Crooked Heart

It was raining when Fiona got out of lecture. She sighed and pulled up her hood, relieved she'd put on wellies that morning. Students were scattering left and right, eager to be out of the rain. Fiona shoved her hands into her pockets, eyes on the ground as she walked toward the bus stop. This stop had a shelter, and since it was late there wasn’t anyone waiting under it. Fiona ducked inside, shuffling over to make room for the other students hurrying along behind her.

One of them maneuvered his way over to Fiona in the narrow bus shelter wearing, of all things, a leather jacket. His smile might have been charming to other girls, but it made Fiona want to vomit.

“I still can’t get my head ‘round the fact that Ariel is a male fairy,” he said, adjusting the strap of his satchel. “That just doesn’t make sense. Ariel’s a mermaid! This play is totally ridiculous, right?”

Fiona pursed her lips, deciding not to reply. It just so happened that The Tempest was among Fiona's favourite Shakespeare plays. She even had a tattoo with her favourite line on the inside of her right arm.

“I think Romeo and Juliet is brilliant,” Liam mused, oblivious to Fiona frowning next to him. Though, to be fair, she did frown quite a lot. And she was only getting more annoyed by the second. If Liam didn’t shut up soon, she’d probably hit him. “Now that’s a good love story. Read it when I was thirteen, I think.”

Fortunately, the bus rolled up in that moment. Fiona hurried past Liam and sat down in the accessibility section, knowing he would never sit there. He actually took the part about it being for elderly and disabled people seriously. He’d told her as much one day, chiding her for taking the seat from somebody who needed it more. Fiona had looked around the deserted bus and sighed for five straight minutes. It didn't even go outside the university district.

Once she was settled, Fiona put in her headphones and cracked open her copy of Metamorphoses. She still had to finish the selected section for their next class. While the bus continued on its route, Fiona focused on her book. She highlighted important lines and scribbled notes into the margins as they popped into her head​. Every few minutes, she glanced up to make sure she hadn’t missed her stop.

Liam got off before Fiona, and if he called out a goodbye to her (which seemed like something Liam would do) she didn’t hear it. When the bus approached her stop, Fiona put away her book and pulled up her hood. She nodded thanks to the driver as she hopped out, boots smacking against the soaked pavement.

Her flat was only a few minutes from the bus stop. Fiona practically ran there, not wanting to be any more drenched than she already was. In the lift, she took off her headphones and tucked them into her tote in exchange for her keys. The doors slid open on the fifth floor, in all its ratty carpeted, beige walled glory. Before she even opened the door to the flat, Fiona could hear them. Laughter reverberated off the walls louder than whatever program they were watching. Fiona slipped in and took off her boots as quietly as possible.

Their flat had an odd layout, where one had to go past the bedrooms and bath to get to the main room. But Fiona liked it, since hers was the first door, making it easy to go unnoticed. When Fiona wanted to be alone, which was more often than not lately, she knew Niall’s comings and goings well enough that she could function in their shared flat without seeing him at all.

That was, of course, if he didn't try and seek her out.

Fiona only got as far as changing into a pair of joggers and plugging in her nearly dead laptop before her stomach grumbled. She wrangled her coffee black hair into a bun, knowing full well that going into the kitchen would mean seeing the boys. Zayn, she could handle. He understood Fiona needed to be left alone sometimes, that it didn’t mean she was depressed or upset, just that she wanted to be by herself. Niall, on the other hand, had no sense of boundaries. Sometimes, Fiona appreciated this particular characteristic. Like the time she'd gone on a bender and blacked out for eighteen hours straight, only to wake up to Niall drooling on her favourite pillow because he hadn’t left her side the entire time. But he was respectful enough to back off when she asked. In the last few weeks, he'd been very careful to avoid a rift between them. If there was one thing Niall hated, it was fighting with his friends. And since they’d started living together, Niall was better at reading Fiona’s mood - even if she was trying to hide it.

Harry was the worst of all. Unlike the rest of her friends, who had picked up on the fact that she wasn’t having a good start of term, start of September, start of being single again, who the courtesy not to push her too soon; Harry acted like nothing had changed. He grinned when she was cross and kept doing all the things he knew bothered her to no end. Fiona was grateful at least one person wasn't treading eggshells around her; she just wished it wasn’t Harry.

