A Single Daffodil

Everything ached.

Every single inch of my body and soul ached.

I was so confused. My brain, I noticed, had a thumping beat, like my heart had somehow moved it’s home from my chest and into my head. That couldn’t be right. My chest felt like it was stabbed a million times, my stomach tender, my mouth stale and dry.

When I finally pried my sticky eyes open, I was met with a blank ceiling. I stared at it, trying to gather a string of coherent thoughts to confirm that I was, in fact, alive.

What the fuck happened to me?

I slowly lifted my head, careful to not detonate some type of explosion inside it if I moved too quickly. I blinked a couple of times, trying to get a better look at my surroundings. It was dark, save for the one sliver of light that peaked through the closed curtains from the far end of the room. I was in an unfamiliar bedroom. I was alone.

A wave of panic washed over me the second I registered this information. I had no idea where I was or what happened. I needed answers. And fast.

It took everything in me to not cry as I sat up fully in the bed I was once asleep in. My limbs were sore for reasons I couldn’t tell you, but with every type of movement I made, brought on an agonizing pain.

I cautiously swung my legs over the side of the foreign bed, one by one, breathing in and out slowly to brace for the pain. I felt like I had been hit by a bus, a truck, a train and an airplane all at once.

I groaned, grasping for the edge of the bedside table next to me as I attempted to stand up straight. As I did this, I accidentally pushed an object that sat on the bedside table to the floor. I squinted, trying to see what it was I dropped. Realizing I was too dizzy or tired to care, I decided it was book-shaped and continued to move, albeit slowly, towards the door of the room.

When I opened the door to the room, I was greeted by an empty hallway. I let out a sigh, already feeling too weak to move much further. But I had to get out of here. I didn’t even know where I was.

As I reached out for one of the walls to keep me upright, I started hearing voices. At first, I thought they were just voices in my head but then I realized they were coming from down the staircase at the end of the hallway. My heart raced faster as I slowly walked towards it, keeping my left hand on the wall for stability. I was scared that I would faint from how strenuous this felt.

I took the steps one at a time, clinging to the banister. I still had no idea where I was, even as I had a better look of the downstairs area. I focused on the hushed whispers, hoping wherever they were coming from could give me some answers. Wow, my head throbbed something terrible.

I inhaled deeply and blinked a couple of times, trying to adjust my eyes to the brightness of downstairs. Another round of hushed whispers and voices reminded me of why I came down here in the first place. I turned at the staircase and continued down a different hallway. This one was much wider and brighter, and even had huge frames hanging on the walls. I wanted to stop and look at them but black circles were starting to blot my eyesight and it started scaring me so I pushed further to find out who was here and who was whispering.

I finally reached the end of the hallway after what felt like forever and stopped right at the edge of where it transformed into a new room. It was even brighter in here, almost like the sun was sitting in here itself, and it took me a really long time to adjust my eyesight. Once I could actually see though, I immediately recognized the open room to be a large kitchen. A beat later, I identified the group of people who were talking in hushed whispers. There were about six of them huddled around a breakfast bar with an assortment of mugs scattered out in front of them.

“Guys?” My voice was so hoarse that it didn’t even sound like me. It also took so much energy out of me to speak, that my legs went weak. I leaned into the wall for support.

The hushed whispers ceased and everyone turned to me, their eyes growing wide simultaneously. I noticed Sophia and Jayden as they stood up straight. It took me another second to realize it was Zayn, Niall, Liam and Harry who were next to them. My eyes automatically lingered on Harry. He was gripping the edge of the counter with both of his hands and his eyes were distant. It took me another couple of seconds to realize he had thick, white bandages wrapped across his knuckles. That made my stomach recoil unpleasantly. What the fuck happened?

“Oh my God.” Sophia was the first to speak. She jumped up quickly, taking a few steps towards me. “We didn’t think you would--how are you feeling?”

“Oh, I feel great. I actually could run a 5k right now.” I replied.

Sophia reeled back in surprise. “Really?”

“No, not really. I can barely breathe.” I answered quickly. Making a sarcastic joke was not my brightest idea at a time like this. I leaned further into the wall next to me. “What’s happening to me?”

Sophia looked desperate, immediately looking back at the group of guys at the breakfast bar. The black spots were re-appearing in my sight again and my cheeks felt numb. I hastily rubbed at my eyes, hoping it would all go away.

“Um,” I couldn’t see Jayden, but I could hear him. “something...not that chill happened last night.”

“What do you--oh God.” I paused, suddenly feeling dizzy. My stomach no longer tender, but angry and abrupt. I quickly covered my mouth. “I think I’m going to-I’m--”

“Okay, hold on!” Sophia’s Columbian motherly instincts kicked in as she quickly diverted me away from the kitchen area and into the nearest bathroom. Before I knew it, she had my hair pulled back from my face and I was purging everything from my stomach to the toilet, although I was pretty sure I was throwing up all my body organs, judging by the pain I felt throughout my whole body. Was that a kidney I just saw? A left lung? Bye left lung!

I moaned, resting my cheek against the side of the toilet as I took a quick break. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing.

