As you guys can tell. I'm not sure if I can ever let this story go, from the day I wrote the last chapter I have been working on an edition to this story which is this one, it follows the same story but instead it's in Allyson's POV and Louis' as well! I hope you enjoy, and this is decently long, so take seat, grab some popcorn and read on! P.S. is there a ship name for Louis and Ally? Because I say Allouis :)
Ages 13 and 14 and a half
Ally POV
“Come on, Louis!” I yelled back at my best friend but didn’t stop running towards the woods that were behind his hours “We’re going to miss it, Lou!” I said I kept looking down at my feet making sure I wouldn’t fall over, I had fallen over last week and I still have the scab on my leg from falling, and ouch.
“I’m coming!” Louis called back “How do you run faster than me when I’m older than you!”
“Older smolder!” I yelled back cutting through the trees of the woods and dodging trees and making my way to our little spot.
It was smack in the middle of the woods- well, maybe a little bit to the left but still in the middle of the woods enough, when I got there I stomped on my heels bringing myself to a stop and kicking up rocks and dirt as I went. When I came to a stop I pulled on my hair taking it down from its ponytail and so it floats down to my back, my Ma, Camila has really long hair and I want to grow it out to be just like her.
“OK, OK! Did I miss anything?” Louis asked running up next to me.
I shook my head “No, it hasn’t started yet.” I looked over at Louis and grabbed his hand “You’re very lucky you didn’t miss anything. Did you hide the bottles?”
Louis blue-grey eyes widen but he nodded then ran over, toward the trees and pulled at one. He pulled at the trees bark until it feel back then ran inside in the tree.
“Louis?” I called out to him but he didn’t answer me.
When he finally came out he had out to large bottles that had the holes on the top and handed one over to me I nodded and thanks and laid down in the dirt, my MommyBear, Normani would probably have a fit because I was wearing the sparkly T-shirt she had gotten me. But I laid down on the ground anyway .
“Louis come lie with me,” I said
“I thought we were catching them again tonight?” Louis asked but came down to sit with me anyway. It was only just getting dark out and the sky was still spotted with a little bit of orange and pink and lots of dark blue.
“Let’s just watch tonight.” I say and pat the dirt next to me “Come on, sit with me.”
“OK,” Louis says and moves down next to me so our shoulders are touching.
Louis and I have been best friends for as long as I remember and even our parents are friends, I have known Louis for eleven years and have been best friends the whole time. I don’t remember the first years since I was only two, but my MommyBear tells me stories all the time.
“Look! There’s the first one!” Louis says pointing over to the left; I follow his hand up to see the first firefly of the night. It’s yellow glow fading in and out within the fading light of the day.
“It’s so beautiful,” I say and move closer to Louis so I’m leaning on his shoulder “I wanna be a firefly.”
Louis shakes his head “No, you can’t be.”
I turned so I could look Louis in the eye “And why not?”
“Because then we couldn’t be best friends anymore, I would be a loser if my best friend was a firefly. And I’ll be go to high school next month, it’s already bad that my best friend is still going to be an eighth grader and not a freshman with me.” Louis says
I pull my head off the shoulder but keep looking at the sky and I can see another firefly coming out “So I’m not cool anymore? Just because I’ll still be an eighth grader?”
Louis turned on his elbows, looking at me. “That’s not it, Allyson, it’s just… now I wont have anyone to hang out with at lunchtime, or anyone to tell my jokes too, or to laugh with inbetween classes like we usually do. But now, I’ll be in a different school… without you… and that makes me a loser, because I won’t have my best friend with me.”
“Oh Louis… you know what? I’m gonna try to be extra smart this year so that I can skip a grade and be with you. I promise, then we can be together like we usually are.” I say turning to face Louis too.
“You would do that for me?” Louis asks me
“I know you don’t like making friends, and you know I don’t like making friends… so I’ll try, I’ll try for you.”
Louis smiles at me “I love you, Allyson.”
I smile back and Louis and sit up, out of all the people in my life he is the only one I let call me Allyson. “I love you too, Louis.”
Louis jumps over on top of me then, wrapping me in a hug, even though Louis is older than me I’m still a little bit taller, I wrap my arms around his middle and hug him back just as tight. Louis laughter floods my ears and I laugh along with him.
“Wait, Louis, no!” But it’s too late he’s pushed all his body weight on me and now were tumbling in our open space dirt is flooding my open mouth and ears I close my ears and hold onto Louis closer because we’re moving faster and faster now.
“Stop this Louis!”
“Never!”
“This is ridiculous!”
Finally, Louis pulls us to a stop, he’s still on top of me though, smiling wickedly at me
“See, we’re missing the whole show.” I say squirming under him but he doesn’t budge
“We see it every Friday and I don’t think we’re missing anything we haven’t seen before.”
“Still, there’s a reason we still come out here every single time.”
“I guess,” Louis says, his smile doesn’t stop and he doesn’t get off me.
“Louis…”
“Allyson…”
“Are you gonna get off me?”
“Maybe.”
“Your mommy and dad will want us back soon.”
“They can wait.”
Silence fills the forest flow even the animals seemed to have stopped speaking in their little languages and didn’t say a thing.
Timed seemed to last forever until Louis above me finally coughed and finally got up off me. “Let’s head back.” And even though it was dark out I could still see the blush covering his cheekbones, I didn’t know why though.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
16 AND 17
“We’re gonna go together right?” I asked Louis we were just leaving the high school after staying after school to work on a school project I was just starting my junior year and Louis was in his senior year, He had grown out his hair and now it almost covers his eyes, I keep telling him he should cut it but he always just rolls his eyes and pushes my shoulder saying it “gets him girls”
“I don’t know, there’s actually a girl I want to ask to homecoming this year.” Louis said flipping his hair off to the right so I wouldn’t fall in his eyes.
I stopped in my tracks “What?”
Louis keeps on walking, still looking forward. He hasn’t noticed I stopped walking along with him “Yeah… there’s this girl, Eleanor in my senior class with me, she’s really cool. I think I want to ask her.”
I shake myself mentally and physically and run up to catch up with him.
“Oh,” I say, I can’t think of anything else I’m just a little shocked.
Louis and I never really dated anyone, so when there was a dance, or some type of after school thing then we would just go together, or we would go with all our friends; Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin and then Perrie Edwards, Jade Thirlwall, and Jesy Nelson. None of us ever really dated, it was just the nine of us.
“Yeah, she’s so pretty. She has dark brown long hair, beautiful light brown eyes and she’s just- beautiful”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. But Louis didn’t seem to mind, he just went on and on about how beautiful this girl was.
“And she’s a cheerleader,” he finishes and before I could even think about it the words slipped out of my mouth
“Fuck cheerleaders.”
Louis gasped and finally shut up, turning to look at me “Allyson Brooke Cabello! Did you just swear?”
I just shrugged in response
“So, someone doesn’t like cheerleaders…” he says in a sing song voice, and I roll my eyes at him
“So are you still coming over?” Louis asked me, we were getting close to my place. Our houses were actually pretty close maybe just a few streets over this he lives on the edge by the woods.
“Um, no, I can’t, I just remembered I need to talk to my moms about something. It’s important I can’t believe I forgot.” I lied, stumbling over my words. I never ever really had to lie to Louis before, it didn’t taste right on my tongue.
“Oh,” he says nodding “Is everything alright?”
I nod my head “It will be, but I better go,” I say speeding up, I have to get out of here “I’ll see you around Louis.”
“Hey! I’m home!” I yell out and as soon as I do I can hear my little sister Alessandra Candice running in
“Hi Ally!” said the fourteen year old, she had dark brown hair that fell down to the middle of her stomach and bright brown eyes and caramel skin. I ruffle her hair when she wraps herself around me for a hug
“Where are our moms?”
