“There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed. Some forever not for better, some have gone and some remain. All the places have their moments, with lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living…in my life, I’ve loved them all.”

I sang along softly to one of the best records of all time (in my humble opinion), staring at my bedroom ceiling. It was dotted with lime green stars that glowed when the lights were turned off, an addition my brother insisted upon when this room had belonged to him. He had, like most little boys, gone through an obsessive space phase, but unlike the planet posters and shuttle figurines, the sticky little stars couldn’t be removed once the fascination waned.

When he moved out a year ago, I was granted the one thing that had eluded me for almost my entire life: a space all to my own. But that little bit of privacy came a high price: I had to say goodbye to my best friend. I suppose it is slightly odd for a girl’s best friend to be her older brother, but I’ve never been one that many people would consider a ‘normal’ teenage girl. I’m slightly obsessed with football, I hate wearing dresses, heels, or doing anything with my hair besides pulling it back, and I much prefer spending time with the lads than girls my age.

Besides, growing up with four younger sisters means that there is enough estrogen in my household to kill an orca whale, so it really isn’t surprising I much prefer hanging out with the male variety in my free time. But yes, my brother was definitely my best friend.

And he was coming home now, even if it was only for a week. It was the first time I would have seen him in three months and he would shortly be leaving again – this time for America, Australia and New Zealand. I wasn’t sure I could handle not seeing him again for that long, especially as my life seemed to be falling down around me. Between my now ex-boyfriend, my career ending football injury, the escalating arguments between my parents regarding custody of my younger sisters, and of course the complete and utter uncertainty of what I wanted to do with my life, I was about ready to have a meltdown.

I counted the stars for the thousandth time, coming to the same number and tapping my foot to the upbeat song that came out of the speakers next. I was antsy. I was impatient. I was nervous.

There was a lot to think about and The Plan kept running through my head. I had thought through all the different outcomes, and there really was only one that gave me any satisfaction. And The Plan would be put into motion as soon as my Mum picked him up from the airport. No doubt, she would be gushing over him, but the conversation would shortly turn to me and my utter failure as a daughter. I was used to her complaints and disappointment by this point, and she was only helping my cause the more she vented to my brother.

I glanced at the clock. 6:31pm. My stomach grumbled. One of my sisters squealed down in the living room. The dog barked. A car door slammed.

In one quick motion I silenced my iHome, then lay perfectly still, barely breathing and straining to hear. There was more squealing and laughing; the front door opened. I heard more feminine voices and then silence. Then came his laugh.

He’s home.

I was off the bed and down the stairs in a matter of seconds, landing with a loud thud in the foyer and searching desperately. They all stood in a group in the kitchen entryway: Mum was standing off to the side, snapping a few pictures; Lottie was crying softly, a wide grin on her face. Felicity was jumping wildly up and down, clapping excitedly. Phoebe and Daisy were hanging off each of his legs, asking where their presents were. And there he was, in all of his glory, wearing pajama pants, a t-shirt and a beanie. After three long months away, he was finally home.

Upon hearing my graceful entrance, he looked up and his smile grew.

“Louis,” I grinned, launching myself at him.

He caught me up in a tight hug, twirling my slightly left and right. “How are ya, JJ?” he asked quietly in my ear. He didn’t need me to tell him, because he already knew. Louis always knew.

“Better now that you’re home,” I replied, pulling away and smiling up at him.

“Well, he’s only home for a few days, so let’s let him get settled in,” Mum interjected, pulling Louis toward her. “Jane, make yourself useful and go grab the bags from the car. Lottie, get the lasagna out of the oven. I’ve made your favorite, Boo Bear, especially for you.”

Louis shot me another smile before being dragged into the kitchen, the little girls still jumping all over him. For a moment, my Mum’s easy dismissal of me was forgettable, since he was home.

**

“And Tess was a complete nightmare on stage, Louis, you wouldn’t even believe. After all those fancy lessons she bragged about and everything! Anyway, Mr. Forrester basically told her that she could be one of the trees that throws the apples at Dorothy or help out with the set design. I, however, am going to be playing Glinda the Good Witch, which means you had better be back home in May so you can come see my acting debut. If you’re lucky, I might even sign something for you to sell on ebay when I’m rich and famous. Even more than you, I mean. And you should bring Harry because all the girls fancy him and if he comes, the shows will definitely sell out.”

Felicity, my precocious 12-year-old sister, finished up her epically long story, just as the rest of us finished our dinner.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Fiz,” Louis chuckled. “Sounds like everyone has had a busy few months.” It was true. Fizzy was the star of the school’s spring play; Lottie went on a community service trip to Morocco, and the Twins joined their first hockey team.

“Well, everyone except Jane, of course,” Mum replied, sliding Daisy’s leftover dinner into a Tupperware dish. “Now the she isn’t playing football anymore, I mean. All she does all day is sit up in her room, listening to her music obnoxiously loud. Luckily, you’ll be able to head back to work soon. Louis, did your sister tell you that she ‘forgot’ to submit her university applications?”

