Recovery / / h.s

Chapter Twenty-One.

"Dude, are you alright?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine." The leather underneath me made a loud noise as I shifted around.

"You've been staring at that wall for ten minutes, are you high?" Niall asked, his blue eyes shifting from the television to me.

"He's totally high. Share?" Zayn asked, plopping down between Niall and I. He smelled strongly of cologne, but I didn't seem to mind it as much as I usually would.

After almost two weeks of not hearing from any of these idiots, they called me and asked me to hang out. I didn't really want to, my thoughts were still on Lily and her asshole of a new boyfriend.

I couldn't stop thinking about it: them listening to the songs together, her singing as loud as she could in the way that only she does, and somehow this mental picture always ended in those two making out while All Time Low played in the background. It was driving me insane.

"I'm not high, idiot," I scoffed. Niall sighed, pausing his game and dropping the controller onto the couch next to him. It bounced, falling onto the floor.

"Harry, are you sure nothing's wrong?" He asked. "You haven't really been acting yourself in awhile."

Zayn nodded in agreement. "You don't text, Whenever we hang out, your minds somewhere else. We just want to help, man."

"How would you know? We haven't hung out in weeks," I snapped.

"Even before," Niall said quietly. "You stopped going to bars, you don't fight anymore, and god dammit when's the last time you took a girl home?"

I thought about it. "Before I started working at the station. I tried to fight Ash that one time, but-"

"Exactly," Zayn interrupted. "You're just not being yourself. You used to go out every night and come back with the best stories. Now you're always quiet."

"The stories were the greatest," Niall added, shoving a handful of potato chips into his mouth. I wondered how they didn't get caught in his tongue ring.

"If I got into anymore trouble I'd get locked-"

"You don't even have to work at that fucking police station anymore, dude. The summer is over. Why the hell are you still there?" Zayn wondered, running a hand through the single blonde streak in his spiked up hair.

I couldn't tell them it was because of Lily. They wouldn't believe it. Harry Styles, the guy they idolized because of the amount of girls he could easily pull and get rid of, caught up in some girl he could never have. Scratch that, could've
had and fucked everything up.

Truth be told, I didn't want to be that guy anymore. I didn't want to sleep around and I didn't find any pleasure in getting drunk every night. What was the point?

"You just don't come around anymore. We miss you, bro," Zayn said, awkwardly staring down at the carpet as he spoke.

"Have you guys talked to Ashton?" I wondered. I hadn't talked to him since I nearly fought him at Liam's place, and truth be told I missed talking to him. He was my only friend and I had made a huge mistake.

"All the time, why?" Zayn was tracing over one of the many tattoos on his forearm.

"I need to apologize for what happened," I mumbled. The words tasted foreign as they left my mouth. I never apologized to anyone, Lily being the only exception.

Their faces shared the same shocked expression. "Really?" Niall asked. I could tell by his facial expression that he was wondering what the hell had gotten into me.

"What were you two fighting about anyway?" Zayn wondered. I watched him trace the same tattoo over and over.

"You guys hardly come around since Louis is back," I quickly changed the subject, ignoring the looks on they're faces as I did so.

"Just been busy with school and stuff. It's not because of Louis," Niall said quickly.

"Louis is an ass. After the first week he came back we hardly ever saw him," Zayn admitted quietly. He seemed kind of butt hurt about it if I said so myself.

"He was always with his new girlfriend. Lola, is that her name?" Niall wondered turning to Zayn. Zayn simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Lily," I said. "Her name is Lily."

These two's facial expressions always seemed to mirror each other. Confusion was plastered across them both, obviously confused as to why I knew her name even though I had never once hung out with Louis.

"Yeah, that's it," Niall sighed. "She's pretty hot."

"Pretty hot?" Zayn asked with a scoff. "I would bang that girl so hard she'd forget her own name."

My fists clenched instinctively and my temper began to fume. Zayn talked about girls like this all the time, but i was having a conniption over him talking about Lily that way.

Niall rolled his eyes at his friends vulgar mouth. He was the most sensitive one out of the group. He never slept around and tried to be nice to girls.

"Dude," he scoffed. Zayn seemed to sink deeper into the couch as of he knew he had said something wrong. "We just stopped coming around because those two are just so annoying together. I mean they obviously really like each other, but they argue a bunch."

"Argue?" I asked. Although, I wasn't really surprised. Lily was a natural born arguer.

"Yeah, he gets jealous easily. She can't even talk to another guy without him assuming that's who she wants," Niall shrugged. The game on the television had dimmed and the music had ceased to play.

"And Lily is just as bad," Zayn added. "She literally gives him grief about everything. If he goes out and plays soccer, she throws a fit. If he drums a lot, she throws a fit. Those two are a fucking mess."

Niall nodded, agreeing with his best friend. They argued a lot. I didn't know how to feel about that. All I knew is that he better be treating her right. I had been telling myself over and over that as long as she was happy, I was happy. However, that sounded like a lie in my head and I struggled to believe myself most of the time.

A/N

I usually don't do authors notes, but this is pretty important!

I just want to give a HUGE thank you to one of my best friends Amelia.

She has helped me so much with this story and I'm so glad to call her my cowriter.

Love youuuuu. xx