The Other Payne

Niall P.O.V –

Liam, Zayn and I were all in Liam’s car on the way to Liam’s house; Harry and Louis were right behind us in Harry’s car. We were going to be staying with Liam’s family for the very first time. We were gonna be there for just a bit under a week while we had some break time. It was the middle of the year and we were having a bit of a summer break.

As we got closer to Liam’s house he was getting more and more excited. He said that he couldn’t wait to see his mum, dad and his twin sister, Caitlin. Every time one of us asked him about her he just sort of brushed it off but I did know that they were fairly close and Liam missed her a lot. Well it had been over a year since her had seen her and what a crazy year it had been.

After The X Factor everything had just gone -for lack of better words- fucking insane. We had all these fans just come out of nowhere even though we didn’t even win! Not that I’m complaining though. Now we had an album out and we had just done a massive tour. Life was good really, really good. I was living my dream for fuck’s sake!

“Are we close?” Zayn asked, his deep voice pulling me from my thoughts of the past year. It really does feel quite strange to sit back and think about it all but luckily for me I usually don’t have much time for thinking.

“3 more hours maximum,” Liam smiled the excitement evident in his voice.

“Liam, please tell us about her?” I asked, I mean we had a right to know. We were gonna be staying with her after all. And I felt like we should know about somebody who was that important to Liam.

“Well,” he started, “She’s different to me, like almost the opposite but at the same time we’re exactly the same.” He smiled at a memory then continued “You’ll know her as soon as you see her, we have the same exact eyes and we look very, very similar. She has a fairly strong personality and she won’t take any shit from no-one.”

“Sounds a bit like somebody else we know,” Zayn smirked poking Liam in the ribs. We all laughed and then lapsed into a comfortable silence consequentially ending that conversation.

I relaxed back into my seat and popped my headphones into my ears. I looked out the window watching the scenery rush past us. My eyes were heavy and despite the music blasting in my ears I felt myself begin to fall asleep.

The next thing I knew I was being shaken awake. I opened my eyes for come face to face with Zayn.

“Oh shit! Zayn, you fucking scared me!” I yelled.

Zayn laughed at me, “and you guys say I’m the sleepy one.”

I looked around me and noticed that we were parked in a driveway, it was dark and the clock on the dashboard said it was half twelve. Wow I’d been out a while. Liam and Louis were collecting the bags while Harry was supervising them.

“Alright?” He asked me.

“Good to be out of the car,” I replied stretching.

“I hear that!” Louis said placing my suitcase at my feet. I thanked him, Louis didn’t really have to do that but once again I’m not complaining.

“Alright,” Liam said unlocking the door, “welcome home.” He swung the dark timber door open to reveal a fairly decent looking house.

It wasn’t too fancy, it was quite nice and normal. It reminded me of my own house. The walls were beige and the floors were dark timber. From what I could see from where we were standing it had a large family room and kitchen.

“Is that my baby boy?” A woman’s voice called coming down the stairs.

“Yes, mum I’m home,” Liam called back.

“Hi Karen,” Harry said cheerfully. While it was our first time staying with Liam’s family we had met his parents before.

“Hello boys!” She smiled warmly giving all of us a hug and a peck on the cheek. “So, I’ve set up the upstairs lounge room for all you boys to sleep in. Liam If you want you can stay in your old room but I figured you’d like to stay with the boys.”

“Thanks mum but I’ll stay with the boys.” Liam said giving his other another hug. We all knew just how much he had been missing her in these last few months.

“So, your father is asleep and I really can’t bring myself to wake him up. The poor beggar he’s been working really hard lately.” Karen said.

“It’s okay; we’ll see him tomorrow right?” I said we all really did like Liam’s parents. They were so nice and Geoff reminded me a bit of my own father.

Liam nodded in agreement, “Where’s Caitlin? Is she asleep because she said she was gonna wait for me and –"

“She’s with those idiot friends of hers” Karen cut him off.

Liam’s face fell, did she really just blow Liam off for a bunch if her ‘idiot’ friends?' Karen shot Liam a knowing look I wonder what that was about.

Karen yawned, “Well goodnight boys,” she said before wondering off upstairs.

We all dragged our bags upstairs and each claimed a maid up mattress from the floor. I was feeling much more awake after lugging my huge bag up the flight of stairs. Liam looked very upset.

“What’s up mate?” Lou asked him.

Liam shook his head, “I just thought that she was excited to see me too you know? I just thought that maybe for one night she could act like a normal twin sister and actually want to see me.”

I sighed; maybe Liam and Caitlin had some problems he hadn’t told us about. “You could just go and get her you know” I stated.

“Yeah!” Harry said jumping from his seat on the black leather couch.

Walking down the road in the brisk night air we could see a slight orange glow of a campfire at the end of his street.

“Down there,” Liam pointed, “that’s where they always party.”

I could hear the heavy punk rock music being played and I could see figures dancing wildly with each other. At least four of the six people had some kind of alcoholic drink in their hand.
That’s when I saw her she had a bottle of vodka in her hand and was dancing with a girl and a boy.

There was no doubt in my mind that she was Caitlin. She looked just like Liam except more feminine of course. She was wearing a pair of blue ripped denim high waist shorts, stockings, combat boots and black midriff top that showed of her slim waist and she was wearing thick black eyeliner. Now she wasn’t normally the kind of girl I would go for, she was the stereotypical 'bad girl' but there was something about her that made her different, that made me want to get to know her.

