A lonely bell chime.
A radio on low.
Voices, laughter.
The scent of mixed perfumes.
Warmth.
My fingers delicately pulling the corner of the next page, turning from one scandal to the next. The first impression being the same as the last, shocked. Pretty women and heartbreaking stories filled the pages that made me wish I one day look just like them. Articles riddled with tips and tricks on how to be the ideal woman—how to simply have it all.
"Love, come sit please." My mom pulled my attention away from the grown up magazine, tapping her leather stool in her individual station.
I jump off the chair, my loose sneakers thumping the ground in its arrival. I threw the Cosmopolitan magazine back within the stack, running over to mom waiting for me. I almost trip on my shoelaces, making her give me a little glare. She hates it when I don't tie up my shoes.
"Aven, what did I say about your sneakers?" She mumbles as I launch myself up on the chair that was taller then me.
"You'd only buy them for me if I tie them up." I repeat the exact words she once told me, words that were the only condition to getting sneakers.
"So why aren't you tying them up?" She takes the black cape and throws it around my front, tying it behind my neck.
"I don't know, I forget." I shrug.
"Then I'll have to go back to getting you flats instead." She untucks my hair from the cape and starts running her fingers through it.
"No!" I protest, I hate flats.
"Then start tying up your shoes, you're ten years old now." She was stern, but her fingers felt nice running along my scalp.
"I'll try." I scuffle in defeat, my legs swinging in their dangles. It's not that I didn't know how, I just forget and I guess you can say I'm...lazy.
She starts parting my hair like usual, all of her products next to her on the dolly. I knew exactly how long everything would take now, I mean we do this all the time. I knew all the names of her products and what each of them did to my hair, we had a system now. She had her long blonde hair up in a tall bun, it always looked so silly when it was that messy.
I heard the bell chime again, making my eyes look at the front door of the shop through the mirror I was facing. In walked dad with Winnie swaddled in his arms.
"Dad!" I smiled as he walked in, caught of guard he was here.
"Hi pumpkin." He walked right up to us through the salon, leaning in to give mom a kiss on the cheek before bending down to do the same to me. "What are you in for today?" He asks me, hand on my shoulder.
"Just a root touch up." Mom answers, combing through my tangled blonde hair. "Shouldn't take too long."
"Ah," He nods, looking like a giant next to mom. "I was wondering if you had an extra pacifier on you? I forgot one at home but I don't have time to go back before my doctors appointment." He talks more quietly to her.
"Yes, there's one in my bag." She answers him before looking at Winnie sitting on his hip. "Hi sweetheart." She smiled with a cheerful look on her face, making Winnie smile too.
"Oh thank goodness." He steps over to her purse on the counter amongst all the hair supplies.
"Why are you going to the doctor's, dad?" I ask out of curiosity.
He digs through moms purse with one hand, looking for the pacifier. "I just have some chest pain, nothing serious but the doctor is going to do a little X-ray for me." He finds the pacifier, pulling it out of the blue bag.
"Are you going to be okay?" I murmur.
"Of course." He nods with a smile, putting the object in Winnie's drooling mouth. "Don't worry about me."
I smile in reassurance, at the same time he bent down to kiss my forehead.
"Okay, I'll see you two at dinner. Don't forget it's pizza night." He kisses moms cheeks again, I got excited.
I love pizza night.
"Bye baby." Mom grins at Winnie, kissing dad back.
"Bye!" I say around the same time as he makes a speedy exit with my sister. I hear the bell chime again, watching them hurry off along the busy sidewalk and out of our sight.
"I didn't know it was pizza night." I say once it was just the two of us again.
"Mhmm." She grins. "I think we can all use some pizza, grandma might stop by too."
I smile, loving it when grandma comes and visits. She's so obsessed with Winnie right now, definitely because she's only a six months old. Everyone's obsessed with Winnie right now, including me. She is really cute, kinda annoying when she cries, but cute.
"Alright, you ready?" She asks, getting the colour dye ready.
"Yep!" I smile, knowing the drill.
