Cut To Pieces [Complete]

Epilogue

"It's been a year, Mike." Ashton whispered. "We cant keep avoiding it. The fans have been constantly asking for it. You wrote the damn thing." 

"So did you!" Michael yelled at his best friend. "Fine! We'll fucking play English Love Affair. But people are going to know what its about." Luke sighed from his seat in the corner and Michael knew exactly what his problem was. The songs were meant to be open to whatever interpretation the fans wanted to take them for. He didn't like slamming a story onto the song for everyone to have. English Love Affair had been added back onto the setlist and Michael wasn't sure how well he would be able to cope onstage. "I miss her." He whispered quietly, leaning against the wall with his forehead. 

"We all do." Ashton confirmed, playing with the ends of his sleeves. "But that song got released on the memorial EP and people have been asking for it. The fans loved Allie too. It's time we performed it for her." Michael shrugged and slumped down against the floor. 

"Fine."

-

"I want to mix things up a bit." Luke laughed into the mic. "It's not often we do acoustic versions of our own songs during our set, but today we're making an exception." Michael swapped his guitar out for an acoustic and looked nervously at Ashton who was climbing down from his drumset to sit on the box next to Michael. The stage crew had been informed of todays changes and three stools and an acoustic box had been lined up behind four microphones in the center of the stage. "You've all heard this song before, but this is the first time we've ever performed it acoustically. Michael?" Luke handed the tlaking over to Michael who took a breath and with a shaky voice addressed the corwd gathered at the concert. 

"This song was written about a girl who was very close to me and the boys and was killed last year in an... accident." The boys hadn't shared the details of Allie's death with the fans and Alli'es family stopped it from making the news. So no one really knew the true sotries apart form them and their families, the one direction boys, the tour family and Allie's family. "Ashton and I were both exceptionally close with Allie and we know that a lot of you loved her as well." A cheer went out around the arena and Michael couldn't helo but grin. The support they had recieved form the Family after her death was astounding. "It's been a difficult decision to perform this again, and it will be hard on all of us, so please bear with us on this one. Family, this song is called English Love Affair." The boys smiled at each other before launching into the song. This time the vocals switched out only between Michael and Ashton, Luke and Calum only adding in harmonies here and there. It had been decided this morning that the two boys would sing it for the first time, since they had both dated Allie and were the closest two her. Michael managed to make it to the end of the song befor ehe burst into tears. Ashton was silently crying the entire wat through, as were Calum and Luke. The arena had remained eerily silent throughout the enitre song, something that had never happened at one of the boys concerts before and it remained silent after the song had come to a close. You could hear a few sniffles coming from the crowd as the boys all climbed into a group ug around Michael who was desperatley trying to stop his sobbing. Luke pulled away and stood up next to the mic, pulling it up to his height. 

"We want to thank you all for all your support in this last year, especially surrounding Allie's death. We know that Allie will be watching over us and rolling her eyes at our sappiness and if she was here she'd probably say somehting like 'for gods sake Michael Clifford suck it up and be a man'. But she loved us, and we loved her. It's been a year since she was killed next week and in her honor we're opening up a charity for abused children and teenagers. You can find everything on the website and now the concert has become suitably sad  I'd like you all to make as much noise as possible for Allie." The crowd went wild and the boys had to cover their ears at the sheer amount of noise. 

"See Michael," Ashton laughed, looking out at the sea of people. "She'll never be forgotten. Too many people love her." Michael raised his fist in the air and stared up at the sky desperatley. 

"I'm hoping to god that we weren't lied to through school about all this heaven stuff." Michael smiled at Ashton who was looking up with Michael, their hands gripped together tight. "Because that girls deserves to be no where else."