February

Harry and Isabel turned to see Louis marching across the road, his car poorly parked opposite them and his arm slung over his head in a feeble attempt to keep his smart white shirt dry.

"I don't fucking believe this!" He was absolutely seething, his whole chest rising and falling as he stopped in front of them. Harry was at least an entire head taller than him, but Louis didn't seem to notice he was there. "I've been ringing you non-stop for two fucking hours!"

"Sorry, my phone must have died," Isabel replied in an attempt at nonchalance, but her hands were shaking. "I'm sorry, I didn't –"

"Okay, whatever, just get in the car," Louis snapped, turning on his heel without waiting for her to reply.

"Why, where are you going?"

"We're going for dinner with my parents," Louis said matter-of-factly. "I fucking forgot they were coming, and they really want to meet you, and fucking hell we can't be late so please let's just go."

"But I – I kind of made plans," she stuttered, and his face screwed up in confusion.

"Plans? What fucking plans? With who? Just cancel, they won't mind."

"With Harry." Isabel glanced up at him, and saw he was staring at Louis passively, his eyebrow raised slightly.

"Who's Harry?" Louis asked, rubbing a hand across his face in stress.

Harry gave a little wave, biting back a smile. Louis looked him up and down, his neck going red beneath his white shirt as he glared at him. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Isabel's friend," Harry replied cheerily, almost extending a hand to shake before deciding against it. "We met at work."

Louis whipped his head back to look at Isabel, who was anxiously dancing from foot to foot, her feet splashing in the puddles. "But you don't like the guy you work with."

"I never said that," she said quickly.

"Yes you did, Millie told me."

She laughed hastily. "That was in like January, Louis, I've mentioned Harry loads between now and then." She looked up at Harry, hoping he was still finding the exchange funny, but he was now staring into the distance, his tongue pressed into his cheek.

"I don't have time for this shit!" Louis tugged on his hair and glared furiously at her. "Isabel, get in the fucking car right now!"

"But I –"

Louis looked just about ready to explode when he suddenly, quite visibly, changed tactic. Softening his expression, he stroked Isabel's face gently and gazed into her eyes.

"Please, babe, you have no idea how much this has been worrying me. Please come with me, I need you there." It was almost pathetic how much Isabel wilted under his touch, and she tried and failed to keep her face stony. "They've been dying to meet you, I swear. Come on, Issy, come with me."

Louis lent down and brushed his lips against hers, tugging her bottom lip between his teeth slightly and swiping it with his tongue. Her heart hammered in her chest, gripping onto his smart shirt tightly, knowing with an aching heart she would follow him wherever he asked her to go.

Louis pulled away, giving Harry a look that Isabel didn't see before stalking off to the car without a second look. Isabel glanced at Harry, embarrassed that he'd been present for her and Louis' discussion, but he wasn't giving her the scathing, smug look she thought he would. Instead, he was staring at her with an expression she couldn't work out, a mixture of disappointment and disbelief and possibly even anger, the curls poking out from under his hood sopping wet and dripping in front of his face.

He didn't even need to speak – she knew what he would ask. Are you really gonna go with him?

