Darren has no fear as she takes her seat in the driver’s side for a change. Finn, on the hand, looks like he’s about to pass out just watching her sitting with a steering wheel in front of her. He very reluctantly settles into the passenger seat and shuts the car door just as Darren is about to put the key ignition. He is quick to smack her hand away. She gives his a what-the-fuck kind of look.

“Seatbelt,” he says, taking his own seatbelt and looking it into place. Darren huffs and pulls the safety strap over her front to click it into place. “Good, now check your mirrors.” Darren does as he says.

“Can I start the car now? We’re not going to get anywhere until we start the car, you know.”

Finn nods his head slightly and takes a deep breath when the engine purrs to life. “Okay, now put the car into reverse and ease out of the driveway.” Darren smiles at the sound of that and pulls out of the driveway steadily, like one would if they were a good driver. Finn breathes a sigh of relief when they get to the actual street in one piece. “That wasn’t so bad. Now just put the car into drive and-”

He is cut off by abrupt take off of the car going at thirty miles per hour, ten miles over the normal neighborhood speed limit – fifteen over the speed limit of a street parallel to a park. Finn takes hold of the handle built into the car’s ceiling to get a grip. Thirty may not be fast, but going thirty with a first-timer who happens to be his reckless younger sister who is prone to get into accidents ad mishap is pretty damn scary for him.

“Darren, slow down. We’re on a neighborhood street, not on a freeway,” he finally says.

Finn’s fingers turn paper white as he grips tighter onto the handle bar. His face is aghast and deathly pale as Darren makes a jerky stop at a stop sign before making a sharp right turn. When inertia catches up with him, he reaches his other hand forward to get a grip and save himself from a head on collision with the dashboard. His seatbelt isn’t doing him any justice with his driver.

“So? It’s nearly midnight; no one is around,” she says glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

“Eyes on the road!”

Darren averts her eyes back to the black asphalt that she can only see with her headlights and drops her speed from 30 miles per hour to about 20. Finn takes his hand off of the dashboard and loosens his grip a tad on the handle, but still not letting go. After a few minutes of somewhat steady driving around the park, Finn finally starts to instruct her on where to go and when to increase or decrease speed and stuff like that.

Finn never lets go of the handle bar throughout the rest of the lesson, and by the time they have finished for the night, the inside of his hand is red and stiff from his tight hold. When Darren has pulled the car into the driveway, she turns off the engine and hands the key to her brother, who gladly takes it from her. She smiles brightly at him like a child being at Disneyland for their first time.

“So how did I do? Not too bad for my first go, right?”

Finn shakes his head. “No, but don’t take off like that next time and pay attention to your speed. You almost ran into Mrs. McGuthry’s cat and the lady would go berserk if we killed Mr. Snugglesworth.”

Darren scoffs. “She can’t blame us if she’s the one who let him out in the first place. Although, maybe Mr. Snugglesworth left her; I wouldn’t blame him.” They both laugh at how true that is. Mrs. McGuthry is a frightful old woman who gives way too much affection. She’s the kind of woman who gives old purse candy to children and gives big sloppy cheek kisses to anyone who knows her, which is why Darren distances herself from her. It’s only a wonder how she isn’t dead yet with how many years she’s had in this world.

When Darren and Finn walk inside, Jack is waiting on the couch, going through and editing some film on his laptop no doubt. “How did it go?” he asks them, not removing his eyes from the screen.

“She nearly killed me,” Finn says, “and Mr. Snugglesworth.”

“So not so great then…” Jack says, trying to look discreet when he makes a face that says glad-it-isn’t-me or sucks-for-you. Finn rolls his eyes as if to say obviously while Darren just laughs at the both of them before running off to bed.

~

Darren has her back against the roof, eyes closed, as the first rays of sun fall upon her. She listens carefully to the music of the earth, the rustling of the leaves and those annoying morning birds. Still, the earth’s music is beautiful and even the birds can’t ruin its song. On these mornings when the Earth’s song is soft but loud, Darren chooses to remember her worst days, the days she wishes would just fly away with the wind in the music of the Earth.

She thinks of her father a lot on these days. Usually they are thoughts of hatred that are fueled by the fire of what once was love, but not today. For once she tries to recall when she was just a little girl who wanted more than anything to drive a car and for her daddy to teach her how.

Darren lifts her leg up and over the middle of the front row and climbs into the passenger seat next to her dad as they wait for Darren’s mom to return from her quick errand. Her dad is preoccupied with his cell phone, struggling to hit the right numbers the right amount of time to obtain the right letter for the text he is trying to send. Once he finally finishes, he pushes the circle button towards the top and flips the device shut.

