Liam Meets Rae
I was really missing my characters, and while I was rereading, I had this idea I just had to run with. Right at the beginning of the story when Rae runs out on all the boys, Liam goes after her, and I couldn't get the image of him waiting at the tree for her, and watching her run in crying and it got me thinking of how he found her in the first place back when they met. Had he been walking around and heard her crying? Or had he seen her before. I wanted to know where his head was at in an actin that had caused everything. So that being said, here's a little random chapter from Liam's POV. Rae left in a rush, leaving us all behind in an uncomfortable silence. “Well,” Louis sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “That could have gone better.” “You think?” Harry snapped, cracking his knuckles in a nervous gestured I hadn’t ever realized he had. Niall ran his hands through his hair as he paced about the room. We all looked at one another, unable to really say anything. Rae’s reaction had been what all of us had expected deep down, but of course not what we wanted. Each of us had been hoping that she would on the spot have an answer. It was silly, it was foolish to believe that because the last time we had seen her we had been telling her to do the exact opposite thing. How else should we have expected her to respond? “I’m going to go check on her.” I said, pointing towards the door. Each of the four other guys looked at me, and I waited for someone to protest. “Yeah, alright.” Zayn nodded. “You’re probably the only one she would want to talk to about this.” I nodded a thanks at the other lads for not putting up a fight and hurried out of the apartment, shrugging my jacket on. Outside I flagged a cab, giving the destination without a thought. As I sat in the back, I stared out the window not processing anything that I saw. My head was spinning with images of the whole day. The way her face had dropped when we had told her what was really going on, the way she flinched away from us, the way she didn’t say she loved us when she left. All the things that were wrong about her reaction, all the signs saying that her words had been true, she didn’t love any of us back, not like that. I thought about what I wanted to say to her when I saw her, but everything seemed silly. I couldn’t plan how she would react, not really. The taxi pulled over at the side of the road, but instead of getting out I turned to the driver. “I’m just waiting on someone to arrive, then I’ll be out.” He nodded as I began to focus my gaze out the window. I could see the tree in the distance, and I knew she wouldn’t be here yet. She had taken off running, her go to in a situation like this. She had taught herself to flee at the first sign of trouble and I had taught her to come here to escape. After another five minutes of waiting I saw her flying down the walk, straight past the cab and into the park. I couldn’t help but grin that she was so caught up that she didn’t even notice the cab. It wasn’t that I was happy she was upset, but it was one of the many things I loved about her, sometimes she was just so lost in her own head. “Thanks mate.” I said, leaning forward and handing the driver the fare and a little extra for waiting before I climbed out, slamming the door shut. I took a deep breath, finally nervous. It brought me back to the very first time I had seen her. It had been right here. I had been sitting on the bench that I could see ahead of me now. I was deep in thought, having just spoken to Noelle on the phone in the most painful and uncomfortable conversation of my life. Not that it had anything on today of course. But I was getting lost in my head at the words that she had said. She had seen my on the TV that day, I sounded incredible, she missed me, she hopped I was doing alright, that she was sorry that she still cared about me that she wanted to give us another shot. I had been in agony. That was the only way to describe the way I had been feeling at the moment. And I was alone in the city, living with four boys I barely knew and god I just wanted someone to take the pain away. And as I sat there alone and in pain I had seen her go running by. Her dark hair had been streaming out behind her as she ran in her party dress, breathing heavy in a way that said she was crying. The way she moved showed that she was in pain, not a physical kind but an emotional one and suddenly I didn’t feel quite so alone. I watched her run up the path and duck through the covering of a tree that hadn’t struck me as anything spectacular before her appearance. Seeing her in those few seconds, with her not having the slightest idea that I existed was enough. It brought me back to myself a bit. How I had been feeling a few seconds ago, alone and in an immense pain I knew she was feeling it too. And because I knew we were both feeling the same thing it seemed like fate. Like she was the answer to everything I had been feeling and wanting and we were both unknowingly drawn here, to one another. My misery was attracted to her, and I wanted to stop hers. I thought that if I could help her, my pain would lessen too. I stood up from the bench and began to walk towards the tree she had disappeared through. I examined it as I approached; it was old, the branches were long and drooping in a way that made the tree look as if it came out of a storybook. In my head I saw it was an entrance to another world, that this strange sad girl had just opened the door to another universe and unknowingly invited me on an adventure with her. How right I had been about everything, but also how wrong. I paused before I went in, to make sure I hadn’t been making it all up in my head in lonely desperation, but I heard the soft sobs. I looked back at the tree and wondered why she came here, what comforts it held and if she would mind if I joined her. I thought about what I was going to say, how I was going to introduce myself, what I was going to say so I didn’t sound as strange as I’m sure I was going to. I just wanted to help her. And myself. The two went hand in hand. I pushed the branches aside as what I was going to say came to me. “I um, heard some crying coming from this tree,” I said, mind going blank for a second as she focused in on me. Her eyes weren’t exactly inviting, but she wasn’t telling me to leave either. “I wanted to make sure it was okay. I mean, it is called a weeping willow after all.” She raised her eyebrows in surprise and let out a small chuckle as she wiped her eyes, giving my nerves a calm to continue. “Oh come on, that was a bit clever, what I said right there, it deserves a bit more of a response than that.” I joked cautiously, hoping I wasn’t pushing my luck. I wasn’t though, I learned as she smiled back at me. And when her face lit up like that, even when she was still so sad, I could tell that she was beautiful. And I could tell that I would do anything to make her happy like this forever, like she was supposed to be. I had been right, if I could make her feel better I would too, like we were intwined without even realising it. If we hadn’t been, why would she have happened to run by me, on my park bench out of all the park benches in all the parks of all of London, hell, of all the world? Just like that it was like fate had handed me something precious. I wondered if she felt it too, if she could tell what I knew, or if she didn’t notice it yet. Because she had come running into my life without noticing it, and if I hadn’t joined her here she never would have had a clue, except perhaps the feeling that maybe something, someone was missing. But she ripped into my life like a tornado, turning everything upside down and I knew within the first minute of meeting her that nothing was ever going to be the same again. And I had been very right about that. I thought as I walked up to the giant, looming tree. It didn’t look foreboding to me any long; now I saw that the old age was truly kindness that the tree held, a comfort to any who hide under it’s branches. I paused outside, hearing her cry inside the tree and trying to not let myself realise that unlike last time she was fully aware of who I was, and that I managed to just have a little part of the pain that she was in. And I knew that ending my misery wouldn’t necessarily end hers and vice versa. Hers could end and I would still be in endless pain. That for once our happiness might not come from the same thing, and that was each other. I felt my breath catch as I realised that just as suddenly as our fates had twined that day a year and a half ago, they came apart in a snap. It should have been my first warning sign, but I was too preoccupied to catch it. Instead, I pushed the branches aside and stumbled into the tree, feeling just as nervous and unprepared as I had before. "You know you're in a situation that many other girls would kill for?" I asked. When she looked up at me again I couldn’t help but feel the comfort of knowing that she still looked as beautiful today as she had that first day.
