You're Still the One (Louis Tomlinson) (FINISHED!)

Chapter 25: Over again

The next morning I woke up to a sticky note on my forehead. I took it off and read, “I’ll be on call all day, sorry I can’t be here for you. Try talking to Louis. –Liam” I sighed and rolled out of bed. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I had never felt like this before. I wanted to go to the hospital and talk to Ashley about it, but she had bigger things to worry about. After I showered and got dressed I texted Zayn.

Me: What are you doing today?

Zayn: I get out of class in 30 min. Then Perrie and I were going to study for a while. Why?

Me: No reason, never mind.

Zayn: What is up?

Me: Just wanted to talk about some stuff was all. It’s not a big deal.

Zayn: How about I come over at 3?

Me: I have to work from 2-8. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.

Zayn: I’ll stop by the book shop later

          I was secretly kind of happy Zayn saw through my bullshit ‘it’s alright’ thing. I mean yeah I wasn’t alright, but I didn’t want to be the person who put my problems on everyone all the time, so even though I say it’s alright and it’s not, I just want to give them an opportunity to not deal with it if they don’t have to.

I looked at the clock, it said it was just before noon. I had time to kill before work and I didn’t want to sit around thinking about Louis right now. Instead I got a cab, went to the store, got a bouquet of flowers and headed to the hospital. Ashley was sleeping when I went to her room and I set the flowers down next the ones Liam and Niall brought her. I walked over to Tobias where he was in his usual trance like state.

“You’ll be living with your old friend Fred, okay?” I whispered to him. Much to my surprise he turned just his eyes to me. In a very croaked whisper he said, “I’m sorry,” and he returned to not acknowledging anyone. I left a note for Ashley telling her about Fred accepting her dad and I hoped she was doing well and I was sorry for not coming to see her more.

          At work it was a little awkward because when I got there Louis was there. I didn’t talk to him and even though he looked at me wanting to talk, he held back. He knew I needed space. I just needed to talk to someone about things. Luckily he was at the registers and I was on the floor making sure books were in order and helping customers. At three Zayn walked in and he and Lou talked for a bit before he came back to find me.

“Just talked to Lou,” he said leaning against a bookshelf.

“Yeah?” I replied as I filled a whole section with a new bestseller.

“It’s killing him to not talk to you,”

“I just want to talk it out with someone else, just to straighten out my thoughts on everything before I talk to him,”

“You know it was for the play right?”

“I know. I believe him about that,”

“Then why are you upset?”

“Because…This is the first thing that hasn’t been hunky-dory between us. And I don’t know how to process it. I mean to have so much faith and trust in someone and then to know what it feels like to have that all come crashing down, even though it wasn’t true…that pain…it doesn’t just go away. And I’m not mad at him. I just feel hurt. Because now I know what it feels like and it’s like a natural reaction for me to build that wall back up that he broke down. Is this making any sense or am I a lunatic?”