What Makes You Beautiful

Chapter 3

“Eve.” I hear my name being called. The voice is familiar; an uncomfortable familiar. I search around for the source until I see the silhouette of a young man, waiting in the dark.

“Come with me Eve. Be with me,” he beckons. It becomes too hard to resist. The figure entrances me, putting me under some deep spell that I cannot escape. I take the figures hand and it squeezes my wrist. Tighter and tighter he squeezes until I am crying out in pain. Suddenly, I am falling. I’m falling in a pitch black, foreboding tunnel. I am now in a room. It’s extremely bright and I have to shield my eyes. I see two figures lying on the ground, motionless. Curious, I slowly walk over to see who these figures are. As I get closer, a sense of fear and anxiety come upon me, causing me to shake. My parents. They are the figures. They are dead. Completely and utterly dead. I’m frozen, not able to move a single muscle in my body. A familiar voice calls out to me.

“Eve!” Stacey?

“Eve, where are you?”

“I’m here Stacey! I’m right here!” Stacey runs over to me, falling into my arms. For a moment I’m relieved. I have Stacey. I’m not alone. But when I look down, Stacey isn’t there. Instead it’s him.

“Hello, Eve,” he says with a maniacal laugh. I scream. I scream and scream and scream.

I jolted up from my bed, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest and sweat drenching my body. It took a minute to calm myself. When was this nightmare going to stop? I looked over at my clock. It was five in the morning. Might as well just get up now. I sighed as I lifted myself off of my bed and took another shower to clean my body from all the sweat. The images from my nightmare would not leave my brain. I tried desperately to rid of them and think of something else but it was no use.

Downstairs, Stacey was still sleeping on the couch, lightly snoring. She’s going to be a blast this morning when she wakes up. I knew she was going to have an awful hangover so I went ahead and made my special smoothie that helps relieve Stacey of her headaches. Right after her birthday, Stacey would go out to bars a lot with her friends so I took it upon myself to create a hangover remedy for her. After finishing the smoothie, I had no idea what else to do so I sat and watched a few movies until Stacey woke up which was around eight. She groaned loudly.

“My head,” she complained.

“I knew it would be like that so I went ahead and made you that smoothie,” I said pointing to the kitchen. Immediately she got up and grabbed the smoothie, slugging it down.  When she finished it, she let out a relieving sigh and came back to the couch. 

“So,” she began. “What was going on with you and Harry last night?” She was smirking.

“What? Nothing! Nothing at all!” I said, immediately put on the defensive mode. Nothing went on, did it?

“Oh, don’t give me that crap, Eve! I saw the way you guys were looking at each other the whole time!”

“We were not looking at each other the whole time!”

“You like Harry Styles! Admit it! You like him!”

“Stacey, seriously stop. I’ve known the guy for twenty four hours and he’s a freaking celebrity for crying out loud.” I couldn’t like Harry. I couldn’t like anyone right now. I’m not ready to let go of what happened. It could happen again.

“No, Eve, you stop. Stop being afraid. I’m getting sick of it now. Move on. Now.” Stacey was getting angry now which just annoyed me further.

“I’ll move on when I want to move on and not when you tell me!” I shouted standing up. “Just leave my personal life alone and stop trying to control it! I will go out when I’m damn good and ready!” And with that I stormed up the stairs. I immediately regretted yelling at Stacey. We have very few fights. And when we do have our little squabbles, they usually last a good five minutes before we’re laughing and hugging again. I just need time to think. I need to clear my head. I decided taking a nice run would be perfect. I threw on my favorite neon splatter-painted spandex shorts and a matching pink sports bra with an oversized white t-shirt. After putting my hair up and tying my sneakers, I went out the door, running down the neighborhood and letting my mind let loose. The first thing that came to mind was Harry. Did I think he was cute? Yes. Did I think he was charming? Yes. Did I think he was a nice person? Maybe. I still don’t really know him. But even if he was, it’s not like he would ever ask me out. And if he did, I don’t know if I wanted to. Yes, it’s been three years, but I will be forever haunted.