“To the park!” Louis called out, leaping up from his seat to punch his fist into the air majestically.

“Alright Lou, we’ll go to the park. Hey, Elodie? We’re gonna” Liam started to say, until a hand clamped over his mouth.

“Shhh, don’t wake her up!” Niall shushed them. The boys looked around, wondering what the big deal was. “She’s got insomnia, so any chance she gets to sleep is necessary.” The boys all nodded in understanding, and got up to sneakily exit the room, but failing miserably; Harry tripped over the coffee table and fell with a crash, while Louis kept whisper-yelling how much he wanted to go to the park and swing on the swings.

“Nice try guys, but it’s too late, I’m already awake. You’re really bad at being quiet, by the way.” The boys looked at me sheepishly, and tried to apologize repeatedly. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault I can’t sleep normally. So did I hear something about a park?”

“Yes! We’re going to the park to swing on the swings!” Louis bounced up and down, obviously excited by the prospect of going to the park.

“But what about all the crazy screaming people down stairs? Won’t they just attack us again? Wait a minute – what about the crazy screaming people?! Why are they even here?”

They all looked around at each other and sent each other looks, each trying to convey some sort of message. Somehow they managed to hold what seemed like a conversation, all without words. Liam nodded his head, signaling the start of their explanation.

“We’re famous.”

“And in a band.”

“Together.”

“Wait, what?” I shook my head at them, trying to wrap my brain around this new tidbit of information. They looked at each other sheepishly and then all at once started apologizing, hurriedly talking over one another to make sure that I knew they ‘didn’t mean to keep it from me’ and that they would ‘change it all if they could’. Instead of looking at them, I looked down at my hands in my lap, and processed this. They were in a band. They all had screaming girls who probably wanted to marry them or do countless worse things to them. More importantly, Niall had a hoard of screaming girls, all vying for his attention, and all probably more beautiful and more interesting than I am.

I looked up into five pairs of puppy dog eyes, as the boys thought I was mad at them.

“So are you any good?”

They all broke out into smiles and chuckled at my response, relieved that I wasn’t actually upset with them.

“We’re only the most amazing band ever” Louis jumped up and shouted into my face. I scrunched up my nose and leaned away at his close proximity, but he only laughed and grabbed my hands, pulling me up with him as he skipped out of the room, singing about how happy he was to go to the park.