Fiona sauntered down the corridor to the common area, taking a left into the kitchen. At first, it seemed like they hadn’t noticed her. The chatter continued while she filled a bowl with last night’s chicken tikka masala and put it into the microwave . But then Niall’s voice cut off mid-laugh, and Fiona knew she’d been sighted. It was inevitable, really, what with the lack of wall separating the kitchen from living room. The boundary between the two spaces was marked by a small round table and the four mismatched chairs that surrounded it.

“Hiiiii, Fee,” Harry droned. His head hung off the end of the sofa that he’d likely be sleeping on later. Fiona grimaced. She hated that nickname, and Harry knew it, so of course he continued to use it.

“How was class?” Niall asked, turning down the television.

Fiona leaned against the counter in front of the microwave, arms folded over her chest. “Fine.”

“Anything interesting happen?”

“Unless you count Liam Payne saying his favourite play is Romeo and Juliet, then no.”

Next to Niall, Harry snorted. The rest of them looked at him, surprised and confused looks on their faces. “Uh, I just…was thinking about something else. Sorry.”

“Anyway,” Niall continued, throwing Harry an odd look. “We’re all going to the pub tomorrow night. Pints are half off.”

“I’m working,” Fiona replied automatically.

“Okay. Next time then?”

The microwave beeped. “Maybe. Dunno.”

She knew she was being rude, but she was too tired and angry to care. Fiona carried her food back to her room, fork between her teeth, and settled into her desk chair. She grabbed her headphones and plugged them into her laptop, having decided to watch Buffy before she got down to work.

While she clicked through Netflix, Fiona checked her work schedule on her phone. She’d worked a lot in August, but with uni starting up again, her availability had declined. The cinema still managed to give her a decent number of shifts; mostly late at night. She usually came home to Harry passed out on the settee and Niall either up doing coursework or snoring away in his bedroom.

There was a knock at her door. Already knowing who it was, Fiona called out for him to come in. A second later, Zayn had slid in and shut the door gently behind him. He sat on the edge of her bed, picking at the wool blanket Fiona’s grandmother had made for her first birthday. It followed her through all the birthdays after that; all the different beds, rooms, and homes.

“Are you really working tomorrow?” he asked.

“You think I lied?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Zayn said, pushing the hair out of his face as he looked at her. “If it was a lie, and you aren’t working, you should come out. It would be good for you.”

Fiona scoffed. “Getting drunk?”

“Yeah. When was the last time you were drunk?”

“Dunno, for about half of August? Right now I’ve got other stuff going on.”

“Well, put it off for a night. It’s not like you’re working.”

Fiona met his gaze evenly, accepting the fact that she’d been caught in her lie.

“It’s healing good,” Zayn said, changing the subject with satisfaction. He nodded at the little crown inked on her left foot. At the end of August, after months of talking about him tattooing her, she finally let him do it. Now she, Harry, Louis, and Cassidy all had a tattoo Zayn had designed and inked himself, except for Niall. “Feels all right?”

“Hurt like a bitch when you were doing it, but it’s fine now.”

“You didn’t believe me when I said it would,” Zayn replied with a grin.

“I didn’t think anything could top this one.” Fiona held up her hand so he could see the lightsaber inked on her right index finger. “But you’ve got a heavy fucking hand.”

“I haven’t!” Zayn protested. “Ask Harry. I’ve done like six of his.”

“And he complains for ages afterwards. Louis is even worse. Honestly, Zayn,” Fiona sighed. Zayn was smiling at her, and it was unnerving. “What?”

“You almost smiled just then.”

“Piss off.”

Zayn raised his hands in mock defence and stood up, headed for the door. “Cass says hi. She’s sorry she hasn’t come by to see you, but she figured you were busy.”

“Yeah,” Fiona nodded, not really listening. She liked Zayn’s girlfriend. Cassidy was like Zayn; quiet, caring, dedicated, not too intrusive. She was friendlier, though, and a little more outgoing than her withdrawn boyfriend.

“So you’ll come out?”

“We’ll see.”

Though she turned back to her laptop, Fiona could sense Zayn linger by the door for a moment, watching her. He was probably contemplating what he’d say to Niall and Harry. Fiona knew they’d taken to discussing her wellbeing when they thought she wasn’t listening. Niall was terrible at sneaking around.

