This Town

Chapter Fifty Five

For the next couple of months, we started to hang out a little more. Apparently, David was also some sort of DJ who had recently become quite popular on the continent, so the bartending thing was just a side job. But it meant he was gone a lot. She went with him a few times but mostly she hung out in London to work on her own music, usually travelling to wherever he was on the weekends. All things she had once done for me.

But, one good thing about him being gone a lot, was that the two of us could spend more time together. Which is what we did and I liked it that way. Things were finally starting to feel right again. Even though she wasn't mine completely, I settled with having my best friend back.

A new dynamic between us began to form and it was really kind of amazing. Because she had finally taken the steps to being a musician and singer, we sort of formed a little songwriting circle, just the two of us. We mostly worked on our music together. I wrote with my guitar as she did so on the piano. She finally let me into her apartment, which was quite nice. I saw her makeshift recording studio which seemed quite impressive.

"I bought this all with the money you continued to send me," she said one day. It made me smile that she took it and really made something out of it.

One day, we were working, hanging out at her place, writing and talking, throwing ideas back and forth, recommending changes and things like that, when I felt her eyes on me as I wrote down an idea that we had just discussed for a song of mine. I looked up at her and she had this look on her face that I hadn't seen before.

"You're going to make me blush if you keep looking at me like that," I joked.

She blushed at my comment, "Sorry. It's just..."

"Just what?" I asked.

"It's just we used to talk about doing just this and here we are." She smiled at me before she got up and went into her bedroom. I heard some shuffling around before she came back with an old shoe box.

"Come sit, Niall," she said, sitting on the floor at my feet. I slid off the couch and sat beside her.

"What's all this?" I asked.

"Memories." She softly smiled at me as she opened the box. Inside was all of our fair photographs as well as all the tickets and plane stubs and photos and mementos she had collected in our time together.

"Oh my god!" I said, as I picked up the photos from the fair and went through them. "Holy shit, we were goofballs."

She laughed, "Yeah we were."

"I can't believe you kept all this."

"Of course I did!" She looked at me like I was nuts for even asking. "Why would I not? These things, these memories...of us...they mean the world to me. These are the only things in the world that got me through life in that town. They mean everything to me." She got quiet as she looked down at all the things she had held on to. The parts of us she still held close.

"I still have mine, too." I smiled. "They're actually at my house, too. But I keep one in my wallet at all times," I said as I pulled my wallet out of my pocket, opening it up, and taking out the photo that I have looked at every night since she gave it to me before I left for X-Factor.

"Hey! That one is mine!" she play yelled at me as she grabbed a hold of me in order to grab the photo from my hand. Her touch electrified me. "I've been wondering where this was."

"You don't remember giving it to me?" I asked, as I regained my composure, hoping she didn't notice.

"No, I do. I just thought your dumbass lost it since you never gave it back."