Guarded

30

Everyone was in such a state over the next two days. I was constantly on edge and I felt bad for everyone else that this crazy stalker was now affecting. My Aunt had left Brandon’s and was at the house over the next two days. Apparently, a police cruiser had been posted outside of Lizzy’s house as well now. Harry and the rest of the band’s security had been stepped up and he said they literally could not go anywhere without at least four security guards. I had barely left the house. I was meant to have a salon appointment Sunday afternoon, but had the stylist come to my house instead.

Harry was certainly in for a surprise, I thought, after the colorist finished with my hair. It was now a dark chocolate brown. Bye bye to the blonde. I didn’t look like the self I was used to, but I liked it. It was refreshing and different and it felt like the perfect start of something new.

The detectives still hadn’t been able to figure out what ‘2 days’ meant until I realized that’s when Harry would be arriving in Los Angeles. My heart sank. Somehow she knew. Well, it wasn’t exactly privlediged knowledge, but it meant that she was still in LA and somehow she was watching me and my friends and we felt like our privacy had been breached – well, what we had left of it.

Monday morning arrived and I woke up, feeling more excited than I had in the last couple of days. I had been beyond stressed on Saturday after Lizzy stopped over and on Sunday hadn’t even left the house. For some reason I always loved Mondays because they were the start of a new week and if things were bad last week, this was the chance to start things off with a fresh outlook. I was amazed at my sudden positive outlook on life when I had been such a gloomy cloud for the last few weeks. Then I remembered the reasoning for my good vibes. Harry was back in LA in less than three hours.

Lizzy had come to pick me up and I tossed her a bag and a wrapped up sheet up paper. “You’re kidding, right? I’m not wearing this.” She tossed it back to me.

“Come on! It’ll be hilarious. Besides, if we act like we’re one of them, maybe will notice it’s us.”

“I hate you for making me do this, but I love your logic behind this.” She tugged off her tank top and pulled on the ‘I LOVE NIALL’ t-shirt I had ordered for her. I was wearing my ‘I LOVE HARRY’ t-shirt proudly under my hoodie and had stayed up late last night designing cheesy posters for us to hold when we met the boys at the airport.

We listened to One Direction the whole way to the airport and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Can you believe three weeks ago I had no idea who these people were?”

We pulled into the short-term parking and threw up our hoods, our sunglasses covering our eyes and followed the crowd of teenage girls swarming into the airport. I laughed overhearing their conversations.

“I hear Niall likes red-heads. Do you think if I dye my hair red he will like me?”

“Harry’s going to look at me and leave that stupid Archer girl anyway. Everyone knows Harry prefers brunettes,” she cackled tossing her brown hair over her shoulders.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, we will see. We stood a bit off to the side in the arrivals hall, waiting for the boys to come through. Their flight landed about twenty minutes ago so they should be collecting their baggage and coming through at any moment. Security guards held the crowd of girls back but somehow we had gone unnoticed. I heard screams and cheers and the whole crowd surged forward as I made out a mop of curly brown hair held back by a bandana and a pouf of blonde hair make their way into our line of vision.