Give Me Love

As my alarm went off, I instantly hit “snooze” and proceeded to go back to sleep. I had stayed up late finishing the decorating and unpacking of my room, finally, and I was completely exhausted. Out of nowhere, the remembrance that I had to hang out with the boys suddenly dawned on me and I sprung up out of bed.

I quickly showered, shaved, washed my hair and face, brushed my teeth, everything I had to do. Then came the hard part for me; picking out an outfit. I always had to make sure my body looked okay in my clothing. My arms couldn’t look too big and my thighs had to look a certain way. I was so self-conscious and I hated it. I desperately wished I was born not caring what others thought or how I looked, but I was the exact opposite.

I settled on a pair of denim shorts, a dark blue-grey over-sized scoop top, and a pair of black flip flops. I silently thanked myself for doing a pedicure the other day because I usually hated my feet. I felt they looked weird and gawky, so at least they didn’t look as hideous with the black polish. My legs felt super smooth too and I loved it. I had my bikini on under all of this, though I didn’t know if I wanted to swim yet, being I didn’t feel too comfortable in being in just my swimming attire in front of five good looking guys I hardly knew.

I left my brunette hair in its natural form, wavy. I put on all my cover-up and whatever was needed to make the slight acne I had go away, but mostly for some of the acne scars I had.
I wasn’t going to lie, I hated my skin. Everything about it made me feel so uncomfortable. I did my best to cover whatever I could, and as long as my skin wasn’t dry, it usually turned out pretty okay. I tried to highlight my light brown eyes with some light grey eye shadow and then some dark grey on top of the light shade. I swiped some mascara over my eyelashes and then finished it off with some bottom liner.

I took one last look at myself, noticing how pale I looked since I hadn’t gotten much sun recently, and decided I couldn’t change how it looked. I checked the clock and it read 1:00PM. Turns out I had been a tad late; woops. And with that, I headed out the door to Harry’s house.

☯☯☯

“Cannon-ball!” I heard Niall scream, followed by a huge splash.

“Wow, so glad you could actually fit us into your super busy schedule Ef,” Harry said, the sarcasm rolling ever so bluntly off his tongue.

“Sorry,” I started, pushing my hair behind my ear, “I woke up late.”

“Don’t apologize, he’s just being cheeky. Glad to finally meet you, Effy. I’m Liam and this is my girlfriend, Danielle.” He said, pointing at the beautiful girl with the gorgeous curly locks walking towards out direction. “‘Ello,” she smiled and I returned one back.

“Hello Effy, can I call you Ef? What’s up, Ef? I’m Louis,” he said with a sweet yet mischievous smile. He seemed a bit quirky and bouncy and it was definitely a delightful trait to him that I instantly liked.

“Hi,” I said smiling, taking them all in, feeling sort of awkward not really knowing them too well. They were all so much closer than I was with each other and knew so much more, and here I was… the girl next door.

“Why don’t you go take a seat, we’ve got some burgers grilling. Zayn’s doing the honors of becoming Chef Malik tonight and I’ve got to keep an eye on Niall and make sure he doesn’t steal them all,” Harry spoke, faintly smiling. We all laughed a bit and took a seat at the table.

The setup of Harry’s backyard was simply extravagant. He had his patio glass doors leading to the house, a mini fire pit off to the side and around further the other side was the in-ground pool topped off with a diving board and water slide.

We sat around chatting, sipping our drinks as Niall came around running and yelling, “The burgers are finished!” He immediately dove right into his seat, knocking into the table a bit. Everyone laughed a bit at his funny reaction and sat down waiting to eat.

Harry came around carrying the plate of food as Zayn also came around swiping the beads of sweat that had produced on his face from standing over the hot grill. He saw me and warmly smiled and greeted, “Hey, Effy.”

I smiled back and replied, “Hello, had fun slaving over the hot grill, Chef Malik?” He smiled and chuckled a bit.

