“Ow…” the girl groans and squinches her eyes. The boy calling out to her runs over fast, worry written all over his face.

“Are you hurt? Are you okay?” Jack worries over his sister, wide eyes and full of fear. He definitely hadn’t planned on knocking his sister off the roof.

“I – I can’t feel my leg,” she says, shaking slightly from the cold. Her brother proceeds to help her up, but once she’s on her feet, her right knee buckles and she starts to collapse. Jack swoops in immediately and lifts Darren up in his arms. She clings to his body to prevent her from falling to the ground as he takes her and places her in his car that sits in the driveway.

He makes sure she’s secure before saying, “I’m going to grab Finn, then we’re going to the hospital.”

“Why did you even scare me like that in the first place?” she snarls at him, less viciously than usual. The numbness of her leg, and the pain in her back lessen her strength to be upset. However, she is seething in rage and hatred towards her brother.

Jack sheepishly pulled the newly purchased box out of his pocket. “I just wanted to give you this.” He hands her the box before running inside and ushering his half slept brother out of the house.

~

Darren hates hospitals, always has, always will. Hospitals –most of the time – are where children are born, even the mistakes. This is the place where most infants are abandoned, or looked at in disgust by the parents who were too careless as to forget a condom. At least, that’s how Darren thinks of it.

On top of that, Darren never liked that stench you smell the second you walk in. There’s that ugly reek of the deceased and cleaning resolutions that fail to cover up the reek. Then, you have the crying children, the lying doctors, and the needles – how she hates those needles!

Darren had spent the first part of her life being careful and never breaking a single bone in her body, anything she could to avoid the hospitals. However, you can’t always avoid everything.

Finally, after half an hour of waiting, the doctor walks in and takes Darren’s mind off of her awful thoughts on hospitals. “You took a pretty bad fall. You’re lucky that you landed on a bush and not the pavement, Ms. Har-”

Darren cuts off the doctor, “It’s Frayn. My last name is Frayn.” She shifts her position; uncomfortable with the last name he was about to say. The doctor checks his clipboard, adjusting a few things before addressing her.

“Of course, Ms. Frayn.” Darren nods and folds her lips awkwardly together. “As I was saying, you are lucky to have fallen onto that bush. Otherwise, it could have been worse. You’ve fractured part of your lower leg, and we’re going to have to put you on crutches as well as give you a cast. The nurse will be in shortly to do so, and you are free to go after.”

“Yeah, yeah… whatever,” Darren waves off the doctor, annoyed at even being at the hospital in the first place. Once the door is shut, she turns to her brothers. “I can’t decide whether to hate you or love you right now. I have to get a cast thanks to you noobs, but then again, you got me a new phone…”

“I said I was sorry! I just wanted to give you your phone; I didn’t mean for you to fall off the roof,” Jack explains himself for the millionth time.

“You’re just luck that I’m injured and can’t kill you. You’re also lucky that you decided to sync my old phone to this one so I don’t have to start from scratch on my high score for Hill Climb,” Darren says, scrolling through the dearly missed apps on her phone.

She ignores her brother’s apologies, for she doesn’t believe in sorry, and continues to go through feed. All of her message boxes are full, and she isn’t sure where to start until she remembers: Harry. She opens up kik and scrolls down until she finds their conversation.

Meanwhile, Jack and Finn leave the room; the nurse comes back in and starts to apply the cast to Darren’s leg. Darren ignores her and continues to message Harry.

~

Harry and the band had been sitting in a meeting room for nearly the whole morning, sitting, waiting. They had been up since before sunrise to avoid delays from fans and sleazy paparazzi when the walk into the building. There is no time for dillydallying when they have a tour, no matter the shortness, coming up. Two months seems like a lot, but its not very much time to plan a tour.

“Harry, we can leave now,” Liam nudges Harry who sits there, staring at nothing in particular. “The rest of us are going out to lunch, want to come with?”

“Um, I think I’ll pass. I need to catch up on some sleep,” Harry responds, letting out an extended yawn. “Thanks for the offer though.”

“Alright, we’ll see you tomorrow then at the interview.”

Harry nods and begins to layer up with his winter coat before leaving the meeting room and building. When he makes it to the back lot, he’s not surprised at the few fans waiting by the gate a good 10 yards away. He waves to be nice before getting in his car and driving home.

When he arrives at his cozy flat, he locks the door, kicks off his shoes and extra layers, and walks wearily to his bedroom. He flops down onto his mattress and sighs in content.

After a few minutes of calm and quiet, he rolls over and picks up the cell phone he had been too tired to check this morning and bring with him to the meeting. Per usual, messages, emails, and many other forms of notifications flood his screen, even before he unlocks it. He takes a few minutes of retweeting things and following a few lucky fans before he clicks the home button and sees the new kik notification with a ‘1’ in a red circle.

ThatInvisibleGirl: I am EXTREMELY sorry for not responding. My phone broke, idiot brothers, and I didn’t get a new one until today. On the other hand, guess who’s getting a cast on their leg? D:

Harry’s heart nearly beats out of his chest as he reads the message. ‘She didn’t forget about me after all…’ he tells himself. He had been so sad that she hadn’t messaged him back that he hadn’t thought of the fact that her phone was broken. Thankfully, with kik you don’t need to switch numbers or anything, so there was no miscommunication there.

