The articles in the tabloids and trashy magazines had been damning, even soul destroying for her. News reports had been surfacing all week of sightings of him falling out of nightclubs with various women. It normally wouldn’t have bothered her for it was part and parcel of the reputation he had to uphold, one that had been bestowed upon him by his management as, in his own words, “no one likes you when you’re boring”. Usually it was all for the press, the same situations playing out in the media every time a new single or album was to be released but something had been bugging her as of late, creating a large knot of tension in her stomach. Over the last year or so every time he headed Stateside a blonde woman, whom she could not identify as being part of any PR scam ran by his management, could be seen with him on several occasions sending outraged fans on a rampage of creating sticky webs of rumours across the internet and filling up her Instagram feed with comments of pity and disgust. It made a change from the usual threats and comments about how “fat” and “ugly” she was -so many of his fans having never taken to her out of sheer jealousy for her being with someone that they could only idolise from afar. The rumour mill usually churned out variations of the same infidelity story over and over again just with a change in the female lead but she had always known they were lies; she was almost always made aware of whatever PR stunt was about to go down before it happened. This latest one, however, she hadn’t known of and it had completely thrown her. Staring at her from the front page of The Sun in huge black lettering it had been reported that the very same woman, whom Louis had since identified to her as being a friend of a friend called Briana, was almost certainly carrying his baby. She felt sick. Once she had been made aware of Louis’s connection to her, she had split drinks with this woman in a bid to profile her, finding her to be one of those parasitic leeches that hang onto celebrities in order to gain fame and sponsorship deals but apparently, in spite of her warning him, Louis hadn’t heeded her warning. Since it had been released to the public, the comments about her and her relationship had become so unbearable and, to be frank, quite scary over the last week that she had turned off the commenting feature altogether and had been even more grateful that she had no other social media accounts. Strangely, there had been no word from him as of yet despite her desperate failed attempts to get through to him. This only made the knot tighten. She knew that something was wrong this time, perhaps there was a little truth in the rumours that she could not escape from.

had resolved to buying herself an open-return ticket to Los Angeles, the location he was calling home for the next while or so whilst he wrote and recorded new music for his upcoming album. The sickening tension in her stomach had at first been taken over by anger and had now subsided, leaving her numb. She had spent the entirety of the flight in silence, speaking only when spoken to by flight attendants and trying to get as much rest as possible with her hood pulled up over her head. A red and black baseball cap stuck out from underneath it and she hoped that no one would recognise it as belonging to him. When she had landed it had been far too late to just show up at his front door so she had checked herself into a hotel a town or so away, hoping that a new day would result in a new found clarity about this whole situation.

Just as the sun was rising, found herself in a cab outside Louis’ home having been unable to sleep at all. She paid the driver, watching him speed off towards the main road. Luckily for her, in her haste to get there as quickly as she could, she had remembered to grab the keys that Louis had given to her the last time she had visited him out west. She held up a key fob and it silently buzzed her in. Shutting the gate behind her, she pulled her suitcase along a makeshift dirt path at the side of the driveway as she made a beeline for the front door. It was still locked, no doubt he was still asleep, probably blissfully unaware of what was even going on. He had been well trained not to go on social media or check the news coverage via his management and it was more or less the only thing he never rebelled against. She left her suitcase inside the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. This conversation was either going to be make or break and if it was going to be the former then she wanted to get away from there as quickly as she could, remembering from her last visit that there was a bus stop maybe a block away. Taking the stairs two by two, she tried to remember which room he had told her was his, having only stayed there in the guestroom with him once before amidst the renovations that had been taking part. She needn’t have worried about finding the right one for as soon as she got to the top she could hear an eerily familiar laugh and she knew immediately that her gut instincts had been right.

Instead of causing a scene, she knocked. She heard muffled whisperings.

“Louis; it’s me.”

Again she could only her distorted sounds and a remark that sounded like “oh shit”.

“Just a minute, love.” He appeared a short while later, his boxers a creased mess. If she hadn’t known any better she would’ve sworn that they had been slept in rather than the creases being the result of them having lain on the floor in a crumpled heap along with the rest of his clothes, presumably from an awards show the night before. He pulled her into a warm hug. As he did she saw what looked like a pink-ish stain on the collar of his discarded shirt.

“What are you doing here?”

She stepped back from him and shrugged, “I missed you so I thought I would surprise you. I couldn’t be without you for another day, never mind an entire month.” She took in his face. He was clearly surprised and definitely trying to hide something, or someone rather, from her, “Are you OK? You’ve gone really pale.” She laid on a thick tone of concern and she could almost see him starting to sweat. Good.

“I’m just in shock.” He let her into the room. Unbeknownst to him, she was picking up on every single time he stole a sneaky glance at the en-suite door. He seemed to be buying her cluelessness. Even better.

“Whose is the glass?” She pointed at a tumbler stained with red lipstick.

