Pawn Shop Blues

“So, how’d it go?” Daria asked the next day in their dorm room, curled up in her bed and fiddling with this puzzle box her dad gave her. Olivia sat on the ground, nearly buried in a mess of paper and paints and canvases. Discarded ideas piled around her, acrylic streaked across her cheeks, her hair was tied up in a messy ponytail atop her head.

Olivia was a mess and Daria didn’t need to ask. So when she did, Olivia rolled her eyes, pulled the sketch off the paper in front of her and balled it into a crumpled symbol of the night before. That morning, she got on the first train back to Birmingham before Niall could even stir in the spot next to her on the couch. Daria had dawdled much longer with the rest of the girls, snacking on glamorous breakfast in Harry’s stylish kitchen. But not Olivia. Olivia came straight home and got right to work.

Ever since school started, she was feeling uninspired. She threw away ten times as much work as kept, and even the pieces she decided she liked were not worthy of her portfolio. Nothing turned out quite right – the colors were wrong, the lines were to thick or too thin, the faces didn’t contour right to the light source – and it was driving her crazy. So with all the emotion she was harboring towards Niall and what had happened – or rather, hadn’t happened – the night before, she thought maybe she could use it to her advantage. But yet again, nothing was turning out right.

“You looked like you were having fun,” Daria prompted again, pressing her to open up on what happened with Niall. “He was really into dancing with you.”

“He was drunk,” Olivia dribbled, painting a big stroke of hot pink across the page before deciding it wasn’t the right color and tossing it to the bin.

“We all were,” Daria defended while shaking at the box to hear the contents rolling around inside. “But drunk words are sober thoughts, right? What did he say to you?”

Olivia shrugged, taking her eyes off Daria and placing them anywhere else. “Nothing, really.”

“Not even when you were all alone in the living room?” her friend asked. “Litzy told me she saw you two together talking in there.”

Olivia shook her head. She decided that she’d rather not think of her disastrous encounter with Niall in the living room. She’d nearly made a fool of herself in front of him. If he’d been awake for one second longer, she would have been mortified for the rest of her life. The fear of what could have happened was bad enough. She couldn’t talk about it out loud.

“He ended up falling asleep,” Olivia muttered in response, pouring a bit of sky blue into her painter’s tray and mixing it with purple to make a lilac. She dotted pinpoints on the page to make some semblance of lilacs, the most concrete idea she came up with so far.

“Niall,” Daria sighed, shaking her head. “Harry tells me he can be such an idiot sometimes.”

Olivia shrugged again. “He’s living the dream right now,” she muttered. “Can’t much expect him to be worth anything when he’s pissed off Grey Goose and looking to have a good time. It’s okay.”

“Oh, Olivia,” Daria exclaimed, setting the box down on her desk and going to her friend on the floor. “You can’t really think that of him, do you? Niall is so great! He may have come off as especially vapid the last couple of nights but he’s one of Harry’s best friends. From what I hear, he’s amazing! And you haven’t been able to stop talking about him since we saw him at that club in September!”

Olivia shook her head, adding some leaves around the lilacs to form a bush. “I don’t think I really know what to think of him.”

Except she did. She thought he was adorable, even when he was drunk and dressed like himself for Halloween, even when he was passing out next to her right in the middle of her confessions. There was something about Niall Horan that she found entrancing, but she couldn’t quite place what it was.

“Well, I gave him your number this morning,” Daria commented nonchalantly.

Olivia’s heart stopped in her chest.

“You did what?” she cried in anguish. Daria looked innocently on at her best friend, as though she’d done nothing wrong. But Olivia thought otherwise. Her entire world could come crashing down around her at the simplest text from Niall. She would ruin everything if she were to talk to him again. She’d nearly ruined everything the night before but Niall’s drunkenness managed to save her. She needed to fade into the background and never see him again. It was for the best, for both of them.

“He asked her for it,” a deep voice suddenly came from the doorway, causing Olivia to jump. It was Harry, with a tray of three drinks from Starbucks.

“Jesus, Harry!” Olivia exclaimed, pressing her paint splattered hand to her chest without thinking about it, leaving behind a technicolor handprint on her skin. “You scared the piss out of me! I didn’t know you were even here!”

“I needed coffee,” Daria explained. “I’m pretty wrecked after last night. Then we’re headed to dinner with his parents.”

Olivia sighed. By some stroke of fate, Daria had been matched up with Harry’s family in the meet-a-family program through Birmingham, and that had been the final push to get the pair together. She went to visit them every Saturday. But right then, Olivia needed her best friend. But, being Olivia, she wouldn’t dare say so. Other people before herself, always.

She was heading home to Downpatrick in an hour or so anyway, to see her family. Her schedule allowed for her to not have class on Mondays, a blessing for an Irishwoman as a weekend drinker since she was sixteen, so she would be leaving town and all but disappearing from the face of the Earth. Which was exactly what she needed after the night she’d just had.

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” Olivia sighed, looking down at her paper and deciding the lilacs weren’t right, crumpling them up and throwing them to the side. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to Downpatrick with me?”

Daria gave her the eye. “Olivia McGuiness, don’t you change the subject on me.”

Olivia shook her head. Before Harry came around, Daria had never been the one to talk about her feelings. In fact, Daria had never really been the one to talk at all. Olivia had coached her out of that, bringing the girl out of her shell with each passing day. She would quiz Daria mercilessly on her life until finally, one day the conversation came easily. And then the congenial Harry Styles came into her life and it only snowballed from there.

“Daria,” she sighed as Harry tiptoed across the room to hand Daria her grande iced coffee with extra cream – Daria’s only vice. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Niall was pretty upset to see you’d left this morning,” Harry added, not aiding in the situation at all as he handed her a coffee as well – black, just the way she liked it. It was sweet that Harry knew, but Olivia wasn’t surprised. Harry was thoughtful that way. “He kept asking about you. Didn’t much remember coming home or any of that.”

Olivia resisted sighing a breath of relief. Niall didn’t remember. But then Harry’s comment processed further, and it only became clearer to her: Niall had been asking about her. He was wondering where she went that morning. Maybe she should have stuck around, maybe she should have spent the day with him instead of running away and just assuming. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Should have, could have, would have.

“That’s nice of him,” she stated flatly. “But I swear to god, nothing happened between us.”

Just then, her phone chimed with a new text message. It was on her desk, right next to where Harry was standing as he sipped on his tea. Before she could protest, he was leaning over to check to see who it was. That nosy bugger.

“Hey, it’s Niall,” he read, his bright green eyes flicking over to Olivia teasingly. “Missed you this morning. I’d like to see you soon. Ex-ex.”

He’d ended it with kisses. Olivia could have passed out from the combination of happiness, self-consciousness, and embarrassment. As she struggled for words, she glanced at her watch, clearing her throat.

“Look at the time!” she exclaimed. “It’s time for you lot to get the hell out of here! Me too as a matter of fact.”

And as Daria and Harry laughed as she scuttled around to collect her things, Olivia was entirely serious. She needed to get out of there, and fast.