After he was gone, Fiona ate her curry and watched Buffy, then migrated over to her bed with her homework. The mellow tones of The xx drifted through her headphones while she read and annotated. She forgot all about the boys in the other room — laughing and watching awful programs on television — getting lost in the imagery and metaphor of Wordsworth and Keats.

At two, Fiona left the sanctuary of her bedroom to fix a cup of tea. She’d long since finished her readings, but getting more than a few hours of sleep a night was highly irregular for her. Before, when there’d been somebody else sleeping in her bed, Fiona had to be more careful about getting up in the middle of the night for a smoke or a brew. But that wasn’t the case anymore. Niall slept like the dead, so Fiona didn't even have to worry when the floorboards created underfoot. But then there was Harry.

The room was dark, but Fiona could just make out Harry’s lanky silhouette sprawled across the sofa. She found the kitchen area lights and flicked the switch, then put on the kettle. There was a groan from across the room, and Fiona glanced over her shoulder to see Harry bury his face into a cushion. Maybe she should’ve felt guilty about waking him up at two in the morning, knowing he had to be up early for work, but Fiona had a hard time feeling any remorse for the man who insisted upon calling her by a nickname she hated and who ate all the muesli.

“What are you doing?” he whined from the sofa, his voice muffled by a pillow.

“Making tea,” Fiona replied.

“Whyyyyyyy?” Harry asked, lifting his head just enough to squint at her blearily. “’S the middle of the fucking night.”

“Thanks, I wasn’t aware.”

“But I’m trying to sleep. You’re being loud.”

“Sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t. “If you want peace and quiet, maybe you should sleep at your own house for a change.”

Although he started working at the luxury hotel restaurant almost a year ago, and had been commuting just fine in his car for the majority of that time, Harry spent an absurd amount of time in Niall and Fiona’s flat. It just so happened that the hotel was a mere ten minutes away on foot, whereas Harry lived in a house with Zayn and Louis across town. He was practically a third roommate, spending countless nights on the sofa since she and Niall moved in at the end of May. He hadn’t even asked if he could sleep there, he’d just shown up at midnight rambling about what a busy day it had been and he thought he might fall asleep at the wheel if he drove home. Niall had welcomed him in with open arms, and suddenly Harry was sleeping on their sofa three nights a week. Since neither Fiona or Niall drove, Harry’s rusty Mazda now occupied their allotted parking space in the basement garage.

Harry grumbled and buried his face further into his pillow, too tired to argue with her. Fiona finished making her tea, ignoring the occasional exasperated noises Harry made, and flicked off the light on her way out.

She did end up getting a few hours of sleep, and wasn’t up to hear Harry leave around six. Sometimes she was, though, and when Harry didn’t catch his shoulder on the corner when he turned toward the door, he stubbed his toe. He would stumble around in the foyer, tugging on his boots and zipping up his coat — Harry never did anything quietly, even if he was trying to, it was astonishing — before he went out, always shutting the door just a little bit too loudly. Fiona had no idea how he functioned in a kitchen with other people and food and, worst of all, knives.

An hour after Harry would’ve left, Fiona’s alarm went off. She rolled out of bed and stretched her woozy limbs, then put on her running gear and headed out. The sky was pale grey, the city still waking up. It was no longer raining, but the pavement was slick, so she watched where her feet landed as she crossed streets and cut through parks. Her route was well-ingrained after almost two years, but Fiona wasn't running as often as she used to. These days, another habit had taken its place.

Fiona had two favourite times of day: early morning and late night. Not dusk or dawn, but a few hours before and after. The mornings when everything was still hazy, not quite awake. The nights when all but the wildest few had gone to bed, and the stars were out and shining bright.

The rain started up again halfway through her run, so Fiona took a left several blocks early and decided she’d rather cut her exercise short than have to deal with the downpour in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, her already battered trainers not at all equipped for the weather. It managed to stay at a gentle drizzle all the way back to the flat, and Fiona was only a little bit drenched by the time she got inside.

After she changed, Fiona took the remnants of last night's tea with her down the hallway. Niall was belting out along to the radio and shimmying around the kitchen in his pants. Fiona bit back a smile when he attempted to flip a pancake and ended up sending it flying across the room, rinsing out her cup before depositing it into the dishwasher.

