Strength Will Find You Sooner

Silence was still present in the atmosphere as I tried to process everything that happened a few minutes ago. I felt like kicking myself in the head for being so stupid and for dragging Harry into this stupid mistake.

“What was all of that?” Harry asked what I dreaded to hear. I, too, don’t understand what just came into me, honestly.

“Look, I don’t know what drove me to say that but I could tell her the truth someday, or soon if you insist.” I answer him, now feeling guilty.

“It’s up to you, really,” he said, “Does this mean we have to fake a relationship in front of her?”

“I mean, if you agree, but don’t worry, we don’t get to see her much anymore.” I answered with motivation.

“Oh, okay.” Harry spoke before another minute of silence creeped in. I was waiting for him to ask another thing I’m sure he wanted to know.

“Who’s Blake?” Harry asked straightforwardly but carefully.

“My ex.” I spat out in a cold voice that left Harry mumble out a little, “Oh, sorry,” and let him put all the pieces in place before deciding wisely to not do any further questioning on that topic.

I turn to him and saw that he had one hand playing with his mouth and another running through his hair. I wonder if he did this every time he was deep in his own thoughts.

“Now are you going to tell me about that interview?” I ask once again.

Harry stopped to look at me with his bottom lip between his teeth. “This would be weird and such but the band’s management told me to say that to only spark controversies and nothing more. I’m really sorry about that.” He spoke out in a surprisingly fast pace, his eyes filled with guilt.

I groaned and put my face in my hands, “I should be the one saying sorry. I shouldn’t have told that lie to Scarlett. Now it would probably affect your career now that I realize that you shouldn’t be seen with me anymore.” I muffled out before looking at him through the spaces between my fingers and removing them from my face altogether.

“And why do you feel like we shouldn’t be seen together anymore?” he asked, his voice sounded confused.

“You said you said what you said on that interview to only spark controversies and nothing more.” I emphasized the last part using hand gestures

“But that doesn’t mean we have to stop hanging out, yeah?” He answered me while copying my weird hand gestures. I felt my stupid sensitive heart leap with his answer.

“I swear, you’re such a prick.” I told him as I nudged his arm playfully for mocking me. He nudged me back with a wide grin on his face then I stuck my bottom lip out at him. He looked at me for a while before squeezing my face together and laughed out loud. I, of course, did not like his pleasure in my pain so I, too, squeezed his stupid face together. He tried to shake my hands off but he knew I wouldn’t let go until he lets go of mine.

But I guess he didn’t want to let go.

So we continued laughed at how ridiculous the other looked so hard that tears started to sting my eyes. I squeezed his face further, making it look more deformed. Harry did the same and we laughed much harder that tears started falling down my face.

I never even knew I could laugh this hard.

Our laughter soon slowed down into hushed giggles and I soon let go of Harry’s face but his hold on mine only loosened until he was gently cupping my cheeks. His left thumb graced upon the nearly dried tears from earlier, wiping it.

My giggles eventually stopped and I felt my cheeks heat up under his hands. My heart was racing. I mean, isn’t he aware of how this affects me?

We continued to stare at each other as Harry’s face slowly came down to a calmer one, seeming like he was studying my face. I blushed even further and was about to take his hands off when his phone started ringing violently, startling the both of us. He let go of my face and I managed to look down at my fumbling hands.

Harry pulled his phone out of his pocket then rolled his eyes when he saw who was calling before grumbling out, “What do they want now.”

Well, whoever it was, he felt like he could talk to them on the phone in front of me. He answered it with a surprisingly chirpy greeting. I droned out what he said after that as I treated my hands as if they were the most interesting things in the world.

Get ahold of yourself, Daisy. You shouldn’t feel like this. I scolded myself. You can’t afford to get hurt again.

I was still deep within my thoughts when a response from Harry caught my attention.

“Yeah I’m actually with her right now. Why?” His face carried a very confused look as he focused on what the person was telling him while turning to look at me. I furrowed my eyebrows at him but he simply turned back around.

“Okay,” I heard Harry sigh out before hanging up his phone, feeling somewhat defeated. “Sorry, that was our management. I had to take that one.” He added.

Oh, their management. “No, it’s fine.” I squeaked out, still feeling uneasy from what happened earlier.

“And they randomly asked about you,” He trailed off but sounded like he was about to add something. “They said they had to talk to the both of us whenever we’re free.”

“Why?” I asked him more boldly now, feeling worried, thoughts firing in my head all at the same time. What did I do now? I wondered.

