*Charli POV*
Georgia had wandered into my room, sitting herself at the foot of the bed watching while Harry and I recited lines from Friends to each other.
It feels good to laugh. When I'm laughing, I'm able to escape reality and the torture of the real world. I'm able to block out the fact that I just had my heart broken. I'm able to be the me I was before all hell broke loose.
I looked over at my sister, whose expression read something between humour and complete confusion.
"Uh, I'm just going to go..." she mumbled as she stood up from the bed. "You two... have fun."
Harry and I looked at each other before erupting into laughter.
"You two are so weird," Georgia rolled her eyes at us. "Char, can we talk for a minute?"
"She just doesn't understand us," I sighed, standing up and following her to the door. "No one does."
I heard him laugh as the door shut. I quickly followed her into her room and sat down on her bed.
"What's up?" I smiled.
"How are you? You know, with..."
"I'm doing good, actually."
"It seems that way," she smiled. "I know it's tough, I can vouch for you in that aspect. But I know that it gets better. Honestly, as sad as I was when Hunter and I broke up, I wouldn't have came back home and gotten to see you."
"Or meet Niall," I winked, making her instantly blush.
"Char..."
"Speaking of Niall... When did you get home?" I asked, curious about what her answer would be. "You obviously hung out with him last night, yeah?"
Her cheeks went red, and she looked down. "Like an hour ago?"
"Georgia, you dog!"
"Relax. Nothing happened!"
"Why do you feel the need to tell me nothing happened? Obviously something did happen, because you wouldn't say so otherwise."
She sighed and looked up at me.
"Well, not between us anyways..."
"What do you mean? What happened?"
"Well, after I saw Harry run out of the club last night, I went back inside. I sat back down at the booth with two girls who I now know I can never be friends with."
"Okay...?"
"We sat in an awkward silence, and I couldn't help but glare at the blonde. The rest of the guys came back over and sat down, including him. He sat next to her with an arm around her shoulders," she spoke lowly, and I could see the anger radiating off her features. "That's when I lost it."
"Georgia, what did you do?"
"I called him out in front of everyone. I called him on the fact that he's a lying scumbag, and he never deserved you. He only looked back at me with a smug look on his face. I wanted to jump across the table and strangle him.
"Niall leaned into me and whispered in my ear, telling me to not to do anything too crazy. He didn't want to see me get kicked out. I couldn't help but smile at how he cared," she brought her bottom lip in between her teeth to cover the smile that was appearing.
It makes me happy knowing that she's happy. I've never seen her in this state before, and I'm glad she's not alone.
"Something tells me that's not all..."
"Not even close. So I looked back at the douche, and he just sat there, not speaking. I wanted to yell at him, scream at him, and just do something. No one else said anything, and they all just sat awkwardly at the table. So I took the reigns first.
"I told them I was sorry, but I couldn't just sit there with this elephant in the room not being brought up. I said I had to go, because you're my baby sister and I respect you too much to stay there in their presence while they cuddled and shit. It wasn't right. It made me want to vomit. So I got up to leave."
"Oh God."
"Relax. I'm not done. I stood to leave, and surprisingly so did Niall, Liam and Louis."
"What!?" I shout, making her jump.
The only people that stayed with him, was the blonde and Eleanor."
"Louis left Eleanor there?"
"Yeah," she nodded, looking completely serious. "After the four of us left, we went back to Niall's place. She wouldn't stop calling him, so finally after about the thirtieth call he answered. I could hear her shouting on the other end, as he stood there and listened."
"Uh oh."
"He kept rolling her eyes every time she would speak. When her shouting finally stopped, he lost it on her. Not like in a yelling way, he just flipped," she took in a deep breath and sighed.
"What did he say?"
"He started going on about how he never liked her friend, who he'd never met. She would apparently tell stories about the two of them doing wild things, and he didn't like how she would go missing for weeks at a time, only to turn out to be hanging out with her."
"Wow."
"I know, right? Apparently this just solidified the fact that he didn't want to be with her anymore, so he broke up with her."
"No he didn't."
"He did. He said he cares too much about you to let you be hurt that badly."
"Why would he do that though?"
She shrugged and looked around the room, "I guess he was fed up with her behavior, even though they've been together for so long."
"I need to tell Harry this."
"Speaking of Harry... what's going on with you two?"
"Nothing, why?" I gave her a puzzling look.
Why would she think something's going on between us? He's my best friend, and I only broke up with my boyfriend a couple of days ago.
She shrugged, "I don't know many guys who would do that for just a friend."
"Well, I can assure you that nothing is happening between us. Why would you even think that?" I defended myself.
"Charli, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it sound as if there was something bad going on between you. That wasn't my intention. I'm just... curious, you could call it."
"But why? You realize I just broke up with Zayn two days ago, yeah?"
"I know. I just- Has Harry ever... tried anything with you?"
"God no, Georgia. What would make you think that?"
