Haz and Mel

Chapter 1: The meeting

I wasn’t really that type of girl that loved boy bands. I never was. I had heard from One Direction, and I knew a couple of songs, but that was it. I was quite mature for my age. People always told me I had an old soul inside of me. And I liked that thought. Never in a million years I would’ve imagined myself with one of the boys from One Direction. Somehow I’ve always thought they were younger than me, but turns out, they were all older. Even the youngest member, Harry Styles, was older. And he was sitting right in front of me, staring darkly into my eyes, like he was about to set me on fire. I couldn’t fool myself, I was kind of scared of him. I heard one of the women of their management team rambling, but I didn’t fully understand what she was saying. It didn’t matter though. I knew what was about to happen. I needed to be his girlfriend. The girlfriend of Harry Styles, for about a year. Just to make his image better to the public. Apparently, Harry was not really himself lately. The fame went to his head and people started disliking him, what wasn’t really good for the image of the band. So they decided to give him a girlfriend. A fake girlfriend. Like that was going to help.

They offered me money to do it. And it took me a while to figure what to do with that. People called me crazy when I turned the offer down to receive any money out of it. It just seemed even more stupid, that I would get PAID to be his girlfriend. That would bring me to their level. Like faking being his girlfriend wasn’t bad enough. People asked me why I even bothered doing it then. And I didn’t really know a good answer to that question. Maybe it was hard to understand for some people, but I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in his eyes that the Harry from before was still there. He was hurt. He was acting like this because he was hurt. And I didn’t know why. I didn’t even know if my conclusions were true. But I did know that I wanted to try my best to bring him back. Or somewhat bring the band back. Because I’ve had seen videos from them together. Videos from before. And they all got along so well. And it was so weird for me to think about that, sitting in a room with Harry in front of me and the other boys sitting all separated in a chair, away from each other. Not one of them smiling like they used to do. Not one of them looking me straight in the eyes, except for Harry, who was still making me feel uncomfortable. And I couldn’t think of anything other than wanting to help them. Help them get through this.

‘I don’t want her.’ Harry said, making me jump out of my thoughts.

‘You don’t really have a choice here, Harry. You fucked it up, so you are going to make it right again.’ The woman said in an angry tone.

‘Making it right by faking that I have a girlfriend? How does that seem right?’ He yelled at her, making the other boys flinch in their chairs. ‘And she has OF COURSE nothing to complain about. She probably gets a great sum of money on her bank account for this stupid idea.’ He murmured. And I felt actually relieved, that I didn’t accept the money. I would feel guilty as hell now, if I did.

‘She doesn-,’ The woman started but I interrupted her. I didn’t want him to know yet.

‘Harry, I know this sounds stupid. I know. I get it. But it’s only for the better… I-,’ But he cut me off.

‘YOU NEED TO SHUT UP! I don’t need to hear anything from you so just SHUT UP!’ He yelled, standing up and leaving the room. The moment he slammed the door, all the boys breathed out like they were holding their breaths the whole time. This was not going to be easy, I figured.

‘Okay… Melanie. You are going to live with them for a while now.’ The woman said to me, and I tried to remember what I was thinking when I agreed on doing this. I nodded, anything but sure of myself. ‘Boys, help her a bit, will ya?’ She said to the other members who still had such sad faces that if I didn’t know better, I would have guessed somebody died. They nodded. One of them gave me a half smile, the blond one. I was trying to think of his name. But the fact that he cared enough to give me a little smile, made me feel a bit better. ‘I don’t know if you know their names?’ The woman asked me and I couldn’t be more thankful for that question, when I was shaking my head.