Second Snapshot (Picture This Sequel: Niall Horan)

-Innovation and Realization. [Chapter 14]

For a moment Mallory just looked at her processing this information that we all knew was true.

“So? Ashley’s family is too and she’s still working her butt off in New York. I’m not doing this for my family Chal, I’m doing it for myself.”

She objected and for once, she actually made sense to me. Maybe I kind of envied that, how she was dedicated to doing something for herself and not her family. I wished I was, but really, the real reason I was here was because of my ‘family’ however much I wanted it to be otherwise when asked.

“Okay Mal. I get you. But really. Wanna see how we bump? You could do better. We all know that.”

Chanel told her and Mallory gave up dismissing her with an eye roll and a back turn to a client that she was happily babbling to about the new window cleaner they were selling.

“Hey Ashley!” Mallory suddenly exclaimed whipping around and flashing me an interesting type of smile. “I forgot to tell you. You remember Luke?”

I just looked at her for a few seconds and then bleakly nodded.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I mumbled and she shrugged still knowingly beaming.

“He works here, like with me.”

She informed me and Chanel just looked at us both not quite knowing what to do.

“He…He doesn’t live in LA…”

I stuttered and she shrugged re-arranging some flashlights on the table.

“He moved here a few months ago. He moved in with his Mum.”

His Mum. Oh. Oh my god. He lived with his Dad back in London, only child he always got what he wanted, maybe a similar concept to me maybe that was why we were apparently so good together. The relationship with his Dad was always strained, his father runs his own business, a successful delivery company, Luke had the job of delivering all the rejects, the stuff that didn’t qualify as heavy enough or whatever to be shipped or on the lorries. It paid good and I suppose it’s always good to have a job within blood but the hours were ridiculously long and I would often to wake to the soft patter of stones against my window at one in the morning when he arrived back from his shift and I’d leap out of bed throw on some clothes and pull a brush through my hair before creeping downstairs and outside to meet him. We’d go to the park for an hour, or maybe down to the beach or go through a walk through the woods. Summer nights walking through the lanes with him not caring whether it was a school night or not. I was really the only one who knew and had (accidently) witnessed the strain and tension of the relationship he held with his father and how sometimes Luke could come back from a hard day at work working his ass for his father doing the job that nobody else would only to be told again that it wasn’t good enough and maybe, even sometimes if his Dad was at the end and in a particularly bad mood he would hit him. Maybe only one simple blow the cheek leaving a nice bruise by the morning that he would say he walked into the door or something. I kept on telling him to tell someone, get it sorted out, and maybe even retaliate back. But he wouldn’t have it, insisting he had a plan and he would stick it out for as long as it took until he had enough money to move to LA with his Mother and pursue a football scholarship. And he’d done it, he’d really done it. All those years ago it was just talk, things we wanted to happen but never quite knew that they would, dedication was lacking and everything was uncertain. All the credibility to Luke and everything but I never did think he’d follow through with it, his plan of one day just packing up in his father’s absence and leaving, boarding a plane to LA with a one way ticket and never looking back. Maybe it just goes to show that if Luke can do it than maybe I can too. Turning your back on a parent and their wishes for you to do something their way isn’t easy and taking the blow when they get angry isn’t either. Maybe it was easier for Luke, him and his Dad have never exactly been close and maybe that made it all the more easier. But me, sometimes I’m too nice and turning my back completely on my Mother and going completely off the rails of her wishes and doing what I want, that’s something big for me.