Wildflower

The fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. You get to shoot off fireworks. Grill out hamburgers and hot dogs. Swim and spend time with family. In my family we had this huge get together and went all out with fireworks.

My uncle -great uncle actually- bought a couple hundred dollars worth of fireworks. With this being two days before my brother Kohlson was shipped off to do his training for the army, this was a bigger get together. It was like a going away party of sorts.

Niall and the others had gotten off of tour three days ago. I'd talked to them a few times, but with their busy schedules it wasn't all that often. Harry had seemed to get the picture and leave me alone. My job was going good and Lulu and I loved it. We wouldn't trade our jobs for anything. The people we worked with didn't treat us as little kids like my dad and some other people did. They had become our good friends.

I finished helping Bug open the smoke bombs and lit our punks with my lighter. "Now take it like this and light the fuse and when it starts sparking like that, you throw it out in the grass," I instructed.

"Okay! I wanna try a blue one!" She exclaimed. She picked a blue one out of the box and carefully lit it then threw it out in the grass. When the blue smoke started coming from it, she looked at me with a huge grin and started cheering. "Good job, Bug!"

]Lulu appeared beside us with her phone connected to her ear. From what I heard, she was talking to Zayn. "I know, I miss you too," she spoke.

"I miss you too, Zayniepoo!" I hollered. Lulu chuckled and shook her head. "Yeah, that was Veve. She's setting off smoke bombs with Bug right now."

I really did miss him. And Niall and Louis and Liam. I might have missed Harry but I didn't tell anyone. I didn't want anyone that cared about me -in other words, my overprotective family and friends- to know because they would go ballistic. I hadn't told Niall or them either. I was better off just keeping it to myself.

"Here, Niall wants to talk to you." I took the phone from Lulu and held it up to my ear. "Hey Niallkins. How does it feel to be off tour?"

"Hi Vevekins! Its 'mazin being off tour. Me and the lads are just chillin' and being lazy bums. Well, Harry is at his mums but other that we're all back in London," Niall replied.

I grinned. "That's good. I'm glad you guys are finally relaxing. I miss ya."

"We miss ya too, Veve. I've been meaning to tell you, but me and the lads got asked to perform at the Olympics this year. How mental is that?!"

If I was with them I would have known that the second they got the call instead of finding out on the internet. It made me feel horrible for leaving tour, but there was nothing else I could do. It was better for all of us if I left. In the long run, I was doing it to help all of us.

"Yeah, I, uh...I heard. That's big news," I replied. "I'm proud of you guys."

"Would you and Lulu want to come? We can get tickets and everything. You lot can stay at my place, well you can stay at my place while Lulu stays with Zayn. If you know what I mean. Wink, wink."

Woah. That's a big deal. And it would be awkward as shit. "Oh um, I don't know. I don't think that would be a good idea. For me anyway."

Lulu sent me a questioning stare, but I just waved her off. She went back to shooting off smoke bombs with Bug as Niall started talking again. "Just think about it, yeah? It would mean the world to me if you did. And I wouldn't let it anything happen between you and green eyes."

I nodded. "I'll think about it. But I'm gonna let you go because I know its getting late there. Bye Niallkins, miss you. Give the others my love."

I hung up the phone after he said his goodbye and handed it back to Lulu. She slid it in her shorts pocket and sent me the same questioning stare as before. I didn't even have to be asked and I knew what she was asking.

"Niall wants you and me to go to London for the Olympics," I explained. "He said he'd take care of everything and we could stay with him."

She looked at me with wide eyes. "He did what?"

I nodded. Pretty much my reaction. "That's not a good idea. As much as I want to see Zayn and you want to see the others, it's not a good idea. Quinn probably wouldn't let us off for the long of a time anyway. That'd be like two damn weeks off, because you know we'd want to stay and not be rushed around and then go and be all fanny pack tourist with our cameras."

Quinn was the manager at our work, so she was our boss. She was cool and like a teenager herself -but serious when needed- but two weeks off in a row was a long time. I wouldn't feel right asking her seeing as we haven't even been there for three months.

Shrugging, I took a video of Bug lighting a smoke bomb. I was planning on adding it to my photography website and tumblr later on. "I don't want to see 'you-know-who' any time soon," I stated.

And that was the truth. I didn't.


"Veve, I need a new fire stick," Bug spoke. I chuckled. "Okay, Bug. Let me go and find one in the house. Don't get near the street."

She nodded and sat on the front porch in a lawn chair, kicking her feet back and forth as she drank her large sweet tea from Sonic. She was a mini me. If I got a RT. 44 sweet tea from Sonic she had to get a large sweet tea. I had her spoiled.

I headed in the house and toward our big stack of fireworks sitting in the living room. My uncle went a little overboard. He spent close to a grand on fireworks every year. It was insane. But he said he did it for the kids. I found a bundle of the punks and went to the find the candle lighter seeing as my lighter wasn't working anymore. Once I had it, I made my way back outside. Bug wasn't on the front porch where I left her. She was out by the street where a black car was idling at the curb.

"Sadie Reese Hayes! Get away from that car and the street right now!" I shouted. She turned around and sent me a pout. "But he not a bad guy! I know him! He, Harry Smiles!" She shouted back.

When she didn't make a move to come back, I started making my way across the yard. When I was halfway there, the driver of the car shut it off and got out. First thing I saw was a beanie clad head with a few curls sticking out here and there, then a grey shirt. I knew that beanie. And I knew that hair.

It was Harry.

