The Way Things Change

Chapter 24

*Niall’s POV*

OW. My head hurts. That was one hell of a party last night. It was good to see everybody again. And Kate. Wow! When she walked in the room it was like everything went silent. Everybody was mesmerized by her. And she was completely oblivious to that. She has no idea how good she looks. Because of that bastard! I swear to God, if I ever find him I will not be responsible for my actions. He needs to learn a lesson. That is NOT how you treat a girl.

And I guess Harry was right. I really like this girl. The boys have been teasing me all tour about it. I just couldn’t stop thinking about her! I don’t know why or how, but I think I might be falling for this girl.

SHIT. I think I night have said that to her yesterday Yeah. It’s coming back to me. We were sitting on the stairs, her hand on my leg. I’m sure she feels the same about me. Damn, why can’t I remember what she said? That stupid beer! I shouldn’t have had that much. I need to go talk to her.

I put on a shirt and made my way down the stairs. This place looked like shit. I found everybody in the living room. They were probably just as hung over as me, they certainly looked like it. Ed, Andy and the girls were still here, everybody else had left.

“Morning” I said, my voice croaky. They acknowledged my presence but kept quiet. Nobody wanted to talk, so we just sat there.

“Does anybody know or remember what happened yesterday? I can’t remember much” Louis asked, after what seemed to be hours.

“I don’t know everything, but I know that I was really hitting it off with this hot chick and she totally blew me off!” Andy said. His ego was hurt, you could see that.

“Do you even remember who this ‘Hot chick’ was?” Liam teased him. Liam was always obnoxiously happy after a party, because he never really got drunk.

“I don’t know… I think her name was Carrie or something… But I do know she was wearing a white dress and she had the most amazing cleavage I’ve seen for a long time.” We couldn’t help but laugh. Typical Andy.

“You are probably talking about Kate. She was smoking yesterday!” Louis said and Eleanor slapped him. “Hey. What was that for? She was. Even you said so, remember? Every time you saw her, you had to brag that it was all your doing!” she mouthed a quick “Sorry” and snuggled up to him. “Yeah, we did really good job.” Danielle sighed. “Yeah” everyone mumbled and disappeared into thought.

“Well, I really gave it everything I got and she literally ran away!” Yep. Andy’s ego was definitely hurt.

“What did you say?” Liam was angry. His mood had changed rapidly in no time.

“I really turned on the Andy charm, you know-“

“What the hell Andy! I already told you, you couldn’t do that! She’s too fragile. I told you to stay away from her!”

“Well you were the one to introduce us!”

“I told you to be nice to her, NOT try and grope her!” Liam was yelling. We all knew you couldn’t do that to Kate. Not after what she had been through.

“Then I’m really sorry, but I was drunk. I’ll apologize to her when she wakes.”

“You should probably apologize too Harry.” Ed said. “Yeah, I should…” and then they kept quiet, no explanation.

“What did you do then?” Liam asked.

“Well…” Harry looked down embarrassed. “I kind of told her that she was an awful person and that she was the ugliest girl I had ever laid my eyes on…” His voice was barely audible. Our eyes grew wider in horror. You should NEVER say that to a girl! NEVER!

“YOU WHAT?!” Liam blew up. He was always the protective one, but when he got angry, he was REALLY angry.

“You can’t say that to her! You KNOW about her insecurities. How could you just throw that in her face?”

“In my defence, it was meant as a joke! She just didn’t get it. AND I immediately apologized, but she just wouldn’t hear it!” Harry argued. You could see he felt guilty.

“There really were a lot of fuckups regarding Kate then. Anybody else who did something?” Liam asked the room. Everybody was silent. I really hoped nobody else had done anything to her. She had been through enough already!

“So Niall, you’re just not gonna say anything?” Zayn said. I glared at him, confused.

“What? What did I do?” I tried to stay calm, but in my mind I was panicking. What had I done to her?

“So you really don’t remember?”

“NO! And stop the bullshit, just tell me what I did!”

“You really want me to tell the story?” Zayn asked.

“YES!” practically everyone shouted at once.

“So Niall, yesterday you decided to tell Kate how you feel about her.” Everybody was looking at us intently.

“Yeah I remember that, but that’s about it.”

“So you remember that she didn’t say something back? She just walked away. You were so mad at her that you got really wasted. I don’t know exactly what you did, but I remember waking up because of Kate screaming. She sounded terrified. So I hurried to her room. I thought she was having another nightmare or something.” He stopped, everybody waiting for him to continue.

“AND?” Louis said. He had never been patient.

“So I found Niall in her room. You were only in your boxers with the biggest boner I’ve ever seen. And you were practically attacking her. She told you to stop and get out, but you just kept saying that she wanted to and she shouldn’t fight it!”

“NO!” I yelled in horror. I didn’t do that. I couldn’t have! That was awful. I looked at the others, their faces filled with anger. FUCK! I really needed to talk to her!

“HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID?!” Liam yelled.

“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to… I’m SORRY, okay. I didn’t know what I was doing. I should just go up and apologize right now!” There were too many things running through my head.

“NO!” Liam yelled in horror. “You don’t go anywhere near her right now, understand?” He was furious. I couldn’t blame him though. Andy and Ed looked confused. They didn’t know what had happened to Kate, so they didn’t understand.

“IF she forgives you for this, she will come to you! You just stay away from her!”

Some memories from last night flashed through my mind. Oh no. Fuck. I thought I couldn’t fuck up anymore than I already had. I really should tell.

“I did something else” I whispered.

“Oh for Gods sake Niall, what did you do?” Louis said aggravated.  

“I… She… Well, she told me she was moving out in two weeks and I really didn’t want her to go. So I may have called her realtor and told him to give the flat to someone else.” I didn’t want to look at them, I was too embarrassed.

“For fucks sake!” Louis yelled. I needed to get out of here. I needed to think.

“Where are you going?” Liam asked.

“To my room… I need to think.” Maybe, just maybe I could try and fix things.

***

“Fuck!” I heard Liam shout. I went to see what he was yelling at.

“What is it Liam?” I heard Zayn’s voice.

“She’s gone!” I heard despair in Liam’s voice. What did he mean gone?

I saw Harry approaching. “What do you mean she’s gone?” he asked.

“I mean she’s gone. She has packed her bags and has left. Gone!”

FUCK. SHIT. BULLOCKS. This is all my fault.

I could feel the tears building in my eyes. What had I done?