"Well, when we left last night, Louis was wondering where Harry ran off to. So I told him you two left earlier. He started smirking and mumbling stuff to himself."
"Mumbling what?"
"I don't know, he wasn't loud enough. But he let one thing accidentally slip, which is what makes me wonder."
"What did he say?" I looked up, and she stayed silent, averting the gaze I had on her. "Georgia..."
"He let it slip that Harry has feelings for you. I just worried if he had taken advantage of your vulnerable state, and made a move-"
"No he didn't. But what are you talking about. Of course Harry doesn't like me, we're best friends. That would just be weird."
"Charli..."
"Georgia, he's got to be wrong," I sighed.
"Remember when you came and picked me up from the airport a few days ago?" she questioned, and I nodded.
I can't believe that was only a few days ago. It feels like ages ago that I went to pick her up, and he hasn't even been a week. I can't believe what's happened in the days since I picked her up.
One week ago, I had a boyfriend, my sister lived halfway across the world, and my life was as good as it could have gotten at that point.
Now, I'm single, my sister is back in town, and I'm slowly trying to get myself back to a state where I don't wake up in tears after dreaming about the past three years.
"Charli?" her fingers snapped in front of my face, pulling me out of my trance. "Did you hear what I said?"
"No, sorry."
"I was just talking about how when you picked me up. How I had thought you and Harry were dating."
"That's preposterous. I never understood why you thought we were dating."
"Because of the way he looked at you. It was clearly more than just a friendly glance," she shrugged and looked down. "Have you ever thought about the fact that he may have feelings for you?"
"No. I can honestly say I haven't. There's never been anything like that between Harry and I."
"Last night when Louis had admitted that, it was like I found the final puzzle piece and everything just clicked. I realized that what he was saying was one hundred percent true."
"No way," I groaned, standing up from the bed. "He doesn't like me."
"He does, baby sis; and it's more than just liking you."
"Stop," I held my hand up. "Please, just stop. Harry doesn't like me, end of discussion. Now, I'm going to go back to bed if that's okay with you."
I stood up from the bed and walked out the door, not looking behind to see if she was following.
I ran into my room and flipped the blanket from over him, and laid myself down on top of him, tucking my head into his neck. He groaned slightly, but almost instantly he brought the blanket back over us, and his arms wrapped around me, softly humming in approval.
"You won't believe what she just told me."
"What did she have to say?"
"She said that last night after we left, everyone came and sat down at the table. I guess she yelled at Zayn and his new slut, calling them out on how bad they were. She apparently couldn't deal with the fact she with sitting so casually with them, so she got up and left."
"Oh!" he sounded shocked. "Was she the blonde girl with them? I glanced as I ran by because I wasn't sure if it was you, if you had decided to come back in."
"Yeah that was her," I sighed. "But get this. When Georgia left, Niall, Liam and Louis left with her too."
"What!?"
I simply nodded, "The four left them to go to Niall's house."
"Lou just left El there? What would make him do that?"
"I'm going with the reason he left, was that he didn't like the fact Eleanor invited her. She said they're childhood best friends. Kind of like you and Louis."
"Except neither of us are going to be put in the same predicament as she was. She had to have known about you the girl and Zayn."
"Harry, I really don't think she knew. I honestly believe that Eleanor had no suspicion of them," I said truthfully. "But the crazier news about last night, is that when they got to Niall's, El wouldn't stop calling Louis, so when he finally answered the call, he broke up with her. Something along the lines of not believing that she could let that happen to a friend."
"No fucking way!" he shouts, causing me to burst out in laughter.
"Harry, keep it down. You don't want someone barging in here do you?"
"It doesn't really matter, actually," he laughed.
We lay silently for a while before Harry spoke, "Char?"
"Yeah?"
"Wanna go do something fun like old times?"
"What do you mean?"
"Remember when one of us felt down, we'd go to somewhere fun? We should do that. We should go somewhere instead of sitting inside all day."
"What do you have in mind?" I asked, quite curious as to what he was getting at.
"I have somewhere in mine. We haven't been there in a long time."
"Harry..."
He laughed, "I'm not going to let you say no. Now get up and go get dressed, because I can't do anything until you move off of me."
"Maybe I'll stay like this all day then?" I sucked in my bottom lip, biting nervously on it.
"Charli, please. I have no problem doing this, but it'd be nice to go out for a bit."
"We went out last night."
"That doesn't count, and you know that."
I laughed, and he pushed me off of him. "Oh would you look at that? I'm free. Guess you'll have to get up now."
"Whatever," I groaned.
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom and change-"
I jumped off the bed and ran towards the bathroom, "I haven't had a shower in a couple of days. I call it first!"
I quickly shut the door, locking it before Harry could barge in after me. After stripping myself down to nothing, I hopped into the shower.
I stood under the stream of water, letting it run over me, my hair drooping onto my face.
