Where Have You Been

Chapter 12

Zoë's POV

I roused my mom, whose head was lying (somewhat uncomfortably) on her hardback book.

“We’re here” I sang sweetly, ruffling her hair. She was the kind of person who needed to be woken up gently, or she would fly into a cranky rage. Her eyelids fluttered, and I had a brief flashback of Niall’s blinking eyes staring into mine. I shook off the thought, having the unnerving feeling that my mom could somehow sense what I was thinking.

We took our small supply of baggage, and, because my mom is my mom, we checked every single last item. (Except for my moms purse). Even the airport seemed to be packed with hung-over concertgoers in their rumpled “One Direction” T-shirts. I, again, seemed out of place in my fancy dress. I assumed that everyone here wore designer clothing 24/7. But, captain obvious, I guess the airport mainly consists of people who don’t live in New York flying back to their own homes.

My Fancy airport outfit was somewhat ruined going through security. I had to remove my shoes, my belt, and my bangles… I didn’t look quite the same when I put it back on. Slightly more rumpled, like the rest of my body. (My face, namely.) Dang… That was the only thing I had going for me. Now If I ran into Niall… I laughed at my over-hopefulness. Niall wouldn’t be flying back home until a few weeks. And even then, he would be in the international terminal of the airport.

Darn my pessimism…. I wouldn’t even allow my imagination 10 lovely seconds of Niall-based dreams. Oh God…. Now I was dreaming of him! In fact, I had been dreaming from the start. Perhaps this “relationship” was an illusion my mind had latched on to, starved for affection in my desolate love life.  I swear, I would be decrepit and 102 years old before I find myself a man.

‘At least Niall would be 103, then.’ The thought comforted me somewhat, but my epiphany regarding our “relationship” (and the fact that it was imaginary) still must be true. Right?

A faint buzzing from my phone told me that maybe it wasn’t so imaginary. I allowed myself a hint of a smile before secretly viewing the text.

‘course I’m ok. It’s u I was worried bout. :P where r u off to? Awake so early in the morning J’ 

“I was worried about you” I swooned at his text, then laughing at my absurdity. And, “where are you off to”? It seemed like a cryptic message, really meaning: I want to see you again. Why else would he ask? I smiled proudly at myself for getting this all from one text. Thanking Taylor silently, I replied (perhaps a little to eagerly), hoping her boy-intelligence was still fresh in my mind.

Where I used to be nervous and awkward, I was now something of an expert. Niall and I had been texting back and forth for hours before our plane departure. (My mom liked to be fashionably early). So far, Taylor and my mom had yet to notice my disengagement in their polite conversation about silverware. Perfect. This left me time to text without objections and corrections from Taylor. Her advice WAS much needed, but it was nice to not be so nervous for approval. Our texts were mostly platonic, but even being friendly with a boy was new to me.

Taylor finally noticed my absence in their conversation when it switched to Harry Styles’ hair.  She thought that, surely, since I was practically dating Niall, I would be into the whole band. (I really wasn’t, not that she cared to find out).

“Zoe, you’ve been AWOL this whole day! Where is your mind?” As if on cue, my phone vibrated. “No… Don’t tell me you’ve been texting him!” Her voice indicated “anger”, but the sparkle in her eyes told me that she was secretly proud. I resigned my phone to her, knowing she would be asking for it any second. I watched Taylors eyes travel back and forth, her emotions coinciding with whichever text she was reading. I watched her eyes closely, interjecting every so often with a:

“Which part are you at?”

“’kk, bye, heart’?” Taylor read, her tone a mixture of disgust, and happiness. “Again. Girlfriend?” Taylor reminded me. I had to inform her that our relationship was purely platonic.

“PLATONIC? Zoe, you put a heart in your text! You giggled, you told him about your LIFE! Next time you’re planning on just being friends, cut that part out. “ She was no longer a mixture of emotions, but solely disgusted.

“You were the one who told me to flirt with him!” And it was true. If it weren’t for “Taylor-the-boy-expert’s” instructions, I would have sent my first, apparently very unemotional, text. I tried to pass Taylors outburst as jealousy. She’d had a million and one boyfriends (this, while being a hyperbole, is still fairly accurate), but it occurred to me that she hadn’t really loved any of them. She could snag boys like a fisherman during fish migration season (This simile is slightly less convincing, because I’m not quite sure what ‘fish migration season’ is called), but she let them slip through her fingers like quicksand. (Is two similes in one thought too many?) Perhaps I wasn’t so keen on catching them, but maybe I could teach Taylor a thing or two about keeping them.

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