Forbidden

I looked down at the floor for a second, ignoring Harry's questions - and then gasps - as I tore his t-shirt off and pulled on my skirt and top, not even bothering with underwear.
"You are so lucky I have good reflexes and I shut my eyes quickly." Harry commented, but I was already on my way out of the door.

"Louis!" I called, just as the front door slammed shut. I sped up, cursing under my breath. "Louis!" I shouted, again, when I reached the door. I caught a glimpse of him turning the corner as I ran towards him.
"For fucks sake! Just let me explain!" I demanded, wishing I'd thought to put some shoes on before I went running out onto the cold tiled floor. I didn't even want to think about how many people had walked on there before me. Only a week before, Niall had recounted how he'd finished his night peeing on the floor in one of the corridors in the building. I hoped to God it hadn't been on this floor.

A few seconds later I reached the corner where Louis had turned. For some reason he was standing there, completely still, but I didn't dare question it as I attempted to explain myself to him.

"Louis. I'm so sorry you had to see that. But I swear to God, nothing happened." I told him. He didn't respond, simply continuing to stare into the distance. Finally, I turned to look at just what he was staring at.
There were two police officers stood outside the door to Liam' s flat. I cast aside my desire to explain myself to Louis, instead running towards the man and woman, fearing that something bad might have happened to Liam.
Louis followed my lead, only slightly behind me as I rushed over, and for a second, in our shared sense of worry, all arguments were forgotten.

Louis was the first to speak.
"Is everything okay, officer?" he asked the elder man of the two. The officers studied us closely for a moment before speaking.
"We're looking for Amelia Payne. According to her mother she's been staying here with her brother." the policeman said.

"Yeah, that's me." I told them slowly. "Is everything okay? Has Liam been hurt?" I asked them worriedly.
"This isn't about him. We need to speak to you alone, Miss Payne, regarding the attack two weeks ago." the police officer told me, eyeing Louis carefully, obviously reluctant to give too much away. As it was, he'd said too much.
Immediately, Louis's head whipped round so he could look at me. His face was serious and his voice was urgent.

"Attack? What attack?" he asked quickly. I looked away from him for a moment, trying to think of what to say.
"Louis, I'm sorry, but this will have to wait. I need to speak to the officers." I told him, my face apologetic, but he was already rolling his eyes.

"Whatever." he told me, already turning to walk away. Within seconds he'd turned the corner and I was left on my own with the officers. The older man cleared his throat, obviously feeling awkward about what had just happened.
"Would it be okay if we spoke in a more private place?" he asked me hesitantly, after a moment spent in excruciating silence. I nodded, pulling out the key which I'd, thankfully, stowed in my skirt's small pocket.

A few minutes later we were inside the flat, sitting on the huge squashy sofas in the living room. The officers began speaking slowly.
"We've been able to locate your attacker, Miss Payne. His full name is Matthew Barnes. He was previously accused of rape in 2008, but found innocent." they told me, and I tried not to gasp. What if there wasn't enough evidence to convict him this time? What if he got away with it, and was free to hurt another girl. The officer began to speak again.
"This time, he has admitted to the attack, and is currently being held in Madrid, where police found him late last night." They told me.
"Because he's admitted to committing the crime,all we need is for you to confirm that he was in fact your attacker." the younger officer told me, leaning down to take some papers out of the briefcase he'd carried in. In my worry, I'd failed to notice it before.

He pulled out a picture, and I gasped. It was him. The face that had me waking up in a cold sweat. The face that had been the subject of countless nightmares. In reality, his face was slightly softer than I'd recalled, his eyes less dark, and his mouth wasn't curled up in the snarl I'd recalled so clearly. Aside from that, he looked exactly the same.
In the picture, his face was completely blank as he posed for the mugshot. The police officers told me that they had been taken when he'd first been accused of rape four years ago. If you hadn't been told, it wouldn't be obvious that it was a mugshot. His face was completely void of emotion, and he looked careless. He didn't care that he'd been arrested, he didn't care about the allegations being made against him.

I wondered if it was the same this time, if he was upset, or ashamed, about what he'd done, If he even remotely cared that he'd hurt me, and my family so much. But then, something must have triggered his confession. Maybe he'd seen the pictures of me in the papers, in the days after the attack. I'd looked completely shit, my hair lank, with the huge black eye the only thing decorating my pale face. I'd kept my head down, wearing clothes that were two sizes too big for me, whilst the paparazzi happily snapped pictures of Liam and I, some even mentioning that night, oblivious to what had really happened.

The first time that had happened since the boys found out, one of the men had shouted out, asking Liam what it felt to have a slut for a sister, and whether the other boys had been upset about me sullying their clean cut image.
I'd thought that Liam would fly off the handle. He'd whipped round, and there was a moment where Harry, who was walking to the car with us, had had to step forward to make sure that Liam didn't throw a punch. Eventually, he'd calmed down enough to unclench his fists, and he settled for demanding an apology from the middle aged man, before reporting him.

A while later, after checking that I was okay to be alone, and offering me a lift to a friend's house so that I wouldn't be on my own, the police left. I sighed, knowing that sooner or later I would have to tell Louis the truth. It had been at the back of my mind for a while. I'd supposed that I'd have had to tell him at one point, he was bound to find out eventually. But I'd clung to the hope that at least one person would still view me normally.
I pulled myself up out of my seat, and remembered that I was still dressed in yesterdays clothes, with no underwear. I blushed, despite the fact that no one could see me, and walked into the bedroom, more confident now that I knew there was no way Matt could hurt me again.

Once I was dressed in some leggings and a jumper, I made my way to Harry's flat, supposing that Louis would have gone there. Since moving out of the flat he and Harry had shared, he still spent the majority of his time there 'because he got lonely'. Sure enough, when I knocked on the door Harry opened it, looking solemn.
"He's in there." he told me, nodding towards the bedroom which Louis had once owned.

I walked towards the door, preparing myself for whatever insults he would throw my way before I told him the truth.
But nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to find.