Behind the Bar - Niall Horan One Shot

Behind the Bar

He’d be coming in for days now. A week almost. Night in night out. And he’d ask for the same thing.

“A pint please,” he requested throwing his elbows on the bar table, resting his head in his arms.

I felt like refusing even though it was only his first for the night. I’d struggled to think how he wasn’t sick from last nights. Or the night before. Or the night before that. I tried to imagine the killer headache and hangover he’d get. I mean on a bloody Wednesday morning. But I sighed and filled the large glass with starch enzyme alcohol for at least the twentieth time this week.

I slipped the business drink card underneath the full pint before sliding the glass across to him. His blue eyes peered from between his arms as he saw the cup.

“Cheers mate,” he mouthed, nodding his head.

I smiled back with one thought in the back of my mind; your business is your business and his is his.

But the truth was I’d been dying to ask him, since he was here last Thursday. He’d been every night since asking for pint after pint with the same look on his face. His eyes looked like they were rolling in a sea of indecisiveness. The way he slouched like he was fed up of everything. How he’d come alone every night fiddling with his phone between his fingers. He’d unlock it, scroll through his contacts then slam it face down on the bar bench. Time after time. Sometimes it would ring and he’d stare at the flashing screen. He would stare it down almost forgetting the fact it was ringing, until it stopped. And then he’d ask for another one.

“Could I get a second, please?” his voice peaked through the loud chatter of women gossiping and men going ape at provocatively dressed females.

I nodded in obligation and slowly made my way towards the tap. Maybe if I deliberately dawdled on the way, he’d withdraw his request, perhaps realise he’s already had one drink too many. I never really do care as to how many drinks one could have or what their business was. If anything I’d fear my wellbeing and if so I’d only call security. But something about this bloke worried me. He wasn’t enjoying himself. In the past I’d shrug my shoulders and get out as soon as my shift ended. But that was the end of relief, for this time my phone buzzed.

I unprofessionally cussed under my breath before I reluctantly read the message.

‘Can’t make my shift tonite, could ya take it for me. Thanks babe x – Tara’

Judging by the fact she really didn’t use a question mark, this really wasn’t my choice and so I complied with the late shift, again. She’d done it several times, most of the time her excuse really was another blind date her friends had set her on. Tonight I was ready to say no, but my curiosity pulled me in to take the midnight shift. 

A new group had arrived, there was one every night. About several girls, just a bit older than me, swung on each side of a middle aged man. As the week progressed, their dresses would become trampier and their heels higher. And the older the man, the more expensive the drink. But this fella, he struggled to even get through the door. His wispy hair was dyed an unnatural pitch black and his skin a sickening ghostly white. As he took a seat and laughed his back pain off, the girls near him sniggered and forcefully smiled. He lifted his arm in request.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Malt Scotch, thanks,” he demanded smiling with his false white teeth, the wrinkles on his face increasing and growing deeper.

“A forty thousand dollar bottle? Yeah, we don’t have those here,” I ungratefully yet sarcastically admitted.

He just stared at me and burst into laughter as if he hadn’t heard me.

“I too would turn down my hearing aid if I were surrounded by bitchy fortune hungry hoes,” I whispered to myself leaning over the bar.

“I see exactly what you mean,” I was quickly interrupted.

I quickly turned my head to meet the blue eyes of the ‘pint’ bloke. He ran his hand through his dirty blonde hair before smiling at me and at his empty cup again.

“Ahah, yeah. Every night, getting piss drunk,” I ironically commented.

“Would hate to end up like him,” he said staring at the old man, his face in semi-disgust.

“I don’t see how that would happen,” I lightly steered the conversation into something that would interest me.

“It’s really hard settling,” he drifted off.

And that was the signal, I carried myself to the tap to brew another pint. The glass chilled in my hand, something I still had not got used to. I passed it over.

“Thanks. I’m Niall,” he said extending his hand.

“Sam,” I replied shaking his hand.

“You’re not usually around this late,” he mentioned.

“Yeah I’m taking someone’s shift.”

“I know how it feels.”

“You do?”

“I mean you’re doing something with pretty equal pros and cons.”

“I guess that’s the big picture,” I agreed almost intimidated by his awkward deep thoughts.

Even though I was so deeply intrigued by what he meant and how he really felt I was made to serve someone again. I felt horrible in leaving Niall but I swallowed my longing for more and made my way to the older man and his mistresses. His smirk was making me uncomfortable as the ends of his pruned lips curved higher. His eyes never met mine but instead my chest. I intended to slap him out but I contained myself running low on patience.

“What can I do for you?” I forcefully smiled.

“A Johnnie Walker Blue, seven serves,” he said wondering his eyes.

“There are only six of you though,” I questioned.

“One for you of course.”

“No thank you, I’m fine. Six Blue Walker’s?”

“Just give the seventh one to the bloke over there,” he said ushering his eyebrows to Niall’s direction.

I looked at him with the most petrified expression almost horrified by his request. Mainly because when a man buys a drink for someone else, it’s usually for a woman. But I laid down six glasses for the sniggering girls and the man and began to fill them. He stared at me again, watching my every move but I let this sleaze pass. I had better business.