“Mum!” My fork clattered onto my place and I stared at her in disbelief. He hadn’t even been home an hour and she was already throwing me under the bus.

“What?” he asked, looking at me in confusion. “You mean you didn’t get them in on time?”

“Didn’t get them in at all,” Mum supplied, sounding utterly annoying and superior as she cleared the table. Lottie, never one for confrontation, jumped up to help.

“Why would you do that?” Louis asked, lowering his voice so that she couldn’t jump in again.

“It’s hard to explain,” I muttered, trying not to meet his eyes.

“What are you going to do then?”

“Well, actually, I was hoping to talk to you about that…”

Mum walked back over and set a bowl of ice cream in front of Louis. “Your brilliant sister, here, thought it would be funny to just skip out on university. Tell me, Jane, what are you going to do without a degree? Your dreams of being a footballer are over now that you’ve done your knee in. What are you going to do? Be a barmaid for the rest of your days?”

“Come off it, Mum,” Louis rolled his eyes.

“No, I want to know,” Mum replied, turning on the ‘we are so disappointed with you’ tone. “Your father and I worked incredibly hard to get you into a good college and provide you with opportunities and your just going to throw it away. We even allowed you graduate early to play football, though clearly that was a mistake. And for what? What’s the plan, Jane?”

I was biting my bottom lip to stop from yelling at her, but I didn’t want to get into it with her again, especially not in front of all my siblings. So, I said exactly what The Plan was.

“I would like to go on tour with One Direction.”

“What?” Mum and Louis said at the same time, both looking at me like I had lost the plot.

“I’ve got some revising to do!” Lottie declared instantly, not wanting to get caught in the inevitable discomfort that was coming, and darting off to her room. The Twins followed her, while Felicity settled into her seat to enjoy the show.

“Just hear me out,” I said quickly, before Mum could deny my request. “My job at the pub isn’t exactly the most impressive thing to see on a university application…”

“So you take some classes one the side or get a better job to boost your applications for next year,” she cut in.

“But what could be more application boosting than a trip around the world?” I shot back. “Louis is getting loads of real life experiences, right?” I appealed to Louis who was still staring at me in disbelief. “And I wouldn’t just be going to for fun,” I continued, somewhat deflated that he wasn’t jumping in to help. “I could help work on the tour. Learn about the business and what not.”

“It’s out of the question, Jane. I won’t have you running off with those boys when you should be here at home.” She stood up, trying to end the conversation.

“Doing what?” I cried. “Working at the pub? Babysitting? Shuttling the kids back and forth between here and Dad’s? I’m not doing it Mum, I want to get out of this bloody town!”

“Language, Jane!”

“It isn’t fair, you were completely supportive of Louis when he wanted to sing and yet you won’t let me do this!”

“She’s got a point, Mum,” Louis finally jumped in.

“Stay out of this, Louis.” And he shut right back up.

“Mum, please,” I begged. “It doesn’t need to be for the year, just for the next few months. Till they get back from New Zealand! Then I’ll go back to working and saving up money for university and babysitting all you want.”

“And will they even take you?” She asked, not even looking at my brother. “What use would you be to them?”

I blinked. ‘Useless’ was a word she tended to throw around a lot around me. I know she didn’t really mean it; she was so busy with her work at the hospital and Dad at the firm, which meant most of the errands and things fell to me. But then, with my injury and my complete apathy that came in the past few months, I wasn’t the most helpful, and she really started to get fed up with me. I was her least favorite child, I knew, and I had accepted it. Louis was her only son, and therefore her favorite. Lottie was a wonderful student and just a wonderful daughter overall. Felicity was mischievous, but quite the charmer, like Louis. And the Twins were adorable. But I was never one that she could brag about. There was nothing I did that was worthy of sharing with all the other Doncaster mums over tea and biscuits.

“Right.” I said finally, the only word I could really get out. “Because I’m of no use to anyone. Got it.” I stood up and headed up stairs then, not wanting to be around her a moment later.

Swallowing my emotions, I put American Idiot on my iPod and lay back on my bed, breathing steadily and trying to calm the panic that was slowly overtaking me.

What was I going to do??

I couldn’t stay here any longer, seeing the same people, doing the same things and feeling utterly complacent. I was constantly reminded of how little I had become – all of my friends were still going to school during the day, preparing for university. Louis was a music superstar and I wherever I went I was asked questions about him, inevitably followed by what my plans were. I felt completely alone here, and it was exhausting.

Skipping over ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Are We The Waiting’, as they would have completely done me in, and heading straight for ‘St. Jimmy’, I almost missed the light knock on my bedroom door. Louis stuck his head in and offered me a slight smile.

“Can I come in?”

I turned the volume down on the player and sat up on my bed, leaning against the wall. Louis shut the door behind him and sat himself on the end of my bed.

“Thanks for your help down there,” I shot, glaring at him.

“Well you could have given me a bit of a heads up, you know. I wasn’t exactly expecting that over pudding.”

I crossed my arms and looked away from him.

