Back To The Future || 1D ||

Human Contact

Anne had never been good with people, even as a child when her mother took her to her parties where Kendall presented her work as a stylist. 

Her mother really made her lovable, with those fluffy dresses, curly hair decorated with butterfly clips, and cheeks lightly dyed with blush. 

She would introduce her to her stylist friends and they would all praise her, tell her what a really beautiful little girl she was and all that other crap to impress the famous stylist Jenner in Styles. 

Anne would just be quiet; everyone giggled, thinking she was a shy little girl but she actually just kept quiet thinking how idiotic they were to smile like hebes just out of politeness. 

"Try to smile more." Kendall was always urging her, but she persisted in keeping that pout that she had clearly inherited from someone else in her family: her father and mother seemed so comfortable in their circumstantial smiles, pats on the back, hugs, and popping kisses on the cheeks.

She was not really good at making friends. With Freddie, Bear, and Mark it had been different: they had known each other since the cradle, she had grown up with them, and despite her temper they had still been her friends. 

She recalled afternoons playing in the garden when they were little, bothering the ants; and then, once they got a little older, hidden little parties, going out the window -obviously always surreptitiously, and most of the time all four of them were grounded- to the little notes between her and Mark during class. 

As they got older, only the things they did together had changed: they watched movies, spending whole days passing popcorn on each other's legs, going to pubs-even though Anne and Mark were passing themselves off as adults and things like that. 

Freddie, Bear and Mark even had driver's licenses now. 

She often felt guilty when she said mean things without curbing her tongue; that was just the way she was, and even if she said it the wrong way, Anne always said everything she thought, no exceptions. This was something that at least everyone appreciated a little: she was an open book.

"What are you doing?" A voice she knew very well interrupted her from her thoughts. 

She looked up, barely squinting from the beating sun on her face, crossing Freddie's eyes. 

Anne snorted audibly and turned away, grabbing a tuft of grass and plucking it from the grass. 

"I look at the barn and imagine how bad it smells from 1 to 10." She retorted, piqued. 

Freddie barely frowned, looking at the barn a few feet away from them, farther across the expanse of grass; then he chuckled softly. He bent down on her knees and let herself sit down beside the girl with a snort of effort. What did he want, to lecture her? 

"What do you want?" She blurted out, abruptly. She sighed.

"Dad told us he could put us up,they have a lot of spare rooms they never use and grandparents are never home. They are currently in Philadelphia." "Thank your father." "Why don't you do it yourself?" Freddie urged her, in such a low, hushed tone that Anne barely heard him. 

She turned to look at him, and this time it was her turn to frown. Was he joking? 

After all the mean things she had said to him ... at the very least, she was not supposed to talk to him for a whole day; that situation really sent her over the edge. 

"All right, no," Sighed Freddie; he ran a hand over the tufts of grass sprouting above. 

"Anne, look: I know you're mad at me, and you're probably right, but...I swear I'm sorry. I didn't know the car was really going to start-I thought it wasn't ready yet and I especially didn't think it was loaded with plutonium!"