Niall began a phase I would never see due to my shift. He was staring at others in the bar like he was chewing a secret. He began to rub the back of his neck and widening his collar. He gazed into the far ends of the pub and would blink ever so scarcely. I tried to put down the glass of Johnnie Walker without disturbing him. But as like everything I do, I failed.

“Who’s that from?” he asked puzzled.

“Uhm…him,” I said swiftly pointing to the older man.

“WH-AT?” he exclaimed putting the glass down.

“I can definitely see why you don’t want to end up like him.”

“Precisely. I just have to sort things out. Even if it’ll take this long.”

I opened my mouth to say something but I quickly shut. I bit my tongue and kept saying to myself; my business is my business and his is his. I swivelled on my heel trying to pull away but I found the charity-giving, caring and considerate side of me take hold.

“You should just call her…” I murmured.

“Sorry?” he asked even though he heard me well.

“I know it’s none of my business but if you called her I’m sure she’ll understand,” I assumed being very vague.

I watched his adam’s apple sink before his blue eyes met mine and he spoke just loud enough for me to hear.

“I’d need your number first.”

RATE MY FANFIC..please

I’ve recently finished my Zayn Malik fanfic that you can read here. And hopefully when you’re done you can tell me what you think here. Athankyew

Fan Fiction - Picture Perfect Chapter Twenty Six

Alternative Ending 2

PREVIOUSLY:

I slipped my finger under the flap and slid across to open in, inside I single piece of card.

An open one way ticket to Sydney. To home.

————————————-

I tossed it between my fingers reading it over and over like the text were to run dry off the ticket. This was the first time I actually knew what I was going to do here. What I felt my gut push for. The answer, whether right or wrong will prove to be. But my choice is my only.

It was almost a second instinct to run to my bags, and pack the thing I had merely unpacked. It seemed too easy, so simple and something that wouldn’t burden me so much. But packing was the least of my worries, not of carelessness but of fear. I feared packing and I feared leaving. I hoped that along the time it took me to decide, I would perhaps change my instinct. For now, I bid farewell and so it started.

Yet the list that ran through my head in only a split seconds of bright bubby faces that only made my stay easier than it could’ve ever been began to pile at the bottom of my gut and sink my heart. The people that meant everything, the people that I would put above everyone. The people who were my family. And the place that was my home away from home.

The ticket still was in my palms, as the blue and candy red of the British Airways beckoned its use. I still found the reason to read it over and over and over. Maybe in the seat number or the aisle I’d find a reason to stay. But the odd never evened.

Yes.

No.

Go.

Stay.

I argued with myself, pacing up, down and round my flat. I’d burst out in rage after a minute or two of constant debate, then throw myself at my bed and stare at the luggage.

“If you pack it, you can always unpack it,” I’d tell myself.

“Unpack? For what? For who?” I’d instantaneously rebut.

Then again, I need not worry for packing. It was the faces. The broken hearts, the broken promises.

All of it, I could leave. All of them, impossible.

“You’d have to call and tell them you’re going. You’ll cause more trouble than you have,” I began, “but imagine facing them everywhere. Haunting you. At school. In the lobby. It will kill you more than it already has.”

I scoffed how I easy I thought this was. Oh, how I was so wrong, like every other time. And again another reason to leave.

I took hold of my phone and juggled it between both hands, tossing it in the air, trying to pass time.

I have to tell someone. I couldn’t just leave. I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t.

I played with my ring; shifting it around my lifeless finger. If only with every cycle it span a day would pass. If only with every turn the ring took around my finger, I would age. If only every spin would bring me to a stage of decay, where I no longer was needed for or cared for.

The stringy ray of sunlight that forced its way through the cracks of the windows blinded me through the reflection of my phone’s screen. As I went to unlock my phone my contacts had been previously open from somewhat a while ago. My recents were present in which several missed calls from my mother waited patiently in a bright red font. Towards the end of the list was Zayn’s contact. I hit it.

His bubbly face decked the name Zayn with several less than three’s prior. His tongue was sticking out, his eyes reflecting the stage lights of Harry’s apartment. That night I remembered fondly.

It was as if I were meant to relive it now and again and so forth till the core of the earth died. At any moment  could clearly ruminate the exact moments of the only positive night of my staying here. I can recite word for word the countless apologies of Zayn after spilling orange juice on my mother’s dress. I can remember the sweet musk of talcum that rested on his neck as he approached to hug me. I can remember the uneasy feeling I had of being surrounded by such a-listing people and an inferior alike.

But when remembering myself I remember the drawing. The ballpoint ink-run sketch at the back of the most heart-eating note I was to ever read. How my eyes twinkled on that paper canvas. How my smile was gleaming and bright. How I was happy.

I took my phone and smacked it against my forehead sighing in frustration never thinking no life choice was to ever be so hard.  I shook my head in disbelief that I was even in this position. Because at no point, in this room, 4 months ago would I have ever thought of leaving the place of my dreams. The start of the picture perfect life I pondered day and night of.

“Hello?” called a second party voice.

