“Rumors say that Harry Styles of the UK band One Direction was checked into a hospital in east San Francisco earlier today,” I read aloud from my laptop, looking up at my father’s vegetating body.
He’d been a coma for two months now, and I’d recently read that speaking to, and reading to a coma victim would help keep their brain active, and lengthen their life expectancy, as well as raise their chances of waking up. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was working, considering he couldn’t exactly tell me, but it gave me the hope to continue on.
“Ms. Westwood,” The doctor greeted as he entered the room.
“Dr. Shults,” I responded, closing my laptop and sliding it into my bag. Dr.Shults only ever entered my father’s hospital room to check on him, and do tests. Tests it never made me comfortable to see. I leaned down and kissed my creased forehead before standing up straight and walking out.
As I walked down the hall toward the elevator, I heard a loud racket coming toward me. Before I had time to react, I was being sent flying into the air, and then crashing down onto the ground. Straight down onto my ass.
“Oof!” I grunted, rubbing my now rather ginger ass.
“OH MY GOD! Louis, Zayn, Niall! I leave you for two seconds and come back to see you trying to kill each other!” A strong male voice called out, an english accent lacing his words. I looked around me to see what exactly I’d crashed into - er, had crashed into me. Three boys and two wheelchairs were circled around me, two of the boys laying on the ground, groaning in pain.
I looked at the one who was standing - he was wearing red jeans a multi colored jumper, his arms crossed and a wide grin on his lips. Another boy came running up then, he had long straight hair and a panic stricken expression on his face.
“Oh my god miss, are you okay!?” The straight haired boy asked me, holding out his hand. I nodded, taking it and standing up.
“I, yeah, er, no? I don’t know,” I said, rubbing the back of my head in embarrassment.
“Idiots!” He called out, turning to the other boys, the two who were on the ground raising to their feet. These boys looked oddly familiar to me, but after having been sent crashing down to the ground, my mind was a bit jumbled.
The three other boys walked over, their heads hanging low as if they were in trouble, and by the way the boy in front of me was flailing his arms, I was pretty sure they were.
“I... do I know you guys?” I asked dumbly, scanning my eyes over the four of them. They looked at me now, the one who had originally been yelling giving me a slightly panic stricken expression.
“Um, that depends. What’s your name?” He asked, seeming as if he were trying to cover something up.
“Emily Westwood,” I said, quirking my head to the side at his odd question, “Oh! I know who you guys are! You’re The Backstreet boys!” I exclaimed.
The four boys looked at me with wide eyes, before they all burst into laughter. I watched as a blonde haired boy doubled over in laughter, his hands gripping his stomach tightly. I bit my lip, my cheeks flushing red - okay, I guess I was wrong.
“Erm, a little more recent,” A dark skinned boy said. I furrowed my eyebrows, studying the boys more closely.
“OH! YOU’RE ONE DIR-” The straight haired boy, Liam’s, hand clamped tightly onto my mouth, causing the word direction to come out more like, “ireffmm.”
“Yes, now, we’ll sign autographs or whatever else if you promise to keep your voice down,” Liam said.
I nodded my head wide eyed, slightly panicked by the hand chilling on my mouth. The hand of Liam Payne, that is.
“First you yell at us for trying to kill her, then you tell her all she’s getting for almost dying is an autograph?” Louis asked. Liam’s hand dropped and he shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know what you expect me to give her,” He said, placing his hands on his hips. He reminded me of the freshman girls from my high school, which made me giggle.
“Tickets to our show tonight?” Zayn suggested.
“If we have a show,” Liam muttered.
“THERE YOU GUYS ARE!” A raspy voice called out, and looking over my shoulder I saw a confused Harry Styles striding up toward us, a hospital bracelet sitting on his wrist.
It was then that I lived in East San Francisco.
“Why does he sound like he’s been smoking for fifty years?” I asked Niall who’d at some point found himself standing next to me. He shrugged his shoulders, obviously as confused as I was.
“He passed out in the hotel room last night, must be stress messing with him,” Zayn said. I nodded.
Harry looked from Liam to me, who was stupidly staring at him in a sort of awe.
“Who’s she?” He rasped.
“She’s Emily,” Louis said as if it were obvious.
“Why is Emily here?” Harry asked.
“Because Niall and Zayn ran her over in a wheelchair race,” Louis added.
“A wheelchair race?” Harry cocked his eyebrow.
“A wheelchair race!” Louis added excitedly.
“Oh my god shut up already,” Liam groaned, looking at Harry, “Can you sing tonight, man?” He asked.