“Hungry?” Niall asked, once he’d deemed the pancake was still edible and set it on a plate to the side of the cooker.

“Yeah.” Fiona filled a new cup with coffee and headed over to her favourite piece of furniture — an emerald green, velvet loveseat she and Niall had picked up on the cheap in the Ikea AS-IS section. It was missing a leg, but Niall’s dad was in town helping them move in and had brought his tools along for precisely this sort of situation. He’d attached a bit of wood and the sofa was good as new. The loveseat was the ugliest thing in the entire flat, and Fiona thought that was why she liked it so much. Niall, who had picked it out solely because it was massively discounted and the colour reminded him of Ireland, quickly changed his mind about liking it because it clashed with the rest of their neutral-toned furniture. To make him feel better about it, Fiona had gone and purchased orange and white pillows, and now it was a staple in their small home.

A few minutes later, Niall handed her a plate with a neatly folded pancake on top, the tartness of the lemon and sweetness of the sugar inside wafting up to her nose. Niall was nowhere near as good a cook as Harry, but he excelled at breakfast. He flopped onto the big sofa where Harry slept, propping up his ankles on the coffee table and switching on the news. Despite being a little obtuse on more personal matters, nobody could argue that Niall Horan was not up on today’s current events. If anyone brought up a snippet of a story they’d heard about on Twitter, Niall could provide the various viewpoints and relevant actors on the matter, leaving you fully informed. Fiona had no idea how he kept up with it all, but then again, she could quote Hamlet at the drop of a hat.

+++

“So you’re coming?” Niall asked, his eyes wide and blue and hopeful.

Fiona met his gaze in the mirror before applying one last swipe of liquid liner to her eyelid, making sure the line was smooth. “Looks like it.”

"You don’t have to make excuses, y’know,” Niall said softly. “Like, if you don’t wanna go, just say it. When you lie about having work and shit like that…it feels like you don’t trust me, and I don’t like that.”

“If I didn’t trust you, I never would’ve agreed to move in with you, idiot.”

Niall nodded, leaning against the doorway and sticking his hands in the pockets of his ripped jeans. “Yeah, I know, I just—we’re mates, Fiona. And I dunno, lately it hasn’t really felt like it.

She sighed, finishing up the other eye and swapping the liquid liner for mascara. “What do you expect me to say? I can’t be happy all the time like you. That isn’t me.”

“I’m not asking you to be!” Niall exclaimed. “I just want me best mate back. The one who will sit and eat her fucking curry with us even though she finds us annoying.”

Fiona couldn’t help the endearing smile that curved her lips upward, and Niall let out a cheer. Her smiles were few and far between these days, after all. Once she was finished her makeup, Fiona let Niall wrap his arms around her shoulders as she headed back to her room, almost dragging him along behind her. He didn’t let go when his phone rang, not entirely at least, and kept one arm locked around her as he chatted with Harry on the other end about their plans for the evening.

The rain was heavy when they left the flat, hoods pulled up over their hair and heads down. Niall was nonetheless cheerful, jumping around puddles in his trainers while Fiona walked right through them in her wellies. They took the bus to campus; Niall talked the whole way there so that Fiona didn’t have to. Sometimes this annoyed her, because Niall could talk and talk without realizing that all she really wanted was silence. But he didn’t do it on purpose, unlike Harry, so Fiona hardly ever snapped at him for it.

Today, though, she didn’t mind his endless chatter so much. Niall’s lilting voice was too erratic to be meditative, so she sat and listened and stared out at the rain soaked city zipping by. He told her about the first Model UN meeting and how well it had gone, and how they were planning for the Clubs Fair next week. He went on about some diplomatic stuff she didn’t know, throwing out random terms and political jargon, and suddenly they were pulling up to the stop nearest the on-campus pub, The Gallery. Named thus because of its walls, covered in student art. Most pieces changed on a regular basis, but there were a few that the bar had bought and were permanent fixtures.

Louis, Zayn, Cassidy, and Harry were crowded around a table, its surface already covered in pint glasses, when Niall and Fiona walked through the door.