I suck in a sharp breath, snapping my eyes open in cold panic. My lung shook when I gasped, my throat shaking with it. The first thing my eyes met was a familiar ceiling, grey with dim pot lights. My chest crashes up and down, my lungs aching when I breathed in too deep. Every nerve in my body went on red alert, I was vibrating. Why was I vibrating? My heart was beating so fast that I could hear it in my eardrums.
It felt like I've been brought back from the dead.
Staring at the tall ceiling with an unsteady breath, I understood exactly what ceiling I was looking at. It was the ceiling of the tour bus lounge, was I on the bus? I couldn't stop panting, confused and scared on what the hell happened. I felt a tightness in my chest and a pressure on my right hand.
I pull my blurry eyes from the ceiling, falling my head to the left. My location was confirmed when my eyes set out the tour bus window, seeing the passing cars on a highway. That explains why I'm minorly vibrating, it's the engine. I didn't have contacts nor glasses on, so everything was kinda hazy but I could still see enough to know where I am. I was on some sort of big bed, which didn't make sense because this bus lounge didn't have a bed.
There was a unknown discomfort in my upper chest, not unbearable but enough for me to notice it amongst everything else. It was tight, and when I breathe in deep enough I felt a small pinch.
After configuring we're I was and how my body was feeling, my brain drew it's next focus on the feeling my hand was enduring. I felt some sort of touch that I wasn't able to decipher. It wasn't harsh or tight, it was gentle but awkward.
I turn my head to the opposite side of the direction it was facing, my eyes going right to my hand.
The first thing I saw was Harry, sitting cross legged next to me on the bed. I was facing his side, and he was hunched over with headphones in his ears. My heart jumped at his presence I didn't expect, but nothing distracted my thought more then what he was doing.
He was painting my nails, yellow.
Cross legged and hunched over, he had my open palm resting on his knee, his left hand holding my fingers and his right hand precisely brushing the nails with the paint. It explained the awkward touch I felt.
He didn't know I was awake, he had headphones in. If I listened hard enough, I could hear a hum of the unknown melodies. His back was slightly turned to me, so he probably could catch my consciousness out the corner of his eye. He was also concentrating so precisely on my nails.
Am I dreaming? This has got to be a dream right? This felt so much like a different universe.
My eyes stay on him and what he was doing, I couldn't even form words yet. My throat was so dry and my body was just sore. I was tired and foggy, and I had no recollection of what happened. I don't know how I got here, but I don't think I'm meant to think that hard yet. I was so distracted by Harry. Was I high? I felt high.
He was in a classic red flannel, old band shirt underneath. The specific pair of black jeans he was in had more rips in them, but not purposely. They must've been a really old pair. He had the big rips in the knees and one on his upper thigh, they were a faded black.
His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, looking down at my hand with his hair hanging off his forehead. He has a very chiseled look when he's in focus, eyes solid on what he was doing. His lips were puckered but in a line. My eyes drew to my hand, seeing how perfectly he was spreading the nail polish. He didn't get any on my cuticles, but also didn't miss any spots on the actual nail. The polish bottle wasn't the same bottle I own, but practically the same bright shade. He must've bought it himself.
"Harry..." My voice came out a lot weaker than expected, it was raspy and shear silent.
He obviously didn't hear, given he had loud headphones in and my voice didn't exist as well as I thought it would. I was so drowsy.
I shut my eyes and try to clear my throat, everything was so dry. I think I needed water, I could feel how chapped my lips were. I'm hungry, but also too tired to think of doing anything. So much was ravelling through my mind, but I was calm. I must've been on some sort of medication.
I shift my leg, hoping he'd see.
When I slightly wobbled my knee, his head snapped to mine like I wanted. His eyes darted to mine in a disruption of his calmness, immediately putting the nail polish brush back in the bottle. He took out one earbud, letting it sling to his lap as I could hear the music a bit more clear.
Was that violins I was hearing?
"Hey—" He placed my fragile hand on my own leg so I wouldn't smudge the polish, wasting no time to scoot himself up closer to me. He flipped around on his knees and sat himself up right next to my side, his hands finding my cheeks as he casted over me. "You're awake."
He smiled at me, and my heart cursed.
His smile was a really nice sight, especially when it was mixed with the joyful compassion in his eyes. His hand were engulfing my face as I couldn't help but smile back—even through all the things my body was feeling.
