ILTHY | l.p.

7 | louie the guitar hero

Was he actually talking to me?

"Y/N." Millie whispers my name and makes a weird gesture behind Louis, reminding me to answer.

"Oh—uh, bring yours. You'll be more comfortable with the one you own." I stutter, my eyes still wide. He nodded at me and looked down at my drums, covered with purple glitter and butterfly stickers. Louis' eyes changed, but I couldn't quite put it down.

I then remember how he always hated how indecisive I am and how I do things without thinking them through. And I always hated how he disliked me and how he treated me.

"That butterfly," Louis mumbled, leaning over and towering over me. "I've seen that before. You always had that pin in your hair when we were kids."

"You remember a lot of things," I say back in an almost whisper, my heart thumping. Louis wasn't that close to where I was, there was still a respectable amount of distance in between. But this has been the closest he has ever been with me. "Because I know you'll forget them," he whispered back, voice deep, accent thick, as his fingers lightly tapped the crash cymbal.

My breath hitched. Oh my god. Is it just me, or is there an invisible string tugging me closer into this strange conversation with Louis Partridge? The same guy who had been in the background of my childhood photos and who ignores and treats me badly for no absolute reason.

"The talent show is less than two weeks from now, and I'm really relieved we have a guitarist to take Sam's place for a while, but we still don't have a song to play," Lisa interrupts, reminding us of the real reason why Louis is even here in the first place.

"An original?"

"Can't," Felix shakes his head, "all our originals are well, let's just say—not the type to win things."

"I've heard your songs. It's all unique and great," Louis says with his brows furrowed. He seemed confused as to why we keep downgrading our songs.

"It should be great! It's Y/N who wrote most of them," Millie adds on, making another weird hand gesture towards me.

He turned to me, surprised. Louis opened his mouth, then closed it, before opening it once again to speak. "Then why don't you actually sing some of your songs?"

"Lisa is our singer for a reason." I refrain from rolling my eyes.

"Y/N always has this creativity. She's a god at writing songs and playing instruments, but she prefers being in the background to being in the center. We're all cool with it, as long as she's comfortable," Lisa explains, nodding in my direction.

"I'm sorry, Y/N? Hiding in the background? That's impossible," Louis scoffed. "She's always been the little girl who wears excessive jewelry and who's too big for her, using a hairbrush as a mic and singing and dancing in the living room like she's under a spotlight, with all the attention on her."

Lisa and Felix exchange looks, and Millie tilts her head a little.

"I was seven!" I gasped, a little offended and dumbfounded by the sudden flashback of that embarrassing moment. "You didn't change at all," Louis insisted, looking back down at the butterfly decorations on my drum.

"I grew up."

"You just forgot."

Silence.

It was as if Louis and I were having some sort of staring competition. For the first time in years, I finally felt a connection with him. It's annoying how he keeps bringing up the past and how weird he's acting right now, but at the same time, I can't deny the new curiosity that sparked in me.

Fireworks. Sparks. Connections.

"What if you do a new song? If you all aren't confident with your old hits, then build another one?" Millie suggested, and Lisa immediately shook her head. "Bloody impossible. We barely had a guitarist, and we have a very limited deadline."

"But it's Y/N," Millie insists, and then everyone turns to me.

"And that's not enough." I scoff in disbelief at the things that are happening right now. "You all know I mess things up. Everything I've done is messy and indecisive, and I don't even fucking know what I'm doing most in my life."

Felix pursed his lips and smiled at me. "That's honestly not entirely true. Because of you, we literally have Louis Partridge in the flesh playing with us for a high school talent show. And you clearly knew what you were doing when you talked us into this."

"I haven't done a single thing. Millie is the one who convinced her brother," I argued.

"But she's not the reason I came."

My heart skipped a beat, and my eyes met his again, but Louis immediately added on to his sentence after looking away. "I mean, dreams are important. I've dreamt and reached it, and here I am now. You all reminded me of who I was... of how this could cost you a whole lifetime filled with success and not regrets of ruckus 'what-ifs'." Louis explains, then pauses and takes a deep breath. "What I'm saying is this is going to be wicked."

I have never heard Louis talk like this.

Or have I? Probably on the screens. But he's right; this is all going to be wicked.

"I can't finish a song in days," I say, a little too desperately and panicky.

"Not without help, you can't." Millie grins and holds on to her brother's arm, tugging Louis closer to me. "And help has arrived. You have us. A real package deal."

One look at Lisa and Felix, or even Millie and Louis, and I knew I was actually going to be screwed and fucked.

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