Ours [harry styles] ✓

Mum & Dad

Speaking to Anne had got me thinking about my own parents. I knew that they probably weren't worth my time and effort if they weren't going to reciprocate it, but being a parent myself often left me wondering how they could abstain from communicating with their own child for such a long time. The strength of the bond I felt with Nola and the need to be near her was something I hadn't anticipated when I'd initially fallen pregnant. When they'd placed her in my arms, screaming, pink and gooey, it had felt as though my life had shifted to revolve around her. This one tiny human who had already caused so much drama. But she was all mine. And I was all theirs.

Or at least I had been.

I was fully aware of the fact that as a child grows older, the dependency on their parents becomes less so and therefore their world also revolves less around the child. But my parent's lives hadn't just stopped revolving around me, they'd stopped including me altogether. Sometimes I felt like an orphan.

Before Harry and his family had come along recently, Nola's lack of grandparents had been something I'd heavily resented. It was something I blamed myself for frequently, despite the fact that I wasn't in control of my parent's feelings or actions. I just felt shitty for having such shitty parents. However it also reminded me everyday to strive to be the best parent I could be.

The situation with my parents had been what had drawn Elenore and I together in the early days of our friendship. My parents had never been good parents. I had always felt somewhat neglected and second best to their careers, whereas Elenore had never even known hers. Her mother had been a sixteen year old who had dropped her off on the doorstep of a local Police station when she was only hours old. She'd been bounced between foster families from then up until she'd found out I was pregnant and proposed we moved in together. The family setup we currently maintained in our flat was one with a very dysfunctional background indeed.

I often wondered if the madness would affect Nola's social skills and her ability to form relationships in the future, but with a father like Harry Styles, it seemed highly unlikely. Providing she inherited his personality of course, she did already look like him after all.

Apart from my mother's looks, I hadn't really inherited anything from either of my parents. I didn't exactly consider myself to be selfish and narrow minded anyway. Not to mention their personality traits being evident in me would have been unwelcome reminders of their parenting skills and my poor excuse of a childhood. But even as a twenty year old raising their own child, I often found myself wishing my mother would be at the other end of the phone if I needed her. I dreamt about my father playing with Nola in the garden and the three of us comparing Nola's baby photos with my own. I wanted them to be proud of her and to be proud of me. I had made a mistake at eighteen years old, but I had worked hard and I was a good mother. I didn't deserve the cold shoulder that they continued to give me.

I was just going to have to make them see that.

I lifted Nola from her high chair and held her in front of my face. "Today you are going to meet your grandparents." I told her. She looked at me as if I'd gone mad. I probably had. I was already dreading the look that would be on my parent's faces when I turned up, unannounced, on their doorstep with Nola.

As I got ready to leave I tried not to think too much about what I was going to do. I would only talk myself out of it otherwise. Nola was very excited at the prospect of leaving the house to see someone new. I just prayed to God that she wouldn't throw one of her hissy fits in the presence of my parents. I didn't text Elenore either as she would definitely have tried to talk me out of going. She never contacted any of her previous foster parents, not even the ones who had cared for her before she'd moved out. I'd never questioned her about it though, I'd just assumed they had all been as shitty as my own.