Intent 2: Fight or Flight [Wattys 2017] (ON HOLD)

Chapter 5

Emma

Have you ever fucked something up so totally and so completely that everything you do thereafter is just a long list of never ending catastrophes? To be in a place of such self loathing that you would literally do anything to turn back time and do everything in your life differently.

And I mean everything.

Honestly, at this point I wish I was a different Emma from a different family. A girl who never knew Harry Styles. A girl who fell in love with a different man, a man who is actually the person she needed him to be. A girl who led a simple life. A girl who didn't get hurt by her father, who didn't have a weak and jittery mother, who didn't sleep around during her teens, who didn't feel the way I feel, who didn't fear all the things I do... where's that girl?

I want to be that girl.

Not the girl who just broke up with her boyfriend before walking in on him sleeping with her nemesis and then flying across oceans to get away from him.

This is a new all time low and in the current state I'm in, I can't forget to mention utterly uncomfortable.

I feel this massive weight on top of me the moment I regain consciousness.

Oh god. I feel dirty.

Last night was not what I expected.

Once I got off the plane I knew it had been a massive mistake. Even as I lay here staring at the ceiling I can't get what happened out of my head.

God I was so stupid.

I can still feel the aftershocks of it mingling on my body. Flashes of last night tightening its grip on my heart as goosebumps blossom on the surface of my skin.

Hoping for a distraction, I begrudgingly look around for my phone and find on the bedside table. I haven't gotten one text or call from Harry, not that I expected to, we're over, but it's' still a little disappointing.

No Emma, don't go there. Harry's not worth it.

On the other hand, it seems as if Lina has been texting me non stop. I don't think she went to sleep after dropping me off at the airport only a few hours ago. I sweep through the long list of texts but I don't answer any of them.

I'm not ready.

Growing too hot with the closeness, I shove the dense body off my stomach so I can get out of the small bed.

He groans as I shift him. I know I should but I don't really care. It's his own fault, he said it wouldn't end up like this.

"Emma, let me sleep..." he grumbles as he rolls over, burying his head deep into his pillow.

"Yeah well you said you were going to sleep on the couch." I snap, swing my legs over the side of the bed. Immediately the cool air hits my bare legs and I shiver, wishing I had more than a pair of small shorts and a loose t-shirt on.

"S'uncomfortable" he argues back and I leave it at that knowing it's no use, not that I need to have a fully fledged conversation right now. I can't argue anyway. If one of us has a right to sleep wherever they please then it's definitely Niall.

It's apartment after all.

I walk out his room, closing the door behind me and finally take a real look at the place. It's very open, spacious for being on top of the bar and impossibly clean for being a guy's flat.

Sure there are things out of place and there is the odd piece of laundry draped over furniture but it's not like there are empty beer bottles left on the table and crisp crumbs on the rug. It's clean and rather lovely.