“These burgers taste like rubbish,” Louis said, sounding like a total diva. Zayn eyed him down, his eyebrows slanting. Just then Louis laughed and said, “Relax, mate. They taste fine, I was only messin’ with you.”

Zayn took his seat and we all just started eating and talking. It actually felt really nice and made me feel like I’ve known them for years.

As I was laughing at something ridiculous Louis had said, I felt a kick under the table. I looked up to see Zayn smirking back at me. I kicked back lightly and before we knew it, we had a full on footsy war and we were cracking up. He wasn’t kicking too hard, but I was probably more than likely leaving him with slight bruises. We were laughing way too hard so I don’t think he minded much.

Everyone looked over at us completely confused and Louis was the only one to recognize what was going on. I was so entangled in this “war” I was in, that I hadn’t thought much about the hand motions Louis was giving to Niall.

All of a sudden, I was hoisted up from my seat, carried to the pool, and tossed in. At first I was a little panicked, not exactly expecting someone to just dump me into the pool. After a couple of seconds the worry washed away with the little waves the pool was making. The sudden rush of the cool water against my skin felt really good, due to the fact I had just been in the blazing sun for a good half hour. Once I bobbed back to the surface, I heard the laughter erupt.

“Are you okay, Effy?” Liam said, looking the most concerned out of the bunch. I simply nodded my head, signaling everything was fine.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a huge splash from behind me. Curious to figure out what other tactics they planned on pulling on me, I whirled around to find Harry, his hair completely drenched all over his face, leaving him looking like a wet, shaggy dog. The sight of it made me nearly lose it and I lost myself in all my laughter. I threw my head back and just stayed there laughing, feeling more alive than ever before. The sun on my face, the cool water engulfing my body, the laughter erupting from me, it all made everything seem wonderful and full. It made me forget about every bad thing that’s ever happened, any bad feelings that had been lurking within me this past week, any of the bad memories that stayed trapped with me, they all seemed to fade away in that moment and everything just felt so light and good.

It’s so weird how people I’ve known for what seems like forever couldn’t pull a single reaction out of me, yet here I was with this group of people I’ve only known for a couple of days, and I just wanted to stay in this moment with them, in this very spot, with this very feeling they helped produce, for the rest of time.

I turned to Harry and he was laughing with me as well.

I went over to him and pushed him down under. I felt him squirm under me for a second, but in an instant he was right back up with me pinned in his arms, slung over his shoulder.
“Harry Styles, put me down you twat!” I shouted, laughing a bit too much for him to take my request seriously.

“Tsk, tsk,” he tutted, “such naughty language. You’re too inappropriate for me to listen to.”

And with that, he tossed me over his side and let me slide back into the water. I glided, swimming underwater, feeling graceful for once in my life and came back up and immediately swiped the hair out of my eyes. I turned to everyone else and saw they were all stripping down to their bathing suits and jumping in.

We all stood in the pool, laughing and swimming, enjoying eachother’s company, the cool water and the scorching sun.

Eventually, when we all became shriveled prunes we decided it might be best to get out of the pool. We all dried up and sat around the fire pit warming up some, since the sunset brought some breeze.

“So, Effy, what persuaded you to move over here?” Niall questioned, everyone now turning in my direction.

“Well, to be quite honest, I didn’t really receive much of a choice. My mum got a job offer that she didn’t want to turn down because it was pretty huge and the only other option I had was coming to live with my cousin. So now I’m here, I guess. It’s weird though because I don’t really even miss home that much,” I said, being completely honest.

“It’s because you’ve met us, love. One day when you’re looking back on your life, you’re going to say to yourself, ‘Oh hey, I remember those handsome, young lads I met when I moved because of Mum’s job. They sure made me laugh.’” Louis said, making everyone chuckle a bit.

They asked me some other questions about myself to try and get to know me, the basics.

“Favorite color?” “Blue.”

“Favorite film?” “Toss up between The Notebook and Superbad.”

“Future occupation?” “Hopefully something with photography, I’d love to shoot weddings.”
“Biggest fear?” “Snakes. They’re just… horrid.”

