Friendzoned

17. Listen

“Lou, here’s your dinner.” He winced as he sat up. “How are you feeling? Better?”

“A little. It hurts and itches but I’m managing.” He mumbled. I set his food on the small table next to his bed.

“Your pulled muscle itches?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know my back just itches so much but it hurts when I scratch it. It’s terrible.” I rest my head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting Lou Lou.”

“It’s no big deal. Just an itch.” I hate when he plays things off like it’s nothing. He’s obviously in pain. “Why were you yelling?”

I sighed, “Chip is having a party.”

“Figures.” He snorted. I frowned; he’s usually quick to defend Chip but now he seemed fed up.

“Are you two fighting?”

He dipped his spoon in the soup, “I guess you can say that.”

“What happened?” Chip and Louis have never gotten in an argument that made they stop talking. They always got along, aside was the occasional bickering over me.

“He thinks I’m faking my injury to get out of training.” I gasped. “He thinks I couldn’t handle the work outs so I faked this injury to stop doing them.”

“That’s bullshit! Has he seen how much pain you’re in? The medicine you take? What the fuck is wrong with him?” It looks like something is about to break out from under his skin! How can you not believe that?

“I don’t know.” He slurped his soup before looking up at me. “Enough about me and Chip. Tell me something about you. I need my weekly Hunter update.”

I looked away from him, “I don’t have anything to tell.”

“Now I know that’s not true. Girls’ are always hiding something.”

“That generalization is a little wide isn’t it, Lou? Like, what’s Mom hiding?”

He smirked, “Mom is hiding that she hates getting old.” That seems right. Sometimes Louis is crazy smart.

“And…Brice?”

“That she thinks I’m hot.” I rolled my eyes. Louis can also be such a boy sometimes too. “Tell me what you’re hiding.” I played with the ends of my hair as I stared at my knees. “You like Niall don’t you.” I looked up at him confused. How did he know that? “I was eavesdropping on you and Brice.”

“Louis,” I groaned. “That’s not cool.”

He shrugged, making himself wince a little. “I wanted to know what she was shouting about.” He paused. “So it’s true then?” I sighed and nodded. “Why are you so ashamed?”

“Because he just—he makes me so confused. He has a girlfriend that he apparently likes, but he says he doesn’t like when I go a day without talking to him and he’s really flirty with me and it’s like…every time he looks at me his whole day has brightened up. He doesn’t even look at his own girlfriend like that and it just…confuses me. Like, if I make him that happy why isn’t he…” I trailed off.

Louis stayed silent as I rambled, listening intently as he always does.

“I don’t want to make him break up with Eileen…but I don’t want him to be with her either. I want him to—I…” I stopped because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say. “He’s such a nice guy; Eileen isn’t nice at all. He deserves someone like him—that can have fun and be weird with him—not Evil Eileen who is using him to keep her vagina filled.”