Save You Tonight

A single bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face as I went through a new training course the CIA had helped me set up in a gym somewhere. They might have been my enemies most of the time, but they were also the ones who knew that it was in their best interest to help me maintain my powers.

As I jumped up, my right leg thrust forward in the air, kicking at the tiny punching bag that seemed to be nearly six-feet off the ground. With precision, I bulls-eyed the training tool and went on to jump up onto an eight-foot wall, balancing upon its thin top.

I stood for a minute, trying to see if I could balance on each foot, but every time I wasn’t moving during the training session, my thoughts always went back to Harry. It had been two days since that early morning in the coffee shop. My exchange with the pop star out on the street had left me speechless. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew he probably said lines like that to many other girls, but the sincerity in his olive green eyes made even my knees go weak.

Dragging myself out of the trance he seemed to put me in, I leapt forward, grabbing the two hanging rings with my hands and pulling myself up so that my torso was above the rings. I then let go, feeling that weightless sensation as gravity pulled me down. In the process, I did a double back flip, sticking my landing with perfection. I would have paid money to watch the male Olympic gymnasts be present for that.

I had one more obstacle ahead of me, which seemed to be a pool of water that I needed to get to the other side of. Turning quickly, I sent myself into a back handspring, watching the ceiling as my hands went toward the ground. When they did hit the floor, I pushed myself back up with my forearm muscles, looking down as the second half of the tumbling move sent me over the small body of water.

When my feet hit the other side, I mustered up the strength to pull the water into a large orb, floating about the room in a controlled manner. I was unsure of what to do with it, so I just let it drop back into the place it came from. Comic book characters always made water control seem so cool, but I always hated it. What good could it do other than little tricks and keeping myself dry from the rain?

With an air of slight badassery about myself, I strutted into the small locker room that was never in use on the days that I was present. Yet another sign of my lonely life, I thought to myself. I changed into a pair of clean clothes, and then looked into the full-length mirror. Noting the cuts on my legs, I summoned the strength to repair them quickly.

My hair, as unkempt as Harry’s seemed to be on a regular basis, changed into a smooth, straight look as I used my sorry excuse for shape shifting powers. Despite being weak in that department of my abilities, I did quickly learn how to put makeup on by simply using my mind. No one ever told me that I would have the ability to do some of these things, like heal myself, change myself, or move water around, but the older I got, I learned to harness them when they happened.

I left the gym with my bag and pulled out my mobile phone once I hit the streets. Dialing Margo’s number, I spoke quietly as she answered, hoping none of the pedestrians would overhear my conversation with her.

“Listen, Marg. I need you to find out as much about Harry Styles as possible,” I told her, feeling my face go red as I heard her roar with laughter on the other end of the line.

“What? You into boy bands now, eh? Want me to be your personal celebrity stalker?” she said, still chuckling with each word.

I knew how wrong it was to practically dig up every piece of dirt on Harry, but I was so head over heels for this boy I barely knew. Continuing on, I began to explain to Margo every detail about how I had met him in the alley with Cameron, and the next day in the coffee shop. Her
laughter quickly died down.

“So you actually met Harry Styles?” Margo asked quietly, seemingly star struck by her tone.

“Well, yeah. That’s what I’ve been telling you for the past few minutes. I want to know more about him.”

“Maya, why don’t you get to know him yourself? I mean, I’ll look up facts about him, but you need to find out these things on your own. That’s how relationships work,” she told me.

Everything she said seemed to make sense. I admitted to myself that I had no idea how to go about situations like these. Boys were never interested in me because I always sank back out of the limelight. But there was something about Harry. Something about him that made me want to step out of the shadow that my life had become.

“But what if…” I began, immediately cut off by my computer genius of a friend.

“Don’t you ever ‘what if’, missy. Now you go on and you promise me that the next time you see that boy, you’ll make an effort to actually get to know him. The right way.”

“I promise. Thanks for the help.”

Smiling to myself, I strode along the streets toward my flat. Of course, just as fate would have it, I bumped into the one and only Harry Styles along the pavement. He turned around and looked down at me, his expression becoming one of utter joy.

“Maya!” he exclaimed, his dimples making him nearly irresistible. His face changed quickly and he checked me all over. “Wait, you’re not following me, right? You don’t have a gun or knife on you, do you?”

I let myself laugh at him openly. “Trust me, Harry. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need either of those.”

“For some reason I find that highly attractive,” he said, biting his bottom lip and blushing. He placed a hand on my shoulder, much like he had done just days before. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, my heart pounding ferociously, hoping that only I could hear it with my enhanced hearing.

“I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m pretty sure it’s extremely unhealthy. Are you drugging me? Didn’t put nothin’ in my coffee, right?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but somebody in close proximity cleared their throat. Turning to look at the source, I saw a boy in a striped sweater and tight jeans. He had to have been one of Harry’s band mates because he looked familiar.

“Is this the girl then, eh Harry? She’s mighty pretty, but ya two love birds best get off the street before some paparazzi have a field day. Come now,” he said, pulling Harry and I into the nearest building. It seemed to be the lobby of an upscale place full of large flats. “Well, go on up to the room. No funny business. I’ll be back with that lunch we were going to get.”

“Thanks Louis, you’re a doll,” Harry said with a smirk, winking at his friend as the two of us stepped into the lift and watched him exit the building.

Once we were alone in the lift, my good mood started to slowly dissolve into one of dread. What if he just wanted to get me in bed? What if he didn’t care about me the way I was sure I felt about him? Oh god, here I was already making ‘what if'.. We quietly made our way into his large flat, one that had to have been three times the size of mine.

“Louis is great,” he said awkwardly, dropping the keys on the kitchen counter and staring at me. “One of my best mates.”

“Look, Harry. I’m going to get it out now. I’m not sleeping with you right now,” I told him, blurting it out with no sense of eloquence at all.

He raised an eyebrow and smirked, taking a few steps toward me, “’Right now’?”

I mentally hit myself.

“W-well…” I began to stutter.

“As in, you’re planning on doing it at some point?” he trucked on, beginning to laugh with an immaturity that I couldn’t help but envy. Here we were, just a year apart in age, yet my mental age was vastly higher.

“You know what I mean. I didn’t follow you up here to shag you.”

“I understand,” he assured me with a smile, falling onto the couch and patting the space next to him. I kicked off my shoes at the door and joined him.

The two of us sat there, talking endlessly about the most random things we could think of. We laughed, we were serious, we made immature jokes, and for the first time in my life, I felt that somebody was sincerely my friend. For the first time, somebody did not pity me enough to feel the need to help me or talk to me. For the first time, I felt like that gap in my teenage years was being filled. For the first time, I felt like a regular human being.