Kids in Love

For some reason, Fisher decided that I’m in charge of taking her to school this week. According to her it’s part of ‘babysitting.’ This could be the reason I’m lying on the couch at 9am, watching a show on Netflix as I provide background music (in the form of yawns and stomach growls). I’m truly alone for the first time since I’ve been home. It’s kind of refreshing, not having anyone around. Not something I’m used to, considering Fisher was born and all.

I spent the majority of the weekend next door, with Liam and his friends. Kali came around a few times, but she never stayed long. I guess she’s over Niall; I wouldn’t be surprised. Once you start getting to know him you realize very quickly that he’s not exactly Kali’s type, despite all the looks they shared.

Surprisingly, Liam’s friends and I get along great. I giggle thinking about a joke Zayn and Louis shared last night as we tried to play cards. Actually, Louis and I are supposed to hang out today. Something about needing to ‘have a chat’ with me about Liam. The way he said it made me kind of nervous but the look on his face kind of alleviated the nerves. Well, that and Liam’s hand rubbing my thigh under the table.

I yawn again and click ‘yes’ when Netflix asks if I’m still watching Bob’s Burgers (um, of course I am, because I have clearly given up on moving off the couch). I contemplate getting up and doing yoga, something I haven’t done since the morning after I got back. I can’t find the motivation in me to trek upstairs for my mat, and change out of my pajamas, and just decide to sit up. A small victory in my quest to make it to the kitchen for some breakfast.

By the time the episode ends, I have rolled off the couch to sit on the floor. Reaching a hand up to fix my hair, I feel the knots from keeping it in a bun the day before, and make a face. Might as well just put it up until I shower. I’m pulling my hair into another bun as I stand up and finally get moving into the kitchen.

My head tells me to eat something healthy, or at least actual breakfast food, but my heart says to go for the salt and vinegar chips and the soda. I tilt my head, admiring my choices, when I hear the front door open.

“Louis! You’re early, sir.” I said as I peek out of the kitchen, into the hallway. Definitely not Louis. I gulp and my heart drops. “Oh, um, what are you doing here?”

Jared chuckles and shakes his head. “Who’s Louis?”

“Not important right now. How’d you even know I would be here?” I was taken aback. Who does he think he is? He can’t just walk into somebody’s house uninvited and start questioning them. That’s not how this works. And if he thinks that he’s talking to 17 year old me he’s got another thing coming.

“Kali told me. I just want to talk.”

What are friends for? I cross my arms and try to stand up straighter. I read somewhere that if you make yourself appear bigger than you are that you’ll be more intimidating (it was in reference to bears, but I think it still counts). It took all of five seconds of me looking into his eyes before I had to look away. There’s just something about him that’s able to distract me especially when I’m trying really hard to focus.

“Let’s sit on the porch, it’s nice out today.” It was chilly this morning when I took Fisher to school and I have no idea what it’s like now but, knowing Jared, I don’t want to have this conversation inside. At least on the porch I know I’ll have an audience since Mrs. Calloway across the street loves to watch people from behind the blinds in her upstairs window.

“I’m fine here, thanks darlin.” The smirk on his face makes my skin crawl. I start praying for Louis to come early or for Liam to want to come see me or something—anything!—to interrupt right now. Hell, I’d even be okay with Fisher skipping school and I would probably hug my mom if she came through the door right now.

I take a deep breath and nod shortly. We head quietly to the living room. I sit on one of the armchairs next to the couch I was laying on earlier. I feel more comfortable as soon as he sits on the couch, mainly because there’s a coffee table separating us. That’s good enough for me.

He clears his throat and looks at me with those big, brown eyes that I used to get lost in. “I don’t like the way we ended things.”

I tilt my head back and furrow my eyebrows. He doesn’t like the way we ended things? That makes two of us. I can’t help but chuckle. “Jared, I…”

“Can you just listen?” He growls, scrunching his eyebrows. I nod and quell my laughter. “I want you back.”

If I had some drink in my mouth—and if I were in a movie—this is the point where I would have spit the drink out in front of me. Since I’m not, I settle for the real life equivalent: a slightly dropped jaw and raised eyebrows. I think I stopped breathing right after he said it. There’s no way he’s being genuine about this. Not after the Waffle House thing the other day.

