Bring It Back

like they have any right at all to criticize

Harry Styles Gets Into Bar Fight - CLICK FOR VIDEO
october 21st, 2016

There are a few things that Norah Winters never thought would ever happen to her–being good at sports. Running laps without collapsing from shortness of breath. Cooking something without managing to burn it. And, perhaps the most brutally obvious thing on her list, getting the number of a former member of One Direction. Except for the fact that now it has somehow managed to happen.

The two of them had been sitting outside of the Public Speaking building, eating their lunches–Harry didn't like sitting in the dining hall (he doesn't tell her why, but he doesn't need to, she already knows) and all of her other friends have class–when he glanced over at her and said abruptly, "Hey, you should give me your number."

Norah had been so taken aback that she almost dropped her sandwich on the grass (which, now that she thinks about it, might have been the better option, because it had tasted like plastic). When she realized that he was serious, though, she nodded her head quickly and dug her phone out of her pocket. "Um, sure," she told him, her voice sounding unnaturally high pitched. She hoped that he hadn't been able to notice.

Once he had collected her number, Harry had paused for a long time before finally suggesting, "We should, uh, hang out sometime. I'll text you."

The last time he had asked her to hang out with him, Norah had been completely certain that he was only doing it as a test, to see if she genuinely wanted to be friends with him or if she was only trying to get in with a famous person. But this time, she was beginning to realize that perhaps Harry did actually want to hang out with her, and not just when they were confined in the waiting room of their therapy office or in the Public Speaking classroom.

"That sounds like a lot of fun," she had said a moment later, and she watched as his lips stretched into a pleased smile almost immediately after. "I'll, uh, text you back."

He had snorted at her, which led her to flick a crumb of her sandwich at him. He had informed her that that was the lame man's version of a food fight, but all Norah did was smile to herself, wondering why the tugging in her chest had returned all of a sudden–and not only that, but it had intensified.

Norah is thinking back on this moment now when all of a sudden, her phone buzzes, telling her that she has received a text message. For some reason, her heart speeds up when she sees Harry's name lit up on the screen, and she quickly unlocks her phone so that she can read what he has said.

hiiiii. are you on campus? x

Is the x supposed to mean something, or does he just end all of his text messages like that? Norah has no idea. Aside from Lucas, she doesn't really hang out with any other guys, and Lucas barely even believes in texting. And when he does, he keeps it short and blunt–just like himself.

aren't i always? Norah types back, her eyes trained on the screen as she tries to ignore the way her heart has still not managed to quit racing. What is wrong with her? are you?

She realizes a second too late that she probably should have waited a little bit longer before firing off a response. Now he's probably going to think that she was just sitting around waiting for his text message to come, that she has no life at all. He probably won't even respo–

yeahh. you wanna meet up?

Maybe he's the one who is hanging around his phone waiting for an answer. Norah almost snorts out loud at the image she has conjured in her head, one where Harry is staring fixedly at his phone, his face lighting up the same way hers does whenever he receives a text from her. Yeah, in her dreams.