Love in Lights

I groaned pitifully as my eyes refused to open. The person lying on top of me was persistent in the constant jabs to all the vulnerable parts of my body.

“What. Do. You. Want.” I ground out to Lucinda, trying to bury my head further into my pillow.

“Frankie didn’t come home last night.” Lucinda said.

I could hear her pout from under the pillow. I rolled over, rolling Lucinda off my back and glanced over to Frankie’s empty bed. It looked untouched from when she had made it yesterday. She hadn’t come home all night.

Lucinda nervously wrung her hands, next to me. I rolled my eyes and flopped onto my back, staring at the ceiling.

“It is too early in the morning for you to be having relationship problems, Lucinda.” I growled out.

“What? I said Frankie, I didn’t say anything about Aaron.” Lucinda protested.

I spared her a look; she sighed and flopped onto her back next to me. She sent jabs of her elbow into my side to give her more room.

“So maybe I’m freaking out a little about moving in with Aaron.” She said, her eyes staying focused on the ceiling. “I’m worried about you guys as well. I’m not going to be around for all of you.”

I smiled at her fondly. “Luce, you are moving twenty minutes away. That is it. It’s not like you are moving to another country. We will call if we need you and we’ll be together so often you will basically be making me a room in your place.”

“That’s why I got four extra bedrooms.” Lucinda said seriously.

I snorted out a laugh. “I thought so.” I reached between the both of us and laced our fingers together. “Aaron is moving countries for you, babe, don’t be hesitant about this. Be excited and ecstatic and more serious about this than anything else because this is major. You’re going to live together and you are going to be happy.” I raised her hand and pressed a kiss to her middle knuckle.

She turned her head to smile at me. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Literally, we are twenty minutes away.” I burst out, laughing at her.

We both stayed in bed for a little longer before Gracie knocked on the door, the movers were at the house and Aaron was wondering where we all were.

“Time to be a grown up Luce.” I smiled at her before rolling out of the bed.

By the time we got Lucinda out of the apartment and over to their house, Aaron was standing in the foyer, drowning in boxes. I wanted to collapse at the sight of them all.

“I cannot believe Frankie is not answering me.” Lucinda pouted, hanging her phone up and plopping down on one of the boxes. “She better not be avoiding helping us unpack.” She growled at.

I surveyed the boxes around us, before diving in and grabbing a box to take to Lucinda’s room. Aaron dumped another in my arms before following me into their main bedroom.

“I’ll leave you girls to figure out the bedroom, Luce will hate wherever I put things.” Aaron waved as he left the room and I stood amongst four boxes. The furniture in the bedroom had been set up yesterday by the delivery people.

I searched through the first box where a lot of Lucinda’s jackets were piled in. I dragged the box to the walk in closet but there were no coat hangers. I grabbed another box only to find a whole lot of random things crammed in. I sighed, flopping to the ground and groping through what was inside.

There was a thump at the door behind me and I turned around as Annalisa walked in the door.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” I asked her, holding my hands up for a hug before she fell to the floor next to me.

“Dad’s got some conference call so Mum decided we could help. She’s currently bossing Kate and Gracie around the kitchen.” Annalisa reached into the box and pulled out a photo album. Her face lit up and she settled back against the frame of the bed sitting in the middle of the room.

I laughed and began grabbing more things. There was a lot of crap in the box that Kate probably would have made Lucinda throw out if she had seen it. There were random pens and pencils and notebooks. I came across a couple of frames and pulled them out. I made sure no glass was broken from the careless packing before standing up to place them on the bedside tables and various other surfaces in the room.

“Hey check these out. This must have been when you guys first got together as a group.” Annalisa called me over. I fell into a heap beside her and looked over at the photo album.

I smiled at the pictures and how young we looked. My hair was longer then it was now and there was almost innocence to the smile on my face. Most of us were innocent back then, Frankie was always devious though.

“Oh this was our first tour of London.” I said, Annalisa turned the page. There were photos of us with the Big Ben, the London Eye and at Buckingham Palace. I laughed at the photos we had taken with the guards, our faces pulling ridiculous expressions.

Annalisa turned to the next page and my heart caught in my throat. There were two photos, one below the other, of Louis and I. The first one, I remembered clearly, we were on the bus home after the London tour Liam and Louis had taken us on.

“He thought we would fan girl over them more. Said he was surprised that we didn’t.” I told Annalisa, my eyes locked on the photo. Louis was smiling down at me, his eyes were soft and his lips didn’t carry that smirk that was so common back then. “I had joked and said that we just did it when they weren’t around. He loved that I always answered him back.”

