Wrong Direction

Chapter 10: Consequences

I stood on the pavement, staring at my house. There was no way to begin to explain my day. It was barely possible to construct a sentence that reflected an ounce of truth.

Dad would ground me forever, Mum would flip out and need to jog around the block to calm down, Lillian would probably murder me in my sleep, and Tia would hate me and probably never speak to me again.

When I finally managed to check my phone messages after the surfing charade, I wished I hadn’t.

 I had eighteen missed calls and thirty-two text messages. My first thought was that my phone was clearly broken – oh how wrong I was. Skipping school turned out to raise more questions than solve problems.

Tia had tried to call me the most times, clearly worried when I hadn’t arrived at school after what happened to us yesterday. But the majority of text messages were from classmates, and even some who were complete strangers. I scrolled down the long list and sped read, most of them reading:

    WTF Why is your face on the internet?

    Where are you!?

    One direction are MINE!!! Stay away!

    Are you dead??? What the hell???

Because I’d get this message if I were dead, I thought sarcastically.

    When were ya gonna tell me u worked for a charity?

    Seriously Candice, your Mum won’t stop calling me – where the hells are you?

I turned off my phone instantly, slipping it into my pocket, never to see daylight for a long time. I stared out of the empty van’s window to a concrete wall, as I waited for everyone to return from the Zinc radio interview. Weldon stood outside, guarding the van – even though we were in an underground, secured car park.

This was madness – everyone knew. Our attempt at covering up was useless. How was I supposed to face everyone at school? How could I explain myself and tell lie after lie? Why couldn’t there be a hole big enough to swallow me up for good?

I saw Weldon touch his earpiece before opening the front door and slipping into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and secured his seatbelt. Not a second later, the elevator doors opened and out stepped the five boys, closely followed by Samson and my uncle. Ed wasn’t in sight, but I was sure that he was with his own entourage of bodyguards somewhere in the building.

“What’s wrong?” Harry frowned, pausing in the van’s doorway when Samson pulled across the sliding door. “You’re so pale.”

“I need to go home,” I whispered, staring blankly at nothing in particular. I couldn’t handle being trapped inside this van any longer, being surrounded by security guards all day, being photographed wherever I turned. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm my thoughts.

Harry turned to Paul without hesitation and spoke with him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but by the look on my uncle’s face, I knew that he was worried.

Paul quickly spoke to Samson, then Weldon, and then to the boys who all nodded and made their way to the other van, all except Harry. He exchanged a few more words with Paul which made my uncle look slightly frustrated, but then obviously gave in to whatever they were discussing. Not a moment later, Harry was in the van beside me.

“We’ll take you home,” he said, as if I were an incompetent child. Weldon then drove the van out of the car park and onto the street.

“I don’t need an entourage,” I spoke icily, rolling my eyes. “You should just go run along with the rest of your boyfriends.”