Dream Catcher (amnesia) - h.s.

19: Going out & family time

        

After a short drive, we arrive at the pub where we're going to meet up with the girls. Gemma leads me inside, we look around and then she spots them.

"Giiirls!" She squeals as she quickly walks towards them and hugs them all. I awkwardly stand behind her.

"Anna, so good to finally see you!" Sophia says and she gets up to hug me as well. She doesn't look very different from the girl in all the pictures I found on the internet. Then I immediately recognize Eleanor, who I used to envy a lot, because she's very pretty. She hugs me as well. Her voice is exactly like I imagined it to be: high-pitched and soft. And then there's Louise, or Lou. I was always kind of jealous of her, because she and Harry seemed close.

When I've hugged them all, I take a seat and everyone's looking at me.

"We're really glad you wanted to come tonight. We understand it's hard for you." Sophia says, and she lays her hand on mine. I feel a little awkward as she does that.

"You do know who we are though, do you?" Eleanor carefully asks.

"I do, most of you I already knew from before I even met Harry."

"Doesn't it scare you that you have to meet all these people who you don't know?" Lou asks.

"Yeah, it's very strange, but in these last two weeks, everything has been strange, so this isn't anything new."

Someone comes to take our orders and I order a glass of white wine for myself. Maybe a little alcohol would make me feel more at ease.

"I am kind of curious what you guys have been up to, though." I say.

So they all start telling their stories. Sophia tells me all about how she and Liam met and how they have all these plans for the future, then Louise tells me about her daughter and when she shows me pictures, I'm shocked by how fast she's grown. Then Eleanor briefly tells me about her breakup with Louis, but she doesn't want to talk about it too much, so she also tells me about her career and how she's gotten so many great opportunities, and that maybe dating Louis has helped her, though she doesn't really like that. I decide not to ask her about if she has a new boyfriend. Gemma and I had already done our catching up, so that's all good.

When we get to our third round of drinks, we're all loosing up a little, the conversations becoming a little more easy-going, and we're laughing about nothing. We're scrolling through pictures of all of us, laughing at how weird someone looks in a particular picture, or how young we were. Then we take a couple selfies, because apparently that's a thing we always do when we meet up, so we'll always remember these moments.

They tell me stories of when we all were visiting the boys on tour in the US at the same time, and how we went shopping in New York and exploring the city, because none of us had been there before, and how we were all very excited. Apparently, I've come with Harry on tour a couple times, and I've seen parts of the world that I could only dream of ever seeing.

At some point, when we're all tipsy enough, Lou suggests that we go find a club where we can dance, so we do that. We dance for hours and I recognize some songs that I heard on the radio. I can forget about all the crappy stuff for a couple hours, which is great. And these girls are already amazing. We all get along, and they're very supportive and helpful.

After a couple hours, we're all very tired. We all hug each other and promise to text each other soon, and then Gemma and I go home.

"Did you have fun?" She asks me on the way home.

"Yeah, loads."

"They're nice, aren't they?"

"They are." I smile at her.