‹ Prequel: Love in Music

Love in Lights

Well I Hear You Were

“Louis Tomlinson, member of One Direction was photographed yesterday with a short blond outside of his home in West London. The large bag that sat atop Tomlinson’s shoulder as he ushered his nameless lady friend into the awaiting cab hints that the blond possibly stayed the night. This news comes as a shock as rumours had been flying around that Tomlinson and ex Annabelle Blake – member of girl band Purity – were possibly getting back together (cue Taylor Swift singing). They have been spending quite a lot of time together as of late and caught sneaking off in Simons Cowell’s party and the charity event for Great Ormond Street hospital a week ago. Is Tomlinson playing a dangerous game with both ladies?

Annabelle Blake has recently been spotted back home in Australia. It is known that the girls will be performing on the Australian X Factor in the next coming weeks but Blake seems to have gone on a head of her band. Following are a few unflattering photos of Blake as she grabbed coffee from a nearby café, the lack of make up and frumpy clothing could be another message to send to young fans of the girl band? Or perhaps her looks are slipping just a little.”
– August 2016

The sun beat down on my wind chapped lips and I slowly moved my arms through the gentle water below me. My face turned up towards the sun, allowing the rays to warm my skin while I lie on my back sprawled over my surfboard.

“I’m pretty sure Mum warned us about skin cancer if we did this too much.” I cracked and eye open when Annalisa pulled her surfboard in next to mine.

I sighed and sat up, wobbling slightly before re-gaining my balance. “What Mum doesn’t know won’t kill her.” I teased.

“You know you can’t avoid life by living out here. I’m pretty sure you can’t live out here, actually, it’s not practical.” Annalisa said.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not avoiding life.”

“Mhmm, that’s why the house phone has been ringing off the wall and your mobile phone has conveniently died. Three days ago.” Annalisa was all judgment as she glared at me.

“I need a break.” I shrugged.

“Yeah see, I get that part. But I don’t get why you are ignoring the other girls. You never need a break from them.” Annalisa pressed.

“I don’t know what to say to them. I never know what to say anymore.”

“That’s the beauty of being close friends with them. You don’t have to say anything, they just get you.” Annalisa reasoned. I don’t think she understood just how well she got me and how much I relied on that.

I let a silence fall between us, my feet slowly moving through the blue water underneath me. We were past the breakers, only bobbing while the waves crashed behind us, closer to the shore.

“You know what you need to do?” Annalisa grinned, slapping her hand against the water like she does when she thinks she’s had a great idea. “Scream!”

“Sorry?” I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Scream. ‘Member when we were younger and Dad took us out here and told us that out here this was our world, our sanctuary just like it was his. It was how he took the stress out, by yelling at the ocean. So yell.” She motioned at me but I shook my head.

“I think he meant it as a metaphor,” I replied. “Besides, I don’t even know what to yell.”

“So just scream then. Don’t use words; just take a deep breath and scream. Here, I’ll go.”

I clapped my hands over my ears in surprise when Annalisa took a deep breath in and let out a bone-curdling scream. I wildly turned my head to the shore to make sure no one could hear it and think we were in trouble.

“Come on, your turn.” Annalisa’s foot nudged mine under the water.

“No.” I stubbornly replied.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Do it Annabelle.”

“No Annalisa.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“Argh fine!” My shoulders slumped and I gave in entirely too easy to the shit eating smirk on Annalisa’s face.

She watched me expectantly so I turned my board, facing out to the great expanse of blue in front of me. Nothing could be seen past the drop. Closing my eyes I took the largest breath my lungs could take before at the last moment opening my eyes and my mouth, pushing all the breath out of my lungs as forcefully as possible into the loudest scream I could manage.

“Again!”

Another deep breath, and another whoosh all the way out into the endless blue.

“Again!”

I felt light-headed but a grin spread on my face as Annalisa and I both took deep breaths in before letting out screams together, letting them mingle into the fresh salty air, flying away over our head right out into the unknown where issues like ours just didn’t exist.

“Feel better?”

I surprisingly did, my head giddy from the rapid loss of air before every scream. But there was no longer a tension settled on my shoulders and instead a smile was split across my face.

“Come on, let’s stop traumatizing the fish and find some waves.” I flattened onto my stomach and started paddling for shore, already feeling a hundred pounds lighter then I had when I first paddled out.

I had a few waves before I began to carry my board out of the water; my head swiveled around to face Annalisa as she rode her last wave out towards me.

“Well, hey I might get onto a surfboard yet if that’s how awesome it actually looks.” I tripped over the board I was dragging across the sand and turned towards my house where four girls were piling out. Shedding jumpers and scarves as they went. It might still be winter in Australia but that didn’t mean it was going to be cold.

“What are you girls doing here?” I asked, astounded, barely holding onto the surfboard that was threatening to float away.