"Hi.." I coaxed, through my chapped smile.
He leans in and kisses my forehead, a soft touch. My eyes shut uncontrollably from it, feeling his warm lips against my skin. When he pulled back down to meet my eyes again, I grinned tiredly at his face, he looked so perfect and I definitely did not.
"How long—have I been..."
"It's been almost two days." He understood what I was asking before I was done.
My blurry eyes go a little wide, wondering if I heard him correctly over the music humming from his headphones.
"Two days?" I scratch.
"Mhmm.." He nods. "We're on our way to Nashville."
I shut my eyes and tried my best to recollect what happened, but everything was so foggy. There was absent time in my brain, and I was too tired to try and think about it. The last think I remember was getting to the hotel in Atlanta.
"You don't remember, do you?" He collects while my eyes were shut. "The doctor said you would have slight temporary amnesia from the accident."
I shake my head, the same time he takes his hands off my cheeks. I know the memory wound come back eventually, but I think I was on some sort of drug that made me a bit forgetful.
"You were stabbed Aven, right here.." His words were enough to make me open my eyes and tilt down to were his hand was pointing.
I was in a black spaghetti strap tank top, and just below my collarbone on the left side was white bandaging. It was just out of my peripheral vision, so it wasn't one of the first things I noticed when waking up.
"You're going to be okay, but you had to undergo a small surgery. The doctor said you were very lucky, because the knife managed to just miss your artery but two millimetres. In was a clean cut right through muscle and just below the bone, he repaired it all up for you and said everything was successful." He explains.
"And they discharged me before I woke up?" I murmur.
"They knew the tight schedule we were on, and they were sure you were going to be okay with time. We also have Louis who will check up on you to make sure everything is going smooth. You have some stitches and are gonna be sore in the shoulder area, but you will be fine on your feet whenever you want. You just can't lift heavy things or do stuff that involves a lot of arm movements. You also have a good supply of oxycodone to help with the pain."
My brain was gearing so fast all the sudden, trying to take it all in that I was a stab victim. I've literally been stabbed, in the chest.
With that information, I got a flushed memory of laying on a floor, staring up at a sharp knife in the hands of a man in a skeleton mask. I could see the shiny tip of the blade as he barrelled it down into my chest with a grunt.
My heart started to race, my head snapping to Harry's direction on my right.
"The skeleton mask—" I nearly choked when I said it, memories flooding back just from that one mental image.
"I know," he nods quickly so I don't get worked up. "Don't worry about him."
"B–But...he stabbed me." I whisper, confused how I couldn't worry. He got away, I remember that.
"I know, but we have upped security and made arrangements for you to be staying in my hotel rooms for now on. He won't attack if you're not alone."
"But how do you know that? What about the police?"
He went silent, eyes drawing down to the bed.
"There's no police?" I widen my eyes.
"The mafia couldn't let attention be pulled to this, they covered it up and handled the police somehow." He murmured, I was in slight shock.
I understand he never wants to get the police involved, but I got stabbed and possibly assaulted. And now that person is gone without follow. They will come back, I know it. If this doesn't get reported to the police, then they'll never be found.
"Is the mafia doing anything about this then?" I whisper, my eyes starting to water in fear.
"I am." He clears his throat, meaning no.
I shut my eyes and turn my head away from him, my heart racing in anxiousness. I felt so helpless, scared for my life yet again. This person wants me dead, so why wouldn't they strike again? It's not like there will never be moments where I'm alone, even if I am staying in Harry's room. There will be moments in life I'll want to go on a walk for a coffee or go maybe take pictures, but I can't now, not alone.
"Aven I'll protect you—"
"It's unrealistic to think you'll be right next to me for the rest of this tour, I can't expect that from you." I whisper, looking out the window and away from him.
"But there will be high security when I'm not around, Av—" He tries to pull my chin back to face him, but I nudge it off and kept my eyes out the window. I just needed a second, I was tired and upset. I've never felt so helpless in my life.
The room ran silent as he pulled him hand back, not forcing me to look at him this time. I shut my eyes as tears swelled along my tear ducts, I didn't want him to see that.
