The Darings

Ash Hughes never knew what life was like outside Marlborough, Wiltshire. She never knew what it was like to get lost in a sea of people, to be just a face in the crowd. She never knew what it was like to go on an adventure to a place entirely unfamiliar, to simply explore. She never knew what it was like to start completely fresh, to not know anyone from before. So when she moved to London for her first year of college, Ash Hughes learned what life was like outside Marlborough.

It was lonely.

In all her years in Marlborough, she’d never been anything particularly spectacular. Not especially liked or disliked, not exceptionally well recognized, not exceedingly pursued by boys. But one thing she had never been was lonely.

She had her parents – dutifully loving though sometimes a bit misguided – and her three older siblings – Evan, 26, Isadora, 24, and Sophia, 22 – who were all of those things, in that order. And when they weren’t around, she had the handful of friends she’d grown up with, those who didn’t need her to be anything particularly spectacular. But most of those friends had gone to Leeds or Winchester. It was Ash alone who ended up in London.

Lonely.

“But it’s a family tradition to go to school in London!” her mother had screeched for the thousandth time when Ash asked to go to Leeds. “Your father at Kings College, I to University London, and all your siblings to UCL! How could you break that tradition for us, Ashley?”

Ash had sighed. Always Ash, never Ashley, unless her mother was near tears. And it was with those tears that Ash succumbed, submitted her acceptance to University College London and entered her new life of solitary adventure and loneliness.

But Ash had never particularly minded being alone before. She was the type who always needed a certain amount of alone time for every amount of time she spent around other people. This lead to a large collection of books and films that stocked her shelves at home, along with a quick wit and a certain level of intelligence she didn’t oft express to other people. Because that just wasn’t something that Ash really did in Marlborough. And there wasn’t anyone particularly interested in her at UCL, anyway.

Ash had always liked these things about herself – she’d been able to become exactly who she was on her own time without much influence of other people. She’d taught herself how to fix a car because she found the mechanics interesting. Her favorite music eventually became some assortment of American indie-rock, far and away from Sophia’s incessant infatuation with dubstep. She watched the school’s team play footie on the weekends, and then pored over books about the sport until she knew everything.

Ash was exactly who she was because she was exactly who she made herself. And that was a particular point of pride for her.

But as she sat doodling a pattern of spirals in the margin of her Biology notebook, she wondered if anyone at UCL would ever get to share that with her. Or, more importantly, if they would ever want to.

“Collins!” Professor Bains shouted into the room, waving a paper about his head. Their first exam had just passed and with the magic of technology, the bubble sheets were already graded and ready to be handed back to her class of no more than fifty – still much larger than her classes in high school.

Suddenly, a boy slipped into the seat right in front of her, conveniently placed at the edge of the row at the back of the classroom, the place where Ash felt she could blend in best. Her heart skipped a beat. That seat also happened to be right behind where the most devastatingly gorgeous boy in her class –

“Styles!” Bains called, and the boy’s hand rose lazily into the air, as though he’d been there the whole time. His friend, an also attractive blonde perpetually wearing a snapback, elbowed him in the side with a jab.

“You lucky bastard,” the blonde teased as he passed the test sheet to his friend. “Always popping in at just the right time.”

“It’s a talent,” the boy replied smoothly, and Ash could nearly hear the smirk in his voice.

From overhearing their conversations during Professor Bains classes, Ash had learned a few things about this boy. His name was Harry – Harry Styles. He and the blonde, called Niall, played football together on a club team. He enjoyed playing music. And finally, he was very popular – but that, she learned from the waves he got from nearly everyone he passed as Ash followed him, silently, out of the building.

Brown curls. Green eyes. Gorgeous smirk. Entirely out of Ash’s little league.

“How’d you fair, mate?” Niall asked, craning his neck to see Harry’s score. Ash caught herself doing the same and mentally kicked herself, settling back into her seat before either of them could notice.

“I’d say pretty decently,” Harry drawled in his rough voice, flashing the score between them just as Ash could see – a 93.

Niall scoffed. “For the amount you studied? That’s rubbish.”

“Horan!” called Bains. Moments later, Niall’s paper came down the row and he sighed with some form of disappointment. Harry clapped his shoulder.

“Next time, mate,” he assured his friend before stuffing his own test in his bag.

A few more names went by as Ash idly stared at the back of Harry’s head, the curls unruly in the most amazing way. The tag of his shirt popped out around the collar, taunting her – disorderly tags were one of her biggest pet peeves. But she kept her hands in her lap, playing absently with the rings on her fingers instead.

“Hughes!” Professor Bains beckoned and if only purely out of nerves from being so close to Harry, her hand shot into the air. The test came down her row, the boy next to her eyeing her with an odd look Ash couldn’t distinguish. Then she looked down at her paper.

A 98. Good enough for today, she thought. But if Harry hardly studied at all and got just a tenner marked down from her, maybe she should be embarrassed. Because she had a lot of free time, and she decided to face the fact that most of it was going to be spent studying.

“Tell me you’ll leave the pitch for a bit this weekend and come out,” Harry pressed teasingly as Professor Bains gave them their next reading assignment. “I got an invite to this party…”

The rest was drowned out by the shuffling and voices of those around her as Bains dismissed the class. Suddenly it seemed that everyone around her was talking about this same party, every voice equally excited about the concept of going to a house party. There weren’t many of those in the city – club life was huge in London, Ash had learned, though she had never really experienced it.

She gathered her books in her arms, the test sheet placed carefully on top, and began to exit the aisle. But before she could take two steps out, a body collided with hers, sending the test sheet fluttering out of her arms and into the chaos.

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” the body apologized, and only when she heard the voice did she recognize what just happened. It was Harry, face to face, smiling a bit embarrassedly as he went to go and get her test.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, surprised at the sound of her own, timid voice. “It’s really alright, no worries…”

But before she could protest anymore, the sheet was in Harry’s hands and his bright green eyes were flickering from the score to her face and back again. “Nice work,” he complimented, his voice still tinged with that scathing teasing tone he used on Niall. “Maybe I’m not the brightest one in the class.”

And with that, both he and Niall were gone, and Ash was left smarting from the encounter. Harry Styles had spoken to her. And now probably thought she was a massive nerd, with nothing better to do than study.

Which was basically true.

Normally when she was done with classes, Ash took to the streets of London to do a bit of exploring. Thus far, it was her favorite part of living in the city – discovering hidden gems for her and her alone. But with a hint of embarrassment in her heart and not feeling quite so inclined to explore, she went home.

“Ash!” she was greeted by a chorus of voices from her floor lobby when she walked off the lift. She looked around to see most of the girls on her floor, all dressed to go out to eat.

“Hey,” she greeted shyly, never having done well with them all in a group together. Individually, she could handle them. But when they were all mobbed together, she had a tendency of getting lost in the shuffle. She most never got invited along to things they did. “What are you lot up to?”

“We’re just headed out to grab a bite,” one, a brunette named Tera, announced as they shuffled past her onto the lift. “We’ll see you later though, yeah?”

Today did not seem to be an exception to any of the rules that ran Ash’s life.

“Yeah!” she replied, perhaps too enthusiastically. “Have fun, eat lots for me.”

And just as the doors were closing, she caught a glimpse of a smile thrown in her direction. It came from Finn Watz, the most beautiful girl on the floor in Ash’s opinion. Lush red hair, bright eyes, but nearly haughty in a way that unnerved Ash. Almost as much as that smile unnerved her. Ash was under the impression that a smile from Finn Watz was an unusual thing.

The group disappeared, and Ash couldn’t help but wonder when it would be her turn to get invited.