Back for You

“Hi, Mum.” I answered the phone call as I ran my fingers tiredly through my messy hair, keeping my eyes on laptop and my thick binder that I had right in front of me. It was only 4pm when I just finished my class and I just felt like finishing my paper since I don’t have anything to do but suddenly I got a call from Mum. What a surprise.

“Hi, sweetheart.” I heard her soft voice through the receiver and instantly I could feel tears building up in my eyes. God. I couldn’t just cry in a coffee shop like this, “How are you?”

I took off my glasses and put it on the table before answering the question, “I’m good, I think. Well, school’s been a bit hectic lately and I’ve also been looking for a job lately so yeah,” I chuckled. So I decided to search for a job. I thought that it’s better that way since I couldn’t just depend on my parents’ money that they always send to me every month.

“What about you Mum? How’s Dad? How’s the business going?” So my parents owned this restaurant for almost 5 years now. At first, things were hard they almost closed it down and we were tight in money and my decision of leaving to London wasn’t helping them at all. Even I almost cancelled everything and turned down the scholarship so I could help them sort everything out. But Mum told me to go because she thought that maybe I wouldn’t have this opportunity again next time.

“We’re both good, and the restaurant is just as busy as always, especially on weekend.” I could feel Mum smiling when she said that, “Last weekend there’s a young girl named Carolina coming to the Folks and she wanted to try almost everything we have in the menu.”

“Whoa. That’s crazy.” I chuckled.

“I know,” Mum chuckled along too, “But turns out her other friends showed up as well and she’s actually a food blogger. She said the foods are delicious and she’s going to write a good review of The Folks.” I know who Mum meant. Carolina was a pretty famous food-blogger and I really liked checking out her blog. All the food she’s tried seemed really delicious.

“Wow, Mum. That’s great. Did she take a picture of you and Dad?”

“Of course! She took some pictures of me and Dad in the kitchen.” I could instantly imagine my parents wearing their usual good luck apron and smiling widely when the girl took the pictures.

“I think I got to check it out as soon as I’m home.”

“Oh I thought you’re home already?” She asked, getting surprised a little bit.

“Well, I decided to get my essay done early and I know I can’t get it done at home because Sienna might want me to have another girly day with her.” I rolled my eyes playfully at that.

“Ah, Sienna…” she chuckled, “How is she anyway? I think I saw her on a magazine on the other day. Vanessa had her nose stuck on the magazine when she came a few days ago and I think I saw Sienna modeling for Forever 21, I guess?”

“Yeah, she was so excited when she got the job. And she’s good as always, Mum, and also getting clingier with Ryan.”

“Young love,” Mum mumbled under her breath but I still could hear it pretty clear, “What about you, Jen?”

“What about me?” I asked back, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion.

“Well, when Mike called on the other day, he mentioned you and a bit about this guy named Liam.” I made a mental note to give Mike a call and tell him to shut his big mouth, “So what’s up with that guy? When are you going to bring him home?”

“Mum!” I whined and Mum laughed at me, “He’s just a friend, really. I met him through Sienna a while ago and no there’s nothing going on between me and Liam. We’re just good friends, Mum.” That’s all I could say to Mum. I just didn’t want to give her any details yet about everything… because well there’s nothing left to say though.

“Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that,” I could picture Mum rolling her eyes when she said that. We talked again for a while before Mum got called by Dad to help him with something in the kitchen. With that, we both hung up the phone.

As soon as I was done talking with Mum, I pulled on my glasses again and decided to just go home. So I put my laptop and binder in my bag and finished my coffee. But before I could even get up from my seat and make my way home, somebody called my name.

I looked up and saw Liam there with a cup of coffee on his hand, “Hey,” I gave him a small wave, getting up from my seat, “Fancy meeting you here.” I smiled.

“What are you doing? Finishing your essay, eh?” He asked as he approached me.

“Yeah,” I shrugged my shoulder, “What are you doing here? I thought you were on some interview.”

“We’re done already,” he smiled, “So, do you have any plans for today?” he asked and I just shook my head, “Want to come to Niall’s with me? He said that he’s bored so he wants me to come over and do Twitcam with him.”

“Sure, why not?” I agreed without thinking anymore, “Li, can you help me with that?” I smiled sheepishly to him as I pointed at my guitar case. He took the guitar case and waited for me as I slung my bag over my shoulder, “Let’s go.” I sang as we walked out of the coffee shop.

