The room was a soft, pale mint green. Little hand-painted flowers and hearts were scattered all over the walls in a pink so light, it was nearly white, accented by vibrant, forest green shadowing. The curtains were a classic lace, white, tied back with satin bows that matched the dark green on the walls. In one corner, placed on an angle, a queen-sized bed sat. A lace canopy hung over the bed, its lacy sheets pulled back and fastened with satiny ribbons to the gothic bedposts at the head of the bed. There was one window in the west wall, just beside the bed, that arched out and created a ledge where a window seat had been installed. Three pillows of varying shapes and sizes decorated the seat, and a few books were stacked on the one side. If one were to climb onto the seat and close the curtains, a small oasis of whimsical seclusion would be created, the perfect place for quiet reflection or adventure-taking through the pages of a book. Kandi often went there for inspiration, spending countless hours reading, drawing or just staring out the window, imagining.

This is where she was now, sitting on the window seat, the one curtain fallen, the other pulled back to reveal her left foot stroking the floor absentmindedly. She was bent over her laptop, biting her lip, furrowed in thought. The sun was setting and it's brilliant colours flooded the room, the ruby glow igniting her red hair in a ball of flaming, golden fire. Kandi did not see this, nor was she aware how breathtaking the scene she created in her own little world actually was. But that's the way of life sometimes, beauty flitting about, creating joy and not even knowing how gorgeous it's very self is.

Kandi began rapidly typing, a small smile covering her features.

"There! All done! Update Chapter 13..." she said aloud to herself. "I hope this gives them something to read for a bit because I'm going to be busy for the next week or so."

Kandi hummed to herself as she closed her laptop and looked out the window.

As long as you love me...

She smiled and leaned back against the window frame, closing her eyes,

I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold...

A giggle erupted from her throat, and she hopped off the window seat. She put her laptop where it belonged this time, plugged in on the shelf opposite her bed.

You can be my destiny's child...

Kandi closed her eyes and swayed to the silent music, caught in the mental beauty of the words.

As long as you lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo...

"Love me, love me," she whispered as she fell back into her bed.

She lay there and let her muscles relax, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly. Work could be pretty stressful at times, especially when you had people screaming at you for something you could do nothing about except point them in the correct direction.

Kandi inhaled sharply and rolled over, forcing air out again through her lips and folding her arms under her chin. She wriggled her right arm free and began randomly flailing it around, trying to find her phone amongst the duvet folds and pillows on the bed. The cool metal on her finger tips told her she had found it. Kandi unlocked it, deciding to go on the Wattpad app and look up her own story and see if anyone had looked at it yet.

Notifications were already popping up all over the place and Kandi felt her face heat up with excitement. She opened the app...

"Twenty people have read this chapter already!! What the heck??" Kandi squeaked out...it had only been two minutes!

Eyes wide, lips slightly parted, Kandi scrolled through the comments that kept popping up on her screen

"Love the way you write!!"

"OMG!!! I LOVE YOU!!! PLEASE UPDATE ASAP!!!"

"This is honestly refreshing! Different, realistic, engaging...I can really relate to this. Good work!"

"LARRY IS REAL!!!! But I ship Niam too... :/"

"Thanks for the update, love."

Kandi felt tears prickle under her eyelids and sniffed loudly: this praise was overwhelming! She answered every single comment before sitting up to turn on her light and get ready for bed. Aunt Shelley was on a date with her boyfriend tonight so she got the house to herself...something she didn't mind a bit. Kandi wandered out to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, guzzling half of it before leaning back against the counter.

Kandi closed her eyes and tried to imagine out the next scene in her story. She was trying to have a basic storyline to start with and figure the rest out on the fly. In theory, it was working, but in practicality...Kandi still needed to plan out a few chapters ahead of the one she was writing. Right now she was working on a chapter that had a bit of bantering between Gemma and Harry. Kandi wanted an authentic sibling relationship to shine through and was wondering what she could actually say was true about them.

Was the Hebrew tattoo really of Gemma's name?

Kandi took another sip of her water.

I don't know if I can prove that...speaking of Hebrew, he has a Star of David and a cross on his one necklace. I wonder if that's just coincidence?

Kandi's hand subconsciously reached up to her own necklace and her fingers closed delicately around he small gold cross she wore around her neck. Kandi often wanted to be sentimental and say, "I never take it off! And I never will!" but that just wasn't true. She did wear the cross necklace more often than not though. She loved the small reminder it gave her as it tapped softly just below her collarbones when she walked, or dangled gracefully whenever she leaned over. The small reminder of love. Kandi smiled until her eyes crinkled as she put her now empty glass in the sink and went back to her room.

She peeled her t-shirt off and flung it in her laundry basket, still thinking of the next move in her stories' plot. It was particularly about Louis Tomlinson as Kandi felt she really related to him, but all the boys were well entrenched in it. She had tried to avoid cliché fanfiction themes, and her storyline involved Louis' day-to-day mentality until he found the fame, schedule and hobnobbing a little too much. She was still trying to figure out where this was going to go as she struggled to stick to the reality of who Louis was, a young man with four friends who "loved to sing". It was difficult from time to time...I mean, she was a girl and he was a...guy! How do guys even think anyways? But Kandi was up for the challenge. Her goal was to at least attempt to see through the eyes of someone else: if it be female, she should have a great start, if male...she'd sponge off her older brother or a guy friend.

Kandi slipped her tank top over her head and pulled on some jammy shorts before flinging back the covers on her bed. She picked up her phone and turned on its volume, getting ready to set her alarm for the next morning. As she clicked the button her phone starting singing and beeping all over the place, scaring her into nearly dropping it. It was all lit up with notifications.

Oh. My. Word.

Thirty-four votes, eleven comments and fifty reads had accumulated in the ten minutes Kandi hadn't been looking at her phone.

How?...

She began reading the comments: people were tagging other people, adding it to their reading lists. There was one girl who said she was announcing how great it was on her Twitter feed, while 3 other girls were doing the same with Pinterest and 2 others were posting on Instagram. Kandi's phone was beeping so much, she could hardly get to her Wattpad notifications. Sadly, she hit the button to turn them off: she couldn't be listening to that all night!

Kandi set her alarm and placed her phone upside down on her nightstand, and stared at the ceiling.

People love my story.

She rolled onto her right side, away from the edge of the bed and hugged her spare pillow.

I can't even...I can't even!! Whoa, Kandice, really, you "can't even"? How "white girl" are you?

Kandi frowned at her own thoughts; she needed to calm down or she'd never go to sleep. After rolling over a handful of times, she did drift off, dreaming of Louis Tomlinson, of all people, buying her an ice cream cone.