My first instinct is to yell his name, as if that's going to make him come back. Then I stand up to run after him, but Harry takes me hand. I look down at him; his eyes are big, his mouth is a little open, and he looks ready to cry. I want to tell him that I love him and just run away, but then I remember Zayn. I remember the way he looked when he stormed off; the pain in his eyes. I need to tell Zayn that I love him and that it's all going to be okay.
"I have to do this," I whisper, "for the sake of our friendship." Harry's face falls. I don't want him to think that I'm picking Zayn over him. As much as I love Zayn, I'd never ever pick him over my one true love. "I love you."
Then I run after him. Bursting out of the restaurant, I find Zayn walking down the street very angrily, catching the paparazzi's eyes. They run forward, trying to get pictures of Zayn and me, but I ignore them. The only thing on my mind is making sure Zayn's okay. Scratch that. Honestly, I know Zayn will never be okay with me marrying Harry. I know that he'd be okay with me marrying some guy from New York, but Harry Styles is not the ideal husband for me in his eyes. He either wants it to be him or none of his band mates. But I have to at least try and make him see that I'm happy.
"Zayn Malik, stop right now!" I yell out, even though I know he won't stop. He just needs to know I'm here, running after him.
He gets to his car, hops in the driver's seat (which is on the left side?; Americans are so weird), and turns on the engine. I make it just in time to open the passenger side and get in. Zayn gives me a look that only means he's fed up with the world and he's not afraid to shoot someone.
"Get out," he demands in a low voice. I know now that I'm treading on thin ice; I can't say the wrong thing or he'll drive us off a cliff.
"Zayn, you need to listen to me. I need you to listen to me. I'm happy with Harry. He makes me smile, and if you love me, then you'd be okay with that."
"It's because I'm in love with you that I'm not okay with it!" Zayn screams. "I want to be the one you're sitting next to. I want to be the one that makes you happy. I want to be the one who can kiss you whenever I feel like it. Because I love you."
"I love you too, dumbass," I retort, "and that's why I want you to be happy. But it can't be with me. It has to be with someone else. I want you to be smiling and laughing with a girl that will love you back unconditionally, but I can't be her. I can't be the one you can kiss whenever you want. You had your chance, Zayn." The tears start to well up in my eyes as I think of the times I admitted to him that I loved him. "I told you how I felt and you rejected me cold. I just happened to move on. And now I'm asking you, as a friend, to be happy for me, because you had a chance to be happy with me, and you threw it away. Please, Zayn. This is all I ask of you; be happy for me. You don't have to be okay with it and I'm not asking you to be, but please congratulate me and tell me that you're happy, even if you're lying."
A tear falls from Zayn's eyes. I make a move that makes me question if I really just love him as a friend. I wipe away his tears for him. My hand barely fits on his cheeks, but in some way, it's perfect. We stare into each other's eyes for a while, just thinking about each other. My heart swells up as if I'm getting a love injection, nearly popping in my chest.
Then I remember Harry. I remember his sweet, raspy voice; his curly hair; his plump lips; his electric smile; his cute, little nose; his big hands that fit over mine perfectly; his dimples; the way he looks at me like I'm the only person he'll ever see; the girl that he's loved forever. And I admire the way he always figures out a way to fix all my problems, or he just kisses my tears away. Harry is the best thing that's ever happened to me.
I break the eye contact and look down at my hands playing with each other. "Please, just be happy for me."
He sighs and takes my hand. "I'm not happy but for you, I'll be happy."
My happiness takes over me and I lean forward to hug him. He hugs me back harder than he ever has, pulling me as close as he can while being in a car. Once we pull away, there's something in my head that tells me even if I do get married to Harry, my feelings for Zayn won't go away.
****
"So what the hell happened back there?" Harry demands when we get in the hotel by ourselves. I try to avoid his eyes and walk straight to the bedroom, but he grabs my arm, stopping me. Even then, I try to avoid his eyes. "Natalie, look at me."
Sighing, I look up at his eyes. "Harry, I'm sorry. I just needed to talk to him. Not only because of the whole thing with the engagement, I also wanted to talk about our general relationship. It was really needed, Harry, honestly."
Harry shakes his head and lets go of me. Before I can say anything else, he's already walking to the bedroom quickly. To myself, I whisper, "Way to go. You drove your only true love away. You're just so smart, aren't you?"
I sneak into the room while Harry showers and slip on a tank top and shorts. I take my phone, slip out of the room, and snuggle up on the couch while scrolling through Tumblr. I see a few accounts shipping me with Harry and a few shipping me with Zayn. And then there's the accounts that just worship me, and I feel like I'm some kind of queen. Despite the all the drama going in my life, this makes me smile. All my fans make me smile no matter what is going on in my life.
