Demons

Chapter 46

*LACEY'S POV*

I was not looking forward to school today. Not emotionally or physically. Sulkily, I greeted Lillian with an unenthusiastic 'good morning.' She just nodded in understanding, for she knew. The anticipation in seeing both Harry and Niall in school was killing me.

"How are you feeling?" asked Lillian after a few minutes of the both of us eating cereal in silence.

"I think I have a temperature. I must be getting sick, maybe I should just stay home." I groaned, and she shook her head at me.

"You know, you're going to see Harry or Niall around town, because Lake Birchville is pretty small." She explained with a small smile on her face from my dramatics.

"I know."

There was a small knock on our door and I walked over to get it. Seeing Damian wait on our porch patiently to pick me up for school, I opened the door.

"Oh my god, Lace. Ava told me everything!" Damian rambled, tackling me in his warm hug. Finally feeling some remote happiness after this weekend, I squeezed him back.

"I'm fine, Damian. But it's so nice to see you," I smiled into his chest and he picked up my school bag from the table behind us.

"Good, good. We're late though, so are you ready?" He pulled out of the hug and waved at Lillian, who returned the greeting.

"Nope." I stated simply and his face turned confused, while Lillian rolled her eyes at me.

"Yes she is, Damian. You two have a great day and get the hell out of my house." Lillian chuckled and Damian pulled me out the door, as if I would start kicking and screaming like a child. It was funny; the way Lillian contrasted my mother Sandra in so many ways.

That's how Sandra used to send me off to school. With a, 'get the hell out of my house.' And a slap. Lillian said the same words, and yet they had the opposite meaning.

"Are you really okay?" Damian's sweet voice gently shook me out of my thoughts.

"Honestly? I don't know, Damian. Harry and I broke up and that last thing I want is to run into him or Niall, anywhere." I sighed, running my hand through my slicked straight hair, messing it up a little.

"What about Zayn?"

"What does he have to do with this?" I was thoroughly confused and Damian looked at me like I was missing something.

"You don't remember? - never mind." He stopped himself midsentence and focused back on the street instead of me.

Even though I had no idea why Zayn was brought up, I didn't want to further the conversation. Talking about him would just make both Damian and me uncomfortable. Damian always had a 'bad feeling' about Zayn, and Zayn had just too many good feelings for me.

--

Harry didn't show up to school today. Relief was the main feeling I had, but was conflicted with unmeasurable amounts of guilt. I felt like I had broken him when I ended things on Saturday, and I wasn't feeling too 'fixed up' either.

Was it my fault? Should we still be together? All I can say for sure is that: Harry made me happy and provided a good diversion from life. But he also was a main source of my negative emotions: betrayal, anger, hatred, lack of respect. What would be a healthy balance between these two?

How come I only started to truly miss him once we had broken up? He was gone a lot while we were dating, but I never missed him as much as I did now. That's because you had Zayn before. So in fact, Harry was my distraction from everything and Zayn was just a distraction from him. I shouldn't have treated Zayn so badly.