ASHLEY

'Don't leave, please' he falls on his knees and begs. I hate to see him like this. I feel like going back and clinging on to his arms. But I stop myself.

'But you messed it up. I loved you but what did you do instead?'  My angry voice echoes across the room.

Who am I talking to? Who is this person on the floor, begging me to stay?

'Don't go, Ashley, don't go. I can't live without you.' He's crying and so am I. I don't want to leave him. But I've got no choice.

'You left me with no choice. I've given you multiple chances. Bye.....' I did utter a name but I couldn't hear it. It's as if someone messed up the sound system and everything you hear is vague.

I close my eyes and go for it. I exit the doors and don't dare to look back 'cause if I do, I'll fall weak again.
An ocean of tears leave my face as I do so.

This is gonna be hard. I have to live without him now.
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I wake up abruptly, once again. What did I just see? This wasn't a dream. Nor a frightening nightmare. As much as I hate losing people, I hate the fact that I see someone in my dream, but I don't know who.  It's so mysterious. I scratch my shoulders and check my phone. It's 7:30am. I guess people are probably  getting up right now. My alarm was set at 8. But I get up and wear my jogging outfit. A bit of exercise might divert my mind.

-

I return from jogging and feel awake and fresh. I avoid the thought of the dream for now. I check my bag and all the essentials. I zip it and put it aside. I change into a casual winter outfit, with a pair black comfy shoes.

After tonnes of checking and self preparation, I get out of my tent and carefully lug out my heavy bag, filled with used clothes and other items. I put down my tent and slowly fold it back to how it was initially. I wear the strap of my black bag around myself, take the folded tent on my right hand and carry my heavy bag on the other. At that very moment, Shawn appears out of nowhere, which clearly shocks the living crap out of me.

'Good mornin' sis and what do you think you're doing?' he asks but leaves me with a baffled look.

'Good morning. And what am I doing?'

'You know you have a brother around, who's 100% ready to carry your heavy 'genuine leather' bag for you' he sarcastically describes my bag. I roll my eyes and he takes it from me without asking. Total goof, I swear. He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before walking away to keep my bag. In the meantime, I have to work on our plan. Harry and I's. I look behind and he's around 2 meters away, standing, his side facing me. He spots me and gives me a thumbs up, which tells me that I gotta go and talk to Ruby. I nod my head and so does he. He goes to Niall. Luckily, I happen to catch her, near the lake, taking photos with her magnificent camera. She's all alone, which people will think is odd, since she's always with Niall. However, only a handful of people know what actually happened last night.

I walk towards the lake and stand next to her. She is  carefully looking through the photos she has taken.  She doesn't notice my presence until I greet her.

'Hey, Ruby' I clear my throat and she looks at me. She forces a huge smile on her face and embraces me. 

'Ash! Hey good morning!' she quickly whispers into my left ear and rubs my hair. She lets go and we talk about random things for a while, to make it a convenient conversation. My chance comes near and I clear my throat and inhale. 

'Um, Ruby, where's Niall?' She quickly stiffens at that question, and tries to avoid it. Little does she know that I already have the knowledge of what happened. Just don't know why. 

'Um, he'll be, um, around, soon' she continues with a faded tone but still puts a fake smile on her face, to tell me that everything's alright. But it's time for me to be a bit straightforward. 

'Ruby, what's going on?' I blurt out. She looks up at me, eyes wide. Her smile fades away. My questioning might have told her that I knew. 'Nothing.' she replies and smiles, looking away, avoiding to meet my eyes.

'Really? Then why isn't he with you? You both are always together.'I emphasize on the 'always'. She keeps quiet and purses her lips. 'Ruby, I saw what happened between you two.' I add but she still remains silent. She looks down on her camera.

'Can you please say something? I'm here for a reason' I tell her, slightly annoyed by her silence. She finally looks up, and meets my eyes. Her eyes look glassy, but it disappears quickly.She takes a deep breathe and plucks up the courage.

'You wanna know what happened? Let me tell you Ash' she tells me, with a bit of aggressiveness. We both sit down on the grass and I give her some time to wrap up everything.

'I haven't said it to anyone, but it's been happening for months' she starts off, with a faded tone. 'Niall and I maybe together, but it doesn't feel like that to us.'

'What do you mean?' I ask her. 

'Well, he's been so busy lately and I fully understand. I'm busy too. But that doesn't mean I don't give him time. Then, he meets this girl, who he finds highly intriguing. I'm like, 'okay it's just his friend and she seems to be nice.' But do you know what happened Ash? They've been seen together numerous times publicly. In restaurants, cafes, concerts. And they're so close, People come up to me and ask if we broke up. I don't know what to answer to that. I've told Niall not to do such things and he keeps saying they're only friends. My ears are tired of listening to that crap. For God's sake, it has been the topic of discussion of people.' she stops to take a deep breath, a few tears escaping with that, but she wipes them away before I could. I honestly didn't see pictures, except for one, as far as I could remember, mainly because I seldom go online. I perceived that it's not a big issue, since Niall's with Ruby.

