No Control | The Night Before

4~ History

I texted Louis only once, in the taxi on the way home from Cirque Le Soir, in response to his message. I just put Great meeting you, and thanks for the drinks x. He sent me a winky face in return, but other than that I didn't hear from him again, and because I believed him to have a girlfriend, I didn't pursue it.

I met up with Callie the day after and demanded a blow-by-blow account of her encounter with Harry Styles at the house party, but was relieved to learn he had spent all of about half an hour there, had been deep in conversation with Nick Grimshaw from Radio 1 the whole time, and then left in a black Range Rover with darkened windows. Although I would have killed to have seen Harry up close in the flesh, I couldn't feel too disappointed at missing out considering I'd had Louis' arm around me for a large proportion of the evening. Even Callie, although upset at not being able to contact me at first, and unable to believe I'd rejected Louis when I'd had more than a chance with him, agreed there wasn't really any comparison. That didn't stop me from asking her repeatedly to describe how Harry had looked at the party, what he was wearing, what he was drinking, how his voice sounded; to which she repeatedly answered, "I don't know, Jess! I was more preoccupied with trying to ring and text you! I didn't pay too much attention to him other than that!"

The next couple of weeks passed quickly and uneventfully. Sarah wouldn't stop talking about my near-shag with Louis, and still couldn't believe I'd had the opportunity to kiss him but had turned him down. No matter how many times I told her I wouldn't have been able to live with myself every time I saw a picture of Louis and Eleanor together, she was convinced I had made the worst mistake of my life, and literally mourned my loss on a daily basis.   

I saw in the news that the boys had jetted off to Singapore the weekend after Cirque Le Soir to continue the next part of their On The Road Again tour, and the fandom was rocked less than a week later by not only the news that Zayn had apparently cheated on his long-term girlfriend Perrie, but that he had then been signed off the tour with stress. 

"See?" I hissed to Sarah as we read the Daily Mail articles in shock over our M&S sandwiches at lunchtime. "This is what happens when you go interfering in public relationships! Imagine if I had slept with Louis and it had been all over the news! Imagine if he had taken sick leave, and flown home part way through the tour to sort things out with Eleanor! I would be public enemy number one, and have the entire One Direction fandom after me! No thanks."

Sarah couldn't argue with this, and actually dropped the subject of me and Louis for the rest of the week, although we had an excited discussion later that afternoon in the office kitchen after yet another scandalous story broke the headlines, this time about Harry having apparently hooked up with a mystery blonde girl in the Philippines in between shows.

However, Sarah was hot on my case again only four days later when another news article broke out of the blue that changed everything. I was in the pub with Callie having Sunday lunch, when I received a picture message from Sarah, captioned (in capitals) NOW TRY TELLING ME YOU HAVE NO REGRETS.

The picture she had sent me was a screen shot of a Daily Mail article, with the headline: One Direction's Louis Tomlinson splits from long-term girlfriend Eleanor Calder... as pictures emerge of him kissing a mystery woman after all-night pool party in Thailand.

I gaped at my phone in disbelief, before hastily opening the Daily Mail app to read the full article. It reported that a spokesperson had confirmed Louis and Eleanor had split up two weeks previously, and Louis had been single when the incriminating Thailand pool pictures had been taken. My mind hastily counted back two weeks - that was the same weekend I had met him, and he had been coy about his relationship with Eleanor. Was this why? Were they in the process of splitting up, or had they already broken up when he had tried to kiss me? If this was the case, it made complete sense. The article said neither had gone public with the split to maintain their privacy - was this why he hadn't told me he was single: because it hadn't been public knowledge at that time?