"Angel...it's just complicated. You know I want to keep you safe, and I will. But things the mafia does is out of my control. They can't bring the police into this because the band will be questioned along with it. It will take them one step closer to the whole smuggling operation we've got going on." He tries to justify.
I stay quiet for a second, taking everything in from the tightness to my chest mixed with the drugs that kept me relaxed. It was making me feel a bit trapped in my own mind.
"I understand, it's okay." My voice was quietly on the verge of tears, staring out the window. "I just wish I had help."
I understand, I really do. There's nothing he can do when it comes to the mafia. I don't know how they managed to cover this all up, but I guess that's what they do. Besides not having the authorities searching for this murderer, it hurts the most knowing the mafia isn't even helping. I mean I guess I can't expect them to, I'm no one to them after all. It would be stupid to think they care about this situation, and honestly I don't want to have to owe them anything anyway.
"You have me, and the other guys to help. I'll catch this guy, I promise." I could hear him from my right, I can tell he felt a bit guilty about it all.
It's hard knowing my grandma doesn't even know about this. She use to know everything that went on in my life. It was better she didn't anyway though, her worrying wouldn't make this any better.
"I'm scared, Harry." I whisper chillingly, my voice scratchy.
"Don't be, you're going to be okay." I felt his hand on my leg.
"What did I do to them?" I whisper, feeling bad for myself.
That's something I was so stuck on, what I did for this person to be out for me. It'd not like I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, this stranger has been following me all across this tour. I don't know how they got into my room or even knew where it was, but they know things.
I felt the bed dip in different spots, the springs squeaking in my ear. Eventually I felt the heaviness of an arm laying on my stomach, accompanied by body heat against my right side.
"Look at me." He whispers, his voice a lot closer to my ear now.
I gently tilt my head back over to his side, coming face to face with him laying next to me with his head propped up by his elbow. He was on his side, facing me with a serious look.
"I will make them pay, I promise." He whispers in sincerity, words that swaddled my heart.
"I thought I was going to die." I whisper, keeping my eyes on his. They flicked back and forth between mine. "I didn't wanna die like that."
He pauses for a second, eyes softening as silence ran between us.
"I know, but you didn't." He assures back, hand rested open on my stomach. "And I'll keep it that way."
I could hear the hum from his headphones still, he must've been listening to music very loud. I couldn't configure what type of music it was, but it was definitely not heavy rock music. He noticed my eyes glancing at the phone supplying the melodies, shortly after grabbing the device and bringing it up.
"What are you listening to?" I whispered in change of subject.
He sticks the headphone jack between his teeth and pulls it out of the phone, making the music stop from the input change. He glances at me while dropping the wire out of his mouth, placing the device on my stomach.
Once it was facing upwards, his finger gently taps the play button. When the music kicked off where it was left, I heard a range of melodies I didn't expect from him. The farthest things from his genre of music.
A orchestra mix of classical instruments filled the area around us, revealing what he was actually listening to. It caught me off guard, I thought I heard violins earlier but I didn't expect he was actually listening to classical music. It was a tune I've never heard, but most orchestrated music sounded similar to me. I wasn't too familiar with the genre.
I turn my head to him, seeing him next to me with his head propped by his elbow. He glances at me back, nodding with a muted expression I couldn't examine.
"You were listening to this?"
He nods, forming his lips into a line.
I widen my eyes a little, looking back at the phone resting on my stomach playing such intricate music. I blinked a bit and continued to listen, it was nice.
"I had no idea you liked classical music." I murmur.
"There's a lot of things you don't know about me." He chuckles quietly to himself.
No doubt.
"And does anyone know this about you?" I turn my eyes back to him.
He shrugs, forming his lips into a line. "No, not really."
You shock me everyday.
I smile at him softly, my eyes venturing around the corners of his angelic face. His eyes had some bags underneath them, they must've been sleep deprived somehow. I don't know what's happened since the accident, has he slept that much? It didn't seem like it. I was curious to know what the rest of the crew thought happened to me, how the mafia covered everything up. I don't know how a large blade accidentally gets impaled into someone without speculation.
"You're so beautiful." I whisper, my eyes still locked on him even when my thoughts are all over the place.