‘… guess who’s getting a cast on their leg?’ she sends. Harry had been so happy that she messaged him finally; that he hadn’t really processed what Darren has actually sent.

JustYourNormalGuy: I though you were just ignoring me… Sorry about your phone. What happened to your leg?
ThatInvisibleGirl: To sum up, my stupid brother (who broke my phone) yelled at me as I was climbing off the roof. I was caught off guard and fell off and onto a bush. I literally could not feel my leg.
JustYourNormalGuy: Well I hope your leg gets better. I wish I could’ve been there… to catch you I mean.

~

“What color, Ms. Harries?” the nurse interrupts Darren from checking her latest message from Harry.

Darren grits her teeth. ‘Ms. Harries… oh no, someone better go have a blood test before Father dearest has a hissy fit, but no… blood tests are unnecessary.’ Oh how Darren hates getting addressed has a part of the Harries family. Her so called “Father” would never approve of this, but he would never care to take a test to prove biological anyway.

Ignoring the matter as best she can, Darren holds up a finger to the nurse as if to say ‘hold on’ and decides to ask Harry. She quickly scans Harry’s last message before typing up her own.

ThatInvisibleGirl: How sweet :) Now I really wish I could meet you. That way you can just swoop in whenever you want and catch me, and trust me, I fall a lot ;) Anyway, I need help! I don’t know what color cast to get?!?!
JustYourNormalGuy: Sounds like you need a best friend like me to catch you. Maybe we can finally meet soon. I promise you I’m not a 34-year-old-man who lures vulnerable girls in to kidnap. And color? idk, do something unnatural

“Just like my hair…” Darren muttered under her breath.

“What was that, sweetie?” the nurse asks politely. Darren shakes it off and smiles kindly at the old lady.

“I think I’ll go with red,” Darren finally decides. The nurse nods and gets leaves to get her supplies. In the meanwhile, Darren messages Harry back.

~

ThatInvisibleGirl: Red it is. I’m getting signed out after the color part is on. Kik me later and maybe we can plan on finally meeting each other soon. I know I’ve only known you for like a week, but I think I can trust you and I don’t think you’re a creeper… at least I never thought of you like that o.O

‘Red? I don’t think red is very unnatural… It must be perspective,’ Harry chuckles and sends his goodbye for now. That’s when Harry starts to get nervous. He really wants to meet Darren, his “best friend”, but what will she think when he figures out who he really is?

He needs advice. Harry would ask one of the boys, but they’d probably just gush over how Harry has a new “girlfriend”. Darren certainly isn’t his girlfriend, just a best friend, and he intends on keeping it like that. Instead of calling one of the boys, he picks up the phone and calls someone he never thought he would call ever again.

Ring-ring… ring-ring… ring-ring…

The phone continues to ring, but no one ends up picking up on the other end. The call goes to voicemail, and though Harry is hesitant at first, he leaves one anyway.

“Hey, it’s Harry. I know we haven’t been on the best terms, but… I need your advice. You’re the only one I feel comfortable talking to about this. So… yeah. Call me back when you get this, please. Bye,” Harry left his message. His voice was shaky, his hands clammy, but he manages to get through it.

~

“I think I actually like this,” Darren tells her brothers as she crutches into the place that they call home. “I’m crippled, so you guys have to do whatever I want, including my turn for dishes and washing my laundry!”

“In that case, I hate this,” Jack responds. Finn nods in agreement.

Darren laughs and sticks her tongue out at her brothers and clumsily makes her way up the stairs. Though she nearly falls, at least three times, Darren finally manages to get her whole self up the staircase and walks into her room.

She tosses her crutches carelessly onto her floor before squatting down to sit in her desk chair. Opening up her phone, she looks over her last few pieces of conversation with Harry. Darren is ecstatic to possibly finally meeting Harry, her “best friend”. However, the thought of a creepy 67 year old couldn’t help but creep into her thoughts.

She can’t be so sure that Harry isn’t some rapist or mass serial killer. ‘Well, he doesn’t act like a rapist or mass serial killer… not that I know what either of those people acts like. I think I trust him? Yeah, I trust him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have told him my name or even continued to talk to him. Right?’

Darren’s thoughts only confuse her more, and it isn’t long until she decides that she needs some brotherly help. She doesn’t really want to talk to her brothers though, so she ends up calling a brotherly figure.

“Hey, whore,” he answers.

Darren laughs. “Sup, slut. Doing anything right now?”

“Eh, not really. Why? You need something?” he asks.

“Can you come over? I could really use some brotherly advice right now, and let’s just say my actual brothers are dead to me for now,” Darren says.

There’s some shuffling on the other end of the line. “I’ll be over in about twenty. Don’t be murdering anybody without me.”

Darren chuckles at his wry humor. “I can’t; all the knives are in the kitchen, and I’m immobile, but I’ll explain that later. See you in a few!”

Notes

Questions to think about:
Who did Harry call?
Who did Darren call?
Will they actually meet up soon?

The first one you guys can probably figure out. The second one you probably won't catch unless you watch YouTube constantly and know a "slut" (dead giveaway). comment. rate. subscribe. ~A