“Well someone wouldn’t answer our calls or texts or emails or any kind of contact so we flew out to you.” Lucinda narrowed her eyes at me, crossing her arms over her chest and I knew that by the end of today I would be lectured.

“So you decided to fly across the world and show up at me door instead of letting me be.” I glared back at her.

“Hey Annabelle!” I looked up in shock as two boys flew straight down my steps onto the sand, flying shirts in their wake as they raced each other towards the water.

“You brought Niall and Harry with you?” I yelled. I did not understand what part of that sentence sounded any good to them.

“We were all worried.” Gracie said quietly, a disappointed look on her face.

I sighed and turned away from them, not wanting to face their disappointment or reasoning now that they were here. It was why I had left as quickly as I did and ignored their calls since.

I could hear Annalisa calling out to Harry and Louis as she floated the rest of the way to the shore but I ignored it all. Heading straight towards the bottom of the house where I stored all my boards. I was thankful when no one followed me.

I washed the salt water off my board and brought it inside to store with the others I had lined up. A major benefit to fame was buying all the boards I wanted, a negative side was the fact that I barely go to ride them.

“You better not think about staying down here to wax right now.” I startled at Annalisa’s voice as she came up next to me and sat her board amongst mine. “They literally flew across the world to come and see you and the best you can do is storm off?”

“I didn’t ask them to.” I snapped back.

Annalisa raised an eyebrow at me. “And I thought I was the baby of the family.”

I glared after her as she whisked off back to the beach, probably to play or talk with the others. I hesitated before taking the internal stairs that led straight up into the laundry room of my house. I grabbed a towel to give myself a quick rub down before padding off into the house, wrapping the towel around my hair so it wouldn’t continuously drip.

I found suitcases in the foyer, some stacked to the side, other precariously dropped in the middle. I glared at them all and picked my way over them towards the stairs. I refused to acknowledge that they were even here.

I jumped straight into the shower, enjoying the warmth of the water as it rinsed me off properly. All my hair tangled and untangled as I washed the strands, running my fingers through it continuously and taking more time then was strictly necessary for a shower.

I stopped killing time and climbed out of the shower, drying myself off and wrapping the towel around before walking out of the door and into the hallway where a completely naked Harry with dripping wet hair was walking down directly towards me.

“Seriously!” I growled at him.

“Annalisa said it was okay to borrow your other shower.” He shrugged, not self-conscious of his nudity.

“Did you think of maybe wrapping a towel around all of that?” I questioned already knowing the answer was probably a no. “If Annalisa catches you naked at all, I will literally cut your balls off.” I warned him before pushing past him towards my bedroom, slamming the door loudly.

I debated just climbing straight into bed and ignoring everyone for the rest of the night but even I couldn’t be that rude, also my stomach had started to grumble and was only getting louder. The night was cooling down so I grabbed an old jumper, ignoring one of Louis’ I had stolen when were still dating. I shoved it away and purposefully buried it under other clothes before pulling out another, less used one ignoring how utterly uncomfortable it was compared to Louis’ well used one. It had thumbholes.

There was talking coming from the kitchen and I made my way there, pausing at the doorway before taking a deep breath and pressing through the swinging door.

Everyone went quiet. I rolled my eyes and nudged past them all, heading straight towards the fridge.

“You didn’t really have much food so we ordered pizza.” Niall told me, his smile seemed a little forced. I didn’t reply, just grabbing a bottle of water and taking a big gulp.

“You could at least talk to us now that we are here.” Lucinda said, standing from her stool.

“Here we go.” I rolled my eyes and jumped up onto the counter, settling in.

“What the fuck Annabelle!” Lucinda glared. “What the hell is wrong with you? Ignoring our calls for the last week isn’t cool; we were fucking worried. We thought you could have been dead, or drinking again.”

“Oh fuck you.” I said with heat, glaring at her and everyone at the table.

“Yeah, yeah fuck me. Fuck all of us who helped you out, helped each other out and what? You were just going to go back to it all again, the alcohol, the parties, the waking up God knows where.” Lucinda slammed a bottle of wine onto the table; it had been under her chair.

I eyed it wearily, noticing it was my favourite brand. I unconsciously flickered my eyes to the cupboard underneath my swinging legs.

“Yes we found your casket of wine.” Frankie said.

“Did you seriously come here to snoop?” I growled at her.

“Why is there alcohol in your house?” Lucinda demanded.

“It’s not opened. None of it is even opened!” I yelled back at her, desperate to defend my actions. Annalisa was quiet, sitting in between Harry and Niall at the kitchen table, her eyes downcast.

“But you still bought it.” Gracie said softly, her eyes sympathetic. “Why?”

“Because! Okay, just because. Because I felt like crap and I didn’t know what to do so I bought it because it helped, it used to. But I didn’t drink it.” I tried not to squeeze the water bottle in my hand too tight.

“You promised.” Lucinda glared.

