like every chapter I post on here, this is unedited.
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My phone sat on my bed, half buried under a variety of blankets and pillows. I had my laptop open, trying to complete some English homework for once (although I may have sneakily had social networking open in another tab). I tried to conjure reasonable answers to questions about the book we were studying, but my mind was far elsewhere.
It was Friday, and Zayn still hadn’t called.
I’d tried two extra times to contact him via twitter, but neither attempts succeeded. I wondered if he was ignoring me on purpose. Was I really that bad of a kisser? I furrowed my brow and sat silent for a moment.
The kiss sure did make our friendship awkward. I mean, could we even be the same as we used to? It struck me that if we weren’t able to move past the mistake, our friendship could be over.
I shut my laptop immediately and strode over to my bedroom window. Football training had finished half an hour ago, so there was nothing to look at but damp grass. I never wanted to stop talking to Zayn. I never wanted to log onto twitter and return to being just a normal fan amongst millions of others, desperately trying to get one of the boys to notice me. I never wanted for all this to end.
I snuck an extra glance at my phone; still in the same position. Still silent.
* * *
The doorbell rang, and I wasn’t particularly ecstatic to answer it. I groaned into a couch cushion. It was mum and dad’s anniversary, so of course they’d gone out. Georgia was up in her room, still listening to that Katy Perry song that she could never seem to get enough of. And I was nested on the couch, watching comedy on E4 while inwardly debating if I should finish the last paragraph of my English essay.
I waited for a few seconds before finally accepting that I was the only one in the position to answer it. I huffed as I eased off the couch, probably more fussed about leaving the nest of blankets I’d settled into rather than missing a few minutes of the show I wasn’t entirely getting into.
When I pulled back the door, completely dismissing my parent’s advice to always peer through the peep hole first, the look on my face was an example of pure annoyance. Before me, stood Lani and Kate in anticipation, as if they were planning on surprising me. Not wishing for them to realise that I was not in the best of moods, I applied a fake smile to my face and prayed it would deceive them.
“I didn’t know you two were coming.” I said cheerfully, attempting to hide the bitter mood that still lingered slightly. I glanced down and realised they were each holding a small duffle bag.
“Surprise?” Kate said, holding up her hands questionably as she wasn’t sure that it was entirely true. There wasn’t much of a shock moment when I first saw them standing there, and I don’t doubt they were hoping for it.
“We bought our sleeping bags.” Lani offered, holding hers out
There was a silence. If my two best friends didn’t know me as well as they did, I’m guessing they would’ve presumed that I didn’t want them around. But they knew that they weren’t the source of the problem; I was always up for having friends over. This was something ultimately different.
Lani, highly educated in seeing changes in my behaviour, knew exactly how to react. She diminished all care for the things she’d packed in her bag and dropped it to the ground, engulfing me in a warm hug. Kate followed suit as soon as Lani had finished. During this, I let myself come undone. I wiped the smile off my face, allowing it to be replaced with an expression that properly suited my emotion.
I opened the door wider, inviting them to step inside. I chose the kitchen as my first destination on instinct. It was natural for me to fill up a bowl of crisps seconds after allowing guests into the house. I return to the living room shortly after and placed them carefully on the coffee table. Lani and Kate had already started setting up their temporary beds. Sleepovers in our friendship were never planned, and they happened on a regular basis. Instead of telling my friends when I am free, I have to tell them when I’m not free, so they not which days they definitely can’t turn up with a Rom Com and a pair of pyjamas.
Once Kate had smoothed down the shiny fabric of her deep purple sleeping bag she glanced up at the TV. “Yes! The Inbetweeners is starting.” she exclaimed, plopping herself down on the couch, which was still scattered with the blankets and pillows that once contributed to my nest.
Lani settled in next to her “I think it’s the one where Neil kills the fish.” she said, popping a crisp into her mouth.
They were good in this way; they knew if there’s something putting me down, it’s better to disallow the curiosity to get there better of them and focus on cheering me up, rather than having me talk about the problem. And if they wanted to know what put me in the state, they could always ask later when I’d well and truly gotten over it.
I was able to immense myself in the antics of Jay, Will, Neil and Simon for the next half hour; completely forgetting why I’d been so bitter. When the end credits rolled the sadness didn’t travel back instantly. Instead I was able to run up to my room and dish out my magazine collection without any hassle. I dropped the pile onto Lani’s sleeping bag and we all crowded round the glossy cover.
We grabbed one each and flipped straight to the fashion section, picking out our favourite and least favourite latest trends. It took roughly fifteen minutes before we started getting bored of telling each other which garments we had to buy on our next shopping trip. It was usually around this time that a DVD disk was placed in the player, usually a romantic comedy.
