Boys Don't Cry

Anonymus Artist

February

"Wow," Millie said as Liam whistled loudly in appreciation, "this was not at all what I was expecting."

Isabel adjusted her skirt one more time, tugging it farther down her thighs, and took a deep, shuddering breath in order to calm her nerves. She reminded herself that she liked what she was wearing, at least, but she wished she didn't look so tired, and even the make-up that she'd spent an hour carefully applying hadn't covered it.

This week had been a hard, sleep-deprived slog. After the Haim gig, Millie and Isabel had spent all of Sunday afternoon recovering in front of the television, and she'd loped into work in the evening with a splitting headache. Luckily, Harry was even worse off, and they'd struggled through that shift together, near on flinging bowling shoes at customers and trying not to suffocate in the omnipresent smell of sweaty feet in the shoe booth.

Monday to Friday was one of despairing sobriety as Isabel had exams on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and so she'd spent the first shift of the week – the Wednesday - desperately revising, and had had to cancel her Friday one so she was able to make the exam. Harry was quietly sympathetic all week, but her frantic cramming left little time to build on their newfound friendship.

It was on Friday afternoon, as Isabel walked out of her final exam in a state of crippling relief with a dampening undertone of disappointment which was sure to grow, that she found the text from Harry.

From: unsaved number, at 14:49

Hiiii Isabel this is Harry Styles.. I forgot you weren't working today so sorry I didn't mention this on Wednesday, but it's my birthday tomorrow and my housemates are throwing me a party. Bring Millie and any other friends, if you want. Hope your exam went well x

She'd replied almost immediately, without pausing for much thought at all, that she would be there, and it was only when he replied a couple of hours later with his address that she started to freak out.

Although she knew and liked Zayn and Olivia, she was terrified about meeting his other friends. Apart from Millie and Lydia, friends she'd made because she lived in hall with them in her first year, and Liam, because he was Lyd's boyfriend, everyone Isabel knew was through Louis. Even Scarlett, who was one of her best friends, knew Louis first. It sounded ridiculous even in her own head, but the question remained: How did she make people like her without his constant, imposing influence?

She knew a lot of people at their uni, but the art uni was an entirely different playing field. She couldn't fake confidence and self- assuredness like she usually would, because clearly it hadn't sat well with Harry, and by extension, it probably didn't sit well with his friends either.

Scarlett was going to her parents' house for the weekend, it coincidentally being her little brother's birthday this weekend too, so it was just Isabel, Lydia, Liam and Millie going to the party. She'd toyed with inviting Louis and some of his friends, but decided against it when she remembered that Harry's opinion of Louis wasn't exactly savoury. She decided to play it safe – he already knew Millie, and Lydia and Liam were the least offensive people she knew.

That was how they ended up standing outside what must have been Harry's house, if the address was correct. Granted, they should have expected this when they ended up on the posh side of town – the side where the houses belonged to actual married couples with kids and dogs and people carriers – but it only hit the four of them that Harry actually lived somewhere nice, somewhere that could be accepted as a house for grown-ups, until they got there.

It was by no means palatial – it wasn't incredibly big or specifically attractive – but compared to the cramped and barely legal safety hazard of a house Lydia, Scarlett, Millie and Isabel rented, it may as well have been The Ritz.