“Favorite book?” “My Sister’s Keeper or The Fault in Our Stars.”

“Favorite types of music?” “A little bit of everything besides country. I’m really into Coldplay and John Mayer right now.”

“Places you want to travel?” “I’d love to go all around the world but my top places right now are Italy and England.”

“Favorite thing about yourself?”

That’s where I was stumped… I thought long and hard, desperate to come up with an answer, but I couldn’t think of anything that I especially liked about myself. I looked in the mirror and despised what I saw, I didn’t have many friends so I didn’t see any unique qualities about myself.

I started panicking, not wanting them to think I was seeking attention I thought of the best thing I could say without speaking the truth of not really liking myself all that much. “My favorite thing about myself is the fact I can make good choices when it comes to hanging out with cool people,” I said, smiling, hoping it would cover up what I was truthfully thinking.
“Good answer,” Liam replied, and to that everyone nodded in agreement.

“Well, it’s getting a bit late, I should get going now. It was great hanging out with you all,” I said, thanking everyone for the great time I’d had today.

“Wait, Effy,” Danielle said, walking over to me, “program your number into my phone so we can text and chat each other!” She said smiling. She was absolutely adorable and I already loved her. I had never really had a real friend that I could trust enough to talk to, so hearing that Danielle actually wanted to talk and become friends made me smile really big.

“I want your number too. When I’m bored I can randomly text you. You’re my new best friend, anyways!” Louis shouted, racing over to me. I laughed and programmed my number into his phone.

“Well, thanks again, I’ll see you all later!” I shouted, waving at them as everyone replied their goodbyes back to me.

As I walked in the house my phone buzzed twice and I checked my texts. One was from Danielle telling me it was her and the other one made me laugh.

Bet you won’t ever guess who this is!!!

I texted back saying, Hm… let me guess. Is it the Queen of England?

My phone buzzed a minute later and I received another text.

No. IT’S YOUR BEST FRIEND LOU! Well anyways, here’s my number. Night : ) x

I texted back and said, Night best friend, sweet dreams! xx

I got myself in my pajamas and went online for a bit, checking my Facebook and Tumblr. I even went to my Flickr to see how my photos were doing. I was gaining some more views which was nice to see. I decided I had nothing else better to do than sleep, so I settled into bed.

As I lay there, everything felt good and I felt happy as I thought about the day as a whole.
However, now that I was home, all alone in the house by myself the mood changed from ecstatic to lonely. I decided I might as well sleep it off, so I let myself drift into sleep.

☯☯☯

“Useless, worthless fucking trash you are, you know that Ef? No one would ever love you. You’re just some stupid, bitch who is incapable of keeping anyone around. That’s why you’ve got no friends, because you’re worth absolute zero,” he said as he gripped me by my arms, shaking me. Then he tossed me into the wall and I started crying. I was shaking so hard and I was so scared and nervous, I couldn’t believe this was happening.

He then towered over me and I covered my face with my hands, trying to shield myself. Just as he was getting ready to hit me, a door opened and some of the brightest light I’ve ever seen shone through.

I instantly awoke, my body sweaty and my eyes wet from crying in my dreams. Although I was relieved the nightmare was finally over, I kept replaying it over and over in my head, having it all flood back. It was literally eating me up inside and I had nowhere to turn to. It was just there staring me in the face, boiling in my veins, I couldn’t escape it. I tried to calm myself down by thinking over and over, “It was just a dream. Only a dream.”

I realized that a food shop was definitely in need of at this point. Lucky me that Claire never seemed to be home and even when she went out she never used her car so I was able to use it for the most part.

I decided the best thing to do right now though, was to take a nice, warm shower and try to keep myself relaxed and forget this nightmare. I stripped down to nothing, stepped into the heat of the shower, and let the warm water hit my back and soothe me. I tried to focus on my tense muscles losing the knots, but it took a while before I actually felt safe and even when I did, the nightmare was still bouncing around in my brain, lurking in those deep shadows where everything I didn’t want to remember was stored.