I quizzically look around swearing I was most definitely alone.

“Elle?”

My head twitched in search of the source. I looked at my phone screen, ‘Call with “Zayn<3<3<3”, 0:13.’

“Zayn?”

“Uhm yes. You called me?”

“I did?”

“Err, yep. Did you want to tell me something?”

“Uhm NO! No,no. Not at all. Goodbye.”

“Elle…”

“Yes I’m sure.”

“What? Listen I want to talk to you.”

“Th-th-there’s no need. I’m absolutely fine.”

“Well I’m not.”

“I’m sure you are doing spectacularly. Buh-bye.”

I hung up. Why didn’t I tell him? I could feel his eyes roll from here, sighing at how difficult and stubborn I was.

“Elle?”

I looked at my phone. I was sure I had hung up. I had. I did.

“ELLE!” shouted the voice, “open up.”

I panicked, hid behind the door and shouted back, “I’m not at home.”

Smooth. Real smooth.

“C’mon Elle, please.”

I made my way to the door and looked through the keyhole, he was staring right back at me, “open.”

I reluctantly swung open the door as he walked in with no permission. I growled under my breath.

“You can’t change my mind. I’ve made a choice and-” I tried to begin before a finger was placed on my lips.

“I-I-I don’t want you to go.”

“There is no reason as to why I should stay.”

“Yes there is. For you,” he began to point at my chest and poke my shoulder, “you should stay for yourself, for your studies, for yourlife.”

“Buts that’s exactly what I don’t have here.”

“I’d rather you stay and for me to never look you in the eye again than for me to let you go thinking every night I could’ve made things better.”

“You can’t! You can’t make this better,” I shouted back pointing to the drawn blinds and the window.

“I CAN! But you keep fearing it. You’re afraid.”

“Of course I’m afraid. I’m afraid this fame is going to ruin you. Ruin us. That you’re going to walk out on me like any other guy, that you’ll tread over me.”

He paused, lost in my sudden outburst. He stared into my eyes that were slowly filling with tears.

“Then I will give up what you fear so that you can trust me. Because if you trust me- if you just trust me…”

He shook his head, like this was an argument he couldn’t win. I failed to me him eye to eye until he swung his fist below my chin and forced my gaze into mine. He looked at me, his eyes full of serenity and pure passion.

“If you trust me, everything will be okay.”

He planted a small kiss on my bottom lip before rapping his arms around me, digging his bold jaw line into my shoulder.

“Promise me.”

“I promise you everything will be picture perfect.”

Fan Fiction - Picture Perfect Chapter Twenty Six

Author-Preferred Ending

PREVIOUSLY:

I slipped my finger under the flap and slid across to open in, inside I single piece of card.

An open one way ticket to Sydney. To home.

——————————————————————————

I tossed it between my fingers reading it over and over like the text were to run dry off the ticket. This was the first time I actually knew what I was going to do here. What I felt my gut push for. The answer, whether right or wrong will prove to be. But my choice is my only.

It was almost a second instinct to run to my bags, and pack the thing I had merely unpacked. It seemed too easy, so simple and something that wouldn’t burden me so much. But packing was the least of my worries, not of carelessness but of fear. I feared packing and I feared leaving. I hoped that along the time it took me to decide, I would perhaps change my instinct. For now, I bid farewell and so it started.

Yet the list that ran through my head in only a split seconds of bright bubby faces that only made my stay easier than it could’ve ever been began to pile at the bottom of my gut and sink my heart. The people that meant everything, the people that I would put above everyone. The people who were my family. And the place that was my home away from home.

The ticket still was in my palms, as the blue and candy red of the British Airways beckoned its use. I still found the reason to read it over and over and over. Maybe in the seat number or the aisle I’d find a reason to stay. But the odd never evened.

Yes.

No.

Go.

Stay.

I argued with myself, pacing up, down and round my flat. I’d burst out in rage after a minute or two of constant debate, then throw myself at my bed and stare at the luggage.

“If you pack it, you can always unpack it,” I’d tell myself.

“Unpack? For what? For who?” I’d instantaneously rebut.

Then again, I need not worry for packing. It was the faces. The broken hearts, the broken promises.

All of it, I could leave. All of them, impossible.

“You’d have to call and tell them you’re going. You’ll cause more trouble than you have,” I began, “but imagine facing them everywhere. Haunting you. At school. In the lobby. It will kill you more than it already has.”

I scoffed how I easy I thought this was. Oh, how I was so wrong, like every other time. And again another reason to leave.

I could take it step by step. Perhaps start with the easiest things. It’ll seem less stumping and more gradual-like. I mean all I have to really do is-

“You have reached the call inbox and may be prompted to leave a message after the beep.”

I had beat myself to it. And on the other line of this phone was a space for a message that could scar me. Perhaps not the receiving end, but certainly me.

Beep.

My jaw was agape as I stuttered in search of words. It felt like I was choking on my throat for an hour as a mere few seconds .

“Uh-uh. Niall, hi. It’s me Marielle and I hate to do this but I just wanted to wish you the best and I hope you do well and succeed. I really look forward to maybe seeing you again in Sydney but I just wanted to say goodbye. So uh, yeah.”

