I ran back to the table with shaking hands. I tried to control them as I fiddled with my bag. I felt Liam look at me worriedly but the others were laughing too hard to notice my distressed state.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
I gave up on trying to put my phone in the little black bag I had brought.
“I need to get to Littleton,” I said distractedly, “I’ll be back within the week.”
“What’s going on? Is Noah okay?” Liam asked and I loved him for caring.
“I’ll call you as soon as I can to explain but right now I don’t have time. Love you,” I pecked his lips and said a hurried bye to everyone before running towards the entrance of the resort so I could catch a cab.
Once I was seated on the plane I checked my phone. Liam had left me a bunch of text messages asking what had happened and if he should also come to Littleton. I smiled and texted him to stay put and that everything was fine, no one was hurt.
I switched my phone to airplane mode and then put my earphones in and listened to some music to help calm me down. I ended up replaying how I left Liam and then my eyes flew open. I said to Liam ‘Love you’. I told Liam I loved him. It just slipped right out of my mouth like wet soap down a slippery dip. I didn’t even realise I loved him let alone realised long enough to be ready to tell him. Apparently my subconscious knew me better than I did because on that flight I sat on my seat and listened to music and thought. I thought about Liam and I asked myself questions about Liam.
Would you care if Liam died?
Well duh. I love him.
How would you feel if Liam hurt you?
Liam wouldn’t hurt me. I think Liam is the one person on this planet who wouldn’t hurt me and if he did … I guess I’d hate him because I’d still love him but I wouldn’t want to.
What would you do for Liam?
Anything and everything.
And the whole plane ride went along those lines and in most of those answers the phrase ‘because I love him’ was a common answer.
So in the several hours that it took to land in Littleton I came to an important self-realisation. I loved Liam Payne.
I went through baggage claim and then looked around the airport looking for Jane. She said she’d be waiting with Noah. I was eager to see him, it had only been a couple of weeks and I spoke to him often over the phone but I already missed him.
Suddenly little arms wrapped around my waist and I smiled.
“I wonder who this is?” I said out loud in a teasing voice. I turned around and smiled at my little brother. He looked much better than the last time. He still had the cast on his leg but the swelling on his face had disappeared and the bruises were almost completely faded.
“Hi Daisy,” He said as he squished my waist and I laughed and hugged him back.
“Hi Noah. How have you been?” I said taking a step back and bending down so I was eye level with him.
“Great. Living with Jane and Peter is so much fun! Jane bakes cookies every Friday and she says we aren’t supposed to eat them but Dean, James and I always sneak a few upstairs and on Wednesday we play soccer with some other boys on the street! And Jane and Peter said that in a few weeks we might go to Disneyland!”
“That’s great buddy,” I said smiling. I looked around and tried to find Jane as well but I couldn’t see her. I frowned, “Where’s Jane?”
“I don’t know she said she’d be right back,” Noah said shrugging.
“And here I am,” Jane said laughing. I turned around and brought her in for a hug.
“Hi Jane.”
“You’ve gotten more tanned since the last time I saw you! I’m jealous,” Jane said and I laughed.
“Well you’re going to Disneyland and now I’m jealous.”
“Touché,” Jane smiled, “Come on. Lets go home so we can talk.”
Later that night after we all had some pizza and the kids were in bed Jane, Peter and I sat down in their living room. I couldn’t help but remember the time Liam and I were sat in this room.
“So why am I here exactly?” I asked. Jane had been very sketchy on the phone and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on.
“Your parents trial has been moved up. To tomorrow,” Peter said and my eyes widened. I hadn’t realised when my lawyer said he’d try to speed up the trial that he’d organise it so soon. These things usually take weeks maybe even months. It had only been three weeks since my parents were arrested.
“Our lawyer, well your lawyer, needs you to testify,” Jane continued. “We didn’t want to put Noah through this because, well, he’s still so young and you’ve got a clearer picture of what has really been happening all these years.”
“Noah is not going anywhere near that court case,” I confirmed. I didn’t want Noah anywhere near my parents. They didn’t deserve to see him. They didn’t deserve to see me.
“So you’ll do it?”
“Not even a question. I’d don anything to make sure they couldn’t hurt Noah anymore.”
“As soon as this court case is done and they are locked up our adoption can be finalised,” Jane breathed. “We’ll have another son.”
