Chapter Fifty

                                    

                                          
            
                          
I tell Daniel I'm sick. Really sick. That's why I can't come to rehearsal. And since he knows that I would usually not miss rehearsal for anything in the world, he lets me off the hook.
                          
We're almost there. Almost to opening night. Yet I'm laying in my bed, staring at the ceiling as hours go by. I only come out of my room when my dad calls me down for dinner, but even then I barely touch my plate, except for a few bites just to make dad feel better.
                          
He doesn't talk to me about my mom, even though I know she called him after our little phone conversation.
                          
He just rattles off a few of his usual thoughts from his latest list of quotes, which I answer with shrugs or half thoughts. Then he allows me to head back upstairs where I'm met with other peoples' questions.
                          
Niall tries to talk to me about the night of the party.
                          
Nat tries to talk to me about the night of the party.
                          
Even people who are practically strangers try to talk to me about the night of the party.
                          
My Facebook inbox is filled with messaged from various different people, but I have chosen not to open any of them. At some point I know I'll delete all of them, but until then I just see the number of messages increase with each day.
                          
No one leaves more messages than Styles, though. Those are the messages that I choose to ignore the most. I see a new message from him every time I log on, but I just keep scrolling. Even when I see the preview of one of his messages on Sunday that reads – I miss you.
                          
They're the same words I left him when he wouldn't reply to me for days. When he just all of a sudden disappeared and I was trying to desperately to bring him back. Then that night he showed up at my house and threw rocks at my window until we re-entered each other's worlds once more.
                          
A part of me wants to message him back.
                          
A part of me wants to go throw rocks at his window.
                          
But I can't bring myself to do anything.
                          
I feel hollow inside.
                          
From everything that happened with Liam. 
                          
From not knowing if I'm ready to try and be enough for Styles. How can you possibly prepare yourself to try and be enough for someone like Styles? And I'm not talking about the fact that he's attractive and incredibly talented. I'm talking about the fact that he told me he loves me...an emotion that I wasn't entirely sure he was capable of. And yet he said those words to me.
                          
How do you feel enough for the person who has been dealt so much crap their entire life and you want nothing more than to give them the world? To make them see that there is some good out there and the universe won't take everything from you?
                          
I want to show him those things, but I'm terrified. Just like how I'm terrified that he can see right through me, and he's verified that he feels like I can see right through him.
                          
How do you feel enough for that person? That person who speaks to your soul? That person who just gets it. Gets you.
                          
I want to be enough. I want Styles to stay, but there's always a chance that he won't.
                          
I could stay for him, but only if I know that he'll stay for me. Which is so hard to believe when everyone keeps leaving.
                          
But none of those people were like Styles. None of them were Styles.
                          
~
                          
On Monday morning I wake up to the loud ringing of my alarm clock. However, I instantly unplug it from the wall, rolling over as I ignore the fact that I'm supposed to be in class in the next two hours.