“Li Li!” She shrieked, running over to Liam and jumping into his arms. She hooked her legs around his waist and he spun her around in a circle.

“I’ve missed you so fucking much!” She slurred.

“I’ve missed you too, are you drunk by any chance?” he asked taking the bottle from her hands.

“hmm maybe!” she giggled. Liam gave her a look as if to say ‘oh yeah I believe that’. “Fine!” She half laughed, half yelled. “I’m off my fucking head!”

Liam put her down. She gave him a dirty look I’m assuming that was for taking her drink, before tucking a piece of her light brown long curly hair behind her ear. She really was just like Liam, their death glares were exactly the same! Liam draped his arm over her shoulders and turned her to face us.

“These are the lads, Louis, Harry, Zayn and Niall,” he said gesturing to each of us in turn
.
“That’s it?” She sneered. “This is the world famous One Direction?”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked is eyebrows mashing together. Liam was shooting his sister glares that seemed to say ‘stop it before you go too far’.

“Well,” she started, “There’s you,” she swung her arm in Louis’s direction, “what are you a sailor?” She made sailor seem like a bad word. “You, Harry is it? Do you really think wearing your pants low like that is cool?” She turned to face me, “erm Niall?” She asked. I nodded, “You’re roots are showing, hun.”

My fingers went straight to my hair, were they that obvious? Liam mouthed sorry and winced.

He grabbed Caitlin and said, “Come on that’s just the alcohol talking.”

“No, I’m not done yet,” she shrugged out of his grasp and turned to Zayn. He winced, waiting for whatever insult she was going to dish out. Even though he has a tough ‘bad-boy’ exterior words really did hurt him but he would never admit that. I watched as Caitlin looked him up and down taking in his ripped black jeans and band-tee for ‘Guns & Roses’.

“Well, you’re kinda hot, Zayn.” She winked at him before throwing her hands up into the air, “Alright, Liam, I’m done now.”

She started to walk well more like stumble up the road to her house. Did she really just say that to us, did she really just call Zayn hot? Why did it sting so much that she obviously hated me and not him. Of course she'd go for him, she's the bad girl and he's the bad boy! A match made in heaven! I bet she'd never even give me, the innocent one, a second look. Wait why should I even care? No bad Niall, do not fall for Liam's sister!

“Oh my God, guys. I am so sorry, she’s a mean drunk.” Liam said before following after her. We looked to each other before following him.

So maybe she didn’t mean any of that? I found that hard to believe. The way she looked at us with such hatred, it almost made me want to cry but I didn’t. I just met her why does what she think have such a huge impact on me?

“My pants aren’t too low are they Boo Bear?” Harry asked, turning to Louis.

“No they’re fine, Haz” Lou replied.

We got back to the house and went upstairs to the room we were staying in. I flopped down on the bed. I could hear Caitlin’s parents yelling at her followed by a “Yeah, yeah! Whatever!” And then a door slamming.

Liam sighed and put his head in his hands. Zayn rubbed his back softly to try and soothe him.

“This is not how I planned that to go,” Liam said.

“Mate, don’t even worry about it,” I said yawning. I lay my head back on the pillow and began to fall asleep.

Something woke me in the middle of the night, it sounded like crying but it wasn’t one of us it was a girl crying which was really strange. I popped my head up and I saw that Caitlin had snuck into the room and was lying with Liam. I quickly put my head back down and pretended I was asleep. I know eavesdropping is wrong but I couldn’t help but listen.

“You gonna tell me why you’re upset?” Liam asked.

“Liam, don’t you see? I miss this, I miss how at night I could crawl into your room and we could talk and laugh. I miss how whenever I was in trouble I could call you and you would come pick me up, I miss watching movies with you, I miss Saturday morning cartoon marathons with you, I miss how we would always go and see the new Marvel Super Hero movies together when they came out, I miss how when that one you beat up that one guy,” she laughed. “Remember?”

“Yeah, that guy needed to learn how to take now for an answer,” Liam replied and they both laughed at a memory. This girl seemed so different to the cold and sinister girl from before. I liked this girl a whole lot more.

“I miss you too,” Liam said. “I miss you so much, every single day I think about you; I miss all of those things too. I mean the guys, they’re great but they aren’t you. They aren’t my best friend.”

This was a side to Liam, that I hadn’t seen before and I felt like nobody had ever seen that side of Caitlin before. I felt like an intruder, this was something that the two of them were supposed to share. I was starting to figure her out though, she was cold and hard on the outside but with Liam she didn’t seem like that at all.

“Liam, I didn’t mean to say that to your friends. It’s just with everything that’s happened in the past year I feel like they’ve taken you away from me.” Caitlin said quietly. We hadn’t taken Liam away from her, had we?

“Now you know that’s not true.”

“Shh,” she said, “Let me finish. Liam you and I both had a dream, we both had the talent and we both had the drive and it’s so God damn hard to watch my twin brother living out our dream by himself. It’s so hard to hardly hear from your best friend for a whole year and I know it’s mostly my fault for pushing you away but I never meant to. I never meant to resent your band -your friends- as much as I do. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” he said, “Look I never meant to do that to you and you know that.”

“I know,” she yawned.

“Can you please at least try and get along with them?” Liam asked her.

“Yeah,” she said “I will.”

Their words became faded as I drifted into a sleep plagued with strange dreams in which Caitlin’s perfect face appeared many, many times.