Chapter 24

I jolt away from Zayn. He slowly takes small steps away from me, his hands retreating from my face down to rest on my knees. I cannot see who is at the door from where I sit. I am almost shaking. I do not want to know who is at the door. Zayn lowers his head with a deep sigh when he sees who is there, adding to my anxiety.

"I guess I'll leave you two alone then," the person says nastily.

I turn around.

Louis. He leans on the doorway with his arms crossed, his focus completely on Zayn. He glances toward me and acknowledges my presence, but he is quick to resume his glare at Zayn.

"We were just-" Zayn tries.

"I think it was pretty clear what you were doing." He raises his eyebrows and looks to me again to reaffirm. "Right?" I stutter out some incomprehensible words in response.

He backs out of the room leaving me to think about what just happened. What I let happen.

I am breathless. I cannot breathe without having to force the air into my lungs. The air in here is suddenly suffocating. I cannot be here anymore.

I throws Zayn's hands off my knees and jump down from the island.

"Jess, wait," I hear his strained voice from behind. He puts a hand on my shoulder. I shake him off and speed out of the room.

Louis is standing there in the hallway. I know he was waiting to talk to me. I stop in the hall so he can, expecting a cruel response from him.

"What the hell, Jessie?" he says. His voice is barely above a whisper, but I can still clearly hear the anger in it. His arms flail around as gestures while he speaks. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't." My head drops, and I rub my temples with my fingers. The entire situation is giving me a headache.

"No shit," he says. He shakes his head. "I had a feeling something like this would happen."

My head shoots up. Is he serious? His expression stays the same. He must mean it. He always thought I was bad news for Harry. He is going to tell Harry. Harry will hate me. We will be done. Everything we have will be gone because of what I did. I grab the wall, not able to balance after thinking of the consequences that will come from this.

"I'm not telling Harry," he says. "But, if you don't work this all out soon, and I mean really soon, then I will."

I cannot doubt him. They have been friends forever. Louis would easily get rid of me if he knew I could hurt Harry. So I have to tell Harry, if I care for him enough. I just hope "really soon" does not mean tonight. Not when he is having fun with his friends. And not when I have no courage to tell him.

He leaves me with that warning and brushes past me into the kitchen. Before I leave the hallway, though, I hear Louis beginning a similar tirade on Zayn, but with a stronger- and louder- choice of words.

I half-run into the garage, desperate to get away from the scene of all the trouble. I stop at the doorway into the garage and look in. Everyone is still on the floor, smiling and laughing at some stupid dare that was completed.

Harry sees me. He smiles inquisitively and waves me over to join the group. I take a step into the room and stop. I have to go see Harry now. I have to go see Harry now.

Zayn passes by me while I am thinking over everything, roughly bumping into me and pushing me aside.

"Sorry," he mutters bitterly. He walks fast to the wall across the room and leans against it, bringing his drink to his mouth for a long sip. He looks so tense.

Then Louis walks past, holding weird foods to make daring shots with. Louis must have said some terrible things to Zayn while they were in the kitchen.

"Jess?" Harry calls, making my heart race once again. "Are you coming?"

I nod anxiously and walk to him.

"Where's your drink, love?" he asks.

Holy shit, I forgot my drink. "I, uh, I decided I didn't really want one."

"Then what took you so long?" I have no immediate answer. I hope drunk Harry is an idiot. Louis comes up to the group with his collection of shot glasses and random foods and drinks.

"She was helping me grab some things for the shots," he says with a small smile.

"Oh," Harry says. He bought it. I would have too, though. Louis is the most convincing son of a bitch I know. But why would he be helping me? He knows exactly what took me so long. Maybe he understands that Harry does not need to learn everything around his friends. I am sort of glad that Louis does not want all the drama from the situation, either.

Harry pats the ground next to him. "Sit with me?" he asks me.

I do not think I want to. Sitting with him would push my anxiety over the edge. "I can't play, I never got a drink."

"I never asked you to play," he says. His voice gets softer. "Just, sit with me."

So I do. It feels terribly wrong. I am hiding something horrible from him, and he is still blindly giving me affection that I do not deserve.

Harry puts his arm around my shoulder. "Aww, how cute," one of the "Emos" sneers.

"Shut up," Harry snaps back.

"How about we continue the game?" Niall suggests. They do, but I am not tuned in to exactly what is happening. Liam starts by daring Niall to do something. Then Niall leans over and whispers into Ashton's ear, causing Ashton to freak out and push Niall away. Everyone wants to know what Niall said. Everyone is laughing. Everyone except me. Because I cannot stop seeing Zayn staring into the group from across the room, knowing he is directing his stare at me. I cannot stop feeling the painful guilt that I brought upon myself.