I smiled, “He’s already your son. You guys have been the only parents in his life and my life and I, I want to thank you for that. I could never count on my actual parents but I could always count on you. If someone were to ask me who my family was, I’d say you guys are. So thank you.”
“You’ll always be part of our family,” Jane said, “Even if it’s not official,” she winked and I laughed.
The blue sky stretched wide and forever over the town. The leaves on the trees flourished emerald green and I breathed in the missed air of home. I haven’t been to a city or town that’s smelled as good as home. I could smell Mrs Brown’s brownies floating in the air drifting along with the smell of the river from the woods. Music from the ice cream truck a street or two away floated in and out of my ears mixed with playful cries from kids.
The town was rundown and I doubt it would ever change. Most houses had rotted window seals and overgrown gardens of wild flowers and the footpaths had weeds growing out of the many cracks. The road was in desperate need of repairs and there were deserted cars with no wheels parked on the streets. The windows had been smashed in and they had started to rot. They’d been there for years. The owners either didn’t have enough money for a tow or had moved away or simply didn’t care. A few houses out of the bunch had been cleaned up and had fresh coats of paint with freshly weeded and cut lawns but the ratio would be like one out of every ten houses. The citizens of Littleton just didn’t care about looks, as long as the house kept the weather out, that had been what all the neighbours had said when they saw me weeding the garden at the front of my house when I was younger.
But Littleton wouldn’t be home without all these things. In a way I was glad to be away from the town but in another sense it was the only home I had ever had.
“Can we get ice cream?” Noah asked as we strolled down the street.
“Hmm, if the truck comes by this way. I’m not running after a truck,” I informed him and he seemed satisfied with that answer.
“How’s Liam?” Noah asked after a moment of silence.
I smiled. I had spoken to him in the morning and he had offered to fly down but I told him not to worry. In truth I would have loved it if he had come but I didn’t want my parents to know anything about my life so that included them never finding out about Liam.
“He’s good.”
“Does this mean he’s like my brother now?” Noah asked and I laughed.
“If you want him to be like your brother he can be,” I shrugged.
“I like him. He makes you smile. I know you think I don’t notice but I could. Your voice was always sad before. Now it’s happy.”
“I’m happy now for a lot of reasons. Like the fact that we’ve finally gotten away from our parents.”
“I kind of miss them.”
I stopped walking at that and bent down in front of Noah so we were eye level. I couldn’t understand why Noah would miss such vile people.
“Why? They were so mean and horrible to us?”
“I know but there was some good times. One time mum stopped drinking for like a week, I made her promise, and we did all sorts of fun things. We got a recipe of Mrs Brown and we made brownies together and she took me to the pools. I don’t think they are bad people. The alcohol just brings out the worst in them.”
I stayed silent as Noah talked. My mother had gone off the bottle for a week. It didn’t surprise me she had almost gone two weeks for me but she was too weak and the afternoon we had planned to go bowling I came home and she had a bottle in her hand and she threw it at me. I had to get four stitches in my hand that night.
“You deserve better Noah. Our parents aren’t your or my responsibility, we should be theirs but they’re too far gone to realise that. Mum sometimes tries but you need someone who always tries. You need Jane.”
“I know. I like Jane and Peter.”
“That’s good. I like them too.”
.
The ceiling was white with yellow stains. The hotel needed to be redecorated but I didn’t care. I smiled like a five-year-old child getting a present and I was biting my lip as we talked.
I was lying on the bed in just my underwear and a white t-shirt I had stolen from Liam’s cupboard a few days before I had left for Littleton. It was a little big on me but it smelled like him and at that moment I missed him.
“When this is all done we should go.”
“Go?” Liam questioned, “Go where?”
“Everywhere!” I said rolling over onto my tummy. I traced circles onto my pillow. “We could go all through Europe and we wouldn’t have to tour. We could go to Europe and see Europe! We could go Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Greece, Neverlands-”
“I don’t know which childhood movies you watched but the ones I watched told me that Neverland was the second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning,” Liam said.
“You know what I meant.”
“Say Netherlands again.”
“Natherlands,” I said trying to fix my accent so I would say it right.
“It’s Netherlands.”
“That’s what I said!”
“No, you said ‘Natherlands.”
“Same difference!” I said rolling back onto my back.
“Isn’t it meant to be ‘same thing’?” Liam asked and I could imagine him cocking an eyebrow as he smirked whilst he teased me.
“I think you,” I said taking a pause, “Are avoiding my question.”
