Beautiful Agony

"Imagine meeting someone who understood even the dustiest corners of your mixed-up soul."

Chapter Four

I awaken to loud knocking and yelling.

"Aria!"

"Aria open the door!"

"Are you here!"

I groan at the bright sunlight that streams through the windows and rub my temples at the splitting headache that makes my head feel like it's about to explode. My whole body aches and screams when I sit up and I put my head in my hands. I rub my eyes and wince when my fingers graze my bruised, bandaged cheek.

"Ariana!!" I hear a female scream outside my door, still banging on the door.

Wait, is that Liv's voice?

"Ariana Carter are you in here? Hello?" She yells again, her posh, Yorkshire accent becoming more prominent.

Yeah that's her.

I look at the alarm clock on my nightstand and my eyes widen. 08:25. Oh damn! I never texted her last night! I quickly get out of bed, wincing when I stand up I look down and wearing the large black jumper that the stranger put on me last night. I don't have time to change so I walk out of the room and towards the front door, the knocks getting more louder. Once I'm near the kitchen, I stop and look around for a moment. Everything looks to be intact after the stranger guy left.

"Ariana Willow Carter! If you don't open up in ten seconds I'm calling the police!" Liv threatens, banging on the door so hard that I'm surprised it's still on its hinges.

I quickly walk to the door and open it. Liv's hands stop midair and she goes off.

"Do you know how worried I was? Shit Aria I've been knocking for the past ten minutes!" She rants and throws her hands around, not even looking at me. "I've been texting you all morning, what've you been doing?"

She finally looks up me and gasps. "Oh my god what happened to you!" She rushes to me and put her hand on my face. I wince when she touches my cheek and take her away from my face.

"What happened? Are you alright?" She questions.

I nod slightly and then open the door more and gesture for her to come inside. She walks inside and once I close the door, she's back at it with the questions.

"How did this happen? Did you go to the hospital? Who hurt you Aria?" She talks a mile a minute and it's hard for me to keep up. She then hugs me and I gasp at the pain in my ribs. She doesn't even notice and keeps talking. "I was so worried about you."

I get out of her tight embrace and grab a notebook from the kitchen counter. 'I'm fine.'

"You are not fine Aria! Look at you!" She gestures up and down my body.

I look at the mirror that I have handing up on one of the walls and that's when I see just how bad I look. My cheek and nose are very red and swollen. I have purple, black, and blue bruises covering my face and my lip has a cut that's blood has dried.

"And who's jumper is that? It's ginormous!"

I look down at my body and its looks like it's been swallowed by the black fabric. I'm only wearing my black panties underneath but they are hidden due to the jumper coming down to mid thigh.

"Tell me what happened?" Liv demands and caresses my shoulder, forgetting about the previous question she just asked.

I'm about to write in the notebook when a low groan comes from my living room. Liv and I both freeze and then turn towards the room and see a large mass laying on my couch.

"Who the hell is that?" Liv yells and points towards the large figure.

"Could you turn off the god damn light and stop talking so damn loud?" A deep voice asks.

Liv, being the fireball she can be, stalks over to the couch and flings the blanket off of him. "Who the hell are you and why are you here?" She turns to me. "Aria who is he and why is he on your couch?"

I look at the man and see curly hair and tattoos. The stranger from last night? He's still here?

"Hey arsehole, answer me! Why are you here? Did you do this to her?" She spits at him and then points to me.

He sits up and runs his hands over his face before looking up at her angrily. "I don't know what your problem is but you should be thanking me."

Liv scoffs and crosses her arms in defiance. "And why I would thank you?"

"Because I'm the one who saved your friend when she was attacked last night." The guy replies and that wipes the smirk off of Liv's face and replaces it with a gasp.

"You were attacked!!"

I swat Liv's hands away from me and nodded.

"And he's the one who saved you?"

I nod again, growing uncomfortable under her serious stare.

"What happened?" She asks again for the fourth time.

"She was being surrounded by a group of pussies who couldn't-"

"Hey I wasn't talking to you you arsehole!" Liv shouts at him.

"I'm the arsehole?" the man stands up and towers over Liv. Her only coming up to his shoulders. "Says the one who runs in here making all of this damn noise and yelling at me when I have done nothing wrong!"

I want to yell at both of them to stop, but both of them move closer to each other so that they're faces are only a few centimeters away.

"Listen you dic-" I run in between them both before Liv goes apeshit on this guy and I push her back.

"Stop." I mouth to her.

"Ariana! You can be serious, this guy-" I put my hand over her mouth to stop her from saying any more and glare at her.

She sighs dramatically and groans, "Fine."

She pushes my hand away from her mouth and then she goes to the kitchen counter, still glaring daggers at the guy.

'I was walking home from work yesterday when I felt like I was being watched. I was one block from here when I was dragged into an alley where this group of guys where. They hit and kicked me and then one of the tried to rape me.'

