But in the end, they all drift away. // Even the ones who promised to stay.

Tom hesitated to take the last step to pull you into his arms. He hesitated because he didn't know how you'd react and he didn't know how he would react to being this close to you again. He still remembered the last time the two of you had gotten this close, it was at the wedding of one of his cousins - three weeks before everything fell apart.

"Wanna dance?" Tom smiled at you, holding out his hand for you to take.

"I can't dance for shit, you know that." You laughed but got up anyway. Who were you to say no to Tom?

"Oh shut up." He laughed as he pulled you closer so you could lean your head on his shoulder - the place where you felt the safest. Your shoulder to cry on, your everything. Hunter Hayes' "Wanted" was playing in the background, making your heart go crazy in your chest.

"Anyone can tell you you're pretty, yeah and you get that all the time, I know you do. But your beauty's deeper than the make-up and I wanna show you what I see tonight" Tom silently sang along to the song. His voice sending chills down your spine, how you wished it wasn't just the song Tom was singing. How you wished he'd say those words to you.

"And I wanna call you mine, wanna hold your hand forever and never let you forget it. Yeah, I wanna make you feel wanted. Baby, I wanna make you feel wanted." Tom had placed a kiss on your forehead as the song came to an end, the DJ switching to a much more upbeat song. You started laughing when you saw Harrison coming towards you, moving his hips to the beat of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody".

"I'm going to be a cockblock right now and I'm sorry, but you know what: I just wanna dance with somebody." Harrison laughed and took your hand to spin you around, making Tom stand next to the two of you dying of laughter because of how uncomfortable you looked.

Tom had realized in that moment that he was in love with you. You were his everything. The One.

You didn't know if it was the alcohol in you talking or if it was just the pure desperation that saw Tom hesitate that made you wrap your arms around the boy in front of you. You let the tears fall into his chest - tears he had caused. Tom hated seeing you like that and he wished nothing more than to turn back time, to never walk away from you, to never let you leave his arms, but he knew it had been best for him - right?

"I'm sorry, (Y/N)." He whispered whilst moving his hand up and down your back to get you to calm down.

"Y-You don't get to do this, Tom. I can't let you break me again. This will be over in a few minutes and then you're gone again. I can't do this." You cried and let yourself break down in his arms. You let him catch you and you knew it would be a mistake.

"I'm not worth crying over. You're doing great without me, (Y/N)."

"I'm doing great?" You asked, freeing yourself from his arms. "You really think I'm doing great? You really think that fucking day and the fucking words you said to me aren't in my head at least once a day?"

"I-I-" Tom started, but you had enough. You had enough of him not realizing how much he'd hurt you. You had enough of him standing there, telling you how sorry he was.

"Every time something is off with someone I care about, I keep replaying those words! Every time Jack doesn't answer my texts, I feel like this is it again. I'm sitting at home, waiting for him to tell me how boring and clingy I am and how much he hates me. How much he wants to break up with me. How much he wants me out of his life! That's what you did, Tom. That day, when you walked away from me, you took my fucking heart with you and shattered it into pieces in the process. You broke me, Tom." At this point the tears were streaming down your face with no intention to stop.

"You don't get to stand here and tell me you're sorry, because you have no fucking idea what you did to me. And you know what the worst part is? You were the one I thought would never hurt me like that! No one - literally no one in this fucking world could've hurt me like that. You promised you'd never hurt me, but you did! You have no idea how much you hurt me because it sure as hell didn't hurt you one bit to delete me out of your stupid fucking life." You felt your knees give in as you already saw yourself crashing onto the hard asphalt. If Tom wouldn't have been there to catch you, you would've hit the ground without anything stopping you, sobbing uncontrollably. But Tom caught you, he'd always catch you, right?

He carefully sat you down on the ground before sitting next to you, pulling you back into his arms. You were too tired to fight, too tired to tell him to go away and let you be the mess you were. It wasn't until you felt a tear hit the top of your head that you realized Tom had tears rolling down his cheeks as well.

