Stand Up

Chapter 8 (I wish)

A/N so hey there guise...there is a title to this chapter because it fits so dang well. :') The first time in this story that there's a title for a chapter! :D 

Niall’s POV

She wouldn’t look at me the next morning; it was obvious something was wrong. Now, it could be that she was just embarrassed because of what had occurred the night before, but I doubted it. She didn’t seem the type to shy away from that.

I wasn’t an idiot; something had happened between her and Harry last night, just like I’d tried to warn the guys. Harry felt the same way I did, I could see it in his eyes—he thought she was the one…and therein laid the problem. Neither one of us would let go of ‘the One’, and sometime soon I knew this would come to a boiling point and one of us would explode.

Every time I tried to talk to her, she’d mumble something and move away. It was killing me inside to see her this way, especially after what I’d held in my hands the night before. I should’ve fought it harder, should’ve snuck her into my room instead of leaving her to go with Harry.

“Amanda, how was your night?” Noemi asked, drawing my attention.

There was nothing innocent about her question; she had a wicked glint in her eye, staring hard at Amanda. Either Amanda had told her something, or she’d guessed, but she knew about Amanda’s reaction to Harry. Noemi wasn’t someone who would let her friend get away with avoidance, but at this moment in time, I wish she would’ve...because the tension in the air became thick enough to cut with a knife. When I slid my eyes over to Harry, I noticed him staring at the table, for once without a smirk or a smug glint in her eyes.

Without a word, Amanda rose from the table, dumping her food—an omelet that she hadn’t touched—into the trashcan and walking from the room, her back stiff.

Yeah, something had happened.

_____

Noemi’s POV

I knew as soon as she came down the stairs for breakfast that there was a problem, and I intended to get to the bottom of it. Look at her, unable to meet Niall’s gaze and muttering responses to the questions he asks. I didn’t like seeing her like this, especially because she was usually so happy and sweet. Even her usual morning bear impression was absent; she wasn’t replying with grunts or “Leave me alone” like other mornings.

I watched the exchange between her and Niall for a few more minutes, seeing the pain on his face every time she looked away from him or scooted her chair further from him. I couldn’t stand it, and I couldn’t let it continue.

She hadn’t told me about her and Harry, but from the way he looked at her with his heart in his eyes every moment that I’d spent with them, he really liked her, and I could tell by her careful avoidance of his touch, his questions, she liked him.

What a dilemma. She really, obviously liked Niall, but under that was her affection for Harry. Amanda was a puzzle that only the people who knew her could figure out; when she likes someone but doesn’t want anyone to know, she does her best not to acknowledge their presence, but at the same time she can be very blunt.

But she never walked away from a conflict, so when she got up from the table without a word and dumped her food—that she hadn’t touched, which was more worrisome than anything—I knew something had happened, worse than I had thought.

I waited a few seconds, the silence at the table thick and telling, before following her. I found her in the bathroom, standing at the sinks and staring at the running water. She’d braced herself on the edge of the marble counter top, arms spread out.