Crooked Heart

Fiona arranged to pick up Eli from the house at five for an early tea. She felt bad that they wouldn’t be spending New Year’s Eve together, as did Allison, who’d come over last year for the big do that her parents hosted. It was mostly for co-workers and their families, and Fiona had felt out of place even before she moved away. She was looking forward to the rave, but sorry that her and Eli wouldn’t get to count down to midnight together.

To make up for it, she and Allison were taking him to his favourite restaurant for tea. It was a pasta-centric restaurant where the portions were so massive you didn’t need to eat anything else for days. Fiona could only manage to go there once every few months, and often didn’t eat pasta for weeks afterward. But it was Eli’s favourite place, so she went anyway.

Since she’d gone to Allison’s immediately after Harry and Niall left, not saying a word to her parents, the silence at the front door was long and awkward when she came to get her brother. Fiona was just glad it was a Wednesday, and although her mum had the day off of work, her dad still had to go into the office. The silence was a little more bearable when it was Frances, because Fiona didn’t feel the innate desire to shout at her.

She kept on reminding herself that her mother was trying to accept her, and that it was her dad that exacerbated the negativity. If anything, her mum just wanted to understand her own daughter better, but she had no idea how to go about doing that.

“Will you be coming home tonight?”

“Dunno.”

“Will we see you before you go back to uni?”

“Probably, I have things here to take with me.”

Eli came to the door then, jacket on and beanie tugged over his hair. He squeezed past their mum and down the steps, already at the gate before Fiona or Frances had said anything else. “Well, have a nice time.”

Fiona nodded, turning to follow Eli off the property. Allison was waiting on the pavement, hands stuffed in the pockets of her mustard yellow duffle coat. “Evening, sir,” she said to Eli.

He laughed. “Evening, madam.”

The restaurant was on a street littered with cafes and miscellaneous shops, selling everything from yarn to athletic wear. They went inside, and the early hour allowed them to get a table fairly quickly. Eli sat with Allison on one side of the table and Fiona sat on the other, directly across from her brother. He was eagerly examining the menu, but they all already knew he’d be ordering the fettucini alfredo.

“Why aren’t you coming to our house tonight?” Eli asked, after they’d ordered.

“Fiona and I already have plans, love,” Allison said.

“What plans?”

“Remember Niall and Harry?” Fiona asked.

Eli threw her a look. “Of course I do, I saw them yesterday.”

“All right, well, we’re going to be hanging out with them and a few other friends of ours.”

“Why can’t I come?”

“Because the place we’re going isn’t for kids,” Fiona said.

Eli frowned. “That’s unfair.”

“Sorry, kid,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t make the rules.”

He sat back in his chair, arms folded over his chest, bottom lip stuck out in a pout. “I don’t care, anyway. All my friends are coming to mum and dad’s party so I don’t need you there.”

Fiona met Allison’s eyes, both of them fighting smiles off their faces.

+++

Fiona and Allison sat on the bus amidst the other equally as dressed up Outer London residents, all on their way to parties and events in the city. They had spent the last hour in Allison’s bedroom deciding what was rave and weather appropriate wear, and Fiona was still adjusting to the result of that. She kept on tugging on the hem of the red velvet dress Allison had loaned her, thankful that she’d put on a pair of compression shorts underneath, because the form-fitting dress was definitely going to ride up when she danced. But despite the unreliable hem, it made her legs look ace and matched her burgundy lipstick, so she’d agreed to forego her dress ban for the night.

But what concerned her more than the fact that the hem of her borrowed dress kept riding up was that Allison had admitted to harbouring a crush on Niall.

