Only You {h.s}

Chapter Four

Trigger Warning.

I wake up to the constant ringing of my phone.  Sitting up, I groan and rub my eyes trying to figure out where the sound is coming from.  I see my bag in the corner of my room and stumble tiredly to get it.  I pull my phone out of the front pocket to see that I have 7 missed calls from Zayn and 2 from Allie.

"Shit," I whisper.  It's after 3; I slept through the whole day of school.  The events of this morning start coming back to me and I just want to punch myself in the face. 

First, the sexy man living in my house sees me in a towel and touches my leg, and then I have a pathetic anxiety attack that I can't even explain to him.  Wait, did I just call him sexy? Fuck, no.  I can't go there.  I have a boyfriend - a very hot boyfriend.  My very hot boyfriend that I have to call back.  I dial his number and wait for an answer.

"Mer!  Where were you today?  Are you okay?" I smile to myself at how concerned Zayn is.  He must really care.

"I'm fine babe, just had a headache this morning and slept a while," I lie.

"I was so worried baby," he pauses, "So are you still coming out tonight?"

I roll my eyes, irritated at the thought of even going to the party.  But he would be so disappointed if I backed out. 

"Yeah, sure," I say weakly.

"Great!  I'll pick you up at 9,"

I can hear the smile in his voice.

"Sounds good," I respond. He hangs up and I toss my phone on my bed.

When I go downstairs I see Harry sitting on my couch watching tv.  I get a glass of water and join him in the living room, wanting to get the inevitable awkward conversation over with.

His eyes follow me as I walk in front of the tv and sit at the opposite end of the couch.  I take a sip of my water and put it on the coffee table, pulling my knees up and cuddling my legs into my chest.  I keep my eyes focused on my fingers playing with the loose thread coming out of my sweater and hear him take a deep breath.

"Meredith?" he says gently.

"Hmm?" 

"Look at me." 

I keep my head down, knowing exactly how this is going to go.

"Please, Mer?"

He sounds so genuinely concerned that it surprises me.  I raise my head up and look at him through my lashes.  He's looking at me like I'm going to break, like I will crumble any second.  So before he can even ask me anything, I speak.

"Look, what happened this morning is something I am never going to speak about, not to you, not to anyone.  It's not a big deal and I'm fine, so don't worry yourself about it.  The sooner we can forget it happened, the sooner you can stop pretending like you care."

He furrows his eyebrows at me.

"You seriously think I don't care what's going on?  Fuck sake, I barely touched you and you were sent into a full on panic.  I've known you since you were a kid, Mer.  You used to be so alive, so carefree.  You used to radiate innocence.  Clearly something happened to change that, now would you please tell me what the fuck is going on?"

"Why did you even touch me in the first place?"  I spit out.

"I thought – I don't know what I thought.  Just answer my question."  He runs his hand through his hair, something I'm realizing he does a lot.

"It isn't any of your business," I shake my head.  I get up and race to my room, ignoring his calls.  I want him to just leave it alone.  I don't want to explain to him how hard it is for me to let other people touch me.  I don't want to let him know my biggest secret.  He says he cares, but is he confusing caring with curiosity?