One Thing - One Direction fanfic

Chapter 20

I woke up because my eardrums were getting annoyed.

"Get up!!"

Someone was jumping on the bed. I opened my eyes. First thing I saw, was Zayn. He was just opening his eyes too. I was about to smile at him, when I heard another yell. I immediately looked around. Everyone was in the room. Harry and Niall were both jumping on the bed.

"Good morning!!"

Now they all came on the bed. So much noise. I tried to remember what happened last night. A smile grew on my face. I went to a park with Zayn, fell asleep on a bench, woke up, walked to the house, we went to his bed, we talked, we kissed, and fell asleep. I kept on rewinding it. Did I dream the night? Because something felt out of place with that memory. I must have had another too realistic dream that actually resembled the night I had had. Why can't I just have a random nice dream instead of this replica bullshit. So what was real? I guessed the most important part was whether Zayn and I had kissed or not. I felt confused and was in a bad mood. I wasn't even out of the bed, and I already had a down feeling. What if we didn't kiss? When did I fall asleep then? How far did we go?

"Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, get-"

"We got it!! Guys! Seriously? You're giving me a headache."

He had yelled at them. I didn't like it when people yelled, it crunched up my chest. Zayn looked like he hadn't slept for ages. I guess I had to figure out what part was real.

"Okay, okay. Get up and come downstairs for breakfast, will ya?"

"Fine. I'm sorry guys, I... I just didn't get a lot of sleep."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. Let me get up, okay? We'll see you downstairs."

They looked worried and more or less rejected as they left the room. I hadn't done anything bad yesterday, had I? I didn't make him angry or something, right? I scrolled through the mixed thoughts of dreams and reality, searching for something I said that could have upset him. I needed to know if I was the cause of Zayn's bad mood. He sat up with his back at me. I sat up as well and looked at his back. My throat thickened.

"What's wrong?"

My heart made some nervous leaps. I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped I hadn't said or done anything stupid. We'd been having such a great time the last couple of days, whether we kissed or not. He sighed.

"I just had this really bad dream and... well, I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I was in and out of sleep for the night."

"Mind telling me what it was about?"

He turned his head sideways, as if he was going to look at me, but then he lowered his head. I can't say that didn't hurt me at least a little.

"I do mind actually."

"Oh, okay. I'm here, should you change your mind."

"I won't."

There was venom and bitterness in his words. I don't like people talking so coldly at me. It raises my insecurity levels.

"Sorry, I... I'm sorry."

I looked down at my knees. I felt inferior and weak, and bad for asking.

"It's not your fault. Let's just get up, okay?"

I glanced at him. He seemed to have put an effort filled smile on his face, though it seemed more like a grimace. Obviously, I didn't make him smile. Did I just dream every conversation we ever had? Maybe it was just me. I'm stupid anyway. I got dressed. Reentering the room, I noticed Zayn hadn't bothered to wait for me. What did I do? Maybe we did kiss, but the long kiss was in my dream. Maybe in reality I read the signals wrong and forced him to kiss me and he hated it. I needed a hug. Where was Brontë when you needed her? When I came downstairs the whole room went quiet and everyone looked at me. I swallowed. It wasn't much of a secret that they had been talking about me. I felt like I was about to cry. What the hell did I do? I searched Brontë's eyes avoiding those of Zayn. I signaled her that I needed her to come with my obviously fake I'm-okay face. I wasn't bothered to try harder, I just couldn't. She mumbled something to Niall without removing her eyes from me. I went back upstairs. I avoided Zayn's room and instead waited for her in the one she had slept in. I closed the door before turning to face her. I didn't give her the chance to speak as I hugged her tightly. Tears streamed down my cheeks. The nervousness and insecurity had built up too much and I cried. She held me tight and soothed me.

"What's going on? I don't understand."

I wanted to explain, but my sobs kept on coming. I must have looked awful, but she was my best friend. I didn't care if I looked like a complete idiot in front of her. I knew she wouldn't let me down. After a while, my cheeks were soaked, though some parts had even dried again. I took a few deep breaths as we went to sit down. I tried to explain.

"I dreamed about yesterday. Now, I don't know what really happened and what didn't. It makes me so confused, Brontë. It had been so nice to hang out with him, but now I don't know what happened for sure. I think we went to the park and may have confessed we liked each other. We might have also fallen asleep there. When we came back late, we found you and Niall here so I slept with Zayn. We may have kissed, but honestly, especially after what happened this morning I think I might have made it up. I don't know what's real and what's not. Did Zayn and I go to a park?"

"Yes."

"Did we fall asleep there? Do you know if we fell asleep? Did Zayn tell you guys maybe?"

She had pity in her eyes.

"There's something you should probably see."

"Brontë?"

"Let me just get something with Wi-Fi, okay?"

"What's going on?"

"I'll show you, just a sec."

She grabbed a phone.

"Niall won't mind", she mumbled as she concentrated on doing something. I was freaking out. What did I miss? She handed me the phone. Twitter was opened. Niall's inbox was flooding with one picture and a million questions. It was a picture of Zayn and I asleep on the bench in the park. We looked fairly cute, and I would have liked it would I not have been in the situation I was in.

"The picture has been going around all morning. They wanted to tease you guys about it at breakfast before, you know."

I read through a few messages. Some were just with the question whether it was real or who I was, others were more violent like what Zayn was doing with 'that thing' or 'who the fuck that ugly bitch was'. My self-esteem took some more blows, but I was empty. I was at one of my bad lows when Brontë carefully took the phone from my hands. I couldn't move. I could hear myself shatter into a thousand pieces. I didn't know what to think, let alone what to do. It didn't slip my mind that I didn't even know whether I had kissed him. I wondered out loud, though it didn't sound like I was saying it.

"I don't know, but I do know that most of last night must have been real. There's evidence."

I laid on my back and stared at the ceiling. There was a loud silence, even downstairs.

"Did Zayn explain himself downstairs?"

"Not really. He said something about a bad dream about you that he couldn't shake off, but I could feel he didn't want to talk about it with me in the room."

"So, it's not something I said, right? It's not really my fault?"

"As far as I know, it was the dream he had."

"Then why was he so cold to me?"

I sighed. I don't know for how long I laid there, but when I opened my eyes again, I felt my cheeks being damp and I was curled up in a ball with a blanket over me. Why did I manage to fall asleep so fast? The room was empty. My stomach felt like an empty pit. Ouch. According to my phone it was 4 pm. I had been sleeping the whole day. I went to the bathroom to check if I was looking decent. My eyes were read and puffy. I rubbed my cheeks to get rid of the damp feeling. I saw Brontë's small toilet bag she always carried with her. Unlike me, she was more prepared for surprises. I found a bright pink clip in it, reminding me of similar ones I had at home. To look more put together, I combed my hair with my fingers and put the clip in. I took a deep breath and put on a smile. It wasn't too convincing.

"Good enough", I mumbled to myself.

I tried to go downstairs, but as soon as I had taken two steps, I sat down. I felt both physically and mentally weak and drained when thinking of seeing Zayn, so I just sat down on the stairs. I laid my head against the wall and tried to hear if I could recognize the voices downstairs. I heard them softly mumbling.