Unfortunately for Harry, he was the only one of the three of them that hadn't known from the beginning that she would go all along.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she mumbled, avoiding his eyes, before scuttling across the road and into the car, leaving him there on the pavement in the rain with cold, clenched fists and an even colder expression.

~~~

When Isabel was eight years old, she went on a holiday to Mallorca with her mum, her sister and her brother. James was twelve, an awful age her mum always said, and he had made it his latest habit to irritate Isabel in every way possible. Savannah, at fifteen, was much too old to put up with his antics and spent all of her holiday pinned to Mum's side, reclining on sun loungers reading what Isabel had considered highly boring novels about sexually confused intellectuals who smoked cigarettes and meant everything ironically.

Savannah had always been this way – mature beyond her years, longing to be an adult. When she was little she had forced her younger siblings to be students in the classroom she had assembled in her bedroom, making a three-year-old Isabel write a fifteen minute long exam piece on cats versus dogs. When Savannah was a little older, she spent hours sitting in the kitchen with her mother making endless cups of tea and talking about things Isabel thought she'd never be able to understand. On this particular holiday, Savannah was in her absolute element, as Daddy wasn't there.

Isabel had constantly asked why – in the taxi on the way to the airport, in the airside coffee shop over a hot chocolate, on the plane as she clung to her mum's arm and the world beneath them turned miniscule, the cars becoming little toy ones like James used to leave all over the house that Daddy would always trip over, the houses and hills looking like they were moulded out of clay. Still, no one gave her an answer, and Savannah completed her transition into adulthood in the absence of another.

Isabel and James were playing in the sea one afternoon, the salt tangling their hair and pouring into their mouths and noses as they splashed each other. James dunked Isabel under the water continuously until she was gasping for air, her throat feeling as though it had been scratched with sandpaper as she swallowed more and more water.

"James!" she shrieked, coming up for air. "Stop it!"

"Stop being such a girl!" he'd replied, splashing her again so that she had to scrunch up her face in order to protect herself.

"Stop, James!" she insisted, pushing a hand through her sopping hair, strands of which were maize and white from the sun. "Stop or I'll tell –"

She had been about to say Daddy, and James knew.

"Dad isn't here," James pointed out with a sneer, but it didn't quite work as he licked his lips and looked around anxiously, as if Dad might pop out of the water any second now. He scratched his freckled nose, and Isabel thought his soaked, dark hair sticking out in every direction made him look like a confused hedgehog.

"I know," she replied. "Why isn't he here, James? Do you know?"

"Yes, of course I do," he snapped. "I'm just not allowed to tell you."

Isabel's bottom lip jutted out. "Why not? Why can't I know?"

"Because," James said haughtily as a way of explanation, though his hands were drawing nervous circles in the water.

Isabel ran a hand through her long blonde hair – she would cut it shoulder length and with a fringe, as it was now, under Savannah's instruction at the age of thirteen – and looked over to her mother and sister, who were lying side by side on sun loungers at the top of the sand.

"I'm going to ask Savvy," Isabel declared boldly, striking out towards the beach. James grabbed her arm roughly.

"She won't tell you," he insisted. "She's not gonna tell the baby."

"Maybe she will," Isabel conceded, yanking her arm away and attempting to run through the water, though it made her limbs heavy, like she was wading through a bowl of Nutella or one of those ball pits people had at birthday parties.

When she reached the sand, her toes sinking into the warm, soft surface, she took off at a sprint towards her sister, sand flying out behind her and sticking to her wet legs, the sun beating down on her back.

"Sav," she gasped as she got there, but she immediately stopped in her tracks, staring down at the pair of them. Her mum was crying, her head in her hands as Savannah rubbed her arm, worry etched into her young face.

"Issy!" Savannah bleated, and Mum raised her blotchy face in concern. "Why aren't you in the water with James?"

But Isabel had forgotten why she was there entirely. She stared at Mum's sad eyes, at the tearstains running down her face like raindrops on a window, and her bottom lip began to wobble.

"What's the matter, Mummy?" she asked quietly, and her mother held out an arm, inviting Isabel to sit next to her. Mum smiled at Isabel when she sat down, her eyes crinkling in the corners in the familiar way that made Isabel feel as though everything might be okay, that Mummy was only crying because she got some sand in her eye, or she stubbed her toe against the side of the sun lounger.

"The thing is, my baby," Mum said, in her familiar soft Swedish-accented voice, rubbing her hand up and down Isabel's arm. "Sometimes boys aren't very nice."

"Who? James?" Isabel asked, about to agree that he was horrible and merciless.

"No, not him," Mum shook her head, smiling slightly. "He'll be a good one, although probably a little slow on the uptake sometimes."

The three of them turned to watch James, who had made friends with a boy his age the instant Isabel had left, and the pair of them were running up and down the water's edge in glee as the warm water lapped around their feet.

"What Mum's trying to say," Savannah interjected, resting a hand on her little sister's knee, staring into Isabel's brown eyes with her grey ones, "is that sometimes boys do horrible things to girls, and leave them feeling upset. And you should never let any boy do that to you."

"How?" Isabel questioned softly, her eyes wide and curious. She kept her gaze trained on Savannah, her dark hair swept away from her face and eyes just like their father's – grey like the sky on a January morning though nowhere near as cold, not at all – and Savannah could only shrug.

"Find the right one," she said.

Mum hugged her close, pressing her lips into the crook of Isabel's neck as her back rested against her mother's chest.

"Or," Mummy whispered, her voice so soft that there was no way Savannah could hear it over the shrieks of children dropping their ice creams in the sand and parents shouting at older siblings for taking younger ones too near the shore without armbands. "Don't ever let him have your heart if you don't have his. That's the only way they can break it."