“There in the back, watching a movie.” Sandra says and takes my hand, pulling me past the yellow kitchen to the back of house. Like Sandra had said they were in there room laying down eyes on the TV screen but still snuggled up close together.
“Hey baby,” My MommyBear, Normani says looking away from the screen and my other mother, Camila looks up and smiles at me and gives me a wave.
I try to smile as I make my way over to their bed; I sit on the side and start crawling over to my mothers and pushing them apart so I could curl up in-between them. I grabbed on to Mommy’s stomach and hid my face in her side.
“What is it?” Ma asks me running her hand down my back “What’s wrong.”
“Nothing, I guess.”
At that, both my mother’s snort and my Mommy turns around so she can look at me, her brown eyes staring hard into mine, her fingers under my chin.
“What happened between you and Louis?” She asks me, then takes her hand and runs it through my hair.
I shake my head “Saying it out loud makes me sound silly, I’m overreacting.” I was about to get up and go back to my room, but then I realize I’m cornered in, Mommy on one side and Ma on the other
“Say it anyway.” Ma says “You’ll feel better afterward, and you can say it anyway you want too.”
“por lo que Louis quiere invitar a una chica al baile, pero siempre van de la mano. él quiere añadir otra chica en nuestro grupo y yo no la conozco, ¿y si ella es horrible? o la media de Louis?” I spit out, the four of us all speak fluent Spanish since Ma is from Cuba and Mexico before she settled here in Atlanta.
“Oh baby, that happens sometimes. I know it’s probably hurts that he wants to ask another girl to the dance.” Mommy says and sits up with me, and as if I’m still a baby, she pulls me into her lap and kisses my cheek. “But I didn’t know you liked Louis.”
“What? I don’t like Louis like that,”
“Then why are you so upset, baby girl?” Ma asked me, it wasn’t like she was being smart but the question made me a little mad
“Because, I know nothing about her, she could be awful and rude, and she could hurt Louis or anything.”
Mommy begins rocking me back and forth “But I have to ask, if Louis brought her as a date, would you be jealous? Any girl, let’s say he decided to take Perrie out on a date instead of someone new, would you still feel the same as you do now?”
I thought about her question, not saying anything for a minute “… yes, I would.”
“Then I think you need to explore your feelings for Louis, maybe he will go to the dance with another girl, and maybe he won’t. Figure out your feelings baby girl, everything else will fall into place after that.” Ma says running her fingers in my hair and pulling it back from my face.
“Thanks,” I say quietly, but to be completely honest I know had more questions than answers.
Did I have feelings for Louis? Did I want to be the one going on a date with him and not some other girl? We’ve been friends since I was two, how the hell did I not see this coming?
Could this be something else other than friendship?
“Well before you stick yourself in your head for too long come watch the movie with us. Alessandra! You too!”
My sister came in then, brush in her hair “But I’m busy,” she whined
“Nunca se es demasiado ocupado para pasar el rato con la familia!” Ma snaps
“Yeah she’s right!” I yell at my sister “You’re never too busy to hang out with family!”
Sandra sighs but comes up on the bed and lays down on MommyBear, who kisses her cheeks and ruffles her hair.
After the movie I call Louis
“Hey Allyson, is everything OK?”
“Yeah, everything is fine now, I just really needed to get home and get some things figured out.”
“And you did?” Louis asked me, I could even hear his worry over the phone.
“Yeah, I did.”
I had figured out, yes I did have feelings for Louis, and they were indeed a lot like how a girlfriend acts like to her boyfriend, and maybe my feelings over time had transformed into something else, and I loved being around him and with him, and I didn’t want him with any other girl.
I liked Louis, I liked him a lot.
And it took some other girl to help me figure it out.
But does he have feelings for me, in that way?
I didn’t know.
So I didn’t tell him anything, and how cheesy would it be to tell a guy over the phone anyway?
So I let it go, just for now and had a normal conversation with Louis, we talked about school, the classes we don’t have together anyway, our friends and our plans for the weekend. But then he brought up asking Eleanor to the dance again.
“I don’t want you to go with her,” I said voice shaking a little bit.
“Why not?” Louis asked after a beat, like he was surprised I said anything like that.
“It just, I don’t know really but we always go together anyway.”
Silence fills the line
“You still there?”
“Are you jealous, Allyson?”
I shake my head, but my stomach twist “It’s not really jealously… it’s just, I don’t want you to not go with me.”
“But we always go as a group anyway, it’s never just us Allyson.”
“I know, but you know what happens when you get a date, you only dance with them, you’re stuck at the hip and-”
“You’re jealous.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you are.”
“But I’m not.”
“I think you are.”
“I know I’m not.”
“Allyson… you have nothing to be worried about, you’re my best friend, and nothing will change that.”
“I know,” I say with a sigh
“Then don’t be jealous or worried, I’m still going to dance with you and we are still going to have a blast.”
“I know, OK,”
“OK, Hell, she might even say no.”
Eleanor did say no, and said she was already going with Austin, and Louis was furious.
“Really? Austin? Austin is the dumbest guy ever, with that stupid blonde hair, and stupid eyes. I can’t believe this.”
Us and the gang were at lunch when he asked her, he pulled her away from her friends and asked her, I could see her smiling from here, and she even gave him a hug, but Louis and looked wrecked. All the guys we’re hitting him on the back saying “It’s alright, she’s a slut anyway!” but Louis had just snapped on them.
“Shut up!” He said slamming his hands down on the table, silcening everyone, even making Perrie and I jump. “She isn’t like that!” He said then got up and stormed away from the table.
For a few moments everyone just stared, watching his figure walk away from all of us, the silence stayed after Louis had gone. I sighed and ran my fingers over my eyes.
“I’m going to go find him.” I say and get up, waving goodbye to everyone and following Louis direction.
Our school was huge filled with almost 1,000 kids in the graduating class alone so if Louis really wanted hide, he could.
But since I have known Louis for almost all of my life, I knew where he would go.
Once, when we were eight Louis and I had gone ice skating with his parents, Danielle and I had gotten the hang of it pretty quickly passing the boys up probably more than three times before they even got around once, and when I had passed Louis for the sixth time, he had enough. He pushed me down and I fell on my face, and began to cry.
Liam tried to make him apologize but instead he yelled no and stormed out of the rink heading back into the locker rooms, I didn’t go after him then, not really.
Once I stopped crying and my nose was pushed back into place I wanted to get back on the rink, but I wanted to Louis to come with me, I could teach him how to move as fast as me. He was scared that’s why he wasn’t moving as fast as Danielle and I.
I called out his name a few times but I never got an answer, so I had given up. My moms had given two dollars though and I was going to some candy from the vending machines. So I went over to the hall with the vending machines and there Louis was attacking/eating a candy bar.
“Louis!” I had said and ran over to him, I stopped right in front of him, his face was red and his eyes were puffy like he had been crying.
“Louis… why do you look that?”
“I look like me, Allyson” back then he called me “Ali-sun” I didn’t mind that though.
“But you’re red… like an apple, why?”
“Because I can’t do anything right!” He yelled and through the candy bar on the floor and trying to walk around me, but I had grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“You do everything right Louis,”
“Then why did I knock you down?” He snapped on me stepping closer, at that time we had been the same height.
“Because…” I didn’t have answer though; he had never hurt me before.
“Exactly.” He said and walked away.
“Because you love me!” I yelled when he began walking away, at that he stopped and turned around
“What?”
“Because you love me, and this is a fight. My parents fight sometimes, but they don’t last long, our fights won’t last long either, and at the end we’ll say I love you at the end of it and I’ll take you ice skating so then you won’t have to knock me down anymore, we can have fun.”