I fumbled to press end, but in return began violently attacking the non-existent button as if it were to make things smoother or end faster and less excruciating.

As I looked through my phonebook for another to dismiss it had come to me as to why he had not answered. I quickly glanced to the status bar of my phone to realise it was half two in the morning.  I had spent several hours arguing with myself. At first I found it quite ironic but then I came to the conclusion that the only reason I spent so long debating something that only had one answer was because there were too many reasons for me to stay. There was one force that if I were to distinguish this journey would be half the struggle I’m finding it to be. I returned to my contacts list and called everyone I believed would satisfy the solution.

“Hello Tash, I know we left on bad terms, whatever you thought I did but I never meant for  you or Niall to get hurt. I wouldn’t put anyone in such a position and I apologise for letting you even think that was the case. But I just wanted to say sorry and give you my wishes because I’ll be going and as cowardly as it seems to leave you a voicemail, I really just want to give you back what you had before I came and just leave things the way they used to be. B-b-bye Tash.”

I recited my goodbye speeches like a candidate to rule, informative but empathetic. After a few it became harder though, the tears would begin before the I heard the beeps but for one person who I truly believed I could hold the tears back. For one person I had every right to not even give a slight feeling of heartfelt dismissal. The one person who screwed me over. And over. And made this all the nighmare it had become.

“Amberley. Oh Ambo, the things I would say to you if you didn’t stab me so hard. I would miss you, I really would. Not that you were the reason for my leaving at all. I would tell you the quirky and adorable person you were and the friend I had always longed for and needed. But that’s exactly true, I needed and longed for you but now you’re just as low as those headlines. As low as the quid you put in your hip pocket that day. And if anything, I wish you suffer. Not more, or less. But just enough to give you a heart and regret everything you ever did. Goodbye, actually no. Bye, just bye Amberley.”

I hung up. I made no time to dwell on my choices. I got right into it. Packing.

Half of my possessions were still encased in a large black suitcase, the rest scattered like the scene of a city shook by disaster. As I picked up every garment a day of unforgettable moments reminisced before me.

The boyfriend jeans and the paisley sweater. The day Tash and I went exploring in Mayfair.

The sky-blue chinos and champagne blouse. The day I met Amberley.

The Abercrombie jacket and sweatpants. When I went for a downhill run.

The striped skirt and scooped top. The lunch with Brett.

The white dress. The little dress that tied everything up. I let the material dance in my palms before folding it carelessly and placing it in the bag.

I zipped the case closed and sat on it. This time I wasn’t doubting a thing.

*   *   *

“You’re all good to go m’am, enjoy your flight. Lift off is in an hour,” said the young lady smiling in an uncalled for matter. She stamps a couple of places and tore a few attachments before handing me over the ticket. I looked at, still sure of my choices but unsure of one thing.

The one force, the one person I didn’t speak too. The only thing pulling me down.

I scrolled through my contacts before reaching the last and only person filed under ‘Z’.

Too afraid to press it, let alone call it I stared at his name. The four letters that meant nothing to me but a member of a prance about boy-band that hadn’t even made it here. But now that name was the only thing holding me from setting free. Flying back home.

I hit call.

Don’t pick up.

Don’t pick up.

Don’t pick up.

Don’t pick up.

Beep.

A released a gasp of relief as the voicemail machine blared exasperatingly.

I felt my throat swell again, this time worse than anyone before but I caught breath and spoke.

“Uhm, uh. Zayn , I-I-I knew things were going to be hard and I hate that you opened up and gave me everything and I couldn’t do anything. The least I could do now is take this ticket and go home. And I have to let you know that, this, it-it, that this will be the best for you and… me. Bye.”

I went to hang up but I heard a soft shout.

“WAIT!” it called through the speaker.

“What?” I said back.

“Don’t go.”

“Zayn?”

“You don’t have to go. I’ve found a solution.”

“Wh-what are trying to say?”

“Just open your door.”

“I’m not at home Zayn. I’m at the gates.”

“Don’t board the plane!”

“Sorry, I have to.”

“If you love me don’t do it.”

It was the hardest thing to say. The hardest was saying it in a way both he and I wouldn’t get hurt.

“Goodbye Zayn.”

Fan Fiction - Picture Perfect Chapter Twenty Five

“I-I came to bail out my ex, Sam.”

 _____

I got that queasy feeling again. The only feeling I’d been getting here. I felt the eyes of everyone around me burn into my back, their eyes drooping low for more and their tongues holding back the secrets they could become riches off. But everything else was silenced, all I could see was Aubrey’s eyes.

She looked at me, her face telling a different story than her heart. Her eyes begged for repentance and forgiveness. They told the truth. But I could see through her that she let go and she wanted no more of me. I could read her lips, so obvious they looked inked with the words of “smooth criminal”.

As she asked for more proof as to why I was here, her lips just uttered; no sound. Her pleading and true sorrow meant nothing over the fast clicks and flashes in my mind. The revenge that plotted without haste. My marvelled idea, my source of fuel and satisfaction. You my sister, mean nothing to me. Not yet.

