Meant To Be

Waste The Night

So tell me everything  (everything, everything) 

Baby tell me everything (everything, everything) 

Gonna study all night long 

Until you give me everything 

 - Everything, from FOUR's second album, Falling Asleep Without You 

A sort of quirk of the house, usually forgotten about and unimportant, is the layout: to get from the stairs to the kitchen or entranceway and vice versa, one has to pass through the living room.

Again, not really something you'd think about, unless you have a - guest - that maybe everyone else doesn't know about. Unless maybe your guest is a global popstar who two of your roommates are die hard fans for. Unless maybe you haven't actually warned them that he was here, because you didn't know he was coming.

And - the last and most important - you're not even thinking about who else is in the house because you're too lost in the haze of said boyfriend (!) who you've recently made up with actually being here. And you just merrily pull him into the living room and completely shock said roommates, who are sitting on the couch talking to each other with worried expressions on their faces.

(Probably talking about me.)

(Okay, in my defense, I think it was reasonable to assume that Darya seeing us meant the others knew. Why wouldn't she have told them?)

Anya had been holding a book absentmindedly in one hand, which has now toppled to the ground, a look of shock on her face.

"Oh, my god," Maggie says faintly, her pale skin painted pink. Anya's blushing just as hard, visible even through the darker shade of her skin.

"Right." I say. "Um. Surprise?"

"Surprise?" Anya echoes faintly, then seems to go to great effort to pull herself together. "Aren't we mad at him?"

"Not anymore," I say, squeezing his hand in mine. Anya squeaks faintly, eyes fixed on our intertwined hands.

"Oh," I say, belatedly realizing that Holland probably doesn't actually know that these two girls who look like they're having a mental breakdown are Maggie and Anya. "Um, Maggie, and Anya," I say, gesturing. "Maggie, Anya, Holland."

Anya waves, looking like she's going to cry. Maggie swallows hard and seems to pull herself together. "It's nice to meet you," she says.

"Nice to meet you as well," Holland says. "Cass has told me a lot about you."

"Oh," Anya says. Her eyes widen even more. She looks like a deer in headlights, and I can't help but smile. 

I tug on Holland's hand gently, feeling like this is going considerably well and we should leave before one of them starts properly fangirling. (I mean, I get it. Holland looks devastating right now, lips red and cheeks flushed and eyes dark, hair slicked back wet from the rain, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans.)

He keeps doing that thing he does when he's nervous or unsure of himself, where he bites at his lip ring, and it's driving me crazy.

Honestly, at this point, I'm going to start fangirling.

"Talk to you guys later?" I say, with a look at Maggie and Anya that says, I promise I'll explain everything, before pulling Holland towards the stairs.

"It's weird to think that I've been here before," he says, out of the blue.

I look up at him. "Hmm?"

"It feels like so long ago," he says. "The you and me that we were then. The ones who didn't even know each other. I feel like I'm a completely different person now."

"Yeah," I say. "It's kind of crazy. How much has changed in such a short time. I mean, you guys finished your world tour, I visited you in England..."

"We started working on our next album, you're almost halfway through your second year of university," he continues. "We had our first fight."

I snort, still feeling raw. Still processing, really. "I think that counts for like, our first five fights."

"Yeah." Holland says. "I'm going to be apologizing for that for a long time."

I don't say anything.

"I'm serious," he says, stopping on the stairs and facing me. "We still have so much to figure out, I know, but we are going to figure it out. No more - leaving things for later, okay? No more ignoring the future because we know it's gonna be hard."

"Okay." I say, squeezing his hand.

"Because I'm in this," he says. "For real."

And then he says six little words that change everything. "I think we should tell everyone."