"It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life - let you walk away, you know?"

"Then why did you let me walk away? Why did you never return any of my texts or calls?" You sobbed, burying your face in his chest. You knew it was a mistake, but being with Tom made your mind go blank and for some crazy reason you felt some of the broken pieces in your heart fix themselves. It was just the two of you - like when you were 17.

"(Y/N)! Tom's here!" You heard your mum shout from downstairs. Hopping out of your bed, you immediately made your way towards the front door where your best friend was waiting for you - two water guns in his hands.

"The boys are out in the garden, wanna go and have some fun?" He grinned before tossing you one of the Super Soakers.

"Have fun." You heard your mum shout after the two of you started running down the driveway to surprise Harry, Sam and Harrison in the Holland's garden.

"You take down Harrison, I take the twins." Tom mouthed when you were in position. Giving your okay, you left your positions to attack - making the three boys scream in surprise.

"Ohhhhh, you're going down." Harrison started grinning before making his way towards the shed where the rest of the water guns were kept.

"They're never going to get you!" Tom shouted as he threw away his Soaker to grab you. He threw you over his shoulder and started sprinting away.

"Let me down, the fuck, Tom?" You laughed as you saw him heading towards the door.

"They know the rules, no water guns inside. I'm protecting you, now shut up!" He laughed before saving the two of you from getting blasted by the three soaking wet boys.

"That's fucking unfair!" Harry groaned as he saw you grin at him from inside the house just as he had filled up his gun.

"Gimme your gun." Tom held out his hand for you to place your water gun in.

"No? You shouldn't have dropped yours! I need mine."

"No! You stay here in safety and I'll take down our enemies."

"Tom. This isn't war. And I can take care of myself, thank you very much!" You chuckled.

"But I want to protect you!" Tom pouted as you placed a kiss on his cheek before making your way back towards the three annoyed boys, blasting water directly in their face as you almost died of laughter.

"Cover me, Darling!" You heard Tom shout as you saw him head for his water gun that he had dropped earlier. Although you tried your best to take down the three boys on your own, they still managed to get to Tom, getting him wet within 5 seconds.

"I told you to cover me!" He groaned.

"Well, your stupid ass shouldn't have dropped the gun in the first place!"

"What did you just say?" You saw the smirk crawl its way onto his face. The smirk that told you that you no longer were a team.

"It's so on, Darling." He smiled as he raised the gun in your direction, making Harrison jump in front of you to start defending you.

"Haz! Get out of my way, you div." Tom laughed.

"No! It's four against one now, loser." He grinned at you as the two of you started blasting Tom.

"That's cheating!" Tom was shouting as he ran away from the four of you, laughing his head off.

"I'll take him down, you get three buckets of water." You shouted in Harry, Sam and Harrisons direction before running after Tom.

"Tommy! It's over." You laughed as you managed to catch up to him. He was running down the driveway and was headed towards the garden of your house. Catching up to him on the front lawn of your house you managed to jump onto his back, taking him down with you before sitting down on his back to keep him from escaping.

"Hi." he smiled at you as he turned around underneath you, so you were no straddling his stomach.

"Hi." you smiled back as his hands found their way to your waist, holding you in place. The two of you were way too busy looking at each other to keep you from realizing that the three other boys were headed your way, buckets in their hands and no fear of getting you wet as well. Before the two of you realized what was happening you felt the ice cold water from the buckets being placed on top of your head, getting you soaking wet.

"Shouldn't have been too busy staring into each other's eyes, dickheads." Harry laughed before running back to the Holland's house.

"I-I couldn't. I wouldn't have been able to forget you." He answered your question truthfully. It really was true, he wanted to get you out of his head, he wanted to forget you, but he never wanted you out of his life.

"Did you? Did you forget me?" you whispered - not even knowing if Tom heard you.

"I could never forget you." Tom whispered as he placed a kiss on your hair, pulling you closer, letting the two of you have this small moment of peace before everything was going back to like this night had never happened.

"We're still going to be friends when we're 80."

Lies.