boys don't cry. [h.s]

thirteen

"Zayn!" Liv shouted, tapping him on the shoulder. "Ya wanna do this now then?"

"Sure," Zayn replied. "You want to, Issy?"

"You don't have to if you don't want to," a raspy voice chimed in desperately, and everyone turned to face Harry, who was staring down at her with such a serious expression that Isabel almost laughed at the contrast of his hard gaze to his cat whiskers.

He took the fact that she paused as a good sign, stepping towards her.

"Listen, I really need to speak to you, Isabel," he said. And then, even though she didn't want to take anything, she stepped towards Zayn because if she stayed put Harry would start speaking to her when she wasn't sure she ever wanted to speak to him again. Harry's eyes widened and he looked away, swallowing and puckering his eyebrows.

"You sure you don't want to, H? We bought spare if you want," Liv asked.

"No!" Harry snapped, and he pushed past them furiously, making his way into the throng of bodies. Caitlin hurried after him, Niall following too, leaving Isabel alone with Zayn and Liv in the corner.

"What?" Liv said with a shrug when Zayn glared at her. "I knew he'd say no."

Zayn rolled his eyes, fumbling around in his pocket and getting out a small tin from which he withdrew little balls of what looked like paper.

"I pre-rolled," he said to Liv, who nodded in appreciation.

"What is it?" Isabel asked Liv.

"MDMA," she said. "It's wrapped up in there. You just swallow it."

"I'm not doing it," Isabel said quickly. "I just wanted to know. "

Louis never really did the stuff he sold apart from weed, and she always stayed clear from people taking anything especially strong at parties. The state she'd seen her brother in a few times when he was a teenager, stumbling home with vomit in his hair and a misplaced phone and a wallet £50 lighter, was an image branded sharply into memory that couldn't be shaken lightly.

"I'm gonna go find Niall," Isabel said, squeezing Zayn on the arm and slipping off.

She found him almost immediately, crouched in the corner on the other side of the room mixing together a variety of drinks like a crazed alchemist. He grinned up at her and shoved a dangerous looking cocktail into her hand.

"I'm gonna get you so pissed," Niall said, pointing at her and looking stern. "You've never been drunk if you haven't done it the Horan way."

~~~

Niall, true to his word, knew exactly how to get people smashed. He got her perfectly drunk, the kind where Isabel just felt pure unadulterated happiness creeping through her, crawling through her veins, into her skin, around her bursting heart. The music felt so loud, like it was in tune with the nerves in her brain and the beating in her chest. She and Niall danced wildly, ran around like children, kept a steady flow of drinks going and spoke to anyone they could, babbling excitedly even though Isabel had no idea who anyone was.

That was how she met Brady. She'd never met him before, obviously, but when she went over to say hello she found that he managed to keep her there for quite a while. He was funny and charming, with sandy blond hair that was slicked back and freckles on his nose and cheeks, and he was dressed up as Hansel - though he didn't have a Gretel, apparently.

It was fine for a while, all light and cheerful, his eyes scanning over her legs every now and then in a semi-uncomfortable, unwanted way, but Isabel supposed she quite liked feeling wanted, really. But then he asked her if she had a boyfriend and she felt for a second the overwhelming happiness slip, her mouth going dry. She just shook her head, and he smiled and squeezed her arm.