Fake (N.S)

7.

Niall's POV

Walking into school the next day felt rather different than usual. People were staring at me. No one smiled, they just looked at me curiously, which in turn made me feel confused.

As I walked through the crowded halls, I heard someone call to me from behind. I turned around, coming face to face with a girl that I knew to be in the year below me but I didn't know her name. 

"Since when were you and Harry Styles a thing?" she asked, seemingly more interested in the idea of receiving gossip than being genuinely curious. 

"What are you talking about? Harry and I aren't together," I frowned. I didn't know how anyone would have found out, considering I hadn't even looked at Harry at school without some hostile expression. Well, not in public. 

"You used to date my cousin, Angie. She told me you were boyfriends," she replied, frowning a little bit.

Of course. I wasn't even slightly surprised. Angie always seemed to be bitter about our 'breakup' and perhaps her finding out about me and Harry at that dinner was good enough gossip to get revenge on me. I guess you should never tell something to someone who gossiped their way through high school. 

As bad as it seemed, I was relieved that she believed us to be a real couple. Things would be so much worse if she knew it was all fake and I assumed she would have told my parents rather than the school. It wasn't that bad. If I could convince my parents that I was dating Harry, I could convince a bunch of people that I rarely spoke to. 

I knew that convincing Harry to go along with it would be a struggle. If anything was important to Harry, it was his school reputation. It would be hard to get him to agree to this, as people would be convinced he liked me like that, but I had my ways of persuading people. Harry shouldn't be too hard to convince.

I was about to reply to the girl but she had already turned and walked off, clearly put off by my hesitance to tell her something she would deem interesting.

A small sigh left my lips as I shook my head and continued to walk to my locker. I knew I shouldn't worry about it, it was something that would blow over eventually. I opened my locker and pulled out the books that I needed for my first class, when I heard Louis' familiar voice behind me.

"So...you and Harry aren't together?" I turned to see him giving me a look that was both amused at the fact that I had contradicted myself and annoyed that I didn't tell him about it.

I knew Louis well enough to know that he was going to make fun of me for a while. Especially since this was pretty much what he had been saying ever since he knew of mine and Harry's hatred for one another. 

"We're not," I rolled my eyes.

"So why did you tell your ex girlfriend that you were?" he asked, raising his eyebrow. 

"Okay, I haven't been completely truthful to you. You can't tell anyone this, not even Liam," I told him.

"Relationships are built on trust, Niall. Is it that important that I have to break the most important rule of dating?" he asked, grinning at me smugly.

I rolled my eyes, seconds away from changing my mind and regretting my decision to even consider telling Louis.

"Harry and I are pretending to date," I admitted.

"What the fuck? Why?"

"How do you think my parents would react to us dating?" I raised an eyebrow, watching as his face morphed from an expression of shock and confusion to one of understanding.