If I Stay

I needed a gold medal. I'd managed to avoid everyone for a solid two weeks. I exhausted every excuse in the book. I barely stayed in the flat, even going as far as torturing myself by staying with Lottie and Landon. They were knee-deep in wedding planning, and I was sad to say that looking at endless magazines and flower arrangements was actually an excellent distraction. I'd only spoken to Zayn over the phone a few times, saying that I was busy with homework and that I would try my best to make time for us to talk. I'd taken to avoiding Harry all together, only answering text messages when he'd sent more than 15.

I'd seen Nina twice, and she still wasn't happy with me. Other than a hello, we hadn't spoken much. Niall was the only one to make conversation, and all he asked was if I'd put Harry out of his misery yet. It was frustrating and upsetting at the same time. I knew how things were going to end with me and Harry, and I was trying to put the result off for as long as I could.

"Okay, I'm done acting like you're not my best mate. Please tell me what the fuck is going on with you." Nina threw herself onto my bed, right over my chemistry notes. If I was being honest, I missed talking to her. I'd told Lottie what was going on, and she was all for Harry. Landon didn't care either way, but he made it clear that I needed to make my decision soon or it was going to backfire.

"I kissed Zayn." It felt good to finally tell her. It felt like I was hiding some sort of dark secret every time she walked by me. I watched her eyes widen, and a grin spread across her face.

"You're shitting me." I shook my head, plaiting my hair.

"The night I went to my parents' house for the dinner party."

"So why hasn't he been around? It's about time you got a boyfriend."

"Well, he's not exactly my boyfriend. We haven't had that talk yet. I've been avoiding him." I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know what else to do. I still wanted to salvage my friendship with Harry, but I was almost positive that wasn't going to be possible when I finally told him what was going on.

"Why? Are you daft?"

"No. Harry's still kind of in the picture." She held back what she really wanted to say, but her disappointed look said enough.

"And what are you going to do about that? He's still not my favorite, but it's obvious that he does have genuine feelings for you. I didn't know he was capable of it, but you performed some kind of miracle on him." That only made me feel worse. I didn't want to be responsible for any damage.

"Is it bad that I want to keep them both around?" This was yet another reason I didn't bother to get involved with people. Someone's feelings always got hurt in the end, and I didn't want to have to choose whose feelings got hurt.

"No, but I doubt that either of them are going to be okay with it."

"Yeah, I know." I threw myself onto my pillows and closed my eyes, trying to find an easy way out of the situation. Remaining friends with both of them wasn't an option. Zayn would probably stop talking to me the second I even mentioned the word. Harry wouldn't stay a friend forever, as much as I wanted him to.

"What's your heart saying?"

"I don't have a heart," I muttered, throwing an arm over my face. I hated life. I hated that everything was so complicated when it was all so simple just a few short months ago.

"We both know that's not true. If that was the case, you wouldn't look like you were about to cry." I sighed, pushing myself back into a sitting position.

"I think I owe to Zayn. I mean, I've known him all my life. He understands every part of me, you know?"

"But are you choosing Zayn because you want to? Or because it makes sense?" I wasn't expecting that question, and I didn't know the answer to it.

"Is there a difference?"

"There's a big difference, Logan. If you really want to be with Zayn, then be with him, but if there's even a small piece of you that thinks you should be with Harry, then that's the way you should go. Whatever you decision is, I support you." It was nice to hear, but I wasn't any closer to figuring out how I was going to handle all of it.

"Zayn." He was safe. I knew I wouldn't get hurt with Zayn. Everything was up in the air with Harry, and I didn't like not knowing what the future held.

"Okay. Well, you have some explaining to do because Harry's on his way." My heart immediately started to race, and I wanted to punch her.

"You couldn't have told me that when you first got here?" I shot daggers toward her face, wishing that the ground would swallow me whole.

"He hasn't been around, so I wasn't even sure that you'd want to see him. I was going to tell him to leave."

"Just get some ice cream ready. This is going to be a disaster." I was preparing myself for the worst. Nina nodded and rolled off my bed, closing my door behind her. I allowed myself a few moments to breathe, and then my door swung open.

"You better have a good reason for ignoring me." Harry was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He was pissed, and I didn't know how to pacify the situation. I held up my notes with a shrug of my shoulders, hoping he'd accept the excuse.

"I've been busy."

"Bullshit." He walked over to my bed and pushed the papers away. I watched them float to the floor, trying to stall for time.

"Seriously, I've been busy. Between school and helping Lottie with the wedding, I barely have time for myself." I tried to give him my most convincing look, but he wasn't buying it.

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"I didn't want to bore you with talks of bridesmaids dresses and whether or not we'd be holding lilies or peonies." It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the entire truth.

"Nothing you do is boring, Lo." He reached for my hand, and I didn't have the heart to pull away from him, "I thought you were mad at me or something." His voice dropped so that it was barely above a whisper, and the guilt set in.

"I'm sorry." I should have told him. Right at that moment, I should have opened my mouth and told him, but I wanted to hold onto him for a bit longer.

"We need to talk." He was still playing with my fingers when he looked up at me, and I knew I was screwed.

"I know."

"Can I just say what I need to say first, please? Because if I let you talk I might lose my nerve." I raised my eyebrows a little, shifting uncomfortably.

"Go ahead."

