Those Five Boys {EDITING ATM}

Chapter 31

Harry's POV

"Claire wait." I gently grab her arm, feeling her stop as turns around while the rest of them keep walking.

We continue to walk behind them as we talk. "Did I do something wrong back there?" I ask her.

"It was just the harshness in your voice, it reminded me of, you know." She tells me as we walk, sighing.

"Sorry I just keep forgetting how fragile you are." I say without thought but quickly cover my mouth.

Shit what did I just say?

She looks up at me as her lip begins quiver. "No-I didn't meant to say that." I try to recover what I just said, but she shakes her head and runs toward the boys in front of me.

Dammit.

Claire's POV

I can't believe he just said that to me, am I really that fragile? Of course I am that's why I'm crying right now.

Rushing past the boys, I head to the door, trying to open it.

"C'mon open," I mumble to myself.

Liam stands next to me and holds my hand, calming me as he unlocks the door. I quickly open it and rush inside, kicking off my shoes as I run upstairs into the guest bedroom. Locking the door, I rush over to the bed and lie down and begin to bawl my eyes out.

Why am I so weak? Fragile you are, fragile you are, rings in my head. I know that Harry thinks I'm weak, I already know that you're just a weak person.

"Stop it." I cover my ears, the voices in my head grow louder, almost shouting. "Stop shouting!" I scream. I feel so useless right now.

They won't stop shouting, why won't they stop shouting?

Zayn's POV

We're all outside of the guest bedroom, where Claire is. We all hear shouting coming from inside. Softly knock on the door, the shouting stops as I hear footsteps coming closer.

"Claire?" I softly say.

"Yeah?" She replies, hearing shuffling inside the room. My mind whirls in thoughts of what she's doing in the room.

She can't be cutting, she can't be.

"Can I come in?"

"N-no." She stutters out. "Niall, only Niall comes in." She quickly says as we all turn our heads toward Niall. He walks up to the door and softly knocks.

"It's me, Niall." The door clicks and he steps inside. I didn't get a good look of her, all I saw was her hair.

Niall's POV

When I step inside she locks the door again and we both sit on the bed. It's silent, and I can only hear us breathing.

"Do you think I'm fragile?" She speaks up.

My gaze is to her eyes, which are already staring at mines as I take a closer look. They're bloodshot red from all the crying that she did.

I'm taken back at the question.

"Why would you think that?" I ask her.

"Look at me!" She suddenly shouts, standing up as she starts to pace across the room mumbling stuff.

"I'm crying, every single time someone says something bad about me! I'm always the one crying!" She continues to yell. Rushing over to her and hold her shoulder, she immediately calms down to my touch and sits back down on the bed with me.

"I don't think you're fragile," I tell her, her head looking up at me, "you're strong, stronger than you know. You've been put through so much and you keep getting back up. You're strong, believe me." She lightly smiles at the words I've told her. Hugging her gently, she cradles in my arms as I begin to hum as I slowly rock her.

She's not fragile, she's strong. I know she might not know it yet, but she will soon.

What seems like hours but in fact minutes we pull away, seeing that she has stopped crying, and her eyes are no longer red.

"Thank you." She smiles at me.

"I'm here for you, don't forget that." I smile back.

"You ready to head out?" She nods her head an we stand up, walk to the door and open it. I'm surprised that the boys weren't listening in.

We head downstairs and see that there's already two pizza plates on the coffee table for us. She takes her plate and I take mine as we both take our seats. Claire sits next to Louis, which is farthest away from Harry, and I sit next to Zayn.

I have a feeling Harry was the one who upset her. By the looks of it, his eyes are almost pleading sorry to her.

How do I ask him without talking to him?

I quickly pull out my phone and text him.

Me:

'What did you do to her?' I look over at Harry, his phone vibrates and he reads it, a concentrated expression on his face. He doesn't look up as he taps away on his phone.

Harry:

'I said something to her.'

Me:

'Obviously, now tell me.'

Harry:

'Fine, when we were walking back to the house I accidentally called her a fragile person. I tried to apologize but she ran away from me.'

Me:

'You're an a.sshole.' I type to him.

Harry:

'I'm sorry okay? I didn't meant to.'

Me:

'You shouldn't be apologizing to me.' I put my phone down and finish my pizza. After I throw my plate away, I sit back down next to Zayn and glance at the clock, it's now 9:59pm.

I'm really tired I should get some sleep.

Laying down on the blanket, I lay my head on the pillow, thinking of happy things as I fall asleep.

Liam's POV

As Harry and I lay on a blanket, Claire comes back down wearing baggy clothes. Her eyes look tired as she sits on the couch, with Louis taking the smaller couch tonight as Zayn sleeps on the floor.

"Goodnight guys." She turns off the lamp as we tell her goodnight also, but I think she's already asleep.

She's gone through a lot today, and I couldn't stress that out even more. If she wants to go the party, she can go to the party. But I'm going to keep an eye on her, just to make sure that nothing goes wrong.

Harry seemed protective over her when Sam asked if she was attending. But I couldn't blame him, I felt the same way.