Louis stayed quiet for a minute, wiping his eyes then he smiled “I love you,”
I smiled back “I love you more; now, can we go ice skating?”
He nodded “Yeah, let’s go.”
So now, when Louis runs off I just know where he goes.
I went to the hallway with the vending machines and there he was standing in-between them eating a granola bar.
“Louis,” I said coming to stand in front of him, he looked up from his candy, cheeks pink, but no tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry she said no, I really thought she would say yes.”
He nodded “She said, if would have asked her a day earlier she would have, one day Allyson, I spent to much time being afraid she would say no and now she has.”
“Louis…”
“But its like, that means she likes me right? So why couldn’t she just tell that asshole she got a better offer, how I am so bad at everything?”
“You’re not bad at anything Louis, some things are just about timing,”
“Timing? The hell is this? A pity party? Why are you even here?” He snaps at me, looking away.
“Because, I love you Louis and I’m not gonna let you sit here and feel bad for yourself!” I yell, throwing my hands up “Don’t you get I love and care about you? From the DAY I met you in dance class.”
Louis just stares at me and begins walking up to me, he’s taller than me, but I’ve always been pretty short. His nose is touching the bridge of mine and his breath is dancing across my lips, he’s looking down at my lips, then his eyes dart back up to my eyes.
“Then stop.” He says then stomps away.
I stand there, shocked, eyes wide.
I don’t know how long it took for me to fall out of my shock but when I did the words that came out of my mouth were “Hell no.”
Then I was storming after him, looking around for anywhere else he could go, everyone was still in lunch so he wouldn’t go there.
The pool.
I started speed walking in that direction and soon enough my strong legs took me to Louis.
“Hell no, Louis!” I say when I can finally see him “I’m not gonna let you feel bad about yourself, because I love you! And it’s ONE girl? You’re gonna let ONE girl that isn’t even going to be realvent in a YEAR get you down for how long? A minute? An hour? A year? What’s is going to be Louis? I’m here talk to me.” I snap and the whole time he’s walking away from me getting closer and closer to the water, Louis may be seventeen but he never learned how to swim.
“STOP, ALLY!” He yells back at me and doesn’t turn around he keeps walking around the pool, trying to get away from me
“WHY ASSHOLE” I yell back.
“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT YOU HERE”
I stop. “Fine,” and I turn around coming back the way I came in “See you around.”
When I walked away he didn’t call my name or ask for me to come back, and I didn’t turn around either
18 and 19
LOUIS POV
“Hey dad, I’m coming home this weekend you remember, right?” I said, I was on the phone with my dad Liam, who wasn’t half ass listening
“Yeah, yeah,” he says “Sorry, I’m with Camila right now, food shopping.”
I almost didn’t say anything back “Oh,” I stumbled, thinking about the Cabello family brought bile up my throat, it had two years and I still wasn’t over it. “How is that family?”
My dad snorted “You would know if you would fucking call Ally”
“Dad.” I snapped and I could even here Camila’s voice, she was speaking Spanish so I didn’t really understand, but I caught something that sounded a lot like loser
“I’ll see you tonight,” My father says and then I can hear Camila saying goodbye and then even Normani’s voice laughing as well.
I said my goodbye and hung up, I was driving back home from college to see my family and meet my dad’s girlfriend who was still pretty new to the whole clan and so he had decided to throw a party and call everyone over to meet her and get acquainted, I felt so bad I couldn’t even remember her name.
“It starts with an S” I said to myself as I drove, listening to the radio.
By the time I got home the party would be starting soon, and I could smell ground beef cooking up and I could hear chopping noises from the kitchen.
“Honey, I’m home!” I yelled out laughing at myself.
Suddenly a girl came running forward, her long dark hair flowing all around her, light brown eyes and caramel skin, I knew this girl, and I smiled as she came running out to me.
“Sandra!” I called to her and she smacked into me hugging me tightly, she was shorter than me and her head was only on the middle of my chest
“Hi Louis! Nice to see you man,” Alessandra was now 16 and looked just like both of her mother’s she stood on her tippy toes and I bent down a little so she could whisper in my ear “Don’t worry, Ally isn’t here… yet.”
I nodded; I hadn’t really seen Ally in about a year and hadn’t spoken to her in two.
My senior year in high school is when Ally and I’s friendship went to shit, she hasn’t spoken to me and I haven’t spoken to her since and she hasn’t spoken to me. I can’t tell if it’s a pride thing or if we should still be mad at each other.
“There’s my boy!” my father’s voice boomed around the house, and I looked over to the left to see my dad coming out of the kitchen, my father had aged very well, if anything he looked exactly the same as always expect he had grown out his bread completely and he looked a little bit like a hobbit because of it.
“Dad!” I say and he comes over and gives me a tight hug patting my shoulder
“How’s my boy?” he asks when he pulls me back and looks into my eyes and nod and smile at him
“I’m doing alright dad.”
My dad smiles at me “Good, come on, you can help Normani and Camila make tacos, they should be dying to see you
I nod at my dad and start heading over to the kitchen, where I can hear the familiar sounds of my childhood; Spanish and laughter.
They were both singing a song I never heard before but they’re voices together sounded fabulous as I tried to put all the pieces together
Don’t wanna dance alone? Or come dance with me?
I couldn’t tell but they sounded amazing, I let them finish the song, before speaking up.
“Hey guys,” I say shyly
Both women turn around and looked over toward me, when Normani saw me she gave me a small smile.
“Hello there, long time no see,” Camila says, her hair is short now right on her shoulders and has small streaks of grey “Come on over, we’re making nachos.” She says and with that I’m moving over to my second and third mothers placing kisses on their cheeks before helping them cut up some sharp cheddar cheese before Camila can melt it down. We spent time talking about my major which was Arts and Commutations, but the real plan was to become a journalist, writing for a newspaper or something along the lines of CNN.
“That is such a great goal,” Camila says smiling over at me while she begins cutting up the tomatoes “I hope I get to see you on television one day.
“Thanks, me too.”
After that, we spent most of our time listening to a mix of Hispanic music, R & B, and even some laid back folk music cooking in the kitchen. After a while there was a knock on the door, Dad went to go answer it, when he did there was a nice “Hey, love.” Then he called “Louis! Come meet Sophia.”
I end up walking over to see my dad with a woman; she was tall with light brown hair, that almost looked a little red, a chubby face with high cheek bones, and dark eyes.
“This is Sophia, Sophia this is my son Louis Payne.”
The woman smiles at me “Nice to meet you, you’re dad talks about how amazing you are all the time.”
I smile at that “Well, I am the light of his life,” I say with a wink and she smiles at me we continue to talk for a little bit before I head back to the kitchen, and being chopping up lettuce, dancing along with Camila.
“Louis, come here please.” Normani said “I need to talk to you,” She says then turns and heads into my old bedroom, sitting down on the bed and patting the space next to her, I sit down and she gives me her warm smile again.
“I’m not going to ask you to tell me what happened between you too Louis, but I am going to ask you to fix it, when you to stopped being friends… it broke Allyson, in a way, it’s just Louis, she hasn’t been the same. It feels like I haven’t seen my real daughter in two years.”
“I’m not blaming you, Louis, I’m not but, I know you can be part of the solution.”
I look at Normani, she had aged just as well as Camila, her hair was longer, in a braid that came to the bottom of her back, her smile was still bright and there was a new twinkle in her eye that I had never seen before, being a mom to two girls can do that to you, I guess.
“Normani… it’s just been so long, I don’t think she could ever forgive me.”
