Recovery / / h.s

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Lily's POV-

It was one of the very rare days that it was actually warm enough in November to go outside. And by warm, I literally mean 40 degrees. Amelia walked beside me, her long, sun-kissed brown hair curled under a white beanie. Ariana walked on my other side, snuggled into a Columbia and Ugg boots. Her dark hair flew freely around her head as the wind whipped around her.

"And how do you feel about him?" Amelia wondered as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through her curls. I had just finished telling them everything that had happened, from the first time I kissed Harry, to the fight at Harry's apartment, all the way to Harry asking me to be his girlfriend.

Truth be told, I loved Harry. He gave me butterflies and he made me laugh and, okay, he was an amazing kisser. But how skilled he was at kissing didn't change the fact that he had already had a chance to prove to me that he could be what I needed. Did I really want to put myself through that again?

"Are you going to say yes, more importantly," Ariana chimed in. She was hardly ever home and I made sure to spend as much time with her as I could before she went back for school.

I sighed. "You guys know what happened last time. I can't put myself through that again. As much as I like Harry, I have to make sure that he's going to be there and not just run away again, ya' know?"

"Okay, but where does that leave you and Louis?" Amelia wondered, making it a point to step on the crunchiest leaves as we walked. It was rather annoying, but it brought her some kind of weird joy.

"He was such a nice guy," Ariana cooed. "I can't believe he-"

"Wait," I said, stopping dead in my tracks. The all too familiar blue Mercedes pulled down the street, making me cringe and want to run away.

"Is that-"

"Speak of the devil," Amelia smiled beside me, cutting Ariana off.

He pulled the car up right next to us and stopped, rolling the window down. Seeing his face made my heart beat in my ears and my knees go weak. Neither one in a pleasant way.

"Lily-" he began, but before he could finish I had already started walking. Of course, he followed. He spoke as he drove slowly beside me. "God dammit Lily, could you please just listen?"

"To what!?" I yelled, throwing my hands up in frustration. "There's nothing you can say Louis that can-"

"Just ten minutes. Please?" He begged, the puppy dog look that had reeled me in so many times before was tempting, and for some reason I waved goodbye to the girls and climbed into the passenger seat beside him.

"Ten minutes," I snapped. "You can talk while you drive me home."

His eyes were a deep hue of purple and his bottom lip was swollen. I felt a sort of joy knowing that Harry had done this to him. Louis was absolutely no match for him.

"So what, you're stalking me now?" I wondered harshly, tugging the seatbelt over my body. I felt an ache in my shoulder where the seatbelt had slid across a little too hard, but I was too angry to pay attention to it.

He rolled his eyes. "It was actually pure coincidence you were walking down one of the streets I take to get home, Lily. I wanted to talk to you about, you know, everything."

"There's nothing to talk about," I told him sharply. Okay, the seat belt hadn't swiped my shoulder that hard. Why the hell did it hurt so bad?

"Bullshit, there's everything to talk about."

"Like what, Louis? Because the last time I checked, we were over. You said so yourself." My shoulder was throbbing.

"Look, I'm- Are you okay?" He wondered when I peeked down my shirt at my shoulder. No scratch, no bumps, no bruise.