Fortune's Fools

Chapter Eightteen

Chapter Eighteen

“Louis?”

“Go away.” I groaned, my face buried in my pillow like it had been for the last week, except for this afternoon, when I went out to see Zayn. I could hear her breath hitch and immediately my stomach clenched in guilt. I didn’t want to cause my sister to fear me, or to be sad for me, but I couldn’t help it.

“Louis, please, it’s important.” Lottie replied quietly, and I heard her slippers drag across the floor as she stepped inside my room and closed the door behind her. Seventeen. She needed seventeen passes to close the distance to my bed, seventeen drags of her slippers before I felt the mattress dip next to me.

“What could be important now?” I spat, and I felt her body freeze before she relaxed again as she took a deep breath.

“I’ve got pizza for you Lou.”

“I’m not hungry.” I fought the urge to turn my back away from her as I felt her hand between my shoulder blades, not wanting to see anyone, even speak.

“Louis… first of all you need to eat. You have hardly been eating for a week now. And second, I think you’ll want this pizza. Danielle delivered it, and she insisted that I’d take it straight to you. She’d have done it herself but they wouldn’t let her through. And El… well she can’t see you, so I brought it up. I think it’s got something to do with Harry, Lou. Please?”

Tears sprung to my eyes at the mention of his name. I missed him so much. I needed him, to hold me, to comfort me, to make sense in this stupid confusing mess.

“Should I open the box for you?” she asked after a little while.

I pushed myself up from the bed so I sat on my knees and shook my head. “No. No, I’ll do it.” I took the box out of her hands and she leaned over to press a small kiss to my cheek.

“I know it hurts Lou, but I’m here for you.” She whispered as she stood up from the bed and walked to the door, turning around once more with a small smile on her lips before she opened the door and left the room.

I took a deep breath and slid my finger between the box and its lid, pulling it open to reveal the pizza, it was my favourite, chicken and corn with extra pineapple. I noticed a message written in black marker on the inside of the lid and smiled as I saw the name of the girl I love the most in the entire world under it.

Louis, take care and hold on. Things will get better. Love, Dani&El.

The fact that she wasn’t allowed to be around me made it even worse, it was almost as bad as the fact that I had no way to contact Harry now. El had always been around, she was my friend, my soulmate even. But once we had arrived back from Manchester, the biggest worry of my parents had been that the press would find out about our involvement with Niall’s tragic accident, and Zayn had been blamed for all of it. He had kept his mouth shut, he hadn’t said anything about Harry’s and my relationship, but I was quite certain my parents knew more than they let us know. I was given house arrest, my phone had been taken away and if I left the house, I had to be accompanied by one of the servants. Excluding El, because her making sure I followed the rules about what was and what was not allowed would be biased by our friendship.

I felt rage surging through my veins when I thought about my mother’s speech that night. She hadn’t even asked about Niall, just declared her rules and that was that. I’d locked myself up in my room ever since, not wanting to speak to anyone that was not Harry, and that was not going to happen anytime soon. Only today had I come out, joined by a shy boy that I thought was new  among the staff to accompany me to the prison where Zayn was locked up. In his private cell, thank god, away from other inmates and with special privileges when it came to food and cleanliness, but still, it was about the most depressing building I’d ever been in.