Normani shook her head “I don’t think it’s about forgiving you, I think it’s about forgiving herself.” And with that, she stood up and starting heading towards the door “You know where she is,”
Normani was right I knew exactly where she was, all I had to go was go out there and say hello. But instead I stayed out of the free space in the woods listening to Allyson sing.
“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream, I know you the gleam in your eyes is so… familiar a gleam. Yet, I know it’s true, with visions of sel dem-mon they seem, but if I know you, I know what you’ll do, you’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.”
I didn’t know what to do, she sounded so beautiful, and relaxed and happy, and I knew as soon as I step past the wood that hid me her smile would drop and she would give me a cold stare, wondering why I had interrupted her song.
But at the same time, I wanted to move past the wood and see her, I wanted to see her before her smile dropped and her eyes went, cold. If I could see her just once… one time before everything went to hell.
I moved, just a little bit, turning myself to the side where I could see her.
She moved gracefully, humming the rest of the song out and she moved just like Aurora did in the film dancing along with the movie as she saw it in her head, she was beautiful.
Her hair at her roots were still dark brown but as her hair flowed it slowly began to turn a very soft shade of blonde, her dark eyes sparkled as she moved smiling and even over here I could see she hadn’t grown in inch since the last time I saw her.
“oh, oh, oh, la da, la da, la ah ah, la ah, la ah, la ah. But if I know you I know what you’ll do,”
Now, this is my chance, go, now. Jump now!
“You’ll love me at once, the way you did, once upon a dream,” I sang coming out of my hiding place, I kept my eyes on Allyson, as she looked around trying to find the man that held my voice.
When her eyes finally found mine, they widened in surprise, but she didn’t sneer at me, like I thought she would, she just stood there standing at me
“Hi,” I say finally, trying to break the tension
“Hi there Lou,” she says her voice is barely above a whisper, she hasn’t moved an inch since she saw my face, I was afraid she never would.
“How are you?” I asked
“You would know if you ever called,” I was expecting her to snap on me, to roll her eyes and yell at me, but instead she was so calm and her voice was steady, I knew Allyson she never really snapped on me unless I deserved it, did I not deserve it anymore?
“I’m sorry… it just, I never knew what to say to you, I never knew how to make you forgive me for senior year.”
“You act like that was only tough for you; do you know how much energy it took being upset with you? How much I cried? Because I missed you? Because when I needed you weren’t there? We have been friends since before I could speak a decent sentence and then you just go and run away? Run away from me?”
“No, Allyson, it wasn’t like that-”
“But it was, and that is the end of it.”
“No, you don’t get it,”
“What do I not get?”
I took a deep breath, “The reason, the real reason I left, and I didn’t call, or text, or anything… is because, I fell in love with you.”
Again, silence filled the space in-between us and I can feel fear creeping up my skin.
“No, hell no, what the hell are you thinking? You think after a year of fight after fight after fight you can just drop a bomb like that? Say that you loved me? Love me? Bullshit Louis.” Allyson says, her skin turning red “That’s not fair, you think that can make everything OK?”
“No, that’s not why I’m telling you-”
“Then why are you telling me Louis? Huh?”
“Because I still love you, and I still miss you, and the only reason we fought so much is because I kept blaming you, I blamed everything on you, even Eleanor, when I didn’t get accepted into my first college choice, when Luke and I started fighting over you-”
“Wait what?” Allyson asked
SHIT.
“Luke had feelings for me…” She started “and you stopped anything from happening?”
My face starting getting hot, I took a deep breath and nodded.
And Allyson just stared at me, a mix of disbelief and anger flooding her beautiful face.
“Why,”
“Because I love you, Allyson, even when I’m at college, when I should be getting drunk and hooking up with other girls and forgetting about you I haven’t been. You are always on my mind, I can’t remember to forget about you. You are the one I want to be at my dorm waiting for me to come back to class, you’re the one I want to kiss every day; it’s been this way for so damn long Allyson, and then I went off to college and we didn’t talk at all. I never knew what to say and you never spoke up and we were just dancing around each other, we never… I should have done something.”
Allyson nodded “Yeah… you should have,” her dark eyes shining with unshed tears, I wanted to comfort her, to hold her and tell everything will be OK but I didn’t dare move from where I was standing.
“But now, you’re here, so do something about it.”
“What?” I said looked up at her once again.
“Do something about it, damn it.” And that was all I needed, my feet were moving to their own accord, dragging me forward, they stopped when I was right in front of her, hidden from the outside world by all the trees, placed one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing at her hair and one on her cheek, she looked so small with my hand on the side of her face, like a baby doll.
“I am in love with you, Allyson Brooke Cabello, I love you so much that every time I think about you it hurts, and being here with you right now, this is where I want to be forever.”
Allyson was crying, but she was also smiling, a chuckle fell from her lips.
“You are so beautiful Allyson, I never want to lose you again, you mean everything to me, even when we didn’t speak, I think I loved you more than ever. I love you, and I need you.”
And then I’m pressing my lips to hers, crashing our mouth together as I pull her up by my neck and I bend down so it will be easier for her.
My stomach is erupting in fireworks, my leg is shaking, and I’m so happy I can’t tell up from down.
I keep kissing her, and my arms move around her waist, I hoist her up and her legs wrap around my waist as she bites on my lip pulling it back with her teeth.
I hiss watching her, feeling the pain but also feeling the pleasure that runs down my whole body.
She dives back to my mouth, and my tongue falls into her mouth and I kiss her with everything within me, my hands travel down to hold her booty in my hands and I hold her close.
“Don’t ever let me go,” she says when she pulls away breathlessly “Next time you fucking fight for me, we are not going to waste another three years of our lives without each other, you hear me? You better fucking her me Louis Panye, I’m not going to live without you again.”
I nod erratically, “Yes, okay, yeah.”
“God, I love you.” Allyson says and she smiles, her lips are swollen and her face looks flushed, the whole time we kissed she was grinding herself up against me, I was unbelievably hard in my jeans.
There we’re so many things I wanted to do to Allyson, but something stopped me.
“So you have feelings for me too,”
She raises an eyebrow “We wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t, Lou.”
I nod again eyes wide “Right, right.”
She smiles down at me again “I’m in love with you Louis, I think… I always have been.”
It was my turn to smile at her; I kissed her lips lightly “I love you too.”
Allyson was leaning in again, so was I, I could feel her breath all over my lips, dancing around. I was almost done closing the space in-between us when
Ring, ring, ring.
“DAMN IT.” Allyson groaned and unwrapped her legs from my waist, I put her down and gave her a smile, she pulled her phone out of her front jean pocket and took the call.
“Hi ma.” She said dryly, then waited “OK, OK. Yeah, he is with me, OK we’re coming.” Then she hangs up “We are wanted back in the house, the party is starting.”
I nod then walk over to her and wrap my arms around her waist, Allyson hums with excitement and her hands find mine around her waist.
“I love you,” I say in her ear, and she hums again, then steps on her tip-toes.
“I love you more.”
22 and 23
ALLY POV
“You really don’t think it’s too soon?” I asked running my fingers through my hair and Louis turns back to me and smiles
“We have known each other since you were two, we have been dating for over a year, we are engaged to be married and yet, you still have worries that it’s too soon to be moving in together?” He asks me, raising an eyebrow.
“They say moving in together is a very big step when it comes to relationships, I state.
Louis smiles at me and moves closer, he bends down and places a sweet, slow, kiss on my lips and I hum against his lips and kiss him back, smiling against his mouth.
“We have gone to Spain together, we go to the same college, spend almost every day together, both have our schedules at work set up so we can have lunch together, and we even have family dinners every Tuesday because your Ma thinks we need more family time. If we can handle all of that, I think we can handle a living together.”