"What the hell is this?" Harry bursts out of our room, holding up his phone. I jump up in fear from the couch at look at his angry. I've honestly never seen Harry so mad. Not even when he went to confront Zayn was he this livid. "You and Zayn?"
I slowly take the phone out of his shaking hand and look at the picture he has pulled up on Instagram. Obviously from some gossip account, the picture of when Zayn and I hugged in the car and we stared at each other. In the caption, the blog read, 'Zayn and Natalie getting a little closer? Maybe old feelings are arising before the wedding? Do I smell friendship or relationship?' I look up to see Harry pacing in front of me. He's walking so hard, I'm afraid that he'll make a pathway through the hotel floor.
I internally curse the woman or man that wrote this. Zayn and I aren't together, we will never be together and I want nothing to do with that. And anyone who thinks that we're together is severely wrong; my heart belongs to Harry and only hair.
"Harry, we were talking," I try to say, but he shakes his head and laughs bitterly. "I swear we were just talking."
"Just talking? You should have run off to the toilets to have more privacy while you make googly eyes at each other. I don't want to read that my fiance is out staring at some other guy with eyes she usually stares at me at!"
That's when I get angry myself. "So you don't trust me?"
Harry stops pacing, but he doesn't say anything to me. He just stares down at me with wide eyes. I have my answer. I trusted Zayn and Lance with my heart and they broke it. But trust me when I say that I will never do anything to hurt him. And I hope that he will do nothing to break my heart; no, I trust him not to break my heart. And yet he doesn't trust me.
"I can't believe you," I say lowly. "You would even say that to me? No, you wouldn't say that to me. You think that I'm so hung up on Zayn that I'd cheat on you with him? Okay, fuck you. Fuck you for not trusting me! Because I trust you with everything. I trust you with my life, with my mother's life, and with my sister's life! I trust you with everything have, alright! My heart! I trust you with my heart. I got it broken by both Zayn and Lance, but I still opened up to you. Do you know that you're my second boyfriend? My first was Lance and Zayn was never even my boyfriend. So fuck you for not trusting me because I love and trust you!"
I throw his phone back at him and stomp to the bedroom. Behind me, I close and lock the door before falling onto the bed face first. I try not to cry loudly, but I fail miserably. My sobs are louder than I expected them to be, and I can't stop them. And I don't know why I'm crying in the first place. The fight that Harry and I are having isn't exactly what you would call a crying situation, but I can't stop the tears. They pricked my eyes the moment Harry came bursting in the room with his angry voice.
"Natalie, come out of the room," he calls to me, knocking on the door. "Please, I want to apologize. I haven't been a good fiance."
I get up from the bed and wipe off the fallen tears. With a smile, I open the door just to kiss Harry. He's surprised, but that doesn't stop him from kissing me back. He wraps his hands around my waist to pull me closer to him. "You said fiance and I just got happy again," I explain after we part. "I don't want to be mad at you. I want to marry you."
"And I, you," Harry replies. "But it's not like we've really got any time to do the wedding. We can't get married soon. We have so much to do. In the morning, we both have to head right to the studio to get lyrics and start recording."
"And I have to start writing too," I mumble to myself. "Freaking job. It always gets in the way of my time with you..." I kiss his cheek down to his neck back to the corner of his mouth. The whole time he just sways us back and forth.
"It doesn't matter because I do trust you," Harry whispers in my ear. "I trust you with my heart and not to break it. And I love you more than anything. I'm just jealous. I'm jealous that you and Zayn have a history together and that you loved him at one point. I'm jealous that he's known you longer and was graced with your presence longer. I'm afraid that you'll see that he's better than me. I'm afraid that you think that he loves you more than I do. I'm afraid that one day you'll leave me behind for someone as great as Zayn is. And losing you isn't right. Without you is like living with only half a heart."
I burst out laughing. "Did you just steal lyrics from your own song?"
He smiles shyly and avoids my eyes. "I was hoping you'd miss that. You know, after everything I said, you catch only that part."
"Because you're plagiarizing your own song." I laugh even harder at my own words. "Wow, Harry. How would Simon feel when he hears you're such a copycat, especially since you are using it to tell me you love me."
Shaking his head, Harry scolds, "You can never be serious, Natalie." I watch as he tries to deny the smile himself, trying to be serious. I raise my eyebrow at him and he bursts out laughing too. We hold up each other from falling to the ground and rolling around in our humor. I feel the tears come back to my eyes, but not tears of pain or of laughter; tears of love. These are one of the moments that I love we have. There's absolutely no way we can still stay mad at each other.