His vision catches mine immediately, almost like I just told him earth shattering news. His eyes soften, but unmistakably for sadness. I was sincere with what I said, and I wasn't just talking about his looks. He was a beautiful person because he was unlike someone I've ever met in my life. The layers to this mans personality was astonishing, and I was lucky enough to learn more from it everyday. Maybe I was just emotional from the painkillers in my system, but hearing that small little detail about the music only made him so much more irresistible to my heart.
"What do you mean?" He swallow a bit, he was nervous all the sudden.
I shrug.
"It's not meant to be explained." I kept the smile to warm him up. It was just something I felt. "What song is playing?" I add, seeming he was lost in how to respond.
"Oh...Hooked on Romance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra." He tells me, cheeks a little pinker than before.
"Ah," I nod, fascinated by this little fact about himself. "Are they your favourite?"
"Yeah, I'd say so." He nods. "Pretty sure they're all dead now though."
His eyes trace to the phone flat on my stomach, avoiding eye contact with me while he gives this little fact about himself. I can't tell he was slightly embarrassed, but to me it wasn't embarrassing at all. This made me just like him more, knowing he had even more depth to his intricate personality I've yet to discover.
"Why do you like it?" I murmur, clearing my throat as much as I could. My mouth was so dry still.
"It's a painfully long story." He chuckles as an excuse.
"I mean...I'm not going anywhere." I look down at my bed ridded state. "I could go for a story to distract that fact I've been stabbed."
He shakes his head with a half smile at my joke, probably having a battle in his head if he wants to get into everything. I was more then happy to listen.
"Okay, I'll tell you only because you were stabbed." He nods, making me smile a bit. "For starters, it was my fathers favourite type of music and he's play it every Sunday. Sunday was a very good day in my house, it was always peaceful and easy. He would drag me to church at 9am, then when we got back we'd eat lunch together and spend some time by ourselves. He would sit in his study and I would sit in my room, but the whole house would be blaring of classical music. We never fought on a Sunday, it must've been because it was gods day or somethin' cause come Monday and we'd be back to typical arguments and such. So back then, classical music was kinda a symbol of peace to me." He explains in the form of a story I could visualize so well.
I didn't know Harry went to church as a kid.
"So that's why you play it? It makes you feel peace." I gather everything he says.
"Well...it use to, kinda." He shrugs.
"Why kinda?"
"Because that's only half of the story." He keeps his eyes down at the phone humming the music, facing me on his side.
"Oh?" I furrow my brows.
"Mhmm.." He hums a nod, fingers tracing delicately around the patch of exposed skin between my shirt and pants.
I wait for him to continue, watching him as he watched the movements of his finger tips. It ticked me slightly, but not enough to be audible about it. He seemed to be processing everything in his head before he decided to speak it, I don't blame him.
"When I was fifteen, I met a girl." He starts, taking this in a direction I didn't expect. "Walking down my high schools hallway, I was passing a room that caught my ears. With my familiarities of a violin tune, I heard the sounds of one quietly humming through the walls all on its own. And when I peaked through the ajar door, I saw Bethany Schroeder sitting there alone with the expert instrument in her hand. I remember how much it caught me off guard because she was a typical prep who came off as having no real personality. But I was wrong. Then one day we were lab partners and I introduced myself." He starts off the story, and I was all ears.
Bethany was the only girlfriend he ever had, I never heard anything about her besides that night in Miami. It was the first time he opened up about her to show we had a mutual connection with our exes, we gave them everything but they still made it seem like we were so hard to care for back. A long time before that, he told me how he eventually cheated on her with her best friend.
I stay silent and let him keep going for as long as he wanted to.
"We hit it off surprisingly, I brought up how I saw her play violin. She told me she knew I played piano. So from there we had a connection. Our cliques were different though, she was within the popular airhead groups and I...wasn't. So when we started hanging out we kept in a secret. I felt so good around her, and it was the first time I felt like that with someone. She had a strict household like me, and was playing in recitals literally every week. Her parents were really pushing to make her a violin star, and I related to that with my father and the piano. I went to every one of her shows, front row. I didn't have a license at the time being only fifteen, so I took countless busses just to get across town. After her shows she'd sneak away from her parents and pull me backstage somewhere, we would make out in the strangest places. Along the way we eventually made things official, but she always kept our relationship hidden from the school. I was fine with it, I didn't want the attention."
