Rock the World

listen

A few afternoons after that night, Brianna and I were alone in our dorm room. I was sitting at my laptop trying to find a link to a movie that we wanted to watch. I had no true interest in preparing my suitcase for the week long vacation in Hawaii. For this reason, my unfortunate best friend now had the responsibility of packing for Harry and I as well as herself. My suitcase was lying on the floor beside her own and she was trying to figure out if I needed anything else. She yawned a little and I looked over at her confused.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, readjusting my glasses a little and stretching out.

“I'm exhausted.” she said after giving her shoulders a small shrug.

“You are? You didn’t get much sleep last night or something?” I went back to searching through the links.

“No, I didn’t. I wanted to try to get more sleep today but you know how much I hate naps.”

“I’ll never understand that. Eventually you’ll need to explain it all to me.” I said after I rolled my eyes playfully.

“I just feel all disorientated afterwards. I never know what time it is, I can’t fall asleep later that night, basically I just have issues.”

I laughed and nodded.

“You really should try getting some more sleep. You always look exhausted and I know you have like twice more school work than I do.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try taking a nap later.”

“Promise?” I asked again, watching from the corner of my eye as she shrugged.

“Yeah. It’s kinda funny how when you get older you start to enjoy the things you hated as a kid like taking naps and getting spanked.”

“That second one was kind of incredibly unexpected.”

“Maybe it was, but I don’t see you denying it.”

I rolled my eyes at her words and everyone walked in, everyone excluding Harry. My eyes wandered to Brianna in confusion. It was very rare to find one of them without the other somewhere in the room. Instead of engaging with everyone else, she continued to fold up clothes and put them in the suitcases. I pulled Brianna aside and looked over at her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked me.

“I should be asking you that. You look sad. Where’s your other half?”

“Aren’t you my other half?”

“You know what I mean, Brianna. Where’s Harry? He’s usually in our room by now.”

She shrugged in response and I looked at her confused.

“Why would I know where he is?” she asked me, confusing me even more.

“Why wouldn’t you know where your boyfriend is? You remember him, right?” I began, “Brown hair, green eyes, dimples, he’s the one that is completely whipped by you and-”

“-can we please not talk about Harry?! It’s not a big deal Gabriella.” once the words fell out of her mouth and she successfully cut me off, she walked out of the room.

Everyone looked at me confused. My jaw was still hanging open when Niall had enough sense to get up and close the door that his cousin left open. He placed a hand on my arm and looked into my eyes, worried about what he had just seen.

“What happened between the two of you just now?” he asked me.

“I don’t really know. Brianna never gets mad at me that way. Something must be going on with her and Harry.” I mumbled.

Everyone slowly filed out of the room until just Niall and I were left. Neither one of us knew what to say or do. The couple in question never fought and the few times they did, it never lasted for more than a few days. I was picking at the dark green varnish on my nails nervously as I sat on one of the bean bag chairs in the room. With his blue eyes watching me closely, Niall slowly walked towards me and sat on the chair beside me that was usually reserved for Brianna.

“I think her and Harry are officially over…” Niall mumbled, much as I did a few seconds ago.

“What makes you think that?”

“I heard them arguing last night outside of the dorm room, it wasn’t pretty.”

“Are their fights ever pretty?” I joked, making him sigh and shake his head.

“This was worse.”

“How much worse?”

“Harry was crying when he walked into the dorm. He wouldn’t talk to any of us. I honestly think she might have been hiding something from him.”

“You and I both know that Brianna and Harry tell each other absolutely everything.”

He opened his mouth to respond to me but at the same time, Brianna walked in. I had not realized it was raining, but she was soaking wet and shivering a bit as she threw her key onto her desk.

“Um, I think you should go.” I whispered to Niall, careful to make sure that Brianna would not hear me.

With a slow nod, he walked out of the dorm room. I bit my lip and watched as my bleach blonde best friend took off her wet clothes and left them on the floor wherever they fell, worrying me more since she was typically incredibly neat. She pulled on some dry pajamas after pulling her wet hair up and off of where it was hanging loosely around her shoulders. Her body plopped down onto her bed and she played with a loose end of her hair.

“I should dye my hair black.” she mumbled, practically choking me since everyone she knew had tried at least once to get her to dye her hair back to her original color but she refused each time.

“Really? Where is this coming from?” I managed, making my way up to my own bed and sitting down so I could see her better.

“Harry liked blondes.” she mumbled.

“Sunshine,” I began carefully as I sat on the edge of her bright pink bed, “What exactly is going on between you and Harry? You know you can tell me.”

“We broke up.”

My eyes widened and the second she started crying I pulled her in for a hug. She was practically in her lap and crying with her face in my neck. I tried to calm her down but nothing I did could ever help. The truth is, no one ever knows what to say or do when an absolute best friend loses their first love. Instead of making a joke, giving advice, or playing with her hair to calm her down, I decided to just hold her close to me. By the time she stopped sobbing and whimpering like a lost puppy, she was sound asleep. I gently tucked her into her bed and patches climbed beside her. When I turned to go to my bed, her fingers wrapped around my wrist.

“Come cuddle with me and patches.” she pleaded, her throat a little scratchy from crying for so long.

A smile found its way to my face as I slid under the pink covers. She lay on the other side of the bed and patches was lying between us. I knew that she didn’t want to cuddle at all. All she wanted was to be assured that I was here. So, I stayed there until I fell asleep and a beam of sunlight woke me up.