“You can’t just…” I’m not even sure what I was planning on saying but (luckily?) Jared cut me off before I tried to pull a response out of my ass.

“I’m not done, Allie May.” He sighs and puts his head in his hands. My nerves get to me and I start biting the inside of my cheek. “I really think we should give it another try.”

“Jared…I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“I still love you.” And just like that everything comes rushing back. Sitting with him in chemistry. Going on vacation with his family. Our picnic dates. Watching his football games. Dancing at prom and losing my virginity. Finding out the truth. Somewhere in there I fell in love and had my heart broken. His words make my breath catch in my throat and I immediately close my eyes tightly at the feeling of tears gathering in the corners. I try to take a few deep breaths but only manage to let a few tears escape.

“Jared please.” I whisper, looking down at my feet, scared of the reaction I know I’m going to get. He grabs my hand and stands up, pulling me with him until we’re standing in the space between the couch and the wall.

“You’re such a bitch, Allie May. I came to apologize. I told you I love you. What more do you want from me?” His nostrils flare and I can feel his grip tighten on my hand before he pushes me away. My back is touching the wall, trying to get as far away from him as possible. I can see him clench and unclench his fists over and over out of the corner of my eyes. This is exactly why I wanted to go outside. At least there he wouldn’t try to cause a scene. His momma would throttle him if he trashed the family name (any more than he already has).

That’s when I hear the front door open for the second time that day. In that moment I promise God that I’ll stop drinking and cussing as a thanks for sending whoever just saved my life. Jared takes two steps back and I slide down the wall, my hands hiding my face.

“My love! Where are you?” Kali yells out and as soon as she appears in the doorway to the living room Jared runs out the front door. She points angrily in his direction and sends me a questioning glance that I barely catch from behind my fingers. I see her do a double take before she runs over to sit next to me.

“I thought you were busy today.” I said. How I manage to speak through my sobs, I don’t know. Kali has one arm around my shoulders and uses the other to force me to lay my head down on her shoulder. I almost want to laugh.

“My schedule just cleared up.” She said softly, laying her head on top of my head and sighing. She must think I still can’t stand up for myself. Being here has me acting like the person I was before. Like the last year didn’t happen; like I didn’t grow or learn anything about myself or stood up for myself while I was at school.

“You don’t have to stay.” I sniffle, rubbing my nose on the back of my arm (what? It’s all I have). “I’m fine now.”

Kali sits up straight causing me to sit up, too. She grabs my chin and that’s when I see the (slightly scary) intense look she has on her face. I’ve seen that look before.

“Look, Allie, it’s okay to ask for help. You don’t have to go through this alone, you know? If you want me to stay, I’ll stay. If you don’t want me to stay, too bad, I’m staying.”

I nod and the tears start to well up in my eyes again, even after rubbing my eyes to try to stop them. Kali stands up and almost picks me up off the floor. I manage to walk to the couch by myself and plop down onto it with an involuntary sigh.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Kali whispers after a few minutes of staring at me. Most likely to see if I’m going to start crying again. I furiously shake my head back and forth a few times but I know that I’m going to have to talk to someone about this, eventually. Might as well be here and now. Besides, Kali’s the only person who knows the whole story.

“He wants to get back together.” It takes me a while to get out through my hiccups but once it’s out there I feel a little less like shit.

“You said no, right?” Her eyebrows are so scrunched together that they can pass for a unibrow. I almost laugh but end up sobbing instead.

“I told him it’s not a good idea, then he told me he still loves me.” I said, followed by an extremely ugly sounding sniffle.

“And then he got all crazy again?”

I nod and a tear rolls down my cheek. Jared didn’t always act like that. In the beginning he was sweet and kind of awkward but I thought he was really cute. Unfortunately I wasn’t the only one. This is one of the many times I’ve wanted to go back to my 15 year old self and shake her, yelling ‘don’t fucking do it’ in her face over and over and over again until it gets through her thick skull that dating a 17 year old who is used to getting everything he wants is probably not the best idea (or, at the very least, to not sleep with him but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms).

“Kali…” I sniffle and she slides closer to me to give me a hug. My tears are falling faster now and I’ve stopped trying to make them go away. This is something that needs to happen. “Why did it have to be me?”