“Shhh, you’re alright.” Sophia’s voice hummed as I felt her hand rub my back slowly. “You’re alright.”

For a second, I thought I fell asleep against the toilet, but I was quickly made aware of my surroundings once more when I heard the bathroom door open and close once again.

“Is she okay?” It was Jayden. I peaked open one eye to see him take a seat on the floor next to me. “Are you alright, Vita? Can you hear me?”

I moaned an incoherent response.

Sophia reached up to flush the toilet for me. “It’ll pass, mi amore. It’ll pass. Just breathe.”

“Guys.” I tried again, slowly lifting my head up. My stomach felt raw and the interior of my mouth had changed into sandpaper. “What the hell happened last night? Where are we?”

“We’re at Harry’s house.” Jayden answered softly, pushing back the mess of curls from my face.

“Why?” I asked, although it sounded like begging. No one was telling me anything and it was freaking me out more than anything. And I was just so confused. “When did we get here?”

They both fell silent again.

“Please tell me.” I pleaded, now feeling my eyes burning. I hated being this confused. “I can’t stand whatever is happening to me right now and I just can’t--”

“Okay, listen.” Jayden finally spoke. He took my hand in his and pulled it close to make me look at him. “I’m going to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it. Just remember to stay calm, okay? And that it’s all over now, and Sophia and I are here with you. You’re safe.”

“Jayden, you’re scaring me.” My voice trembled as I watched him speak. He looked so concerned and scared. Jayden was never concerned or scared.

Jayden and Sophia shared a look before turning back to me.

“We think you got roofied last night.” He said finally.

I stared at him, blinking once, then twice. It took me a couple of seconds to register what he said. Still, after recognizing what he said, it still didn’t make sense to me. Roofied?

“And...” He started again, letting out a huge sigh before continuing. “And we think it was Teddy.”

“We don’t think it was Teddy, we know it was Teddy.” Sophia seethed angrily, not able to look at me. She glared at the tiled floor.

I carefully pushed myself away from the toilet and leaned up against the wall. My head lolled back against it as I closed my eyes briefly. There was just no way this was at all true. This was a dream. No, this was a nightmare.

“No.” I said instantly. “You’re wrong. I’m just...I’m just hungover, is all. This happens to everyone. I just drank a lot more than I anticipated and--”

“Vita.” Sophia pleaded. “You only had one drink.”

I stayed silent, watching both Jayden and Sophia with a worried expression. I didn’t want to believe them, but a part of me didn’t want to fight them on it either. All the symptoms I felt right now didn’t all add up to a hangover. This felt like death. This was death.

“But...but why?” I asked, my bottom lip quivering. “Why would he do this to me?”

“Do you remember anything at all from last night?” Jayden pressed, watching me carefully. “What was the last thing you actually remember?”

I sucked on my bottom lip as I waited for the pain in my head to subside before trying to connect memories of last night together. I barely remembered anything.

“I was with you and Harry.” I concluded, scrunching my brows tight as I tried to recall, although my memory was quite patchy. “By the sliding glass doors and then...I think you left me and Harry alone. And then Teddy brought me a beer and then Harry got mad.”

“That fucking asshole.” Sophia raged. “I can’t believe he thought he could get away with this shit.”

“Did he...” I couldn’t finish the sentence, feeling ashamed. I pulled at the fabric of my sundress as a sense of panic washed over me. I didn’t feel like I was taken advantage of. Wouldn’t I have felt funny down there or something? Ironically, that was the only part of my body that felt normal.

“No.” Sophia answered quickly. “No. Harry stopped him.”

My heart stopped as I stared at Sophia. Trying to process everything that was happening right now had been difficult, and I had a feeling it was about to get even worse.

“What do you mean stopped him?” I demanded, keeping my voice low. I kept forgetting the three of us were sitting on the floor of Harry’s bathroom. In Harry’s house. “Tell me everything. Now.”

Jayden glanced at the closed door behind him, before turning back to me. “This is a lot to take in. Maybe we should just leave that story for another tim-”

“Jayden.” I warned.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright. He almost--”

“He almost killed him, Vita.” Sophia cut Jayden off. She was always impatient when Jayden attempted to break the news easily. It was the ol’ good cop bad cop routine all over again. “Literally!”

“Okay, easy, Sophia.” Jayden hushed Sophia’s loud voice before turning to me. “Listen, a lot of shit went down. Harry figured out something was wrong pretty quickly. Within a twenty minute span, you went from completely normal, to completely wasted. It was bad, Vita. You couldn’t stand up or keep your eyes open.”

“Harry was freaking out.” Sophia added. “He came into the kitchen asking us all these questions. Mostly about Teddy and you hanging out.”

“We told him we didn’t even know about you guys.” Jayden sighed. “So that freaked him out even more. That’s when he told us about Teddy’s...history.”

“History?” I choked out. “What history?”

“He’s been known to be a bit...aggressive.” Jayden tried out the word carefully. “Apparently, this isn’t the first time he’s tried to do this.”

“Jesus.” I whimpered, covering my eyes. Everything they were telling me has made me feel even more unwell. “Someone please get to the Harry part before I lose my shit. This whole ‘not remembering’ anything is freaking me out.”

