The Story of Us // L.S

Fourteen.

Songs for this chapter are:

-Where Do Broken Hearts Go // One Direction

-18 // One Direction

-Girl Almighty // One Direction

*

"Can I see some pictures of her?" I smiled at Louis and pushed myself up, walking into the other room. I half expected him to be following me and felt a pang of sadness when I realised I was alone. I let out a long sigh, feeling the weariness of the long night, and day, slightly wash away. 

I knelt down on the floor and began fishing under the bed for the box with all the photos in, something I was ashamed of since I hadn't found the time to put them into albums. My hand touched the cool plastic and I pulled it out, heaving it up and feeling something in my back click. I grimaced but continued to carry it into the kitchen anyway.

Louis beamed at me as I walked back into the room and my heart started to skip a beat. It was a feeling I had not felt in a really long time and something I was scared to feel now. I was scared to let Louis back in again because I knew he was the one person in the world with enough hold on me to destroy me. I knew that I was powerless against him and if he started to break down my walls he would become a part of me once again. In fact, he'd become the only part of me that mattered. 

I shook my head, letting these thoughts fly out of my mind and rested the box on the edge of the table, pushing it forward for balance with my knee. "So, this is everything. What do you want to see?" 

"Everything." I raised my eyebrows and inhaled warily. "I guess it's going to be a long night then?" I took the lid off the box and it raised it slightly to start pouring all the photos on the to table, but second guessed myself. I set it back on the edge of the table and gestured for Louis to start rifling through. "Dig in then." He rose to his feet and started fishing inside, pulling out a stack of photos. He sat back down and began flicking through all of them. The look on his face was something I didn't think I'd get to see again. He was smiling, but it was with his eyes, the creases by them deepening. The blue seemed to shine brighter and there was a twinkle as his mouth turned up at the edges. 

I realised I was staring and shook my head slowly back and forth before taking a stack of photos out for myself. I plonked back down opposite Louis and we sat in silence while we looked through them, swapping the piles with each other when we were done. 

"What's this from?" My eyes lifted from a photo of Isobel at her first football game and saw Louis holding a picture of her in a blue and white dress with red shoes and me stood behind her in a lion costume. "That was Halloween, Isobel went as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and I'm the lion." He chuckled and turned it to face him again and I could only assume he was trying to absorball the little details, something else I had once deeply loved about him.

"Do you have any more Halloween photos?" 

"I have plenty of everything." He chuckled again and rolled his eyes jokingly, "Of course you do, I forgot how much you loved photographing everything, even small insignificant things." I rolled my eyes back and flicked to the next photo. "The small things always end up being the big things." 

"I also forgot how philosophical you are." I huffed and we continued on in silence again. 

Hours passed like that; just the two of us looking through old memories and sharing stories while laughing. It felt exactly like before, like we were young kids getting to know each other and everything we shared was amazing and exciting. It was like old times and like the old Louis. 

Louis shuffled the last stack of photos together and looked back over the rest that were scattered across the table. He had a content smile that faded slowly. "I can't believe I missed so much Haz." His fingers stroked gently over a photo of Isobel as a baby while she stared blissfully into the camera. "Why am I such a fucking idiot?" I chuckled but couldn't decide if he'd actually said anything funny. He continued talking despite it, "How do I make this right?" 

"I don't think you can." He sighed and shook his head slowly. I watched him, trying to absorb all his features like this was the last time I would see him. Something I wish I had done all those years ago. I was so tempted to reach out and touch him, I was desperate to know if there was still an electricity that flowed between us. I was dying to know whether his skin felt the same. 

But before I could even lift a finger, the doorbell rang.

Louis' head snapped up and his eyes grew wide. I jumped out of my seat and froze. "It's Belle." He stuttered at my words, unsure of what to say, but stood up too, brushing his fingers through his hair. "What if it's not?" My heart was pumping in my chest as I looked in the direction of the front door. "It will be." 

"So what if it is?" He fidgeted nervously and I could see his face getting paler as the doorbell rang again. "Lou, I have to answer the door. It'll be fine, I promise." He nodded, his gaze fixed in the direction of the door. I turned to walk away from him and paused at the threshold before facing him. "It will be okay." He nodded again and sat down as I left the room. 

The doorbell rang for a third time and I jogged over, pulling the door open to reveal Isobel with tears streaming down her face.