When the car finally pulls to a stop after driving for what seemed like hours, I'm astonished by the place. It's more like a house, rather than a flat. It's made of entirely red bricks, with white shuttered windows, and thick green vines growing along the base. The yard is freshly trimmed, and there is a cobblestone walkway leading up to the door.
"Wow." Is all I can mutter. This place must have been so expensive. It's on a well shaded street with lots of trees, which goes against what I know about London. It's kind of perfect though, really. Something I would probably love to live in. But, I do live here, I guess. This is all so weird...
"I know. Myself and the other lads were jealous you both snagged such a nice place." Liam says, giving it a quick lookover while waving farewell to the driver.
"How can I even afford this?" I ask, turning towards him, my brain not really realizing he said 'you both'.
"Uh uh. Remember? Questions inside only. C'mon now." He says, gesturing me to the door.
I head up the walkway, pausing in front of the door. I raise my fist to knock, before Liam walks past me.
"You don't need to knock, you lemon."
He pushes open the door, and steps in. The place is spectacular, really. There's a little entryway, where we both kick off our shoes and coats, before we continue into the flat. We end up in a living room, where there's a large wrap-around sofa, a coffee table with some magazines, a huge flat screen television, and tons of plants. Niall is sitting on the sofa with a beer in his hand.
"Hey guys!" he shouts, rising and tucking the beer behind his back.
"Niall, you shouldn't be drinking right now, we have an important day ahead of us that you should be sober for." He tells him, throwing me a side glance.
"Yeah, alright," he says defeatedly, slumping back down and putting his beer on the table.
I don't really know what to do so I kind of just stand there awkwardly.
"You can sit down mate." Liam tells me. I hesitantly walk and sit on the couch with Niall.
"Where's Zayn and Harry?" Liam calls, while walking into another room to the left, which I have a feeling is the kitchen. There's a staircase to my right, and a door with light shining out from under it.
"Ah, I think Harry's in his room, and Zayn's in the-"
"I'm here Ni." Zayn says, walking out of the door, which I now realize is a bathroom. He plops onto the couch to the left of Niall and places his heels on the table.
"How's it going Lou? Remember anything?" He asks, looking at me.
I just shake my head. This is really uncomfortable, being in a- my house, with four guys, and not knowing anyone or basically anything, about them. Liam appears out of the kitchen.
"S'okay. Liam why don't you go get Harry and we can get the ball rolling. Simon said we can answer anything except nothing to do with El and that whole topic until he's here. He's gonna stop for dinner soon to work all this out. Louis, I'm sure you have tons of questions." Niall tells me.
"Kinda."
"Alright then." Liam says before dashing up the stairs.
***
When Harry and Liam have settled back down, they all turn towards me.
"So, uhm, do you, have any questions about anything from the past few days?" Niall asks awkwardly.
I could've thought of a million questions in the hospital, but now my mind is blank. So I say the first question that pops into my mind.
"When did I move out of my mum's house?" Wow Louis. There's a thousand more interesting questions then that.
"About a year and a half ago. Then you moved into here with Harry, while Zayn, Niall and I moved into another flat just a few blocks away." Liam says. I look towards Harry, who gives me a small smile.
"We all wanted to be close." Zayn finishes.
"How do I know you guys?"
They glance around, like it's a big secret.
"I guess I'll start," Niall says, pausing. "We all auditioned for the X-factor together. We met on the show. That was just over 2 years ago, though. It seems that yer' brain has wiped out that part of yer' memory."
"I got to audition?! Did I do good? Did I go through? What happened?" I ask quickly. I can't believe I auditioned!
"Well, yeah you did good. And yes you went through. But you got eliminated right before the bootcamp stage, you know?" Liam answers.
I nod, confirming. "I got eliminated?"
Zayn continues. "Yeah. Well sort of. We all did. The five of us. But last minute, Simon called us all back on stage. He thought we were too good to let go, but not strong enough to go on solo, so he put us into a band. A boyband, the five of us."
I let that sink in. So I got on x-factor, with these guys, and made it a decent way into the compition? "How far did we get?"
They look at each other again. Then, towards Harry. He speaks next.
"Well we kept getting more and more popular, we're pretty decent singers too. We won third place." Harry says, speaking slowly.
"Third place! Oh my god! That's incredible!" Then, a thought occurs to me, causing my smile to fall. "Wait. I get it. This is just a prank, isn't it. See how gullible I am? Well it's not going to work!" I say huffing and sitting back down. Funny, I don't remember standing up.
"It's not a joke. It's true." Niall tells me.
"Then whats the name of the band?"
"One Direction." Harry replies. He looks me in the eyes, and I feel something run through me. I shiver, and turn away quickly.
"Well if we won third place wouldn't we be well-known or something? Wouldn't people recognize us? Nobody came up to us at the hospital for autographs," I say snorting, and proving my point. Zayn chuckles.
"Well they better not've. There was so much security there, it was like our own personal army. They even cut off access to the floor you were on."
