3. Sometimes You Just Need a Celebrity to Lean on.
The doors swung open.
The screams were deafening.
My eyes didn’t know where to look first. Before I knew it, we were cast outside into the direct view of hundreds of teenage girls. When they saw us, the pitch of their screams grew louder.
“Harry!” “Harry, I love you!” “Harry, come over here please!” “Harry are you okay?!”
“Harry!”
“Harry!”
“Harry!”
The flash of cameras blinded me and I instinctively raised my arm to shield my eyes. We were cushioned on both sides by heavy-weight policemen, but even that didn’t seem to be enough, as the crowd flooded forward to test the barricades. Because of how the barriers were placed, the van hadn’t been able to park directly outside the entrance.
We were pushed down the pathway, buried inside a circle of policemen, while the rest did their best to control the crowd. Never in a million years had I seen anything like this. In my mind, I’d acknowledged that celebrities were trailed by fans constantly, but nothing I’d ever imagined could compete with the scale of hysteria that I was facing now.
They screamed the name ‘HARRY’ over and over again, until the word lost all meaning. As we made our way down the path hastily, the name ‘Harry’ became a plea. They were begging him to turn around, their shouts getting more and more insistent - their words morphing together into a cacophony of dull roars and wailing.
I clenched my eyes shut, but that just made the noise appear louder.
Harry’s face was a tight grimace as he stared ahead stonily, breaking his gaze once or twice to glance at our feet as we battled through the crowd, jostled left and right roughly.
I forced myself to do the same, focusing steadily on the van in front of us. I tried my best to balance on my uninjured leg, so that I wouldn’t fall over and send everybody around us tumbling down like dominoes. Even with the circle of policemen protecting us, Harry could see that I was struggling.
He wrapped my arm around his shoulders and pulled me closer against his side, forcing me to lean my weight on his body as we ambled down the path.
I immediately disliked being so dependent on someone, but the few steps without his help at the beginning had been torture and I’d nearly tripped us both to the ground on more than one occasion. My eyes traced the outline of the ship tattoo on his left arm, taking in the other etchings on his forearm to distract myself.
“Harry! Harry, please!”
Hands reached out, phones shoved forward, every person in the crowd pleading.
It was madness.
We paused a few metres from the van doors, allowing policemen to zip past us and into the driver’s seat. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the heavy weight of an Iphone whizzed past my right ear, narrowly missing the open wound on my head. I twisted around in a daze. Someone had been so desperate to get Harry’s attention that they’d thrown their phone right at us.
Harry’s eyes were livid as he turned to face the crowd, his eyes darted back and forth.
“Hey!” He growled, “Whoever did that - ”
I missed the last part of his warning as a wave of claustrophobia washed over me. It was too loud, everything was too close.
Noticing the panic on my face, Harry pulled me closer to his side and leaned in so that I could hear him above the screams.
“What’s your favourite fruit, angel?”
His voice was husky and warm in my ear. I didn’t answer him for a moment, surprised, as I met his questioning gaze.
He was trying to distract me.
An image of my dad popped into my head. He’d done the same thing – distracted me with random questions to take my mind off of whatever I was focused on; whether it was pain, or simply a question that he hadn’t wanted to answer.
The smell of grease and sweat swamped my senses at the memory of sparring with my dad in our garage... that time that he’d been forced to push my dislocated shoulder back into its socket. He’d asked me what my favourite flavour of ice-cream was.
“...Chocolate.” I murmured, as we were pushed into the van.
I collapsed against the car seat in relief and the sliding doors slammed shut behind us. I heard Harry let out a breath. My eyes drifted shut in exhaustion.
“Chocolate’s not a fruit.” He replied gently, scanning me with an unreadable expression on his face.
I was silent for a moment. “It’s my favourite flavour of ice-cream.” I answered hesitantly, fixing my gaze outside the window at the buildings that rolled by.
Even now, the thought of my dad still stung... the thought of my dad, the thought of hospitals, but most of all, the thought of all the things we’d left unfinished.
My eyes focused on the looming building of the grocery store and the arched entryway of the park as we drove past. I shook off any residual feelings. We were being driven to St Johns, I was sure of it. It was the nearest hospital to the park. A piece of information I wish I hadn’t known.
The flat that Ellie and I shared was ten minutes away at most. With any luck, I could call her before we arrived and… what? My mind drew a blank as I realised that escape from a moving van was decidedly more unlikely than I'd realised.
Sirens wailed in the distance and I became aware of the fact that our van was being followed by a string of police cars. Right now, Harry and I looked more protected than the Queen would have been if she were taking a casual drive down the streets, with an army on her tail.
There was also one other problem. I didn’t have a cellphone on me. I slapped myself mentally. I hadn’t thought I'd needed it.
I turned reluctantly to Harry. He looked tired, but he still looked good. How was that possible? His hair lay windswept around his face and his clothes looked dishevelled. Another tattoo peeked out from his chest, what looked like the tips of wings or birds. The elaborate inked etchings stood out against his tan skin. Even though there were only two of us sitting in the back seat, Harry's presence took up most of it.
