouldn’t talk about.

It doesn’t matter though, because I know what he was going to say.

“Ahh, I get it now…” I say, suddenly realising what’s been going on, “It’s Liam, isn’t it?”

Could he get more pathetic?

He sighs and places his hands behind his head. He won’t look at me again, so he turns and stares right down the corridor. “Alright, yes. I’m sick of you and Liam being so…” even though I can’t see him, I can tell he’s searching his head for the right words. I just can’t yet tell if these words will be to stop the argument, or encourage it. “Unprofessional.”

Hmph. Encourage.

“Liam’s being unprofessional? Yet, you’re the one sneaking around kissing every desperate fan girl that comes your way.” I remember the articles I read in the paper and I know they’re true, so if he’s going to be so pathetic about the argument, then two can play at this game.

Anger flashes across his face, and I don’t even regret what I said for a second. It just drives me on further.

“There isn’t even anything going on between Liam and me,” I spit at him, gaining the confidence that he is quickly loosing. “Because someone kept getting in the way.”

He knows who I mean. Harry Styles. I don’t know how I didn’t see before, how he’s always jumping in and stopping us from socialising. I haven’t even had a proper conversation with Liam since I’ve met him. Harry always stopped us.

But, why? He’s either being really protective over me, or really protective over One Direction. Or perhaps he just doesn’t want to see me happy.

He turns to look at me, and for a second I think that I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have been the one to end the argument, just walk up to him and say, ‘I don’t want to fight with you, you’re my best friend, I don’t want to lose you.’ and then we would have been okay again.

Then I realise; I haven’t done anything wrong. He’s the one causing all of the trouble. I was happy to leave it at that and let him carry on with the show. He’s my friend and I want him to be happy. Evidently, the feeling isn’t reciprocal.

“You’ve changed, Harry.” I whisper.

“Oh, not as much as you have, Charity.” He says harshly.

I snap at him, “Don’t call me Charity!”

The last time he had called me that was back in Year 7 Maths. I remember him laughing at the name when Mr Taylor did the register. He snorted with laughter, along with some others in the class, ‘Ha! Who names their kid that?!’ was what he had said to me. I turned bright pink, and timidly said good morning to Mr Taylor.

Harry was so apologetic after that. He kept saying sorry, and I would keep telling him that it was fine, really. He wouldn’t have it, though, and insisted on buying me my dinner that day. We eventually decided (instead of doing our maths work) that he would never call me Charity again, so I had him call me Chazza. ‘Hazza and Chazza,’ he had said, ‘I like it’.

Seems he forgot this promise, like he had forgotten that I’m his best friend, not his worst enemy. Or are we talking in the past tense?

He’s laughing now, happy that he’s winding me up.

“Nobody would even know that name if you didn’t know me!” He’s shouting, his voice echoing loudly down the corridor. A part of me wishes that Niall, Tom and Danny will hear us and open the door, run out and stop us from fighting.

They don’t. I can see Harry is eager to get back to them, but just before he turns to go he manages to utter, “You would be nothing if it weren’t for me.”

I can almost feel my heart shatter. With each step he takes back down the corridor towards the waiting room, it’s like he’s stepping on the torn fragments of my heart, breaking them into teensy-weensy pieces.

I don’t know what to do now. Should I follow him into the room, hoping that the others in there will try and calm him down, sort things out? Or should I just leave him to his own devices, let him cool off and then try and patch things up later?

All I do know that if I try to move, I’ll just collapse to the floor and probably never wake up.

Come on, you’re overreacting a little bit! says my brain, and I refuse to listen to it. The brain may be full of knowledge, but it knows not how the heart feels when it’s broken.

He’s gone now, forget about your little misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding? Full-blown argument, more like. A misunderstanding is when you think someone said one thing, but actually said something completely different. Then, you admit you misheard and everything is fine again! So this, is definitely not a misunderstanding.

Also, I can’t help thinking that it’s true, though, that he may be gone from my life. I convince myself it’s all my fault, only because I now believe it is. He’s stressed because of the show, and he wants to do well, perhaps I’ve just added to all of this pressure…

Move on, go find Liam!

It’s a good enough plan, but I don’t think I could face him right now. It was kind of his fault that we were arguing in the first place, so I think my first reaction to Liam would be to throw every sharp object within a five-mile radius at him. 

I’m all alone again. Empty corridor stretching out before me. I could run for it, as fast as I can, all the way home and forget this ever happened. Maybe when I get back home and in bed, I’ll wake up tomorrow and find that it was all a dream?

Life isn’t that kind to me, though.

My knees buckle beneath me and I slowly slide down the wall, sinking to the floor.