Promises {A Louis Tomlinson Fanfic}

Promises: 8

LEXI'S P.O.V

I listened as Rachel told me her life story. Once she started talking, the words poured out of her mouth, a waterfall of horrifying words that described her life. She'd been abused. All this time . . . I felt horrible. We used to be really good friends. And I never knew. And she never told me. I had a feeling that no one knew, that I was the first person she'd told. I couldn't imagine how she managed to keep it all up inside without breaking. Back when we were friends, in grade school and freshman year of high school, she was always a ball of fun. Rachel had never been popular, but I had found her the best person to hang around. She knew how to cheer people (mainly me) up. And all the times she'd ever comforted me, I should have been the one comforting her. I never even thought that Rachel might have a hard home life, and never did the thought cross my mind that she might be abused at home. And I can't help but feel like a terrible person. A terrible, cruel person. Here I was, my heart breaking and feeling like my life hates me all because of a boy, when Rachel was being abused by her dad. What kind of friend am I? What kind of friend was I? I may not have been able to comfort Rachel in middle school, but I'm going to do all I can now to fix that, to try and erase some of the guilt that would end up tearing me up inside.

Her mom died when she was a little girl. Her dad started drinking, the alcohol slowly consuming him, turning him against Rachel, blaming her for her mothers death. This has been going on for more than ten years, until she finally had enough and ran away. And that's why Rachel was now sitting on my bed hugging a pillow to her chest, tears silently streaming down her face a she re-lived her life story. I sat there in silence, at first, until I crawled across the bed over to Rachel and hugged her, not breaking the silence that filled my hotel room. We sat there for a while, taking comfort in each other's presence. Rachel sniffled, and pulled away.

"Sorry," she muttered, her eyes staring down at the pillow she held in her lap. "I got your shirt all wet." I looked down and saw that, indeed, my shirt was quite wet. I let out a small laugh.

"It's just water."

"Right . . . Lexi? You're not going to send me back to my dad, right?" Rachel lifted her eyes from the bed to look at me, though she still chose to instead look at my chin. I was still for a moment. Rachel thought I was going to send her back?

"Rachel, are you kidding? No way am I sending you back there! That would be horrible! Uh-uh. You, hon, are staying with me."

Now Rachel looked up to my eyes. "W-what?"

"If you want to, that is. You can stay with me. But under no circumstances are you going back with your dad."

Rachel's sad eyes filled with hope. "You mean it? No one's ever done something like this before for me."

I saw, in that moment, how fragile Rachel really was. Well, it's not fragile, exactly, but she seems . . . broken, maybe? The fun and smiles she puts on is just a cover. "Of course." I pointed at her. "You, my dear Rachel, are going to become my new best friend."

Rachel laughed, a real laugh, and smiled. "That's fine by me, Lexi. Perfectly fine by me."

RACHEL'S P.O.V

I felt like the heavy rain cloud above me had turned into a weightless, white fluffy cloud. I suppose, in a way, it had. I certainly cried enough for all the rain in that cloud to disappear. For the first time since my mother died, I felt truly happy. It had been a while since someone has actually cared about what happened to me. I couldn't help but feel a little stupid for not knowing who Lexi was. Lexi was the girl who used to be my best friend, is now a famous actress, and I had no idea. Of course, it wasn't like I had any resources to learn about her anyway. My phone is an old flip phone, so it doesn't have Internet access. My laptop - which also happened to be my only access to the wonderful worlds of google and YouTube - had stopped working after my dad had punched it when he was drunk. The old 'house' I lived in didn't have a DVD player, so the only time I watched movies was in school. And I don't think any of those movies starred Lexi, unless she starred as a dude in a nature movie.

I turned to Lexi, remembering our deal. "I told you my story. Now it's your turn."

And, surprisingly without complaint, Lexi told me what happened from the day she got her first acting job up until this moment.

"I had auditioned for small things before, like commercials and TV shows, so auditioning for a movie was pretty big for me. I got the part I had wanted so badly, and was so excited. I was just about to call my boyfriend, Louis, but he called me first. He, too, had some news. A few months before my audition, Louis had gone for an audition of his own. He tried out for X-factor." Lexi looked at me, silently asking if I knew what X-factor was. I nodded. Girls at school watched it, and they often talked about it, enough so that I was able to get the idea of what X-factor was all about. "I had been watching every episode, cheering Louis on, and I was so happy for him when he got three yesses. He called me to tell me that he wasn't going to be able to see me for some time, because he was going to be busy with X-factor. I told that I understood, and was so happy for him. I told him my news, and he was just as happy and supportive of me as I was for him.

"A year passed, and I was just about done filming my first movie. Louis was now in a band called One Direction, and they managed to get popular quite quickly. Louis and I skyped every night, but he soon stopped talking to me. It'd been a year since we'd last seen each other face to face. After a month of Louis completely cutting himself off from me, I got a call from him. He had some more news. Management wanted him to date a hot model for publicity. Of course, I wasn't the hot model they wanted. He could either choose to continue dating me, or forget fame. He chose the fame.

"I was heartbroken. At first, Louis tried to call me to apologize, to try and see if we could become friends. Just friends. But I ignored him. After some time, he gave up. Louis continued with his band, and I continued with acting. I was pretty sure he forgot about me. He was all over magazines, looking perfectly happy with some pretty brunette he was obviously dating. But I didn't forget. I tried, but I couldn't. And now he's back. He and his band are recording the soundtrack for my new movie. I saw him just a few days ago." Lexi sniffled, a few tears glistening in her eyes. "I introduced myself, and he didn't even remember who I was. He had truly forgotten about me." Lexi finished the messed up love story with a messed up ending, her voice a whisper. I could hear the tears that were threatening to spill in her voice as she held them back. When they finally spilled over, it was my turn to hold Lexi as she let it all go. We may be two totally different girls with two totally different stories, but each of our stories had left us broken. And maybe, all we needed was another broken girl to listen in order to heal.