It was a strange idea, since the two of them couldn’t be more opposite. Niall was like a bubble of energy, and Allison more calm and composed. What had drawn her to him, Fiona had no idea. But she’d recently been wondering if that was just how it was, if there didn’t always need to be an explanation or a cause. Perhaps attraction didn’t need to be a thing you could explain with words, like ‘he likes books’ or ‘she plays football’ or ‘they’re a fan of naps,’ but something that you felt, and the rest of the stuff came later. Fiona had been attracted to plenty of people she knew nothing about, people she knew too much about, those she liked and those she didn’t. But there were some things that, despite the attraction, couldn’t be overlooked. She knew what those qualities were in herself that people didn’t like, and she knew what it was in Niall that made him unfit for someone like Allison.

“Even though you know all about his sex life?” Fiona asked suddenly, because she couldn’t wrap her head around the concept of Allison fancying Niall. Her friend just sighed, and it was enough of an answer. “You’ve seen how many girls he takes home. How he doesn’t call. Even then?”

“You’re my best mate, Fiona, it’s not like I think any less of you for being shit at romance.”

“Oi,” Fiona protested, though she knew Allison had a point. “And it isn’t romance. It’s sex. Niall doesn’t do romance. I don’t think his brain is wired that way.”

“We’re opposites, I know,” Allison said. She slid down in her seat, propping up her feet on the back of the seat in front of them. She’d opted for black jeans and a filmy silver top. It was almost like the two of them had switched styles to ring in the new year. “He only knows sex and I only know romance.”

“You’re not gonna try and like… reform him, are you?”

Allison scoffed. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I know you aren’t, I just wanted to… okay,” Fiona shrugged, folding her arms over her chest. She had on her wool moto jacket to combat the cold — there had even been a few flurries earlier that day, but Fiona hoped that the weather would hold out for when she wasn’t wearing a dress and no tights. “I wouldn’t mind it if you did, he needs to be taught a lesson on how to properly treat women.”

“You’re hardly qualified to be criticizing Niall,” Allison said, but her tone was light. “Do you want to talk about Isabel?”

Fiona frowned. “Who’s Isabel?”

“Pretty girl, brown eyes, dreadlocks—”

“Oh. Right. Thank you, I understand.”

Allison smirked. “I’m not judging you. She got over it, eventually.”

“That was, like, six months ago. I was dating Wren.”

“But you didn’t have to deal with it for the next two months, because she wasn’t in half of your summer term courses.”

“I’m sorry for that. But I did have a girlfriend!”

“That doesn’t mean you can just be rude to people. This is something we’re working on, remember?”

Fiona folded her arms over her chest. “I didn’t think I was that rude. I was being nice, even. Telling her she should move on. It was the right thing to do.”

“You shouted at her in the middle of a crowded room, Fiona.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Because Wren had made you do shots.”

“Now that I remember. They were body shots.” Allison groaned, and Fiona sensed the need to explain herself better. "Look, the way I see it, it's worse to drag someone along and let them think you're something you're not or that the situation is different than to be a little… blunt with the facts. I know I could work on the delivery better, but the truth is that I'm doing people like Isabel a favour when I tell them I'm not the one they're looking for."

“Why not?” Allison asked quietly. Fiona leaned her head back and gazed at her friend, examining the soft pout on her lips and the crease between her brows. “Why aren’t you the one they’re looking for?”

“I get the feeling we aren’t talking about Isabel anymore.”

“Don’t deflect, Fiona.”

She sighed, looking past Allison and out the window. The flurries from earlier were still coming down, but the snow wasn’t sticking. It would probably turn into rain eventually; there was hardly ever snow in the city. “People… a lot of them want something I can’t give. I tried with Wren, and for a while there I thought I’d actually found someone who understood me, so I let myself relax. But it turned out the person she wanted was the one I’d been trying to be, and not the person that I am.”

“You haven’t let her go yet, have you?”

“It’s not that I haven’t let go, it’s that she’s the only basis of comparison for relationships that I have. Other than her, my longest partner was Stephen bloody Evans, and that wasn’t even a thing, really.”

“But you told me comparing was a bad thing.”

