Yayyyy update. Yayyyy Niannie. Yayyyyy memories. Yayyyyy people who still read this :)
I love you all so very much, and please let me know what you think of this in the comments :) You might be mad at me for a cliff-hanger, by the way. I know. I'm so mean >:D
Dear Annie,
Chapter 6
“Hang back a moment, Niall.”
I nodded, waiting for Simon to speak once everyone else left the room. He leaned forward, looking me straight in the eye. “You mean to tell me,” he pauses, looking through the glass doors at where I assumed they were waiting curiously, “that she doesn’t know anything about…anything?”
I nod. “Nothing.”
“Not a bit?”
I opened my mouth but stopped and thought. “Last night she had a flashback. About the first time she met you.” I watched Simon lift an eyebrow as he thought. I took this chance to turn around and see if they were still waiting.
Sure enough, they were. The good thing about this room was that even though you could see through the glass, you couldn’t hear through them.
“She hasn’t been on twitter?” he asked. I shake my head, no.“Tumblr?” he asks. Again, I shake my head, no. “Facebook? Nothing? Not even youtube?”
“Nothing. She almost found out when she saw her face on the news, but I never got around to explaining that and I think she forgot about it,” I explained to him. “I just don’t know whatto do. I want her to remember, I do, but I don’t want her fainting every time she remembers something.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. Then he looked up at me.
“Well, Niall, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t help but to blankly stare at him. “Apparently not,” I lick my upper lip in anticipation. “What’s your big idea, Uncle Si?”
“You’ve got to re-create the letters! Make her remember everything by the letters!” he shouted.
Thank god the boys and Annie couldn’t hear anything. Annie would be dying of curiosity about what the hell we were talking about.
“What, you mean like make the letters almost alike, but this time, I send her a letter?” I ask, but I didn’t need to know the answer. My mind was racing a mile a minute.
I knew I could make her remember through the letters.
It was finally going to happen. I was going to get my Annie back.
***
Dear Annie,
Hello. You don’t remember me. I know you don’t. But I know you. You must be thinking I’m crazy, right? Shoot for it. I am. You’re crazy like me too. I know you are. Two crazy’s writing to each other. It’s always fun. It’s been fun, and it will be fun. Anyways, the point here is that there is no point. This was just a let’s-send-this-and-see-how-it-goes type of letter. But I guess I really want my once pen pal back. Would you be willing to re-become my penpal? By all means, don’t respond back if you don’t want to. Just toss this out, burn it even, if you think I’m a lunatic. I’m a boy, in case you don’t remember still. I know you always wanted to have a male pen pal, since not many of them ever really write as much as females. You wanted to get inside the mind of a boy. Re-explore, Annie.
P.S. You love chocolate chips.
P.P.S. I love chocolate chips too.
P.P.P.S. Hopefully, you’ll reply back, Annie. If not, sorry to have been a nuisance.
Love, Crazy #1
(you’re Crazy #2, by the way, we decided on this about six months after we met in person)
***
I took a deep breath in before folding the paper into thirds. The boys clasped my shoulders. They knew what I was going to do, and they were going help me.
From time to time.
For example, today. Today, Louis’ going to take the letter to her, saying it got slipped through the front door just then, with her name on top.
This could now go either one of two ways.
She could reply and I could trigger her memory little by little.
Or she could actually burn it and think I was a creeper who stalked her.
Oh god, what have I done? This was not well thought out at all! I should have buried it in the sand and had her “accidentally” find it or something!
What if she remembers something when she reads it?
What if she remembers me?
Woah, there, I had to tell myself, slow down, man. What if’s are big IF’S. Calm the heck down.
“How do I send this back to this guy? Do you guys know him?”Annie asked, coming out of her room.
Liam piped up, saying, “Yeah! I mean, I, er, I’ve met him before. Tons of times actually, I can get it to him.”
She brightly smiled. “Okay! Let me just…write a reply back,” she said, concentrating hard on the paper in her hands. She gasped. “I need pink paper,” she blurted out.
My head snapped in her direction. “What?”
Her face turned beet red. “I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “I had an urge to say that.”
I blinked and stared at her. This is still progress. I’m getting somewhere.
“I’ll get you pink paper by tomorrow. I’m sure this guy can wait a day,” I told her. She beamed at me and ran back inside her room.
I screamed into my pillow, but not loud enough for Annie to hear. “I’m doomed.”
***
It was twelve in the morning. Annie had passed out long ago; she was curled up on the couch, with a blanket that Zayn lazily threw over her.
We had out a notebook and a pen. “Name. I need a name. On the letters in the past, she just named me by my name because me in the letters reminded her of me the celebrity. How do I manage to get that back again?”
“Keep hinting our band,” Liam immediately said, and I jotted that down in my scribbled handwriting.
“There’s a brick wall in a park here,” Zayn added. “We can go early in the morning tomorrow and break a brick off or something.” I paused at this.
“I don’t think we’d be allowed to do something like that.”
“We can figure that out later, then,” Harry interjected. “You’re going to have to make these letters the same, yet different too, because you’ve got to re-capture all the old memories that were never put into the old letters.”
I nodded. “Aye, mate. You’re right.”
He gave a smug smile. “I know,” he cockily said.
“Niall,” Louis loudly cut in. “You do know that we’ve got to tell her about her fame? Somehow? She’s going to find out pretty soon and it won’t be pretty if it’s not by us.”
I sighed, hanging my head down low. “I know,” I said, staring at Annie who slept to peacefully and innocently. “But how?”
“Trailers. Start off easy. You own every movie of hers. Have movie nights. Re-watch them. Those will spark her memory as well,” Louis offered.
