Love

Five weeks since break-up ○Ten weeks pregnant

Lola is wearing a body-hugging, black tank top. The fabric of the top is clinging to the form her belly is now starting to take on, the bump seems to be getting bigger on a daily basis and Lola couldn’t be more delighted. Her pregnancy hasn’t been too hard on her so far, no extreme morning sickness like her mother had while carrying Quinn and her mood swings haven’t been too bad, unless Louis is brought up in any conversation.

Lola blows at her freshly polished nails once more before grabbing the cup of tea that’s sitting on the dark, wooden kitchen table in front of her. “I’m so glad you asked me to come to your next appointment in three weeks!” Carol gushes while keeping her eyes locked on Lola’s belly. It’s all her family members, and Emily, seem to look at anymore. Lola rests her left hand on her stomach as she takes a sip of tea.

“Me too!” Emily says before dipping another cookie into her hot coffee. “Like… I’ll get to see the nugget. That’s epic.” She starts rambling and goes on to talk about how she most likely will not be able to tell the head apart from the toe, because ‘those sonogram things are vague like that’.

“Don’t call him or her a nugget… gets me hungry.” Lola pouts, now craving some chicken nuggets or anything greasy, really. “Maccie D’s needs to start doing home deliveries!”

“Yes, because even if they did… they sure start making chicken nuggets at nine in the morning, sl…” Emily quickly shuts up when Lola points her finger firmly at her best friend. She’s told Emily about a hundred times already not to cuss around her. She’s convinced that the baby will pick up on it already.

“I read some stuff online and they all say different things on when the baby can actually hear us talk… some say around fifteen weeks, other say around twenty weeks. The baby’s already moving around apparently, but I just can’t feel it yet… how crazy is that?” Lola then says as a wide smile spreads across her face.

Lola never expected herself to be this excited about the baby, but the more she’s reading the more excited she becomes about being a mum. “You were a kicker! My, my… and Quinn was so tiny that she had too much room in my womb so she was laying horizontally about halfway through my pregnancy, I had to quit work and was put on bed rest… with two kids, that was hard… do you remember?” Carol laughs before smiling adoringly at her oldest daughter.



Louis’ brown hair is clinging to his forehead due to the sweat that formed on it while sleeping. Now that he has a three-week break off tour, he’s trying to focus on catching up on sleep, family and friends before he leaves for the US leg of the tour.

Louis absolutely loves what he does, but hates the fact that whenever he gets home everyone else’s lives have moved on and he just has to catch up as soon as possible – before he leaves again for another hundred or more days.

Louis runs a hand through his tangled hair as he pours himself a cup of tea with his free hand. “Goodmorning…” A young voice mumbles, before two arms finds their way around his waist. Louis doesn’t bother to look who it is – he knows exactly who it is, but he doesn’t know if he’s too happy about her presence.

“I don’t wanna be rude, Steph…but this isn’t a bed and breakfast deal. You come over, we have fun and you leave… I don’t want anything serious right now.” Louis responds, trying to sugar coat his words as well as he possibly can, while in the aggravated state that he’s in.

The blonde gasps in shock before playfully slapping Louis’ shoulder. “I know that, Lou… you have to understand though, when we were on tour you told me you thought you loved me… and now all of a sudden, you’re acting like you hate my guts?” Stephanie says as she takes a seat on the counter across from Louis.

When he turns around with the hot cup of tea in his hands he’s immediately met with the sight of the blonde. Her shoulder-length hair is pulled into a messy ponytail, the eyeliner she forgot to remove the night before has smeared and she’s wearing one of Lola’s leopard print shorts. “Take that off. And don’t call me Lou.” He simply replies while pointing at Lola’s shorts, trying to restrain from getting angry with the girl.