Before I could reach her or say anything, Kohlson and Gavin had come out on the front porch. They took one look at who was standing in our yard and they went into protective brother mode. Oh dear Jesus. He doesn't know what he's gotten himself into.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" Kohl questioned, standing beside me. Bug and Harry had moved to stand a few feet in front of us. Bug narrowed her eyes at Kohl and then Gavin when he opened his mouth.

"You best get as far away from here as you can or I'll kick your fucking ass," Gavin seethed.

Harry stared at them with a calm face. That shocked me. Normally any guy who my brothers threatened went running for the hills before you could blink. Harry had some balls, I'd give him that.

"Koko, Gav, you be nice to Harry Smiles!" Bug scolded. "He nice! Now 'pologize!"

I sighed. "Go inside, Bug."

She went to protest but I used my mom voice. "Now Sadie Reese!" She listened but sulked all the way in the house. I peeked through the small space Gavin and Kohl had left between each other as they stood in front of me, and looked straight at Harry. "What do you want?" I questioned.

His green eyes I had grown to love stared right into my own. "To talk to you," he spoke in his usual slow, deep voice. "In private."

Kohl and Gavin snorted. "I don't think so," they spoke together.

"Would you two quit speaking for her? She can speak for herself," Harry snapped. Oh snap. And yes, I just said oh snap. Gavin went to step forward but Kohl stopped him, grabbing his arm. "Don't even think about it, Gav."

"Gavin, just go inside." What would it hurt to talk? I mean, everyone deserved the chance to explain themselves even if you didn't forgive them. "You too Kohl."

They both begrudgingly made their way inside. Once the I knew the door was shut, I turned back to Harry and crossed my arms. He didn't say anything, just stared at me. "Well, are you gonna talk or does the cat got your tongue?"

He looked down at his pristine white Converse and bit his lip. God did that drive me crazy when he did that. But I couldn't give that a second thought. He broke my heart. He cheated on me. He's a no good cheater. If I wanted to be a crazy ex, I could pull a Carrie Underwood and take a Louisville slugger to both his headlights.

"I'm uh....I'm sorry," he managed to get out.

I scoffed. "Sorry for what; cheating or breaking my heart?"

He tensed up at that. "Both," he whispered. He finally looked up at me and softly asked, "I broke your heart?"

I just scoffed. Before I could smart off anything my uncle hollered out the front door that everything was ready in the backyard. He noticed Harry beside me and told me to bring him too. He had yet to know who he was and what he did. It was probably best right now and at any other moment. He quietly followed me through my uncle and Gammy's -my grandma- house, and out to the backyard. They lived out in the country on a few acres. We always had get togethers out here.

Out in the backyard was a big card table filled with all of his guns and ammo. Oh yay! My favorite part of the fourth. All of my cousins, aunts, uncles, Lulu, Gavin, Kohlson, my mom, Gammy, and my uncle Roy were scattered around the back deck and yard. Bug had on her big pink shooting ear muffs. She handed me my bedazzled shooting ear muffs and grinned up at me and Harry. "You gonna shoot the guns too, Harry?"

He shrugged, stuffing his hands in the pockets off his skinny jeans. "I've never shot a gun before. Maybe if Veve showed me, I would."

Bug grinned. "Youse can reach him, Veve! Youse good at it!"

Really Sadie? Really? To teach him I have to be close to him and near him. I don't want to be close to him or near him. Thanks a lot Sadie Bug. And it didn't help that I couldn't say no to her, so I had no other choice but to teach him. Fuck a duck.

"Come on," I grumbled. "I'll show you."


I've always thought that once you lose something its better to just let it be lost then to try and find it again. That's how I felt about a lot of things. For instance: my old pair of Chucks I lost before I came on tour, the remote to my TV, the charger to my iPad, and Harry.

I never found my Chucks, my remote, my charger, or Harry. He had found me. Doesn't he know once you lose something you let it stay lost?

"Can I talk to you?" Harry had leaned down and was speaking directly into my ear. He was talking slow and quietly. I immediately stepped away from him and nodded. "We can go inside and talk," I replied.

He nodded, following me inside. Once we got inside we went back to the spare room where my uncle kept all his guns and junk. My Gammy was in the living room on her laptop and if we talked to where she could hear us, she'd put in her two-sense. So it was better if we went where she couldn't hear us.

"So what'd you wanna talk to me about this time?" I asked, sitting on the bed. He stayed standing in front of me. "What I did was a mistake; a huge mistake. I had been drinking and I didn't mean to do that."

How can you not mean to do that? I mean, honestly. You don't just make out with somebody while you have a boyfriend or girlfriend and turn around and say 'Oh, I didn't mean to do that. Don't breakup with me. It was a huge mistake.'

"You don't just do that and it be a mistake," I stated. "What do you think you apologizing is going to do; make me forgive you and take you back?"

He looked down as if he was ashamed, before looking up at me and nodding shyly. "Yeah."

"Well that isn't going to happen. I'm not going to forgive you just like that." I chuckled dryly. He ripped off his beanie and ran his hands through his hair. He was getting frustrated. But I didn't care. "You said you loved me! That's what made me act the way I did. That's why I distanced myself from you," he exploded.

What? "Come again?" There's no way I said that.

"We were laying in bed and right before you fell asleep you told me you loved me."

People accidentally say that. And I was half asleep, I didn't know what I was saying. I don't just throw that around like its nothing. I'm not one of those people who does that. "Well I didn't mean it. And that still doesn't change anything. I'm not going to get back with you. I'm not going to forgive you. I left tour for a reason; to get away from you. So don't come back trying to squeeze yourself back into life and make everything all rainbows and unicorns," I finished.

This couldn't be like a movie romance. Nothing happens like that. Its not always rainbows and unicorns. Nothing is anymore.