Fiona was really starting to hate how long the bus ride into London was. If she’d known Allison would want to have a deep conversation on their way to a rave, she would have tried to make an excuse for going to meet the lads earlier. “It can be. But you’re bound to learn something about yourself by comparing all the people you’ve gone out with and how things have ended. If there’s a pattern, it’s not like you should just ignore it, right?”

“What’s the pattern?”

“You know what the pattern is. You’re the only person I talk to about this stuff.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I just want to hear you say it.”

Fiona’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “I don’t have the emotional capacity for a proper relationship. There. Happy?”

“No, because it isn’t true.”

“I really don’t need you to tell me that it’s all in my head right now.”

Allison forced Fiona to loosen her arms, then grabbed her hand and pulled it into her lap, lacing their fingers together. “Fine,” she said, adopting a casual expression. “But it is all in your head.”

“Oh, piss off.”

Rather than continuing to get Fiona to admit things she didn’t want to admit, Allison let them ride the rest of the journey in silence. Fiona was still thinking about her friend’s crush on Niall, and how they were on their way to meet him, and how strange it was to think that someone as lovely and wonderful as Allison could fancy an idiot like Niall. It wasn’t that he was intellectually stupid, just that he lacked in some important social skills. Fiona might have been a bitch, but at least she was upfront about it. She wondered if she’d ever have to punch Niall to defend Allison’s honour, and hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Part of the reason he got away with being such a prat was that he really was a nice person overall, and it felt wrong to hit him, even if he deserved it.

When they arrived at the arranged meeting place, halfway between the lads’ hostel and the party venue, Fiona was unconsciously analyzing all of Allison and Niall’s movements. When Niall gave Allison a peck on the cheek, she checked for any sign of blushing or lingering, and saw none. From what she knew of her friend, Fiona did not expect her to be remain cool and unbothered.

Then again, she had hid the crush for who knows how long and Fiona had never noticed.

“You’re thinking very hard there, Fee.”

Fiona scowled at Harry, who had the audacity to wear all-black (even down to his boots, which were usually a horrible camel colour). The only thing that wasn’t black was his beanie, which was electric blue. She didn’t know who wore beanies to raves and thought it was a good idea, but somehow Harry managed to pull it off without looking like a wanker.

Even if they’d had a heart-to-heart, he was still Harry fucking Styles, bane of her existence. Fiona was not about to let that go, but found that she liked how he was grinning again whenever she glared at him.

She was sorely regretting not having a drink before she left, because they’d fallen into pairs as they walked. Louis and Zayn were somewhere far behind sharing a spliff, and Fiona might have gone and joined them, but Allison and Niall were walking together and she didn’t want Harry to go and ruin that. While she might not have trusted Niall at all to treat Allison properly, she figured she might as well give Allison — and Niall — a chance to get it right. But doing that meant she was stuck with Harry.

“Has um…has anything happened at home?”

“Since you saw me yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I’ve been at Allison’s most of the time.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It was never very good.”

Harry placed his hand on her spine, slowly sliding it down and coming to rest against the small of her back. “Give it time.”

“It’s been two years,” she muttered.

“During which you were still a kid in their eyes, and then you moved away and you’ve only seen each other a handful of times,” Harry said. “Problems don’t get fixed over the phone.”

Fiona could feel his thumb brushing back and forth through her dress, and found it hard to focus on anything else. She didn’t know when Harry’s touch had become a comfort, or a distraction, and couldn’t decide whether or not it was a bad thing. “I want to fix it now,” she said quietly. “I didn’t before. But it needs to get better. Not just for Eli, but for all of us.”

“That’s good,” Harry replied. The positivity in his voice was genuine, not overzealous like Niall could sometimes be.

“It’s gonna be shit, though,” Fiona sighed.

“That’s life, though, innit?”

Fiona glanced at him. “Inspiring, Harry. Really.”

“I live to inspire.”

“Shut up.”