Lani stood up and studied my family’s excessive DVD collection, most of which consisted of my dad’s sci-fi and action flicks. By then, the worry of Zayn and I never talking again had long left me, so when Kate bought it up as Lani continued glancing between two movies, I wasn’t enveloped back into depression.
“Well, he still hasn’t called.” I announced. Not so much in an ‘I’m very angry at him’ kind of way, but rather in an accepting way; more like ‘yes, this is the inevitably sad, sad life of Avalon Turner, and there is nothing that can be done’.
“Still?” Lani queried, eyes still fixed on the back of a DVD case
“Yeah. And I’m starting to worry that this is the end of … everything.” I added, lifting my hands and dropping them as if Zayn and I’s painfully short tale was a fragile object that couldn’t be saved. It takes a second for everything to change tremendously. One word. One move. One kiss. Thinking about it frightened me, so I shook my head quickly as if I could scare the thoughts away. “Maybe he was right. Maybe it was a mistake entirely. Why am I saying maybe? Of course it was a mistake. It was a fuck up. It was like god was playing The Sims and he was making Zayn and I’s characters have a nice, friendly conversation but his fingers slipped and accidently made us kiss and now our relationship bar has suffered a giant decrease and-“
“He did say he liked you, right?” Lani interrupted. I realised that she’d now set the two movies she’d been tossing up between back on the shelf and had her entire focus averted towards my little rant.
“Well, yeah,”
“Avalon, he likes you.” Kate declared, joining Lani’s team in this argument.
“But he meant it as friends-“
“Maybe.” Kate agreed “But there’s only one way to find out. I’ve got a plan.”
We all leaned in. Formulating plans -- which were usually aborted before any one of us could take action -- was a common occurrence in our discussions. And more often than not they involved a boy; particularly one of our love interests. There had been countless attempts of getting Kate to talk to Connor Robinson -- before she moved off him, of course. What surprised us this time, is that it was usually Lani and I that sparked the ideas. It was possibly the first time that Kate had been the planner.
“You need to make him jealous.” she said firmly “You need him to see you with another guy. You have to be intimate with this guy, or it won’t work.” I scrunched up my nose. After kissing Zayn, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to snog any standard Yorkshire twit. “If he likes you, in, you know, that way,” she wiggled her eyebrows “he’ll be jealous. And I guarantee he’ll come springing back. If he just likes you as friends, he’ll gather that you’ve moved well and truly past the kiss, and he might start to talk to you again, knowing that you’re mature enough to recognise that the kiss was a mistake.”
“It’s perfect.” Lani said immediately “Either outcome’s good. You either get the guy, or you become friends with him again.”
“But who’s going to be the guy that I ‘be intimate’ with?” I asked, still focused on that aspect
“Freddie Austin.” Kate said with a smile, as if she’d had him up her sleeve all this time. “He would totally go out with you.” Lani stayed silent at this, refusing to make a comment
“No.” I argued. Freddie and I were somewhat friends. I couldn’t destroy our relationship.
“Yes.” Kate debated “Remember how he was denying all those rumours about you? He deffo cares about you. And I don’t think it’s just as a friend.”
“Alright fine.” I gave in. Freddie was better than, say, Marcus Kent. “But how am I going to bump into Zayn? I can’t meet with him -- he won’t reply to my DMs.”
“That is all taken care of.” Kate said smugly. It seemed as if she knew all along. This was not a plan she could throw together in the space of a few minutes.
“What?”
“Yeah, what?” Lani finally perked up
“Two words; Leeds Festival.” she finished, letting it sink into our systems.
“But I didn’t get tickets. They went on sale during school hours today and I forgot to remind my mum to try for them-“
“You may not have tickets, but I do.” Kate revealed
“How?” I demanded in disbelief
“My own mum got them. I was going to go with Bradley, but this is more important. And he doesn’t know that I’ve got the tickets yet, so it won’t kill him-“
“Woah, hold up!” Lani cut in “You were going to go with Bradley? Not your two best friends?”
“My mum only managed to snag two tickets, and I wouldn’t be able to choose between the two of you.” she explained
“Fair enough.” Lani agreed
“Alright so all you have to do is make sure you get front row to One Direction’s performance.” Kate averted her words back to me “I know it’s going to be a tough challenge. And on top of it, you’re going to somehow convince Freddie to join you in a crowd full of hyperactive girls. But it’ll be worth it, right? This is Zayn we’re talking about.”
“Worth it.” I agreed
We spent the next few minutes putting together a plan that would help me gain the courage to ask Freddie to the festival, and the entire time, one fatal aspect seemed to escape from our minds; the consequences.
It was painful to realise that in a sense, I would be using Freddie. And if he managed to find out about this plan, everything would be ruined.
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fuckkkkk what's going to happen?
(I know that 1D aren't the kind of band to play at Leeds Festival but this is fictional okay)
dedication goes to the first comment!