~~~

"So, History is it, Isabella?"

This was the third time tonight Louis' father had got her name wrong, and at this point Isabel was past correcting him. She and Louis were sitting opposite Matthew and Jaclyn Tomlinson, and weirdly, she felt as though she was at a job interview, if job interviews were accompanied by starched white tablecloths and food so expensive she'd had to reread the menu a number of times before she could be sure it was correct.

"Yes, that's right," Isabel replied, sipping on her wine only to be met with a surreptitious glare from Louis. If she got drunk, she was in no doubt she'd never hear the end of it.

"A good degree," was Jaclyn's assessment.

"Much better than Geography," agreed Matthew. "Isn't that right, Louis?"

"Geography's actually quite well-respected now, Dad," mumbled Louis in a rehearsed monotone.

"How are you finding it? We're thinking of History as a degree for Louis' younger sister."

"It's..." Inexplicably boring? Devoid of teaching me anything useful in the real world? Entirely not what she had expected? "...challenging."

"And Louis tells us you balance it alongside a part time job?" Jaclyn enquired.

"Oh, yes, I work at the bowling alley up in town, near the sea front."

Silence.

"Oh," Jaclyn said flatly, glancing at her husband who was squinting over at Isabel with a fair amount of condescension. "Is that right?"

"It pays fairly well," Isabel explained defensively, looking to Louis for support, but he was just sitting as stiff as a board, his head turning from his parents to his girlfriend as though he was at a tennis match. Isabel stared at him pointedly. "I can think of worse jobs."

He whipped his head towards her, glaring at her with such ferocity that she almost whimpered.

"We're hoping Louis will go into banking, like me," Matthew interjected. "So there probably aren't many opportunities at his age in that field."

"What do your parents do, Isabella, darling?" asked Jaclyn.

"Well, my parents are divorced, but my dad's a software developer. My mum's in recruitment, and my step-dad's a plumber."

"Ah, the food's here!" Louis practically bellowed before anyone could make any further remarks. "Dad and I got the same – the steak frites that's it – what did you get Issy?"

"Whereabouts in London are you from, Isabella?" Matthew continued, ignoring his son and the waiter entirely. "I've lived in and around Manchester all my life but I'm very familiar with London; my work requires I go there a lot."

"Just outside Hammersmith – I had the pasta, thank you."

"Oh yes, that does have some lovely parts to it," Jaclyn cut in, smiling down at her salad as the waiter placed it in front of her.

"Are you hoping to move back to London after university?"

"I'm not sure. Quite possibly."

"What is it you want to do? Work-wise, I mean?"

"I'm really not sure. I haven't thought about it yet."

Louis choked on a chip in an effort to chime into the conversation. "She's being very modest. She's very driven. I have no doubts she'll be an expert in whatever field she goes into. There's just too many options for her skillset to chose at the moment!"

Isabel gaped at him. "And what is it you want to do, Louis?"

He forced a smile, his teeth clenching and making his jaw flex as he did so. "We've spoken about this, sweetheart. I want to be a banker, like my father."

Sweetheart. A word so beautiful, usually laced with love and affection, as sweet as honey, spoken with soft eyes and an even softer touch. A word whispered between the sheets, from husbands to wives on cold evenings with their legs tangled on the sofa and their hearts hammering lazily, familiarly in their chests. Isabel had ached for it, for any affection, for so long that it almost hurt to hear him say it, to hear him bark it at her with a tight jaw and cold eyes.

