You Belong With Me

Chapter 28

Before I leave, Louis slips something in my pocket and kisses my forehead.  ”For tomorrow.” I start to pull it out but he stops me. “Let it be a surprise for them, kay?”

Ohhh.

“Kay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Molly and I walk home for the majority in silence, until she asks me what happened.  All I say is everything’s fine, keeping the details to myself. 

“Well, you look happy. What did you two do?” Her cheeks are pink, a slight smile on her face. It widens and she laughs.

“Ohh, nothing.”

I think about it for a second and shake my head. “Ew, no, don’t even tell me.”

“I wasn’t planning on it!”

“Oh, god, Molly, now I have this awful image and..”

“I didn’t say anything! But admit it, if Louis hadn’t gone for you, you so would’ve gone for Harry.”

“Ew. Wrong. Never.”

“Mmhm.”

We joke with each other the rest of the way home, opening the door in laughter to see my mom standing there waiting, with nathan by her side.  We stop in our tracks, and I can tell my mom is livid, but I don’t know with who.

“He wanted to come and talk to you, apparently to make up for your last encounter?” She raises her eyebrows and looks at me, obviously annoyed I didn’t tell her something.

I look at Nathan. “Did you tell her what happened…” I trail off, slightly pointing at my mom.

“As much as she wanted me to, I didn’t. I figured it would be better coming from you.”

“Oh, wonderful. Should we go talk then?” I don’t know why I’m not scared or nervous about talking to him.  I guess it’s because I figured things out with Louis, and my feelings weren’t confused anymore.

We sit down on the couch, my mom and Molly going upstairs.

“So, what do you want to talk about.” I fold my legs over each other turning myself to face him. 

“So, I guess the other night, I didn’t exactly do the best job of getting my point across efficiently.”

“That could be a slight understatement.”

“Look, I want to apologize for everything, starting from last year.”

“Yeah, why did you do that?”

He slightly stares off into space for a few seconds before answering. “It’ll sound cliche, but I was dumb, and I was fed up with holding an image, being the best guy in the group.”

“You think that makes up for everything?”

“I know it doesn’t make up for everything. And I only got a high off of being an ass to a girl for a week or so. After that it was just..”

”..Just what?”

“I guess I kind of realized why girls always pictured guys as douches. I wanted you back, I really wanted you back, but I didn’t want to seem more vulnerable than you were. I never showed anything because that wasn’t who anyone expected me to be.”

“You know it shouldn’t have mattered what anyone else thought, correct?”

“Sarah, you hated me. You wouldn’t go within 200 feet of me. It was like I didn’t exist anymore.”

“Do you realize what you did?”

“Yeah, I do. And I regret it.”

“What I don’t understand is what made this come across now. You started this so aggressively as if I would always have to belong to you, and now you’re finally letting go? I don’t get it…”

“Hey, I don’t either. I didn’t know how to be calm about the whole situation, and since I knew that I was coming to London, I just…”

“Decided to be a complete and utter asshole.”

“Well, yes. I just didn’t think that someone like him was someone you belonged with. I saw you better with me, and the things people were saying about you on twitter or in magazines was completely different from who you are, and I felt like he was changing you.”

“You realize, you can never ever rely on any of that stuff, right?”

“Hah, yeaaah. But it scared me.”

“Nathan, you can talk to me about any of that stuff before you come stomping in here basically ruining my relationship. I wouldn’t have gotten mad about it.” He raises his eyebrows. “Okay, well only a little mad.” I laugh and smile, it just felt as if we were friends.

“Did he really get that mad about it?”

“That mad? How mad he was didn’t compare to how mad I was last year.”

“Really?” He looks extremely shocked. I did get pretty mad last year.

“But I guess everything’s alright now, so don’t worry about it.”

“I feel like an ass. I guess I just wanted to mend this, make things normal, natural between us again.”

“It’ll take a little warming up to the idea of being friends, but I think it’ll work out alright.” I smile genuinely, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

“Good.” He looks satisfied, smiling, something I hadn’t seen in a while.

“So how’s your trip been so far?”

“It’s been pretty good, I don’t exactly enjoy traveling around with my parents as much anymore, but I’ve always wanted to come here.”

“Gotten to go all the places you wanted to?”

“Most of them.”

“Good.” He starts to look around the house, and my phone vibrates.

Lexie Lou: i’m bringing Niall over for a little!

He looks up at me. “Uhh, yeah, I think you should probably go…”

“Your boyfriend?”

“No, uh, Alexa and hers..I think if you were here when Niall was…”

“I understand.”

“Look, I’m glad we sorted this out.”

I walk him to the door, and he gives me a hug, looking behind him as he’s walking away.