“I don’t know either but they said they’ll explain everything in the meeting.” Harry answered, feeling worried himself, too.

I felt anxious and somewhat scared now. What if I did something wrong? What if they’ll banish me forever? What if—

Harry must’ve noticed my expressions when he interrupted my thoughts, “Best not to get too anxious about it, yeah?" He reassured me before continuing, "When are you free?”

“I could get out of work early tomorrow.” I simply answered.

“Great. I’ll pick you up here, then.” He told me before checking the time on his phone. “Well, I better get going now. Wouldn’t want to keep you up late.” He finished off with a small smile as he stood up from the sofa.

“Alright.” I used my crutches to get up so that I could walk him to the door.

“Goodnight, Crazy Daisy. Take care of your ankle, yeah?” Harry said as a farewell.

“Alright, Hairy Harry.” I mocked his curls.

“Hey! I’m not that hairy.” He defended.

“Yeah, yeah.” I told him unconvinced.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

He waved at me before leaving. I watched him until he was out of sight before I finally shut the door. Let’s just say that I slept rather peacefully for a change that night.

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I went to work the next morning using my crutches (it was very tiring, honestly). I informed my boss that I had to leave early today and thankfully, he said yes, probably thinking it was best for my condition (crutches and all).

I was doing my job, occasionally sitting on a chair to rest, when five boys entered the café. “Welcome to The Coffee-tea-ria! How may I—“, I stopped, shocked, when I realized that 3/5 of the boys in front of me were Louis, Zayn, and Harry. One had brown buzz-cut hair with a face that reminded me of a puppy, and the other had blonde hair and blue eyes. I decided that they were Niall and Liam but not knowing which is which yet.

Thank God Scarlett wasn’t at work today.

“Hey Daisy!” The three of them chirpily said simultaneously.

“You lot should stop saying everything simultaneously. I’m starting to think you guys are generated to do that.” I greeted them.

“Maybe we are. Maybe we’re robots doing whatever we are told to do.” I heard Louis answer jokingly.

I simply rolled my eyes and continued to get their orders.

“What would the lot of you get?” I asked, acting professional.

“I think we’d all just want some coffee since we already ate before coming here but I’m not sure about Niall here.” They guy with buzz-cut hair answered, motioning to the blonde one.

“’M still feeling famished, though. I’d get two orders of that pasta.” Niall said, pointing at the displayed menu. I instantly knew he was Irish through his accent.

So the puppy-faced one is Liam and the Irish one is Niall. I mentally memorized.

I was shocked to think that he could eat all of that by himself but decided to not say anything. I smiled at the both of them and repeated their orders, letting them pay for it. I made their coffees and served it to them quickly. I waited for the pasta and served it to them as well.

“Hey Daisy, when are you allowed to come out?” I heard Harry ask.

“Well, I was about to leave in a few minutes to change and meet you in my flat but seeing as you’re here now, I guess I could just change here.” I answered him.

“Thanks Daisy.” He replied back

“Come sit with us after you change!” Louis said enthusiastically before they went with their food and drinks to a table.

I served different people for a while more before I told my boss that I’ll leave soon. I then simply put on a pair of jeans, removed my work apron, then put on a sweater on top of my sleeved shirt. I made my way to where they were seated and saw that they were laughing at something Louis said. The shop was lacking teenage fangirls seeing as it was a school day so the other customers simply looked at them and talked amongst themselves in hushed voices. Harry saw me and patted the empty chair between him and Louis, motioning for me to sit on it.

They laughter slowly died down when the others recognized me going their direction. I sat on the empty seat and rested my crutches on its side. I saw that Niall was munching on his almost empty second plate of pasta. How could he have done that in just a few minutes?

I didn’t know I was obviously staring weirdly at him when Liam spoke, “He likes eating a lot.”

“Me too, but I think it takes skill to eat that fast.” I told him boldly.

“I’m special.” Niall muffled with some sauce painted around his lips and a mouthful of pasta.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Liam scolded him.

Niall swallowed before speaking again, “Sorry.” then continued enjoying his meal.

“I’m Liam, by the way.” Liam spoke, reaching across the table to shake my hand.

“I’m Niall.” Niall said after wiping his mouth with a napkin, waving his hand at me.

I smiled at the both of them and introduced myself, “I’m Daisy.”

“We know.” They simultaneously answered.

“Even the both of you do that thing. I might think everyone in this band are robots.” They laughed at my statement.

