Lucy

The girls and I grinned as we walked down the small sidewalk outside of the school. We had been waiting for this day since the end of the summer. We’d gone through a whole trimester, plus half of another, just waiting. Finally, it was here.

The assistant principal stood outside of the school, directing traffic for the parents of the underclassmen who needed to be picked up. As we walked past her across the crosswalk that led to the parking lot, we gave her a small wave and a smile. She knew us fairly well, but it was for good things. We had never been the troublemakers of the school.

When we were in the parking lot, I saw the van across from me. I chewed my lip, thinking about what was going to happen. After all, I wasn’t sure where I stood with Niall anymore. We had Skyped a bit when we had time, and had been texting and calling a lot too. But, after what I said at the airport, admitting my feelings and all, I was nervous.

I glanced over at each of my friends. Lizzie, Courtney and Ana all looked very happy, probably excited to see their boyfriends and their friends. Simone looked happy, but it was a different level than Lizzie, Courtney and Ana. She was just excited to see her best friends, not her boyfriend.

And then there was Kelly, who looked happy, yet, nervous. She was definitely the one I could relate to. She was nervous to see Zayn after all that drama that happened with them over the summer, and I was nervous to see Niall.

I pushed the thoughts out of my head as we reached the van doors. Courtney knocked on the front passenger’s side window, and said, “Hey, let us in!”

The window rolled down to reveal not any of the 1D boys, or Courtney’s brother Kyle, but a dark haired boy that the girls and I all knew well. “What’s the magic word?” he asked, smirking at us.

“Michael!” Lizzie exclaimed, grinning. She threw her arms through the window and hugged her brother tightly. “I thought you weren’t coming home for Christmas!”

“Surprise,” Michael said, smiling. I couldn’t believe it myself. It was actually him, Airman Michael Nelson, home from the war! This was another early Christmas present.

From the driver’s side, Kyle spoke up. “What am I, chopped liver?” he asked, looking pointedly at his sister. He removed his hands from the wheel and crossed them over his chest, frowning.

“Ask me that after you’ve come back from war,” Courtney said, and went to hug Michael next. We all gave Michael a hug too. We hadn’t seen him in person in eighteen months! “Are our bags in the back?” she asked both of them.

“Yup. I piled all of them in before going to the airport,” Kyle said. “You girls have a lot of suitcases!” He exclaimed as Kelly hugged Michael.

Most of us complained about the fact that we only had one bag, or two if you were Ana (“I had a suitcase and an ice skate bag, that’s it!”), but Courtney was silent. Oh gosh. How many were there this time?

As Simone hugged him, she looked at him. “Great that you’re back, Mikey,” she said, using the pet name that we all knew he hated, “but can you open the door? We’re freezing out here,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said. His lips had curved into a frown when Simone had spoken, and it was obvious that he definitely still hated that. Poor guy. He unlocked the door, and his facial expression changed to give her a smile. He let the automatic door slide open for us to get in, only to be met with the smiling faces of the five members of One Direction. Harry and Liam were sitting in the front row, while Louis, Niall and Zayn sat behind them.

I felt my lips curve into a happy smile as I saw them. “Hey, guys,” I said, slightly nervous since Niall was there. In my head I told myself to calm down, knowing that we were friends and I shouldn’t be nervous. But, then again, he still was Niall Horan, the guy I was never sure I could tell my real feelings to. He was the guy that I thought of when I was sad, and it made me feel so much better whenever I did. But he was also the guy that left for months on end, and our only way of contacting one another was using electronics instead of talking face to face like I wished. I pushed those thoughts out of my head, and smiled at the boys.

“Hey,” they chorused, smiling at us as we all climbed in. As soon as we were all in, Kelly shut the door behind us. She almost caught her own foot in the doorway. After all, if the door was open, it was only a matter of time before someone saw the boys and freaked out. We all took seats in the back two rows, since the boys had the front. Liam pulled the door shut, and Kyle drove off.