'If there was anything I was doing that you should be worried about, I don't think I could deal with the sickness I'd have,' I had told Harry. And it could not be truer.

I honestly feel sick. Head ache, stomach ache, body ache. Everything. Thinking about what I did hurts. I was sober. It would have been bad enough if I was drinking, but when Harry finds out that I knew what I was doing, what will he think of me then?

"Haz, babe, do you wanna leave? I don't feel very well," I tell him.

He stops laughing and puts his attention on me. "You're sick? We can go, if you'd like."

"Nah don't go," Niall says. "We just barely started the party."

"Yeah," Louis joins in, but I think his motives for encouraging us to stay are more deliberately hurtful than Niall's. "We haven't even gotten to the shots yet." He holds up the paper bag of random shit he has, still giving me an awful smirk.

Harry looks back at me. "It's up to you. If you're really sick, we can go." I can hear in his voice that he wants to stay.

I look at Louis. He honestly looks like he hates me. He knows the reason for me wanting to leave so soon- because I cannot take being around Harry and Zayn. So if I do leave, it will prove in his mind that I am as selfish as he thinks, since I am only worrying about how I feel right now.

"We can stay," I say through gritted teeth. "I'm alright."

"Alright," Niall says with a smile. "Let's do the shots then."

They do their goddamn shots, but I still sit there wallowing in the pain of my own guilt. At least an hour later, Harry finally agrees to leave.

I drive us to his house, barely holding on to the small amount of sanity I have left. I take it out on the road, too, and even drunk Harry realizes how badly I am driving. "You really are sick, aren't you?"

"Yeah," I mutter. "Harry, listen. I'm going to go home tonight after I drop you off at your apartment." I just cannot be around him anymore. I cannot pretend like everything is fine between us anymore.

"Ok. Wait, what?" he groans.

"I'm going home."

"Why?" he whines. "Is it because I had a bit to drink? I promise I'm not that drunk."

He makes me smile. "It's not that, it's just- I need to go home. I'm never at my house anymore because of you."

He wrinkles his forehead. "Yeah, that's right. Why do you even go home? Why don't you just live with me? Do you even like that Charlotte girl really?" he starts to rant.

I laugh. "You're drunk."

"Well you're difficult," he grumbles. He crosses his arms and looks away from me.

I do not care. If I were to go home with him, all I would be thinking about is how I broke his trust in me. At least if I am at home I can cry and eat with Charlotte. I heavily sigh.

He slowly turns his head to me, letting his curious eyes investigate my uneasiness. "You really are sick, then?"

I nod. "Yeah."

I expect him to make some joke or mock me, but he stays quiet. It confuses me. Does he know? No. It is impossible. I have been with him the entire night since the kiss. Louis could not have possibly told him. And he has not checked his phone, I do not think. Maybe he just thinks I am really really sick and does not want to make me feel worse. That is his personality, I think.

We get home. I decide I do not want to go in his apartment, because I have a feeling he would be able to guilt me into staying. And I already have enough guilt. He stays outside with me for awhile, obviously trying to convince me to stay.

"It's cold," he says, sort of bouncing to keep himself warm.

"Yeah, so I need to go. You don't want me getting sicker, right?" I try. I am so anxious to leave.

He disregards my question. "But it's too cold. Do you want me to freeze in the middle of the night because I'm too cold all alone?"

"Harry, I'm sick," I say for the four-billionth time.

"I know, I know, but if you really loved me, you'd care more about how I feel than yourself."

Fuck. "I- I have to go, I'm sorry." I start to walk to my car.

I hear him chasing after me. "Jess."

I stop and let him catch up to me. He comes close to me, making me so nervous and so anxious to get away. I hate feeling like this. He gives me a small kiss that I can only describe as broken, and I stand there allowing it to happen rather than encouraging it. He steps back slowly when he sees how little enthusiasm I have. He looks troubled, his soft green eyes encased in a wrinkled brow and downturned lips. "I love you," he states.

I look down. "I love you too. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

I spin around and walk away. I cannot handle anymore of anything tonight. Once I get into my car, I let the tears pour out.

Harry said it himself: If I really loved him, I would care more about his feelings than my own. And by kissing Zayn, I demonstrated that I did not care about his feelings more than my own. I remember that I never thought about Harry during the kiss. I thought about how Zayn and I could get caught, and I vaguely remember thinking about how what we were doing was wrong. But I never put Harry into the mix. Do I really love him? I have to. I do. I know I do. I must. How could I not really love Harry?