“I guess that’s what seeing each other almost every single day for years does to you.” Liam said, the boys nodding in agreement.

They continued to talk about other stuff, with small comments coming from me once in a while.

Then a thought came into my mind.

“Not to sound rude or anything, but I thought Harry and I were the only ones coming to the meeting?” I voiced out.

“Management told us they needed us in the meeting too earlier this morning. I guess it involved us too.” Louis answered me with a shrug.

My anxiety level rose. Was whatever I did this bad that they needed to bring them along, too? But I felt sort of relieved to not have come in there with Harry alone.

The more the merrier, right?

“And since we were free until then, we decided to visit you here.” Zayn continued.

“And Liam and I wanted to finally meet you. We’ve been hearing stories from the boys about you.” Niall continued further.

“Good stories, I hope?” I asked halfheartedly.

“Definitely good stories.” Liam said, glancing at Harry, making him glare and blush a little.

What was going on?

“Of course, these boys love me.” I said jokingly, deciding to ignore Harry's discomfort at Liam's statement, ruffling Louis’, Zayn’s, and Harry’s hair. They all grumbled and fixed their hair the way it originally was.

“Don’t let her fool you. She’s mean.” Harry told them.

“No I’m not!” I exclaimed before smacking his arm.

“See what I mean?” He told the others, rubbing the part where I smacked him.

The four other boys just watched us with an amused expression on their faces.

“The two of you act like children.” Liam told us.

“We do not!” Harry and I exclaimed, refusing. I cringed at the fact that we said that at the same time. I pointed a finger in each of their faces saying, “I refuse to join this simultaneously-talking group of yours.”

They laughed and continued to tell stories while drinking their coffees.

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“Is your management scary?” I asked the boys.

We were now on our way to the building where we’ll meet up with their management a few minutes after leaving the café.

“Sort of, but not really.” Louis told me uncertainly.

Yeah, that definitely made me feel less nervous.

I glanced out the window and saw a tall building with ‘Modest! Management’ displayed in the front. I guess this was it.

Liam parked the car and we immediately filed out, probably scared to be late or something.

As we went our way to inside the building, Harry noticed my nervousness.

“No need to be nervous, love. We’ll be in there with you.” He told me reassuringly, with a warm smile as he took a hold of my hand, rubbing it gently.

My stomach did flips. No one had been more convincing than he was right now. Not even Scarlett. Not even Blake.

After fighting through my emotions, I glanced at him and gave a smile back.

We proceeded to go into the room where we were instructed to go to meet the people who were going to finally explain to us what was going on.

We were greeted with a man with short, graying hair and woman who had her dark brown hair tied up into a clean bun. They looked like they meant business.

“Good morning boys, and Ms. Lozier.” The man said, making me feel creeped out as to how he knew my surname.

“Good morning Carter.” They, again, simultaneously greeted back while I simply gave out a wave at their direction.

We sat on our seats respectively, Harry right next to me.
The man and the woman introduced themselves to me as Carter and Celia.

“I guess you are all wondering why we suddenly asked for all of you for a meeting, especially with Ms. Lozier, correct?” Celia said, looking at all of us.

We all nodded as a response as they continued to elaborate on the topic.

“Well, first, don’t worry Ms. Lozier,” I wanted to tell her to refer to me as Daisy but decided against it, “We looked through some information about you, we hope you don’t mind,” I was about to react but quickly masked my emotions.

Of course I freaking mind. It’s not like they had the right to look through my life, yeah?

“Only basic information though. Not the personal ones. We didn’t need to do that yet.” She continued.

Yet. I repeated in my mind.

“I’m sorry but why would you need that?” I boldly asked her, determined to find out.

“We’ll get into that later,” Carter interrupted. “No need to worry, you didn’t do anything wrong,” He told me as I let out a sigh of relief. “But first, we have observed that the public is steering away a little from the band and we think that it is caused by the lack of excitement going on in your personal lives,” The boys looked at each other, as if they wanted to protest. “So, we decided to do something about that. As you all remember, we first asked Harry to let the viewers of the interview done about three days ago wonder what was happening between the Ms. Lozier and Harry, yes?” Carter pointed at Harry and I as we all nodded.

“Well, we looked into her basic formation and saw that she was the perfect candidate and they already sparked rumours, so we finally figured that she’ll be the one to do it.” Celia continued explaining.

“Do what?” Harry asked her the question that was in everyone’s mind.

“Become Harry’s fake girlfriend.”