Kali starts rocking us back and forth while I cry on her shoulder. I press my lips together to try to stop the loud noises that I’m making. My eyelids shut tightly as I think about the other times I ended up in this same situation. Admittedly, this was tame compared to other times when Jared lost his temper.

“Fuck him! And Emma. They’re not important, babe.” She said as she squeezes me tighter in the hug. My giggle sounds mangled because of the tears. Kali chuckles as she pulls away from the hug to grab me a box of tissues from the bathroom.

I’m so grateful for Kali. She’s always been around to help clean up my messes, even when she didn’t know she was. I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend. In fact, I probably owe her some dinner (since I’m not old enough to buy her some of her favorite beer). I’ll just add that to the ‘to do’ list in my planner.

“Knock, knock!” My eyes widen when I hear footsteps in the hallway. Kali’s head darts up and I try to wipe my face and nose. With what had just happened, I forgot that I’m supposed to hang out with Louis today. I quickly wipe my face again while Kali rushes over to stall. I clear my throat and make sure I look normal before walking over to the hallway.

Kali and Louis are standing close together, whispering suspiciously near the staircase. My sniffles betray me, but not as much as Kali biting her lip or Louis’ sad smile. She must have told him something. My shoulders slumped and the haphazard smile disappeared when I sighed. Even though I’ve barely known him for a week, I don’t have it in me to feel embarrassed that Louis is seeing me like this. We stand there staring at each other for a while before I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stop looking at me like that.” I grumble with a roll of my eye as I turn to head down the hallway, towards the kitchen for the breakfast that had been long forgotten. I grab the bag of chips out of the pantry and a soda from the fridge before hopping up on the counter to eat. Louis and Kali shuffle in just as I shove a huge chip in my mouth.

We might as well have stayed in the hallway because the change of scenery did nothing for the mood. I’m just trying to eat something—I didn’t ask for these glances full of pity from my friends. I roll my eyes and chomp down on another chip. Kali clears her throat twice and, I swear, if she does it a third time I might throw a sponge at her. Just because I’m sitting next to the sink and that’s the closest thing to me.

“Do you wanna talk about it some more?” Kali asks. She should know better.

I chuckle. “What part? The part where he told me he still loves me and wants to get back together? Or that I thought he was going to hit me again?”

The room goes silent again. Looking down at my lap, I play with a string coming from my shirt so that I don’t have to see the looks on their faces. Shock and anger I would be okay with. As long as they don’t look like they pity me when I look back up at them I’ll be fine. I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime. When I look back up Louis is standing up and Kali is tugging on her bottom lip with her hand.

“Let’s get out of here, find something to get your mind off of all this.” He said softly.

And, damn, if that’s not the best idea someone’s had all day.

A few hours later we’re lying next to the pool at my parents’ house. Me, Kali, Louis and Niall (at Kali’s insistence, guess she’s not over him quite yet) took a trip away from the beach and the drama. Niall’s busy grilling us some lunch and Kali’s hovering around him. It’s actually kind of cute, even though they’re kind of the same height.

What’s not cute is getting splashed just as you’re sitting up to grab your phone. I just want to lay on this chaise but clearly Louis is hell bent on distracting me. I have a mind to splash him back but instead I glare at him from behind my sunglasses as he laughs and swims away. Pouting, I grab my phone and giggle at the new message.



Louis tried to get Liam and Zayn to come with us but they’re busy today. Apparently Zayn is helping Liam settle something with school in the fall. Who am I to come between him and his education? Even though I really wish he were here (and not just because I look damn good in this bikini). I could use the extra distraction.



Louis splashes me again after I set my phone down. I gasp and jump off the chaise and straight into the pool. When I resurface Louis immediately starts a splash war. I give up after a few minutes in favor of going to sit on the edge with my feet in the water. Closing my eyes, I lean back and soak up the warmth of the sun on my face. For that moment, I’m carefree and ignorant again. When I open my eyes again, Louis is sitting next to me, staring.

“Creep.” I said as I kick my feet in the water. He shrugs and I shake my head. I can understand why the guys keep him around, he’s great at getting your mind off of things. I imagine that would be a horrible thing if they actually have school or work to do. But for me, today, Louis and his distractions are exactly what I need. I just wish Liam wasn’t busy. He could probably be a good enough distraction all by himself. The fact that I haven’t seen him in swimming trunks yet is a disgrace and kind of hilarious (we live right on the beach?). Another missed opportunity. I’ll just have to be satisfied with the fact that he hasn’t seen me in a bathing suit, either. Assuming that he actually wants to see me in mine.