I smile up at my fiancé “Yeah, you’re right.” Ages 13 and 14 and a half
Ally POV
“Come on, Louis!” I yelled back at my best friend but didn’t stop running towards the woods that were behind his hours “We’re going to miss it, Lou!” I said I kept looking down at my feet making sure I wouldn’t fall over, I had fallen over last week and I still have the scab on my leg from falling, and ouch.
“I’m coming!” Louis called back “How do you run faster than me when I’m older than you!”
“Older smolder!” I yelled back cutting through the trees of the woods and dodging trees and making my way to our little spot.
It was smack in the middle of the woods- well, maybe a little bit to the left but still in the middle of the woods enough, when I got there I stomped on my heels bringing myself to a stop and kicking up rocks and dirt as I went. When I came to a stop I pulled on my hair taking it down from its ponytail and so it floats down to my back, my Ma, Camila has really long hair and I want to grow it out to be just like her.
“OK, OK! Did I miss anything?” Louis asked running up next to me.
I shook my head “No, it hasn’t started yet.” I looked over at Louis and grabbed his hand “You’re very lucky you didn’t miss anything. Did you hide the bottles?”
Louis blue-grey eyes widen but he nodded then ran over, toward the trees and pulled at one. He pulled at the trees bark until it feel back then ran inside in the tree.
“Louis?” I called out to him but he didn’t answer me.
When he finally came out he had out to large bottles that had the holes on the top and handed one over to me I nodded and thanks and laid down in the dirt, my MommyBear, Normani would probably have a fit because I was wearing the sparkly T-shirt she had gotten me. But I laid down on the ground anyway .
“Louis come lie with me,” I said
“I thought we were catching them again tonight?” Louis asked but came down to sit with me anyway. It was only just getting dark out and the sky was still spotted with a little bit of orange and pink and lots of dark blue.
“Let’s just watch tonight.” I say and pat the dirt next to me “Come on, sit with me.”
“OK,” Louis says and moves down next to me so our shoulders are touching.
Louis and I have been best friends for as long as I remember and even our parents are friends, I have known Louis for eleven years and have been best friends the whole time. I don’t remember the first years since I was only two, but my MommyBear tells me stories all the time.
“Look! There’s the first one!” Louis says pointing over to the left; I follow his hand up to see the first firefly of the night. It’s yellow glow fading in and out within the fading light of the day.
“It’s so beautiful,” I say and move closer to Louis so I’m leaning on his shoulder “I wanna be a firefly.”
Louis shakes his head “No, you can’t be.”
I turned so I could look Louis in the eye “And why not?”
“Because then we couldn’t be best friends anymore, I would be a loser if my best friend was a firefly. And I’ll be go to high school next month, it’s already bad that my best friend is still going to be an eighth grader and not a freshman with me.” Louis says
I pull my head off the shoulder but keep looking at the sky and I can see another firefly coming out “So I’m not cool anymore? Just because I’ll still be an eighth grader?”
Louis turned on his elbows, looking at me. “That’s not it, Allyson, it’s just… now I wont have anyone to hang out with at lunchtime, or anyone to tell my jokes too, or to laugh with inbetween classes like we usually do. But now, I’ll be in a different school… without you… and that makes me a loser, because I won’t have my best friend with me.”
“Oh Louis… you know what? I’m gonna try to be extra smart this year so that I can skip a grade and be with you. I promise, then we can be together like we usually are.” I say turning to face Louis too.
“You would do that for me?” Louis asks me
“I know you don’t like making friends, and you know I don’t like making friends… so I’ll try, I’ll try for you.”
Louis smiles at me “I love you, Allyson.”
I smile back and Louis and sit up, out of all the people in my life he is the only one I let call me Allyson. “I love you too, Louis.”
Louis jumps over on top of me then, wrapping me in a hug, even though Louis is older than me I’m still a little bit taller, I wrap my arms around his middle and hug him back just as tight. Louis laughter floods my ears and I laugh along with him.
“Wait, Louis, no!” But it’s too late he’s pushed all his body weight on me and now were tumbling in our open space dirt is flooding my open mouth and ears I close my ears and hold onto Louis closer because we’re moving faster and faster now.
“Stop this Louis!”
“Never!”
“This is ridiculous!”
Finally, Louis pulls us to a stop, he’s still on top of me though, smiling wickedly at me
“See, we’re missing the whole show.” I say squirming under him but he doesn’t budge
“We see it every Friday and I don’t think we’re missing anything we haven’t seen before.”
“Still, there’s a reason we still come out here every single time.”
“I guess,” Louis says, his smile doesn’t stop and he doesn’t get off me.
“Louis…”
“Allyson…”
“Are you gonna get off me?”
“Maybe.”
“Your mommy and dad will want us back soon.”
“They can wait.”
Silence fills the forest flow even the animals seemed to have stopped speaking in their little languages and didn’t say a thing.
Timed seemed to last forever until Louis above me finally coughed and finally got up off me. “Let’s head back.” And even though it was dark out I could still see the blush covering his cheekbones, I didn’t know why though.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
16 AND 17
“We’re gonna go together right?” I asked Louis we were just leaving the high school after staying after school to work on a school project I was just starting my junior year and Louis was in his senior year, He had grown out his hair and now it almost covers his eyes, I keep telling him he should cut it but he always just rolls his eyes and pushes my shoulder saying it “gets him girls”
“I don’t know, there’s actually a girl I want to ask to homecoming this year.” Louis said flipping his hair off to the right so I wouldn’t fall in his eyes.
I stopped in my tracks “What?”
Louis keeps on walking, still looking forward. He hasn’t noticed I stopped walking along with him “Yeah… there’s this girl, Eleanor in my senior class with me, she’s really cool. I think I want to ask her.”
I shake myself mentally and physically and run up to catch up with him.
“Oh,” I say, I can’t think of anything else I’m just a little shocked.
Louis and I never really dated anyone, so when there was a dance, or some type of after school thing then we would just go together, or we would go with all our friends; Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin and then Perrie Edwards, Jade Thirlwall, and Jesy Nelson. None of us ever really dated, it was just the nine of us.
“Yeah, she’s so pretty. She has dark brown long hair, beautiful light brown eyes and she’s just- beautiful”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. But Louis didn’t seem to mind, he just went on and on about how beautiful this girl was.
“And she’s a cheerleader,” he finishes and before I could even think about it the words slipped out of my mouth
“Fuck cheerleaders.”
Louis gasped and finally shut up, turning to look at me “Allyson Brooke Cabello! Did you just swear?”
I just shrugged in response
“So, someone doesn’t like cheerleaders…” he says in a sing song voice, and I roll my eyes at him
“So are you still coming over?” Louis asked me, we were getting close to my place. Our houses were actually pretty close maybe just a few streets over this he lives on the edge by the woods.
“Um, no, I can’t, I just remembered I need to talk to my moms about something. It’s important I can’t believe I forgot.” I lied, stumbling over my words. I never ever really had to lie to Louis before, it didn’t taste right on my tongue.
“Oh,” he says nodding “Is everything alright?”
I nod my head “It will be, but I better go,” I say speeding up, I have to get out of here “I’ll see you around Louis.”
“Hey! I’m home!” I yell out and as soon as I do I can hear my little sister Alessandra Candice running in
“Hi Ally!” said the fourteen year old, she had dark brown hair that fell down to the middle of her stomach and bright brown eyes and caramel skin. I ruffle her hair when she wraps herself around me for a hug
“Where are our moms?”
“There in the back, watching a movie.” Sandra says and takes my hand, pulling me past the yellow kitchen to the back of house. Like Sandra had said they were in there room laying down eyes on the TV screen but still snuggled up close together.
