Keep Holding On (Harry Styles Fanfic)

Chapter 6

Friday, April 15

(45 days left)

Valerie POV

 I'm going out with Aaron Brennan tonight. No more sneaking of during study hall. No more keeping our relationship a secret. After tonight everyone will know where together besides Harry, who saw us kiss the other day. I cannot wait for my life to get easier.

Emily and I have this thing where we meet up outside the doors to the courtyard, its tradition.

"Things are looking up," Emily reports. "No pathetic note from Warner today. And he finally stopped leaving me messages." Warner Talbot is a total douchbag for cheating on Emily and a few days ago wanted to get back with her.

"Ohh, that is an improvement," I agreed.

"Plus! You know that heinous English test Ive been stressing? It got postponed!"

"Sweet!" I say, smiling.

"Okay, you've been smiling since you got here. Whats up?"

"Nothing. Why do you think somethings up?" I haven't exactly told Emily about being with Aaron, only because he told me not to.

"Please since when are you happy at school?"

"I'm not"

"We're not leaving until you tell me"

I desperately want to tell her about Aaron. I have to tell her about Aaron. Everyone's going to know where together after tonight anyways, and Ive been waiting for this moment for a really long time.

"I have a date," I announce.

"Oh my god!"Emily gasps. "With who?"

"Aaron Brennan."

"You know Aaron Brennan?"

"We've been..."The bell for second period rings."Its a long story. I'll tell you later."

I didn't really much see Harry today, but it's okay. I sorta feel bad liking Harry and going on a date with Arron.

*******************************

Before I leave I write a quick note saying I went to the mall with Emily. Then I leave before mother can get home and ruin date night with her toxic energy.

Waiting for someone shouldn't be hard. All you have to do is sit there, but its actually one of the hardest things. When your sitting by yourself at the mall, you might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign that says LOSER. I try to make it as obvious as possible that I'm waiting for someone. I want anyone who might be watching or passing by my bench to know that alone is just a temporary state. There's a person who wants to be with me. A person who will be here any minute.

Five minutes of waiting turns into ten.

Then twenty.

Half an hour later, Aaron still isn't here. He said Toxic's, right? Did he mean somewhere else? Aaron is thirty-seven minutes late when the worst thing ever happens. A group of kids grabs a window booth at the Olive Garden across from Toxic's. And of course they're kids from school. Of course Matt Jones is one of them. I have to get out of here before they see me and make a fool out of me. As I'm crunching down to get out a candy stand makes a big balloon popping sound next to me. Then he sees me.

They all turn to look at me. One of them says something. They all laugh. I check the time. Aaron is forty-five minutes late.

I wait for over an hour. Matt is eating and watching me like I'm a movie. One of the girls in the group blows her straw wrapper at him. She says something, then the whole table cracks up. I cant stand the humiliation any longer. I get up to leave. Which means that I was officially stood up, and those kids from school saw the whole thing.

*****************

As soon as I get home, I check my messages.

There aren't any.

I check my email.

Nothing.

Then I call Aaron.

It goes straight to voice mail.

Harry POV

It was now Friday and I didn't feel like dealing with anyone at school today. I was to disappointed to even talk to Valerie, but I would get over it soon. After getting picked up we pretty much didn't do anything today. Everyone was just in the living room watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S bored out of our minds because we seen this episode a million times. While everyone was into the show I couldn't stop moving around, until Liam noticed.

"Are you alright there, mate?" He asked a confused look on his face. Everyone looked up towards me, all eyes where on me now.

"Yeah, is just-" I stopped myself to think how will I tell them this.

"Let it out lad, whats on your mind" Niall spoke up looking a bit worried.

"Is it about the whole fan thing at the signing, because if it is don't worry about it there fans there jealous" Louis retorted back.

"Well part of it. Its because before leaving to the signing I searched Valerie on twitter-."

"Talk about stock much" I hear Zayn whisper in the back before I shot him a look, "Sorry, keep going"

"So as I was saying, when I found her,so many people commented hurtful words to her. She gets bullied and I didn't even knew." I was getting sad again and the boys moved in closer to me.

"It's alright Haz, where here for her she's not alone" Louis patted me on the shoulder and looked down to see my face.

"By the way she's still got her friend, whats her name, Emily?" Zayn said trying to cheer me up.

"But why did you get so hurt at the signing?" Niall asked trying to straighten things out.

"Because she told me I got with Valerie because I felt bad for her just because she gets bullied"

"But we all know that's not true, you're not even with her" Zayn spoke up

"Yeah, but I'm trying to get out of that image of being a man-whore, I hate having that reputation and its not even the real me. I don't want Valerie to recognize me as the man-whore, I want her to see the real side of me." Everyone nodded. Louis looked back up at me.

"Don't worry Haz, I'm almost positive she won't see you like that" he smiled a huge smile, it was contagious and I smiled at his adorableness.

Valerie POV

I kept thinking Aaron would call. He never called. That was the longest weekend of my life. I left a message when I called him Friday night after I got home. It wasn't an angry rant or anything, I just said that I waited a long time for him and that I hoped he was okay and to please call me back. It was obvious that he didn't want to talk to me. Ive gone over everything a million times. I cant figure out what I did wrong. What changed his mind about me?  Am I really that impossible to love?

Emily is on the warpath.

"He's not getting away with this," she promises at our daily meet-up. I was too depressed to call her when I got home Friday night, so I told her about Aaron when she called Saturday morning. She was way angrier about it than I was.

"Please don't do anything," I beg. "Let's just wait and see what happens."

"Are you delusional? We already saw what happened. What Happened was Aaron Brennan being a scumbag."

"But we don't know why he didn't show up yet."

"Because he is a scumbag. That's why"

"Maybe he-"

"No"

"He could have-"

"No"

"But-"

"He needs to apologize. I find it highly suspect that he hasn't yet"

"Just.....I'll take care of it"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah" I give a small smile.