"Yeah.. that's why we had to go out the back exit. If we went out the front, you would have been bombarded with questions, and cameras, and most likely paps. We didn't want to throw all this at you at once." Liam says, looking at me cautiously.
"Oh." Is all I say. Honestly,... I don't want to be famous. I wanted to be a successful singer or actor, yes, but that was just a dream, I never actually expected to face this. I don't even know what to think of any of this.
"Look, we know this is a lot, but it'll be alright. We're in this together. We're best mates." Niall says, smile, hinting through his voice.
I pause ."Can I just like be alone for a while, I need some time, to.. think." I say, glancing up at them. They look kind of hurt, especially Harry, which makes me the most upset... It's odd. Out of all of them, I feel the most connected to him, even though I've probably spoken to him the least. I make a mental note to try and talk to him tomorrow. Have an actual conversation.
"Yeah, sure. Just find us if you need us. Do you want me to show you where your room is?" Zayn asks.
I nod, swallowing hard, and follow him up from the couch. We go up the stairs, and he leads me to a door on the left side of the hallway. Right before I go in, he stops me.
"Look, Lou, it really is going to be alright. You'll remember...don't worry. The doctor said your accident wasn't as fatal as they first thought. He also said that your memory has a very good chance of returning, if something triggers it, or you might start to remember pieces of events or memories. So don't let all of this get you down." He says sympathetically.
"It's not that, it's...just that..-well this is just a lot to handle. Just yesterday, or what seems like yesterday, I was a guy from Doncaster, with a big family who liked acting and singing. Now I'm apparently famous, and living like this." I say, gesturing to the hallway, the house.
"I know Lou. It's a lot. I'm sorry for, well,everything. But you should probably get some rest, or take a nap or something. We'll wake you up when Simon gets here. We still have quite a bit to explain."
"Simon? Niall said that name before, right? Who is he?"
"Uh, well, he's... Simon Cowell. He's kind of our mentor type thing. He signed us after we lost the xfactor. He's kind of the reason where we are today. But we have a lot to discuss with him and you, and the rest of us. So he's gonna stop by later."
"Simon. Cowell? This day just keeps getting weirder." I say before turning back towards the door. "And Zayn? Thanks." I give a small smile before entering my room.
The room is painted a really light blue color. It's almost white, but not quite. There's a large wooden bed, topped with thick blankets and pillows; a closet, a window, and a long wooden dresser. I decide to take Zayn up on that offer and take a nap, even though it's not even close to the afternoon. I open a few drawers of the dresser, until I find my pajama drawer. I pull out a sweatshirt and plaid pants and quickly change, ridding the hospital clothes. I run my hands through my hair, and sit down on the bed, thinking of everything that has happened today. Then it hits me: I still don't know why I was in the hospital. That's basically the question I've been asking myself all along, the one I wanted to know most. I figure I won't be able to fall asleep at all if I don't at least know this. I don't even know what caused me to lose my memory. Why I'm in this entire situation. Everything relates to this. I literally cannot believe the thought didn't occur to me to ask.
I open my door lightly, and carefully tread down the stairs. I feel like I have to be quiet, though I'm not sure why.. I just have a funny feeling. When I get halfway down the stairs, where I'm about 2 feet away from being able to be seen from the living room, I hear something that stops me.
"So you didn't tell him?! How can he not know!?" It's a girl's voice.
"How could we? He didn't exactly take the famous news to well!" I think that's Liam's voice.
I dare to take another step down the stairs, so I can just barely see them, but they can't see me. I want to know what they're keeping from me.
They're all sitting around the couch, except for Harry who's sitting in the armchair, with his head in his hands. He's shaking a bit. Is he...crying?
The girl is a brunette about 20. She looks distraught.
"Harry? How could you not tell him? What do you think he's gonna do when he finds out? And then again, when he finds out we're not actually-"
Suddenly, I lose my balance and plunk down another step. I retract back up two steps, as fast as I can, before they can see me. I don't think they saw,..but they definitely heard.
"Louis?" Niall's voice calls. I hear shuffling.
Shit.
I quickly and quietly race up the stairs, and down the dark hall. I get to the room I was in before, and open the door, as silent as I can, hurrying in and shutting it behind me. I lean against it, breathing a sigh of relief before I hear Niall call again.
"Louis? Are you there?"
I jump into the bed, and lie down right on top of the covers, shutting my eyes. I hear a light knock, and the door open and close. Then I hear Niall tread back down the stairs.
I exhale again, and open my eyes, sitting up.
What were they talking about? Who's that girl? What are they keeping from me?
With that, I lay back down, and rest my eyes, realizing just how tired I actually am, and forgetting all about the actual reason I went downstairs.
*****
Oh. My. God. Guys. this chapter was a b i t c h to write. I rewrote it at least 3 times. It's not exactly how I wanted it to turn out, but It's not as bad as I thought. Anyways thank you for reading and ily! :)