A World of Differences [1DFF]

Chapter 51

Liam's POV

After eleven long hours of tour prep I was ready to do absolutely nothing. I pulled my car into the circular driveway of the new house. Stepping out of the car, I locked the doors as I glided away. I entered the unfamiliar threshold with an odd sense of being home. The other boys had gone out for dinner with some tour mates, but I wasn't in the mood. My face was throbbing and the headache was back.

My initial thought was to overdose (not literally) on painkillers and go to sleep, but I needed to call Char. Just so I could say I tried. Even if she didn't answer, I had tried.

First though, I needed meds. I pulled the bottle Niall had bought me from my backpack and headed to get a drink. After grabbing a water bottle from the confines of the refrigerator, I headed into the bathroom to take a look at my face.

Benefit numero uno of being in band with five other lads? When you tell someone you got a black eye because you were just messing around, they believe you. It wasn't really a lie, and Louis didn't seem to mind. Even though he wasn't talking to me or Lauren for that matter, he didn't want to seem like the bad guy.

I glanced at my reflection unevenly. The sight wasn't pretty and I wondered how so many people had let it slip buy so easily – probably because of the haste, but still. Lauren was the only one that made a big deal over after she stopped crying.

The image of her crying flashed through my head making me feel sick.

We were partners in crime, not worst enemies. We were still best friends, and seeing her that broken when Louis so smugly ignored her the entire day killed me. The whole atmosphere had been off its game, and Louis knew it. None of us had ever seen him so upset. No one even bothered to ask him what was wrong because he looked as though he was about to snap, and the whole time, he wasn't smiling. Louis Tomlinson hadn't smiled all day, unless it was a smug sarcastic one, and those just added to the tension.

Lauren had looked like she was going to snap as well, but from the pressure. Niall and Zayn didn't say a word to her, most likely because they didn't know what to say. To both her and my surprise, Harry was comforting. When she had fallen onto the ground in tears, Harry sat beside her, scooped her into his arms, and held her against his chest. He had run his hands along her back soothing her until the tears had finally stopped.

Harry has certainly had his fix of comforting girls in the past twenty-four hours, I thought to myself. He had taken care of both Charlotte and Lauren.

Harry was good at that—being comforting. His mistaken rep for being a ladies' man often caused people to under estimate his power to be loving and caring, which was exactly what he is. Maybe it's because he is a ladies' man that he knows how to treat girls so well, but the reasoning doesn't matter. What matters is that he just knows how to be there for someone. It's something that I need to learn how to do.

I snapped my thoughts back to reality as I popped the pills into my mouth and swallowed them with a swig of water. I stumbled up to my room which I had finished the previous day. It was the only room in the house, other than the family room, that was completely finished. I sat down on the edge of the bed and took a few deep breaths before pulling the nerve to do something that I was completely dreading.

Charlotte's POV

"Don't answer it."

"RYAN!" Maddie smacked her boyfriend's arm. "Stop that. Go on Charlotte answer it."