I got up and held her stare in mine; still ignoring her rampage of questions, “have fun, Bre.”

*   *   *

I had arrived at the scene of no cameras or reporters, just a few large men questioning everyone’s entry. Everyone’s entry except mine. I slowly approached the large men, their gaze held strong into mine.

As my steps grew smaller and their shadows drew over my face they shifted across and left my path towards the large stained glass doors. They unitedly gave me a small nod. Void of one who spoke.

“Ms Beau?” his harsh low voice called.

“Yes?” I answered back unsure of his reason to want my attention.

“We will take care of everything. You need not worry,” the man assured.

“Thank you,” I mentioned unsurely almost in a question-like tone.

I progressed my way up the stairs, my eyes on every small brooding pace I took. My heart dropped as I progressed up, ironically.

I felt my head jostle into a fall, hit the hard marble floors and my sight become a hazy blur.

*   *   *

I didn’t know how long I was out for. How long I had him panting on me, worried sick as if he cared.

“I think you should still get checked,” he said in chaste.

“I’m perfectly fine. I just knocked into something. It’s nothing major,” I corrected.

“You walked right into me.”

“And?”

“You literally came into my way and threw yourself at me.”

“That wasn’t the case, you’re exag-exaggerating.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No! Never.”

He looked at my suspiciously, staring me up and down.

“Open your mouth,” he commanded.

“What? No! Who is it you think you are?”

“What?”

“I don’t need you to care of me, I’m sick of your shit.”

And again, I picked myself up and walked out. This time it felt easier. Like I wasn’t leaving regret behind. Like I didn’t hurt myself or let myself dig too deep in the moment.

As I left through the corridor I reached for the door knob to close the door behind me. This time for good. However I was wrong.

“Elle, wait!”

I turned back lethargically putting no effort to hide my intolerance for his bosh.

“I’ll miss you.”

He attempted to make the moment be eternal. His eyes in mine, his mouth slightly agape as if he tried to breath in my existence. But I’d turned him down.

My head was in a destined direction, my mind in focus as I uttered what I hoped to be the last words he may ever hear, “I won’t miss you.”

*   *   *

I was biting my fingers frantically, till they bled. I sat outside a small office with a door of fresh gloss china white wood with a fancy brass name tag. I was feeling jubilant until I had entered this building. I was second doing all my thoughts, re-assessing all my previous ideas. Doubting my instinct, something I was perfectly good at.

I began to rationalise, weighing what I’ll get out of giving what I was just about to. I’ll gain revenge and perhaps a mere feeling of happiness, maybe relief but as I started everything I may ruin I felt my heart sink and melt into a puddle of forebode. Nothing would last longer than the scars this would give me, the name it would print to my face and the relationship it would ruin between me and-

“Did you want to come in?” a short lady in thin rimmed glasses called.

“Oh yes,” I answered trying to feign an English accent.

I made my way into the office that was decked in frames of bright contrasting colours with airbrushed plastic teenage ‘sensations’ headed by the famous title ‘Bliss’. The lady took my hand firmly and shook it hastily. Her emerald eyes were intrigued in what I had explained to her on the phone the best news she’d ever publish.

“Take a seat love,” she suggested pointing to a sleek hot pink arm chair.

I sat down, trying to imitate the posh mannerisms that anyone living in the One Direction complex would have; crossing my legs and having my hands intertwined perched on my knees.

“So how is it you think you know this information?” the lady asked peering over her orange framed spectacles.

“Oh, I live on the same floor,” I said rolling my o’s in amplification.

“Mmm, I see,” she mentioned, her fingers rambunctiously tapping her keyboard, “so, what is the news you think is worthy of bliss?”

“I think I know who your source is… I’ve seen her around if you know what I mean?”

“Can you describe her to me?”

“Tall… long hair and quite young?”

“That may or may not be our source who for legal reasons wishes to stay anonymous.”

“Oh no, I don’t know her on a personal level. I wouldn’t know her name.”

“Okay. So what are you suggesting by her presence around One Direction?”

“Well I only see her around what I know as Harry’s apartment.”

I felt a churn in my stomach. The guilt became a pulling force that collapsed my insides and forced me to stop breathing. My neck began to tighten and swell, my palms perspiring intolerably. Swallowing became harder of a task than an emphysemic elder running.

“Do you see his roommate band member there?”

“Uhm no, this fella lives on his own. Then one with red hair,” I quickly improvised.

“No, that doesn’t seem like one of the members love. I think you’re confused.”

“So your source doesn’t wear glasses nor has orthodontics?”

“I don’t think that’s her. Thanks for your time though.”

“I’m so sorry I wasted your time. Silly me! Should’ve checked on me facts first!”

The editor laughed before leading me out of the door and bidding me a good evening.

I held my head in pain as I left. I was so close to ruining everything I had worked on. I was just about to go too far. No one but myself could’ve tried to talk that sense into me. I’m stubborn and I won’t ever learn.

