Boyband Rebound [Editing]

t e n

prewarning one: this is a filler chapter

prewarning two: if you squint you see zouis because i ship them and i couldn't help it.

Somewhere along the line, anywhere in the time tomorrow to fifty years after this day, Louis will keep on wondering and pondering about the reasons why she makes him click. He isn't one for high octane declarations of love, nor has he ever been the sort of person who'd fall in love in a heartbeat. 

But Louis knows just one thing, and that too for sure - that he's in love; and the bliss, the ecstasy, the absolute beauty and joy he sees in everything and anything is because of her.

Louis' always been a dreamer. Even as a kid, he'd often find himself not really paying attention to the books he was supposedly studying, but with his head in his hands; his ever-too-long hair falling in his eyes as he dreamt and dreamt about things that would or could never be; about distant fantasies, alternate realms his mind painted, in which he'd find himself either a strong knight or just a bright star. He'd painted his land in bright, neon colours, and he'd often find dream-Louis on a stage, performing, living his heart's desire.

Now that he'd turned that dream into a reality, he'd spent the past three years finding something new - finding someone new - to fuel his enthusiasm, to make him a brighter, better person. His mother had always been telling him to find himself a girl - one who'd tie him down, one who'd keep his reins in.

Louis had every reason to believe that girl was Eleanor until he met her. Eleanor was bright, spunky, confident, beautiful, kind, and everything else wonderful that had Louis whipped from the very start.

Eleanor was his anchor for three years, three beautiful years, and a part of Louis was dying inside as the more clearer part of him realised that he couldn't keep Eleanor waiting for something he could never give her. Yes, it was true, he lived in the illusion of love, but the sheer thrill of the past five months he got from a different girl made him truly question which insanity had plagued him and made him drag Eleanor hopelessly along so.

And thus, his calloused fingers found themselves scripting her number on his phone, and almost unconsciously did he pull the cellular device up to his left ear. When the ringing abruptly stopped and her voice made itself clear, Louis felt the strongest wave of dejection he'd ever felt in his life as he whispered, "Eleanor, we have to talk. Could you come over?"

Her answer is quick and softly spoken and in the affirmative and so it is even harder for Louis to cut the call. When he finally, painstakingly does so, Louis has almost no other option except then to fall back on his couch and await the impending doom.

Somehow, even though thinking about her has been reduced to a taboo by the boy, his thoughts wander there and he's left unconsciously dreaming about her eyes, and her laugh. 

He shakes himself out of his stupor. No, Louis, stop. But the command to his own mind he's made isn't registered as a sneaky thought emerges, but that's why you've called El over, right? So you can be free to think about her?

  He stops. He stops because what the little voice has said is true. He doesn't want to leave Eleanor hanging. Louis' dug himself a grave too deep for him to ever surface out of. "You don't know you're falling until you've hit the ground, Louis." Zayn's words replay in his mind as Louis tries to fathom why he ever thought that life would be easy.

Suddenly, as quick and sudden and sharp as a light bulb, an idea carves its way into Louis' overworked brain. What if Zayn helped? In the light of any other day, Zayn would have not been his first choice, as Louis tried to convince himself that he trusted his childhood friends with relationship problems a lot more. Then it hit him that Zayn had seen him worse for wear, Zayn had seen him at his best, Zayn had seen him at his absolute worst, and then; Louis realises; that Zayn had still stuck around.