“After Harry told us about Teddy, we lost you. You and Teddy weren’t in the living room anymore.” Jayden continued. “So Harry, Liam, and I went upstairs and started checking the rooms while Sophia--”

Two loud knocks at the bathroom door made Jayden pause.

“Is everything okay in there?” Harry’s demanding muffled against the closed door.

“Si, si!” Sophia answered quickly, looking over to me. I shook my head at her, refusing to respond to Harry. “We’re just...we’re getting her cleaned up. We’ll be out soon.”

Harry waited a couple of seconds before responding, as if he were waiting to hear me confirm Sophia’s words. “Alright.”

Jayden waited for Harry to walk away before continuing. “We found you guys on the floor of the guest bedroom.” He reached out to my arm and pulled it out carefully, pointing at my elbow. There was a bruise forming under it. “Teddy was trying to force himself on you.”

I stared at the bruise while Sophia carefully scooted closer to me and placed an arm around my shoulders, hugging me tightly. The skin around the new formed bruise was tender and discolored. Evidence that there was foul play involved. But how was this my skin? My bruise? A wave of chills rushed through me like a rocket busting through the earth’s hemisphere and into the darkness of space. I felt scared after realizing that this was reality and this thing that Jayden and Sophia were explaining to me happened. Teddy drugged me and tried to rape me. You hear these kind of horror stories from the news, or online, but you never expect it to happen to you. That was the most terrifying part of all.

“Don’t cry, mi amore.” Sophia soothed, petting my hair slowly. I didn’t realize I was crying until she pointed it out. This felt like such an out of body experience.

“Listen, Vita. Harry? He really did almost kill Teddy.” Jayden leaned over to us and whispered. “The second Harry saw Teddy on top of you, he went apeshit. He pulled Teddy off of you and beat the shit out of him.”

I sniffed, looking up at Jayden and then Sophia. Sophia nodded, confirming Jayden’s words.

“I’m not kidding. Harry had him pinned to the floor and just kept...striking him.” Jayden said. “It took everything in me and Liam to pull him off Teddy. He wouldn’t give up.”

“Serves Teddy right.” Sophia sat up straight, looking proud.

“There was blood everywhere.” Jayden continued, resting his forearms against his bent knees as he looked upward in thought. “Harry definitely broke something on that symmetrical facial structure that Teddy unfortunately was endowed with.”

“Probably his whole face.” Sophia sniggered.

“Oh my God.” I covered my face with my hands again. Now the bandages around Harry’s knuckles made sense. I didn’t know what to feel. Did I feel embarrassed that I ignored the warnings from Harry? Angry that he always had some sort of way of meddling with my life? Sad because I hated everything about this situation? I felt it all. “Then what happened?”

“Well, I don’t know what happened to Teddy. Liam and Niall took care of it.” Jayden replied. “We were in the guest room with you.”

“Si, Harry practically pushed us out of the way to see if you were alright.” Sophia said with a curl of the lip. “You were unresponsive, and completely unconscious. It was really scary, Vita, I’m not gonna lie.” She hugged me closer to her. “I never want to see you like that again.”

“Me neither.” Jayden agreed, reaching for a tissue and handing it to me. I dabbed the wetness at the corner of my eyes. Jayden sat back again and continued. “We wanted to take you back to the hotel but Harry insisted you stayed here so we could all keep an eye on you.”

“You guys stayed up all night?” I asked with disbelief.

“Well, we took turns checking on you upstairs.” Sophia answered. “We napped on the couches down here. I don’t think Harry slept at all though.”

“He checked on you every five seconds, it felt like.” Jayden tried to suppress the smile from forming on his lips. “He was very worried.”

“Don’t say that, Jayden.” I said. That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

“It’s true!” Jayden threw up his hands. “Harry did everything last night and I’m sorry if thats weird for you, but it’s the truth. If it weren’t for him, last night could have gone a very different way.”

“Jayden’s right.” Sophia said softly.

I remained quiet. When Sophia and Jayden agreed on something, it was a sign that I had already lost whatever argument I wanted to start. I didn’t want to think about Harry being worried about me, or checking on me several times throughout the night while I was asleep. It made me feel things that I shouldn’t be feeling about a ‘pal’. Hell, I’ve never stopped feeling this way about Harry. I thought I could get over it by moving on with Teddy but clearly that plan backfired quite immensely.

“This was the wrong way to win him back, huh?” I finally said.

Jayden and Sophia shared a confused look.

“What do you mean?” Jayden asked.

“Harry.” I muttered, looking down as I picked at my nails. “I knew he hated Teddy, so I went for it. I thought it would make him jealous. And I know he has a girlfriend and fuck, maybe she does make him happy. I don’t know. But...but I was here first.”

My voice was trembling so I stopped, hoping this would prevent a new batch of tears.

“Vita...” Sophia’s voice came out soft and worried.

“Don’t.” I said quickly. Talking about Harry like this made the gaping hole in my chest feel much more real. “It’s my fault. I broke up with him. I just have to deal with the consequences.”

Jayden and Sophia didn’t say anything. The silence was unbearable and too thick for me to process so I spoke again. “Can I go back to the hotel?”