Saving Andy (A One Direction/Harry Styles Story)(Completed)

Chapter Thirty Four: The House That Built Me

Chapter Thirty Four: The House That Built Me

I'm not usually one to listen to country music, but this particular Miranda Lambert song was running through my hand as I continued to drive down my parents' ridiculously long driveway. 

'I thought if I could touch this place or feel it. This brokenness inside me might start healing. Out there its like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself if I could just come in, I swear I'll leave. Won't take nothing but a memory from the house that built me." 

I finally come to a complete stop in front of my childhood home and I'm filled with a feeling of nostalgia. Regardless of how things have been with my parents recently, they weren't always that way, and some of my favorite memories took place in this very yard.

I stared out at my old tree house, which now looks pretty abandoned, and then I close my eyes. I smile to myself while I transport back into a memory. I could hear myself laughing while Kristen, my childhood best friend and I were having one of our famous sleepovers while my parents were out of town and I was stuck here with my nanny of the time.

I could smell the familiar smell of my father grilling on a hot summer night if I thought hard enough.

All of these memories that were greeting me like a long lost friend made me question why I waited so long to return. 

With a new found confidence, I knock on the front door. It didn't surprise me when I was greeted by Martha, our maid who has been around for as long as I can remember. Although it didn't surprise me, it seemed to surprise her. Her dark brown eyes filled with tears and she wrapped her arms around me without another word.

"Miss Andrea, it has been far too long." She cooed in her broken accent as she pulled me even closer.

"I've told you to call me Andy, Martha." I say sweetly. 

I looked over the shorter woman, and even more memories came back. Martha singing me softly to sleep. Martha sneaking me cookies when my parents weren't looking. Martha drying my tears when my younger self was broken because of some boy. The boys that I had dated before Kendall. The woman who has always been there for me.

She moved to the side after our emotional reunion and allowed me to enter the house. She informed me that she would make me some tea while I waited for my parents to get home from work.

Looking around, I noticed that not much has changed since the last time I was here over a year ago. The pictures still hung in the same places. The couches and furniture hadn't been moved, and that wasn't surprising my mother was never one for change.

I smile to myself as I make my way to my old room. It looks exactly the way it did the day that I left, but it was cleaner than I ever kept it. Martha had obviously been cleaning it in my absence.

I took a minute to look over the photographs that I had taped to my wall when I was only sixteen years old. There were pictures of me and Ali posing like we were doing a couture magazine shoot. There were pictures of me laughing with the Big Time Rush boys. There is a picture in the corner from the first time that I met Justin Bieber when we were both fifteen. 

On my desk I found a stack of magazine articles. The oldest on dates back to the day that I had walked out and didn't turn back. It's from the day I bought my own house and cut my ties with my parents.

"They're all there, Miss Andy. Every article you've been in for the past year. I saved them all." Martha admitted with a small blush when she entered my room with a cup of tea.

"It's been a long year, hasn't it?" I asked rhetorically. I was almost ashamed that Martha had read some of these. They didn't spare the dirty details.