“And here I was thinking you had to work,” Harry said as Fiona sat down. Niall squished between them like a loud, blonde buffer. Harry leaned his chin on the heel of his hand and grinned at her, his avocado green eyes sparking with anticipation at their impending argument. “Did they not require your expertise in sweeping up leftover popcorn and M&Ms today?”

“That’s not my job,” Fiona spat back, hanging her coat over the back of the chair. She rolled up the sleeves of her jumper and nodded to Niall when he asked if she wanted a pint. He hopped out of his chair and headed for the bar, immediately striking up a conversation with whoever stood nearby.

“Please, enlighten me with the mysterious wonders of working at a cinema.”

“At least I don’t chop vegetables all bloody day,” Fiona scowled, not in the mood for his antics tonight — or any night, for that matter. Her eyes flickered down to his coat, draped over the back of his chair like hers. The pockets were overflowing; a scarf spilling out, along with a battered Moleskine notebook, just visible behind the heather pink beanie he’d been favouring lately. Fiona had noticed the little notebook before; Harry always had it with him. But she had no idea what was written in it, since she’d never actually seen him with it open, only the corners, warped from use, peeking out from one of his pockets or clutched in his hand.

The Moleskine disappeared from her mind as soon as Niall returned, a pint in each hand. He set one down in front of Fiona with a grin, repeating how pleased he was that she’d decided to come out with them.

“I’ll have you know that chopping vegetables is a finely honed skill,” Harry retorted, leaning forward so that he could look at her around Niall.

“Can you two find something more interesting to argue about?” Louis asked. “There’s really no need to prove who has the most boring job.”

“At least we have jobs,” Harry said with a shit-eating grin. Fiona wanted to smirk at Louis, but that would mean siding with Harry, so she picked up her pint and had a long drink.

“Uncalled for!” Louis cried. “Zayn, back me up on this.”

“Nah, mate, Harry’s got a point.”

Louis groaned in exasperation, picked up his pint, and went to sulk over by the bar. After a moment, Niall went and joined him. Fiona suspected they’d each have a girl by the end of the night. They were a highly effective team.

Fortunately, before Harry could find something else to annoy her about, Zayn was getting up and excusing himself to have a smoke. Fiona leapt at the opportunity, dragging her coat back on and checking that she’d brought her cigarettes with her. She had; it was becoming more of a habit to tuck them into her bag when she left the flat.

Fiona and Zayn huddled under the awning of the shop next to The Gallery. Zayn lit Fiona’s cigarette for her, since he had his lighter out before she could fumble through her bag for her own. They smoked in silence, leaning adjacent to the glass windows of the stationery shop next door and flicking ash onto the damp sidewalk. It helped a little bit, but the problem with taking up smoking on the regular, Fiona was starting to realize, was that it lost some of its calming effect. She didn’t have to be exasperated to crave nicotine, to have the little stick between her fingertips, forcing them to stop shaking. She didn’t even have to be angry at all. There was no release, the hazy feeling of watching smoke curl up from her lips in spirals did nothing to ease her nerves like it used to.

But she kept on doing it, now out of habit. She didn’t like it, but that wasn’t enough for her to stop.

Later that night, when the alcohol had brought a pleasant buzz to her ears and the pub was nothing more than a dull hum of voices and music, Fiona found herself slouched in the corridor to the toilets with her phone in hand, staring down at a number she didn’t even know she’d memorized, dialled but not ringing.

“C’mon,” came the distinct cadence of Niall’s voice, cutting through Fiona’s fuzzy senses. “Woah, Fiona, didn’t see you there.”

She looked up, catching sight of a pretty redhead behind Niall who looked almost as drunk as him, and grimaced. “Go on then,” she said, standing closer to the wall so the two of them could snog (or probably more) in the toilets. In the back of her head, Fiona knew she should at least be talking to people rather than moping back here, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

Across the pub at their table, she could see Zayn and Cassidy talking with their heads bowed together. Harry sat across from them, paying absolutely no attention to the phone in his hand. He was watching her intently, his brow furrowed in concern or thought, she wasn’t sure. Fiona stared back unabashedly, her instincts to avoid him like the plague not quite kicking in with all the alcohol polluting her veins.

But then it occurred to her that even with all this space between them, this was far too intimate a moment to share with her mortal enemy, so she looked away.