Friends With Benefits

Chapter 22

"In other shocking news, boyband heartthrob Harry Styles is set to become a daddy later this year..."

My spoon clattered into my bowl as my head snapped up at the sound of his name, my heart in my throat. The ice cream flattened and splattered outwards, smattering my purple silk duvet with specks of white cream and sticky brown sauce. I tried to swallow but my dry mouth hung open uselessly. His picture flashed up on the screen. Smiling, in a smart, pressed, navy suit. His blue and grey bowtie flattered him. It was the Kid's Choice Awards, if my memories served me well. It flipped to one of him with the band, as the girl commentated. I could barely hear her - my ears seemed to be ringing. I wanted to switch it off, to do what I did best which was hiding from reality. But my eyes were stuck, and my heart was pounding. I had to see this.

"The 18 year old singer admitted that Disney Star Tamara Gold, who turns seventeen today, is pregnant with his child. However, it's not all plain sailing for the pair. The source also claims that One Direction's drummer Josh Devine was a possible daddy. That would explain the fisticuffs between him and Styles the other day outside their venue in Paris."

They knew everything. How did they know all of this?! My mind swam with angry, hurt questions, shock and confusion and shame. The whole world knew. I wasn't ready for this, not yet. We were supposed to admit it all in a press conference, an interview. Something official. How had it leaked?!

"Harry is reportedly having a lot of doubts about their future and whether the pair are mature enough to raise a child together. However, he says they're definitely keeping the baby..."

I ignored the incessant pounding in my chest and the aching of my head, my bowl of ice cream discarded on the floor in my panic. I flung my arm out, grasping for the phone. I needed to talk to him, to hear his voice. That was the only thing I knew I could do.

The dialling tone seemed endless. When he finally picked up, he barely got in a friendly 'hello'.

"Harry? Harry?!" My voice sounded shaky and desperate and angry all at once, and not like myself at all. I sounded like a woman on the edge. Well, my world was falling down, not to mention my hormones were probably sending my emotions into hysteria. I felt like every sensation in human capacity was flickering through me, sorrow and rage and loneliness and elatedness simultaneously. Confusion, in the midst of it all. No, that wasn't it. Confusion wasn't lost amongst all the other conflicting feelings; it was the result of them.

"Tamara?" his voice was deep and husky, and the sound sent me into yet another wave of feeling; passion, desire. Fuck, I missed him, and these hormones did nothing to help. I tried to shake off my illicit thoughts that his deep tone arose in me, but I was cranky and easily distracted. Pregnancy turned me into an senseless mess.

"Harry." I repeated his name, hoping I would sound angry, but falling into a whimper of fear and sorrow instead. All I needed was for him to tell me it was all going to be okay. "Harry, it's all over the news..."

"What is?" He was clearly still half asleep, bewildered by my jumbled words. "Tamara, what's wrong?"

Everything was wrong. "Me." I mumbled through shuddering breaths, the choking need to cry it all out enveloping me suddenly. "Us. The baby. We're all over the news."

There was a long, harsh silence and I could hear the buzzing static of the long term call over the line. I breathed heavily down the phone, my tears rolling downwards. Was it wrong that I almost enjoyed the warmth of tears on my skin? That I liked to cry? I tasted salt on my tongue as I licked my lips. It was almost a comfort; a way of getting it out.

"Shit." He muttered seriously. "Fuck, shit, cunt."

"Harry?" I gasped through the rattling of my breaths. "Harry, what is it?"