One Adoption... Sorry, Direction (1D Fanfic)

Chapter Twenty-One

Early in the morning, a fifteen year old girl quietly went into Harry Styles' bedroom. She turned on the light, but was surprised to see the figure at the window turn to her.

Harry obviously hadn't slept; his eyes were red, his hair was a mess and when he tried to speak his voice was raw. Clearing his throat, he tried again, but was interrupted immediately.

"Don't talk," Jasmine asked. "Please."

She took a step closer to him, and gave him unwavering eye contact.

"I trusted you. You broke a promise. You said that you wouldn't yell at me and then you did. And it hurt. You really scared me. I thought you would protect me, but when you yelled you hurt me. The marks on my wrist, I don't care about. I'm used to that, even though I had stupidly come to expect you would never add to the collection. What hurts me is knowing that you knew about all of my issues and you still did something, and barely a minute after you told me you wouldn't."

She stared at him, tension in the air. Her words were thick with exhaustion and emotion and he could only stare back.

"The only problem is," Jasmine continued. "Is that I did trust you. And I..."

Her voice now cracked, tears seeping through her words. "I still do. And I don't think you meant to, and I want to trust you again. I'm sorry I was a bitch to you, I really am. So I was hoping that we could pretend nothing happened, and go back to the way things were – where I trusted you and you gave me no reason not to."

Harry nodded, before whispering, "I'm going to hug you now," and rushing toward her. His arms were around her and she melted into him, as he sat on the bed and rocked her.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm so, so sorry."

Eventually, the pair slept, on Harry's bed, both wearing skinny jeans and tearful smiles. Neither mentioned the small cuts on the inside of Jasmine's forearms.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Liam called a family meeting as soon as everyone was awake. Using this an an excuse to not have to sit and have people try force feed her, Jasmine slipped away and joined him in the living room.

"You finished eating already?" Liam asked.

She shrugged.

"Did you eat?"

"Did you?"

"Touché," he responded. "Only for today, because I'm too focused on other things to argue with you."

She smiled and sat down, stretching out her legs in front of her.

When the other family members were in the living room staring expectantly at Liam. He stood up, glancing at everyone.

"Recently, one of the girls has made a choice that was not in her best interest," he began. "She was going to try cigarettes."

Immediately Harry and Niall, sitting either side of Jasmine, shot her accusing looks, while Louis did the same to the other two girls sitting on his left.

"Not me!" Jasmine protested, as Ali shrugged in confusion. Both shook their heads, offended at the accusation.

"It was Jennifer, you can all stop wondering," Zayn cut in. "Ouch! Hey, don't hit!"

Jeni slapped his arm one more time before glaring at Liam, who took it as a sign to continue.

"I've spoken to her, but I thought it would be a good idea to let all of you know that we don't tolerate that, and that it is extremely dangerous."

"Zayn does!"

"How come he can and we can't?"

The girls leapt in with comments and arguments, not stopping until Harry put his hand over Jasmine's mouth and Louis and Niall copied with Ali and Jeni.

"I am really not enjoying this whole 'you-three-ganging-up-on-us' thing," Harry commented, removing his hand.

"How do you think we feel, there's five of you," Jasmine muttered. At Harry's warning look, she muttered an apology and turned back to Liam.

"Any more arguments?" he asked.

Louis and Niall tentatively released Ali and Jeni, who shook their heads, both rolling their eyes.

"In answer to your questions, Zayn is an adult, capable of making his own decisions separate from any legal guardians. I have already spoken to Jennifer, who we decided will not get punished this time. However, next time – and I don't care who it is – you will wish you had never even heard the word. Am I understood?"

He continued to lecture the girls, uninterrupted, for about five minutes.

It was obvious that the girls weren't listening, but Jasmine was going further than her sisters. She began making sarcastic comments under her breath. Occasionally they were loud enough to make her sisters giggle; unfortunately, Harry could hear nearly everything that she was muttering.

"Excuse us for a second," he said. Standing up, he tugged her out of the room and leaned down so that his face was at the same height as hers.

"Jasmine Mae," he said warningly. "What you are doing is there is disrespectful and unacceptable. I know that we only just made up, but you need to know that you still have boundaries and you are crossing them. Just because I made a mistake and you forgave me does not mean that I will hesitate to discipline you. Am I understood?"

"Why do you always say that? If I said no what would happen?"

"Jasi! Enough of the smart-arse commentary."

After a short staring contest, Jasi looked away before lightly scratching the inside of her elbow. Harry could tell that she needed to say something, so didn't speak.

"I'm... I'm really sorry," she blurted out. Without waiting for a reaction, she wrapped her arms around Harry, who hugged her back. For almost a minute they hugged, until Harry let go slightly. Jasmine pulled away and looked at him.

"We should probably get back in there," he said.

"Yeah," Jasmine whispered, and let him take her hand and lead her into the living room.

A/N: Hopefully everyone enjoyed! Please leave comments, I know everyone says this but I love reading them! Also the next chapter is a little time jump... about a week and a half so nothing too major.

xxF