~A/N~

Tom is Lorena's colleague. that's all. enjoy! x

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With shaky hands, I brought the steaming cup of tea to my lips, for the millionth time thinking about what had happened a few hours before. The longest fight I've ever had in my life. All the things we said; I said.

"Fuck you, you heartless dirtbag!"

"How can you say something like that? How can you even think about something like that?!"

"It's because I love you, you sick bastard!"

"Yes, I did, I thought nothing would come out of your dumb acting. You know what? I still do!"

"Well I agree with my father, it is stupid!"

"Fine! Leave! You don't have to ever come back as far as I'm concerned!"

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly at the memory of the last thing I told him; I regretted it more than anything I've ever said in my life. I knew I'd feel like shit because of it as soon as I said it, and I was completely and utterly right. The main reason for that is the fact that I was sitting there, five hours after he slammed the front door shut, having my ninth cup of tea and waiting, just waiting for him to come back home. I was afraid that he'd taken my words seriously, and now... well, I don't even want to think about it.

My hand flew up to my face to wipe away the few tears that had escaped my eye, as I remembered his words. I closed my eyes again and shook my head lightly, wanting to forget about all of them. There were so many things I wanted to completely erase from my memory, but even I knew they would stick there for a while. A long, long while.

It was one in the morning, I was tired beyond words and had work the next day, but the recent event wasn't giving me any peace. It was the first time I actually could not sleep because of something that had happened. Usually I'd just doze off after thinking about it for a long while, but this time... even when I tried forgetting about everything, it was still there, in the back of my mind, literally haunting me. I had no idea what I'd do if it went on for even longer, I'd probably go insane.

I still couldn't realize how I could remember every single word, look, breath and movement that happened during those four hours that we fought. I didn't even remember our good moments that well. Probably because there weren't many of those... not as much as bad ones, anyway.

I jumped in my seat as I heard the door open and close, and felt my heart beat increase drastically; he was home. Finally.

With even shakier hands than before, I almost dropped the cup on the table as I hastily stood up from the sofa. I only caught a glimpse of Ashton as he walked across the hallway, and went inside our room. To be honest, I was relieved; I was pretty sure he'd gone to a bar, and usually when he'd get drunk he would just go straight to bed, sometimes not even taking his shoes off. That must have been the case right now as well.

I took a semi-deep breath, trying to calm myself down as I slowly walked toward the bedroom. By the time I got there, I was expecting to see him lying on the bed, or at least trying to take his sneakers off. But, to my absolute, absolute surprise, he was gathering his stuff, while an opened suitcase sat on the bed. Just like that, my heart sped up, again.

"Ashton?" I said, almost too quietly for him to hear me. He only glanced my way, returning his attention to pulling his clothes out of drawers. "What are you doing?"

I heard him let out a small sigh, "Um... I'm gonna spend the night at Brad's."

He almost sounded like he didn't want to tell me where he was going, and what he was going to do. But his voice, his voice was so cold and careless as he said the words. As if he didn't even care if I had an opinion on that.

"Okay," I said nevertheless; I knew he needed space, no matter how much I wanted him to stay so we could talk things through. "You'll come home tomorrow, right?"

Ashton stopped shoving his clothes into the suitcase, and stood up straight. "Uh... actually, no," He said, his voice a bit more awkward as he spoke, "I'm... I'm gonna come in a few weeks to get the rest of my stuff."

It wasn't until he'd finished his sentence that he looked at me, but I wasn't looking at him anymore; I slowly closed my eyes, feeling my heart sink to my toes, as well as my whole world. What I'd been fearing the most, had just happened. He's leaving, for real. He actually is going to leave.

"So this is really it?" I asked, lowering my head so I was facing the floor, and quickly walked out of the room, not even waiting for his answer. More than anything, I wanted to hold my tears back and not have him see me crying. But it was already too late, so my only solution was to leave his sight.

I slumped onto the couch again, frantically looking for a pack of tissues for the umpteenth time. I pulled one out as quickly as I could and just placed it over my eyes, letting it soak up all of my tears that didn't get the chance to roll down my face.

I could hear him walking toward the living room and then stopping, presumably at the door frame. Next, I heard him sigh and fall onto the armchair across from me.

"Look at me," He nearly mumbled, but I didn't move at all. For a few seconds nothing happened, the only thing I could hear was silence. But then I felt Ashton grab my wrist, and pull me toward him until I was about to fall down, and I had to look up.