"I'm sorry," I breathe out between the laughs. When we finally regain ourselves to only occasional giggles, I continue, "I'm sorry. I just have to say that I'll never leave you. Despite what you may think, I need you more than you need me. And I'm sorry if you don't see that at first, but it's true. I need you a shitload more. Zayn and I do have a history, but it's exactly that: history. You and I are the present. Hopefully the future too. And I'm half a heart without you too."
This makes Harry laugh once again. I pound on his chest, protesting, "You can't laugh! I'm trying to be serious here and you're not helping my case. Harry, stop! Please, stop doing that! Stop laughing!"
"Natalie, the more you smile, the harder I laugh," Harry replies. "Your smile makes me smile and your laugh makes me laugh."
"I love you," I whisper.
"I love you too."
He picks me up and takes me to the couch. We lay there together, just talking and making up from the fight we've just had. I try to convince him that Zayn's not bad and that he can still be friends with him.
"No, that's too weird," Harry denies. "What if I'm talking about the smashing night we have and he gets angry. That won't be fun. I want to be able to talk to my mates at you without them saying how they loved you first."
I roll my eyes. "Zayn has never said that to you. He's never said that to me. Maybe to someone else, but he's too smart for that. I think that you're just over exaggerating. Please, just make up with Zayn. I don't want to be that girl who pulls apart One Direction. Fans are already giving me hate for dating you; I don't want hate for breaking apart you guys. I don't want to break you apart period. Despite what I may have said, I think the band is actually really good."
Harry smirks at my comment. Then asks, "What? You've said our band is bad before?"
"If you watch one of my earlier interviews, I said that your band was overrated." Harry laughs and kisses my hands. "I kind of feel bad."
"Do you think we're overrated now?"
I shake my head and kiss him again. "Like I said, your band is perfect. Almost as perfect as you are."
****
"How the fuck do you plan a wedding?" Harry screams in annoyance. I try to hold in my giggle, but I fail miserably, as I laugh loudly. He scowls at me and crosses his arms. "Well you find that funny, so do you have any bright ideas? Hmm?" I immediately close my mouth and shake my head. "That's what I thought. So we are going to have to get some help."
"No, I don't want to hire a wedding planner!" I whine, stomping my foot. "That means it'll take forever for the wedding to happen. I want to get married to you now. So let's finish this. What we're going to do is have the ceremony, the reception and we leave before everyone else in a dramatic fashion."
Harry bites his lip. I wait patiently as he thinks of what we should do. Harry jumps up, scaring me, and bends down to take my hands in his. "No, Natalie. I know what we're going to do. We're going to elope. Today we're picking you out a dress and then ask inquire to the others. At least a few will come. We'll elope and have an amazing honeymoon. That's all I want with you."
I start to nod at the idea. That would be perfect, so we have a valid reason to run away from all our work. Simon can't hate us if we are doing something for our honeymoon. And I just want to be married to Harry.
"It's a plan," I say to him, nodding. He leans up to kiss me on the lips. "We go shopping for a dress today, I'll call a few people, and we get married tomorrow. I'm going to be your wife tomorrow. But I need to find a friend to shop with me." I rack my brain for a good shopping partner and one person comes to mind: Jessie Patricks. She is the perfect person to ask. I jump up from the chair and walk to the couch where my phone lay.
"I'm going to ask Zayn to be my best man."
I stop walking, mid-step, and turn around to look at Harry. That's outrageous. "I know I've asked him to become friends with you and deal with our marriage, but you can't ask him to do that. That's just like asking him to be the one to marry us. I hate to say it, but Zayn loves me and I don't think he'll be jumping with joy to be your best man."
"I want him to be," Harry responds quietly. "I said no matter who I marry, I want Zayn to be one of my best men. I want all the boys to be my best men, but Zayn the most. Our friendship was so strong at that time, and he would be my first pick."
I sigh. "This is my fault. This is all of my fault. He hates both of us now because of me. He probably won't be your best man because of me. And you two aren't mates anymore because of me. I hate myself for doing this to either of you."
"Don't," Harry warns. He stands in front of me, taking my face and kisses my nose. "This is not your fault. This is mine. I should've been less jealous and at least tried to get my friendship back with him. I was just so angry and I couldn't remember the friendship we had before. The friendship that made us so close."
"I love you so much, Harry. And really hope that he'll try to become friends with you. Because you're amazing and not becoming your friend again is a total loss on his part."
Harry stares down at me with loving eyes. "You're going to be my wife."
"I ain't cooking every night, though."