She'd never been his sweetheart. And when he said it like that, she found she didn't want to be.

~~~

Isabel leaned her head against the cold window of Louis' car. The rain was persistent even though it was after midnight now; it was battering down against the windscreen and echoing through the car, but nothing could be louder than the silence between them.

Louis hadn't even looked at her since the dinner had ended, and for once Isabel didn't try and make him. She closed her eyes, wishing the rain could wash away this disaster of an evening.

When Louis finally spoke, it cut through the silence like a knife and made Isabel jump. "Thanks a fucking bunch, Isabel," he said sulkily.

"What did I do?!" Isabel asked incredulously.

"Embarrassed me in front of my parents!" Louis snapped. "Jesus, you were awful."

She looked at him blankly. "I don't understand. I tried my best to –"

"Whatever," Louis cut her off, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly as he drove. "You let me down, as fucking per."

Her heart tugged. "How?" she asked. "I'm sorry, Louis, I –"

"Can you stop apologising for one fucking second of your life? It's so annoying," he yelled. "God, could you not have been –"

"Been what?" she exploded, her heart accelerating in her chest. "Been a little less low-to-middle class? Been a little more conservative? Did you want me to – to fucking turn up an entirely new person? That's kind of hard when you give me a ten minute fucking warning!"

"All right, Jesus fucking Christ," Louis snapped, taken aback. "No need to speak to me like that."

"Sorry," she said automatically, before adding: "But I'm kind of sick of you speaking to me like this."

"You're unbelievable," he said with a roll of his eyes. "What have I done to you, huh? I bring you out for the nicest dinner you've probably ever fucking had with my parents – who never shut up about meeting you – and you try and bring up the whole dealing situation? I just – what the fuck was that?"

"You were all being so condescending, you still are!"

"Oh, grow up Isabel," he spat, cutting the curb as he turned the corner roughly. "The spoilt little brat didn't get her way for once. What a fucking Greek tragedy."

Isabel's jaw dropped, tears burning threateningly in her eyes. "W-What? How can you say that?"

"Easily. You've changed since I met you. You were so sweet those first few months, all wide-eyed and innocent. My parents would have loved that girl."

"Nothing's changed! I look the same, I act the same - well, mostly. If I've changed, Louis, it's because you changed me. You – you've introduced me to everyone, you made me p–"

"Popular? Is that what you were gonna say?" He snorted, and Isabel felt like she'd been punched. "Listen, babe, don't get ahead of yourself."

"Why do you do this, Louis?" Isabel said, her voice small and mumbly, and although she'd like to have sounded defiant she just sounded stamped on, wrung out. She wiped at her damp face roughly, sniffing. "Why do you ... you know it really bloody hurts, sometimes. I hate it."

He groaned loudly. "Why are you so sensitive? Why can't you be like every other fucking girl round here and take it on the chin a bit instead of guilt tripping me for every bloody thing I say!"

He parked roughly outside his house, yanking on the handbrake and glaring at her.

"Why are you even with me then?" she asked, hating how pathetic it sounded. "If every other girl round here is better than me, why did you even go out with me in the first place?." He sat in silence, eyeing her with a straight face. "Tell me, Louis! Tell me, then, why you –"

Before Isabel could say another word, Louis leaned across the console and smashed his lips to hers, grabbing her face with his hand and forcing his tongue into her mouth. She whimpered at the sudden force of his kiss, before melting against the doorframe and grabbing his hair in her fist. He was kissing her hungrily, hands grabbing at her clothes roughly, as if he only had minutes with her and not the entire night.

He pulled back, staring into her eyes with his dilated pupils, his hair messy and his expression determined. "Get in the back."

"We're gonna do this ... in the car?" she asked timidly, a little horrified at the thought. He rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Yes, it's hot. Normal people like doing stuff like this. Get in the back now."

Isabel gulped and then nodded, climbing over the console and laying back across the seats, which were spotless and immaculately clean as usual. Her heart thumped hysterically as he followed her, kneeling over her as she lay, still and silent, beneath him. His lips reconnected with hers, his kiss open mouthed and needy, his hands roaming across her body, squeezing her breasts, inching down her sides, rubbing her thighs. Isabel wanted to rip off his shirt and feel his chest against