Another World

Being a teacher's assistant meant that I had to help out with the kids which also meant that I had to be on the go, being that the classroom was filled with hyperactive children. My whole wardrobe for work changed after a couple of days. I knew I couldn't keep up with these kids in three inch heels and a formal dress, it wasn't possible. It felt nice to put on a comfortable shirt, pants and sneakers and ever since I made the switch, I was able to catch up to the little ones who believed nap time was the worst thing that could ever happen to them.

The last time I saw Zayn was the day of that horrible incident with him and Jason. Speaking of the latter, I kicked him out of the apartment, which was a success but he refused to actually leave London without wanting to settle things. Ignoring him ever since then was extremely difficult because, unfortunately for me, he was always such a charmer and knew how to get on my good side every time we had a dispute. 

Keeping this secret from Kate was even more challenging. That girl could read me like a damn book. I told her that Jason and I got into an argument, which wasn't entirely false, said mean things to each other leading me to kick him out, forcing him to find another place to stay. She brushed it off, convinced that it was just ''some stupid relationship problem" and that "we would eventually patch things up''.

On a positive note, Kate called after work and told me her interview with the boys did exceptionally well. It has been a while since we did anything together so I decided that I would take her to dinner, just her and I, to celebrate. Kate's job was keeping her so busy just like the kids were in mine. To sum it all up, we would come home exhausted and barely spoke to each other as we dragged our half dead bodies into our rooms to fall fast asleep in our comfortable beds. We definitely needed a little girls night to catch up on things.

As I entered the living room to our apartment, Kate's voice was heard from her bedroom, "Who's there?"

I rolled my eyes, tossing my keys on the table in the kitchen. "Who else would be here?" I shrugged off of my sweater and placed it on the rack near the door. 

I headed for the hallway when Kate's head popped out of her room. Her dark brown hair was out from her ponytail and let loose, causing parts of it to fall on her face. "Hey, you never know."

"You don't have to worry as much. This isn't the Bronx, Kate." I stated as I pulled on a piece of her hair. She shot me a glare and swatted my hand away from her face. I laughed as I continued, "What time do you want to start getting ready?"

She craned her neck to look at the clock that hung on her wall and faced me. "Around seven?"

"Seven's good, I can take a quick nap-"

She sucked her teeth and pushed me towards the direction to my room. "Oh hell no, start getting ready now before we end up missing our reservation, lenta."

"You did not just go Puerto Rican on me, I'm not slow! I can be pretty quick when I want to you pendeja!" I called out as I walked backwards to my door. Oh god, putting Spanish words into our conversation, we were turning into our mothers.

After the whole conflict with Jason and I, I considered myself single so it wouldn't hurt if I just happened to meet someone during our girls night. Which was why I decided to wear my new dress and shoes to show off a bit for the occasion. 

I took a shower and began to put on eyeliner when there was a sudden banging on the bathroom door. I sucked my teeth as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. "What?!"

"Val, I need to shower! Hurry the hell up!" Kate's muffled voice demanded as she struck on the door once more.

"I'm almost done, Jesus!" I responded without breaking my gaze from my eye. When I was completely satisfied with my make-up, I casually opened the door to see an impatiently waiting Kate tapping on the wall she leaned on. "It's all yours."

I looked at the mirror in my room to see the results from all of the preparation which lead to me smiling approvingly and grabbed my phone to open the Twitter app. I wonder if there is any kind of rehab for Twitter addicts, I think I just might need to go. I took a picture of myself and attached it to a tweet:

Mirror selfie! Ready to celebrate Kate's successful interview. x

I looked at the Send button and bit my lip. "Hey, Kate, do you think I should start putting the cute little X's at the end of my tweets now? It looks good!"

"Do what makes you happy, Val." She responded halfheartedly from her bedroom.

I chuckled as I hit send and gussied up in front of the mirror until Kate was finished and stood at the doorway of my room. "Took you long enough." I joked as I grabbed my purse and followed her out the door.