After what was probably only a couple minutes but seemed like 15, I quickly shampooed and conditioned my hair. Once my hair was rinsed, I ran a razor quickly over my underarms and legs, and got out, wrapping one towel around my body and a second around my hair.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror for the first time since Friday afternoon, since before my life became a nightmare. My eyes were a dull shade of grey, and my skin looked pale. How embarrassing.
I went to grab for my clothes, and completely realized I hadn't grabbed anything to change into before running in here.
I unlocked the door and pried it open a crack. "Harry, are you decent? I need to grab clothes, I completely forgot."
"Yeah, honestly I haven't even gotten out of bed yet," his laughter filled the room, and I rolled my eyes as I opened the door and sprinted to my closet.
I stepped in and shut the door. I pulled out a pair of black underwear and a black bra, quickly pulling them on.
I looked around the closet, and decided on a pair of ripped jeans, and blue floral tank top. I slipped on a pair of flip-flops before picking up the towel and heading back out to the bathroom to hang it up.
The door was locked, so I knocked. No response came, and I turned to the bed to see Harry wasn't in it anymore.
I sighed and went out to the balcony, hanging the towel over the railing. I took the towel out of my hair and hung it up next to the other one.
Sitting down on one of the chairs, I relaxed back into it, closing my eyes and taking in the heat of the summer sun.
I'm not quite sure how long I stood here for, before I was interrupted by someone sitting on top of me. My eyes opened to see the back of a head of wet messy curls.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
"We have to get going, it takes a bit to get there."
"Harry, where are we going?" I groaned as he shifted on my lap. "And can you please stop? Your bony ass is digging into my legs."
He laughed before standing up, reaching his hand out for me to take. "Let's get going."
I nodded and stood up, walking back into my room, closing the balcony doors. I picked up my purse, as well as my phone and followed him downstairs.
"Love, I recommend you wear comfortable shoes. Flip-flops won't work well with where we're going."
"What? Where the hell are you even taking me?" I groaned, kicking them off at the front door. I grabbed a pair of trainers and slipped them on.
"Charli?" I turned around to see Gram and Gramps standing at the kitchen entrance. "Where are you two off to?"
"I'm taking her for a drive to get her mind off things. I hope that's okay?" Harry asked, smiling his usual dimpled grin at her.
"Of course dear, let me grab you some snacks or something."
"That won't be necessary," he spoke. "But maybe just a couple bottles of water?"
She smiled and walked back into the kitchen, emerging quickly with a grocery sack with bottles in it. "Here you are. You two have fun now."
"We will!" he cheered, taking the bag from Gram and pulling me out the front door. "Get in!"
"Where are we going?" I asked as I buckled myself in.
"You'll see. It was one of our favourite places to go."
"Harry, that was pretty much every place we discovered."
"I know."
—
This drive is taking forever, and I still have no clue where we're heading. I begged him to tell me, and his lips stayed shut. He ended up turning up the radio in order to block out my constant questioning.
"We've been driving for almost two hours, Harry. Why won't you just tell me where we're going?"
"Because we're almost there, and I want it to be a surprise."
I huff to myself and turn to look out the window. I caught a sign as we passed by, stating that we were in Amesbury.
"Harry, what the hell are we doing out in Amesbury? You're not taking me somewhere to murder me, are you?"
"What the hell? Why would I do that?" he practically shouts. "If I wanted to kill you, I had many times to do it in the last few years, Charli."
"How comforting."
"But to answer your question, no. I'm not going to be killing you. You seriously don't know where we are?" he asked. Genuine confusion laced in his tone.
"No, Harold. I do not know where we are."
"Just wait, it'll only be a couple more minutes until we arrive."
I huffed and looked out the front window, watching as cars passed by.
"There," Harry said, pointing out the window. "That's where we're going."
I followed his finger, seeing one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
"Harry, I don't fucking believe you. Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously. I didn't drive two hours just to pass by it and turn around, Charli."
"Well, speed up mister. We need to get there faster. Do you know how long it's been since I've been here?
"No. Should I?" he asked, turning right at the next street.
"Last time I came here was with you. Like two years ago for my birthday."
"Really? That's surprising, because that's the last time I came here too."
I grinned to myself, taking in the view around me. I couldn't believe that he brought me here.
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Authors Note:
Where do you think he's taken her? I have it all planned out, and I'm so excited for it!
I'm also unable to stop writing. So that's why these chapters are becoming longer and longer. They're minimum now 2500 words, which is crazy. I could barely get 2000 words out for a chapter, and now I have to split them up because they're becoming too long!
I'm ten chapters ahead in this story, and I'm freaking addicted. I've been able to bang out one chapter a day for the past week, and I can't stop.
I also want to say hi to the new readers! I've noticed an increase in reads, and I want to thank you for taking time to read this!
Shout out to all the readers from the Philippines! You're my #1 readers! ☺️ 🇵🇭
Also, what do you think of the new cover!? 👌🏼
As always... please comment and vote! ❤️