Let Me Fix You (On Hold)

|4| Neighborhood Cat Lady

Emily's POV:

That night I told them everything about my past. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I don't know what I was afraid of. They're my friends, I can trust them to understand and not judge me. I'm still realizing that I guess.

Thankfully nothing was too different. Niall and Liam insisted on bringing more security with us as we went into town today, which probably wasn't a bad idea. Maybe he would be intimidated by the security and leave us alone? It was actually really weird going into such a small town. This town was something you'd see in a corny movie. Everyone seemed to know each other. There were no big retail stores either. There was a little hairsalon, a diner, an antique store, a produce stand, a florist, and some more odd diners down the strip. The weirdest part was that no one recognized us. In this town we were just normal people, which is nice for a change. It's fun being famous but sometimes you just want to sit down and have a meal without having to take a selfie with someone or sign an autograph or something. Fans were starting to ask for Katie and I to sign things for them now which we found really odd.

Niall helped me put on my coat as we left the diner and walked down the street with our 5 inconspicuous looking security guards following closly behind and scouting out several yards ahead of us. No one at the diner seemed to think that it was odd we had security guards. I think they thought we were all friends or something. Or maybe they did know everything and they were trying to be polite by not making us take selfies with them.

"CATS!" Harry shouted and ran across the street in front of me, completely interuppting my thoughts.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Zayn mumbled as we all followed him across the street. There was a middle aged lady sitting on a bench and petting a cat on her lap. There were 3 cages full of cats stacked next to her. As we approached her I could hear Harry ask her if he could hold the cat and she kindly let him.

"Your cat is lovely." Harry said.

"It's not mine." The woman opened her bag, which was more of a backpack then a bag, and pulled out some fliers. "These cats are from the shelter up the road. The town can't afford to keep the shleter open anymore so they're closing down. I'm trying to get people to come to my benefit tonight to help keep it open. There's only a week left to raise the money." She handed Harry a flier and he passed it around for all of us to look at. "No one wants to come. I've hardly gotten rid of any of these fliers."

"Aw we've got to do something." I said, petting the cat's head while Harry held it. Harry handed the cat to me suddenly and I held her delicately. Have I ever mentioned I love cats? Because I do freaking love cats.

Harry pulled out his wallet and opened it up. "How much do you need?"

"$10,000." She answered.

"Whoa." Liam said and everyone kinda gasped a little after that.

Just then someone came out the door of the shop behind her and walked straight up to me. "Hello." He said, smiling at me. He was probably about the same age as Niall and he wasn't hard on the eyes either.

"Hi yourself." I smiled back at him. I could almost feel Niall's eyes burning into the back of my head from behind me.

He turned away from me suddenly and faced the cat lady. "Mom, the bank won't let us have another loan. Mr. Lane said we owe too much already."

"Damnit." The woman dropped her face into her hands and her son pat her on the back. "That was our last hope to save the shelter."

"What can we do to help?" I blurted out, causing the mother and son to look up at me.