His face turned ghostly as he thought up a lie; “Oh, that’ll be Lottie’s from last night. We had a drink together before she went out.” He offered her a seat on the bed to which she declined. She knew exactly what had happened in that bed just minutes before.

“I’d better not. I’ve only just come from the airport and I’m a mess. I just want to jump in the shower and get clean – you know what it’s like after you’ve been travelling.” She moved past him and he was about to dive in front of her when she stopped.

“Oh, you know what?”

He shook his head at her, glad for the extra time. Hopefully Briana had managed to get her clothes back on before he tried to distract so that she could sneak out without being noticed.

“I’ve only gone and left my case downstairs.”

He tried to joke around with her, “Well that was silly. Why don’t you go take a hot bath in the main bathroom – I know you wanted to take the tub home after your last visit – and I’ll bring your case up for you?”

She looked like she could’ve kissed him. He was really falling for her act.

“You know; you are just so good to me,” she tried not to vomit as she spoke, plastering on a fake grin instead, “far too good.”

“Hmmm… Yeah. Too good.” His guilt-laden words were quiet and he tried to cover it up with a smile to match hers. He went to show her to way, past the room they had shared the previous summer but she stopped him from entering.

“Why don’t you go back to bed for a bit? You’ll be knackered from recording late.” Thankfully, before she had temporarily shut off the comments on her own account, she had seen via his Instagram that he had been in the studio recently.

“Good idea,” he couldn’t believe his luck, “Although, I would much rather be in there with you.”

Again she tried not to be sick, “Tell you what; give me five minutes and then you can join me.”

“Perfect.” He watched after her as she closed the door to the bathroom. Once inside, turned on the sink taps and then stood by the door, her ear pressed up against it. She could hear him sigh in frustration before the thunder of his footsteps running back to his room became the only thing she could hear over the water. She could tell he was panicking. She peeked out from behind the door, careful not to make a sound. His door clicked shut. She turned off the taps and creeped her way over to the door.

She burst back into his room without a second thought. A scream was heard and she saw Briana jumping up from the bed taking the sheet with her to cover up, well, whatever she had left other than dignity or modesty. Louis just stood there with his eyes wide open, his attempts to get her dressed and out of the house now futile.

“So this is what happens when I’m not here,” she folded her arms tightly across her chest but not before gesturing at the glass; “I knew that shade of lipstick wasn’t Lottie’s – she would never wear such a slutty colour.” She turned to Briana who was trying her best to cover herself up. “My bet is you were waiting in the bathroom for me to leave.”

Her eyes flew to the gentle curve of the woman’s stomach and scoffed loudly, “And it looks like the rumours are true.”

As she tried to leave she felt a masculine hand cover her own, in an attempt to stop her. She moved her hand out of his reach. “Good luck with your life Louis. You’re going to need it.”

She had expected to feel something by now, anything, but she was still just numb.

“Oh, and Louis? I don’t want to see or hear from you ever again so I will be leaving your keys and your stuff with your little sisters. You can be the one to explain to them why the woman they’ve grown up calling their big sister is no longer around. They’ll be ones who are the most heartbroken for your actions.”

sped-walked towards the door she had entered from. Her suitcase made no sound as she took it by the handle and wheeled it across the carpet. Tears clouded her vision as she hurried to get outside. She hadn’t even been aware that anyone else was in until she stumbled back having collided with them. A long, bleached-blonde head of hair looked up from her phone at her.

“?”

She sniffled trying to compose herself. She didn’t want anyone to know just how upset she was; “Oh, eh, hi Lottie.”

The young woman slid her phone into her pocket, reaching her other hand out to touch her on the arm, “Are you OK?” It was apparent that she was just getting home, probably after being out all night with her friends.

She forced a smile, “Yeah; I’m fine. As much as I really want to catch up; I have to go. My flight leaves soon.”

“But you only just got here,” her face contorted with confusion.

“I really don’t feel like sticking around considering that I just broke up with him.”

“I don’t understand. Everything was fine last night; he wouldn’t stop going on about how much he missed you and you were just as enthusiastic about surprising him a few days ago.”

closed her eyes, fighting to stop herself from completely falling apart, “I think he was just feeling guilty when he said that.”

When Lottie failed to question her, she answered anyway;

“It turns out your brother wasn’t up for a visit. Well, actually; he was. It just wasn’t from me.” “I still don’t….”

sighed, “I’m sorry, Lottie, but I really have to go.” She gave her suitcase a sharp tug and turned, walking away as fast as she could. Stopping at steps, she grabbed her case by the handle and hurried down the stairs with it.

She got to the gate just as Lottie called out after her:

“Wait! What happened?”

turned to her, catching Louis staring at her in disbelief from his bedroom window, “Ask Louis and Briana.” And with that the gates closed over, severing her from her old life altogether.