As I left empty handed, thinking I could cash in for telling the press of Harry and Tash for a taxi ride home, it began to pour, like the typical London skies would. I pressed my bare hand under my arms, my head down and my feet skidding across the wet pavement. I would arbitrarily look up to check that I had not lost myself again, but I was right on track. Right on track to that heavily guarded white dome of lies.

The guards let me in, tipping their black saturated hats to me and smiling ironically due to their alarming size. I forcefully smiled back and speedily scurried up the stairs.

There was nothing special this time, no handsome prince to save me or stranger to grab me. Just another evening about to sleep with this burden.

As I pushed the door open and stepped in, I felt a crumble collapse under my foot. I jumped back in horror, scared almost. It was an envelope.

No address.

No name.

No stamp.

I slipped my finger under the flap and slid across to open in, inside I single piece of card.

An open one way ticket to Sydney. To home.

Fan Fiction - Picture Perfect Chapter Twenty Four

PREVIOUSLY:

‘According to our source the two were at the police station for very personal reasons from the Australian girl’s side and she assures no handcuffs were used- or at least official handcuffs. “The two are madly in love,” the source says. So girls, is it Zelle or Ellayn?’

The source. Nothing else. The only thing I was to question was the source. And only one person came to mind.

Amberley. Amberley Murphy.

___________

It wasn’t rage or hatred. Just a strong heat rush through me almost enough to burn the aluminium between my fingers. 

I slam shut the laptop, almost feeling the inside rumble and shatter. Things couldn’t get worse. This was already far beyond the most terrorizing things to happen to an 18 year old. I bit my tongue and exhaled slowly. No crying or screaming could solve this, besides I had given up.

I tried to think of solutions. Revenge? I tried to steer myself from thinking of what could possibly happen next. Suicide? I tried to not dread of every choice I had made since getting my acceptation letter. I tried. I really did.

My phone erratically buzzed sending palpitations through the glass of the table. My screen flashed just like those daunting words only moments ago. A small icon glowed in the corner and an unread message pleaded me to overt its content.

‘I know it might be the wrong time but the constable has the suspects lined up for you…x’

It was the wrong time. The most impractical and irrational time. I sighed once more. My phone buzzed again.

‘I can come with you if you want? Xx’

I didn’t want. I don’t want anything. I just wanted to disappear into the thin air and leave everything behind. That’s all I wanted.

My phone buzzed again. At this point I was ready to through the pathetic thing out the window.

‘I know this is tough but we can actually sort things out with this bastard out of the way. x’

“Sort things out?” I spoke out aloud to myself.

‘Yes. Things can be sorted. Exactly how you want it.’

I stood up immediately with no hesitation in my instinct and swung open the door.

Zayn stood there foolishly standing, smiling as if this were remotely funny. He noticed my stunted face and quickly revered to his seriousness, if that was what he considered it to be.

“We really should get that cunt jailed,” he mentioned lightly as if the purpose of his whereabouts were defined for another reason.

“How do you suppose that would happen?” I rhetorically asked back as Zayn quizzically stared as though question could not be easier to ask.

I pulled him by the arm across the dark stale living room. Practically life-less if I could say so myself.

I nodded my head to the direction of the crimson red suede shutters.

He looked at me again in confusion.

“Open the shutters, take a look,” I almost evilly requested.

Zayn stuttered at his actions but slowly drew back the thick sun blocking dropes before quickly being blinded by the masquerade of flashing lights and deafened by the piercing sound of short exposure lenses.

“OH SHIT,” he gasped, “all this really?”

“They know.”

“I know they know.”

“No, they know more than you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“They published it all.”

Zayn paused at my ability to never answer questions directly.

“Published what? What is they know?”

“They wrote it all out. They said I was in the hospital and that something bad happened and that we’re madly in love. They tabloided it all. I’m gone for.”

At this point I’d failed to keep my promise of never showing him my weak side.

He approached me with his arms opened up slightly but I hesitated turning my back to him and biting my knuckles.

“You know you can’t keep doing this?”

“Doing what?” I boorishly asked.

“Trying to hide from it all.”

“So I should just open up to the whole of the UK about my personal life?”

“What I’m saying is if we set the record straight- ”

“What bloody record straight? I get you saying you fucking love me, then the tabloids go on thinking we’re falling at each other’s knees and I’m practically in the middle of nowhere with no one and you want me to set things straight!”

He ignored my rudeness and proceeded, “you’re afraid of yourself. You’re afraid of what your heart feels.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“No, what’s pathetic is when I opened my heart you just channelled back the thoughts from your closed mind.”

“It’s called being rational.”

“Emotions aren’t rational.”

I shook my head and scoffed. Zayn grabbed my shoulder and pulled me in, his face inches away from mine.

“I know when you’re hiding in that cage not willing to open up you’re just afraid. But we’re not strangers. You can tell me anything.”

I kept a steady look in his eyes trying to keep my ground.

He continued to speak in his soft voice, just a bit louder than a whisper, “I know that somewhere in that battered and locked up heart you feel – even that slightest bit– for me. And I’m not the type to shut myself out if someone else is too afraid to do the opposite.”

“And if I do supposedly open up, what on earth will you gain?”

“A true love. Someone who fell for me, not Zayn Malik. Just me.”

