Pawn Shop Blues

At midnight on Christmas Eve, Olivia sat in her bedroom at home staring at a blank canvas. All of her paints were arranged in a tray in her left hand, a brush in the other – in short, she was ready to paint. But she couldn’t. Normally, when she looked at a blank white page, she saw some semblance of what she would eventually paint. But now when she looked at the white space, she saw nothing. She saw a blank canvas.

It was amazing how quickly everything could fall apart. It was like a chain reaction. Harry broke Daria’s heart, Daria left, Niall stopped speaking to her. Olivia thought that Niall was not the type of person to completely shun her off when his best friend broke up with her best friend. Daria and Harry were hardly a part of their friendship, right? It had always been her and Niall, never the four of them together – so why would it matter?

“He’s just busy,” she murmured to herself, tapping the end of the brush against the crease between her furrowed brows. “He’s just busy, that’s all.”

“Who’s just busy?” a tiny voice asked from the doorway.

Olivia turned to see a sleepy Einin standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes with the back of her small hand. She couldn’t help but smile at her little sister, though frustrated that she was out of bed. Olivia could never seem to get her to sleep when she came home.

“Mummy,” Olivia replied, getting up and putting her supplies down on her seat instead. She went to Einin and scooped the little girl up in her arms, pushing the messy red curls out of her face. “Mummy is just busy, that’s all. She should be home any minute now.”

“No,” Einin protested, burying her face in her sister’s shoulder. “You said he. Who is he?”

Olivia sighed, pressing her face into her sister’s shoulder in return. She missed the days when Einin was to young to pick up on anything she was saying – now at age seven, she was quick as a whip and always caught something from a conversation, usually what you didn’t want her to hear.

“Niall,” Olivia confessed. “It’s Niall. I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

“Do you miss him?” Einin asked.

Olivia nodded into Einin’s shoulder, her hair carrying that cereal-and-crayon smell that little kids always seemed to carry. “Yes, a little. Not as much as I missed you though.”

She gave her sister a squeeze, and Einin responded by sighing sleepily. “What are you doing up?” she questioned Olivia.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Olivia quipped, beginning to walk to the stairs to carry Einin back to her bed. “Midnight is no hour for little lasses to be up and about the house.”

“Santa,” she mumbled, clearly falling back asleep in Olivia’s arms. Olivia’s eyebrows shot up with a start. She’d forgotten to put out the presents from Santa – though Einin was the only one who believed anymore, it was still a tradition they maintained for her sake. She was already growing up too fast.

“Oh, love, Santa doesn’t come if you’re awake!” Olivia murmured back, pushing open Einin’s door with her hip and crossing the room to her little twin bed. “You have to be asleep for him to come! He’s a self-conscious eater; he won’t be able to eat the milk and cookies if you’re standing there watching him!”

Einin giggled a little as Olivia rolled her out of her arms and beneath the covers, tucking her in carefully around the sides. “He must have gotten lost,” she hummed slowly, the last glimpses of alertness slipping from her consciousness. “Nothing is here yet.”

“He’ll come, Ein,” Olivia assured her softly, kissing her on the forehead. “I’ll go to bed too so he will. Promise.”

But Einin gave no reply – she was already asleep. Olivia smiled to herself at her handiwork, everything having gone exactly the way it needed to. Einin wasn’t always the easiest to get back to sleep. She knew that Carrig and Riordan struggled with her sometimes on the nights that her mother wasn’t home. As she walked back downstairs to set out the presents, she could hear the sounds of them playing FIFA coming from down the hall. She rolled her eyes. Boys. Didn’t they know that Einin would be getting them up at dawn to open presents?

Aoife was nowhere to be found yet – her stuff was by the front door but the girl herself had vanished as quickly as she came. Heaven forbid she spend time with her family on Christmas Eve. It was just as well, Olivia decided, because she was much more comfortable when Aoife wasn’t around. When Aoife wasn’t around, there wasn’t a shadow for her to be engulfed in.

