Detrimental

Episode 11

I wake up to a throbbing pain on my back. It must be caused by Harry's table-slamming and wall-pinning addiction. Yesterday was quite a blur. All I could remember was the plan sort of worked. Well, at least Louis got jealous and kept ringing Harry by the time we got to his room. Niall, on the other hand, was completely unaffected. He even spent the night at Ms. Ainsworth's place. The little shit. I bet they shagged all night.

Meanwhile, Harry and I spent the rest of the evening slash early morning talking about strategy while watching some classic girly movies on telly. Of course, Harry picked the movies out and they were too cheesy for my taste. Harry and I both agree to stick to the random-strangers-hooking-up-and-now-turned-regular-shagaroo-buddies story since neither of us had talked about any interest in the other until just recently.

I feel something nibble on my toes and hear loud, resounding barks. A fluffy creature pounces on me and I immediately recognize it by its two black spots. It's Sammy. Niall's dog. Since Niall got her, she's always been present at his videos. No video was complete without Sammy in it. The craicdaily fandom adored Sammy. We literally treated her like our queen. I have to tell Lori aka my Twitter best friend about all this. She'd literally freak out and jump off a cliff out of jealousy.

"Sammy! Come back here!" Niall takes the big dog off of me. "Sorry she woke ye up."

"Nah. It's okay," I try to smile but fail. I still can't believe Niall's one of those guys who'd shag randomly out of boredom. The Niall I knew wasn't like this. Craicdaily wasn't like this.

"It was a great party last night."

"It was quite lame," I cringe at the thought of Niall's tongue all over the slutty Ms. Ainsworth's face.

"Didn't seem that way to me." he stares at me with so much intent. I guess he saw Harry's tongue all over my face too.

"I'll just get out of your hair."

"Guess you aren't a morning person,"

"Who is, really?" I say as I hop off the bed. Niall stares at my chest and it is only then that I realize that I was only wearing a bra. "Ooops." I squeal as I jump back into the sheets. Damn my taking-off-clothes-while-I'm-sleeping habits.

"You don't have to hide," he says as he grabs the fluffy white dog's leash and drags her out. "It's too bad I didn't bring a microscope though." he smirks at me on his way out.

"Are you insinuating something?" I sigh as I look for something to wear. Niall kind of implied that my boobs were small and microscopic, didn't he? Well, the Irish do value honesty. It's Stella's fault. She got all the good genes. I find one of Harry's plaid flannels under the foot of the bed and wear it for the time being.

My breath reeked of yesterday's alcohol and I look for some chewing gum. Harry must have some stashed somewhere. "Bingo!" I say as I spot an open pack of gum at the drawer filled with random food.

I spend fifteen minutes looking for the top I wore at the party but it was nowhere to be found. I hear a knock from the door and open it right away. It was Louis. His hair was a bird's nest and judging from the bags underneath his eyes, one can assume he did not get any sleep at all. Poor boy. It was football season too.

"Erm good morning," he clears his throat. "Is Harry here?"

"No, he isn't."

"Will you tell him I dropped by?"

"Will do." I say as he turns to leave. For a second, I wonder whether or not I should confess that Harry and I were just playing him. But I don't. I go back inside to gather my belongings. As I do so, I ring Harry but he doesn't answer. Where the hell is he? I close the door and malicious eyes look at me as I walk the hall.

"Told you Styles and that YouTube guy would tap that," an attractive guy with dragon tattoos and piercings says to another inked and pierced guy who hands him some cash. If I remember correctly, he was the same guy who had asked Harry if he was going to the party.

"Did you just bet on whether or not we'd have a threeway?" I laugh.

"Nothing wrong with that," he grins. "I'm Kennedy, by the way."

"Well, hand Skippy his money back because nothing like that happened." I say as I walk away from them. "I don't like sharing,"

"You just cost me two weeks of decent supper," Kennedy calls out. "At least tell me your name,"

"You don't have to know."

"I'll find out anyway, what's the harm in telling me now?"

I ignore him. Whoever bets on other people's sexual lives are foolish blokes who have dull lives. On my way back to the dorm, I see a worried Stella just outside the building. By the look on her face, I guess Zayn spilled on the incident with Liam. "Rae, why didn't you tell me?"

"What didn't I tell you?"

"That Kelly's boyfriend tried something on you," she runs to me and gives me a hug. "Do you not trust your sister that much?"

"I didn't want to cause any trouble."

"Tell me what happened," she looks me in the eyes. 

"Zayn probably exaggerated okay," I smile. "I'm over it."

"Stop lying to me," she looks at her phone. "I have a class due in ten minutes, why don't we meet up for an early dinner at five?"

"Sounds good."

Stella leaves and I go up to the third floor. I open the door and find Liam sleeping on the couch. I carefully close the door and tiptoe to my room, trying to make the least possible amount of sound. But he woke up anyway. Damn him and his keen sense of hearing.

"Rae, can we talk for a sec?" he sits up.

"What do you want?" I snicker.

"I'm sorry," he looks at me the way the kind, sweet Liam I once knew did. "Remember the injury I had six months ago?"

"What about it?"

"Well, they never gave me the surgery for it. The doctors said it was too risky and they said lacrosse was off-limits." he says as a pain-filled expression consumes his face. "So I started taking some pills,"

"Oh, Liam." I sit beside him. If there was one thing that could never change, it was how much I loved Liam's passion for his sport. How did I not know he was going through all this?

"I think that's why I've been acting even more of a jerk than usual and I'm so sorry I had you dragged in all of my shit."

"Consider the water under the bridge," I smile. "Just promise me you'd stop taking those steroids and stuff, yeah?"

"Yep." he gets up to leave. "I'm going to go tell the coach, come with me?"

"You should tell Kelly." I tap him lightly on the arms.

I go to my room and gently close the door. I send Kelly a text telling her to go look for Liam and send Harry one to go look for Louis. Through the window, I spot Niall's signature snapback walking towards the slut machine slash teacher. He still had Sammy on a leash and the dog kept barking loudly the whole time. I guess Sammy isn't too fond of her. But Niall fancies her, doesn't he?

I go get my laptop and busy myself with Tumblr. I scroll past a picture of Niall and think of the possible reasons why we weren't getting along. To say the list was long was a complete understatement.