CHAPTER SEVEN
❛ 𝗽𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲,
𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵. 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀, 𝗲𝘆𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘆𝗲 '𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆'𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵. ❜
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[ y/n ]
Last night, Louis lost. It was a close call, but Millie managed to scream out, "Uno!" before Louis could, and after he got his card, all came out in a whole blur.
Because I won.
I won a fucking uno game over Louis Partridge.
It's such a blur.
"He's not coming. This is all madness, really," Lisa restlessly says, having been anxiously walking back and forth on the auditorium stage. "I mean, Louis Partridge? That actor? Why would he even waste his time with a bunch of high school kids?"
Exactly my point.
"He's coming, Lisa," Millie assures her. "He's my brother; I know him."
I twirl the drumstick between my fingers, my right leg bouncing up and down. I watch as Felix looks down at his watch and sighs. He looks exhausted and, understandably, on the brink of losing hope. And instantly, I started to lose mine too. Maybe this is too crazy. Maybe I am too crazy to believe Louis would actually cancel a flight to Paris at the last minute to help a bunch of teenagers with a talent show. A fantasy too good to be true.
"I'm leaving," Felix announces, visibly giving up. He ran his fingers into his hair and turned to us. "I've still got things to do, then wait for an actor who clearly isn't going to show up. I'm really sorry, girls, but this week has been hard for all of us. I've tried to think of the best; I really did, but maybe we should start accepting the truth instead. We're never going to impress Richard Lohart."
"No. You'll do more than that."
We all froze, then turned to the voice. From afar, in one of those seats, sat a figure of a man way too familiar. A shadow I memorized all these years. Louis leaned forward, moving away from the darkness with a small smirk etched on his pinkish lips. "Felix, isn't it? Imagine. Girls chasing you, screaming your name, and lining up for all your performances just so they can experience being close to you."
"Excuse me?" Felix stammered, cheeks tinting pink.
"All I'm saying is," Louis stood up and thrust his hand inside the pockets of his hoodie, his hair a bit messy. "Before you give up, think of why you've come here in the first place."
"Louis!" Millie cheered happily, sprinting down the alleyway to run towards her brother. "I knew you'd come!" Louis wrapped an arm around Millie's waist to support her weight when she crashed against him, but his eyes weren't on her or on Felix's anymore.
His brown eyes were on mine. Staring. It was as if he were reading my soul and could see through me.
My heart dropped.
"I promised. Of course I'll keep it," he says nonchalantly, squeezing Millie by her waist, then continues to walk up the stage to approach the rest of us. Louis always succeeded in making me speechless, but never in this way. Never in a way that when he walks, the earth slows down. Never in a way that his eyes had me frozen in time.
"Holy shit." Lisa cursed and scoffed in disbelief, still having a hard time believing how he's here. On stage. With us.
"So, how does this work? Do you guys have a guitar I could use, or should I bring mine?" Louis asks casually, as if it were normal that he was here. And the worst part was that he was still looking directly at me.
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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