Foreign Affair ›› n.h. mature

Seventy-Four

Olivia Allen

Winter break was wonderful but all good things must come to an end. After spending a couple more days with Niall in London, I went back home to my family for the last couple weeks.

I wanted to stay with Niall longer. But honestly, my family has been so amazing to let me go all over the world with him so I better not take advantage of that. Also, I miss my parents like crazy when I'm away at school.

Second semester senior year classes should be a breeze. I got the hard stuff out of the way earlier, now I'm only taking classes I'm interested in, and I'm in two less credit hours than normal.

It's that time of year where people are starting to get super serious about getting a job for when they graduate. I'm not worried financially but I am worried about finding something where I'll be happy.

My friends are having interviews left and right so I feel like I need to get with the program. I might be a bit behind.

Niall is hanging out in London for a few more weeks and then he gets back to work for awhile. They're about to start promoting the next leg of their tour. Soon they will tour Australia and Asia. Even though it's winter here, it's sunny and prime concert season in Australia.

I'm slightly dreading this short tour. It's hard enough keeping in touch with him when he's not busy. But I will admit that he's gotten very good about making time for us.

We've come so far in the last year. It's hard to believe it was only a year ago that we met. Nearly to the day actually considering it's now the end of January. I scrolled back through the calendar on my phone. On this Sunday, it will be exactly a year since the day we met. We never really kept track of month anniversaries — it seemed too juvenile — but this is kind of cool. I Skyped Niall.

"Hi!"

"Hey, babe. What's up?"

"Just winding down from my first week back in class. I realized something!"

"What's that?"

"We met a year ago this Sunday."

"That's wild."

"I know! No one would guess that from knowing us."

"Hell, we're already engaged!" Niall said in agreement.

"So what's happening there?"

"Well we go to Sydney for a couple of shows next week. We're going to be on a late night talk show on Thursday and then we have shows Friday and Saturday."

"I'm jealous of your life. It was so fun touring with you."

"Well it's going to be your life in about five months! All you've got to do is graduate."

"Yeah." I laughed but I didn't know what to say. Will I just join him on tour the second I graduate? We've never really talked about it. I kind of thought I'd get a job.

"Well I've got to go," Niall said as he looked past the computer screen to someone calling for him.

A couple of the guys shouted in the background. "Hi, Liv!"

"Hello, Liver."

"Hi! See ya!"

"Love you."

"Love you too."

...

Fucking shit omg OMG LOOK RN

That was the first text that came through before my phone started blowing up and woke me up. It was from my friend Ellie and it linked to a YouTube video. Huh?