He stared back at me, trying to make me break. Perhaps tell him I love him back, or kiss him. Maybe sort things out, really tell him the truth. Really try to fix things. And stop fearing the unkown.

“If you really loved me, you’d buy me a ticket to Sydney and let me go.”

I took myself from his strong grasp and planned my strategic exit through the flashing lights and their demanding sources. I scurried down the stairs as if running from my own shadow and took several tight turns and pushed through half a dozen doors before finding myself at the centre of the stuffy grey carpark. As I felt my chest close in I ran for the exit and slid in panic under the ticket machine’s bar. I’d exited through the back; away from the anxious reporters and began running to what I remembered they way to the police station.

________

“We have several of them lined up in the opposite room. All we ask of you is to point out who it was,” a detective informed me in his hurried and high pitched Leeds accent.

I nodded in affirmative and followed him to the room.

I’d bitten my nails so far they began bleeding, my hands trembling so dramatically I couldn’t pick up the pen to sign my legal notice. The black drawback held the face of my potential enemy. His hoarse voice. His soulless eyes. And his filthy intentions.

“Are you ready?” he asked again.

“Yes, I’m fine to go,” I assured him.

He pressed through to the opposite room commanding them to pull back the blind.

The thick black shutter slowly progressed up.

My heart raced faster.

The men stood shoulder to shoulder, but their faces were concealed.

I lowered in attempt to see their faces sooner, but before the next moment I was on my feet banging on the glass and crying in rage.

“HIM, HIM THAT FILTHY BASTARD!,” I shouted hitting the glass with my fists.

The guards held me back as the suspects turned their heads in curiously and squinted their eyes at the tinted glass.

“HIM IT TELL YOU, that’s him,” I continued to outburst.

Two large men dragged me back out of the room and the last I heard was, “let the rest go, take Samuel in.”

I was breathing heavily as they took down more paperwork and asked more questions about Zayn’s conflict.

“Did he use any weapons?”

“No. Just his fists,” I said rubbing my own as they grew numb and purple.

“Follow me this way.”

I followed the clerk past the hallway where his eyes met mine once more whilst he took his last chance for a payphone call. He instantaneously looked away but in more of a sense of disgust than shame. I walked away trying as hard as I could to get my mind off the throbbing pain in my fists.

_______

I had been perched on the chair for almost half an hour and the pain was not decreasing. The paperwork was still being finalized as they ran checks over if ‘he’ was really him. I could have noticed him everywhere, his face; the closest anyone’s face had ever been to mine. I just wanted to leave, leave him to rot in a cell. I stared at the sliding doors that encased me from a dimming everlasting sky and cold harsh winds. I stared until a familiar figure approached.

She’d left me in failure to make things perfect but now she’d shown up precisely when I needed her sweet smell to calm me.

Aubrey looked at me quizzically, her freckles shifted by her narrowed eyes. She approached me and tilted her head as if she’d never seen me before that moment.

“M-m-m-Marielle?”

“Aubrey?”

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

“Was about to just ask the same thing.”

“Are you okay? Why are you here?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry. I thought you came for me.”

She looked unconvinced but still stood there frowning inquisitively as if trying to read my face.

 “But what are you doing here if you didn’t know I was here?”

“I-I came to bail out my ex, Sam.”

Fan Fiction - Picture Perfect Chapter Twenty Three

Strangely enough like when someone bows down on one knew and asks you to marry them and you say no; I was not happy and nothing was okay.

I could almost feel the heat from his face reflect onto my chest but I kept my foot to the ground and didn’t lie. I wouldn’t lie to him. And most definitely wasn’t going to lie to myself.

I stuttered unconfidently even though I knew exactly what I wanted to leave my pursed lips.

“Love? What do you know of love?” I  asked in vicissitude.

The response was the exact opposite of the ebullience he expected. It wasn’t like the films and the classic romantic literatures. I didn’t fall into his arms or said I loved him back. We didn’t share another passionate affectionate kiss or kill for each other. I never felt the spark or ‘chemistry’ or witness love at first sight. I just stared into his eyes that were almost drained from fear.

“I’m sorry. But I won’t go through it. I won’t take it. I’ve had enough,” – I took a breath and held back the growing need fall back into his grasp- “You’re under the eye, you could have anyone and anything. And worse off, you can get rid of them just as easy.”

“But you don’t understand,” Zayn tried, but his words felt furtive.

“You don’t understand. You know nothing about me and I have no interest in knowing more than I do about you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“Oh,” – I remarked- “so what your trying to say is that you’re not the guy who wants to just snog every ‘hot’ girl he sees and sleep with a girl from each country he tours in. Be a total helmet.”

He bit his lip. I watched his Adam’s apple drop in to a bath of untold lies and shame.

“I thought so.”

He couldn’t hold me back. I’d done the worst I could. I tapped into the shell of his mysterious ways and read his mind like a book. This is where it all changed. I was going to take toll of my life and stop everything that was about to happen in its tracks. I hoped.

I ran back to where I left Tash and Amberley but to what my eyes could tell me, Amberley had left and Tash was following.