He pauses after that last sentence, and I had a feeling this love story was at the part where it started going downhill. I was in awe he was telling me all of this, once again this felt like a parallel universe.
He exhales quietly to himself, making me a bit nervous.
"I did everything for her, stupid things just to make her happy. But the one thing I was so hesitant about was sex, and that's the one thing she was pushing for after a month in seeing each other. I wanted to have sex obviously, but in my head sex meant getting completely naked and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I never took off my shirt for anyone, but I knew if I wanted to keep her in my life then I couldn't hold out forever. The whole school had a speculation about me not taking off my shirt. Hence I was the only guy in gym that didn't take it off in the showers or any time I was at the beach with people. But I took it off to make her happy. The only thing was I shut off all the lights so she couldn't see me, and that was still hard. But she knew I had issues with the whole topic so she agreed to keep the light off to ease my mind." He trails off to silence at the end, but I knew the story wasn't over.
The brief pause made me realize how I was practically holding my breath out of anticipation of the worst. The music also stopped somewhere along the way so we were just in silence. I already was upset with what he was saying. It sounded like she really pushed him to have sex, and they were only fifteen. He obviously wasn't sounding very ready. I didn't expect to hear any of this from him though, this high school boy sounded like a whole different person.
I could see the struggle in his eyes as he was still laying on his side looking at my stomach. His finger froze the movements. He clears his throat.
"So we started...you know..doing it. And it felt good but my mind was full of anxiety the whole time so it was hard to really enjoy it. Even though she couldn't see me, I was very on edge. I kept reassuring myself that we were doing this because this is what people do when they love each other. We never said those words, but I thought maybe after this we would get closer to that. It was the first time I truly opened up to someone." He spoke in a quiet tone where I really had to listen hard in order to hear him.
This was going to end badly, wasn't it?
"But then during, she reached over and turned on the lamp so she could get a good look even when I told her I wasn't comfortable with it." He admits, eyes down. "I stopped, freaked, and threw on my clothes faster then I ever have before. She didn't say a word, but I know she did it maliciously."
"Maliciously?" I widen my eyes.
He nods.
"You think she did that purposely to make you upset?" I ask in clarity, my heart racing.
"Yeah, because she never talked to me again after that night. Didn't even make eye contact with me in the halls. Then a few days later I felt people staring at me more then usual, like they knew something. It wasn't long until I found out she told people what happened, that we had sex and she got to see the quiet and reserved freak without his shirt. So, she played me that entire time. It was all a scam, and I was so fucking humiliated." He murmurs, my heart breaking into two.
"So now when I listen to classical music, I don't feel peace. I—"
"You feel pain." I finish his sentence, my eyes watering.
"I feel pain. I feel pain from her and pain from my fathers death." He finishes in agreement, eyes peaking up at me for the first time in a while.
"Then why do you listen to it?" I whisper, my throat aching.
He pauses, keeping his green eyes on mine before answering. I breathed shallow, laying as still as I could be. My heart was thrashing against my chest, and I felt a heaviness behind my eyes that was nothing but raw emotion. Classical music sounds like it would be hell to listen to for him, between her and his father. Why on earth would he want to do that to himself?
"Because I spent years bottling up every emotion I had, and sometimes I just want to feel something again."
His words hit me in a place that has been dormant for a long time, a place of relation. A wave of sickness took over my body like a sea of nerves. I was feeling so many different things, but most of it was pain. Sometimes you hear something that you know will be engraved in your brain forever, and that sentence was one of those things.
"Maybe one day classical music will be replaced with a happy memory—that way I can really enjoy it again. But I like pain sometimes, so I can't complain." He adds.
My heart was broken for Harry and what she did to him, knowing it tainted his views on love forever. This explained so much when it came to him reflecting affection so easily, he simply doesn't want to get hurt like that again. It was obvious to say that the whole 'I got bored and cheated on her' was a coverup. I remember him telling me that back in Atlantic City, we barely knew each other back then.
"I'm sorry someone you loved made it seem like you were so impossible to love back." My voice cracked, tears brimming my eyes. "You never deserved that."
