Check, Please?

Chapter 25

To say I was relieved when I finally got my period would be an understatement.  I felt absolutely horrendous in every way possible – my whole body ached, my stomach was in knots, and I had the heaviest flow ever.  After hours of persuasion, I managed to get Harry to run to the store (whichever store had the least amount of witnesses) so that he could buy me tampons.  He scared me when he sprinted into the apartment and breathlessly slammed the door shut, clutching the tampons to his chest like he was running away from the police with a secret that had to remain hidden.

“They’re just tampons…” I said, taking the box from him and rushing to the bathroom.

Harry’s head poked around the doorframe fiercely as I sat on the toilet.  “Do you know how humiliating it is for a man to be buying those nasty things for his woman?” He asked, his hands on his hips. 

“Would you rather me just lay in bed and bleed it all out?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at him.

He grimaced crossed his arms sassily. “You didn’t even say thank you,” he informed me as I peeled open a wrapper.

I shot him a toothy grin and waved the tampon at him. “I looooove yoouuuuu.”

Harry frowned before walking away. “Mhmm.”  I loved his hissy fits.  

Thankfully, I was feeling better by the end of the week when Bonnie came back to the studio for her photo shoot.  Nerves were no longer an issue (for me, at least) and I greeted her like I would greet any other friend.  I could tell that Niall, Louis, Liam, and Harry were all stunned by the casual nature of mine and Bonnie’s interactions, but since Zayn had seen it before, he occasionally dared to join into our playful banter and ended up gaining Bonnie’s favor of all of the boys. 

Bonnie couldn’t stop beaming about the pictures that I had taken that day of the boys in her clothing.  I knew they weren’t the best that I had ever taken, but the boys looked so full of life in the pictures that I didn’t think anyone would be paying attention to the angle of the shot that was a little bit too high or the shadow that appeared in two or three of the frames.  I hoped those were things that only I noticed anymore because it was my job to.  Bonnie didn’t notice.  Unlike anyone else I had ever worked with before, she laughed along with the boys and even took a few pictures with them in her clothing.   She demanded that we take a “dance break” at one point during the day and asked the boys to show her some of their “club moves.”  She may have been old, but she certainly knew how to have a good time for no reason. 

It was strange not having Anna there, but I hadn’t told her about the rescheduling of Bonnie’s shoot.  I didn’t feel like it was necessary.  We managed a shoot without Anna before and could certainly do it again.  All the while I snapped pictures of the boys and joked about all different kinds of things with Bonnie, I continuously checked the door to make sure Anna didn’t walk in behind me.  I wasn’t necessarily avoiding her… I just wasn’t ready to face her again.  I didn’t know if I would ever be ready.  She hurt me more than anyone else.  I couldn’t help but wonder how long she had been wanting to say those nasty things to me.

Zayn, Liam, Louis, Niall, Harry, Bonnie, and I all ended up going out to dinner after the shoot.  I was almost stunned to see each of the boys listening so intently to the story of her life; her childhood, the beginning of her career, her plans for the future… I had never seen the five guys so calm and interested in something that didn’t involve sex, drugs, or alcohol.   I even found myself getting so caught up in her ideas for the future that I forgot to eat my spaghetti.  It was only when Harry called, “Check, Please?” that I realized I hadn’t touched a single meatball.

Bonnie took us to a three-dollar movie theater right out of the city that none of us knew about after that.  The Lion King was showing, and Niall and Louis were getting a kick out of the fact that Bonnie claimed this was “an appropriate movie” for all of us “kids.”  I made sure to remind Niall that we spent all last week watching Disney Princess movies, but he quickly hushed me as Louis’ ears perked up.  It might sound silly that 6 twenty-something-year-olds spent the rest of the night in an empty theater with an old woman watching The Lion King, but it was nice to take a break from adulthood.  To be babied.  It was nice to feel like I had some sort of mother-figure in my life again.