Guarded

22

Annaleise’s POV

He stared at me. I saw his mind working, trying to form the right response to what I had just said to him. He fumbled over his words, not being able to utter a complete sentence. He gave up and was silent. His green eyes grew deeper, his brow furrowed and he bit his lip.

“What do you mean?” he asked slowly.

I ran through the story of how this woman pretending to be Cost’s sister had come to my house and met my Aunt and I and told us this horrible backstory of Cost which all turned out to be a lie. I told him of the interview that was supposed to happen and of the seedy motel and how the girl who kidnapped me had talked of nothing but him and how I had ruined her chance of being happy with him.

His expression remained emotionless as he took in the story but his eyes told a different story. I got through the story without crying – I had done enough earlier.

“What did she say her name was?” He asked.

I looked at him, confused. I had just told him this story and all he wanted to know was her name?

“Carissa, is what she was saying.. but the police have no information on her or who she is.”

“Fuck!” He stood up and paced around the room. He pulled out his phone and furiously scrolled through something. He cursed again.

“Harry? What’s going on?”

He didn’t look up and searched through his phone some more. “Here,” he handed me the phone.

I looked at the screen. It was a picture of Harry and Carissa. I looked at him confused. “How did you know that was her?” I asked.

He sat down. “I met her at some meet and greet last time we were touring in the States. She wanted a picture with me and of course I took one. I mean how was I supposed to know? She began to tweet me every day and again I thought nothing of it. But then it got intense. She began to direct message me photoshopped pictures of us in wedding attire and said how she was coming to all of our shows. She somehow got my phone number and started calling me. I changed my number immediately and again still didn’t think anything of it. Then I began hanging out with Kendall Jenner.”

I scoffed and he held up his hand. “Just friends, I swear, and Kendall started getting phone calls from someone. It turns out it was Carissa and honestly, Kendall got freaked out and said she didn’t want to hang out with me anymore because our fans were too intense. I guess there was an incident where Carissa had tried to break into Kendall’s house and she had gotten a restraining order against her. Of course, Kendall didn’t tell me this until months later. I didn’t hear from Carissa on twitter and just shrugged it off until we started our leg of out American tour this year. The tweets started back up and this time they were more intense than ever, asking why I wouldn’t be with her and saying how we were perfect together. I had the account deleted and another would come up. I just ignored them until they stopped – the day we saw each other again.”

I took in what he had said. Lizzy was right. They hadn’t been kidding when they said they had crazy fans. “Let me call the band quick to let them know what’s going on and that you’re okay.” He left the room.