Behind Her Smile [Louis]

The memories of yesterday evening rushed into my mind even before I opened my eyes, all at the same time like someone pressed a button to release. Shame closed me in on all sides, and the fear of losing Louis after we spend these personal minutes didn’t leave me one way out. I felt enclosed and not even one escape was in sight.
I opened my eyes and my reason to be afraid of losing Louis was confirmed as I woke up alone again. Even though I didn’t expect him to wait until I woke up, I was still pretty disappointed he didn’t stay.
I changed into skinny jeans and a white blouse, it sounds ridiculously childish but I changed as slowly as I could. I wanted to delay seeing Louis again as long as possible. I don’t think I can handle his judgment.
“Hey Jess!” I heard Louis’ voice vaguely in the distance, not very clear so I decided to ignore him and walk further. I am so lame, but I just don’t want to face him, things are too awkward now : I’ve cried in front of him. Not like something you didn’t before happened my subconscious added. I have cried into his arms before, but this one was much more intimate, right? Because now I sort of now him.
That day I spend most of it reading, or doing some lame board games with Harry or Niall. As soon as I saw Louis I left. I have to admit, that it was pretty subtle, I don’t think anyone noticed. Maybe Louis himself. Though, being here without Louis makes me even more useless. Like really what am I doing here?
At the early evening we reached our destination. I don’t remember the name, I’ve never heard of it before, so what’s the use to remember, right?
Niall, Harry and Zayn immediately left the hotel. I had no idea where Louis was and I had this awful feeling Liam was staying in because he felt bad for me.
“I guess I’m going to read” I raised my shoulder to let Liam know he didn’t have to feel bad to leave me alone.
When Liam left, I sat down in a comfortable chair in the reception and called Rick.
“I told you I shouldn’t of came in the first place.” I laughed when Rick told me sarcastically shit after I explained him a lot.
“You’re going to thank me, believe me Jess” His voice suddenly sounded serious again. “But look I have to go, someone here still has got his job” he teased me.
“Fuck you” I chuckled as I said goodbye.
I wanted to leave the hotel to find some cute coffee shop to continue the book, but from the moment I stood up someone took my wrist.
“Why have you been ignoring me all day?” His eyes sad, but his lips still trying to smile.
“I have not” I defended myself overwhelmed by his sudden presence.
“You have” his muscles relaxed when he looked into my eyes.
“I.. I don’t know” I let my shoulders fall. “I assumed you thought I was all dram to hang out, after you know.. yesterday” I lowered my voice, in deep shame. “Since, you.. you know left without saying anything.” My cheeks flushed when hearing these words coming out of my mouth.
“Are you serious?” He stared into the distance for a little while, before looking back to me.
“I was taking a shower and when I came back you weren’t in your bed anymore, I’m sorry I didn’t want you to wake up like that” I smiled a little, still feeling like shit but probably for the reason I overreacted like that.
“Don’t worry about it anymore please, can’t we just ignore yesterday evening? I was having so much fun before.”
“No, I don’t think I can forget about that.” He absently stares into the distance again, like he was reliving yesterday.
“Oh” I blush as I stare at my feet. I wait until he explains why, but he doesn’t so I leave him there as I walk out of the hotel.
“Wait, Jess” He yells and I turn around to see him running into my direction.
When the distance between the two of us is only a few inches yet, he looks into my eyes and I swear to god he was leaning in to kiss me. Instead of actually kissing me he looked up, tensed a little, let me go as fast as he could and stepped back a few steps.
What? Happened? Why? I’m so confused.
I let out a sigh and I really wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I don’t know whether it was because some voice in my head said I couldn’t cry another time in front of Louis. Or maybe just simply because all my tears have been used up yesterday. I just didn’t and I felt like shit as continued walking to find a coffee shop. He didn’t even try to stop me.
He makes me go insane, I don’t know what to think anymore. Why would he lean in, if he didn’t want to in the first place? Or am I just making things up in my mind?
I found a cute coffee shop on the corner of a deserted street. I sat down and tried not to think of Louis for a second.
“Do you mind I sit down here?” A familiar voice asked after at least fifty pages.
“Not at all” I smiled looking at the bright face of Zayn, closing my book.
“What are you doing here?” We ask at the exact same time what made us both laugh.
“You first” I grin.
“Well to be honest, I was looking for you. I was almost giving up. Why in god’s name would you decided to go to a deserted place in a big city like this?” He chuckles.
“I don’t know actually I like it” I shrugged.
“It’s nice” he agreed with me.
“So?” I ask.
“So?” he imitated me.
“Are you going to tell me why you were looking for me, or is it one of your million secrets?” I laugh, but cover my mouth with my hand as soon as I realized what I said.