“I don’t know you play guitar.” Once we were already inside of his car and drove off to Niall’s flat.

“Ah, only a bit,” I shrugged, “Mike taught me a while ago but once he got busy with Uni, I learned to play it by myself,” I explained, “I heard you play a bit guitar and piano too.”

He shrugged, “Where did you hear that from?” he asked randomly.

“I watched a bit of your X-Factor video diaries.” He turned to see me for a split second and had this weird look across his face, “What? Those videos are cute!”

“Cute?” He snickered, making me laugh.

“Yeah,” I exclaimed, “Everyone was so different, so young. And I find that you’re a bit cute with your old Justin Bieber hair.” I added with a laugh.

“Geez,” I saw him rolling his eyes at me, “How many video diaries did you watch?”

I wondered, “Ten, plus the Mega Mind and Spin the Harry ones.” I really did watch their videos. I was really bored and basically had nothing to do so I opened YouTube and started to search some of the boys’ old videos. And sure as hell I was laughing most of times. Their old videos were really funny.

“So you watched it all.” He stated and I just nodded, “I never thought you’d watch all those videos.”

“I was really bored so I decided to watch it.” I admitted and chuckled, “It’s pretty entertaining.”

“Yeah. It’s never a dull moment with them, you know.” He said, smiling to himself.

“You’re so lucky to have best friends like them. They’re such a keeper.” I smiled back to him, “They’re kind of friends that you could count on, trust, give you a laugh, and just… they would never turn their back at you.”

When I said that, Liam gave me another weird look, “I had a best friend back when I was in high school. She’s totally awesome. She’s like Niall and Harry in one body. I know I could trust her and I trusted her with all my life but she turned her back at me.”

A sigh escaped from his mouth. He glanced at me for a split second and smiled apologetically, “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be,” I waved off before I could even start to have another flashback in my mind, “I’m way through that.” I stopped talking as we finally reached Niall’s flat. We walked out of the car and walked into the building. I decided to just leave my guitar in his car because I knew I probably wouldn’t need it.

Niall was kind of shocked when he realized that I was standing next to Liam with a smile on my face, “Jenna! Liam didn’t tell me he’s going to come with you.” He said as he pulled me in a side hug before finally letting me and Liam into his flat.

“I ran into her at the coffee shop, Ni.” Liam explained.

“I was just finished my essay when he saw me.” I added as we all seated on the couch and Niall started to mess with the laptop that he already set on the coffee table, “I hope I’m not being an intruder.”

“Nah, you aren’t.” Niall waved off and turned to Liam, “So, TwitCam now?” Liam shrugged and Niall typed something on his laptop before saying, “Hello, Twitter world!” he waved happily at the laptop.

I looked at the screen and realized that a half of me could be seen. After all I was sitting on the far right just next to Liam. But the good side is that my face couldn’t be seen that clear. Liam and Niall started the TwitCam and they talked a bit about the Little Things music video, their new album, tour and all that jazz before starting to answer questions from their fans.

A fan asked Niall to show them how to play Live While We’re Young on guitar and he gladly showed them, “Hold on, there’s an interesting question here.” Liam spoke when Niall was already done playing his guitar.

“’Who’s the girl on next to you?’ ” I looked up from my phone when Niall said that and gave both of my friends a weird look, “Hey Jen, mind to show your face a little bit to them?”

“Do I have a choice to not to?” I teased and they just shook their head, “Okay, then.” Liam scooted over a little bit so my face could be seen from the screen.

“This is one of our good friends, Jenna.” Liam spoke as I smiled and waved to the webcam.

“Say ‘hi’ to Jenna, guys!” Niall said excitedly and just a few seconds after that, there were a lot of ‘hi’ and ‘hello’ and even some of them were in caps locks in the chat list on the web. Just when I did that, my phone rang loudly.

“Excuse me,” I got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen so I could answer my phone. When I looked at the screen, I realized that it’s a call from my 15 year-old cousin, Ally, “Hello?”

“OH MY GOD!” She shouted and I winced at her high-pitched voice.

“Are you trying to make me deaf, Al? Don’t scream at me or I’ll hang up the phone.” I warned her. I didn’t know what her intentions on calling me because she never really called me since I went to London. Sure she wrote me a few e-mails every once in a while but no she never called.

