Bad Friend

5- Maybe I Overreacted

H.

"You're a right prick, you know that don't you?"

"Piss off, Louis."

The boys all laughed at my expense but eventually left me to my own devices when they saw that my sour mood was here to stay. All except Louis, but any evidence of teasing was gone now.

We were in one of the green rooms for Xfactor. As I was getting my ass handed to me by our management, I hadn't realized that I left my phone there. I rarely ever did that, knowing that either one of the boys would take it and cause trouble. It would've been fine if they hadn't called Gwen.

Gwen Kobayashi. The small piece of normalcy I allowed myself to have while touring and being a member of One Direction. When I stumbled into that tattoo parlor in San Diego, she caught my eye immediately, her hair a soft baby pink and skin bare of any tattoos, which I found odd considering where she worked. After she dealt with the fans that had been following me for three blocks, which I also appreciated, she came back to where my tattoo artist, her dad I would later find out, was and just sat and talked to me. I couldn't remember the last time I had a normal, genuine conversation with someone that wasn't the boys or a member of my family. She would look at me with a curious look in her eye every now and again, like she knew who I was but couldn't remember why, but she never asked. That wasn't G's style, I would come to understand. She would never take more than I would give her, and in a world where all people did was take and ask for more, she made me feel more at ease than I'd felt in a long time.

Leaving the world of One Direction behind for a few days and going to see Gwen was something I started to look forward to as the years passed. I could never stay for more than a couple days, which sucked, but it made me want to make each time I did get to see her more memorable than the last.

But then we went to Yosemite, and I felt like my whole world had been turned upside down. When we woke up in the same sleeping bag our second morning at the campsite, it was like I hadn't been asleep for just one night but for years, all my senses focusing in on her. I always found her beautiful, with her thick black hair that she used to color, but not so much anymore, dark brown eyes that were nearly black, her smile that made me feel like we shared a secret that no one else knew, but it wasn't until I woke up that morning that I realized it. The realization hitting me so hard that all I could do was hide from the sheer strength of them.

I'd fallen in love and then I'd run away.

"I've never seen you jealous before," Louis said quietly as he handed my phone back to me. "Angry, annoyed as shit, but never jealous."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I told him, but we both knew I was lying. I was jealous, and I didn't know what to do about it.

Looking over at Louis, I thought about all the relationship trouble he'd had over the years. It was one of the reasons I was so terrified of committing to someone for longer than a month or two. The travelling, the never-ending schedule, the people who could be less than kind on the Internet. Louis and his girlfriend had been put through every possible obstacle, and perhaps I was weaker for it, but I didn't want to put myself or anyone else through that, even if just the mere thought of them made my stomach flip.

"I've never felt this way for someone before, Lou," I sighed, leaning back against the couch I had fallen onto when Gwen hung up.

Louis placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "I know, we were all surprised to see you walking around with hearts in your eyes these last few months."

What? "What? I didn't mean a few months ago—And what do you mean 'we'?" I asked him. A few months ago was when I visited G in her new dorm for the first time. It was also when I caught her with Tyler. Even thinking about her with someone else put a bad taste in my mouth. I teased her when I first met him, but in my head all I could think about was our camping trip last Spring. My hands in her hair, my lips on hers, on her neck, everywhere. I wasn't dumb enough to think that G was just perpetually single while we were apart, not after Yosemite and certainly not before, but something about actually seeing her with someone else, someone that wasn't me, made me want to punch something and curl up into a ball and cry at the same time.

"Harry, everyone noticed that when you get agitated or stressed, you leave for a few days, and then you come back happier than ever. You were never very subtle about it," Louis said, dragging my thoughts away from Gwen and Tyler. The thought of him comforting her after our fight today making my stomach churn.

"Oh," I replied lamely, never having thought about it that way. I always just assumed that because I never told anyone where I was going no one would ever think anything of it. But trust the people who have known me for years to put two and two together.

"Yeah, 'oh,'" Louis said jokingly, standing up from the couch. Before he left, though, he turned towards me one last time. "Look, in my experience, it's always best to just be honest. It might not be the easiest option, but you'll save yourself and Gwen a lot of trouble if you just tell her the truth, whatever that might be."

I twisted one of the rings on my finger as I took Louis' advice in. I didn't even know what "the truth" was. I liked Gwen. Hell, I was in love with her. But I was still scared of the future and what it might hold for me, for us. There was so much to say, and now so much I had to apologize for.

I hadn't meant to snap at G earlier, but I was still in my head about my lecture from management and the image of her with Tyler was still fresh in my mind. Gwen had gone out of her way to not make things awkward for me at the Halloween party, the one that I had decided to crash. What she didn't know was that I'd seen her kiss him, her hands around his neck and his fisted in her hair. It was like I was watching a car crash in slow motion. I couldn't stop looking. When she pulled away, she smiled at him with her forehead against his. I quickly turned around in search of a distraction of the alcoholic variety. It hurt me more than I expected, more than I cared to admit, to see Gwen with someone else that way, that she was so happy being with someone else. And the fact that Tyler was such a nice guy somehow made it worse.

Pulling my phone open, I started scrolling through various social media apps. G had no idea, but I was constantly checking her profiles and accounts for updates. I felt like one of my fans the way I constantly waited for some kind of post or tweet, to find out where she was or what she was doing. It was how I managed to find her wherever she was. Gwen always seemed surprised that I knew where she was staying whenever I showed up on her doorstep, but if I saw she was somewhere I could book a flight, I was on the next one to see her.

I never followed her on anything, though, and maybe that's why she never expected to see me. But I knew what my fans could be like. That one follow would mean that she would be on their radar. Call me selfish, but I wasn't ready to share her with the world. I loved traveling across continents to go on an exciting new adventure with G, one that was away from the rest of the world and out of the public eye.

I needed to see her, needed to apologize. But my schedule wasn't going to let up. And it might be for the best. Knowing G, she would most likely slam her door in my face if I showed up tomorrow or the next day. But I would go soon, and if there wasn't time in our hectic schedule, I would make time. My relationship with Gwen, friendship or otherwise, was important to me, and I wasn't about to let my idiotic behavior or jealousy ruin that.