9 months earlier

"You know, I never get tired of this place," Lauren Allworth says to me. We're sitting in an almost too familiar booth at a local restaurant, Stilwell's. Named after someone's great great great grandfather or something along those lines. Lauren and I have been coming to this place since freshmen year in high school. It's always stayed exactly the same throughout all of the years, and that's what I loved about it. Of course I loved the food, but Stilwell's was an odd constant in my life. For the past 8 years I've been around this place absolutely nothing has changed and it was perfect.

"We haven't been here together in a while," I point out.

"That's true. I feel like we haven't hung out in a while!" Lauren says. "I miss you." She puts on a fake pouting face, making me laugh. "Emma why don't we hang out anymore," she whines.

"Because you live forty-five minutes away," I whine back. Lauren smirks, her amber eyes lighting up. I was always slighty jealous of her eyes. They were the oddest shade of brown, like honey and they always sparkled. They didn't match the tone of her tanned skin and her wavy beach blonde hair that reached her collarbone, yet at the same time they matched perfectly. Lauren was no doubt beautiful, and everyone knew it.

"Let's do something this weekend, I'll close the store and we can go out! It'll be so much fun I promise," she says, seeing the look on my face. I've never been particularly outgoing, and I hate that about myself. I'm not self conscious at all really, I'm just not good at talking to other people, and I've never really liked big crowds. In high school, I never understood the people who had giant groups of friends; I preferred only a few close friends that I did everything with.

"Well....." I say, dragging out the L sound. "Okay, it sounds fun. I'll do something with you. Have anything in mind?"

"I think there's a festival this weekend, and we shall be going," Lauren announces, finshing her meal.

"Alright, sounds great. I should probably get back to work, I've been late every day this week," I laugh, and Lauren rolls her eyes. "Bye!" I wave to her as she gets in her car, and I begin walking. It was nice out, and I don't live far from work or from Stilwell's so I decided to get some exercise in.

"Bye, Emma! I'll text you more details later!" she says, and drives away. I begin the journey back to my place of work, McClellan Orthopedics. I work in the physical therapy department there as an assistant. It's basically the same thing as an actually physical therapist, except you make less money. Obviously there are more differences, but that's what I tell most people who ask.

I'm greeted by receptionist Marcy as I walk in. Marcy is always so kind and does such a thorough job. "Hi Emma! Have a nice lunch?" she asks brightly. I nod, and ask the same. "Oh yes, I went out with John, it was wonderful! Have a good rest of the day!" she says, her dark dark purple hair swinging in her ponytail. I laugh to myself. No matter the situation, Marcy is always upbeat and happy. She makes a great receptionist.

I make my way back to the "training room" as we call it and discover that I am the last to arrive back from lunch, despite the fact that there's still a good ten minutes left to kill.

"Look who finally showed up," someone sneers. I look up to see who it was, seeing that it was another assistant, Louis Tomlinson. I roll my eyes and laugh.

"I don't know why you all show up so early," I reply. By you all, I'm referring to the rest of the employees. There's Aspen Knight, "my" physical therapist. Dr. McClellan wants all assistants to be assigned to a PT, so he paired me up with Aspen. We've actually grown really close, and we're good friends. Then you have Eli Smith, Louis's PT. He's quiet at first, but once you get to know him, he's always cracking jokes. Finally we have Harry Styles. He is an assistant, but sadly doesn't have a PT to guide him. For a good year, Dr. McClellan followed him around, giving him tips and pointers until he was basically an actually therapist himself.

We're a generally small office, but it is family owned, and very sucsessful. We're usually very busy, but I don't mind. I really do love my job, it's very fun. And I like all of my coworkers, which is fortunate. "When's our next appointment?" I ask Aspen.

"Um, I believe I have one at 1:15 and you have one at 1:15 and one at 1:30," she replies. I nod. That's not bad. Today's been kind of slow, but honestly I'm okay with it. I've been tired lately, and I don't really know why.

The rest of the day flies by, and before I know it, it's five o'clock and our last appointment has just left. I'm waving goodbye to Marcy and walking out the door when Harry catches up to me. "You walked right?" he asks and I nod. "Good, so did I. Now I have someone to walk home with," he says.

"That's all I'm good for? Walking you home?" I ask jokingly. Harry laughs as we turn onto the sidewalk. There are dark clouds piling onto each other in the near distance, and I find myself hoping it doesn't rain until I'm to my apartment.

Apparently everyone else in the city of Seattle thought it a good idea to walk today too, and the sidewalks are crowded. "So any big plans for the weekend, miss introvert?" Harry asks, a small smirk on his face. I roll my eyes; it's something I tend to do a lot.