As we drove down Main Street towards the highway, all five of the 1D boys turned to face us. “It’s so good to see you girls again,” Zayn said.

 “We’ve missed you guys too,” Kelly said, smiling. “Tons,” she added. The two of them smiled at each other, and the rest of us shared a look, but there wasn’t much noise. Everyone knew that they hadn’t been able to share their feelings the best, so to see the two of them have this little moment, they deserved some quiet time.

“There better not be any kissing going on back there,” Michael joked, breaking the silence from the front seat. Leave it to Michael to ruin the sweet romantic moment. Courtney had reported multiple moments like that from when she had other boyfriends around in previous summers. Michael would just come down and make it awkward for everyone again.

“Yeah, no PDA in my van,” Kyle added, joining his friend in ruining everything. What I noticed, however, was that Kyle was smiling and laughing as he did this, but Michael had a straight face as he joked.

He was joking, right?

“No PDA? Seriously?” Courtney asked. “Oh, Olivia’s going to like that,” she taunted, causing the girls and I to laugh. In the mirror, we could see the older boy start to blush at the mentioning of Olivia. Aw, wasn’t that adorable?

“Who’s Olivia?” Harry asked curiously.

“His girlfriend that he met in college,” Lizzie said. “We’ll be at Courtney’s while she’s Skyping him from college, and he literally won’t shut up about her.” She let out a small laugh at the thought, and Kyle’s cheeks burned even brighter.

“He talked about her for five minutes straight before we interrupted him, and then went back to talking about her,” Simone added, smiling a bit. Could Kyle’s cheeks go back to normal? Or would they just be bright red?

“That’s sweet,” Liam said, smiling a bit.

“But annoying when you want to know what to expect about college life,” Ana mused, shrugging a bit. She had already started the application process to a variety of colleges. She was so determined to get into a good school.

“I still say it’s sweet,” Liam said, smiling.

“He wouldn’t shut up about you, Courtney,” Louis said, nudging Liam from behind him while smirking at Courtney. Courtney smiled happily when that happened, while Liam blushed a tiny bit.

“Neither would you about Lizzie, mate,” Niall said, elbowing the older guy next to him.

“I think we all wouldn’t shut up about talking about any of you,” Harry admitted, smiling at all of us.

“Can we cut the sappy romantic moments, please?” Michael asked us, glancing back from his front seat. Annoyance was written on his face. We weren’t being that obnoxious, at least I didn’t think so. We were just happy to see the boys again. Was that so wrong?

“Okay,” Ana said softly, and a silence filled the entire van. It was incredibly awkward. Nobody really had any ideas of what to say, to be honest.

After a little bit, Lizzie started up the same thing she had done at lunch today. “A, B, C, D, E, F, G…” she began, and we all started to laugh. I think I even heard Michael laugh a bit, which made me feel a bit better.

“Still doing that, Lizzie?” Michael asked.

“You know it. Everyone loves it anyway,” Lizzie answered, and we all smiled.

“It does help make an awkward moment go away,” Niall mused, giving us all smiles.

“I think we’ll have to use that later,” Louis said.

“It’ll be our thing,” Lizzie said, and we all grinned, laughing even more. The van ride wasn’t going to be boring, that’s for sure.

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“We’re here!” Kyle exclaimed, as he drove up the long driveway that led to the cabin. We all cheered, and I could see in the mirror that he was smiling. His cheeks were also back to his regular skin tone, as opposed to the shade they had been when we embarrassed him about Olivia. It was so cute.

We drove down the driveway (which was surprisingly plowed) through the snow covered trees until we reached the clearing that held our cabin in it. I smiled brightly seeing it through the front window. I heard the boys gasp, and the girls and I couldn’t help laughing softly at it. It was definitely something to be surprised at.

