Zoo // Louis Tomlinson

//29//

Cindy’s POV (SURPRISE!)

 

            “Where is he!” The burst of blonde hair and eccentric eyes stormed into the office she hadn’t been in, in nearly a month and a half.

            I took a moment to set my coffee down, closing the binder full of test samples and information of all the animals we housed before I looked up at the nearly frantic girl. “Where is who?” I answered her with the same motherly tone I’d used with the man who’d walked in with a heavy heart and left with a tear stained face just hours ago.

            “You know who I mean Cindy, where the hell is he!” Her voice was hitting pitches I hadn’t heard since she was twelve and broke her arm trying to ride Nora like a ‘pony.’

            “I am your boss and you will act like it Lydia. Where is who?” I repeated to her, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was trying to keep the question at bay as long as possible, because I didn’t want to be the one who had to tell her.

            “Where is Louis? Where is he because I need to see him before he leaves today!” She was as close to tears as I’d seen her in years. Her body language showing the same amounts of stress and heartbreak as his had.

            “He already left.” I said the words slowly, praying to god she wouldn’t come at me for being the messenger.

            “Ok, then I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Gives us both time to cool off, I guess.”

            Oh god, no.

            She was so hopeful; her pretty eyes that every boy on this campus had fallen for were only set on him. I’d known Lydia her entire life, and never had I ever seen her the way she was now. There was not a point in her life where she came running to anyone about a guy until Louis, the man who was so astoundingly similar to her that it broke my heart nearly as much as hers to see him go, because he made her happy.

            Lydia had never been a ‘people person’ and that was more than obvious in the way she held herself. People found her hard to relate to, or just rude because she wouldn’t open up to them, and while she was a hard book to crack, she was none of those things. She cared for things in a different way, and she loved so intensely that up until a few months ago I was glad there was no man who had stolen that from her.

            Then Louis had shown up, literally out of the blue and I knew from the second my little girl at home screamed in joy and called him the sassy one, that Lydia would be the correct person to put him to work with. I never fathomed or even entertained the idea that he would be the one she gave her love to, and although he didn’t know it, I did. I could see it in the way she looked at him, like a mother scolding their child, or the way he caught her hand at the last second, pulling her back to him before she had the chance to walk away. It was so plainly obvious to every single person except the both of them, because their brains worked differently. They were too stubborn, too hardheaded to see exactly what they’d changed in each other.

            “Lydia, sweetheart.” I sighed and stood up, knowing that even though she said she wouldn’t, she was going to need someone here for her. “Louis left.” I repeated it, surprising myself when I couldn’t bring myself to elaborate.

            Big green eyes willed me to take it back, before she did the absolutely worst thing that would shatter every bit of my heart; she cried.

            “Oh Lydie, come here.” I didn’t even allow her a second to argue with me, forgetting all the nasty words she’d said to me just weeks ago and pulling her against me.