I push your door open just enough to place your clean washing on your bed for you. The room smells like you — faint vanilla and coconut —and I try not to linger, but something catches my eye.

Your…diary is open on the bed, pages splayed wide like it’s begging to be read.

I shouldn’t. Fuck, I know I shouldn’t. You’d kill me if you knew. But my name is right there, halfway down the page, and it’s like my chest constricts around my ribs, forcing me to step closer.

Against my better judgment I find myself reaching for the diary.

The entry reads:

I keep telling myself to stop caring. It would be so much easier if I did. He doesn’t belong to me – not really. We sleep together and then he leaves, and that’s always been the deal. Friends with benefits. No labels. No promises. Just… comfort, I guess. But every time I see him with another girl, it feels like someone’s driving a knife between my ribs. I can’t say anything. I have no right to. I’m not his girlfriend. I’m nothing to him, really. Just a body he can lose himself in when the nightmares get too much or when he’s angry at the world. Still… there are moments. Tiny moments where he softens and looks at me like I’m the only person keeping him tethered to this fucked up life he leads. Like today, when he sat on the balcony smoking and I saw his hands shaking. I pretended not to notice, but all I wanted to do was hold them still. Hold him still. I know about the mafia stuff. I know Harry and the rest of the boys aren’t just rockstars, they’re also mafia associates. I know it’s dark and violent and wrong, and I should be scared. I am scared. But I’m more scared of what he’d do if he didn’t have something… someone… to come back to. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of anything good. But God… he’s so beautiful to me. Even when he’s cruel. Even when he’s gone for days and comes back with blood all over him. Even when he comes to me smelling like another girls cheap perfume. Even when he won’t look me in the eye after we have sex.

I stare at the page until the words blur together. My stomach twists painfully, guilt curling like rot in my chest. Because it’s true. Every word. You’re nothing to me. At least… that’s what I tell myself when I’m fucking other girls in hotel bathrooms, or slipping out of your bed before the sun comes up so I don’t have to see the look on your face when you wake up alone.

I close the notebook gently and set it back down where I found it. My hands are trembling as I leave your room and head back out to the living room.

I have to talk to you about the diary entry.

I can’t ignore what I just read.

It’d eat me up inside.

Niall’s sprawled across the floor with his guitar, Liam’s reading something on his phone, and Louis is rummaging through a takeaway bag. And then there’s you – curled up in the corner of the couch, hoodie sleeves pulled over your hands, laughing at something Louis says.

You look up and catch my eye, and the smile slips from your face instantly. You know something’s wrong. You always know.

“Can I talk to you?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

You blink, glancing at the boys before nodding silently and standing to follow me down the hallway.

I keep my back to you as I open my door and step inside, swallowing the lump in my throat.