“Er, no,” Harry said.
“BUT YOU HAVE TO!” I exclaimed. Five heads flipped toward me, all of their hair flying my way as well. Had I been in any other situation, I probably would have laughed.
“Er, sorry,” I said, smiling sheepishly, “What I mean is, I used my life’s savings to buy my best friend tickets to you guys’ show for her birthday, and if you don’t perform not only will it crush her but it’ll crush my wallet,” I said.
The five of them nodded, forming a sort of huddle as they all spoke. Harry pulled out his phone, and texted a message, before showing it to me. The message read:
“Sorry, can’t talk right now, but, give me your number or your twitter and I’ll make sure you make it to the next show?”
I looked at him wide eyed - so, pretty much, Harry Styles was asking for my number, and it seriously didn’t matter why he was asking for it at that point, because even if I wasn’t that big of a fan of theirs, this kid was fucking gorgeous.
“But my money,” I pouted, pulling out my phone and opening up my contacts, scrolling down to my number. Yeah, I’m that person that saves their own number so they don’t forget it. I showed it to Harry, and he quickly jotted the number down, giving me thankful grin before handing it off to the other boys.
“We’ll make sure you get it back, love, don’t worry,” Liam grinned, “What’s your friend’s name? We’ll tweet her a happy birthday message,” he added.
“Oh my god, Elsie and are you guys sure? You don’t have to,” I said. But before I could finish they had all finished typing out messages and were publishing them. Of course they got service in the hospital, of fucking course.
“Well Emily it was great meeting you, but we gotta get going,” Louis said, giving me a hug goodbye. I hugged him back stiffly, taken aback by the situation.
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A year later, it’s my nineteenth birthday. I looked up at billboard across from my apartment building, it was advertising One Direction’s up and coming concert. I scoffed at their name, closing my blinds so that I wouldn’t have to see their names mocking me. They’d promised to get me tickets to their next show in my city, but considering the show was tonight, I’d realized that was just an empty promise to get me to leave them alone that year ago in the hospital.
My dad hadn’t changed in condition since then, and any changes had only been bad ones, ones I tried to repress from my memory. I sighed as I ran my hand through my hair, wishing that I’d never met the boys or been run over by them in the first place.
I heard my phone buzzing and looking down at it, I noticed a message from Elsie, “LOL One Erection has a performance tonight,” She joked. I rolled my eyes. She’d taken their forgetting to give me a ticket a lot harder than I had. I slid my phone into the back pocket of my black skinny jeans, deciding that against sulking for the rest of the night. I grabbed my jacket and wallet, thinking that a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie from the cafe next to my building sounded awfully good right about now.
I walked out into the chilly San Francisco air, my black hair being blown in all different directions as I tried to pull my sweatshirt over my head. I took a few steps forward before I felt myself run into something tall and hard.
I pulled the sweatshirt all the way over my head, realizing now that I had put it on backwards. I pulled the hood off of my face to see what I’d run into, thinking that it had been one of the cars in front of my building.
Oh god was I wrong.
In front of me, stood no one else but Harry Styles, a beanie trying desperately to hold his unruly curls down, and a pair of dark Ray Ban sunglasses over his eyes. We both looked at each other for a while, myself obvious noticing who he was right away.
“Sorry,” He grunted, trying his best to do an american accent. I cocked my eyebrow at him before rolling my eyes and turning away from him, my middle finger held high in the air as I stepped away from him.
“Hey wait!” He called out after me, myself not bothering to turn around to look at him. He strode up next to me, and was now walking in step with my quick paced walking.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” He asked as I remembered my hoodie was on backwards, choosing that now as probably as good a time as any to fix it to its proper position.
“I dunno, what’s your name?” I asked, not looking at him as I fixed my hoodie.
“Er,” He said, bringing a hand up to his mouth nervously.
“Er? That’s an odd name,” I said as I patted my hair down.
“Harry,” He blurted out in at an almost inaudible volume. I looked at him now.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Harry,” He sighed, “Harry Styles,” He finished.
“Ah,” I said, “Mine’s Emily Westwood,” I shrugged, turning into the cafe where I’d desperately wanted to get my cup of tea.
“That’s a nice name,” Harry grinned. I looked up at him, taking in his smiling face. He had a few pimples lining his forehead, but nothing that anyone would really notice if they weren’t dead focused on him.
“Aren’t you in a band?” I asked before turning to the woman at the counter and telling her my order. She rung me up, and before I could grab my wallet Harry was handing her his credit card, a cheeky grin on his face.
