A World of Differences [1DFF]

Chapter 56

About Four Years Earlier (Lauren's POV)

I ran and I ran. Faster and faster. Farther and farther until I knew he wouldn't find me. I was soaking wet and cold. Sobs shook my tiny body as I fell against the stump of the tree.

I had no idea what I was going to do. I loved Louis. I really loved him but he was four years older- I wasn't ready. I couldn't live up to the expectations he surely had. As much as it killed me, I was going to have to lie. I would have to tell him I didn't love him that way, because I couldn't be in a relationship with him right now. I just couldn't.

Present Time (Lauren's POV)

I had picked a great place to hide. Back behind the stadium –no one would find me here. Not even fans came back here.

The sun began to set and the temperature dropped rapidly. Goosebumps took over my skin as the stream of tears began to freeze on my face.

I don't know how long I sat there, but it felt like hours.

My face was stained with tears, my eyes puffy and red.

My arms were wrapped around my knees which were pulled to my chest. That's when he came out.

"I'm not in the mood to talk," I mumbled as he sat beside me.

"Well that makes two of us," Liam sighed. I glance up at him slightly. The bruises on his cheek had faded over the weeks and were now barely noticeable.

"How'd you find me?"

"I heard the shouting. Then Louis flooded onto the stage crying. I figured you were too." Louis was crying? "I knew I had to find you. Since you weren't in the building, I figured I would look at the place where I went when I wanted to be alone."

The memory of mine and Liam's first kiss swept over me once again. We were in the exact same spot, and it seemed like nothing had changed.

He was broken again –even more broken than after he and Danielle broke up—and it was all my fault. There was this stabbing pain in my heart. Charlotte hadn't been mad once I had explained, but the more time away from Charlotte Liam spent, the more distant he became from us. In theory, it was all my fault.

"Liam... I..." I sniffed.

"Please don't say you're sorry Lauren, because we are both in a bad place right now and it's not really anyone's fault." His voice was extremely low, something that I had come to recognize as pain.

"What are we going to do?" my teeth chattered from the cold.

It took Liam all of two seconds to shrug off his grey Jack Wills sweatshirt and place it over my shoulders.

"Me? I'm going to sit here and I'm gonna wait for Charlotte to figure out what she needs to figure out. That's the right thing, and the only thing that I can do." He took a really deep breath, the realization hitting him hard.

"I'm sorry," I placed my hand on his knee. "I'm sorry that it came to this. I know neither of us expected this and we definitely didn't want it."

He nodded, his brown eyes were damp. "And you," his voice cracked from the pain he was swallowing, "Well you are gonna go in there and tell Louis everything he needs to know. But you can't yell at him. Louis doesn't listen to people who yell."