* * *

Arriving at the Ivy and getting a table for two, without Zayn nor Harry buying it for us like when we met them, made me feel like we accomplished something. That we didn't need anyone's help with things, especially money.

As we were guided to our table, Kate sat down and exhaled deeply. "Alright let's get down to business." 

I grabbed the menu that was placed in front of me and began to figure out what I wanted. "Let's start off with some wine." I said with a grin. 

Ever since we moved here, Kate and I were just delighted that we were legal to drink. Not that we're alcoholics or anything, but it was good to have a nice glass of wine for a bit of relaxation.

We ordered what looked like tasty dishes on the menu and impatiently waited for it to arrive.

Kate groaned in frustration before sipping on her glass of wine. "This is the only bad part about restaurants. The wait."

"So how was it? Meeting the rest of the guys?"

"Oh my god, Valarie, I couldn't stop laughing the whole time. They were so amazingly nice and funny, you would have a blast with them."

"Was Harry taking it seriously when you were asking him questions? You know being that you two are..." I made a weird gesture with my hands that even I honestly didn't know what I meant.

Kate laughed as she tried to hide the sudden change of color on her face. "No we aren't whatever you think we are. But surprisingly, yeah he took things seriously. I can't say the same when it was over, though." She looked away from my wide eyes as she took another sip.

"Whoa, whoa, what?"

"He kind of wanted to fool around a little, while Christian was right next door."

"Oh I bet he was jealous." I said in a singsong voice.

"Christian or Harry?" She replied rhetorically while she rolled her eyes.

"Well look at you, getting two guys jealous and stuff."

"That's not a good thing to hear when one of them is your boss."

"Well I'm glad I don't have to go through any of that."

"Yeah maybe not with your boss but..." She trailed off as she made a smirk, already knowing that I knew what she was getting at.

"Shut up."

When one delicious looking meal passed right by us after another, we were about to cry out when finally our wait was over and we were face to face with double pork sausages with mash and onion gravy for me and bannockburn rib steak served on the bone with pommes allumettes and béarnaise sauce for Kate.

My phone vibrated with a notification from Twitter:

Mentioned by @zaynmalik: @valarie_daniel stunning, mind if I join? ;) xx

I guess Kate noticed that my facial expression changed when she looked at my phone then back to me. "What happened?"

I looked up at her, completely forgetting what we were just talking about. "Oh, nothing. Zayn tweeted me, that's all."

Of course she wasn't too convinced with my explanation. She brought it upon herself to take my phone and read what he said. Her smile grew and she looked at me with a pout. "Aww, that was cute of him."

I received my phone as I shrugged. "It's not that serious, Kate." Even I didn't believe myself. I felt a smile begin to form as I re-read his tweet.

Stunning

"I still don't get why you're not with him."

"Because I-"

"Say you have a boyfriend and I'll hit you."

I closed my mouth and looked down at my phone. I tried to think of a witty reply to him but repeatedly failed. I hovered over the keypad, causing my fingers to do a mini dance as I contemplated.

@zaynmalik it's a girls night so I don't think boys are allowed ;) x

Oh my god, the minute I hit send I instantly regretted my decision. I groaned and just tossed my phone into my purse.

"What now?"

"I put a wink face with an X at the end. What if he judges me? What if I'm not allowed to put X's at the end of my sentence because I'm not English?" I took a gulp of wine and looked at Kate who thought it was okay to laugh at my stress.

"You're kidding me, right? Stop stressing and just relax. You already sent it anyway, the damage is done."

"Actually I could just delete the twee-"

"I'll hit you."

I rolled my eyes and placed my purse on the floor between my feet. "And what about you and Harry, huh?"

She finished chewing and stared at me questionably. "What about me and Harry?"

"I've never seen you this happy with a guy ever since your last boyfriend, Andrew."

"Andrew was a cheating dickhead."

"Point taken."

"But same goes to you,"

My eyebrows connected as I waited for her to explain what she meant.

"You seem happier whenever Zayn's around, let alone mentioned. Don't even try to lie, I know you more than you know yourself."

As creepy as that sounded, she was right.

