The Pretenders (Niall Horan)

Chapter 13

“Left! Move it to the bloody left!” I shouted at the poor boy who was standing at the top of a ladder, trying to attach one end of a cloth hanging to the wall.

With the formal only four days away, I was constantly in a shitty mood thanks to the stress of organising a formal and the fact that Mrs. Kingsley still made Will and I attend our classes. What pissed me off even more was that Will barely showed up to the venue after school when we were decorating or the Prefect meetings we had concerning catering. His attitude towards school had dramatically changed after we broke up; he hardly ever showed up to the few classes we had together, and when he did, he always got angry with the teacher and when he was sent out to calm down, he didn’t come back. I also know that Mrs. Kingsley has had a few serious meetings about replacing him as Head Boy, according to Chloe, who had been in the office at the time that Will walked out of Mrs. Kingsley’s office, kicking at the occasional object that was in his way as the Headmistress shouted angrily after him, telling him to come back and that she wasn’t finished with him.

But what was even stranger than Will’s ‘I-hate-everything-and-everyone’ attitude, was that Sabrina was loads happier than usual and she was even insulting Cassie less, leaving the rest of our group extremely confused.

“Is that good?” The boy on the ladder asked. He only looked fifteen or sixteen. An innocent volunteer. I suddenly felt guilty.

 “Uh, yeah. Sorry for shouting at you,” I apologised, rubbing my forehead.

 He shrugged. “It’s alright.”

 “You volunteered to help, not to get yelled at by the extremely stressed Head Girl.”

He chuckled, climbing back down the ladder, then looked over at a girl around his age struggling to untangle a strand of fairy lights. “I’m going to go help Abby, if that’s alright.”

 “She your girlfriend?” I asked, noticing the way that he looked at her; the way Will used to look at me.    

 He sighed. “I wish.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to do that and I’ll find another innocent kid to shout at,” I said and watched as the boy – whose name I don’t know – walked over the girl called Abby and watched her smile as he offered to help.

 I scanned the room looking for any mistakes in the décor. I jumped as a loud bang echoed through the function room, making everyone go quiet. I turned to find Will, who had just flung the door open.

 I stalked up to him. “Where the hell have you been?!” I yelled.

 “I’ve been busy,” he replied casually, rolling his eyes.

“Busy?!” I scoffed. “Please enlighten me to why you’ve been ‘busy’ enough to only show up twice in the past week and a half because I’d love to know! And I’m sure they would, too!” I indicated to everyone watching us and calmly said, “go back to work guys, I’ll be outside if you need me.”

 I grabbed Will by the wrist and dragged him out of the function room.