The cabin was just like I remembered it. The tall cabin loomed over the van, but was still shorter than the incredibly tall, snow covered trees around it. It towered two stories tall, and had practically a third story thanks to a large window that was placed over the second floor loft area. But, we could only see the second floor and the large window, thanks to the fact that the first floor was technically a basement that was able to be seen on three sides. Icicles hung from the roof and glistened in the fading sunlight in front of the large window and all around the building. And, a plowed path led up to the front door. Honestly, it resembled a ski resort to me, but it was like a second home to all of us.

“Looks like the Cresswells came by and plowed the path,” Ana said.

“That’s nice of them,” Kelly said with a small smile.

“Who are the Cresswells?” Liam asked us as Kyle parked in front of the building.

“You saw that one turn off before this driveway, right?” Kyle asked, turning back to face Liam. When he, and the other boys, nodded, Kyle continued. “They live there. We’ve seen each other every time we’re down here at least once. Tanner’s about Simone’s age, and Parker’s around the girls’ age,” he said. The boys nodded again. “Here, let’s head inside and unpack.”

We all nodded, and piled out of the van. We went to the back and pulled the suitcases and other bags out of the back, and went to the door. We waited for Michael to open it up when we got there. He had the key to the place in his hands. The girls and I also had our own keys, but they were in our bags. But, as we stood there, Michael hesitated. “Michael?” I asked him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, and pulled out the key. He put it in the lock and opened the door for us. “Welcome, everyone, to Elm Street Cabin!”

Again, I heard the boys gasp, which didn’t surprise me at all. After all, the inside of the cabin was pretty amazing. The first floor alone was beautiful. In the back left corner from the front door was a kitchen, which was already stocked with non-perishables. We had brought the other food; at least I think we did. In the other back corner, there was a long table. At least eighteen chairs were set up around it, and it ran a third of the length of the entire building. It made sense, considering it had to seat all five families on the Elm Street cul de sac. But it still was pretty huge.

Then, there was the lounge area that took up most of what was left of the floor. There was a TV on one wall and a couch in front of it. A Wii system was set up to it too, and there were plenty of supplies with it. I could see the drum set and two guitars for Rock Band positioned nearby. There was decent space between the TV and the couch for them to be moved into the area, and also it was open for dance parties. Of course, nearby was a section with a closet for storage and a bathroom.

On our left, behind a wall lined with coat hooks and boot racks, was the staircase that led to the bottom floor. That was the floor our families had set up as the bedrooms. We had six of them (yes, six, we had a lot of storage rooms and inflatable mattresses) down there. On our right, we saw the ladder that led to the upper loft. If someone wanted to just be alone, it was the perfect place to be. There was a bean bag chair or two up there, as well as a small table. A few winters ago, we had set up a pulley system that went from down here to up there. You put whatever you needed to bring up there (as long as it was less than ten pounds or something along those lines) in a basket and pulled it up there. It was pretty useful.

“This is your cabin?” Harry asked, eyes wide. Each of the other guys stood with him, surprised as he looked around the large area. I don’t think any of them were expecting a place like this. Good. We like to surprise people. They’d surprised us enough over the summer. Now it was our turn.

“Yup,” I said, smiling. “Home sweet home.”

“This is more like a ski resort,” Niall mused as we walked farther into the building. We all took our snowy boots off and put them on the boot rack next to the door, and hung up our coats.

“When you have five families pooling their cabin money, you can get something great,” Simone smiled a bit at them. Even when we all paid our fair share of the price, it still took a while to save up all the money to pay for this place.

“No doubt about that,” Louis said.

“Here, guys, let’s go bring our bags downstairs,” Ana said, as she picked up her suitcase and walked over to the stairs. I followed her down the stairs, hearing the sounds of eleven other pairs of feet following the two of us..