"But what about Jason?" I asked mostly to myself.

"Okay, Val, I think it's time to fully state my opinion. I think you should just permanently leave Jason. Something just doesn't feel right whenever he's around and you aren't fully yourself when you're with him. I haven't said anything because it's your relationship, which is none of my business but ever since Zayn came along I feel like you can completely let go with him and this is turning really cheesy. This wine is getting to me."

She began to chuckle but I stared at her, processing what she said as she continued to analyze her beverage. I looked down at my meal and put a forkful into my mouth.

"You know, Andrew never was your type. Something about him was off to me but he made you happy which was why I never said anything. When he cheated on you, ever since then you acted as if it didn't affect you but I knew it did. I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to think about things too much at your fragile state. I honestly thought that was it for you as far as relationships went. Until that big headed curly boy came along. Listen, Kate, I don't think I have a chance with Zayn. But you and Harry? You two are just...I might just slap him if he doesn't make things official between you two soon."

Kate began to chuckle as a tear escaped her watery eyes and fell straight down to her chest. "You asshole, this eyeliner isn't waterproof."

"Sorry, but I came prepared." I grabbed my purse, fished for the eyeliner I brought with me and handed it to her.

"Before this turns into a crying session in public, what's next?"

I wondered what we were going to plan on doing after dinner when a group of loud and obnoxious guys came into the restaurant and huddled together. 

The tallest one out of all of them walked up to us and leaned on our table. "Ello, beautiful birds. We just wanted to know if you'd fancy joining us to Funky Buddha Club a couple streets down from here." He slurred.

I looked at Kate who already turned to me with a face I knew too well. "No thank you."

He leaned in to make eye contact with me. "Aw, come on. I won't take no for an answer."

"But you might just have to."

He made a weird noise with his nose as he gave up and stumbled towards his friends. "Let's just eat before I pass out, mates."

"We should leave and get some fresh air before I continue to drink too much wine." I suggested to Kate.

She brushed her face with her hands and nodded. "Definitely, I'm getting way too used to this."

I paid for the bill and headed to the front of the restaurant to catch up. I breathed in the fresh air as soon as we stepped outside and stretched. We began to walk mindlessly as we talked about random things. It felt like we were still in New York, walking around Kate's neighborhood like we used to when we were sixteen years old talking about boys and possible scenarios with our favorite band members. I smiled at the ground, glad things didn't change between us while everyone around us did. 

When my feet began to hurt, I looked at our surroundings and questioned our location. Kate realized what I was doing and looked around as well.

"Um, where are we?" I asked with a hint of fear in my voice. I didn't like the thought of being lost, especially at night.

"Uh, let's just go back this way."

We headed to where we thought was the right direction when I stopped once again. "Okay, this is clearly not the way we came."

"Do you see any familiar surroundings?"

I looked around and there it was, "Funky Buddha" in bright lights.

"Want to go inside? Just to check it out."

I shrugged my shoulders, maybe we can get directions to our home from a security guard. Stepping inside, there was a quick blast of cold air but the more we went in, the higher the temperature became. The lights were dimmed and the music was so loud that I felt every vibration go through my body.

We spotted an empty table and sat down, the place wasn't bad once you got used to the volume of the music. A random blast of cold air caused shivers to cruise down my spine.

"Oh god, I have to pee!" I yelled into Kate's ear.

"Want me to go with you?!"

"No I'll be right back!" I got up, leaving my purse with Kate and looked around for a sign directing me to the bathroom. I headed for it and the next thing I knew, my legs were up in the air and I landed on my butt with what would've been a loud thud if it weren't for the music blasting.

A group of people stared at me, asking if I was okay. Laughing it off, I told them I was alright and kept my head down as I sped walked, carefully, to the bathroom when I bumped into something. Or someone.

"Shit, I'm sorry! I'll pay for the drink!" I called out as I looked at the now empty cup that was on the floor.

"You really are a klutz!" 

I looked up and blushed uncontrollably at what surprisingly was Zayn standing in front of me with the biggest smile I had ever seen on his face.