“How dare you suggest such a preposterous thing?”
“Because it’s true,” I said. “Come on as if you don’t want to travel all across the world with me? It would just be us two, on the road, in style of course. But come on, this would be great! We could be in a different city ever night and we could just let loose and it would be like how we are in Tahiti except without all our friends. It would just be us two.”
“I know and it sounds great but, baby, when would we go? Next year I’m about 75 percent sure that we will both be going on tours for our next album.”
“Okay so how about we make a pact?” I asked my brain thinking quickly. “Two years. In two years we both keep our schedules clear. No work. No commitments. We finish work for six months – no a year! We stop working for a year. A hiatus,” I was making everything up on the spot and the more I kept talking the more I loved it. I didn’t expect Liam to agree. I was just mindlessly dreaming and rambling and hoping for something to look forward to because isn’t that the point of life? To look forward to things and maybe that’s why I was so bitter before this holiday. I had nothing to look forward to.
“Okay.”
“What?” I asked shooting up in the bed.
“Okay,” Liam repeated. His smooth words choked somewhere in my brain and they jammed up my thought process. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Okay?” I asked again.
“Yes.”
“Two years?”
“Two years,” Liam confirmed.
“Urgh, if you were here I’d kiss your sexy face.”
“Hmm, so what are you wearing?” Liam asked and I laughed. I threw my head back and laughed like a little kid. “What?” Liam asked innocently and I just laughed harder.
“We’re gonna go to Europe! You make me want to happy dance. I never want to happy dance.”
“So happy dance.”
“Maybe later. Right now I want to listen to my sexy boyfriend’s voice before I have to go to court and see my horrible parents. Distract me.”
Tomorrow was the trial. I would have to stand up in front of a judge and lawyers and press and people and admit that my parents are abusive alcoholics who don’t deserve to be allowed to integrate with public society anymore. They should go to some sort of jail that has rehab facilities.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Anything,” I said flopping down into my pillows and stretching out. I shuffled onto my side and grabbed one of the pillows to hug. So that night Liam’s smooth, husky and quiet voice put me asleep.
.
The trial had finally finished. It had gone on for four days but it had finished now. After four long, emotionally stressful days it was over and I was now in a cab going to the airport to fly back to Tahiti because I could not wait to see Liam. My parents were finally locked up. The judge ordered that they be sent to some prison just outside of Littleton for ten years with eight years non-parole and Noah was officially out of their care. My parents are no longer a threat to me or to Noah. No more monthly payments of ten thousand dollars. No more secret phone calls with Noah to make sure he was okay because now I would know he was okay no matter where I was because he would be with Jane and Peter. And he’d never be lonely. He’d have Dean and James – brothers.
This may sound selfish but my life could finally begin. I could now do my job and I would still probably be miserable doing it because I hate not being me and the cameras and the attention is just tiring but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about Noah. I would be able to spend time with Liam and go out more because Jane and Peter would be able to control what Noah reads in the tabloids or at least comfort him if rumours are starting to spread. I couldn’t risk that happening before because there was no one to comfort him. He was all alone and now he’s not and now my life could finally begin.
“Where are you headed to?” the cab driver asked. He was a young guy maybe twenty-four or twenty-five. He had long curly black hair that was messily untamed and his dark eyes were kind. The old me, the unhappy me, would have ignored this cab driver. But I wasn’t unhappy. I was actually very, very happy.
“To Tahiti. Meeting up with friends.”
“Is there a lucky someone also waiting?”
“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “There is. We made a pact the other night. In two years we’re going to travel the world together.”
“That’s a nice pact. I’m David.”
“Nice to meet you,” I smiled, “I’m Daisy.”
“Pretty-”
David’s sentence was cut off by a screeching trailer truck. My eyes widened and my mouth opened a little as I turned my head and the last thing I saw was the burning headlights of the truck about a meter away from the cab. Then everything just went black. I didn’t feel anything. There was just an ear-hurting bang, I was sure my ear drums had blown, and then there was just black.
And then everything changed.
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A/N: HI Everyone!! So so sorry for the terribly late update but I've been busy. Work, school etc. I have a life :)
PLEASE VOTE or COMMENT if you like this chapter because they really do mean a lot to me!!!!!!!!
1) What do you think has happened to Daisy?
2) Do you think she'll tell Liam?
THANKS FOR READING!!!
-Natalie xx