Always.

“Niall, quit it!” I squeal as he chases me around the buses with whipped cream in his hand.

“I’ll quit chasing you if you quit running.” He yells, only mere feet behind me. I have to jump over one of the guard bags to keep my good distance.

“No! You’re going to put that stuff on my face, I already know it.” I weave in and out through the people standing and look back to Niall who is coming closer and closer.

I make a turn and run towards the band room as fast as I can since I don’t have a job right now to hide.

“Come on, Kelly!” he laughs, and it’s such a nice laugh.

“No!” I reply, heading into the band room doors. It isn’t too crowded seen as everyone probably has something to do.

I run in and towards the door to the band hallway that leads to the rest of the school. Once I try to push it open, it doesn’t budge.

“Look at that,” Niall speaks from right behind me. “Could have planned that better.” He laughs, but it isn’t a rude laugh, more of a sweet laugh.

“Alright.” I close my eyes and turn to him. “Make this fast.” I say, scrunching my eyes tight.

“Okay.” He says, “1-”

“No! Don’t count, just do it Niall.” I sigh, trying to brace myself for a face full of whipped cream.

“Alright.” I can feel his had coming closer and I scrunch my face in even tighter than it was before. I literally feel like I’m going to pass out before he finally taps my nose with the whipped cream.

“That’s it?” I ask opening my eyes.

“You think I’d put all of that in your face?” he asks, almost as if it’s unbelievable. He then walks away to the sink while shaking his.

“I did, yea.” Harry would have, then he would have laughed and apologized and wiped it off for me. He’d stare into my eyes while wiping off the last bit and then I’d want to lean in and just kiss him and tell him that I love him even when he wipes whipped cream on my face.

“Kelly, did you hear me?” I hear Niall ask as he dries his hands.

“Sorry, what did you say?” I make my way towards him to grab a tissue and wipe of the rest of the whipped cream.

“I asked if you were going to wipe it off or just stand there?” he laughs. “You answered it.”

“Oh, yea.” I reply, focusing on the tissue.

“You alright? You seem a little off today. Actually you’ve seemed off the past couple of weeks.”

“Yea.” No, I’m fine. Just a falling out with my best friend and I told him not to come over anymore last night and what if he really needed me? “I just… have been having a tough time with school work and things. Waiting for my college letters and that.” I try to convince him that that is the reason and he seems to believe it.

“Want to talk about it?” he asks, leaning against the counter. “Or even better, let’s write about it.”

“Write about it?” I ask, as he takes my hand and leads me toward my favorite practice room.

“Yea.” He says once we get in there. He sits and grabs the guitar that’s in the corner of the room.

“You play guitar?” I ask sitting on the piano bench.

“You learn something new every day.” He shrugs, strumming the strings.

“Guess so, huh.” I smile and turn around, lifting the lid from the piano keys. “I don’t write… songs I mean.” I say, gliding my fingers over the keys.

“Let’s just sing then.” He suggests.

“Sing what?”

He begins playing and it sounds so familiar. I have to listen for I bit before I actually catch on and begin laying the piano to go with it.

“Give me love like her, cause lately I’ve been waking up alone.” I begin, singing the whole first verse and then Niall joins in on the chorus.

“Give a little time to me or burn this out,
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,
All I want is the taste that your lips allow,
My, my, my, my, oh give me love,
My, my, my, my, oh give me love,
My, my, my, my, oh give me love,
My, my, my, my, give me love.”


When we had reached the second chorus, I lost it. Not enough for Niall to tell, but enough for it to impact my playing. It began to crescendo, and Niall followed along without question. It turned into a fortissimo, and if the song had been any longer, there was no doubt it would be fortississimo. But it soon came to an end, and I suddenly felt like I was suffocating, just like I had last night after I shut the window.


“I should get going.” I say to Niall before running out of the room with my head down.


“Wait, Kelly! Are you okay?!” Niall calls after me.


“I’ll be fine. Just need to check on some things. I’ll see you soon.” I say not facing him and walk towards the stadium wiping my tears on my sleeve.


I make my way towards the water station and make sure they’re all right, and then all of the others, seeing if they need help before my next shift escorting bands to the stadium.


I only had a couple of escorts before it was time for us to go into the room and get ready for our turn after every band has gone.


“Alright guys.” I say, getting up onto the podium but not everyone listens. “Band ten hut!”


“Prite!” they all say.


“Listen up! Good job today so far. I know we aren’t getting placed, but let’s show all these bands what we’ve got, okay? First, we’re going to play through and I want you to march in place, pretend you’re on that field. Ready?” I ask and look to Danielle.


“Let’s go.” She says and we count off and they come in sounding better than ever. It brings a smile to my face, honestly. Knowing that this band has achieved so much in such a short amount of time is incredible. It makes me feel like through everything going on, I can always be with this band and it could feel like nothing was wrong.


We made our way into the parking lot and Danielle and I made our way down the outside of the two rows smiling and fixing the back of any ones uniform who needed it.


Niall was on my side, and he gave me this knowing look. And to that, I just smiled at him. Then I made it back to Ashton who just looked at me with a huge grin on his face. “Stop it!” I say, nudging his shoulder and he just laughs at me.


I make my way back to the front. “You ready?” I ask. And they all give me a yea. “Alright Ash.” I call and he begins the cadence and we begin to march.


When we get right before the track they begin to announce our band and doing shout outs from all the other bands and directors and parents and we walk onto the track to the back of the field.


The screams from the stands are overwhelming as we walk onto the field and Danielle and I do our salute before running to our podiums.


“Reeds Spring Marching Band, you may take the field in competition.” The announcer says, and we begin.


The crowd is even crazier when we finish than when we began and the show was great and I couldn’t have been more proud of the band. As Danielle and I climb off of the podiums, and walk to lead the band to stand in front of the bleachers.


When we step onto the track again I hear my name. “Yea, Kelly!” they yell and I look up to see Louis standing there with his arm in the air. “I know her!” he exclaims pointing to me and I just shake my head.


“Go Kelly!” I turn and see Zayn and Perrie looking at me. As I’m scanning through them I can’t help but notice Harry standing there silently beside them staring at me and I can’t look away. The pain in his eyes causes the pain within me to skyrocket and when I finally look down I can’t help but think. It’s going to be a long night, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to recover from that contact.

Notes