"Actually, yes," I reply. "I'm going to a festival or something with my friend Lauren. You remember her, right? She's had appointments at our office a few times."

"Oh yeah, blonde hair? A few inches taller than you?" he asks. "She was nice." We were nearing Harry's apartment complex. Suddenly we heard a clap of thunder, and a few sprinkles fell out of the sky. "Oh it's going to rain," Harry says. "I can give you a ride if you need," he offers, and I politely decline.

"I'm only a few blocks down, it's no big deal," I say, looking up at him. He's barely over six feet tall, towering over me. I'm only five feet and four inches tall, which is relatively short for a twenty one year old. "I'll see you tomorrow!" I say, and keep walking. The sprinkle has turned into a light drizzle, and I curse myself for not bringing an umbrella, seeing others pulling them out of bags and purses.

The rain is coming down now, and I groan. My apartment is four blocks away, and I have no money for a cab. I sigh and keep walking, crossing my arms. Suddenly, the rain stops. Wait, no it doesn't. I can still hear it. What's going on? I'm confused until I realize that someone is holding an umbrella over my head. I look up and find a tall boy, with blonde hair and blue eyes framed with black glasses. He looks vaguely familiar.

"Oh, you don't have to do that, it's okay," I say, taken aback by the nice gesture.

"No, really, I'd love to help. You're the only one out here without an umbrella," he says, with a slight accent. Irish, I think. "You look familiar," he says, at the same time I start to say, "I think I know you from somewhere." We laugh and he starts over. "You look familiar, where have I seen you?" he asks, and I think about it for a second.

"Well...I don't know. I've lived here all of my life. You could've seen me anywhere honestly," I say, surprised at how easily I'm talking to him. A gust of wind blows through the streets, chilling my bare arms.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Emma," I say. "Emma Bailey. What's yours?"

"Niall Horan," he replies. Something clicks in my mind, and he says it outloud just as I'm thinking it. "We went to high school together!" he exclaims. "Senior year. We had a few classes together, but didn't talk much. That's where I've seen you before!"

"Ah," I say. "You're right! Wow, that's crazy that we ran into each other like this, especially since we never really talked."

"Well, I came round the corner and saw you talking to my lad Harry, actually. We were friends in high school as well," Niall explained.

"You know Harry? I work with him!" I say. "Wow what a weird coincidence." I rack my mind for memories of Niall Horan. He transferred to our school in the middle of junior year I believe, but we only had classes together senior year. I kept thinking. He...he was the one that- "Hey!" I exclaim. "Wait a second. You're the guy who went out with my friend Madison. And then ditched her one night for another girl. I remember you now," I say. Madison cried about this guy for days. They dated for six months, and then one night he ditched her for a different girl, and one she hated at that. Madison lives in Georgia now, and she actually doesn't like me much anymore, but I was still suspicious of Niall.

"Well, we all did stupid things in high school," Niall defends himself. I narrow my eyes. "Are you still friends with her?" he asks. I shake my head.

"She moved to Georgia but...that's not the point."

"Hmm," he grunted in response. "Well, Emma, I'd love to catch up sometime, you seem like a nice girl," he said when I told him we were about at my apartment. I nodded, not really paying much attention to what he was saying. Instead I was looking at his eyes. They were quite blue. An odd, almost cold shade of blue, reminding me of winter. I like them.

Suddenly his hand was grabbing my wrist. I gasped. "Let me write my number on your hand," he explained, and I stifled a laugh. It seemed odd and slightly juvenile to do that, but at the same time it was almost cute. I was still wary of him however. We reached my complex, and I began waving goodbye.

"Well it was nice meeting you...again," he says.

"Thank you for sharing your umbrella! Maybe I'll see you another time!" I waved goodbye and made my way up to my small home. When I got inside, I looked at the number on my hand. I put it in my phone. And then it hit me. This is a guy. That could possibly be interested in me. Guys were never interested in me! I figured that this was worth a call to Lauren, and so after I ate dinner, I gave her all the details.

When I hung up I felt strangely...excited? Or anxious? I hated that I got so worked up over little meaningless things. But still, as I fell asleep that night, I couldn't help but smile.

yayyyy chapter one! so like i said, i'll try and update at least once a week, maybe more if i can, and i'll try to make chapters as long as possible. on a side note, i'm making up all of these names and businesses, none of these are real, and if they sound similar to real things, then i didn't mean for that to happen! hope you're enjoying it so far(; i'll try to update tomorrow or sunday as well! thank you for reading and sorry this note is so long omg

-emily