Just as she was grabbing the freshly wrapped presents from the cupboard beneath the stairs, her phone began to ring from her easel. “Who in the bloody hell…” she muttered, carrying as many as she could fit in her arms to the tree before going to answer it. She prayed that it wouldn’t be Aoife, needing her to come pick her up from some pub. Or her mother saying that her shift had been extended.

Her prayers were answered, but in a way she hadn’t expected – the caller ID showed that the person calling her was in fact Harry Styles himself.

The piece of shit.

“What do you want?” she questioned when she answered, bearing no time for pleasantries towards the man who had hurt her best friend so deeply. “Don’t you know you can’t just have people constantly at your beck and call? It’s midnight!”

“Liv,” he gasped, sounding rather unlike himself. “Liv I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for all this mess. But I need a favor.”

“A favor!” she cried indignantly, then cursing herself for being too loud and potentially waking Einin again. “Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”

“Olivia please,” he spoke again. “Seriously, I need you. Niall said you might be able to help me.”

Olivia’s heart caught in her chest. Niall. He didn’t speak to her for ages and suddenly he was telling Harry to ask her favors? Was he there with Harry right that moment, listening on the other end of the line, just out of her reach?

“Well, you can tell Niall Horan that he can –“

“Olivia please, I don’t have much time,” he cut her off. “I’m trying to tell Daria something and I need your help to do it.”

She paused. He needed her help to get Daria back. On the one hand, she knew that Daria certainly did want to be with him. She’d been torn to pieces when he’d suddenly broken up with her and was hung up on it ever since – when they spoke on the phone later, Olivia could tell. But could she in good conscience let Harry try and get her back when he could just end up breaking her heart again?

“What’s your plan?” she questioned flatly.

Harry was quiet for a moment before speaking again. “I need to tell her I love her. And I think I may have the perfect opportunity.”

He loved her? “Do you mean it, Harry?” Olivia insisted in her sternest voice. “Or are you going to break her heart again?”

“Olivia,” he sighed. “This has all been the biggest mistake of my life. I never should have done what I did. And now I’m trying to fix it and I’m really, really asking for your help. Please.”

She groaned in weakness. “Okay! Okay fine. Just tell me what I need to do. It may not work, though, I’m letting you know that right now.”

“I need to take the risk,” he insisted. “I need to at least try.”

“Hit me with your most romantic bullshit.”

So he launched himself into an explanation of the scheme and exactly how she would help. He couldn’t get a hold of her as he didn’t know her home phone number so he was trying to figure out the best way to make sure his message was heard. They were set to be featured on Z100 in three minutes, and Harry was going to speak to her through the radio waves.

It was crazy enough that it just may work. All Olivia needed to do was get a hold of her and tell her to listen.

Moments later, she was on the phone calling Connecticut long distance. The first time, the call was dropped. The second time, nearly a minute later, she was greeted with the cheery voice of Daria Holmes.

“Liv!” she exclaimed in excitement. “Happy Christmas!”

“Daria, hi, same to you,” Olivia said, exuding a relieved sigh. She’d gotten a hold of her. “Look, I don’t really have time for pleasantries – “

“Can you just wait a minute?!” Daria insisted. “I have exciting news.”

And just as Olivia was opening her mouth to protest again, she received some of the best news she’d heard in ages.

“I got accepted back to Birmingham! Permanently!”

Olivia’s heart fluttered at the news – immediately she wanted to get off track, gossip excitedly about plans and how happy she was that they could finally be together again. She couldn’t help but squeal.

“Oh my goodness! We have to talk about it later though, okay? Right now, I need you to turn on your radio.”

“What?” Daria questioned, taken aback.

Olivia took in a deep breath to prepare herself to deliver the news. “Harry is on Z100 in New York right now and it’s streaming live online. He’s talking about you.”

Right away, she could hear Daria gasping and the phone dropping to the ground with a thud. Olivia waited until she could hear the sound of the radio in the background and then hung up, proud of her work. If she knew Daria, this could fix everything.

If all went well, things could go back to normal. Everything except for Niall, it seemed. Because who knew what the hell was even going on with him?