Hitlist | h.s

Eight

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I was not only traumatized, but beyond enthralled with Harry Styles.

He raced through my mind like a Porsche as his word rang through my mind over and over again.

I tried.

“I tried.”

My whole body vibrated with shivers as the sentence ruthlessly repeated itself in my mind, making me so nauseous to the point where I felt as though I could vomit at any second. The prescription meds I had taken, if anything, made it almost worse. They made my stomach ill rather than taking away the effects of the stress that consumed me.

“How are you feeling?” Luke asked, his pacific blue eyes filled with concern. He shoved a glass of fizzy something towards me for my stomach that I had complained about before sinking down into the mattress next to me.

“Peachy,” I sarcastically replied, reluctantly taking a swig from the gruesome Alka-Seltzer water. I tried not to gag as it rolled down my throat, the bubbles uncomfortably tickling my insides. My nose involuntarily sniffled as the carbonation stung my eyes.

“Looks like it. You look gorgeous!” he bellowed. I felt his warm hand pat my back as his intent stare burned into me, my hollow gaze directed elsewhere. A chuckle lightly stifled from my mouth before I downed the rest of the vile contents and discarded the cup to the cluttered bedside table.

“Get the London look,” I over-dramatized, receiving a peppy laugh from the lanky boy next to me. His exposed limbs were awkwardly entangled with one another, a loose tank top draping over his torso and blue stripped boxer shorts clung around his long legs. I tried hard to keep my eyes away from his toned biceps, which unlike Harry’s, were completely barren. Luke’s cheery sounds lifted my spirits a bit, but the gnawing feeling remained, and I constantly thought about the curly haired boy, the things he said, and the eerie way he watched me as I left him behind in his bedroom. Something about it all seemed a little… off.

“You really look alright, Ari,” he faintly smiled, wiping away some of the mascara that had spider-webbed down my face. “It’s okay to cry.”

But it wasn’t.

If there was something I really couldn’t stand, it was looking like I was inferior. The reason I usually had no feeling was because I avoided it – at all costs. I used to be emotional, but after being broken a few too many times, things begun to sting less. Now, I just try to push all of the things I feel away, but there are times they come back like this and bite me in the ass.

I sniffled, my swollen eyes falling shut for a brief moment as a familiar empty feeling settled in my chest before being snapped back into reality when Luke cleared his throat beside me.

I was grateful that Luke offered to stay with me that night and that he was willing to stay up all hours with me. He had no idea as to why I had cried for what seemed like forever, but he didn’t ask, and I was thankful that I could just openly spill out my emotions that had been bottled up far too long.  He could probably make an educated guess that it had something to do with Harry, I mean, he was very intelligent, but in reality, he didn’t know the half of what was tearing me apart inside. For the first time that evening, silence drifted over us like fog rolling in on a murky day. Between the sounds of my pathetic sobs and screams and when I angrily threw my lamp at the wall, it had been pretty hectic up until that point.

It was really a fun night.

Sarcasm.

“You look nice,” he repeated as I scoffed, seeing him hold back a fit of laughter.  He eyed me before being distracted by the trash beside the table, looking helplessly at the shattered lamp remains scattered in the waste bin. He had insisted on picking the pieces up no matter how many times I told him I would in the morning. Luke was as stubborn as an ox, which made him almost as hard-headed as me.