Two Way Street

I was sulking.

There was no better way to put what I was doing, really. My hands were stuffed in my pockets as I walked from the hotel where Mara worked to my flat. Louis had gone another way, muttering something about how he had to go grocery shopping or something. I was too busy pouting to listen.

I just didn’t understand. I didn’t do anything that wrong. I was just trying to protect my friend. I figured his best friend in the entire world was sneaking around his back, and I wanted to make sure that he didn’t get hurt.

Sure, maybe my actions were a bit premature, but what was the alternative? What if she really had been shagging Harry? And I had just waited, and Louis found out by himself? That would have killed him. I just wanted to save him from the pain.

But what did trying to be a good person get me? Nothing, that was what. Mara hated me again. She made that much clear. After all the progress we made, after we’d finally become friends…we were back to square one. No, before square one. Where we were, square one was nothing but a little speck in the distance, resting on the horizon.

I kicked a rock down the sidewalk a little too hard and watched it bounce, bounce, bounce before falling into a gutter with a splash.

A long while later, I finally got to my apartment. Sighing slowly, I pulled out my key and went to unlock my flat.

But right when my key touched the outside lock, the door fell open. “Hello?” I called out, my eyebrows furrowing.

“SHIT!” Zayn’s voice shouted, the loud noise echoing through my head after such a long time of silence. “NIALL, I FUCKING HATE YOU.”

Niall was sitting next to him on the couch, laughing hysterically. “Not my fault you suck at blocking, mate. Then, maybe your head wouldn’t have blown off.”

“WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE SAME TEAM, YOU DICKHEAD.”

Niall shrugged and scooted away from Zayn. “Are we going to play another round, or…?”

I took this opportunity to break in, “What the hell are you two doing in my apartment?”

Zayn and Niall jumped and turned to stay at me with wide eyes. “Oh, hey, Liam. Didn’t see you there,” Niall greeted with a huge smile.

“I’m waiting for an answer.”

“Uh…we figured that you’d need some moral support after your row with Mara this morning…or last night. I’m kind of unclear on what time she got angry at you.” Zayn explained. “So Niall and I picked the lock with a bobby pin. It took a good hour, but we finally got it.”

I let out a sigh. “And now you’re playing games on my Xbox?”

“Yeah,” Niall responded with enthusiasm. “We found some old game that neither of us had ever heard of. And it’s awesome. Did you know that you can blow your own teammates’ heads off?!”

“Yeah, Niall’s having way too much fun with that bit,” Zayn muttered, shooting a glare at his blonde friend.

I rolled my eyes and went into the kitchen. The boys bickered back and forth quietly before finally, Niall called, “Hey, Liam…what happened when you went with Louis to apologize to Mara?”

I let him wonder for a bit about the answer as I reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. After taking a sip from it, I answered, “Uh…I think that Louis and Mara made up. She totally hates my guts, though. She says that we can’t be friends anymore because I accused her of sleeping with Harry to Louis.”

“Maybe one of us should have told him,” Zayn muttered, running a hand through his hair. “She didn’t hate us to start with.”

I shrugged. “I’m glad that it was me. It’s better that Mara and I aren’t friends.” I flopped down on the couch and took another gulp from my water before adding, “It doesn’t seem like we were meant to be friends, anyway.”

Zayn bit his lip as he sat down next to me. “This whole situation sucks, mate.”

“Whatever,” I responded indifferently. “At least Louis and Mara are talking again.”

“God knows how long that’s going to last, though,” Niall voiced as he sat down on the other side of me. “You know how Louis is; he’ll probably hassle Mara until she cracks and forgives you.”

I laughed. “There’s no way she’s going to crack. I dunno if you’ve met her, but she’s pretty stubborn.”

“She is stubborn…” Niall allowed. “But…I don’t know.”

We were quiet for a while before Zayn sighed. “I hate this moping. It sucks. Liam, I think you should just get over the fact that Mara hates you now, ‘cause it’s obviously bothering you, no matter how much you’re pretending that it doesn’t.”

I didn’t answer, since I didn’t want to give him vindication that he was right.

“Let’s play videogames,” Niall insisted, leaning forward and throwing me a remote. “It’ll take your mind off her.”

“I am not playing videogames with you anymore,” Zayn huffed, crossing his arms like a small child throwing a tantrum. “Not if you keep blowing my head off.”

Niall sighed loudly. “What if I promise not to blow you up anymore?”

“I don’t trust you not to.”

“If you guys don’t shut up,” I butted in, my mood still miserable, “then I’m going to blow both your heads off.”

Both boys looked at each other before Niall offered, “Why don’t we play a different game? One where we can’t blow off each other’s heads?”

“Sounds fine with me,” Zayn agreed a little too emphatically. I hoped he wasn’t trying to be sly about his attempt to tiptoe around me, since it was ridiculously obvious that was exactly what he was doing.

After a while of debating, they finally chose a racing game that didn’t require any firearms at all.

And for the rest of the night, we screamed and shoved each other as we got entirely too into the game. Zayn won most of the rounds, but I barely noticed.

Because no matter how hard I tried to block it out, I was still stressing about the fact that Mara hated me so much.