𝐃𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒! | harry styles

𝐕𝐈𝐈

RED Alert – Cameron is wearing yesterday's scrubs.

I blink at the screen of my phone, my mind still cloudy with sleep, and wonder if I'm reading this correctly. A part of me wonders if I'm dreaming.

I blindly fumble through a text message. How do you know?

He has paint on the bottom of the leg where he leaned against a wet wall. I'd know those pants anywhere.

Okay, not going to touch that one. But does this mean…?

He won't talk to me about it…

I lie back on my bed, grinning, because holy mother of secret affairs, Cameron is so getting it on with Dr. Hale. I knew it.

I roll back over in bed and I'm just starting to doze off again when my phone beeps. I think of ignoring it, but my mind is unable to disregard anything to do with Harry. And I'm a tiny bit disgusted with myself, but obviously not enough to stop.

What are you doing?

I look at the time. It's eight forty-seven according to my cell phone. I usually sleep much later on my days off, my way of making up for the days I have to wake up at five a.m. Plus, I was so plagued with thoughts of Harry and the way his lips felt against mine – the way his hair felt intertwined through my fingers – that I couldn't sleep a wink. And I won't even get started on how much obsessing I did over the entire ordeal.

It was an insane amount of obsessing.

I'm not proud of myself.

I WAS sleeping, I text him.

If I don't get to sleep in then neither do you.

I smile smugly at the phone and roll over again, burying myself beneath the covers, but not before I put it on silent and send one last text.

Watch me.

* * *

"So…you kissed…I knew you would…that's awesome…it was…the dress…right?"

Zoey's words come in broken fragments as she lowers her torso up and down, crunching again and again, now on two-hundred-and-something and still not even breaking a sweat. I don't know how she does it; I feel like I'm starting to perspire just from holding her knees together.

"It was good," I admit, exasperated. "And that's not good."

Zoey gives me a quizzical look, never faltering in her crunches, until she finally collapses on the floor. Her arms fall wide at her sides as she breathes in and out heavily.

"Let me get this straight," she says, propping herself up on her elbows. "The kiss was good?"

I nod sheepishly, feeling a little embarrassed discussing it.

"And that's not good?"

"Right."

"I don't understand."

"I don't want to be tied down with anyone right now," I say as we swap places on the floor. She holds my knees tightly as I get in position, my hands behind my head. "I just want to be single. You know? Is that so bad?"

She shakes her head, but she still doesn't seem to understand. "How come? What's so great about being single?"

"What's great…is that…it's like…freedom…"

I can't talk while I'm crunching, so I eventually stop trying. But that doesn't stop Zoey.

"Let me tell you, April, Harry is a good guy. I mean yeah, he can be a dick sometimes, but what doctor isn't? And hell, have you spoken to some of the nurses around there? I'd slit my wrists before I let some of those bitches take care of me. Not to mention he's like a goddamn saint compared to Dr. Biers."