One Thing - One Direction fanfic

Chapter 22

<Brontë's p.o.v.>

She didn't answer any of my calls or messages, but perhaps she really needed her isolation. She had been around people for several days, that combined with the issue with Zayn in the morning made me understand. That didn't mean I wasn't a little worried though. She could bury herself so deep, I just needed to know when she needed me to get her out. Zayn seemed to have cooled down. He had had a dream where she hurt him and stacked him in a shithole of problems including lawsuits, debt, and general loss of trust. He woke up early in the morning and couldn't stop tossing the idea over in his mind to the point he started to believing it, which explains his pain-in-the-ass behavior that followed. Niall convinced me to go out with them to a club. I told him I wanted to at least change, but he didn't want me to leave him. As compensation, Niall didn't change either from his casual attire. The rest had upgraded to something a little fancier though. Zayn didn't feel like joining, which was understandable after a night of little sleep and drama. I left him the key card of our hostel, in case he felt like apologizing to Caroline. He could do whatever, but I knew if he wanted anything to happen between them, he better apologized soon. We went off to some big club where the boys were obviously able to get us into some VIP section. The music was alright, though incredibly loud. We danced some. It was the first time Niall and I danced together. Suddenly, Niall took his phone out. He frowned at me and I followed him to a slightly quieter part of the club. The other frowned at us.

"Zayn?"

"She's gone!"

I could hear him yell, though I almost missed it as Niall and I shared the phone. The statement created a pit feeling in my stomach something was wrong.

"What? Zayn, calm down! What are you talking about?"

"I'm in the hostel and her stuff isn't here, but her key card is. She left. She's gone. She's never coming back. She's out."

I broke out into a panic. He was wrong, there was no other option.

"She left? That's not possible, she didn't tell me anything. It's not true."

"It is! All her stuff is gone! What have I done? Why did I do this?"

I went blank. Niall noticed the panic on both sides of the phone.

"Calm down. We're on our way. Stay there."

Niall hugged me tightly for a quick feeling of comfort. We hurried back to tell the others, who grabbed their stuff too and joined us to the hostel. They didn't have to, but Zayn was their friend and I understood they wanted to be there for him. Niall held my hand tightly as I couldn't silence my worries.

"This isn't happening. This isn't true."

I kept on repeating it. Zayn was wrong. Caroline would never leave me without even saying anything.

"It's okay, babe. It's alright. Maybe she just went out on a stroll or something."

She wouldn't leave me alone in a foreign country. Something was wrong. Either Zayn was wrong, or something happened, but she didn't leave me. She would never. Would she? I should've gone back to the hostel instead of trusting her to climb out of her hole. I opened the door before the car stood still. I heard Niall yell my name, but I ran inside. I saw Zayn staring at a note. I ran to him.

"What does this say? I don't understand!"

He handed me a note. I recognized Caroline's handwriting. It was in Dutch, so I translated and read it out loud at the same time. It took me some effort, but I knew Zayn needed it too.