As Happy As I've Never Been...

~Chapter Fourteen~

There’s a spit take, and it came out of Jared. I wipe the chocolate milk that got on my arm off it, as Jared begins to ramble.

“But Bella! What about classes?!”  He asks her, aghast.

“I'm going to transfer to a school in London, that’s what that envelope is.” She says, flashing a brilliant smile.

“But what are we going to do without you?” Jared asks, and the look on his face makes Bella drop her smile.

“Jared, you’ll live.” She says, reaching out and stroking his beard, which usually calms him. Jared may look all tough with his full on beard, but he’s still a child at heart, he still needs those comforting motherly moments. I reach over and hug him.

“We’ll be ok Jared.” I say while hugging him, and he hugs me back tightly, not willing to admit that he needs it.

“Rachel.” Liam says, and I release Jared to look at him, “the offer still stands.” He says.

“What offer?” Niall pips up for the first time.

“I asked Rachel if she wanted to come back to London with us.” He says. “I'm sure Jared could come too. I mean boys, think about how we missed her. Think about the excitement and how badly we all wanted to see her. Do you remember? Because I remember, and even though we all adore Jordyn, Eli, and Rebecca, Rachel was the first one we meet. Rachel was the girl that wasn’t afraid to tell us off at Nando’s and wasn’t afraid to be alone backstage with 5 total strangers.” He says, completing his little lament.

“But she knew we were famous by the time she got backstage.” Niall brings up, a reasonable arguing point.

“True, but think about the Rachel we’ve all come to know. That meant nothing to her because she wasn’t obsessed with our music, like she was with Ed’s. She wasn’t clouded by fame.” Harry says, fighting Liam’s side quite well.

“Guys, this debate is useless.” I said and they freeze and look at me. “I can’t leave, I have always wanted to live in New York, and the fact that I'm here and doing ok, if I do say so myself, and I can’t give up on New York now.” I say, and I can’t even look at them, so I cast my glance on the table in front of me.

“But, what about the accents? Where’s your sense of adventure?” Louis asks, and I look up at him as Jordyn gives him a nudge to the ribs and a look that is telling him not to get involved.

“My sense of adventure is right where it should be, with me in New York. And I mean, I'm a Texan, any accent outside of Texas floats my boat, and right now, my boat is happily drifting.” I say, and add a hand motion to emphasis my point. As I say that, my phone vibrates in the pocket of my jacket. I pull it out to see that Ed is calling. I excuse myself to answer his phone call.

“Hello?” I answer.

“RACHEL!” Ed yells from the other end.

“Yes?” I ask, slightly concerned.

“I want to confess something.” He says, and I don’t have a good feeling about this.

“…Go ahead…” I say, knowing that I have to hear what he’s going to say, but still not wanting to hear it.

“First, I need to ask you a question.” He says, but I don’t get a chance to answer, “Did the boys offer to take you back to England with us?” He asks.

“Well, yes, but-“ I start to say, but he cuts me off.

“Did you believe me when I said that I loved you?” He asks me, and a small optimistic part of me is saying that he wants me to go to England with them because he loves me, but this question is too weird for that to be true, so I take a moment to respond.