Holiday

Chapter Six: Protect

Louis 

"Hi, Emily," I heard a voice from the laptop say. "Hey, guys. Give me a few minutes, I have to take care of something first, be right back," Emily said, as she plugged in her earphones for her online project meeting. 

It kind of makes me sad that she doesn't get the chance to live her life a little. I mean she had so much responsibility at the age of seventeen. And now, two years later, she's turning 19 and I don't even think she has friends. I'm not saying that she actually doesn't but throughout our stay here, we haven't heard her talk to anyone except her co-workers and bosses. 

Rubbing her eyes, she turned off her camera and muted her mic before standing up, leaving the table. I was there with her, along with Harry while the other three lads were watching something on Netflix. I'm so happy that she supports Harry and me. It means so much to us because now we don't have to hide who we really are. So far, she hasn't started to treat us differently so that's a good sign. Emily returned, now wearing glassing. She sat opposite our side of the table, with the camera facing the main door so the people she would talk to wouldn't see any of us. 

"You wear glasses?" I asked her, making her lookup. She nodded. "I have a lazy eye," she simply said. "How come you never wear them?" Harry said, caressing our intertwined hands. "I could still see quite clearly, but sometimes I get a little woozy when I don't wear them in a long time, so yeah, that when I actually wear my glasses," she explained, placing the earbuds on her ears. We hummed in response. 

"Alright, I'm back," she said, facing her laptop. She was silent for a while. 

I really didn't want to listen to her side of the meeting but what they were talking about was so interesting. It seems like they were preparing for a performance or something. They're talking about a bunch of stuff like props, the script, and music production just to name a few. I didn't know that Emily was so knowledgeable about these kinds of things. I mean yeah, I know that she works as part of management, but I didn't expect her to be this good. I knew Harry was also curious about the project. 

Emily is just so amazingly fascinating. 

She nodded, furrowing her eyebrows. "Wait, don't we have a script already?" she asked, leaning on the table. "What do you mean, 'theme'? How were you guys able to write a script without a theme?" she said. I looked at her and raised my eyebrows. 

Okay, sassy girl, chill out. 

She then giggled, covering her mouth. "No no no no! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that! I'm just genuinely curious about how you guys did that!" she told them while laughing and shaking her head. I chuckled and glanced at Hazza. "Looks like you're not the only one here who can't control their mouth," He whispered to me. I playfully glared at him, receiving a grin that showed his adorable dimples. Emily was silent again for a few minutes. 

"Yeah, but the thing is, okay guys, listen, we can't really put in the music until we have a rough cut of the video. Because it would be hard to capture the essence of what will be shown. Like, we could have the most amazing background music of all time, the best music scoring, but if it doesn't match the video, it would just turn into a disaster. It wouldn't have that much impact as what we would hope, and it would be horrible," Emily explained, tucking in a loose strand of hair into the back of her ear. 

Whoa. I mean she has a point, even though I have no idea where that came from. 

"Guys, you gotta understand, that's different. They're music artists. What they literally do for a living is write music to produce and release. Once they finish a song and decide if it should have a music video or not, that's when they start to create the video. But what we are doing is a commercial and a whole ass short movie. And the process of that is different from music artists. Because in films and tv shows, they shoot first before giving it to the music producers and that's when they place music in so they can see which types of music fits and which doesn't," she explained once again. 

She is going off. I felt the presence of the other lads so I glanced at the back and saw that they were standing just at the edge of what separates the living room and dining room. I chuckled at their shock and impressed faces. "I'm not mad!" she exclaimed, leaning back on her chair. Her face suddenly dropped. "I'm not a know-it-all! I'm just explaining to you guys that it would be difficult for us if we do what you guys are planning," she said, frowning. 

Oh no. I inhaled sharply. I'm gonna admit, sometimes we get a little protective over her. And if someone is calling Emily a 'know-it-all' then that is not fine with us. Her breathing started to pick up as she gripped the table and slightly glare at the screen. "Fine," she calmly said. "Whatever, just don't say that I didn't warn you guys," she stated, crossing her arms. I felt Harry's squeeze my hand, signaling that he was annoyed. We turned to the other boys and they all had angered looks on their faces.

Guess we can agree that we do not like it when Emily gets mistreated. 

After a while, the meeting finished. I was about to ask how she was feeling but before I could her phone buzzed, telling her that she had a call. She groaned before picking it up. "Hello?" she greeted. I can see it on her face that she was tired, and was clearly affected by what the people called her. Her tired face was soon replaced with a dark look. I started to get worried because she was silent during the whole phone call. She suddenly ended the call, with furrowed eyebrows. Turning off her laptop, she closed it then went to her room without saying a word. I turned to the lads. 

"Should we check on her?" I asked them. "Maybe we should give her some time to cool down, then we go to her," Liam said. We nodded. "10 minutes?" Niall suggested. Zayn shook her head "Let's give her 15 just to make sure," he stated with us agreeing. 

It was the longest 15 minutes in our entire lives. We just wanted to see if Emily was okay. We walked back and forth, watching the time. Once fifteen minutes passed by, the five of us quickly went into her room to check if she's alright. What we found was an Emily laying down on her bed, peacefully. "Is she still breathing?" Niall asked. I sat down by her side and checked her pulse. 

I sighed. "Heartbeat. She's alive," I stated. I stared at her as she slept. She seems so peaceful yet so in distress at the same time. 

"How did she manage to sleep so fast?" Liam said as quietly as he could, leaning on the cabinet. "Maybe she wanted to escape?" Zayn said, making it sound like a question instead of a statement. "What do you mean, escape?" Harry asked him. "Sometimes, when I just don't want to handle something right away, I sleep so I could escape the situation, even just for a while. And when I wake up, I have a whole new perspective or feel a little better," he explained to us. "It could be," I said. 

I mean, it is possible. I'm not even gonna deny it, I sometimes do the same. Don't we all? Life just gets so complicated at times to the point, you don't even want to deal with it anymore. I scanned the other lads and it was clear that we were all worried about Emily, big time. For weeks, she has not rested, at all. We just want her to take some time for herself, for once. I hope that someday in the near future she would realize that it's okay if she doesn't work and just put herself first. This birthday surprise would hopefully help her see how much she means to us. It may be only a few weeks, but she's already made her way into our hearts. She is such a sweet girl and an amazing person. 

We are here for her as her friends. As family.