We went down and stood in the center of the hall. Six rooms, three on each side, were around us. Some of these rooms were bedrooms already, but others had been storage rooms that we had turned into bedrooms, with a few inflatable mattresses hiding in the closets in case they were needed. “Boys get the left side, and girls get the right,” Ana said, turning around to look at everyone. “Go ahead and pick your rooms.”

“Why can’t we have the right side?” Kyle asked, and Courtney gave him a look. “Never mind,” he said, and went with Michael to the farthest one on the left. The girls and I let out a few laughs, loving the fact that Courtney could tell her brother what to do. It was awesome.

The boys shared silent looks, and I guessed they already had ideas of who they were rooming with. Well, we did too, anyway. I shared a look with Ana, who nodded, and we went to the middle room on the right. It was the one we loved to take, since it had a great view of the pond outside. That was Ana’s favorite spot besides the loft, which I loved just as much.

We both unpacked, not saying much. As I put my clothes in my half of the dresser (donated from Lizzie’s old bedroom furniture fund), Ana spoke up. “So, what are you and Niall, anyway?”

“Huh?” I asked, turning to face her.

“What are you and Niall?” she asked again. “Are you friends, or are you dating, or what?” She placed her purple skate bag in a corner on her side of the room.

I bit my lip. “I…I’m not sure,” I admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I pushed him away most of the summer,” I said, while Ana snorted. “What?”

“We all knew that,” Ana said.

I gave her a playful glare, and she laughed. I rolled my eyes and continued. “But, I told him what was going on and why it happened. He said he wouldn’t forget about me, but other than that I’m not sure what to think.”

“To be honest, I think it’s going to be okay,” Ana told me. “I bet by the end of the break, you’ll be truly together.”

“That’s totally going to happen,” I said sarcastically.

“You have no faith in the fact that any boy could possibly like you, do you?” She asked, sitting down on the bed.

“You have no faith in the fact that I can manage my own relationships, do you?” I retorted.

“That was cold,” Ana said.

“Sorry, but it’s true. I can figure this out on my own,” I said.

“Where did that come from? All I said was that I bet you two will end up together. I just see it,” she said.

I shrugged. “As long as you haven’t been writing ideas of how some sappy moment will happen when he asks me out or something,” I said, as she walked out of the room. A notebook was under her arm, and a pencil was in her ear.

“No promises!” she called back to me, and I groaned.

I left the room and came face to face with Niall. “Oh, hey,” I said, a bit surprised. Then again, why wouldn’t I run into him for crying out loud?

“Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I answered. “Just goofing off,” I added.

Niall looked at me and nodded slowly, but I could tell he thought otherwise. “Okay…” he said. “So, wanna do something?” he asked.

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Watch a movie, play a video game, go outside,” he listed off.

“We could sled down the hill,” I suggested. “There’s a sled in the cabinet in the mudroom,” I added.

“Sounds great,” Niall said, smiling. “Let’s go.”

I nodded, and we went upstairs. I went to get the sled while he got his coat and mittens on. As I carried the sled back to him, I saw Ana in the loft. She had seen Niall and I walking together. She mouthed, “Go get ‘em!”

I just rolled my eyes and walked to Niall. When it comes to my relationships, I know how I’m going to do it. It’ll just take some time.

We’ve got about two weeks. That’s enough time…right?

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A/N Hi everyone. Sorry for taking so long with the update. I haven't had much time recently. I had a math competition yesterday, so I've been practicing for the past two weeks or so, and I was catching up on my work today. I'm actually really happy I got this chapter finished and up tonight.

What'd you guys think of it? Anyone sense a problem brewing with Michael, besides his hatred for Louis? Got any guesses for what it could be?

Also, what did you guys think of the Midnight Memories video? I liked it a lot, to be honest, but I don't think anything can beat Story of My Life. That's my all time favorite video of theirs.

Anyway, I hope to get the next chapter written sooner (if my teachers don't load me down with homework). Talk to you soon, guys! Love you all! Don't forget to vote, comment, and if you aren't already, follow!

-Noel