“I’m okay with that.”

“Why would you be okay with that, Lou?” I said with a giggle.

He shrugs with a far off look on his face. I don’t think I really want to know. When he comes back to Earth he looks over at me. “What are your intentions with Liam?” Louis said with a smirk.

Oh my stars. I was hoping he’d forgotten about that.

“I like him, he likes me. He’s cute, he thinks I’m cute.” I shrug, trying to hide my wide grin by looking away. “Just kind of seeing where it goes, I guess.”

He nods, like he thinks that could be a good answer. I bite my lip and look down at my feet, still kicking in the water. I think about all of the other things I could have said and replay the conversation in my head a few times, like I usually do with important conversations.

“I don’t want to see him hurt, again…but I genuinely feel that won’t be an issue.”

Turning towards Louis, I nod.

“I hope not. For both our sakes.” I whisper and look away.

After lunch Kali and I are sitting on the deck, nursing some spiked sweet teas, courtesy of momma’s liquor cabinet. My bare feet are crossed on the chair under me and Kali has her feet up on the table (which I know for sure our moms would’ve yelled at us for). I’m lazily petting my puppy when Louis and Niall come sit with us.

We sit in silence for a while but I have a feeling Kali’s working up to something. She has that look, like—

“Are you bringing anyone to the gala?” There it is. I shrug and take a long sip of my drink, thinking of what to say.

“Probably not. Who am I gonna invite, really?” I look over with eyebrows raised.

“Liam, duh.” Kali said as she pops a chip in her mouth, pointing over at Mr. Wrinkles on the chair next to me. Liam really needs a new nickname. I let out a big belly laugh, tears in my eyes as I cover my mouth with my hand. “And I’ll invite the rest of them!”

Like Louis and Niall weren’t sitting next to her. She turns to them and grins. “Y’all can come, too!”

The looks of terror on their faces make me giggle. “Y’all don’t have to. I barely want to go.”

“Good, ‘cause my tux is at the cleaners.” Niall said with a grin. We laugh for a while but I can tell Kali is upset about it. She’s not exactly used to not getting what she wants.

Going to take a sip of my drink, I pout, seeing that it’s all gone. Standing up, I let them know I’m getting a refill before going inside. I set my glass down on the island in the kitchen and lean against it, taking a moment to myself. It almost feels like this morning didn’t happen. If I want to, I can almost convince myself that it was all just a bad dream. That, any moment now, I’m going to wake up. At least this afternoon’s events almost outweighed this morning’s catastrophe. That’s the next best thing.

I don’t want to go to the Winston’s gala in the first place but now I want to go less, if that’s even possible. Bringing someone as a date is the least of my worries. I don’t want to expose Liam to that mess of people. Maybe if I ask nicely Fisher will be my date. Or I can go alone. Wouldn’t be the first time.

I walk back out to see Niall talking to Kali and Louis in my spot petting Mr. Wrinkles. I sit in an empty armchair, setting my drink down on the table and grin. Niall and Kali are deep in conversation—all I manage to catch is the word potatoes—and Louis is baby talking to my dog. I roll my eyes at Kali’s loud, obnoxious flirty laugh and giggle quietly. I just wish Liam could have been here.

Louis told me to stay away from Allie today. Apart from a few text messages, I haven’t spoken to her all day. I hadn’t realized how much of my day I was spending with her. And, even though she wasn’t here, most of my day revolved around her. Slumped at the dinner table with my head in my hands, I’ve never felt more like a hopeless romantic as I stare at her last text message.



“Liam!” I hear Louis call out from the front of the house. I pocket my phone and hop up, walking towards the stairs. Honestly, I’ve been waiting for him to get home.

“Hey Lou.” I said through a yawn. My sleep schedule has been a bit off since meeting Allie May. If I lay down right now I know I would fall asleep instantly.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” He said, walking up to me and poking me in the shoulder. I scrunch my eyebrows and take a step back.

“What do you mean?” I said as I rub the spot he poked.

“With Allie.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want to see her get hurt again.”

The only thing I can do is nod in confusion as I watch Louis walk upstairs.