“Hey baby,” My MommyBear, Normani says looking away from the screen and my other mother, Camila looks up and smiles at me and gives me a wave.
I try to smile as I make my way over to their bed; I sit on the side and start crawling over to my mothers and pushing them apart so I could curl up in-between them. I grabbed on to Mommy’s stomach and hid my face in her side.
“What is it?” Ma asks me running her hand down my back “What’s wrong.”
“Nothing, I guess.”
At that, both my mother’s snort and my Mommy turns around so she can look at me, her brown eyes staring hard into mine, her fingers under my chin.
“What happened between you and Louis?” She asks me, then takes her hand and runs it through my hair.
I shake my head “Saying it out loud makes me sound silly, I’m overreacting.” I was about to get up and go back to my room, but then I realize I’m cornered in, Mommy on one side and Ma on the other
“Say it anyway.” Ma says “You’ll feel better afterward, and you can say it anyway you want too.”
“por lo que Louis quiere invitar a una chica al baile, pero siempre van de la mano. él quiere añadir otra chica en nuestro grupo y yo no la conozco, ¿y si ella es horrible? o la media de Louis?” I spit out, the four of us all speak fluent Spanish since Ma is from Cuba and Mexico before she settled here in Atlanta.
“Oh baby, that happens sometimes. I know it’s probably hurts that he wants to ask another girl to the dance.” Mommy says and sits up with me, and as if I’m still a baby, she pulls me into her lap and kisses my cheek. “But I didn’t know you liked Louis.”
“What? I don’t like Louis like that,”
“Then why are you so upset, baby girl?” Ma asked me, it wasn’t like she was being smart but the question made me a little mad
“Because, I know nothing about her, she could be awful and rude, and she could hurt Louis or anything.”
Mommy begins rocking me back and forth “But I have to ask, if Louis brought her as a date, would you be jealous? Any girl, let’s say he decided to take Perrie out on a date instead of someone new, would you still feel the same as you do now?”
I thought about her question, not saying anything for a minute “… yes, I would.”
“Then I think you need to explore your feelings for Louis, maybe he will go to the dance with another girl, and maybe he won’t. Figure out your feelings baby girl, everything else will fall into place after that.” Ma says running her fingers in my hair and pulling it back from my face.
“Thanks,” I say quietly, but to be completely honest I know had more questions than answers.
Did I have feelings for Louis? Did I want to be the one going on a date with him and not some other girl? We’ve been friends since I was two, how the hell did I not see this coming?
Could this be something else other than friendship?
“Well before you stick yourself in your head for too long come watch the movie with us. Alessandra! You too!”
My sister came in then, brush in her hair “But I’m busy,” she whined
“Nunca se es demasiado ocupado para pasar el rato con la familia!” Ma snaps
“Yeah she’s right!” I yell at my sister “You’re never too busy to hang out with family!”
Sandra sighs but comes up on the bed and lays down on MommyBear, who kisses her cheeks and ruffles her hair.
After the movie I call Louis
“Hey Allyson, is everything OK?”
“Yeah, everything is fine now, I just really needed to get home and get some things figured out.”
“And you did?” Louis asked me, I could even hear his worry over the phone.
“Yeah, I did.”
I had figured out, yes I did have feelings for Louis, and they were indeed a lot like how a girlfriend acts like to her boyfriend, and maybe my feelings over time had transformed into something else, and I loved being around him and with him, and I didn’t want him with any other girl.
I liked Louis, I liked him a lot.
And it took some other girl to help me figure it out.
But does he have feelings for me, in that way?
I didn’t know.
So I didn’t tell him anything, and how cheesy would it be to tell a guy over the phone anyway?
So I let it go, just for now and had a normal conversation with Louis, we talked about school, the classes we don’t have together anyway, our friends and our plans for the weekend. But then he brought up asking Eleanor to the dance again.
“I don’t want you to go with her,” I said voice shaking a little bit.
“Why not?” Louis asked after a beat, like he was surprised I said anything like that.
“It just, I don’t know really but we always go together anyway.”
Silence fills the line
“You still there?”
“Are you jealous, Allyson?”
I shake my head, but my stomach twist “It’s not really jealously… it’s just, I don’t want you to not go with me.”
“But we always go as a group anyway, it’s never just us Allyson.”
“I know, but you know what happens when you get a date, you only dance with them, you’re stuck at the hip and-”
“You’re jealous.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you are.”
“But I’m not.”
“I think you are.”
“I know I’m not.”
“Allyson… you have nothing to be worried about, you’re my best friend, and nothing will change that.”
“I know,” I say with a sigh
“Then don’t be jealous or worried, I’m still going to dance with you and we are still going to have a blast.”
“I know, OK,”
“OK, Hell, she might even say no.”
Eleanor did say no, and said she was already going with Austin, and Louis was furious.
“Really? Austin? Austin is the dumbest guy ever, with that stupid blonde hair, and stupid eyes. I can’t believe this.”
Us and the gang were at lunch when he asked her, he pulled her away from her friends and asked her, I could see her smiling from here, and she even gave him a hug, but Louis and looked wrecked. All the guys we’re hitting him on the back saying “It’s alright, she’s a slut anyway!” but Louis had just snapped on them.
“Shut up!” He said slamming his hands down on the table, silcening everyone, even making Perrie and I jump. “She isn’t like that!” He said then got up and stormed away from the table.
For a few moments everyone just stared, watching his figure walk away from all of us, the silence stayed after Louis had gone. I sighed and ran my fingers over my eyes.
“I’m going to go find him.” I say and get up, waving goodbye to everyone and following Louis direction.
Our school was huge filled with almost 1,000 kids in the graduating class alone so if Louis really wanted hide, he could.
But since I have known Louis for almost all of my life, I knew where he would go.
Once, when we were eight Louis and I had gone ice skating with his parents, Danielle and I had gotten the hang of it pretty quickly passing the boys up probably more than three times before they even got around once, and when I had passed Louis for the sixth time, he had enough. He pushed me down and I fell on my face, and began to cry.
Liam tried to make him apologize but instead he yelled no and stormed out of the rink heading back into the locker rooms, I didn’t go after him then, not really.
Once I stopped crying and my nose was pushed back into place I wanted to get back on the rink, but I wanted to Louis to come with me, I could teach him how to move as fast as me. He was scared that’s why he wasn’t moving as fast as Danielle and I.
I called out his name a few times but I never got an answer, so I had given up. My moms had given two dollars though and I was going to some candy from the vending machines. So I went over to the hall with the vending machines and there Louis was attacking/eating a candy bar.
“Louis!” I had said and ran over to him, I stopped right in front of him, his face was red and his eyes were puffy like he had been crying.
“Louis… why do you look that?”
“I look like me, Allyson” back then he called me “Ali-sun” I didn’t mind that though.
“But you’re red… like an apple, why?”
“Because I can’t do anything right!” He yelled and through the candy bar on the floor and trying to walk around me, but I had grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“You do everything right Louis,”
“Then why did I knock you down?” He snapped on me stepping closer, at that time we had been the same height.
“Because…” I didn’t have answer though; he had never hurt me before.
“Exactly.” He said and walked away.
“Because you love me!” I yelled when he began walking away, at that he stopped and turned around
“What?”
“Because you love me, and this is a fight. My parents fight sometimes, but they don’t last long, our fights won’t last long either, and at the end we’ll say I love you at the end of it and I’ll take you ice skating so then you won’t have to knock me down anymore, we can have fun.”
Louis stayed quiet for a minute, wiping his eyes then he smiled “I love you,”
I smiled back “I love you more; now, can we go ice skating?”
He nodded “Yeah, let’s go.”
So now, when Louis runs off I just know where he goes.