+++

It was loud. Fiona couldn’t remember how much she’d had to drink, but it was probably a lot by the way the lights were more like squiggles than straight beams. The old factory was massive, reminding her of the gallery Cassidy worked with its exposed beams and raw nature. But despite the size, it was packed full of bodies. There were people crowding the three bars (each lit up by a different colour — blue, green, pink), people pressed up against one another on the dancefloor, people huddled together in every available inch of floor to talk. Fiona had lost her friends hours ago; the last person she’d seen was Zayn, phone pressed to his ear, running off to somewhere more quiet where he could talk to Cassidy.

Fiona had been dancing with a pretty blonde girl, but she turned around and the girl was gone, replaced by someone much broader and more muscular, wearing a shirt from some rugby team. He wasn’t her type, but Fiona was feeling light and her brain was more of a buzz than a coherent string of thoughts, so she let him put his hands on her hips and kept on dancing. It was fine at first, his hands stayed where they were and he didn’t move much. But then, quite quickly, it wasn’t fine at all. Fiona might have been very drunk, but she was still sober enough to know when someone had crossed the line between dancing and groping.

While a good slap or a knee between his legs might have been her regular course of action, Fiona spotted an electric blue beanie out of the corner of her eye and threw her hand out, just catching the loose sleeve of Harry’s top. The tall boy stumbled into her, breaking the grip that Rugby Shirt had on her arse, and Fiona held on tight to his sleeve, her other hand snaking up to the back of his neck.

“Uh, Fee, what are you doing?” Harry near-shouted, when she pulled him closer to her, watching Rugby Shirt over Harry’s shoulder and waiting for him to wander off.

“Just shut up and dance with me.”

When Rugby Shirt gave up and shouldered his way through the crowd, Fiona loosened her grip on Harry’s shirt and the hand on the back of his neck slid around to his chest. The music thudded in her ears, some horrible electronic thing that Liam probably would’ve liked. But she was dancing to it anyway, because it was New Year’s Eve and she needed a fresh start, and dancing had that effect of making all your troubles seem a little further away.

Though having her body awfully close to Harry’s didn’t seem like the sort of fresh start she’d imagined, Fiona the fact that she didn’t feel like throwing up or punching him was probably a good sign. That, or she was far more intoxicated than she realized.

It might have been the heels on her shoes making her in a prime position for staring at Harry’s lips, but Fiona wondered what it would be like to kiss him. She almost had months ago, and had regretted even the thought of it afterwards, but the atmosphere and the lights and the fact that the only thing she could seem to focus on was him and his hands on her hips was making her wonder again.

Rather than shout, Harry leaned down to speak in her ear. “Why are you dancing with me, Fiona?” he asked.

She tugged on one of the curls poking out from under his beanie, and decided that telling him a bloke had been grabbing her arse was probably not a good idea. She went with the next possible truth. “Because I want to dance and have fun, and I know that you aren’t going to try anything because you know I’ll kill you.”

“Will you?”

“Very slowly and painfully, yes. I plan on enjoying it.”

He chuckled, gaze wandering down to her mouth. “You’re acting very strange tonight, Fee.”

She caught the look. “I don’t usually drink vodka, I think it’s messing with my brain. On that note, I think I’ll get another.”

“D’you want me to come with you?”

“No, you’re all right.”

Fiona stumbled away from him, holding the strap of her handbag tightly. When she reached the green bar, her hands finding the edge as she leaned over on it, she noticed that her heart was beating quickly — but it wasn’t from the music.

Once she had the barman’s attention she ordered herself a shot, and then another. People surrounded her, ordering their own drinks, and Fiona was overwhelmed by the scent of perfume and cologne and sweat. “All right there, love?”

Fiona blinked up at the man in front of her. He had stubble on his jaw and half a dozen glow necklaces on, and even if she thought glow necklaces were a little silly, he wasn’t too hard on the eyes. “All right yourself,” she replied.

The man grinned at her unimpressed tone. “Can I get you something?”

“No,” she decided. Not because she didn’t want him to, but because she’d probably fall over if she had anything more to drink. His face fell. “But you can keep talking to me.”