“Sorry,” she mumbled and giggled.

“What do you want, Al?” I asked as I hopped on the counter and my eyes scanned around the room.

“Why didn’t you tell me about you and Liam being friends?” Whoa. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion when she asked that.

“What?” I played dumb for a little while. Who told her? I swear if it’s Mike again, then-

“It’s on the internet, Jen. People are talking about it. There are photos of you and him walking around London the other day.” Oh. How the hell could it end up on Twitter? I could’ve sworn that there were no paparazzi or even fans approaching Liam when we had lunch together the other day.

“Oh,” was all I could say to her, “I take it you watch the TwitCam too, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I sighed softly, “At first I didn’t believe it was you when I saw all the pictures. But then you’re apparently on the TwitCam.”

“So is it really on Twitter? What did it say?” I couldn’t help but ask her the details. I was too lazy to find out myself so I hoped that Ally would just rant at me about everything she saw on Twitter.

“Nothing,” she quickly said, “It’s nothing, really. Just some usual cheap gossip and stuff like that.” she said weirdly. I knew something was up and she was hiding it from me. Well if she didn’t want to tell me, then I just had to find it by myself, right?

“If you say so,” we both talked a bit before finally saying goodbye. As I hung up the phone, I thought about what people could possibly say about it. My heart told me to not check it but my brain told me that I deserved to know. Brain won.

My eyes widened in horror when I checked my profile page. My followers’ number hit to almost 3000 though I knew the last time I checked Twitter, I only had about 300 followers and it was all my cousins, family, real life friends and some friends I made online. I had no idea how I could get the other 2700 followers.

I had the urge to check my @replies page but I decided to not do it. Instead I tapped the home button and scrolled down my timeline. I could see some of Ally’s tweets about One Direction and now I know she’s obsessed with them. Just as I scrolled down my timeline some more, there’s a tweet from SugarScape that caught my eyes. It said ‘Liam Payne has lunch with unknown girl-pal this week’ and there’s also a link for the article.

‘Uh oh, look who just spotted walking with a girl ‘pal’ around London a few days ago, fellas.’ Then there was a picture of me and Liam walking on the street and us facing each other, talking, ‘Our favorite Daddy Direction, Liam Payne, and an unknown girl ‘pal’ were seen walking (sometimes hand-in-hand) out from McDonald’s. The two seemed cozy with each other, yeah? Look at how their face lit up while they talk at each other!’ And there was another picture of me and Liam walking out of McDonald’s. Where did they get these pictures anyway? ‘This was the first time Liam seen out with a girl after his split with dancer, Danielle Payzer, that he dated before a while ago. We can’t quite work out who the girl in the picture is but-‘

“Jenna.” Reflex, I closed the article and looked up to see Liam standing not too far from her, concern written across his face, “You okay?” he asked, glancing at me a few times as he made his way to the refrigerator to grab drinks.

“Uh, I- uh,” I cleared my throat, “Uh, yeah, I’m okay.” I managed to crack a smile on my face as I watched him having a seat on the bar stool, facing me. I grew a bit uncomfortable with the fact that he’s sitting there in front of me doing nothing but drinking and staring at me.

We stayed silence like that for a little while and I took that time to close the Twitter app and shoved my phone into my jeans pocket. Just a few seconds after that, Liam cleared his throat, “Jen?”

“Hmm?” I watched as Liam fiddled with his fingers and bit his lower lip.

“So, uh, do you have any plans for Friday night?” My eyebrows shot up when he asked that. Unable to say anything, I just shook my head at him, “Okay, that’s cool. So do you think, uh, do you—“ he caught a breath and cleared his throat, “Do you want to have dinner with me?”

I could tell he was nervous by the way he’d glance around, bit his lower lip and play with his fingers every now and then, “Yeah, sure.” I answered instantly and suddenly had this urge to smack my forehead.

He was smiling so wide when I said that, “O-oh? Okay. That’s great. It’s a date, then.” He got up from his seat and winked at me before walking to the other room to join Niall.

I shut my eyes for a while, trying to think clearly of the things that just happened. So Liam just asked me to have dinner with him on Friday night which was apparently a date… and I just agreed to go with him.

Shit. What just happened once again?