I went to the hallway with the vending machines and there he was standing in-between them eating a granola bar.
“Louis,” I said coming to stand in front of him, he looked up from his candy, cheeks pink, but no tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry she said no, I really thought she would say yes.”
He nodded “She said, if would have asked her a day earlier she would have, one day Allyson, I spent to much time being afraid she would say no and now she has.”
“Louis…”
“But its like, that means she likes me right? So why couldn’t she just tell that asshole she got a better offer, how I am so bad at everything?”
“You’re not bad at anything Louis, some things are just about timing,”
“Timing? The hell is this? A pity party? Why are you even here?” He snaps at me, looking away.
“Because, I love you Louis and I’m not gonna let you sit here and feel bad for yourself!” I yell, throwing my hands up “Don’t you get I love and care about you? From the DAY I met you in dance class.”
Louis just stares at me and begins walking up to me, he’s taller than me, but I’ve always been pretty short. His nose is touching the bridge of mine and his breath is dancing across my lips, he’s looking down at my lips, then his eyes dart back up to my eyes.
“Then stop.” He says then stomps away.
I stand there, shocked, eyes wide.
I don’t know how long it took for me to fall out of my shock but when I did the words that came out of my mouth were “Hell no.”
Then I was storming after him, looking around for anywhere else he could go, everyone was still in lunch so he wouldn’t go there.
The pool.
I started speed walking in that direction and soon enough my strong legs took me to Louis.
“Hell no, Louis!” I say when I can finally see him “I’m not gonna let you feel bad about yourself, because I love you! And it’s ONE girl? You’re gonna let ONE girl that isn’t even going to be realvent in a YEAR get you down for how long? A minute? An hour? A year? What’s is going to be Louis? I’m here talk to me.” I snap and the whole time he’s walking away from me getting closer and closer to the water, Louis may be seventeen but he never learned how to swim.
“STOP, ALLY!” He yells back at me and doesn’t turn around he keeps walking around the pool, trying to get away from me
“WHY ASSHOLE” I yell back.
“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT YOU HERE”
I stop. “Fine,” and I turn around coming back the way I came in “See you around.”
When I walked away he didn’t call my name or ask for me to come back, and I didn’t turn around either
18 and 19
LOUIS POV
“Hey dad, I’m coming home this weekend you remember, right?” I said, I was on the phone with my dad Liam, who wasn’t half ass listening
“Yeah, yeah,” he says “Sorry, I’m with Camila right now, food shopping.”
I almost didn’t say anything back “Oh,” I stumbled, thinking about the Cabello family brought bile up my throat, it had two years and I still wasn’t over it. “How is that family?”
My dad snorted “You would know if you would fucking call Ally”
“Dad.” I snapped and I could even here Camila’s voice, she was speaking Spanish so I didn’t really understand, but I caught something that sounded a lot like loser
“I’ll see you tonight,” My father says and then I can hear Camila saying goodbye and then even Normani’s voice laughing as well.
I said my goodbye and hung up, I was driving back home from college to see my family and meet my dad’s girlfriend who was still pretty new to the whole clan and so he had decided to throw a party and call everyone over to meet her and get acquainted, I felt so bad I couldn’t even remember her name.
“It starts with an S” I said to myself as I drove, listening to the radio.
By the time I got home the party would be starting soon, and I could smell ground beef cooking up and I could hear chopping noises from the kitchen.
“Honey, I’m home!” I yelled out laughing at myself.
Suddenly a girl came running forward, her long dark hair flowing all around her, light brown eyes and caramel skin, I knew this girl, and I smiled as she came running out to me.
“Sandra!” I called to her and she smacked into me hugging me tightly, she was shorter than me and her head was only on the middle of my chest
“Hi Louis! Nice to see you man,” Alessandra was now 16 and looked just like both of her mother’s she stood on her tippy toes and I bent down a little so she could whisper in my ear “Don’t worry, Ally isn’t here… yet.”
I nodded; I hadn’t really seen Ally in about a year and hadn’t spoken to her in two.
My senior year in high school is when Ally and I’s friendship went to shit, she hasn’t spoken to me and I haven’t spoken to her since and she hasn’t spoken to me. I can’t tell if it’s a pride thing or if we should still be mad at each other.
“There’s my boy!” my father’s voice boomed around the house, and I looked over to the left to see my dad coming out of the kitchen, my father had aged very well, if anything he looked exactly the same as always expect he had grown out his bread completely and he looked a little bit like a hobbit because of it.
“Dad!” I say and he comes over and gives me a tight hug patting my shoulder
“How’s my boy?” he asks when he pulls me back and looks into my eyes and nod and smile at him
“I’m doing alright dad.”
My dad smiles at me “Good, come on, you can help Normani and Camila make tacos, they should be dying to see you
I nod at my dad and start heading over to the kitchen, where I can hear the familiar sounds of my childhood; Spanish and laughter.
They were both singing a song I never heard before but they’re voices together sounded fabulous as I tried to put all the pieces together
Don’t wanna dance alone? Or come dance with me?
I couldn’t tell but they sounded amazing, I let them finish the song, before speaking up.
“Hey guys,” I say shyly
Both women turn around and looked over toward me, when Normani saw me she gave me a small smile.
“Hello there, long time no see,” Camila says, her hair is short now right on her shoulders and has small streaks of grey “Come on over, we’re making nachos.” She says and with that I’m moving over to my second and third mothers placing kisses on their cheeks before helping them cut up some sharp cheddar cheese before Camila can melt it down. We spent time talking about my major which was Arts and Commutations, but the real plan was to become a journalist, writing for a newspaper or something along the lines of CNN.
“That is such a great goal,” Camila says smiling over at me while she begins cutting up the tomatoes “I hope I get to see you on television one day.
“Thanks, me too.”
After that, we spent most of our time listening to a mix of Hispanic music, R & B, and even some laid back folk music cooking in the kitchen. After a while there was a knock on the door, Dad went to go answer it, when he did there was a nice “Hey, love.” Then he called “Louis! Come meet Sophia.”
I end up walking over to see my dad with a woman; she was tall with light brown hair, that almost looked a little red, a chubby face with high cheek bones, and dark eyes.
“This is Sophia, Sophia this is my son Louis Payne.”
The woman smiles at me “Nice to meet you, you’re dad talks about how amazing you are all the time.”
I smile at that “Well, I am the light of his life,” I say with a wink and she smiles at me we continue to talk for a little bit before I head back to the kitchen, and being chopping up lettuce, dancing along with Camila.
“Louis, come here please.” Normani said “I need to talk to you,” She says then turns and heads into my old bedroom, sitting down on the bed and patting the space next to her, I sit down and she gives me her warm smile again.
“I’m not going to ask you to tell me what happened between you too Louis, but I am going to ask you to fix it, when you to stopped being friends… it broke Allyson, in a way, it’s just Louis, she hasn’t been the same. It feels like I haven’t seen my real daughter in two years.”
“I’m not blaming you, Louis, I’m not but, I know you can be part of the solution.”
I look at Normani, she had aged just as well as Camila, her hair was longer, in a braid that came to the bottom of her back, her smile was still bright and there was a new twinkle in her eye that I had never seen before, being a mom to two girls can do that to you, I guess.
“Normani… it’s just been so long, I don’t think she could ever forgive me.”
Normani shook her head “I don’t think it’s about forgiving you, I think it’s about forgiving herself.” And with that, she stood up and starting heading towards the door “You know where she is,”
Normani was right I knew exactly where she was, all I had to go was go out there and say hello. But instead I stayed out of the free space in the woods listening to Allyson sing.
“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream, I know you the gleam in your eyes is so… familiar a gleam. Yet, I know it’s true, with visions of sel dem-mon they seem, but if I know you, I know what you’ll do, you’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.”
