Crooked Hearts

1. South America

      The crowd screamed as we finished the final song for the first show in our stadium tour. We were in Columbia, South America, this was the first leg of our Where We Are Stadium Tour. The crowd screamed louder as the boys and I took a bow and thanked them for their support and love.

To be quite fair and honest, I can never fully wrap my head around the possibility of all this madness. I keep thinking that I am nothing but a 16 year old student in Cheshire, England and I will wake up from this fantastic dream. But I never do. It's flattering how much people admire and love my band. I wake up so many mornings feeling so grateful for the position I am in right now and I can't be happier with my life.

Aria was right.

I did, as she predicted, become a famous popstar.

But that was 5 years ago. I'm 20 now. I was 15 when she told me what she thought I would become.

The boys and I rush off the stage with the biggest adrenaline rush. We climb into the tour bus and we’re off to our next destination. Niall slumps down on the couch, exhausted.

“Unbelievable.” He says, his eyes shining.

“That was so crazy.” Liam adds.

“And to think lads,” Louis says, “This is in South America.”

The other boys agree with him, and I go online to tweet about it. The fans are crazy. No doubt about that. I think having such fans has its own pros and cons. But where would we be without them?

“This is cause to celebrate, lads!” Niall says with enthusiasm. “Who’s up for a beer?”

I smirk at Niall, “Five beers in five minutes Niall, you up for it?”

Niall rolls his eyes at me, “You couldn’t take me down if you tried.”

“Is that a challenge, Irish boy?”

Niall laughs, “No one can beat the Irish when it comes to this!”

I sit next to Niall and he offers me a beer, I take it from his hand and chug the strong liquid down my throat.

“Beer, manly stuff.” I say, when I finish.

“Funny, you’re hardly a man Harry.” Liam says, teasing.

“Then again, neither are you.” I say back, with a smile.

“THAT’S IT I QUIT.” Zayn suddenly screams, throwing the Wii controller to the next couch. I peak at the screen, and there it is a FIFA score with 20-50. Louis laughs, and throws his own controller next to Zayn’s.

“I told you, you couldn’t beat me.” He says, smirking.

“Whatever. I’m going to bed.” Zayn says, clearly devastated by the loss. He storms out of the room and into the place where the lads and I bunk. Louis laughs again, pulls a beer out, and takes a sip from it.

The boys and I continue to have some lively banter and eventually Zayn comes back and joins us.

“What a great way to kick off out tour, don’t you agree, lads?” I say.

“Definitely.” Liam says, with a wide smile, “I’ll never understand how a person will ever deserve all this.” He says. “It’s all quite mind-blowing.”

“I can’t believe that 5 boys like us are going on a Stadium tour.” Niall says, laughing. “How the hell did that happen?” Niall laughs again, “I’m tweeting this!” he announces. He goes on his phone and googles a picture of us back in 2010.

“Look at Harry’s hair here!” He says, “All tucked up in a beanie.”

“That time you had actual curls, mate.” Liam says, giving me a playful shove.

“We’re all fetuses.” Louis says.

“How many retweets do you think this’ll get in a minute?” Niall asks.

“800.” Zayn says.

“We’ll just see about that.” Niall says.

My mind shifts back to Aria. I don’t even know why I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately. Maybe it’s because the moment she’d predicted that my life would turn out to be this, I wanted to prove her right, to make it true. And maybe I owe her something. Maybe I owe her thanks.

  I’d first seen Aria Wilde 7 years ago. I was thirteen years old. She’d recently transferred to my school. My first impression of her was quiet. Quiet, shy, and unsociable. Since I was the type who would make friends with everybody, I was the first one who ever spoke to her. I asked her if she liked the school and if she wanted to be friends.

She said yes.

But there was always something, not cold exactly, but off about her. She wasn’t the type to talk to you unless you talked to her. She wouldn’t acknowledge your existence unless you acknowledged hers first. I tried to be nice to her, and we were always friendly with each other. We didn’t have any level of knowledge about one another. We just stayed polite and civil with each other and that was it.

I always hated it. I always wanted to talk to her, to know her better. But I never really had the courage to do so. It wasn’t until that party that I really had a proper conversation with her that lasted more than five minutes. After that party, I always talked to her. And just as I was starting to know her, to truly understand her, she disappeared. One summer, she informed me that she went on vacation, and never came back the following school year.

She moved out of Cheshire to, rumors say, Manchester. No one really knew the reason why, but I was determined to find out. I tried to ask our English teacher, who seemed to be the only one who Aria ever talked to, about it. But she said, the only detail she knew was that Aria had been sent to a relative to study in a different school. Communicating with her was out of the question. I didn’t have her phone number or her twitter username. I couldn’t even find her on Facebook. She was completely lost to me.

______________

“What’s your favorite flower?” I remember asking her once.

Aria smiles, and says, “White roses.”

“Not red ones?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

Aria shrugs, “I don’t know. I’ve always thought white roses were prettier then red ones.” She says, “And when I found out that white roses meant ‘I am loyal and worthy of you.’ I thought it was kind of beautiful.”

I nod, “Yeah, that’s beautiful.”

The next morning, I gave her a white rose.”Am I worthy of your presence yet?” I jokingly said as I handed to her.

She grinned and put the rose in her hair, “Hardly.” She teased.

*********

“Harry? Harry? HARRY!” Niall’s voice screeches in my ear.

My head snaps up, “Yeah?”

“Oh look, the zombie lives!” Louis says, with an eye roll.

“You were caught in a trance, mate.” Zayn says, “You feeling okay?”

I nod too fast, “Yes, yes, absolutely.” I say quickly. “Just tired, I guess.”

“Maybe you should get to sleep, Harry.” Liam says.

“Yeah, of course,” I say.

I stumble my way to bed and fall face-first on the pillows. The moment my head hits the pillows, I fall into a deep sleep.

I wake to the sound of muffled conversation around me.

“……Harry……should we wake him up?......”

“…..No, I don’t think so……”

“Let…..him sleep……”

“Probably just tired………”

That’s all I hear before I fall back to sleep.