Flavor of the Week

Hannah rubbed together her slick palms as she made her way down the hallway to Zayn’s bedroom. Her bottom lip was firmly latched between her teeth, and she couldn’t stop herself from gnawing, no matter how many times she told herself that she was going to tear up the skin and make it chap unattractively. But how many times had she been asked to meet a boy in his room? And when had such a meeting meant so much and held so many variables in the balance?

Be cool, she told herself silently, trying to take a deep breath. She tried to tell herself that she was supposed to be funny, keeping everything lighthearted with her quick wit and spunk. Class clowns did not worry about things so viciously that their palms turned into cold, sweaty fish. Things didn’t work that way.

After giving her hands a quick rub-down on her shorts, she turned the doorknob and eased the door open, careful not to go too quickly, just in case Zayn was in a compromising position.

“Hannah?” his off-kilter English accent called to her. She always thought it was interesting, how different his voice was from the average English man. She knew that it probably had to do with what part of England he came from, but she never wanted to feel dumb enough to ask.

“Nope, it’s a yeti,” she responded, forcing a huge grin on her face as she stepped onto the carpet with her flat sneakers.

His room was so much fancier than the girls’ rooms, which should have been expected, really. He was the star, after all. And with the giant bed, the candles on the bureau, and the expensive-looking sheets, it was pretty clear what the room was supposed to be used for.

“Why, you must be the prettiest yeti I’ve ever seen.” Zayn’s smile lit up the room, and Hannah could feel the slightest of twinges in her stomach.

Which made her angry. Because twinges in her stomach and sweaty palms meant she was nervous, on edge, and possibly feeling things that she shouldn’t have been feeling. She had to focus on her job, the reason she got there. She needed the role because she needed that money. There was no time to get knocked off track.

“Thank you very much, kind sir.” Hannah shut the door behind her and leaned against it, afraid that if she stepped any closer to Zayn, she’d lose her persona. “Was there a particular reason you beckoned me here?”

“I was just wondering if you were okay,” he laughed. “After the horseback ride yesterday, you looked kind of shaken, but I didn’t want to bother you.”

Hannah chuckled at the memory, trying to play off the situation as nothing. As if almost bursting into tears while on top of the horse could be construed as nothing. But letting the entire world know that she had been absolutely terrified of horses since she was a little girl, when she was thrown off one and given a concussion, was not high on her list of priorities.

“Oh, I’m fine. Just being dramatic.” She waved away the accusation with a hand. “I’m just ready to kick some ass at this elimination challenge. What about you?”

She expected him to laugh and agree that he was ready to stomp some ass, but his amber eyes still looked concerned when he looked at her. “Hannah, you know you can tell me anything, right? That you can trust me?”

But you can’t trust me.

The words flew through her head before she had a chance to stop them, but she was incredibly thankful that they hadn’t escaped her well-glossed lips. She never thought lying to the pop stars would be difficult, but it was proving harder every day, and she knew she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“Of course,” Hannah agreed, her voice sounding slightly robotic and toneless. “But there’s nothing to tell. I’m fine, Zayn.”

“Okay. If you say so.”



Hannah felt like she had cotton in her mouth, enough to suck up all the moisture her saliva glands could ever dare to produce, while she listened to Jay present the challenge. The girls had all been asked when they auditioned for the show what their worst fear in the entire world was, and that fear was going to be flashed up on the screen for all the boys to see.

Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered her so much. Sure, being afraid of horses and wind was kind of strange, but she could always have shrugged and said that they just made her interesting. It was the fact that Zayn was now going to know, live, on camera, that Hannah had lied to him earlier.

It took her an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the producers had orchestrated the challenge on purpose. They’d probably had something else planned, one that involved all the players like the elimination challenges usually did, but they changed it after seeing the discussion that had surely been taped in Zayn’s bedroom. They were using her to create a little more drama in the plot.

She shouldn’t have been annoyed. She should have understood that she signed up for a reality television show, where everything was pre-planned and nothing was truly real. But she did feel a sort of cold betrayal in her stomach that no soothing words could relieve.

Most of the girls were afraid of normal things. Tessa was afraid of spiders. Payton was afraid of death. Victoria was afraid of sharks and heights. After the first three, Zayn was in the lead, having guessed them all right, with Harry only a point behind.

And then came Hannah’s. HORSES AND WIND.

Some girls started to giggle. What kind of freak is afraid of wind?

But Zayn had just focused on the first word, and his eyes immediately shot over to Hannah’s. The two locked gazes for a split second before Hannah turned away, but it was too late. She’d seen the horror in his eyes, how much he hated that she’d lied to him. It was something minor, but if she was already lying to him, what else would she lie about?

Zayn was the only one that had guessed Hannah’s fears properly, as all the other boys had figured the fears belonged to Zoey, the weird one, and she couldn’t ignore how his jaw clenched when he said her name. She wanted to scream at the producers for setting her up like that, for making her sign her own slip home, but she couldn’t. She held her tongue, her eyes locked on the ground beneath her, while the rest of the clues were read off.

Thankfully, Zayn had come in second, keeping Hannah from being put up for elimination, and Louis was forced to send Zoey packing.

When the groups came back together to head back to their cabins, Hannah ran to catch up with Zayn’s long, angry strides. “I’m sorry,” she whispered softly, hoping no one else could hear her. “I know it was dumb to lie about, but I was just embarrassed.”

It’s okay. I understand. Horses and wind are dumb things to be afraid of, so I get where you’re coming from.

But he didn’t say any of those things. He just looked back at her and shook his head.

Hannah stopped, watching his slim figure disappear, and she felt like, even though Zoey had been sent home, she was the real loser.

And, she hated to think about it, but if he reacted this badly to finding out the truth about her fear of horses, how would he react when he found out that her whole persona was a lie?