"Listen to me." He ignored the fact that I was nearly on the floor, and kept looking into my eyes. I tried doing the same, but my physical state and the fact that I just could not look at him weren't helping me.

"I'm sorry it had to be like this," He almost whispered, his other hand coming up to my cheek. That's when I really became frozen; he was acting completely different from just a minute ago. From a few hours ago.

"But..." He licked his lips, "Baby, we've been falling apart for months. Not even you can deny it."

I closed my eyes quickly, the cruel truth finally being spoken. "And... I thought that having a baby and proposing would make things better, just like you thought that me meeting your parents would."

"Oh my God," I breathed out, pulling away from him to hide my face in my hands. It didn't even matter that he was saying the things that had been in the back of our minds for the longest time. Actually hearing him say it was horrible.

"Look, I'm really sorry for not speaking my mind earlier. It would have hurt less, but..." He trailed off for the third time, and this time I looked at him. He was finally showing his emotions; and I realized, no matter how heartless he seemed before, this was definitely hard for him too.

"Better late than never." He even smiled at the end, probably trying to lighten up the mood, but even he knew that was impossible. As if confirming my thoughts, his smile disappeared as soon as it appeared, and he pressed his lips in a tight line, his eyes becoming slightly shiny.

"Come here," He whispered and closed his eyes, presumably not wanting me to see that he was nearly in tears. I slowly moved forward, and had him pull me into his arms the rest of the way. My arms hastily flew around his neck as he wrapped his around my waist, but it didn't feel the same anymore. I didn't feel like I was hugging my lover; more like my shrink.

"I love you, you know that?" He mumbled in the crook of my neck, stunning me a little. "I really do love you. And I want you to be happy, I want you to love somebody and have them love you back even more."

Within a second, my eyes shot open wide, as a certain blue eyed 23 year old guy from northern England appeared before my eyes. The fact that I saw his face when Ashton said 'I want you to love somebody' only made things clearer for me.

He pulled away from me, another sad smile appearing on his face. "This doesn't change anything, I still care for you as much as I did when I asked you to marry me. But it's time for both of us to move on."

He kissed my forehead as he said that, and slowly stood up. I didn't do anything, nor did I say anything; I just sat there, and watched him leave our apartment. Well, my apartment. As well as my life.

"Oh, and..." He started as he opened the front door, leaning back so he could look at me one final time, "Don't make the same mistakes. For once, slow down and let the guy take care of you." With that, he walked out.

I knew, I definitely knew he was right about everything he said. But it still hurt like a bitch; to have your eyes opened and realize what you're really like so abruptly. If he'd told me about the problem earlier, maybe I could have worked on it. Maybe it wouldn't have ended like this.

But, even though nothing but pain and sorrow were on the surface, I managed to push them in the back of my mind as I shakily stood up. I realized I had an important thing to do, and that was calling Louis.

Yes, Louis Tomlinson. My current colleague and former boyfriend.

No, I certainly did not need a shoulder to cry on. Alright, that's one big lie, I definitely did... but he was literally the last person to cross my mind when it came to that. Ashton's words were the ones that caused me to make this phone call at 1:30 in the morning.

He said, don't make the same mistakes and let the guy take care of you. It was obvious what he meant by that; I'd obviously been worse to him than I thought I was. And when I remembered that I was the exact same while Louis and I were together... well, that was the main reason for my call.

I sighed as I walked around my flat, a bit nervous. I mean, how could I not be nervous? I was literally calling my ex boyfriend after my fiancé- well, ex fiancé walked out on me. At nearly two in the morning. Hm, that sounds a lot more desperate than I thought it would.

What was I even going to say? Hey, Ashton just left me because I was being a bitch and now I apologize for being a bitch to you too. Yeah, that sounds just amazing.

Seriously though... I can't tell him something like that over the phone and expect him to understand what's going on inside of my head. Not to mention the fact that I was probably going to wake him up. Ugh, he's not even picking up, I should probably hang up and just talk to him tomo-

"Hello?"

The way the words were slurred into the speaker was one of the reasons I kept quiet for a few long seconds.

"Hello, who is this?" Louis repeated as he sighed, a pinch of annoyance and a whole lot of tiredness in his voice.

"Louis?" My voice was creaky, most likely due to hours of crying. And not stopping yet, if I may add.