His eyes met mine, but they quickly darted back down before I could sense his emotion. His fingers delicately grazed around the phone on me.
"Mmm." He hums. "That's why you don't believe in it anymore, right?" He touches upon what we said that night in the car, coincidentally the same night we kissed for the first time.
I swallow, his eyes meeting mine.
"Yeah." I nod.
He nods back, pulling his phone off my stomach and tucking it down by his side. I was on the verge of tears again, hearing that horrible story. He doesn't open up about that stuff often, so it was a shock to my system.
"Anyway, there's your story. You'll have to wait for another stabbing to get another out of me." He ends with humour, but I wasn't in a laughing mood. He likes to wrap painful memories but with a bow sometimes, but I'd be a hypocrite if I say I didn't do that myself.
"I want to say I'm sorry, but I know that isn't what you want to hear." I murmur from experience.
He sits up again with a shrug, crossing his legs and facing my right side. He grabs my solid hand off my thigh and puts it back on his knee, grabbing the yellow nail polish bottle once again.
"But I will say, happiness is an addiction when you're not use to it. She made your life happier, and it's hard to let something like that go. You said it yourself, you did everything for her. Meaning you knew you were doing the unfair amount just to hold onto whatever you had together." I explain while he unscrewed the nail polish cap, pulling the coated brush out and wiping some of the extra residue off the side.
He started where he left off, holding my pinky finger up and stroking the fine layer of paint along my nail. I still don't know where he got that bottle, it wasn't mine.
"Sometimes we force life and meaning into things that just need to fucking die, and I learned that the hard way." He answers calmly, concentrating on my nail bed.
I take in his words, nodding in my brain but staying dead still on the outside. I watched as he was so still and unbothered was he painted my nails again. He was at a state of his life that was so crazy but so calm, I couldn't fathom it. He definitely has some issues he hasn't delt with, but at the same time he seems so unbothered when bringing those horrible things up. I can't believe that girl did that to him.
"She's a bitch." I blurt out.
My words came out without filter, probably thoughts I should've kept in. But I saw him crack a smile when I said it, luckily he wasn't mad.
"Yep, but she has my virginity in her pocket somewhere." He chuckles while multitasking.
"When did you let yourself have sex again? I can't imagine it being for a while." I murmur.
"Not until Duplicity went on the first tour. I saw how much girls actually adored me when I was a front runner of a rock band. The first week of the tour I saw Niall and Liam with a new girl every night after the gigs, fucking them in their dressing rooms. And eventually I saw a girl front row who flashed me during a show. So I made the classic security move like Niall and Liam would. Brought her backstage to where she literally threw herself at me and undid my belt before I barely got her through the door. She sucked me off, I finished embarrassingly fast, I went down on her, then I bent her over a table in a span of twenty minutes. I realized from there I had all the control because she was so attracted to a rockstar. I didn't have to take off my clothes, kiss, or do any intimate stuff because she was just happy the lead singer brought her backstage." He explains while gently painting my nails. "And that's how I became the sex crazed douchebag with over a hundred names tattooed up my arm."
I cackle at the end, even though that's kinda a fucked up story.
"You never allowed yourself to be intimate with any of them?" I murmur.
He shook his head, "All just meaningless fucks."
"Ah." I nod, looking at my nails.
"Until." He states shortly.
"What?"
"Until." He repeats, keeping concentration.
"Until what?" I arch my brow.
"You know, until." He doesn't reiterate as much as he thinks he is probably.
"I'm all drugged up, you have to explain things better then that." I make a point.
He chuckles and shakes his head.
"Nevermind," He lets it go. "You're welcome for painting your nails by the way."
"Why are you doing that anyway?"
"Guilt I guess, you got shanked within the twenty minutes I wasn't around. I had to redo mine so I thought I'd redo yours to burn time." He shrugs, making me grin. It was a really odd and sweet gesture, nothing I ever expected of him.
I realize from the way he was holding my fingers, that one of his own nails were in fact yellow too. It was his middle finger.
"Your nail." I blurt out. "You painted it yellow."
He freezes and looks at the exact nail I was talking about, confirming his thought that it was in fact yellow within all the repainted black ones. It caught me completely off guard.