“Something like that,” He chuckled. I nodded my head, walking over and sitting down at a table while I waited for my drink and cookies.
“So, Harry Styles, where is it exactly that you know me from?” I asked him, crossing my legs, as well as my arms.
“That’s the thing, I can’t put my finger on it,” He said, his english accent sounding sort of adorable.
No. Bad Emily. Don’t think the asshole is adorable.
“No certain places coming to mind? A restaurant maybe? Or an airport? Maybe... oh, I don’t know, the hospital where your friends ran me over?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. His eyes widened behind his sunglasses, his memory of me obviously rushing back now.
“Oh yeah! You’re the girl who Nialler ran over!” He chuckled. I glared at him as the woman walked over with my tea and cookies, setting them down in front of me. I picked up a cookie and bit into it, hoping its chocolate chippy goodness would make my emotions settle a bit.
“Yeah,” I groaned, rolling my eyes, “Remember when you guys were gonna give ‘that girl’ tickets to your next show in the city? OH! And remember when you were gonna give her, her money back for your dumb ass show that she couldn’t even go to!?” I asked, fuming with anger as the memories came back to me now.
“You never answered your phone!” Harry exclaimed, his hands slamming down onto the table.
“Well actually trying to call would help!” I groaned, picking up my tea and cookies and standing up, not really feeling like sitting anymore.
“What are you on about?” Harry asked after catching up with me on the streets. I ran my hand over my face, trying not to completely explode at him.
“I never got a call,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Oh,” He had the nerve to say.
“OH? FUCKING OH!?” I yelled, looking at him in the eyes now. His eyes widened, and before I could think I was splashing my tea in his face.
“My tea!” I exclaimed, looking down at the cup who’s contents had been spilled all over the famous english boy.
“My face!” He exclaimed, rubbing his eyes desperately with his tea drenched sleeves.
“For god’s sake, come with me,” I groaned, pulling him into my apartment building and up to my room.
20 minutes later I was pouring a cup of coffee for myself and Harry, him wearing a shirt I’d stolen from my ex boyfriend, as well as an ice pack on his forehead, where the tea had hit him hardest.
“How’re your eyes?” I asked, handing him the coffee cup. He shrugged his shoulders, “Fine.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said, honestly feeling bad for scorching the boy’s eyes with my hot black tea.
“Me too,” He sighed. I quirked my head in confusion.
“I should have tried harder to find you,” He sighed.
“Oh,” I said, looking down at the cup of coffee in my hands.
There was a long silence then, the both of us sipping our coffees, neither of us really trying that hard to make conversation.
“You remind me of my ex,” He chuckled. I looked up from my coffee to see that he wasn’t looking directly at me, but more through me.
“How so?” I asked.
“Your name, your personality, you two are really similar,” He smiled warmly at the thought of the girl.
“What happened to her?” I asked, not entirely sure why I was pressing the matter.
“She killed herself a year into One Direction’s existence,” He sighed, not looking, nor speaking to me anymore, “I should have seen the signs. Should have told someone I didn’t think she was okay, but I kept it to myself. I was so damn stupid,” He said, running a hand through his hair, the beanie that had been trying to control his curls giving up and falling to the floor.
I reached out a hand from across the table that we were sitting at and placed it firmly on his shoulder. He looked over at me, our eyes meeting fully now. His eyes were a beautiful shade of green, and had there not been so much hurt in them, they would have been sparkling.
“Shit happens,” I shrugged, pulling my hand from his shoulder, “It wasn’t your fault she did it,” I promised him.
I looked over at the clock, noticing that it had hit seven, “Isn’t your show in like an hour?” I asked, turning back to him.
“Oh shit you’re right!” He said, clambering to his feet.
“Wait, here, I’ll drive you,” I said, grabbing my keys and shoes.
“You don’t need to,” He said, our eyes meeting then.
I blinked a few times, suddenly having it hit me that Harry Styles was in my apartment, “No, er. You owe me a show, right?” I said grinning. He chuckled, holding the door open for me as I walked out.
I texted Elsie the address of the show, and told her to meet me because I had the biggest surprise ever.
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Hi! I’m Lily and this is my first story on wattpad so please don’t judge me ; ~ ; I know how stories work and stuff though so at least I’m not hopeless, right!? This is also my first time writing fan fiction, so tell me if it’s any good? :)
Dedicated to BooBearsCam because she’s my favorite writer on all of wattpad, and I loved her on my other account before I deleted it :D