LA to The Bay

Chapter 4: LHR - LAX

Virgin Atlantic Flight 007, London Heathrow to Los Angeles (VS007 LHR-LAX)

'Are you nervous?' I question Harry as his broad sprawling legs shake incessantly, taking up nearly the entire row of seats and causing my face to plaster up against the window as I strain to obtain some personal space. But a window seat is something at least, I guess?

'Nah, I'm just bored.' The way he smiles to himself, so smugly, it reminds me of Lee from the Year above, and how he was always so cockily confident, just because he had that daft ponytail, which coincidently, nay typically, is something that Harry also fashions, except his is thick and coarse (just like everything else about him), and looks like his hair would hang just above his shoulders when loose. He clearly thinks he's a dude and his ponytail is his prize possession. What is it with these boys, walking around like they're a symbol of their manhood, just because some pop star or other happens to have one?

To save myself from wasting the next hours trying to psycho-analyse the many potential hidden meanings behind Harry's hairstyle, I look out of the window. I've never been to America before. The idea of it seems so exciting; such a massive land, familiar through television screens and music, a shared culture, yet at the same time so foreign, a whole different continent separated by ocean and time. I have no idea what it will actually be like, to be there, to stand on American soil, but I somehow imagined that there would be a giant dividing line in the land, painted red and flashing, as we crossed the boundary from Europe in to North America. Instead there was just a lot of ice. It never ended and the hours dragged and I suddenly began to realise that the earth really is just a giant ball of nothingness.

My eyes dart across the ground thousands of feet below me, keeping in sync with the movement of the plane and I enjoy the sensation as my vision blurring, forming dancing shapes which twirl amongst the glaciers; an experience that is no doubt being enhanced by the half bottle of Benylin I ingested on take-off to try and abate my nervous cough, oh and also to numb down the prospect of sitting next to this massive shaking stranger for the next eleven hours.

'You don't say much Niamh.'

'Erm?' I hate it when people say that, that 'you're always so quiet Niamh', simply because they're too stupid to be able to hear the perpetual internal dialogue going on in my head.

'Is it because I intimidate you?' Talk about bold. 'Lottie said you were a prude.' I bet she did. 'Now that chick is a rocket; did she tell you about how she got totally smashed on Fraser Island and was running around with only a belt covering her fanny?' He laughed to himself remembering. 'It was a wide belt mind.'

'Since I haven't spoken to her in over a year then no she didn't tell me.' and Louis obviously omitted to tell me about the incident too.

'So remind me why you're coming on this trip? Remind me how Louis and Lottie even know you Harry?' I'm letting him wind me up, and the caustic tone of my voice betrays my attempt to hide the feelings of envy which always surface on mention of Lottie.

'So you are still mad at her. Lottie said you would be.' He deflects back to me. Point to Harry.

'You wouldn't know the first of it.'

'You wanna bet? She also said that you'd still be in love with Lou after you'd convinced yourself he was your boyfriend when he kissed you once about five years ago.'

'She said what?' The air sucks out of me and I choke. How can he say this to me, so matter-of-factly, his flat voice, not indicating that he's trying to be cruel, although he obviously is being.

'Look, I know the guys a looker, but you can't seriously be travelling all this way in the hope that he might still be thinking about some chick he went to school with. The boy's seen the world now, if you get what I mean?' Do I get what he means?

'I'm sorry Niamh, I didn't mean to upset you.' Oh what might have given you that idea? The fact that I'm crying?! 'I just think you need to be realistic, and in answer to your questions, when I was travelling the east coast of Australia, on Fraser Island. I've never been to Cali before so Lou said I should fly over from London. I live in London, before you ask.' I hate the way he referred to Louis as 'Lou', like he was the man or something. I can only imagine that it's Lottie who has given him such a label, no doubt whilst introducing him to some random desperado hipsters she had picked up at an indie club famous for playing Radiohead on repeat.

'Like, yeah everyone, so this is Lou.'

'Cool.'

'Yah, yah, yah...so Creep, it's like totally amazing, so old school, and Paranoid Android, wow......Thom Yorke is like a genius.'

'Yeah but not as much of a genius as the Chilli Peppers, cos their like making a totally amazing comeback now that they're not addicted to heroin anymore.'

'Heroin. I know this guy who knows this guy who did heroin once.'

'No way man.'

'So are we friends?' The thrust of Harry's hand breaks me from my dreaming as he grabs at mine once more, shaking it for the second time, before I have chance to say otherwise.

Authors note: Did you see the photos / read the story of the Directioner who was on a flight from LA to London reading a HS fanfiction and none other than Harry Styles sat down in the seat next to her, for real! Yet all Niamh seems to be is ungrateful about the whole experience. Do you think she needs a reality check? This chapter is dedicated to  for being one of my very first friends on Wattpad!

PS: Since I'm a bit of a plane geek I uploaded a picture of a Virgin Atlantic Flight taking off from / landing at LAX. This is the same as the plane that Niamh and Harry just flew on.