I watched the muscles in his left shoulder shift under his shirt and the way his throat corded when he swallowed. A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched. He was tense. Tense and tired. After seeing what he had to go through every day, I couldn’t imagine that feeling ever going away.
He turned to me and rubbed both eyes with his fists, tiredly, as if he were still five years old and cleared his throat. I was about to interrupt him, but hesitated.
God, his eyes were green.
“Uh, I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse and broke off my train of thought. He held out a hand to shake mine, snapping quickly into ‘polite celebrity’ mode. A mask of formality slammed down between us.
“We haven’t even been properly introduced yet, have we, angel?” He let his head drop back down lazily to his headrest. “Although ‘angel’ kind of has a nice ring to it. I’m Harry. Harry Styles.”
He volunteered the ‘Styles’ part cautiously. Almost as if he were afraid that revealing his last name would flip a ‘crazy’ switch inside of me - transforming me into a fan that hid beneath his bed, or collected his used yoghurt containers or something.
“Ava. Ava Price.” I shot him a teasing smile, mocking his serious tone. It mirrored the one in James Bond films. “So, now that we’ve been properly introduced, you can stop calling me angel.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Cheeky thing, aren't you? It’s great to meet you, Ava Price. Do you usually have a habit of being in the right place at the right time?”
“You mean getting caught in the middle of bank robberies, before being tackled by armed gunmen?" I sighed. "Yeah, life’s been a real treat that way.”
He let out a burst of laughter, and I felt a moment of pleasure at knowing that I’d made him laugh.
“Actually, I was thinking more about appearing out of nowhere and saving the world. One bank robbery at a time.”
I felt my cheeks heat up at the change of tone in his voice. His gaze was unwavering as he stared at me, a small, amused smile playing at his lips.
“We’ll never be able to thank you enough, by the way.”
I wasn’t good with random displays of affection, gratitude, or anything else for that matter. Especially when they were coming from international celebrities with green eyes that felt like they could stare into your soul.
I wanted so desperately to remain composed, to squash the blush rising to my cheeks; but he was making it hard and judging by the way laughter shone in his eyes, the bastard knew it.
My eyes darted back towards the window. We'd just passed the train station. We were almost at the hospital. I swallowed down my panic and cleared my throat.
“Is there any chance that I could borrow your phone? I don’t have mine on me and I should probably let my roommate know what’s going on.”
Harry nodded. He reached into his jacket, and then paused.
“You know what….” He slid his phone back into his pocket and glanced at me suspiciously. “We’re about five minutes from the hospital. You can make the call then.”
My jaw dropped open. He’d figured it out. I let out a silent string of curses. He knew that I was trying to get rid of him.
“Oh, you don’t know my roommate.” I continued cautiously. “She gets really worried. She’ll want to know where I am right away.”
“Well, there’s not much she can do until we get there, angel.” That cocky smirk of his appeared again. “And even then, she’ll have to wait for you to get some stitches. You can let her know as soon as we arrive.”
A dimple marked his left cheek as he grinned at me triumphantly.
Enough was enough. What the hell did he think he was doing?
“I’m not going to the hospital.” I blurted out adamantly, narrowing my eyes at him.
Confusion darted across his face.
“Yes, you are.” He growled. “You’ve got a concussion, open wounds, a sprained ankle and god knows what else.”
I ran my fingers across my neck gently in surprise. He was right. There was a shallow cut there, courtesy of Eddie’s knife, that had already begun to scab over. It wasn’t anything worse than a paper cut.
“I don’t go to hospitals.” I insisted. “Most of my injuries are superficial, I’ve been through a lot worse before and everything’s healed up just fine!”
“Oh, that’s just perfect.” Harry shot back dryly. “Now I’ll have to have your whole body checked, just in case you’ve blown your arm off a week ago and had it stapled back without proper help.”
We glared at each other silently. He was staring at me like I was a child that refused to eat my vegetables.
Familiar buildings rolled past as we got closer and closer to the hospital and I felt fear wash over me waves. I took deep breaths, pushing myself harder into the car seat. It felt like my insides were caving in.
“Ava? What’s wrong?” Harry frowned, his frustration evaporating.
The van entered the roundabout leading to the hospital’s entrance.
“I can’t go into the hospital.” I whispered. “Please.”
I concentrated my gaze intently on a spot in the car so that I didn’t have to look outside.
Harry’s forehead creased with concern, his stare burning into mine. He dragged a hand down his face and looked as though he were about to say something - but instead, he reached into his pocket and handed me his phone.
Ellie answered on the first ring, her voice panicked. “Ava!?”
“Elle.” I croaked. “I’m at the hospital. St Johns.”
She was silent on the other end.
We’d been friends long before my dad had died. She knew how I felt about hospitals.
“Don’t move.” She answered. I heard the jangle of keys in the background.
“I’ll be there in five.”
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A/N: The little video on the side is what inspired Ava's first encounter with the fans. I know the boys get mobbed all the time, but I don't think I truly understood the craziness of it all until I watched that video. It's absolutely insane...
As usual, Vote, Comment, Follow, if you're feelin it - it lets me know I'm writing for more than one person.
- Freya xx
Chapter 4 includes: ELLIE, A GARDEN AND ONE DIRECTION.