It’s true; he did think he loved her. After all, she’s the reason he ended his relationship with Lola. The first couple of days after they broke up, Louis was fine with it, of course he missed her but he figured it was normal to miss someone after being with them for a year. And as week passed, that nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach grew worse and the ‘love’ he thought he felt towards Stephanie quickly turned out to be nothing more than lust. Eventually he started seeing small details of Lola in Stephanie – their hair, although a different colour, and their foul mouths, their love for alcohol, … all the negative things he loved about Lola were evident in Stephanie, but she was just lacking any of the positive things. Yet Louis kept her around, something to deal with that feeling that he just couldn’t grow familiar with.

“Just get over it, Louis!” Stephanie hisses as she jumps off the counter, it takes her three big steps to come in front of Louis. Their bodies are so close to each other that they can actually feel each other’s body heat. The blonde is still contemplating on teasing or slapping Louis, because she, too, is only in it for lust anymore.

Louis pushes past the blonde in front of him. Instead of taking a seat in front of the television again he moves towards the front door and holds it open for her. “Gather your clothes and get the fuck out.” He says with absolutely no emotion evident in his voice.

The brunette doesn’t even have the patience to wait for Stephanie to gather all of her stuff so he just makes his way over to the couch and settles down before pressing play on his iTunes playlist, ironically “Twenty Four Hours” by Joy Division starts playing.

Louis grabs his phone and searches for Lola’s name, the last text stems from about five weeks ago. Twenty Four Hours is playing… Thinking of you, missing you. As Louis’ finger hovers over the send button, he quickly realises that she probably doesn’t have any interest in hearing from him again. So instead of sending the text, he quickly erases it.



Lola sits down next to her mum on the couch before resting her head on Carol’s shoulder. “Oh baby…” Her mother whispers before wrapping her arm around Lola’s shoulder. “Have you heard anything from Louis?”

At the mention of Louis’ name, Lola immediately stiffens. Hearing his name or even the ‘ou’ sound sends a burning feeling through her insides, as if her stomach drops and her lungs are being lit on fire. “No…” Lola replies quietly, she tries to hold back the tears that have now formed in her eyes but one quickly slips down her cheek.

“I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but you have to tell him… it’s not easy brining up a kid alone, I would know… not financially, not emotionally, not physically. This baby will drain you out of your energy and money, you’ll cry with the baby at some point… it’s not easy, it won’t make you miss him any less either…” Carol says, at which point Lola is already sobbing into her mother’s shoulder. “And what about your studies? How will you get food on the table? How will you pay your rent… you can live with us for a while, but eventually you’ll have to do it on your own… a father is more than a wallet, he’s also supposed to be moral support for the mother.” Carol sighs deeply as she hugs her oldest daughter. “Lola, I know you’re strong… but even the strongest of people can’t do this on their own. Talk to us, not only about the baby but about Louis too.”

Lola pulls away from her mother’s, now wet, shoulder to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I miss him…” She cries before burying her face in her hands. “He left and I feel alone… but I have something of his and that’s amazing… but I just miss him.” Carol wraps her arms around her sobbing daughter who then falls into her lap. “Why did he leave… he didn’t love me enough, but how… I keep remembering all the memories I have with him and I can’t think of anything that would make him stop loving me.” She cries, her face is now red and puffy. “I love him and I miss him, but I can’t tell him because he now loves someone else.” Lola continues, coughing as she tries to catch her breath in between the sobs that are escaping her mouth. The young woman is shaking in her mother’s lap.

Carol’s heart is breaking at the sight of her daughter. Carol is trying to put it all in perspective with Lola’s hormones causing this outburst to be a lot worse, but she can’t hide from the fact that her daughter is hurting very badly and there’s not much she can do but listen.

Carol runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair as Lola is trying to catch her breath. Lola wipes the tears from her face before grabbing some tissues from the box on the coffee table, after blowing her nose she puts the drenched tissue back on the table and grabs another one. This progress goes on for about nine times before Lola has finally calmed down. “I don’t want to fail me baby, I want to finish school… and get me own place and just…” Lola starts hyperventilating again before she can finish her sentence.

The young brunette quickly moves from her mother’s lap. “I’ll figure it all out…” She says with her lip trembling as she forces a smile, her puffy eyes are once again filled with tears before she quickly makes her way up the stairs to hide away in her bedroom.