“Where are you going?” I asked, concerned.

“Why would you care? You know what, I just realised who you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re just like Cassidy. On scholarship, not worrying about a thing in life thinking you can use me like a rag on the floor. I really thought you were humble. I really thought you were trying.”

“But I am. I’m nothing like that.”

“Marielle, people would kill to be in your position now; learning in the top PCA college in the UK but you’d rather waste your life on a self-centred boy-band. I didn’t fall into that trap because I knew exactly what your game was.”

“Game? I mean no such thing!” At this point the lies leaving Tash’s tongue were stripping my heart from its strings.

“How about we put the poor girl under the spotlight and see how she goes, and then maybe if she doesn’t get heartbroken and lied to, I’ll run off with the pretty boy?” her eyes were filling up with tears, “but I did.”

My lips moved slightly as I tried to replace the strong tirade in me with support.

She left, her weeping voice fading and the sound of her tears hitting the cold floors echoing in the distance.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I was gone with all that. I had no strength left in me, to cry or to grieve. All what was left was an emotionless body, slouching on the coign of her life ready to slip off. She would do better if she had just dismissed herself from the world. If she could run away, just to the edge of the world and jump off. If she could just go back, as far as she could.

I’d lost everyone and everything. Nothing came so easy. I was wrong to fall into the traps of the malovent. If you weren’t a pretty face in this world- you were not a face at all.

———————

There was nothing to do but wait for another bad thing to happen. My mind was begging me to look for what was happening. What the sounds of rustling leaves were outside and who was it hiding behind the bushes? What the articles were saying and how people were responding? Did my family know? Who did? No one clearly, no one who cared at least.

My fingers were trembling as I slid them across the soft surface of the cursor pad, as my fingers ran along the only source of more extensive preposterous pain I lacked. My eyes twitching, reading the crisp stylised words as they burned sinewless.

‘Go die in a whole.’

‘Who is this creep?’

‘What does he even see in her? Is he blind?’

‘Whore.’

‘Bitch.’

‘I knew all Australians were the same- sluts.’

‘She really looks like a charity case.’

‘Where’d he get her from?’

‘I’ll track you down.’

‘Fame whore.’

‘She just want’s money and fame.’

‘Unwanted.’

Again I resisted and didn’t cry. I had run dry of tears. But if I were to let go, I’d drown in my own river of woe and despair and shamefully- self-pity.

A fireball of anger and despondency settled at the pit of my core fuelling off the wretched comments and satirical puns being thrown at me. My head fell forward, my chin pressing against my chest as my eyelids found themselves shut.

———————————-

I woke up to the faint murmuring of more and more crowds outside. The room smelt stale but I could not open the windows or draw the shutters. For now I could not leave the house. I could not leave the ignorant body I was trapped in.

My phone had been buzzing all night before, vibrating viciously against the wood. But in my despair everything had been silenced, the only thing I could hear was my intentions, my voice of reason.

‘Tell him, you know you do. You have from the start.’

I shook my head in disagreement. No little voice, you’re wrong.

‘If you open up, the worries of the world will slim down and fade.’

“The worst things in life come free to us,” I sang to myself.

For once I had thought the worst had been done and over. I had suffered enough. They had taken all hope and life left to me. But so I was wrong.

My laptop screen blinked at me like tinsel in the sun, beckoning to look where I had left. My voice of reason had been overpowered by the longingness to read what last strand people had pulled out of me and choked my with. And there was, one article, failing to load from over capacity, the headline spilling from the side of my screen engulfing me.

‘THE MYSTERY GIRL IS IN FACT A MISERY ONE’

I need not to read it once more; I had been told.  My story had been whispered by the whistling winds to the weeping ears.

‘As images hit the public early yesterday, even those who are not fans desire to know who this girl running in the rain with One Direction band member, Zayn Malik was. Thankfully a close source to the two had filled us in, right from the start.’

Faces began flashing in my mind, distant ones. But these weren’t the people who knew so much or even as much as the press did.

‘The source told us that the girl is in fact a 19 year old Australian girl learning here in the UK, who lives only a matter of doors away from the heartthrob. The two met at a party and kicked off there. But that’s not all; it gets FAR more interesting.’

Of course, things keep getting more and more interesting don’t they.

‘Aussie girl who the source revealed has an alias of Elle had recently suffered blood poisoning; a lengthy process Zayn had accompanied her throughout at the Royal London Hospital. Yes, very sweet indeed. But things get sweeter…’

Mock me all you like, but the sweetest it had ever gotten was bitter.

‘According to our source the two were at the police station for very personal reasons from the Australian girl’s side and she assures no handcuffs were used- or at least official handcuffs. “The two are madly in love,” the source says. So girls, is it Zelle or Ellayn?’

The source. Nothing else. The only thing I was to question was the source. And only one person came to mind.

Amberley. Amberley Murphy.

Give, take?

I’ve got a chapter ready and I’ll put it up if I get five reviews from the last chapter, IN FACT any chapter you’re up to! Just give me a review here. PLEASE! Oh and thanks to my Estonian, Kiwi and Polish readers! Are there any more?