“Okay,” he chuckled, sliding into the spot next to her and waving down the barman. “I’m Callum.”

“Fiona,” she said, shaking his hand.

“You’re from London, then?”

“Unfortunately,” she said, and he laughed. Callum ordered his drink, and then turned back to her. “And you’re from Scotland. Long way away, that.”

Callum grinned at her over the rim of his plastic cup. “Nah, ‘s not so bad. I live here, though.”

“That’s even worse,” she informed him.

“Not a fan of London, are you?”

Fiona wrinkled her nose. “Too busy.”

“It is at that.” Callum said something else, but Fiona was looking past him at Harry, stood a few feet away with Louis, his brows raised. He motioned the glow necklaces, then lifted his hands and shook his head at her, grinning. Fiona scowled at him. At least Callum wasn’t all shrouded in darkness except for a stupid hat.

“I’m sorry, what?” she said, when she realized Callum was still talking.

But he thought she simply couldn’t hear him, and leaned in. “I asked how you came to be here tonight if you don’t like it in London. This place is pretty busy.”

“Oh. A friend of a friend organized it.”

“Really? Tell them they did a top job, then.”

“The music could do with a change.”

Callum laughed. “This is a rave, Fiona.”

Over his shoulder, Harry was still stood with Louis and some other lads. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to their conversation, and was already looking at her when her gaze found his. They stared at each other for a long moment, not breaking the look even when bodies passed between them.

Then he stuck out his tongue.

Fiona rolled her eyes and flipped him the bird, making him laugh. She returned her attention to Callum, only to see him watching her with a confused expression on his face. “Am I boring you?” he asked.

“No, sorry, a friend of mine is just being a twat,” she said, and smiled at Callum to make up for her own rude behaviour. The corner of his mouth twitched, and then he was smiling back. “Now, what were you saying?”

It turned out that he was very boring, and Fiona found herself looking for Harry again. She thought she saw his beanie bobbing amongst the crowd, apologized to Callum for wasting his time, and staggered into the fray. The beanie turned out to be someone with actual blue hair, and Fiona was all the way on the other side of the building near the pink bar with absolutely no clue where any of her friends were.

It seemed odd that midnight hadn’t come and gone yet, but one glance at the massive digital clock over the DJ booth indicated that it wouldn’t be long now. Fiona had thought she’d grab someone, anyone, to kiss at midnight, but now all she could think about was Harry.

She needed a cigarette. The stamp on her hand would get her back in, so Fiona went outside and past the other smokers, leaning against the brick wall around the corner. He must have been following her, because not long after she lit up Zayn was sauntering around the corner. “You walked right past me,” he said around his own cigarette, still between his lips.

“Sorry,” she muttered, taking a drag.

“Having a good night?”

“Oh, wonderful. Almost kissed Harry again.”

“Again?” Zayn asked softly, though he didn’t sound surprised.

She tilted her head and smiled thinly at him. “Like he hasn’t told you. He tells you everything, doesn’t he?”

“A fair bit, I guess,” Zayn shrugged. “He tells you stuff too, Fiona. More than he does Niall or Louis.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he thinks very highly of you,” Zayn said. “Told me so last night, when him and Niall got back from yours.”

Fiona stared at the pavement, thoughts swirling in her head. None of them made very much sense, all muddled and blurred with the weight of the alcohol she’d consumed. She could still feel the music making her bones vibrate, and wrapped her free arm around herself. “I think I’m friends with him. How did that happen? I hate him.”

Zayn chuckled. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Piss off and let me smoke in peace.”

“Nah, I’ll stay here I think. You’re scowling at the air, it’s funny.”

Fiona went to hit him, but her hand fell short and dropped uselessly to her side. Zayn laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. She had been scowling at the air, but that was because it was cold and she hadn’t gotten her jacket from coat check before coming out. It looked like Zayn had, though, the leather hanging off him effortlessly. She was scowling because of Harry too, like always. She probably would have kissed Callum at midnight if Harry hadn’t been so infuriating.

