raincoats and wellies | stylinson au

Chapter One

Louis 

-

The plane ride was alright. It was long, nearly ten hours, but it wasn’t unpleasant. The cries from the wailing baby behind me were instantly muted once I pulled on my headphones and the food wasn’t all that terrible, at least not as bad as people had led me to believe. The only thing that bothered me really was the sight of the murky clouds as we glided past them. So I shut the window shade and imagined that there was a sunny tropical paradise in their place.

My grandmum had broken her hip during a salsa class and her doctor advised that she be looked after until she gets back on her feet. I know what you must be thinking. Why is an eighty-year-old woman even thinking about attempting a dancing class? For that I don’t have an answer but I guess I would take a bustling grandmother over one that was bedridden.

I was supposed to be taking this trip with my mum but she didn’t think she was quite ready to hop on a plane with two newborns. So I was on my own in a city where I knew almost no one. It should be a fun time.

Seattle was a lot like London in some ways. They both housed impossibly tall buildings. They were both really busy, I had only been in America for an hour but I’d already had two cabs swiped from me as I tried to leave the airport. Lastly, they were both very wet.

I hated the rain. I hated the way it soaked through the soles of my shoes and dampened my socks. I hated the smell, actually I think I hated just about everything about it. Sure the presence of rain brought life to many things in this place we called earth. But in some cases, and in mine, it seemed to bring ruin. I just truly hated rain.

“Could you please stop that?” I said to the shaggy haired boy beside me in the lift of my grandmum's apartment. He was running his boots through a small puddle of water, making a faint squeak that was tolerable at first but was now driving me insane.

“Stop what?” He asked.

“The sound that you’re making with your wellies,” The sound was so obnoxious, he was like the boy in the black of the classroom that won’t stop clicking his pen. Was he aware of how annoying he was being?

“Oh I’m sorry about that,” he began and then he paused. “Wait, my what?”

“Those horrid things on your feet.”

He looked down.

“My rain boots?” He asked and pursed his lips as he shifted his feet making them squeak again. He then smiled. I groaned.

“Whatever.” I shook my head exhaling a breath of relief once we reach Gran’s floor.

“Bye!” He called out to me in a kindly tone even though I hadn’t said one nice thing to him.