I reached out and gently put my finger over both of our faces before moving to the photo beneath. “The first photo we hadn’t known Lucinda was taking but she took a second photo of us. Of course neither of could be serious.” I said, referring to the expressions that Louis and I had pulled in the photo. My lower lip was jutted out dramatically and Louis had gone cross-eyed.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have looked at these.” Annalisa quickly shut the album, cutting me off from the past.

“It’s okay,” I said absently. I grabbed the photo album from her and clutched it in my hands. We had changed so much yet my heart had never truly regained it’s original beat since I had met Louis. My heart had sped and never remembered how to slow back down again.

“He changed my world and I don’t hate him.” I told Annalisa softly. “I will never hate Louis, even last year when the whole world was crap and I took a lot of it out on Liam, I didn’t hate Louis.”

I sat motionless, refusing to open the album again. I was tempted to keep it with me.

“I understand that we can’t be friends. But I really miss him.”

Annalisa wrapped her arms around me, pressing a kiss to my temple.

“Uh Annalisa, your Mum is asking for you.”

I blinked up at the door, Zayn stood there, shifting from one foot to another.

“What are you doing here?” I asked quickly, wiping at the water in my eyes.

Annalisa stood up and quickly left the room, Zayn came in and crossed to sit where Annalisa had been. He took the photo album from my hands and began to look through them. I didn’t want to see it anymore.

“You know, I remember the first time I heard you sing.” Zayn began, a smile sat on his face while he glanced through the photos. “Simon played a video from each of your YouTube accounts before you girls arrived. You were good, you all were. Fucking amazing. Your voice is so sweet and so smooth that I could listen to you sing any genre for hours on end.”

I blushed under all of Zayn’s compliments; it was a lot to take in at once.

“Louis, though, he reacted the most. Told me the next day that he had went home and watched every single one of your videos.”

I blushed harder. Louis had never told me that. I had had no idea that any of the boys had seen our videos and heard us sing before we arrived.

“I think Louis was a little bit in love with you before he even met you. And then you had to be all lovely and beautiful and not give a damn about who he was.”

“I did, trust me. We freaked out a lot.” I cut in, remembering the freak out on the elevator after we met the boys. The freak-outs in the rooms and after the first time Louis ever kissed me.

“You fought back and you sung amazingly and you were everything that Louis had ever dreamed of having in his life.” Zayn stopped on the photos of Louis and I. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

“This last year has been hard for you five girls and it’s been hard for us lads to watch you girls go through it. I was so angry and disappointed in you. Not just for breaking Louis. But for letting it all get to you, for letting the world hate you and for hating yourself. I wasn’t going to sit back and watch you all destroy yourself.”

Zayn hadn’t wanted to talk to me so willingly in such a long time that I almost wanted to sob in relief. It was like getting a brother back who had been missing for so long.

“What you and Louis are doing right now is your business. I’m just glad you’re back and you’re all safe.” Zayn pressed a kiss to my temple while I leant on his shoulders.

We both stared down at the photos in front of us.

“He was always happy when you were around him.” Zayn murmured.

“ANNABELLE.”

I jumped out of Zayn’s arms, both of us startling from the scream that echoed throughout the house.

“Someone probably broke Lucinda’s favourite camera or something.” I sighed to Zayn, once both our hearts calmed back down. Zayn dropped the photo album and we headed out of the room, down the stairs.

I paused halfway down, noticing One Direction boys were all here, Louis in the center of them all. Louis eyes met mine instantly and the shock of seeing him distracted me from realising the hysteria that was breaking throughout the room.

“What’s going on?” I pulled my gaze away from Louis and ran down the last couple of stairs.

Gracie was buried in Tony’s arms; Kate stood stock still, shrugging out of Liam’s grasp. Lucinda was almost to the floor if it wasn’t for Aaron holding her, her phone hung out of her hand. Annalisa had tears in her eyes.

“Guys, what happened?” Dread filled my stomach and I felt like I was going to be sick.

“Honey,” Mum stepped forward and I quickly stepped back. If she was being caring and using sweet nicknames then something was definitely wrong.

“It’s Frankie.” Louis murmured. I jumped not realising I had stepped that close to them.

“Where is she?” I asked the room wildly, hoping to anyone that would listen, that she would hop out from behind a box or wall or piece of furniture just to show me that she was fine with her silly smile and her stupid short hair.

“She’s in the hospital.” This came from Harry. He walked towards me, crowding me back against some boxes. “She was brought in from overdosing.”

For one sickly moment, my heart stopped beating.