Her heels were starting to hurt from the platform ankle boots, something she hadn’t noticed inside where the music made her brain hurt and people were more like blurs under the lights. She leaned her head back against the brick wall and considered sitting down, but the velvet dress was too nice for that — and not hers.

Something chimed, and Fiona saw Zayn pull out his mobile to check a text. “Cassidy?” she asked.

Zayn shook his head, but didn’t say who it was, placing his cigarette between his lips to type out a reply with both hands. He slid the device back into his pocket and grinned at her. “You should wear stuff like that more often, you look nice.”

“I’m not cut out for dress life,” Fiona said, tugging on the hem of the velvet dress. “I could never run from danger in these shoes, either.”

“What danger are you gonna be running from?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I need to be prepared.”

Zayn regarded her with amused eyes. “You’d fight,” he said with certainty.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. Or you’d glare at them and they’d be the ones running in the other direction.”

Fiona snorted. “That doesn’t always work.”

“I’ve seen you throw a punch,” Zayn said. “You could take someone Harry’s size.”

“Can you imagine Harry taking a punch? He’d probably get knocked unconscious with one hit.”

“Are you two discussing my fighting ability?”

Fiona spun around, eyes landing on Harry. He hadn’t grabbed his coat either, and walked toward them with his hands tucked under his arms. He flashed Fiona a brilliant smile, then stopped between them, sharing a nod with Zayn. “Fiona reckons you’d get knocked out after one punch,” Zayn said.

“I wouldn’t!” Harry protested, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Where were you?” she asked, promptly changing the subject.

“Inside?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Yeah?” he breathed, almost smiling. Zayn glanced between them and shook his head in a way that suggested he knew something neither of them was aware of, then cast the remainder of his cigarette to the ground and stalked back inside. “What were you looking for me for?”

Fiona shrugged, flicking the ash off the end of her cigarette. “Dunno, guess I wanted to chat.”

“That guy not interesting enough?”

“Nah, he was boring.”

“And I’m interesting?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Fucking weird’s more like it.”

Harry slouched against the brick next to her, his knuckles grazing hers. Fiona had never been much affected by little things like that, but there was something about Harry that got her heart racing. She put it down to too much drink and the fact that it was New Year’s and she wanted to kiss someone. She never would have picked Harry, but he was here and he was looking at her with lazy eyes that made her feel electric. “D’you ever wanna do something,” she asked. “Just for the hell of it?”

Harry gazed down at her, lips pursed. “What do you wanna do? Dance with me again?”

“Something like that. I’ve been wondering what it’s like, not all the time or anything, just—god, do you have to do that?”

“What am I doing?”

“That thing with your mouth, it’s distracting.”

When she looked back at Harry, he dragged his thumb across his bottom lip and smirked at her. “My mouth is distracting?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Harry. It’s only distracting because you’re always drawing attention to it, and I’m drunk, and it’s easier to pretend that I don’t think you’re a wanker and would you fucking—“

She grabbed him, because he kept licking his lips and they were the only thing she could see in the shadowy street, and threw all of the confusion and scattered thoughts about him into the kiss, hoping they would go away if she kissed him hard enough.

It wasn’t what she thought it would be at all. Harry’s lips were chapped and he tasted like gum and some horrible mixed drink they’d been serving inside, and he wasn’t moving at all. Then he pulled away, not far enough to make her release her hold on his shirt, but far enough to cough, smoke tumbling from his lips as he did so. “That was so much worse than I imagined,” he said, grimacing and sticking out his tongue.

“Excuse me?”

“Not you! Shit, Fee, you still had smoke in your mouth. At least have the courtesy to finish exhaling before you kiss me.”

She stared at him, hand still fisted in his shirt, the other at her side with the cigarette dangling between her fingers. She didn’t feel any better, only more confused. Harry was acting like this was any other conversation, with the slightest edge of amusement to his voice at her attitude, like she hadn’t just thrown herself at him.