I perked up. “Lou, you genius!”
He smirked. “Why, thank you, thank you,” he tried bowing graciously, but ended up looking like a chicken pecking the ground because he bowed while sitting on the ground.
We laughed a little, just to get it out of our systems. The morning would be day one of the Annie Project.
***
“Hey, is Niall a common name?” Annie asked me.
I lied down on her bed and stared at the ceiling as the light shone through. It was officially day one of the Annie Project. “I suppose so, in some places.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Why?” I asked her.
She shrugged and lied down next to me. “You know that letter from my pen pal?” I looked at her for a moment before nodding. “I feel like calling him Niall. And I really don’t know why. It’s kind of weird, since you’re also a Niall. It’s like I’m talking to you, you know?”
I nod and look back up. “What are you looking at?” Annie asked. “It’s nothing extraordinary.”
“No, but that’s why I like it.”
“You like a ceiling?” Annie asked, looking amused. I winked and she laughed.
Why can’t I kiss her?
I want to kiss her. Now.
“Come on,” I told her, tugging on her arm. “I need to show you something.”
She gave me a curious look, but followed me into my room nonetheless. I pulled up youtube immediately and typed in the first one of her movies that came to mind.
She squinted her eyes. “What’s…Royally Wrong?”
“Shhh,” I clamped my hand on her mouth. “Watch.”
She rolled her eyes and watched, uninterested for the first thirty seconds, until her face came on the trailer. Her eyes grew wider and she grabbed my laptop, and paused it, staring hard at the image.
“What is this?” she finally asked.
I took the laptop back and typed in another trailer.
“The Hiding?” she questioned again. “What kind of name is-oh it’s a mystery-horror movie,” she said, seeing the beginnings of the trailer. And then she watched herself on the screen. This time, she let it play and watched it the whole way through. She watched herself acting as the babysitter, who was trying to save the twins that she was watching over for their parents, from the psychopath killer who came in and was on a hunt for the twins for some time, and then her, because he saw her.
Basically, the psychopath killer had this obsession problem. First he was obsessed with the twins’ mother and she got a restraining order because he stalked her, and so the twins was a way of revenge, but then he saw Katie (AKA Annie) and became obsessed with her.
Not to ruin the storyline or anything, but basically he’s been hiding dozens of girls that he keeps like pets and she goes in to rescue them once the twins are safe and so the other girls get out safely but Annie dies.
The end.
Let me tell you, I did not like seeing her die one bit. It may not have been real, but I didn’t see any Katie in the movie, I saw Annie. My Annie.
“Well, I’d like to see this one,” she finally said. I made a face.
“You won’t like the second half of the movie,” I told her. “But seeing as you did film for it, I guess you didn’t have a problem, then.”
“I’m still deathly confused,” she pointed out.
I think I’m going to be sick if she says ‘death’ or ‘deathly’ or anything synonymous one more time.
“So…basically, I’m famous?” she asked. “Not…to be like, cocky or anything, just like a general sense of it.”
I nodded. “You’re one of themost popular actresses there is. You beat out Jennifer Lawrence once last year.”
Her eyebrows rose up and her mouth opened up slightly. “Wow,” she breathed out. “Is that why my face was on the news the other day?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Everyone knows you. Nobody knows you’ve lost your memory, though, not even the paps, which is a miracle. We want to keep it that way, or you’ll be getting so much smack for not remember anything.”
She nodded, understandingly. “That’s why you didn’t want me to go on any social networking sites.”
Sure. Let’s go with that. “Have you been in any movies?” she asked.
I grinned. “Funny you should ask. I did appear in one with you. But that was it for my acting. In case you don’t know, I can’t act. And the boys are worse than I am, which is saying something.”
She grinned. “Can we have a movie marathon, now?” I nodded.
“Definitely.”
***
“You look like a lost puppy,” she commented.
“Thanks?” I questioned, rubbing my neck subconsciously.
“Luke, that’s my best friend, Lily,” Bridget Mendler, who played Sammie, said to me, who played Luke, in the television movie.
“Jesus, why do I look like a rebel?” Annie giggled, staring at herself as she portrayed Lily.
“Basically I’m the straight A, teacher’s pet and you’re the school rebel, who doesn’t maintain the grades and doesn’t care and we help each other. You get me out of this shy shell and I get you to care about your grades and school and we end up together at some point in the movie. I haven’t seen this one for a while. I try to stay away from it, since I cringe every time I’m on screen,” I whispered to her.
“OH, DAMMIT!” Annie shrieked, throwing her hands up. “Why’d you just ruin it for me? Next time, say ‘SPOILER ALERT’ before you go into detail,” she grumpily said, slouching low in the couch. “Put in The Hiding, then,” she demanded.
Oh, joy, I get to re-watch Annie (Katie) dying. That’s always fun, innit?
“Oi, stop throwing your popcorn at me, Annie!” I commanded. She didn’t stop. “You asked for it,” I grinned evilly, before taking my popcorn back and spilling its popcorn contents on her head.
Her mouth fell open and she sat there, giving me an oh-you-didn’t look. I winked at her and began pecking off and eating the popcorn that was all over her.
“Geez, you are crazy,” she giggled.
I laughed loudly. “Oh, I know that. You are too.”
She smiled widely. “Yeah…”
***
A scream. That’s what shot us all out of bed, and sending us running into Annie’s room. She was in an upright position on her bed.
“What happened?” we shouted.
“I was sleeping…and-and-flashback or a dream or something and I just…I-I don’t know, I just…” she couldn’t even finish her train of thought.
She looked up at me.
“Am I supposed to be dating you?”