He turns to look at Darren who is staring at the steering wheel with intensity. “Hey there, kiddo.”

“Can I drive?” she asks, catching her dad off guard.

He laughs slightly at her question but hides his fear. He doesn’t want his little girl driving for a long time. “You can’t drive yet, Darren.”

She looks up at him, lip quivering and eyes filled with sadness. “Well when can I?”

“By law, you can’s start learning until you are at least 17, but you have to take a test to actually qualify to drive.”

“Oh…” she frowns. This new information sure put a damper on her mood. “Who’s going to teach me how to drive then? Are you going to teach me how to drive, Daddy?” Her eyes lit up at the idea of her dad teaching her how to drive.

“Sure I will, Darren.”

Darren had only been five at the time, and her interest to drive kept with her through her years until the day that she found out some dirty truths that ended her loving bond with her father. Because her love for him disappeared, her love and interest for driving disappeared with it.

While her thoughts continue to roam, her ears perk up when she hears the sound of gravel crunching underneath the tires of a car and the soft sound of an engine becomes clearer. Out of curiosity, she sits up and opens her eyes, watching as a familiar car parks parallel to the curb right across the street. Once parked, the driver gets out and closes the car door behind him, locking the vehicle. He turns around and looks up at Darren; he smiles and waves at her, while walking his way to the sidewalk on her side of the street.

He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, “Let down your hair, Rapunzel!”

“In your fucking dreams, Charming!” she shouts back. “What the hell are you doing here this early?”

Harry laughs at her response. “I was going to grab some breakfast at the coffee shop before my meeting and figured you might be up. Want to come with?”

Darren glances around at her blankets for no particular reason before nodding in agreement. “Give me like five minutes to change.” She starts to gather her belongings and scoot down towards her open window.

“Don’t fall,” Harry calls out, smirking at her.

Darren glares at him before crawling in through her window. “Fuck you, Styles,” she spits and pulls her window shut. He smiles cheekily through the glass pane and Darren just rolls her eyes before running off to change into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Before running out the door, she yells at her brothers that she’s leaving, knowing that her shouting will wake them up, and she slams the front door for good measure.

When they get to Kaffeine, they take Darren’s usual table in the back – though it might as well be their usual table because of how often they come to the place together. Darren takes a slurp of her coffee, making the funniest noise, and when she removes her mouth from the cup, she has a mustache made of froth. Harry laughs at her face, telling her to hold on for a second. Darren crosses her eyes to look down at her creamy mustache and sticks the tip of her tongue out for a taste just as Harry snaps a picture with his iPhone. Darren licks her lip clean and laughs at her own self when Harry shows her the picture.

“That literally explains my life,” Darren says, nonliterally of course. “So you have a meeting today? I thought popstars didn’t have meetings.”

“Well, we don’t really pay attention to the boring stuff, but yes, we have meetings. We have our tour coming up in just a little over a week, so we’re just going over some details and whatnot.”

“I almost forgot about your tour,” Darren says in realization. “You guys must be pretty stoked to be going back home, seeing your families and… whatnot.’”

Harry half smiles. “Yeah… pretty stoked…”

~

The meeting the boys attended to was cut short when the argument got too heated. Devastation and anger should never be mixed, but that is exactly what the boys are feeling now as they leave with the news.

Now, instead of a full week of being with each of their families, the boys get about three and a half days in their hometowns. The concert number has even been cut down from three down to two. Luckily, tickets don’t go on sale until Saturday, two days from now, so no fans will have to face the disappointment these boys are feeling.

“’It’s too much. We need you in other places’ he said,” Louis mocks Simon as they walk into the studio. “What a load of bullshit. First he tells us that this tour is for us to get back to bonding and sunshine and rainbows and shit with each other, and he goes and cuts the tour in half because he ‘needs us elsewhere.’” Louis rolls his eyes and takes a water from the mini fridge they keep in the room adjacent to the recording booth.

Lima, sitting on the couch, rubs his face with his hand and sighs in defeat. “Louis, we can’t change their minds. Just be thankful they didn’t cancel the tour as a whole, okay?” Louis mutters profanities against Simon and the tour time under his breath as he drinks but gives Liam a simple ‘whatever’ in response to his statement.

“Let’s just run through the tracks like we were told to so we can leave for the day,” Zayn says with great upset in his voice.

No one is happy about this new change in the tour. Even Harry, who had been so opposed to the tour at first is mad. He may not be in terms with his family, with the exception of Gemma when she stopped by that one day, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t longed to see them. After some thinking, he made up his mind that this tour would set him right with his family. Even if the idea scares him, he would very much enjoy having his family back in his life as it was before his walls.

