Took Me By Surprise [Zayn Malik] ✓

Chapter 3: Jittery Jenan

  *Zayn* 

   "Amanda said she went upstairs." Niall's voice reached me from behind. "That means she must be already in there."

   Harry rolled his eyes. "Wow, we would've never thought so if you hadn't told us, Niall." 

   "Let us just stop discussing, and open the door, guys." Liam interrupted shaving his hands into his pockets. "Although your behavior would suggest otherwise, she's only a girl, and not a member of the mafia, so.. come on!"

    "Shall I?" I asked, looking at each of the lads and placing my hand on the doorknob.

   All of them nodded. "Okay." I pushed the handle down and opened the door of Simon's office. The room was quite familiar to us; the long brown desk, the indoor plants, the couch..  The first thing I saw was a black suitcase in front of it. And there...

   Oh.

   A girl of about 17 was sitting on the white couch. She was staring at the mobile phone in her hands, so I couldn't see her face. But of course I noticed the scarf she was wearing, I'm not blind. Wow. I didn't imagine our new roommate to be like that at all.

   And I bet the other boys thought the same. I coughed slightly and said: "Umm.. hi."

   Finally she looked up. For one moment, her brown eyes behind the glasses just stared into mine and for a brief second, it felt as if we were the only two people in the room, but then the moment was over and she averted her gaze to look at the rest of the boys. At last she said: "Hi."

   The room was silent. We didn't know how to act in front of her. I ran my fingers through my hair and watched her pressing her lips together and looking at us in disapproval. And that was when I knew our silence offended her. 

   "Seems the rest of you has forgotten how to speak." she grumbled, grabbed her bag and stood up. She seemed upset and I couldn't blame her for that. First encounters are already a little bit awkward, and we're not really doing much to lighten things up.

   The trance of the boys disappeared and Liam said: "Hey, welcome to London."

   She looked at him and seemed as if she was thinking if Liam's sentence was it worth it to reply. "Well.. thank you." She had a comfortable sounding voice and a strange English accent which was neither British nor American. Where was she from? I remember the day Simon told us about her..

   "Guys, I have something to tell you." Simon sat down behind his desk and looked at us. We stopped talking and turned to him to see why he wanted to see us in his office. What had he to announce? Our schedule was very tight this week and I didn't think we had an additional interview or something.

   "What's up Simon?" Louis asked and leaned against the edge of the desk.

   "By next month, you'll have a new member." Simon said calmly and Louis almost fell backwards.

   "What?" Harry asked, throwing a quizzical look at me, but I had no idea what Simon was talking about.

   "It's only temporary, don't worry. She'll move into your flat in the beginning of May and move out again by the middle of September and you'll never see her again." Simon informed us, browsing through the magazine in front of him.

   "She?" Niall repeated slowly and raised one of his eyebrows.

   "Yes." Simon answered calmly. "But I have to warn you: she isn't an ordinary girl. I want you to treat her with the best treatment and I hope you'll be able to stop acting like jerks for 4 months, okay?"

   We looked at each other. In what way wasn't she an ordinary girl? Where does she come from? What's her name? Why was she going to stay with us in the first place?

   But Simon didn't tell us anything more about her.

   I came back to the present when I heard myself asking: "What's your name?" She looked at me, her brown eyes eyeing me from head to toe. I felt like a schoolboy who did something wrong in front of his teacher. My heartbeat became faster and I looked away.

   "My name is Jenan. And who are you?"

   I was worried and looked down at her again. She was quite short compared to me. "Me? You don't know me? Us?" I snorted and the others giggled with a hint of confusion.

   She knit her eyebrows and played with the edge of her scarf. This simple gesture told me that she was actually a shy girl, and not the cold one she was currently acting to be. "Of course not. Or have we met before and I don't know?"

   The giggles faded and I threw a look at the other boys who seemed just as clueless as me. Seems she comes from a far away country where One Direction wasn't really popular...

   "Err, I'm Zayn." I smiled at her but she quickly turned her head away. Was she really blushing?

   "My name is Louis."

   "I'm Harry."

    "Liam."

    "Niall."

   She nodded. "Sorry if I call someone of you by the wrong name, but I can't keep them in my mind." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm quite forgetful." For some reason, I had a hard time believing this.

   Louis laughed, showing off his teeth. "No problem, gal." this seemed to confuse the girl and another awkward silence spread among the room. How are we going to stay with her for the next couple of months if all of us can't bear to be together in one room? We may as well expect the worst.

   "Let's go, our flat isn't far away." Said Harry, trying to rescue the situation and almost jumped to reach the door.

   The girl, Jenan, went back to the couch and shouldered a laptop bag and a small handbag. The boys began to leave the room, and she went to get her suitcase.

   "I can help you." I said, intending to take the suitcase out of her hands. Since she was gonna stay here for four months, she must have packed a lot and her suitcase must be heavy. Besides that I was quite sure she thought we were weird and unfriendly blokes, so I wanted to prove her we could be nice and helpful too.

   "No!" she quickly said, sounding terrified.

   I winced. What's the problem in helping her? With every minute, I was more confused about that girl and I was worried about arriving at our flat. It felt like a lot of awkward situations were about to happen, more than what I thought just a few minutes before.

   "Sorry, I mean: no. No thanks, it's alright." She muttered, sounding embarrassed, and looked down at the ground. I was making her nervous, I could see it. She quickly pulled the suitcase behind her out of the room and I followed her silently.