"Louis?" she whispered hoarsely when he pulled away to undo his zip. She wasn't even sure what she wanted to ask, but when he smiled at her grimly, it reminded her of a smile belonging to someone in her history textbook, of a miner in the '80s putting on a brave face as he went back to work after the strike had been called off. She closed her eyes, and bit her lip, not wanting to see him look at her like that again. With that look, she could have been anyone. She might as well have been a stranger.
He leaned back down and kissed her. "I'm sorry I shouted." He undid her jeans with one hand and tugged them down to her ankles, before running a hand along her thigh and hooking his fingers around the waistband of her knickers. "I'm sorry I made you cry, Issy."
"It doesn't matter," she gasped, finally managing to free her arms and hooking them around his neck. "I'm really sorry, Louis."
"Are you gonna be a good girl now?" he said slowly, pulling down her knickers. She nodded, her eyes wide, her heart hammering with expectancy. "You're still on the pill?"
She nodded, forcing herself not to roll her eyes. He asked her this every time they had sex, even if it had only been a day, just in case she'd suddenly decided to come off birth control without bothering to mention it. He was unreasonably terrified he would get her pregnant, she knew, even though he never said it; after meeting his parents, though, she was starting to think his fear might be a little justified.
It was over quickly, and when he was spent Louis collapsed down on top of her, his hot breath pooling in her neck as she trailed a finger down the damp back of his shirt.
If there was any time when she felt loved by Louis, it would be when she had sex with him. When he was closer than anyone had ever been with her, when his breath was fanning across her face and his hair brushing her forehead, losing control because of her and only her. She made herself forget that most of the time, though, she felt like it didn't matter that it was her beneath him, and that he would be exactly the same with any other girl. That she was exchangeable, dispensable.
"Look at me, Louis," she said, her voice coming out stilted with her broken and uneven breath. He hadn't even made her come, but she was permeated with the desire to tell him what she'd been holding back for months, and it was making her nervous and breathless. He forced his head up, yanking his heavy eyes open and staring down at her with eyes bluer than the sky in summer, the only clear thing in her blurry field of vision.
He was the only thing she was sure of. Even when he made her cry, made her feel silly and childish and unworthy of attention, even when she felt like she could be someone else and he wouldn't care, one kiss, one soft touch and she was his. There was nothing she could do to change the fact that she would follow him to every corner of the earth if he asked her, because she didn't like to focus on a lot of things but she could always focus on him. And that's what she thought love was, really.
"I love you," she whispered.
Louis blinked at her for a second, a frown forming between his eyebrows, before he pulled away from her. Isabel let her eyes fall shut, biting down on her lip and trying her best not to panic.
When she opened her eyes, Louis was kneeling on the seat between her legs, zipping up his trousers and staring at her with a hostile sort of gaze. She stared at him, a bit unable to breathe all of a sudden.
"What's wrong?" she asked quietly.
"Put your jeans back on, Issy," he replied, equally as soft. She did as he said, her heart beating frantically. He was acting weird. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed.
"Are Tom and Danny home?" she squeaked. "Lloyd stays with Yasmin on Saturday nights, right? So he's not in?"
"Maybe it's best if you don't come in, babe," he said, avoiding her eyes.
"But I ... why?"
"I just – it's been a stressful night. I just wanna go to sleep."
He was still staring out of the window, away from her, and she blinked back tears again, chewing on her nails. "Is this –"
He sighed. "Let's not talk about this now."
"I want to talk about it now," she countered quietly, and he took a deep, exasperated breath.
"What's got into you tonight?" he said heatedly, his nostrils flaring. "Why are you answering me back like that?"
"I'm not your child, Louis," she retorted. "I'm allowed to say when I think you're being unfair."
"How I feel," he countered with laboured breaths, trying to keep calm, "what I feel for you, what I feel about us, is not unfair. I don't know why the fuck you just said that to me, Isabel, but I think you need time to cool down, okay? Don't go throwing shit like that around."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her nails digging into her palms as she tried her best not to cry. He said nothing.
"So you're just gonna make me go? After all of this?" she asked. He didn't know what to respond, just stared at the headrest of the seats in front instead of looking at her. "It's after midnight and my phone died."
"You only live fifteen minutes away, you'll be fine."
"It's raining." Isabel waited for him to reply, to say something else, anything else. He didn't.
Stung, she climbed out of the car into the rain, staring at the car only for a minute before taking off down the road and bursting into angry tears. Before she knew where she was going, she was turning away from the direction of her house and stomping down the street, her hands buried in her pockets and her teeth biting so hard into her lip that she drew blood. She couldn't go home, not now. The girls would only want her to go through the entire evening blow by blow, or even worse, they'd be asleep and she'd be alone. They would eventually be on Louis' side, dismissing his actions as him being a stupid boy, that he would come around, that he didn't mean it. Everyone she knew was always on Louis' side. Except...
Harry.
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