~

Darren pulls into the driveway. She and Jack, who reluctantly took over for Finn for tonight’s lesson, get out of the car, both still in one piece. Unlike Finn, Jack smiles at Darren and tells her how great she did – other than her parallel parking of course. That poor trashcan will never get its shape back. Darren admits to feeling much more at ease with Jack in the car with her. As she said to Jack earlier, “Finn was too uptight and scared about me just being in the driver’s seat. I really just need someone who believes that I can do well.”

After several attempts to get their garage door open, they decide to just go through the front door. When they approach the porch, they can finally see and unwanted guest sitting awaiting their arrival. Darren stops laughing about the pedestrian who flipped her off as he jaywalked when she sees him standing there with just the moonlight shining upon his face. Jack’s expression goes hard and he glares at the man before walking inside to leave the two to talk.

James steps forward when the front door shuts. He looks into Darren’s eyes with unknown emotion and puts a hand on her cheek. Darren looks down, but he pulls her face back up, stroking her cheek softly with his smooth thumb. As she stares into his eyes, Darren can only think of the last sentences of the phone call they had when she had to go ask his room mate where the hell her boyfriend was.

“Please say something, Dare,” he chokes out through sobs.

Darren gasps in a shaky breath, her voice cracking as she speaks. “I- I don’t know anymore. I love you, but you’re just… I just… I can’t do this anymore.” As she speaks with her heart, instead of listening to her bullshitted mind, tears release from her eyes, taking some of the pain with them.

“Just… don’t say anything drastic until I get back from America. We can work this out, Darren. We always do.” His voice is stern, but only because of fear of rejection.

Darren shakes her head. “This isn’t the same, James. You’ve fucked up one too many times to count and I’m sick of it. It’s literally killing me inside, because every time my heart gets yanked out of my chest and shoved right back down my throat.” She’s almost screaming, but she keeps her voice low when she realizes that she’s not the only one in this flat.

When he speaks again, James’ voice is calm and sincere. “Please, Dare. Just wait until I get back from America. When I get back, if you want to break up, then... fine. Just please wait to do this face to face.”

“I… okay, fine. I’ll think things over again, but I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you this time.”

“Thank you. Just remember, Dare, I love you.”

She hangs up.

She couldn’t say the words back, and she’s not sure yet if she will ever be able to say them again. He really hurt her this time.

“So you’re back from America…” Darren says, taking hold of James’ hand and moving it back to his side and away from her. James shoves his hands into his pockets with his embarrassment from the rejection.

“Yeah, my plane landed about a half hour ago, and I knew you were the first person I needed to see so I came straight here.” Darren presses her lips into a thin line and nods, looking away from him. “Look, Darren, I really fucked up, okay? I know that, and I don’t know why I’m such a dick to you, because I love you. And I know that I’ve been given too many chances and that I won’t deserve another second chance if you decide to keep me, but Darren I’m begging you to give me another chance.”

Her head is pounding from all of the pros and cons weighing in over her head. Everything around her is spinning, so she takes a seat on the porch swing and gets a grip on her mind before she loses it from all of the painful thinking. James kneels down in front of her, and takes her hands in his, resting them in her lap.

“Darren, you and I both know that we can’t live without each other. That’s why you’ve always forgiven me, and that’s why you have to forgive me this one last time.”

Darren’s heart rate speeds up a little as it starts to cut into her thoughts, and it’s telling her yes, no, and maybe. His words are only making her upset though. She doesn’t need him to live; she lives every day just fine without him. It may kill her on the inside, but it hurts her less than having him with her as he is now. This relationship is killing her, and she’s wondering how she hasn’t noticed this sooner.

Notes

I was going to update on Friday, but I went out of town (Happy belated Independence Day to my fellow American readers by the way) and I didn't get back until today. So I fixed the chapter a bit, and made it a little longer than usual to make it up to you guys.

Can you feel the "upsets" in this chapter?
Is this finally the end of Jarren?
And if it is, what will become of Harry and Darren?

Now for an announcement! If you read my Fanfiction 101, then you already know, but if you don't, I am going to be writing a new story that I will be co-authoring with a close friend of mine on here. The first chapter will be published on August 2. We aren't giving any details right now because we don't want our ideas to be stolen, but as the time gets closer, I'll let you guys know. I really hope you guys will read it when it comes out though.

I literally just realized that my birthday is on Tuesday. I'm not even kidding; holy cow I'm turning 14! Anyway, please comment and vote; thank you so much for reading!

~A