"Yes, who is this?"

I sighed heavily, my eyebrows coming down in a frown as I tried not to start sobbing again. I would usually just roll my eyes if someone didn't recognize my voice, but being in the vulnerable state that I was in... I only felt like a bigger piece of shit.

Louis interrupted my thoughts as he sighed again, "Look, I have work tomorrow and I'm trying to sleep, so if you could call in about seven hours, that would be amazing."

I started waving my free hand frantically as I realized he was about to hang up, "Louis, wait! It's... it's..."

"Lorena?" I was surprised when my name tumbled off his lips; he sounded as shocked as I probably looked.

"Yeah," I said softly, a smile appearing on my face when he recognized my voice. Dammit, here come the tears again.

I heard some stirring on the other end, "What... what's up?" He asked stupidly, sounding more awake than just a few seconds before.

"I..." I ran a hand through my hair, the words leaving my mouth before I could even process what I was saying. "I need you to come over."

"What?" Louis nearly laughed, "Are you serious right now?"

No, no, no, go back to sleep! "Yes," I said despite myself, as firmly as I could, my vulnerability getting the better of me for the fiftieth time.

"U-um... babe, you do know it's almost two in the morning and we both have work at nine?" He said, his voice monotone.

"Yes, but I really need you here, okay? This is important." What the hell am I doing?!

There was a long silence, maybe for 20 seconds, before I heard him sigh for the third time. "Listen, I don't know what kind of weird stuff you and Ashton are into, but I don't want to- Lorena?"

The absolute last thing I needed was him mentioning Ashton. I knew I was going to have to tell him everything if I wanted this idea of mine to work, but in that very moment, it was too much for me. So when I slumped down to the floor and—accidentally—let out a loud sob, I think I had a good excuse for it.

"Lorena, what is go- are you crying? Are you- Lorena! Say something, goddammit!" He was the desperate-sounding one now.

"Just..." I placed my palm over my forehead, trying to lessen the pain in my head. "Just please come over. Please."

Another shorter silence, before I heard shifting on the other side, "Alright. I'll be there in fifteen. Just-just tell me, are you okay? Is everything fine?"

I blinked a few times and gulped, "See you in 15."

I hung up before he could say anything else, and concentrated on getting my shit together. I threw out all of the used tissues and broken objects Ashton and I had thrown at each other, putting the undamaged ones back in their place. I washed my face and fixed my make-up in order to at least look decent, and then made more tea, for some reason.

I'd kept myself and my thoughts so busy, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the doorbell. Had fifteen minutes already gone by..?

Quickly leaving the kettle on the table, I jogged to the front door and took the deepest breath of my life before opening the door. I was only just beginning to realize how dumb it was of me to call him over.

But there he stood, in his skinny jeans and denim jacket zipped to the top, probably because the temperature in his apartment was very different from outside. It was mid November in London, after all. A grey beanie was hiding his extra messy hair, and he only wore converse on his feet, no socks, no nothing, so it was obvious why he was shaking so much.

"Hey," He said, his tired face stretching into a hesitant smile. I probably still looked like crap, despite my efforts to look presentable, so I understood.

"Hi," I almost whispered, "Fancy some tea?"

Louis' smile immediately disappeared, as soon as I tried joking. "What's going on? Where's Ashton?"

I pressed my lips in a tight line as he said his name, again, but tried keeping myself together. Which wasn't of much use; he could read me as if I were an opened book.

He kept staring at me, his eyes slightly wider, as he waited for an answer. I finally decided to give him one; a simple shake of my head. He caught it, and I could see that he was putting the pieces together, but didn't quite understand what was going on.

"H-he, um..." I tried telling him that Ashton had left, left for good, but the simple thought of that brought even more tears to my eyes. I hope he knew that would keep happening for a while; it had happened less than half an hour ago. I needed a break too.

"Okay," I heard Louis mumble, and then hesitantly pulled me into a hug. I slowly wrapped my arms around his waist, and let myself stain his jacket at least a little bit. I know I said I didn't want him to be my shoulder to cry on, but I needed him to be that for a minute. At least one minute.

Besides, hugging him felt entirely different from hugging Ashton. It felt the way hugging Ashton should have felt... if that even makes any sense.

"Let's go inside, yeah?" Louis quietly said in my ear, his voice calm and cautious. "And to answer your question, tea would be lovely."

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~A/N~

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