"Oh my god," she replies , holding a hand to her mouth.

'I thought they were going to kill me when this guy came and fought them off of me. He took me here and helped me. Liv he saved my life.'

"And you're okay?" she asks me again.

I nod. 'I'm okay Liv.'

She hugs me again. "Alright. I'm so glad you are safe."

She walks over to the man who is still standing in my living room staring at us with his arms crossed. "Thank you for helping her."

He stares at her for a moment and then nods his head.

"You don't how much she means to me. If anything ever happened to her-" she shakes her head at the thought of losing me and he stops her. "It's fine."

"I'll tell Christina that you're sick and can't come in to work today." She comes over to me and I nod at her. "I'll take the set of keys back to her too."

I walk out of the room and go to my bedroom and search for my bag. I find it sitting on my dresser and I rummage through it to find the keys. Once I have them, I quickly walk back to the kitchen and hand them to Liv.

"You should rest okay. Take it easy for the next few days. If you need anything please text me." She hugs me again before we walk to the front door. "Are you going to be okay to deal with him?" She points behind her to the living room where the stranger still is. I nod at her and open the door for her.

"I'll talk to you later okay?"

I nod at her again and wave and then watch as she goes down the hall and to the elevator. Once she's in and the doors close, I go back inside and into the living room to face the still nameless stranger. He is sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees looking at me, making me uncomfortable.

"What a nice friend you have there," he says sarcastically. "She seems really lovely."

I roll my eyes at his sarcasm and grab my notebook. 'I thought you left last night?'

He looks at the notebook with curiosity and maybe a little bit of peculiarity. "Do you not talk or something?" He bluntly asks.

I shake my head.

"At all?"

I shake my head again.

"Why?"

'Answer the question.'

He sighs and runs his fingers through his curls. "I couldn't leave yet."

Now it's my turn to ask why.

"I couldn't leave until I knew that you were alright," He admits and I think I see a little bit of redness on his cheeks.

'Thank you for helping me.'

"Yeah. Uh, you're welcome." He awkwardly scratches the back of his head in not knowing what else to say.

'What's you're name?'

He smirks slightly at me. "You don't want to know my name darling."

I blush at the term of endearment and look down at my notebook.

'My name's Aria.'

"I know I figured that out when your friend kept yelling it."

I stare at his tattooed covered arms in fascination. Why does he have so many?

He coughs and I look up at him to find him again smirking at me. I feel my cheeks heat up and he chuckles at my embarrassment.

"Well it's been fun Aria but I really must be going." I hear the heavy sarcasm in his voice and he gets up from the couch and grabs his wallet and phone that were on the coffee table.

"You look good in my clothes." He looks up and down my body that still only has a jumper and panties on.

I blush and look down at my feet to avoid his intense stare.

'I can change and give it back to you.'

"Keep it. It looks better on you anyways."

'Will you please tell me your name so I can thank you properly?'

He doesn't reply. He just smirks at me and grabs my notebook out of my hands. He walk to the door and I follow him, wondering what he's up to.

Once he's out in the hallway, he turns to me and hands me the notebook back.

"You'll be shocked to find out what happens to Gatsby."

I gasp at what he said and clutch the notebook to my chest.

What?

He shakes his head smirking at my quizzical stare and he walks down the hallway to the elevator, my eyes watching his back.

"Ariana!" He yell to me when he steps inside the elevator.

I stare at him and a silent moment passes before he smiles, making his dimples pop out. "You have a beautiful name."

The doors close before I could even think and now I am left to my own thoughts. How did he know about Gatsby? I go back inside and lean against the door and I remember what happened a few days ago. I was walking home from the bookstore when I bumped into someone. He was wearing a dark jumper with the hood up so I couldn't see his face. It felt like he was staring right into my soul and I picked up my books as fast as I could. The man picked up and handed me one of them, Gatsby, and I remember seeing tattoos on his hand.

Tattoos. Black jumper. Tall. Intimidating.

He's the man I ran into that night. He handed me Gatsby.

This strange man that I have never seen before that night, saved me from being killed and cleaned up my wounds. He showed me more respect and kindness that most people have ever shown me.

I also like the way my name floats off of his tongue. When I heard him say it, I felt my stomach flip and my body warmed.

I look down at the notebook to see what he wrote and don't find anything on the first page except what I wrote. I flip through multiple blank pages until I see two small words written in the middle of the page. I smile when I read it and then I read it again multiple times so I can remember the name of the mysterious stranger who saved my life.

Harry Styles.

Notes

I finished this one before I thought I would. I've been trying to write everyday because I really want to start writing the good stuff that I have planned. These beginning chapters are more fillers and about the information of the characters, so they're not as exciting and fun to write, but I'm really happy that I decided to re-write this story. It's turning out better than before. Thank you for reading!