"Oh, yeah." He looks at it for a second. "I was testing it in the store when picking the colour out, there's like four hundred fuckin' shades of bloody yellow apparently." He shakes his head, going back to my nail.
"I thought you hated yellow." My cheeks burned.
"I do." He nods, but yet he didn't paint over it with black when he redid his own.
My cheeks blushed a bit, knowing he was going to leave the pop of colour on his single nail without saying anything else about it. For some reason it meant a lot to me.
"Can you paint my middle fingernail black then?" I ask.
He turns his head to me and arches his brow, I couldn't help but smirk.
"I mean, it's only fair right?" I add, being a bit cheeky with it.
"I'll think about it." He grins back, turning to my nails again. "So there will be no soundcheck tonight, and you won't be attending the show. As far as Sal and the crew knows, this was all an accident. How? I have no idea. You will be staying with me in the suite, and during the show I'll have a whole secret service guarding the room while there will be security camera's I can stream from my phone. So I'll be able to see you in bed. You should be back on your feet in no time though, especially by the next show."
I felt my stomach turn to a rock knowing I'd be alone, but I trust him. I know he's doing everything he can to keep me safe, and I appreciate it.
"I'll be back right after the show." He assures.
I nod, pulling a half smile.
"Did you end up robbing that bank?" I whisper, remembering what was something needing to be done in Atlanta.
He clears his throat, awkwardly.
"No, we didn't." His voice was quiet. "I didn't trust leaving you in the hospital in surgery."
"But I thought you had to follow mafia orders or there'd be punishment?" I was a little shocked, remembered what punishment meant last time for him.
"We do." He nods.
"So then wh—"
I heard the bunk door slide open, making both of our head turns. Incoming through the doorway in impeccable timing was Niall with his grey hoodie up with sweatpants, walking through and turning to us. Even with my shitty nearsighted vision I could see the details of his face.
His face was beat to shreds.
My jaw dropped as I blinked, seeing how he had a fat lip and purpling bruises all under this eyes with reddened scuffs across his face.
"Niall took the fall behind my back, he felt bad he wasn't there when this all happened to you and he knew my face wasn't done recovering from last time yet." Harry murmurs as Niall walks in.
"Hey." He greets upon discussion.
"Oh my god Niall!" My heart breaks as the door shuts behind him.
"Oh c'mon it isn't that ugly, is it?" He walks over with his face all different shades of pain.
"No–No but it looks awfully painful. You let them beat you so you could let Harry stay at the hospital for me?" I felt incredible guilty.
"It's no big deal, it was over in ten minutes." He shrugs, sitting down at the edge of the bed. "Faked a killer stomach cramp and told them I wasn't going to the robbery."
"I wouldn't of let him do it, but I didn't know it happened until I got a text from Louis saying the robbery was cancelled." Harry stated.
Niall made himself comfortable, laying himself next to me on the opposite side of the bed Harry was on. He tucks his hand behind his head, overlapping his legs.
"Niall you shouldn't of done that." I shake my head, looking at him on my left. "I would've been okay on my own."
"Nah, it just makes me looks more badass, girls will go nuts over it tonight." He smirks at Harry, obviously not sad about it or just hiding it very well.
"She's right Niall, you shouldn't of done that." Harry adds, painting my nails still.
"You wouldn't survive another lamp to the head, Styles. You still look like shit from last time." Niall cackles, turning to me. "So hows the wound? I heard Freddy Krueger finally struck."
"I'm okay, but I'm terrified."
"Don't be, we'll catch him." He sounded confident with it. "I'll even bring you his balls on a silver platter."
I couldn't help but laugh, even though this situation was nothing to laugh about. I couldn't believe Niall put himself through a punishment so Harry didn't have to, it was truly touching. I felt more secure knowing I had the four guys by my side. I was nervous for being alone tonight, but Harry seems to have it all figured out.
"For all we know, that mother fucker could be right under our nose." Niall adds, looking right at Harry with a small look of deviance. "Right Harry?"
//
(was gonna add a quick sound clip of the music Harry was listening to but wattpad wouldn't let me lol. It's on my twitter though!)
thank you for your patience, I love seeing your theories online!! these chapters take a lot of time to write lately. happy 4mill to duplicity!!
I wonder what will happen next..