For Your Eyes Only: HS

18. In His Arms I Get Weak

I have no choice. I pretend I haven't even seen the magazine and walk straight through to the room that Cheryl and I are sharing.

Cheryl is there, reading on her bed on the right side of the room, and immediately as I close the door behind me, she drops the book as if she wasn't even reading it, and widens her eyes at me. 

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She whisper shouts, obviously not wanting to bring too much attention to herself from dad and Sally. "I didn't get to hear what you told dad because Sally took me out of the room, but I'm already getting a sneaking suspicion that what you told dad isn't the truth. You can trust me, you know that. Spill." 

So I do. And I tell her everything. From going out with Jess, to waking up in Berlin and seeing an unknown phone number on my arm, then finding out it was Niall, and then I tell her about all of the nice things he did for me, all up until I got back here. And she doesn't even interrupt me at all. She simply lets me blow off all my steam - quietly of course - until I've said what I want to say.

"Wow. I don't even know what to say..." She opens her mouth a couple more times before closing it again, at a complete loss for words. I don't blame her. I still don't even know what to make of it.

"Anyway. I don't really want to talk about it, so it's probably good that you don't know what to say." I chuckle at myself, despite the humorlessness of the situation. 

Actually.

I've changed my mind. It is a pretty funny scenario. Now that I'm past it, it's actually kind of hilarious - in a twisted way. Maybe I'm going crazy. Ok, I'm definitely going crazy.

But suddenly my laughter stops, and that's because I've forgotten about something very important. The magazine.

"Cheryl." I begin completely seriously. She's probably going to get whiplash from my changes of emotion that are happening so quickly. "How on earth did that magazine get there?" My heart is racing, and although I desperately want to scream right now, I'm managing to keep calm.

"Here's the thing..." She looks away abashedly and I'm almost certain I can see her gulping. "It wasn't my fault, I swear, Mil, dad and Sally went out looking for you, told me to stay here, you know, because they think I'm too young and all that load of bull..." She's rambling, which means she's nervous. Which of course is now making me extremely nervous.

"Cheryl, stop stalling. Please...just get to the point." I sigh exasperatedly. I don't know how much more I can handle before I have some kind of conniption.

"Ok. It's really not that bad...well, it is, but..." I think I must be glaring quite aggressively at her right now, since she takes one look at me and then hurriedly manages to get to the point. "So dad and Sally went to look for you, and then, when they came back they were super angry. Like super duper angry. They were practically interrogating me, asking me if I knew anything about the whole you and Harry Styles thing, not that there is a thing, well there is, but not like a thing thing..." I'm glaring at her again. "Sorry. Um, yeah, so I told them that I didn't know anything, and that's it. I'd be pretty scared if I were you," she concludes.

"Gee! Way to make me feel at ease! Thanks!" I spit at her, my head resting in my hands helplessly.

"Sorry. So are you gonna go out there yet?" She asks me feebly. 

"Well I have to at some point. I have to stay an extra night to see Harry on the 7th, as well, I can't remember if I told you or not. So yeah, it's going to take a lot of convincing. But I figure if I get Sally on my side - which won't be difficult - dad will soon follow. It's the only way."

"That's a solid plan. You should go out now. We basically only have one full day left in Paris and then we're going back to London to then fly back to Melbourne, you realise?"