Leaving Dreamland [Book One]

4~ Old Memories

"Louis, what were you thinking?" Liam asked. "Honestly, I have no IDEA what goes on in that head of yours sometimes."

"Oh, put a sock in it, will you? Haven't I already been lectured enough today?" Louis whined, tuckered out by the events that had taken place.

"No," everyone said at the exact same moment, and we all burst out laughing while Louis sighed and leaned up against the window of the van. Even Liam had trouble hiding his smile (and might I add that it was the first one I saw ever since I was chucked ever so rudely into the van).

"So," Paul began, "where are we going?" Everyone looked at me, and it took me a second to realize he wasn't talking to the boys. Well, I guess it didn't make much sense that he would ask the boys, as he probably knew where they had to go better than they did.

"Well, um, I guess you can take me to my mom's house." I told him, and then gave him the address. He plugged it into the van's GPS, and then we were on our way.

"So..." Zayn trailed off, trying to break the awkward silence, but failing.

"YOU'RE AMERICAN!" Louis shrieked, basically bursting all of our eardrums.

"Oi!" all the boys cried at the same time.

"Sorry, I just remembered I wanted to ask why..." Louis began. We waited for him to finish, but he never did.

"Ask...?" I prompted. I figured he must have a short attention span. It made sense; it must cause a lot of his randomness, which I absolutely adored about him... Stop it, Shyler. After this, he'll never talk to you again. You can't let yourself think like this.

"Oh, right!" he exclaimed, while we all chuckled at his terrible memory. "Yeah, as I was saying, you're American. I mean, you must be, considering you have an American accent and you look American--and did you just come over here from America?" I nodded, and he continued. "Okay, so you're American then. So why does your mom have a house here in London? I mean you do live in the US, don't you? I don't really understand...?"

"Well, see, I actually am British, but I moved to the US with my dad when I was seven, so I don't have much of a British accent anymore. My mom kept our house and is still living here at the same one today. She didn't come with us to the US because she needed to keep her job, while my father and I moved there because HIS job required him to do so. We would visit her once a year for about a week, and it was usually around Christmas time. When we visited her when I was nine years old, my father went missing at the airport, and we still don't know where he is today. I've asked my mom about it, but all she does is deny anything happened, and she pretends like he never existed in the first place. I had to live with my grandma in the US after he went missing, and she acted the same way as my mum. It's like he was all just part of this huge, wonderful dream that I thought was real, but wasn't. That's how they seem to treat it anyways. But I know he was real. There is no way that that was all a dream. But sometimes, I do wonder..." I trailed off, and when I looked up at them, they were all staring at me in shock. Was it really that abnormal? It wasn't to me. But then again, I did have nine years to get used to it...

"I... I'm sorry... I shouldn't have asked..." Louis said, and I could tell that he felt bad for asking me something so personal, but really, I didn't mind. It actually felt nice to tell someone after all these years.

"No, you're fine," I said, a smile slowly spreading across my face. "It's actually quite nice to get that off my chest and have someone really listen. I mean, I would tell it to my mom, but... yeah, you know."

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, still suspicious that I was lying to make him feel less guilty.

"Yes. I'm absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent fine."