“What? Why would you think I have so many secrets?” His smile was nowhere to be seen and I wanted to slap myself for letting something so precious disappear.
“I.. I don’t know..” I stuttered, looking down at my folded hands. “You’re so difficult to read, I have no idea what to think of you. So I assume it’s you’re hiding something.” I say after a while.
“You are not exactly the perfect person to say things like that” He smiled friendly, capturing my eyes.
“How so?” I raise my brow.
“I know.. well I know partly what you’ve been through. Louis told me a lot about you.”
He did not? How am I supposed to trust him again? I breathe a few times in and out to release my anger towards Louis.
“Like what exactly?” I answer after minutes of silence.
“How you were homeless for a while in London, how he found you incredibly wounded, how you didn’t know so many things about life, how you cried in his arms.” I had this feeling that I couldn’t handle the weight of my own head anymore and everything around me faded like I was in a blur.
“He did?” My voice broke but my cheeks remained dry.
“oh, no, no, no! don’t think like that” He quickly says after seeing how my face breaks of hearing what he said. “He just really pities you, and-“ He continued talking but I didn’t want to put myself through hearing anymore. It was like I was sitting there all alone and everything around me was a blur.
I wish I could cry. It’s insane what a mess I became after moving to London.
“Jess?” Zayn’s voice shook me awake from my own little world.
“Sorry” I faked a smile.
“Don’t worry” I tried to replace the hurt by hate, and soon I wasn’t thinking of Louis anymore. It was just me and Zayn and our stupid conversation that didn’t evolved around anything but still could make us laugh about it.
“I guess it’s for the best we go back to the hotel, I have this show tomorrow for a few thousand girls. But no big deal.” He joked standing up. I was glad Zayn found me.
“Zayn?” My voice was soft but Zayn still turned around.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for telling me.” He smiled in response. It may be not such a big deal, I mean he told his friends about things, but for me it’s pretty private. That’s the main reason I didn’t tell him in the first place. I’m glad I didn’t tell him everything, it would destroy my life if everyone knew about it.
-
The sound of a soft knock filled my room.
“Come in” I answer politely.
Louis’ smile appeared in my room, and I wanted to hate myself for having such feelings for him.
“Hi” He says cheerfully , and I couldn’t help myself to blush. I didn’t know exactly why, it just happened.
“Hi” I answer softly as the hate melted like ice in the sun when hurt replaced it once again.
“What did you do today?” I ask, since he’s obviously not going to leave.
“Nothing much” He shrugged.
“How are you?” He almost whispered.
I wanted to tell him exactly how I felt, how I felt betrayed for no reason at all but how it still hurts. I wanted to tell him everything about my past. I wanted to tell him how much he means to me, I wanted to tell him how I wanted him to like me back in the same way I liked him.
“Great, I’m really happy I have the chance to be with you all, you guys are incredible” I answered instead of how I really felt.
“Good” he smiled. “Sorry for earlier, I wanted to hug you but I saw some paparazzi and I really don’t want them to get wrong ideas, if you know what I mean” he smirked. I want to hit him. How could he find it such an impossible idea for the two of us being together?
Okay, maybe it was. But I don’t want it to..
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing” I sigh, sitting down on the bed.
“You’ve been acting super strange all day”
“No, I haven’t”
“You have, please tell me what’s going on?” he practically begged.
“I just don’t like the idea of you telling your friends about my life.” It was an indescribable relief to have said that.
“Oh, I’m so sorry” he genuinely looked sorry.
“Why would you even do that?” I whisper, for the first time actually trying to hold back tears.
He didn’t answer for a long time, the more seconds that passed the more uncomfortable and the less confident I felt about myself.
“don’t think I’m a freak or something but I asked management to bring you along but they told me to find a good excuse, so I told some stuff about you I knew. But then I realized I didn’t know you that well at all so for me it was another reason to have you here, because I do, Jess, want to know you better. But they told me you could have said everything, because the fans make up stuff all the time, but they don’t know you and I was so frustrated that I didn’t want to go in the first place. But I did, obviously.” I chuckled a little. “and then Niall managed to convince them for some reason. And here you are.” I smile.
“I’m sorry for overreacting.” Was the only thing to think I could think of to answer. “again”
“Don’t worry. If I were you I’d of done the same thing I guess” he smiled friendly.
“I like you a lot” I suddenly said, and as soon as the words reach the air I realized how stupid I was. But Louis didn’t seem to mind, he just smiled widely and leaned in the direction of my face, he closed his eyes and I had no idea what I had to do. What?
[a/n : Hi! thank you for reading, I hope you're all doing okay :)]

Notes