Where Have You Been

Chapter 11

Zoë's POV

I tried to hide my flagrant hyperventilation, but seeing as those two words are quite contradictory, it didn’t work out the way I had planned. Taylor, who looked up from her Kindle to ask what was wrong, heard my heavy, fast breaths.

“Zoe? Are you dying over there?” she inquired, looking puzzled.

“A little bit… “  I whispered, hoping to conceal the conversation from my nosy mother. “Niall texted me!”

“He what?” Taylor’s eyebrows lifted in delight. She snatched away my phone, looking hungrily at Niall’s text. “Hunger” may sound like an interesting adjective in this situation, but the look in her eyes could only be described as so. “You have to reply! Reply, reply, reply!” she repeated, shaking my arm like a bad-mannered cavewoman. 

“Well I don’t know what to say!” I was rather a novice in the boy department. I had only had a few boyfriends, and boyfriends in our high school just meant holding hands, and pretending to go behind the school to make out. (We really just stood there awkwardly and played Tetris on our phones).

“Don’t be coy—be flirty! And make him want you.” Taylor was something of an expert in this subject, having read every single issue of “Us Weekly” since she was 12. In addition, she had gone through multiple boyfriends. She wooed her first man, (little boy, really) in 3rd grade. Most of us didn’t even know the true definition of “boyfriend” in 3rd grade, let alone know what it’s like to have one! So, It’s safe to say that I trusted her advice.

“Ok…? So, what does that entail?”

“You can’t let on that you like him, he has to tell you first. Be discreet about it, play with him, mess his mind up.” I felt like I should be getting a pen and paper to record all of her notes. I wrote a draft of my text and showed it to her:

‘Yeah! On my way 2 the airport. Thx again by the way. :)’

“No, no, no!” Taylor shook her head at my inexperience. “You are practically ASKING him to leave you alone.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted!” This boy stuff was beyond me.

“You need to at least try a little. Remember, be flirty!” I nodded my head, absorbing the information. Let’s hope my second attempt was more successful:

‘Ya, thanks to you! I’m on my way 2 the airport. Maybe we c see each other again, sometime?’

I chewed on my nail, waiting anxiously as Taylor inspected my 2nd text.

“Ok, THIS one is way too flirty. You asked him to see you again? He has a girlfriend for crying out loud!” This was news to me. Taylor seemed to see the sudden darkness in my face, because she immediately covered up her mistake. “They aren’t very serious. Really, I heard he was planning on breaking up with her!” I shook my head slowly. I had known Taylor long enough to recognize her ‘lying voice’.

 I tried, with difficulty, not to cry. I was 18 years old! Where was this coming from? All this crying in the past 12 hours overwhelmed me. But I was so confused. I told Taylor I had absolutely no feelings for One Direction, and now I’m crying because I can’t be with one of them? It’s not like he would want me anyways. I was another trifling fan. In fact, I was probably more interesting when I hated them. That always made for a good story. “Niall Horan falls in love with One Direction-hater”. Maybe I shouldn’t text him back. I told Taylor my revelation, and she shook her head at my naivety.

“I’m sorry sweetie, but you’re still texting him.” I frowned at her degrading ‘sweetie’.

“Fine. But I’ll oversee whether it’s right or wrong.” Taylor put her hands up in surrender.

“You’re hopeless anyways” She covered up the offense by winking. Somehow, that wasn’t enough to conceal the fact that she was not joking.

I inspected the text I had just written, and put my stamp of approval on it. (Which was really just a smiley face that I decided to add at the end). Even after I sent it (an endeavor which took a great deal of time), I still pondered whether it was the right thing to say, re-reading my text multiple times to assure myself. I bet Niall wasn’t having such troubles.

Niall’s POV.

The boys crowded around, eagerly awaiting her message. Louis snatched it out of my sweaty palm with ease, and danced around the room, holding it like an Olympic torch.

“Na na na na na na! I’ve got your pho-one!” He sang, bringing back old childhood playground memories. I reached desperately for the phone, chasing him blindly around the room. My (pretty much non-existent, because I am a boy) hip jutted sharply into the corner of a table, and I recoiled in pain.

“Meh…. Louis….” I managed, as I kicked the offending table in pain.

“Shall I read it?” He taunted, raising his eyebrows. Before awaiting an answer, he began.  “I hate you. You suck. Get a life. Love Zoë” I rolled my eyes at his lame attempt at a joke.

“Seriously Lou, I’m in physical pain. Don’t add mental pain, too!” My pleading eyes softened him, and he read the text in a more forgiving tone.

“Ya, thanks by the way. You rly saved my life out there. Semi-colon, random parentheses, H-B-U” he read, pretending to be oblivious to texting lingo. (If, perhaps, you are oblivious as well, the text was “;) hbu”)

“Saved my life? What did you do to her? Niaaaller, tell us!” His tone indicated that we were ‘engaging in sexual activity’, but we most certainly were not. I realized that I hadn’t even informed the boys of what had gone on between us two. I didn’t even tell them how we met up again. I’m sure they just assumed we went off together after the concert. With a sigh, I began to tell the boys my story.

“A rapist?!” Liam shouted.

“Who? What? When?”

“You saved her? What did he do?”

“When was this?”

 They all jumped in with their questions, like inquisitive kindergarteners.

“Guys, I told you all that in the story! You really should learn to listen”. I whined, sounding equally young and foolish.

“You know I have the attention span of a goldfish” Harry cocked his head, raising his eyebrows knowingly at me. I repeated myself 10 times over, adding every minute detail, because I knew they would want to know it. Their faces (when they finally absorbed the information) were something of disbelief, and shock.

“Niall you HAVE to see her again. You can’t just save some one from a rapist, and be like: ‘sorry I gtg. Bye bye, see you never.’” I laughed at his weird impression of my accent.

“I know”, I sighed. And I did. I really had to see her.