Public Sphere | H.S. | #Wattys2016

Chapter VI

Author's note: UPDAAAAAAAAATE. There will be another update in the next few days. THANKS FOR READING! Also, you're very welcome for the gif.

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All three of them were staring at me, essentially silently demanding that I explain Harry's claims. But I didn't know what to tell them so I kept quiet hoping that they would resume their day without wanting an explanation.

Except they didn't; they kept staring.

"We're friends, there's not really much to it," I said playing the whole situation off.

It was true. Zayn and I were just friends, there wasn't much to it. But I knew that they wouldn't see it that way. They would see it as an act of betrayal, on both parties. They probably thought Zayn got special treatment from me. However, both Zayn and I knew that there wasn't anything special in any form between the two of us.

"So why didn't we know about it?" Niall asked gently.

"I'm not sure. We didn't actively hide it, but it also never came up," and that was the truth.

"This is bulls**t," Louis said as he huffed and sat on one of the chairs by the counter.

"I'm not sure what you guys want to hear. Zayn and I are friends; we've been friends for a bit," I said softly to the three.

"How does Harry know?" Liam asked.

I shrugged because I wasn't sure how he knew either.

"How's he doing?" Louis asked hesitantly.

"I don't talk to him that often, but he seems fine. It's not my place to tell you guys why Zayn left, but he's doing fine," I didn't want to rub it in their faces that he was extremely happy now that he wasn't part of One Direction.

Then I wondered if he didn't like being in the group because of me. Was it because every aspect of their life was curated by my team?

Louis left out a frustrated sigh and walked up to the door of the study and knocked loudly.

Harry opened the door and stared at Louis silently.

"How did you know that Jess and Zayn were friends?" Louis asked Harry.

"I just did," Harry replied as he shrugged.

"Bulls**t. How?" Louis egged on.

Harry let out a sigh. He looked annoyed and I think Liam got the same feeling because he got up and left the kitchen for the family room.

"If anyone in this damn group ever paid attention to anyone else but themselves, they would've known that Jess and Zayn were friends," Harry said in an extremely low voice. "Maybe if you're not so high out of your damn mind all the time, you would've noticed."

"Here you go again. Get off your high horse, Styles," Louis shouted at him.

Witnessing all of this made me incredibly uncomfortable, so I decided to get up and move to the family room like Liam did.

"This is because of you," Louis shouted at me this time.

I turned around to see him right in front of me, once again. And again, I kept my mouth shut.

"You don't have anything to say for yourself, do you?" he spat at me. "You know what you do is s**t. You know what you do kills us on the inside, don't you? But you don't give a s**t about how we feel as long as you get paid, don't you?"

Closing my eyes, I tried to relax. I didn't want to take his bait and say anything back to him that I would regret later on.

Before Louis took another step towards me, Liam came in to defuse the tension. However, his presence heightened the tension even more.