“Are you going to stare at me all night? It’s very near midnight, you know.”

“You’re so…” she started, and Harry raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t even kiss me back!”

“Well, the smoke in my mouth was a bit distracting,” Harry said, eyes flicking down to her hand on his chest. “I can deal with the smell rather well now, I’ve been practicing. Back in summer I would’ve thrown that piece of tar and carcinogens as far away as possible even if you were in the middle of smoking it. Not that I don’t still think you should quit, because you should. You have nice teeth, Fee, I’d hate to see them ruined. And it can’t be all that good for your run—”

Mostly just to shut him up, but also because she couldn’t stop analyzing how his mouth moved when he rambled, she pressed her lips to his.

But this time Harry reacted. He’d been ready for it, even though she’d interrupted him mid-word, and his hands threaded into her hair and cupped the back of her head, his lips parting against hers. She breathed him in, her hand untangling from his shirt and sliding around to his neck. One of Harry’s hands had wandered down to her hip, and around to the small of her back, pulling her closer. Because of her heels, he didn’t have to hunch over as much as he would’ve if she were in trainers. She remembered being pressed against him on the dancefloor inside, but this was so very far from that.

The buzz in her ears got louder, a steady hum reminding her of how much she’d had to drink. As Harry’s hands roamed down her sides, thumbs pressing against her hipbones and bringing her as close to him as possible, his mouth hot and hungry on hers, Fiona realized that this was not something she would do sober. She might have thought about what it would be like, some strange idea of kissing someone she didn’t like instead of someone she did and how it might be different, but she wouldn’t actually do it.

Because even if she didn’t want to admit it, she did like Harry. His friendship had very quickly become something she wanted in her life — it brought with it something she didn’t have with Niall or Allison or Zayn, being honest with him was easy, whether the stuff she had to say was good or bad, and being able to do both was something she needed in a friend. Harry could take her at her worst, but he deserved better than her.

Even though she wanted to keep on kissing him, just to have this one thing tonight, she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Not to someone that, against her better judgement, she was actually starting to care about.

So she broke the kiss, taking a few steps back for good measure.

Harry stared at her, eyes dark and chest heaving. Then, a sort of disappointed understanding came upon his features. “This still isn’t what you want, is it? Even after that, you can’t do it.”

“I…” she said, glancing down at the cigarette still burning between her fingers before flicking it to the pavement. Fiona looked back up at Harry, and she knew then that they weren’t in the same place, and it would be cruel of her to let him believe they were. “It’s not that. I can’t do this to—with you, Harry.”

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked, frowning.

She pressed her lips together in a tight line, avoiding his eyes. “Nothing. I’m just… I’m not in the right mind to be kissing people like you right now.”

Harry took a step forward, a crease forming between his eyebrows. His tongue darted across his lips, which were stained red from her lipstick. “People like me?”

“If I explained it to you, you wouldn’t like me very much.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she said, holding his gaze for another few seconds before walking past him.

Harry didn’t try and follow. On her way to the coat check, Fiona texted Allison to see if she was ready to leave. While she waited, she saw that the clock inside had passed midnight, and wondered if she’d kissed Harry on time. But the thought of kissing him soon overtook the rest of her mind, and she hastily pushed it away and tried to think of anything else.

When she got back outside, Fiona’s mobile rang. “Hello?” she said, the device between her ear and shoulder as she zipped up her coat.

It was Allison. “Hi, sorry, I’m er… I’m just coming off the Tube.”

“What were you doing on the Tube?”

“Oh my god, Fiona,” Allison breathed.

“Allison, what happened?” Fiona started walking quickly in the direction of the nearest station. “Where are you?”

“Near where we get our bus home. I can try to wait for you, if…”

“No, if the bus comes you go home. I’ll meet you there, yeah?”

“Okay. Hurry, yeah? I’ve been so stupid, Fiona.”