Labels || H.S. [#Wattys2020]

SIX

12 hours, 25 minutes, and 4 seconds. That was how long Reagan went without thinking about her weight. It was a new record for her, and she didn't quite know how to feel about it. There was a constant gnawing thought in the back of her mind, and she never knew how to silence it. She was so used to it, so incredibly used to the "Oh god, I hope my hips don't look huge." and "Can they see the love handles on my back under my bra?" that when it was silent for this long she questioned it. She wondered why it had stopped, and why now that she remembered it purposely, it didn't start up back again.

12 hours, it was 12 hours ago that she had met Harry, 25 minutes ago they had decided to go home, and 4 seconds ago she had plopped upon her bed to think about what had just happened. It had been when she stood before that billboard that she last thought about her appearance, wondering if her outfit was up to par along with her philosophical thoughts about the world around her.

"Late night?" Her younger sister Kennedy asked laying down beside her.

"Yeah, I guess."

"How was your day?"

She groaned and Kennedy laughed.

"That bad?"

Reagan thought back to the morning she had spent running and her throbbing ankles, but smiled nonetheless, "It was trying, to say the least."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I got a promotion."

"Did you? Dad's gonna be glad to hear that."

"Yeah. If we ever see him." She said pointedly.

"What are you doing now?"

"Oh, um, campaign manager for a band's album."

"That's so cool! You get to manage your own team now right?"

Reagan hadn't even thought about that. Fuck, "I guess so."

"Any band I know."

She shook her head, "You know it's confidential."

"But..."

"No. Last time I told you, your friends kept coming over hoping to steal my laptop because they were convinced I had Taylor's album before everyone else."

"But, you did."

"That's beside the point!"

Kennedy pouted, "I promise I won't tell anyone! I promise!"

Reagan hesitated, even though her sister was only sixteen, she felt she was her only true friend. They had always been that way, unaware of the age difference. The only time really she would worry about her sister's maturity level was when Reagan would share details about her work. Even that was because well, Reagan did work with some high profile people, and she could understand why Kennedy felt the need to tell her friends, but even then she knew that she could lose her job because of it. Ultimately this was the main reason why her father had stopped talking to them about his job at all. Kennedy always wanted to show how cool and amazing her father and sister were, but it only backfired. Reagan would have loved holding it against her, but ultimately she couldn't.

"Tell you what, if I get to keep my job, I'll tel you when their album is about to come out."

"When is that?"

"Well if I told you, you'd be able to figure it out." Reagan said with a smirk.

"Wait...what do you mean if you get to keep your job?"

Reagan thought back to that afternoon and all she could keep seeing was Harry's maniacal face as they were running down the crowded streets of LA. He was fucking trouble, and she knew it. It would be a miracle if she got to keep her job.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just an intern. I really don't understand how I even got the job in the first place."

Kennedy laid on her back and stared at the ceiling, "You think dad had anything to do with it?"

Of all the things Reagan had thought the moment she had gotten told by Lydia that she was now One Direction's campaign manager, she didn't think that it had anything to do with her father. But now that Kennedy had planted that seed, it would inevitably begin to grow.

Reagan and Kennedy's father had been in the business for as long as they could remember, and the day Reagan decided she wanted to follow in his footsteps he was more than happy to oblige. It went from having Reagan bring him lunch at the office, to having her spend whole day shadowing him, and finally when she had proved her worth, the internship at his label. Her father was big enough to have pulled some strings, but she didn't want that to be the case. She had told him time and time again that she wanted to find her own place in the world, just as he had.

"I don't know." Reagan finally muttered, "It does seem too good to be true, doesn't it?"

She couldn't help but think that most everything in her life at that moment was far too good to be true. Or bad. It was something, anything other than true, she knew that.

"You know you're good Reagan. You're the fucking best." Her little sister said turning over on her stomach and wrapping her own small hand around Reagan's.

Reagan rolled her eyes, "Nice try. I'm still not telling you."

"Damn it." Kennedy said, dropping Reagan's hand.

"You don't even like that band, so does it matter. They're not even that famous." Reagan lied, trying to get her sister to forget about the whole thing.

"I don't?"

She actually did. Kennedy actually really loved One Direction, and Reagan knew that. That's why she had to keep it under wraps for now. When the time was right she would try to convince Lydia to let Kennedy meet them, or whatever. But for now, she just couldn't tell her.

"Nah."

"Oh, okay." Kennedy said with a smile, getting up from the bed, "Get some sleep, you look wrecked." She paused as she turned to leave and looked at Reagan laying there on her stomach. The first think that caught Kennedy's eyes were the bright pink band-aids, "Nice. Hello Kitty?"

"They were the only ones they had at the office." Reagan said with a huff.

"Sure. Next time, don't wear heels."

"Don't worry, I learned my lesson."

And with that Kennedy exited Reagan's room and left her alone with her thoughts. That is, until the phone rang.

Reagan cursed at herself for having left it upon her drawer, now causing her to get up and see who it was that was calling her so late.

She looked at the lit up screen, a flurry of unknown numbers, she knew it could be from work so she answered, "Hello?"

"Hey, Rae." said a deep, raspy voice.

Her stomach flipped, and she asked a question she already knew the answer to, "Who is this?"

He chuckled, cockily, she noted, and finally answered, "The hipster looking twig."