“Like it’s that easy.” I hissed back. “None of you even went back on your word? Huh? Ever skipped a meal Gracie? Maybe you’ve slipped in a pill or two Franks heck maybe Kate has sliced her wrist again, just a litt—.”

“Enough!” Annalisa’s chair screeched loudly along the floor from when she stood so abruptly, tears in her eyes. “Who are you?” She hissed before storming out of the room, the kitchen doors swinging behind her.

“And this is why I avoided her all last year.” I said to the quiet room, slamming both my feet against the cupboard door below me before jumping off it.

“Belle.” Harry stood slowly, his body cautious as if to step towards me.

“I’m tired. Okay? Not just sleep tired. I am bone weary tired of the world and fighting it every step of the way and alcohol helps you feel like the fight isn’t there.” It wasn’t fair that he got to be here and pretend to understand, to care. He didn’t know what it was like to feel like this.

“So I bought some and I couldn’t bring myself to drink it and it wasn’t just because all of you were around. I proved to myself that I didn’t have to drink when I was alone. I needed to do this. And it wasn’t easy but so far I was doing fine and I love you girls but sometimes, sometimes I don’t – I need to do some parts of this by myself.” I breathed deeply, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“I’m going to go speak with Lissy, just make yourselves at home.” I gestured around and left the room, heading to the room that Annalisa had claimed for herself, spending her time there whenever I was home.

I knocked once before walking in, finding Annalisa sitting in the middle of her bed, tear tracks on her face and her Ipad resting on her lap.

“Can we talk?” I asked softly and she nodded in return, moving to allow me space on the bed next to her.

“You said some horrible things to them. That wasn’t fair.” She whispered her voice choked up.

“That’s what we do Lissy. We yell at each other, call each other horrible things and lay out the ugliest truths. We also lie, scream and a couple of time we’ve actually hit someone. It’s the most unhealthiest relationship I’ve ever had, it’s also the only relationships I have that get me through this.” I explained to her gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulder to bring her close to me.

“Did you buy the alcohol because of what Louis said?” She asked me.

“Louis hates me, that really shouldn’t have been a big of a surprise as I thought. But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to give up. Jen was right; I’m not going to give up because of just one boy. But I still need time to accept the fact that Louis hates me and I have to be okay with that.” I murmured into her hair before leaning back against the pillows.

I stayed there with her, slowly breathing in and out together with the sound of the ocean rolling around outside, the waves a constant crushing against the shore even when I couldn’t see it. I relied on that constant promise from the world. No matter how wild my own world turned, how the rules bent and moved in and out of shape and sometimes what I thought was permanent was the most fleeing part of my life. But the waves, the waves never let me down.

-

I woke up when it was dark, gossebumps rising on my skin as the cool had set in and Annalisa and I were curled up on top of the covers. I crawled off the bed and pulled a blanket over Annalisa before padding out into the hallway. There was a light coming from under one of the spare bedroom doors, strums of a guitar.

I knocked hesitantly before peaking inside. Frankie was sitting on the large queen bed, her legs folded underneath her with a guitar sitting across her lap. There was an open book in front of her, a pen resting within the crease.

“Sorry if I woke you, Kate’s downstairs on the phone to Liam and I couldn’t sleep so I stole Niall’s guitar from downstairs.

“It’s okay.” I murmured, crossing the room to sit with her on the bed. She leant towards me, nudging my shoulder gently and I nudged her back. We were okay.

“You’re writing again?” I asked her, leaning forward to stare at the words scribbled over the pages in front of her. I hadn’t seen her write a song since we finished the last album.

“I’ve had some inspiration lately.” She shrugged, her fingers lazily strumming random chords on the guitar while I lean forward to read her words.

“These are really good.” I told her.

“Aren’t they always.” She snorted back, the old confident Frankie leaking into her features and I smiled back, happy to hear her like this.

“OH MY GOD!”

I shot out of the bed at Annalisa’s scream and ran to the door. Looking wildly around to be faced with Harry Styles’ bum cheeks and bare back. This was the second time in the last few hours that I had seen him naked.

“Seriously!” I whined as Harry turned to me with an apologetic look on his face, one hand covering his junk while the other tried to cover his nipples. Annalisa made a squeak from behind Harry when she received full view of his backside.

Niall came up behind her and clapped a hand over her eyes. “PG Haz.”

“Sorry I needed to pee.” Harry said, an innocent smile across his features. I rolled my eyes and shoved past him to my room.

“Sleep with one eye open tonight Styles.” I warned him, grinning at Lucinda who poked her head out of another room. “You might lose your manhood over night!”
♠ ♠ ♠
Song Title: Heart Beats Slow - Angus and Julia Stone

Sorry guys I went back to Uni so I've been trying to figure out my schedule again. But just for you all I wrote this at Uni all day yesterday and didn't study one bit ;P
​Hope you enjoy!! xx​​