“It’s back on!” I shout to the room, which suddenly becomes silent as everyone turns to stare at the television screen.
“Do we really have to-” Harry starts to complain, but I cut him off with a quick “YES!” as Dermot’s voice welcomes us back to the show. I can see that Harry actually loves the attention; all of his closest friends gathered in his living room to watch his success at Simon’s house in Spain. Bliss.
He attempts to playfully push me off the arm of the chair that he’s sat on, but I whack him gently on the back of his head so he’ll shut up and let us watch.
Dermot is now telling us about the groups in Marbella. I remember Harry telling me all about it throughout these past two weeks since he had returned, breaking down in fits of laughter in the middle of a story.
The tale that Harry loves to tell, which I had now heard forty dozen times, was currently being broadcasted to The X Factor viewers.
A picture of Harry’s band mate Louis flashes on the screen. He’s waiting outside a hospital entrance, waiting for the verdict on his swollen foot. Another image flashes onto the screen, this time of Harry, Niall, Zayn and Liam perched on a wall looking miserable. Through the corner of my eye I can see Harry grinning at the memory, and I smile too, knowing the story already too well.
Once Dermot announces that One Direction have now been reunited and are ready for their performance, four of our friends, who have been sat on the edge of their seats, applaud them. Harry explodes with laughter and the four girls glare at him.
“He has a girlfriend, Beth, don’t get excited.” Harry tells the dark haired girl who had migrated from the edge of the couch and is now seated right in front of the telly, staring adoringly at Louis.
“Shh,” she tells him without looking around, “Don’t ruin this for me.”
Beth moves back to the couch when some other act appears on the screen, which is when our friend Jason decides to dance along with Princes And Rouges.
“Videooo killed the radioooo staarr” Jason is screeching, completely out of tune and out of time.
As he bobs up and down in the middle of the room more of the boys join in, including Harry, all shouting the words. Actually, they just shout the one line over and over again. They all dance like idiots, the rest of us sat back laughing our heads off.
Harry breaks apart from the rest of the idiots and pulls me up from behind the chair to dance too. Well, I say dance, I can’t actually dance at all. I hold Harry’s hands in mine and jump around in a circle, chanting the words.
The whole room is shaking as twenty teenagers skip around the room, attempting to dance and sing, like a bunch of hyper toddlers. It only stops when Beth stupidly screams,
“IT’S THEM.” Immediately, she realises how much of a desperate fan-girl she sounds like, and sank into the couch to glow crimson in embarrassment.
Again, Harry sits and laughs silently at himself and his new friends as they walk out onto the stone floor and have a quick chat with Simon.
All of this stuff, I already knew about. Harry had told me each and every detail of his trip to Marbella…except their performance.
“I want it to be a surprise.” He had smiled when I first asked him. He hasn’t even told me what song they sang! When he was preparing for his very first audition you could hear Isn’t she lovely drifting from his bedroom and down his street all day, every day, but he hasn’t said a peep to me, or any of our friends, about this song.
As a result, I’m on the verge of mimicking Beth and the other three. I’m nearly jumping through the roof in anticipation, waiting for them to start singing. I feel like throwing something at the television.
I can imagine myself pushing Harry off of his armchair and lifting the chair from the floor then throwing it at the screen. In my mind, it shatters into a billion little pieces, but the picture of them in Marbella is still there. The thought is growing on me.
I did say that I have no patience.
I snap back into the real world as the guitar starts to play. I recognise the song instantly: Torn.
Jason and the gang in the corner have already starting dancing a little, only not to the same extent as during Video killed the radio star. This time, they’re just swaying and clicking their fingers to the music.
I’m about to join in, but Harry’s band mate Liam starts singing and my whole body seems to stop. Well, that’s a lie; my heart is beating hard against my chest, trying to burst out of my body.
My eyes grow to the size of dinner plates, hungrily taking in the whole scene as Liam walks forward and continues to sing. His voice is so beautiful. He is so beautiful. I feel as if I’m melting under his gaze as his voice reaches me.
Actually, I think I am melting. I can feel my legs are no longer resting on the arm of the chair; they have somehow fallen to the floor with a low thud. Nobody seems to notice, because they’re all either staring at Liam or clicking their fingers and swaying.
I manage to draw my eyes away from Liam’s face and see Harry staring at me, so, as casually as I can, I settle myself down in my seat and flick my hair out of my eyes. He is smiling slightly and peering at me oddly, as if he’s trying to read my face. I smile at him, and when I look back at the screen Liam has finished singing, and now it’s Harry’s turn.
Harry’s voice is amazing in this song. It nearly makes me fall from the arm of the chair again, but I stop myself. I look at Harry now and his smile is wider than ever. It might just be because Jason and the gang are swaying more and cheering for him.
I lean over and wrap my arm around Harry’s shoulders resting my head on top of his dark curls and pulling him with me as I sway to his singing. I raise a hand above my head and move it from side to side to the music, just like the rest of the room has suddenly started doing.
When the song becomes a little faster, Jason is on his feet, jumping and dancing daftly. Again. This time, I have to pull Harry to his feet. Reluctantly, he dances with us. His face is bright red as his mum bounds into the room and starts dancing with Beth and the others.
Once the song has ended the whole house applauds Harry, and he bows to us. Like I said, he adores all of the attention.
“Thank you, thank you!” he says, raising his hands to make us all quieten down, “I’d just like to thank everyone for coming, and I’d also like to thank my band mates, who are elsewhere in the country getting plastered. Probably.” Jason cheers here, and we all laugh at him. Harry’s mum, who is stood in the doorway, scowls at him for a second but then smiles along with the rest of us.
Harry continues, “Oh, and I’d also like to thank a certain bunch of girls for not drooling all over the carpet when they saw my band mates.” He looks at the giggling foursome, Beth and her friends, and then he looks right at me, disapprovingly.
I stare back at Harry, he didn’t know what I was thinking did he? There’s no way he could know that the only images I can see in my head are of the beautiful Liam? That I was barley even paying attention to anything else after Liam was shown of the screen? That I blocked out every voice that wasn’t his when they sang?
Let’s hope not.
But then, in my mind, I can also see Harry’s face. It’s weird, I can see him shaking his head at me, as if he’s really shocked and also looks slightly upset by it. Then again, my mind is always playing tricks on me.
I help clean up the living room with Harry after everyone else leaves so I can confront him about it.
His mum has just gone upstairs and Harry is coming back in from the kitchen with another bin bag, so I use this as my cue, “Erm, Hazza? What was that thing about in your little speech, before?”
He doesn’t answer immediately; he slowly dots around the room first, picking up random bits of litter before answering, “What thing? The thank you for not drooling, thing?” he smiles, but doesn’t turn to look at me.
“It was just a…warning,” he continues, shrugging his shoulders.
“Warning? A warning for whom? About what?” I ask, completely clueless.
“Oh, the person it was meant for, knows.” He sighs.
I leave it at that, for today, hoping that he is talking about Beth and not me, his best friend. As I watch Harry, something is telling me that hope isn’t enough.