"Okay, so I think it's really obvious that I don't just want to be your friend. I haven't for a while, and I'm trying to respect the boundaries you set. But we both knew at some point I was going to fuck up." He let go of my hand and pushed himself up so that he was sitting right in front of me.

"Harry, I—"

"No, please let me finish. I tried to keep my distance. I really did. I thought maybe if I just saw you as another girl it would help, and that sounds really fucked up. I'm sorry. You're not just another girl to me. And I was really hoping that this was going to go better, but I've never done this before, and I don't really know how it works. I guess I'm just trying to say that I......fuck it."

I should have seen it coming. The signs were there, but that didn’t stop me from being shocked when he pressed his lips against mine. My eyes widened, and I froze, an unfamiliar feeling settling in my stomach. It only took him a few seconds to realize something was wrong and pull back.

“What is it?”

“I have something to tell you.” I’d been avoiding the conversation much like I’d been avoiding everything else. I didn’t like confrontation, and I knew for a fact that Harry and I were about to get into an argument.

“That doesn’t sound good."

“I sort of kissed Zayn,” I mumbled, fixing my gaze on the floor. I couldn’t look him in his face, not when I knew I wasn’t going to like his expression.

“Sort of?” His question held a bitter tone, and I tried my best to keep my breathing steady as I got ready to explain what happened.

“The night of my parents' dinner party, he found me in the bathroom when I was on the phone with you, said that we needed to talk. We’d had a row a few weeks before that, so I thought he was just going to apologize and that everything would be alright, but that’s not what happened.” He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at me with a very prominent frown on his face.

“Go on.” He was angry with me, not that I could blame him. I’d known about his feelings and hadn’t decided what I wanted to do. It wasn’t as though I led him on. I’d made it clear that nothing but friendship with him was on my mind.

“We went upstairs—” His eyes widened before I could finish my sentence, “NO! Not like that. We went upstairs to talk, and he kind of told me that he fancied me? I mean, it was sort of obvious now that I think back on it, but I wasn’t worried about it. We kissed.” That was about as far as anything went. I’d been avoiding Zayn just as much as I’d been avoiding Harry.

“So you guys are dating?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t actually spoken to him much since that night,” I replied honestly, tucking my legs underneath me. I pulled one of my pillows into my lap, resting my elbows on it.

“Well do you want to date him?”

“I don’t know.” I was officially living in the land of honesty. I didn’t know if I wanted to date Zayn. I'd never taken the time to properly think about it. He was always just a family friend, though dating him wouldn’t be completely horrible.

“That’s not an answer, Logan.”

“Well, it’s the only one I’ve got. I mean, it would make sense for me to date him.” He seemed offended by my words, though that wasn’t my intention.

“What do you mean it would make sense?” This conversation was on a fast track to hell, and I didn't know how to stop it.

“My family knows him already. We’ve been around each other since we were babies. My parents like him.” I realized how horrible it all sounded once the words left my mouth, but I couldn’t take them back.

“So I’m not good enough for your parents?” I sighed loudly, pushing my fingers through my hair. This isn’t the direction the conversation was supposed to take, and I was getting frustrated. This is why I was avoiding both of them.

“That’s not what I said, Harry.”

“You didn’t have to say it. It’s written all over your face.”

“It’s not like that.” I tried to reason with him, but I could already tell that this was a lost cause. Everything was going down the toilet, and it was all because I didn’t know what I wanted.

“Then what’s it like? Please explain it to me.”

“I don’t have to worry about Zayn. I don’t have to worry about my mother offending him with her words because she adores him. If you remember correctly, after spending an evening with my family, you didn’t talk to me for weeks. I’d rather not have that happen every time I decide to bring you around.”

“That was a small lapse in judgement. I apologized, and you know that’s not going to happen again.” He couldn't promise me that. We both knew it.

“No, Harry. I don’t know that. I also don’t know that you’re not going to get bored with me and go back to sleeping around with every female that’ll open her bloody legs.”

“I haven’t slept with anyone since I’ve met you, Logan.”

“That doesn’t mean that you won’t.” We stared at each other angrily, loud silence filling the room. I wanted run, but I also didn’t wanted to fight with him anymore, “I think I owe it to him to give him a chance.” Zayn had been there through pretty much everything with the exception of recent events. He’d always been a friend even when I acted like a proper bitch.

“And what about me?”

“Come on, Harry. You’ve said it yourself. You don’t date, and I’m not just going to be another notch on your bedpost.” That was the last thing I wanted. It was what I’d been trying to avoid from the start of our friendship or whatever it was that we had going on.

“You know you mean more to me than that.” I wasn’t sure about anything. There was still the possibility that he was here because he wanted something from me, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got it.

“Do I? Because from the beginning all you’ve wanted was to shag me. You only stuck around because I told you it wasn’t going to happen, and you love a challenge.”

“It’s not like that anymore, Logan. I lo-“ He froze, his sentence cutting off before he could finish. My eyes widened, and my heart rate sped up. If he was going to say what I thought he was, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’d never said those words to anyone, and I for damn sure wasn’t about to say them to Harry.

“You what?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Whatever I say, it’s not going to be good enough for you. I’m never going to be good enough for you.” I felt my heart crack as I saw sadness fill his eyes. Why was all of this so hard? Without giving it much thought, I knew my answer, but it was too late. His expression said it all.

“Harry—“

“Don’t. I get it. I’ll see you around.” He walked out of my room, slamming the door behind him. It took all of five seconds for me to break down in tears. I’d just lost my best friend.