By Chance

Chapter 27 - False rumours

A couple of days later Tessa was still staying at the hotel. Since Perrie had gathered her stuff and delivered Harry’s t-shirt, an opportunity he had unsuccessfully used to try blackmailing Perrie into telling him about Tessa’s whereabouts, Perrie had practically been living there as well. Right now she was at some ‘meet and greet’ with the rest of Little Mix so Tessa was just lying across her bed while watching a true classic - Clueless, while she was enjoying the silence from the temporary lack of calls from a certain curly haired boy. Every time Harry called her she felt this inner battle regarding whether she should pick up or not - but in the end she never did. She was afraid to hear his voice again - because she knew talking with him would make it even harder to stay away.

As the knock on her door sounded Tessa hurried towards it - she had been waiting for room service for what felt like forever but probably only was about fifteen minutes. She was starving. She tipped the waiter and thanked him for bringing her food and the magazines she had requested - she really needed a distraction… That’s all she didn’t get.

When Tessa noticed the front page she almost dropped her plate of food on the floor. She and Harry’s faces were plastered all over it. “Tarry break-up? Has Harry been betrayed?”  The headline said. Wait what? Tessa quickly flipped through the magazine and when she finally reached the article about the two of them, she was in shock. There were two whole pages with pictures of them together - but besides that Tessa was also pictured being spun around by Jamie the night club and while chatting to Alex at the fashion show. She hastily skimmed through the article and read sentences as: Theresa Ozols cheated on our favorite Harry Styles with several men - Will he ever find luck in love? - Close sources says: Harry Styles heartbroken - Girl sat behind Theresa and Alex Pettyfer at fashion show: ‘They even exchanged numbers’ - Alex and Theresa flirted all night - Jamie and Theresa ignored own dates, they spend all night together and finally: Harry threw Tessa out, now staying at hotel - frozen out by the entire band. Was this what the entire world was thinking? That she cheated on him? When in reality he had been the one using her.

When Tessa had gathered herself she knew she couldn’t avoid checking her Twitter and with shaking fingers she typed her e-mail. She had thousands of notifications already - and not one single one of them doubted the article or encouraged her. They were all judgmental and of course taking their hero Harry Styles’ side. She was being called words like slut, bitch, hore, and not surprisingly she was even being threatened at her life - damn the boys’ fans were serious about this. It scared Tessa a bit - but after growing up with her demanding family she had learned not to take attacks like this too personally - so instead of going back to bed or something like that she picked up her phone and dialed a number.

When Zayn’s phone ringed he was occupied by a game of GTA while the rest of the boys where lying next to him on the couch. „Dude your phone is ringing,” Louis stated and tried to hand it to Zayn. „I’m kinda busy being chased by the police - can’t you just answered it for me?” Zayn replied distracted and after a couple of more rings Louis just took the call. „Thank god you answered! I’m sorry for bothering you but Perrie is busy and I just checked my Twitter - I just really need someone with me right now, could you stop by?” Tessa almost didn’t breath and certainly didn’t give Louis a chance to introduce himself before she started babbling. „Hi love, this is Louis - are everything okay?” He asked genuinely concerned for his friend. „Oh Louis! Well yeah, I fine - definitely fine. I just kind of need to talk to Zayn if that’s okay… Is he busy or anything?” She asked and nervously bit her bottom lip. „Don’t worry Tessa, he’s never too busy for you. And just take care okay - we all miss you,” Louis answered before handing the phone to Zayn. He was so absorbed in the game that he had not heard the severity of Louis's conversation - so he grumbled a bit when Louis placed himself in front of the TV, but his friend’s strict gaze immediately made him pause the game.

The rest of the boys, including Harry, had heard Louis’ concerned tone of voice - and they had also heard him mention Tessa’s name. When Liam continued Zayn’s game Harry sneaked out unnoticed to follow Zayn and eavesdrop on his conversation with Tessa. Zayn had retreated to his room but luckily he hadn’t closed the door completely. Harry leaned against the chink and listen carefully. „Don’t lie to me Theresa - I can tell you aren’t okay. What happened?” Zayn asked and unfortunately Harry wasn’t able to hear Tessa through the phone. „Your Twitter? No I haven’t seen anything, why?” Zayn said sounding more and more alarmed.„You shouldn’t read these magazines - you know you can’t believe anything in them”. There was a long pause in the conversation which meant Tessa had to be speaking. „Just stay there! I’ll come right away and stay away from all social medias Tessa - watch some TV or something,” Zayn suggested and Harry knew this was close to goodbye so he tiptoed back downstairs waiting for Zayn to appear.

When Zayn finally did appear he gave the boys some lame excuse about going out to run some errands - which Harry of course knew was a lie. Harry was convinced Zayn was going to visit Tessa - so when Zayn left Harry sneaked out as well and he got in the car to follow Zayn. This was it. After days without any response from Tessa regarding his uncountable phone calls - or his unsuccessful attempts to convince either Perrie or Zayn to tell him where Tessa was staying, he was finally going to know. Harry was finally going to be able to see her - well that was if she was going to let him in.

Harry knew he had to prepare so he knew what he was going to tell her - but she had to let him in once he arrived because he needed to explain everything. He needed her back in his life - and just by being a part from her this last couple of days had made him realize how much he actually depended on her. Every night since she left he had been hunted with nightmares and they had gotten even worse than they had ever been - even the boys couldn’t help to notice the change, and they had trouble waking him up during them - and calming him down afterwards. He had tried talking to Kendall about this - which he knew was a stupid idea since Tessa probably wouldn’t be happy about them seeing each other, when he got the chance to explain everything to her - if he ever got the chance. Harry’s nightmares were mostly about losing Tessa - or watching her get hurt without being able to do anything about it - and that was exactly what had happened in real life. So when he woke up all he needed to make sure of was Tessa being okay - but without her being at his side in their sleep this hadn’t been a possibility, so Harry found it impossible to go back to sleep. And besides all of this he had to tell her something. Something that had been hunting him because she didn’t know. She had written the she was in love with him on his pancakes, that he didn’t even have had the appetite to taste - but he had never gotten the chance to answer, the chance to tell her how he felt and therefore he was going to do so as soon as he saw her.