I wake up the next morning in just my underwear. What? Why didn't I put pajamas on? My head is killing me. I should not have gone to the club last night. I don't remember anything after talking to Kyle, but it's obvious I got pretty drunk. I am never doing that again.
I stretch out my legs and jump when my foot touches someone. I look over and gasp when I see Harry Styles asleep next to me in nothing but boxers. Oh my god, did I sleep with Harry? This is not good. Oh geez. What am I going to tell Niall?
"HARRY!" I practically scream, hitting him with a pillow.
"What the hell was that for?" he asks, annoyed. He sits up and gives me a weird look when he sees my horror-filled expression.
"Why the hell are you asleep in my bed, mostly naked? That's the bigger question!" I say angrily.
"Do you not remember last night? Were you really that drunk?"
"I remember nothing after I was at the bar talking to the bartender. What happened last night? Tell me exactly what happened," I demand.
"Well, you were getting crazy at the club, so I brought you home and took you to your room. I was about to call a taxi and leave, but then you grabbed my wrist and asked me not to go. You unbuttoned my shirt and took it off of me. I told you that you should stop and that we shouldn't do that, but you kissed me. I tried to get away at first, but you were good," he says with a smirk.
"AND?"
"And so I let you kiss me and I kissed you back. You pulled me onto the bed and we mostly stripped, as you can see," he says, eyeing my body. I snatch the covers from him and cover myself. "I would have fucked you, but you wouldn't let me. So don't worry about that."
"Oh thank god! But how am I going to tell Niall?" I panic.
"Do you want me to tell him?" Harry asks. I shake my head.
"He needs to hear it from me."
"Whatever you say, Elissa. I'm gonna get out of here. Good luck with Niall," Harry says, putting his clothes back on and leaving without another word. I cannot believe that this just happened. Did I seriously just cheat on the man I've been in love with for six years? Oh geez. I'll have to tell Niall tonight when we Skype.
When I hear the front door open and close I get out of bed and put on some clothes. I go and get myself breakfast and text my boss and tell him I'm going to be late. After breakfast I take some aspirin for my headache and do my hair and makeup.
When I get to work my boss asks me what happened. He knows about Ella, so I tell him that I needed to get out, so I went to a club and got a little too drunk. He just sighs and tells me to go start working, and I manage to avoid talking to people the rest of the day.
That night when I'm getting my pajamas on, I'm thinking about what I did. How could I cheat on Niall? He's going to hate me so much. I couldn't live on knowing he couldn't forgive me, but if he does forgive me I'll still feel absolutely awful.
Right as tears start streaming down my face, Niall Skype calls me.
"Elissa, what's wrong?" he asks, worried, as soon as I answer the call. I let out a sob, not being able to admit my wrong.
"I messed up, Niall. I messed up bad," I say shakily. I tell him what happened, and he listens, silent. When I'm done confessing there's a minute of silence.
"Elissa, I forgive you. Harry called me and told me what happened earlier. You weren't yourself, and I should have been there for you. You're not okay right now because of what happened to Ella, and I wish so badly that I could be there with you. You just needed someone, and the someone that was there for you just wasn't me," Niall says softly.
"You're not mad?" I ask, amazed. Niall shakes his head.
"I'm a little disappointed, but I'm not mad. I probably would have been mad if you guys had actually had sex, but you didn't, so I'm really not mad about it."
"Are you sure?" I ask, not convinced. He nods again, but his eyes look sad. Disappointed. He's disappointed. That's almost worse than angry. I failed him, and I feel awful.
"I'll be there in a couple days and we can talk about it then, okay? I'm not mad, I promise," he assures me. I can't bring myself to talk to him much more, so after a minute of awkward small talk, we say goodbye and I close Skype.
I can't believe he dropped that on me. Disappointed. I'm not going to get over this. And I can't believe Harry told him! I told him not to! He's going to get smacked when I see him next. That boy has nerve.
I decide to call Lindsey to tell her what happened, but right as I pick up my phone to call her, she calls me.
"I was just about to call you," I say when I answer.
"Why the heck was Harry at our house?" she asks. I can't tell if she's just asking or if she's angry.
"How did you know? That's what I was going to call you about," I say slowly.
"I found an article online about how you and Harry left a club together last night and he was seen leaving the house this morning. What the heck happened?" she demands. I sigh and tell her the story.
"Elissa, everyone thinks you cheated on Niall with Harry. Harry hasn't said anything about it, and you need to soon. Damage control needs to be done. You can't just ignore this," Lindsey says sternly. But even if I do deny what happened, will Harry? He obviously didn't care about keeping it a secret, or he wouldn't have told Niall, but would he tell the public?
Lindsey and I talk for a few more minutes, and then we say goodnight. I need to call Harry in the morning and make sure he will deny the rumors with me. It probably looks worse on him than it does on me, since I was drunk and he wasn't. He could've stopped it and left my house. I know this sounds awful, but at least he already has a reputation.
