Masquerade || Niall Horan

5 ♥ Explanations

"Alisha!" Taylor called as I began walking my way back to the Copeland House after my last class of the day. I stopped and turned to see his smiling face as he jogged to catch up to me. "Hey."

"Hi," I replied, returning his grin.

"Coming out with us tonight?" he asked, falling into step beside me. I sighed, wishing I didn't have to reject him again. Taylor, Emma, and Ida had all been bugging me to join them on another night escapade ever since the party, but I didn't want to go.

I didn't want to go anywhere that guy might be. Not after he left me alone without so much as a goodbye. I couldn't even confirm if he would be there or not because throughout our conversation, he deliberately refused to tell me his name.

I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to think about him.

Sadly the last one was inevitable considering I had been thinking about him and only him since his disappearance.

"Can't," I lied. "I have stuff to do for school."

It wasn't entirely a lie. I had a paper to work on for English, and geometry was seriously making no sense to me. Jackson's words echoed through my mind, warning me of how my grades would ultimately plummet. He said it was unavoidable, but I had to try my best to make sure that wasn't the case.

"Come on! You can't use that excuse every single day, Alisha," he called me out.

"Taylor..."

"No, tell me why you're really avoiding hanging out with us. The truth, or I swear I will walk right into that dorm of yours and physically drag you out of it."

I laughed and shook my head. "It's nothing," I lied. "Where's Jackson been lately?" I asked, desperate to change the subject.

He hadn't been at lunch today or the day before. I had seen him around campus a few times, but he was always too far of a distance away for me to call out or catch up to him. I wanted to talk to him about that tutoring situation we mentioned at the party, but I wasn't sure how to do so when he wasn't even around for me to ask. I needed his help, and I needed it soon. My grades were already slipping.

"Oh," he rolled his eyes. "In the fall he usually skips lunch a lot of times to go help out with the drama club. He's a big part of all that."

"Really?" This actually surprised me. I never pegged Jackson as the drama club type.

"Yeah. He's really into that, and they're busy around this time of year. Auditions are coming up in a few weeks, and the poor guy's been practicing his lines like his life depends on it."

Taylor chuckled at the thought, and I smiled.

"That's really cool."

"Yeah, but he probably won't be around at lunch until he gets the part."

"And what if he doesn't?"

Taylor looked at me with a smirk. "He will. Trust me, he definitely will."

I tried to imagine Jackson, serious and stoic Jackson, dressed up in a costume delivering lines to an audience. It was beyond impossible to conjure up in my mind.

"Anyways," Taylor snapped me from my thoughts as we neared the building at the top of the hill. "I noticed how you tried to diverge the conversation, but it didn't work, so you better give me a decent reason as to why you're not going with us tonight. You've been acting weird since the party!"

"I have not," I defended.

"You have, and you know it. You need a fun night out, and Ida has some friends going that she wants you to meet."