“You’re upset,” Louis said after a moment. There was no point in denying it - Louis could always tell how I was feeling.

“What of it?” I asked, shrugging nonchalantly. “I’ll get over it.”

“What I don’t understand is,” he continued, ignoring me, “is why? Why would you ever want to tour with us? You don’t even like One Direction and you aren’t the most supportive family member I have.”

“I like One Direction,” I argued, “and I’ve been totally supportive.”

Louis merely grinned at me.

“The first thing you said when you saw the ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ video was, and I quote, ‘who the fuck wears trainers to the beach?’”

“It’s a valid question!”

“Seriously, Jay,” Louis said, crossing his arms. “Why do you want to come with us? You’re not secretly shagging Hazza are you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. You know he’s not my type. And I already told you. I could build my resume for universities.”

“I’m not Mum,” Louis said, scooting closer. “I see right through your bullshit. And you’re a terrible liar. There’s another reason.”

I sighed. “I just…I just think it would be good for me to get out of here for a while. Too much drama here, what with Nathan and the parents and football…I just need to figure out what I want without Mum hounding me everyday.”

“She is getting a bit clingy,” he acknowledged and I appreciated he didn’t go into the whole Nathan situation. We could save that conversation for another day. “And she was pretty harsh on you downstairs.”

“It’s been worse since you’ve been gone so much,” I replied quietly. “She really stressed out about things, you know? I try not to take it too personally, since she’s going through quite a bit with Dad. And she really misses you. So do I.”

Louis and I sat there silently on my bed for a few moments. I knew that he had taken it particularly hard when our parents had split up the previous summer. Not that we all hadn’t, but Louis somehow felt responsible, as if his involvement in X-Factor and One Direction had caused the collapse of their marriage. It was a completely crazy thought, but he still felt guilty, especially about being away so much. With me, at least, he tried to keep up with as much as possible on Twitter and via text, but it really wasn’t the same. Our entire lives we told each other everything, and everything is a lot to say in 140 characters. Since One Direction began, my communication with Louis had dropped off dramatically. That didn’t mean that I still didn’t know him like the back of my hand.

I hated (but secretly loved) taking advantage of Louis when he was in a vulnerable state (and being his sister, I knew just when those moments were), but if I wanted this to work out, I had to take all available shots.

“Hey Lou,” I began, watching his face closely. “Remember when we were little and we spent the summers on Granddad’s farm? Just the two of us, cause the girls were too young?”

My brother smiled. “Yeah, that was brilliant.”

“Well, don’t you think that this could be like that, sort of? I mean, next year I’ll be heading off to Uni hopefully, and 1D is just getting bigger and bigger…we might not have time after this to just hang out without the parents around.”

I let that sink in for a moment. Louis glanced over at me and I could see him thinking it over in his head.

“We do have some good times together, don’t we?”

“The best.”

Louis sighed and I knew that I had won. The utter relief and thrill that coursed through me was indescribable.

“I’ll talk to Mum and to Management,” he said, before chuckling as I launched myself at him, hugging him close. “I can’t guarantee anything, JJ,” he said over my ‘thank yous’, “but I’m sure we can make it work.”

“You’re the best older brother ever, you know that right?”

“So I’m told,” he grinned.

We settled back into a comfortable silence, before Louis gave me a poke in the thigh. “How’s the knees doing?” Frowning, I pulled up my sweatpants leg, showing Louis the rather disgusting scar criss-crossing my right knee. I had had the surgery over a month ago, but Louis hadn’t been around to see it. He winced while looking at it. “That’s…lovely.”

“It looks worse than it is,” I admitted. “I’m not supposed to run or anything yet, no high impact stuff. I’ve got to watch my pivoting as well, but it doesn’t hurt that often anymore.”

“I’m sorry, JJ,” Louis said, giving me a supportive smile. I shrugged and covered my knee up again.

“What are your plans for while you’re home?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Well, I’m having breakfast with Dad tomorrow morning and then I’m heading out to Manchester to spend the night with Eleanor. She’s got exams coming up soon so she can’t come here. And I think Stan and I were going to watch the United match on Wednesday, if you wanted to join.”

“And see them hopefully lose?” I asked grinning. “I’m there!”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Bloody Chelsea fan, I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“Because I’m your favorite sister and an all around brilliant person.”

“This is true,” he replied. “Alright. I’m knackered.” Louis stood up and made for the door.

“Aren’t you staying in here?” I asked, thinking I was going to be relegated to the Twins’ room on an air mattress.

“This is your room now, love. I’m just a guest. Mum has a bed set up for me in the basement. Just, don’t say anything to Mum until I can talk to her, alright?” He asked over his shoulder. “You’re not the best at getting what you want from her, so you might just do yourself in.”

“Alright Boo Bear,” I snickered and he flicked me off.

“Do you want to come or not?” He shot back and that promptly shut me up. “Night, JJ,” he chuckled, before disappearing out in the hallway.

I lay back on the best and smiled. The next two months were going to be amazing, and I’d get away from Doncaster and all the drama that surrounded me here.