I lie in bed for a while, trying to sleep, but I can't stop thinking about Harry. I'm so mad at him! After a while I can't take it anymore, so I call him.
"It's almost midnight, what do you want?" Harry asks, sounding a little annoyed.
"I cannot believe you told Niall!" I say angrily. I hear Harry sigh.
"Elissa, he deserved to know. I knew if I told him, he would be more angry with me than he would be at you. It gave him time to prepare for hearing it from you. You should be thanking me," he says. He sounds so cocky. That bastard.
"You shouldn't have told him. It was my job. Anyway, damage control needs to happen. You have to deny the cheating rumors, okay?"
"Elissa, I was planning on that already. I don't want your reputation to be ruined, and I don't want mine even worse than it is. Could you imagine the headlines if you cheated on Niall with one of his best friends? The press would go crazy. I have a radio interview tomorrow and they'll probably ask me about it. I'll deny everything, I promise."
"Swear on it," I demand.
"I swear on the success of One Direction that I will deny any rumors of us. I'll just say that you were drunk and can't be left alone when you're intoxicated. Maybe I'll throw in that Niall asked me to check up on you or something," he says. If he's swearing on his own success, I guess I'll have to accept it.
"Okay. Thank you so much Harry. Let's just not mention this ever again, okay?"
"Deal," he says. We say goodbye and I throw my phone on my nightstand. Now that the burden of being angry at Harry is gone, I don't have any trouble falling asleep.
The next two days are spent in the same way. I get up and go to work in the morning, then I come home, eat dinner, and hang out online for a couple hours before I get in bed. I spend many hours surfing Tumblr and Twitter, not knowing what else to do. I even search the "Nissa" tag on Tumblr, curious as to what people thought of me and Niall.
There's quite a few posts about us. Most are good, but a few are really downgrading and offensive. There's this really long post about how crappy of a couple me and Niall are and how I don't deserve to be with someone as amazing as Niall. I find comfort in the fact that a lot of comments on the post are smashing that person and supporting me and Niall, but it still makes me feel really bad.
The next day is when I have to go pick up Niall at the airport. His flight gets in at eleven, so we're going out to lunch before we come back here. As much as I want to wear sweats and a t-shirt, I don't want to show up at the airport in front of a bunch of paparazzi if I'm going to look like crap. Especially with the whole thing about Harry.
I listened to and watched a couple interviews with Harry from the last couple days, and he did a good job of denying the rumors, but a lot of people still don't believe him. I think I'm going to have to come out and say something. I've always been portrayed as the sweet little singer who would never do anything like that, so it will be more believable coming from me.
When I get to the airport I make sure that my clothes and hair and makeup look absolutely perfect. If the paps are going to attack, I want to look good. And I want to look good for Niall, but he really doesn't care what I look like. Oh well...
While I'm waiting for Niall to show up, there are a few fans and paps talking to me. I calmly deny all cheating accusations, and all the fans are like 'oh my god thank goodness I would've died if you had cheated on Niall.' Those crazies... The paps take a little more convincing than the fans, but after a bit it's clear to them that I'm not confirming anything they're accusing me of.
When Niall finally shows, we hurry out to my car, wanting to escape the ever-annoying paparazzi. We don't really talk for the first few minutes of the car ride to lunch and it's really awkward. We both know what the other is thinking about, and it's a huge block between us right now. I decide to be the one to break the ice.
"I'm so sorry, Niall. You know I never meant for that to happen. I shouldn't have gone out," I say quietly, not looking at Niall. There's what seems like a lifetime of silence before Niall answers.
"It's okay, Elissa. I know you weren't yourself. Let's just not talk about it anymore, okay?"
"Okay, but can I ask you something?" I ask carefully. Niall nods.
"Are you mad at Harry?"
"Definitely. He could have stopped it, but even though he was sober he went along with it. That pisses me off. I'm not so mad that we're not on speaking terms or anything, but there's going to be a little tension between us for the next little while," he says. Wow. I would have thought he'd be super pissed off. I underestimated him.
During lunch we make pointless small talk and don't really talk about stuff we usually do. I don't like this. I know this is my fault, but I want it to go back to the way it was. I know neither of us will ever forget about this incident, but we can at least not let it effect us this much.
After lunch we go back to the house and Niall still puts his stuff in my room, which makes me feel at least a little bit of hope. We hang out for the rest of the day and order pizza for dinner. Lindsey's coming home in a couple days, and when she does I'll start cooking, but I'm really not in the mood.
That night I'm lying in bed, reading, when Niall comes out of the bathroom from taking a shower. He comes into my room to put his clothes by his stuff, and I can tell when he hesitates before getting in bed next to me. I mentally sigh, but I don't show anything on my face. I don't want Niall to know how much this really hurts. I don't know, maybe I should show him how much it hurts...