'And yesterday I asked him to finish off his relationship with her, once and for all. Even if they were just friends, I am sick and tired of all these. Instead, he just fired at me, saying how I am too insecure and can't handle things properly. Yes, I am insecure, because I truly love Niall, but he just made me so mad yesterday that I left him. I honestly don't know what's going to happen in between us afterwards. Maybe I already lost him.' she finishes off and starts sobbing. Ruby was going through so much and I didn't even know about it.  I get up and give her a huge, warm hug and she sniffles on my shoulder.

'No, you didn't lose him. You will never  lose him, because he loves you too' I whisper into her ear and let her go. She feels hopeless, but it's important to raise her hopes a bit. I'm pretty sure that for now, our plan to reunite them should work. 

'But how? We're already distant' she questions me. 

'Trust me.Everything will get better, soon' I tell her with a hopeful smile. Ruby looks utterly confused and it's natural. Little does she know about our plan. We both get up, as Mary calls us for breakfast. On our way back, I think about the plan. 

I need to meet Harry, ASAP. 

HARRY

It was utterly difficult to get Niall spill all the information. He kept changing the topic, which slightly annoyed me. I had to interrupt his chat with Shawn and bring him aside, so that we could have a private discussion. He wouldn't reveal things easily, which is odd. I wonder if it was the same for Ruby.

When he finally did, I was highly relieved. At the same time,I was a good listener. He told me word by word. He looked guilty while talking, and I think he should be. He is wrong in this position. He shouldn't have done that to Ruby. 

'Niall, you know you're wrong in this situation. You should've sincerely apologized, instead of getting mad at her' I tell him and he only nods. 

'I've tried, okay? Since this morning. But she's not giving me a wee bit of chance to talk to her' he says, with his thick Irish accent and crossed arms. I think about our plan. Will it work? It has to. I face Niall and pat his shoulders.

'It's going to be alright, Niall' I assure him. 'But how, Harold? We're already distant' he asks.

'Trust me. Everything will get better, soon' I tell him with a hopeful smile. He purses his lips but reaches for a hug. I embrace him tightly, rubbing his back to calm him down a bit.

'Thanks, a lot Harold' he tells me, his face buried on my shoulder.

'I've always got your back, white bread!' I tell him and he laughs. We both go for breakfast, as Liam calls us. I look around for Ashley, but I don't see her or Ruby. I make myself some tea and take toasts with peanut butter, with pancakes. I find myself a good spot on the breakfast table. 

Within a few minutes, Ashley comes with Ruby, which makes me relieved. She quickly serves herself breakfast and to my surprise, sits right next to me. 

'Hey good morning' she tells me as he positions herself properly. She looks appealing in that black jacket. But I don't gaze at her any further. It's wrong Harry. It's wrong, I thought.

'Hiyya, good morning. So what happened?'  I greet and ask. We eat and talk. Eat and talk. But it's more like whispering, rather than talking. We are basically telling each other the same thing. The only difference is that both of them conveyed their stories in a different way. This makes it utterly complicated. We need to change our planning a bit.

'Do you think our plan will work? I mean, they don't want to see each other' I add.

'I'm hoping so'. She adds and we both fist pump and join our hands together. 

-

An hour passes by until we are all set to go back. Ashley told me that her and Shawn will return to their apartment with their own car. The guys and I need to go to the studios now, to finish some recordings. Julian informed that it was urgent so we couldn't decline it. Ashley and I will be meeting up tomorrow again, to finalize our plan.

'By the way, Harry, can you grab a good chance and tell Liam and Louis about our plan as well? Maybe they can help us' she asks. 

'Definitely. I'll tell them after studio sessions when Niall's not around.'

'Great! I'll tell Mary as well.' With that, she tells me that she's going to Zayn and walks over to him. Apparently,  Charlie apologized to him and said that he was indeed, seriously hungover and didn't mean the things he blurted out last night. Zayn forgave him too, which is good. No more drama, for now. However, he's gotten pretty close to Ashley, which, for some reason, bothers me. They've spent a pretty good time together yesterday.   I try to brush off these thoughts. There's noting in between them. Nothing. Nothing. Right? I try to convince my worried mind.

She comes back after a while and looks happy. I don't question her, since it'll be awkward. She's not my girlfriend, so I technically don't have any right.

'Zayn and I exchanged numbers. He said he's gonna keep in touch' she tells me and I think my heart skipped a beat. I can feel it beating really fast. 

'He's flying to LA tonight. Don't know when I'm gonna see him again. Gonna miss him to be honest.' I look over to Zayn. It feels like he's already won her heart. Not gonna lie, he is really sweet and anyone can fall for him. But, I just don't want her to fall for him.

'Harry, I have to go. Shawn's calling me. I'll talk to you tonight' she tells me. She's been in front of my eyes for a week. Seeing her go makes me feel bad. But she instantly gives me the tightest hug ever and all negative thoughts slides out of my head. As she walks away, she waves me a goodbye. I wave back until she's out of sight. I sigh deeply and walk back to my car, which the other boys will be sharing with me. We all get in, put on some music and drive away, back to our studio.