They stared at me. I stared back, my mouth opening and closing, trying to form a coherent sentence. “I-I uhhh…” I stammered.
“Was that your mother?” Liam asked, breaking the ice. He looked concerned.
“Yeah, she’s a real charmer.” I choked. I avoided eye contact with the males present, and instead glanced across the room at the mirror that hung on the opposite wall. I hated my face after I cried. The whites of my eyes were now a lovely shade of serial killer red, and my face was splotched with blooms of color. My nose was about three shades brighter than the rest of my face, it was also running. I swiped the back of my hand across my nostrils and sniffed. The only nice thing about my appearance was how vivid my hazel irises looked in comparison to the tinge of my cornea.
Louis stood up and hugged me. I stiffened. I didn’t exactly enjoy hugging practical strangers, but I needed human contact right now, so I hugged back. “Do you want some tea?” he asked softly. I nodded, tucking my lips in. He gave me a gentle pat on the back and stepped off to the kitchen.
I looked up at the ceiling. My own mother had said that I was a mistake. She had never told me that before, so this was a new low. To know exactly how unwanted you were was a pretty hard blow to the ego of a teenage girl, and I felt tears well up in my eyes again.
The boys looked immensely uncomfortable, not really seeming to know what to do when presented with an emotionally unstable seventeen year old female. Louis seemed to be the most knowledgeable in this department, because he came back with a cup of tea with a dash of lemon, and plenty of honey. Comfort tea. I followed him to the couch, where he sat down. “So why don’t you tell us a little about her, alright?” asked Louis.
“She was never prepared to have a kid,” I said, having calmed down enough to transfer thoughts into speech, “And she’s hated herself forever for it. She blames me for every bad thing that’s ever happened to her. Like one time, she didn’t get promoted, and she said that it was my fault, because she was late for work one time because there was traffic on the way to school. I’ve had to walk to school since then. She isn’t really mature enough to raise a child. She’s still caught up in thinking that she’s a hot thirty-year-old without a care in the world. She just has this state of mind that a daughter isn’t important, and she wants to let me know it as much as possible.” I told them this, stammering at some points, and pausing to sniff or take a sip of tea. “I don’t know if she was neglected as a child, but I definitely was. Maybe she had some traumatic experience at some point in her life, and she’s just transferring that to me.” I shrugged.
“That’s awful.” blurted Niall.
“Shaddup, Niall.” Harry scolded, giving him a look like if someone has an awful life you don’t point it out.
I laughed a little, “No, it’s ok.” I crossed my legs on the sofa, but then I realized that I was missing my shoes. “Where are my shoes?” I voiced my concern.
Harry frowned, “I don’t think you were wearing any when we picked you up, were we, Louis?”
Louis shook his head, “Nope, which was kind of odd.”
I looked at them like they were crazy, “So you didn’t even wonder aloud why I wasn’t wearing shoes?”
“Uhhh…”
I shook my head, “I was definitely wearing shoes when I passed out…” I specifically remembered having to stop in the woods on my way home and tying them.
They seemed to not know what to make of this; neither did I. I dismissed it, “So why were you in Leytonstone anyway?”
“Harry got us lost!” Louis punched his friend on the arm.
“You were driving!” he retorted, punching him back.
“But you were holding the map!” Louis argued.
“Alright, break it up, Lads.” I said, kicking Harry.
“I’ll break you up!” said Harry, attacking me.
I shrieked as he pummeled my arms, which were raised to defend my face. I parried his blows and kicked back, but he was a lot stronger than me, even though I was built solidly, and he pinned me down onto the couch. “STAHP!” I screamed, but then laughing as he started tickling me, first on my underarms, but then I felt his hands move down to my stomach. My self-preservation instincts took over, and I kneed him as hard as I could in his – ahem- his crown jewels. He recoiled, his face screwing up in pain as he slid off the couch.
The rest of the boys looked at me in horror. I wrapped an arm around my belly, the dark bruises throbbing where Harry had ticked them for an instant.
“The bruises, I forgot.” Harry croaked from the floor.
I was panting, “Sorry, it was just reflex.”
“It’s alright, love.” Harry squeaked as he hauled himself up. He stood, and started to walk it off. I felt kind of bad, but then again, it’s not a tickle fight if someone doesn’t get hurt.
“Remind me not to piss you off.” muttered Niall.
“You don’t have to piss me off, just don’t touch my abdomen.” I said conversationally, seeing Harry doing lunges out of the corner of my eye.
“Got it.” said Zayn. My head snapped over to him. That was the first thing he’d really said since we were introduced. I had marked him off to be a man of few words.
My stomach rumbled crankily at me. Niall looked over in alarm. “You hungry?” he asked.
“Yeah, I didn’t eat lunch, and I haven’t had dinner yet.” I said.
Niall looked horrified at the thought of missing a meal. “Why didn’t you have lunch!?”
I didn’t tell him the real reason, which was because I had no one to eat with. My “best friend” had been “sick” that day, and I usually ate with her group, which was the jocks, but without Samantha there as a buffer, I felt weird sitting with them. I was pretty sure the jocks didn’t like me. They had all heard the rumors about me, I could tell. Instead I said “I had to meet with a teacher during my lunch period.” which wasn’t entirely untrue. While everyone else was having lunch, I had hid out in the art room, doodling with a sharpie on my arm, with the art teacher, Mrs. Briggs, who was, to put it nicely, “eccentric”.
He still looked as though there was no excuse. “Sorry, Lana, I ate all the pizza, but there’s probably some food in the refrigerator.”
“I’ll make do.” I said, and got up. I wandered away in the general direction that Louis had gone when he was going to get me tea, hoping to find the kitchen. Luckily it was right through a swinging door to the room that the boys and I were in, and I easily reached my destination. I opened up the fridge, the sudden exposure to cold air making my bare legs and shoulders prickle with goosebumps. I dug around a little, and soon procured a couple of leftover Chinese takeout cartons. I peered inside and sniffed. General Tso’s tofu. Score! I ignored the sesame chicken, and grabbed another carton of rice. I took a fork from an easily located cutlery drawer, and made my way back to the living room.
As I sat down, Niall studied my choice of food. “Why would you get tofu when there was chicken?” he asked.
I snorted, “I’m a vegetarian.”
His eyes widened, “Really? How?”
“How? Our fridge at home almost always didn’t work, so meat would always spoil. Also I couldn’t get past the thought that I was munching on something’s… flesh.” I stabbed a cube of sweet fried tofu. I always used the word “flesh” when I was describing my vegetarianism, because flesh was such a gross word, and it usually shut people up from saying things like “oh my god I couldn’t live without chicken” or “so what do you do for protein?”. Trust me, those were the worst things you could say after someone tells you they were a vegetarian (Author’s note: sorry I just kind of took out a pet peeve on you. I’m a vegetarian, and I hate that, so I just had to voice it. )
Niall nodded like he understood, and I went back to eating my tofu in peace, trying not to pay attention to the fact that the rain was starting to let up, and I would soon have to leave this flat, and go back home.