I didn’t know what to do, she sounded so beautiful, and relaxed and happy, and I knew as soon as I step past the wood that hid me her smile would drop and she would give me a cold stare, wondering why I had interrupted her song.
But at the same time, I wanted to move past the wood and see her, I wanted to see her before her smile dropped and her eyes went, cold. If I could see her just once… one time before everything went to hell.
I moved, just a little bit, turning myself to the side where I could see her.
She moved gracefully, humming the rest of the song out and she moved just like Aurora did in the film dancing along with the movie as she saw it in her head, she was beautiful.
Her hair at her roots were still dark brown but as her hair flowed it slowly began to turn a very soft shade of blonde, her dark eyes sparkled as she moved smiling and even over here I could see she hadn’t grown in inch since the last time I saw her.
“oh, oh, oh, la da, la da, la ah ah, la ah, la ah, la ah. But if I know you I know what you’ll do,”
Now, this is my chance, go, now. Jump now!
“You’ll love me at once, the way you did, once upon a dream,” I sang coming out of my hiding place, I kept my eyes on Allyson, as she looked around trying to find the man that held my voice.
When her eyes finally found mine, they widened in surprise, but she didn’t sneer at me, like I thought she would, she just stood there standing at me
“Hi,” I say finally, trying to break the tension
“Hi there Lou,” she says her voice is barely above a whisper, she hasn’t moved an inch since she saw my face, I was afraid she never would.
“How are you?” I asked
“You would know if you ever called,” I was expecting her to snap on me, to roll her eyes and yell at me, but instead she was so calm and her voice was steady, I knew Allyson she never really snapped on me unless I deserved it, did I not deserve it anymore?
“I’m sorry… it just, I never knew what to say to you, I never knew how to make you forgive me for senior year.”
“You act like that was only tough for you; do you know how much energy it took being upset with you? How much I cried? Because I missed you? Because when I needed you weren’t there? We have been friends since before I could speak a decent sentence and then you just go and run away? Run away from me?”
“No, Allyson, it wasn’t like that-”
“But it was, and that is the end of it.”
“No, you don’t get it,”
“What do I not get?”
I took a deep breath, “The reason, the real reason I left, and I didn’t call, or text, or anything… is because, I fell in love with you.”
Again, silence filled the space in-between us and I can feel fear creeping up my skin.
“No, hell no, what the hell are you thinking? You think after a year of fight after fight after fight you can just drop a bomb like that? Say that you loved me? Love me? Bullshit Louis.” Allyson says, her skin turning red “That’s not fair, you think that can make everything OK?”
“No, that’s not why I’m telling you-”
“Then why are you telling me Louis? Huh?”
“Because I still love you, and I still miss you, and the only reason we fought so much is because I kept blaming you, I blamed everything on you, even Eleanor, when I didn’t get accepted into my first college choice, when Luke and I started fighting over you-”
“Wait what?” Allyson asked
SHIT.
“Luke had feelings for me…” She started “and you stopped anything from happening?”
My face starting getting hot, I took a deep breath and nodded.
And Allyson just stared at me, a mix of disbelief and anger flooding her beautiful face.
“Why,”
“Because I love you, Allyson, even when I’m at college, when I should be getting drunk and hooking up with other girls and forgetting about you I haven’t been. You are always on my mind, I can’t remember to forget about you. You are the one I want to be at my dorm waiting for me to come back to class, you’re the one I want to kiss every day; it’s been this way for so damn long Allyson, and then I went off to college and we didn’t talk at all. I never knew what to say and you never spoke up and we were just dancing around each other, we never… I should have done something.”
Allyson nodded “Yeah… you should have,” her dark eyes shining with unshed tears, I wanted to comfort her, to hold her and tell everything will be OK but I didn’t dare move from where I was standing.
“But now, you’re here, so do something about it.”
“What?” I said looked up at her once again.
“Do something about it, damn it.” And that was all I needed, my feet were moving to their own accord, dragging me forward, they stopped when I was right in front of her, hidden from the outside world by all the trees, placed one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing at her hair and one on her cheek, she looked so small with my hand on the side of her face, like a baby doll.
“I am in love with you, Allyson Brooke Cabello, I love you so much that every time I think about you it hurts, and being here with you right now, this is where I want to be forever.”
Allyson was crying, but she was also smiling, a chuckle fell from her lips.
“You are so beautiful Allyson, I never want to lose you again, you mean everything to me, even when we didn’t speak, I think I loved you more than ever. I love you, and I need you.”
And then I’m pressing my lips to hers, crashing our mouth together as I pull her up by my neck and I bend down so it will be easier for her.
My stomach is erupting in fireworks, my leg is shaking, and I’m so happy I can’t tell up from down.
I keep kissing her, and my arms move around her waist, I hoist her up and her legs wrap around my waist as she bites on my lip pulling it back with her teeth.
I hiss watching her, feeling the pain but also feeling the pleasure that runs down my whole body.
She dives back to my mouth, and my tongue falls into her mouth and I kiss her with everything within me, my hands travel down to hold her booty in my hands and I hold her close.
“Don’t ever let me go,” she says when she pulls away breathlessly “Next time you fucking fight for me, we are not going to waste another three years of our lives without each other, you hear me? You better fucking her me Louis Panye, I’m not going to live without you again.”
I nod erratically, “Yes, okay, yeah.”
“God, I love you.” Allyson says and she smiles, her lips are swollen and her face looks flushed, the whole time we kissed she was grinding herself up against me, I was unbelievably hard in my jeans.
There we’re so many things I wanted to do to Allyson, but something stopped me.
“So you have feelings for me too,”
She raises an eyebrow “We wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t, Lou.”
I nod again eyes wide “Right, right.”
She smiles down at me again “I’m in love with you Louis, I think… I always have been.”
It was my turn to smile at her; I kissed her lips lightly “I love you too.”
Allyson was leaning in again, so was I, I could feel her breath all over my lips, dancing around. I was almost done closing the space in-between us when
Ring, ring, ring.
“DAMN IT.” Allyson groaned and unwrapped her legs from my waist, I put her down and gave her a smile, she pulled her phone out of her front jean pocket and took the call.
“Hi ma.” She said dryly, then waited “OK, OK. Yeah, he is with me, OK we’re coming.” Then she hangs up “We are wanted back in the house, the party is starting.”
I nod then walk over to her and wrap my arms around her waist, Allyson hums with excitement and her hands find mine around her waist.
“I love you,” I say in her ear, and she hums again, then steps on her tip-toes.
“I love you more.”
22 and 23
ALLY POV
“You really don’t think it’s too soon?” I asked running my fingers through my hair and Louis turns back to me and smiles
“We have known each other since you were two, we have been dating for over a year, we are engaged to be married and yet, you still have worries that it’s too soon to be moving in together?” He asks me, raising an eyebrow.
“They say moving in together is a very big step when it comes to relationships, I state.
Louis smiles at me and moves closer, he bends down and places a sweet, slow, kiss on my lips and I hum against his lips and kiss him back, smiling against his mouth.
“We have gone to Spain together, we go to the same college, spend almost every day together, both have our schedules at work set up so we can have lunch together, and we even have family dinners every Tuesday because your Ma thinks we need more family time. If we can handle all of that, I think we can handle a living together.”
I smile up at my fiancé “Yeah, you’re right.”
I really hope you enjoyed this!
I don't think I'm actually going to be able to write 'Distance' I am so sorry! I just have no ideas for it and I would rather give you something else than something I'm not proud of, i hope you all understand.
And keep this story in you're library! I may end up adding more to this story or letting you know about a squeal! But no promises!
-Sher