“Ouch it hurts!” I whined with exaggeration clearly evident in my voice. Madi’s little fingers were tugging at the locks in my hair, attempting to braid them, the sound of her soft giggle was like music to my ears. “Hold still, daddy!” Our daughter reminded me while trying to keep my head still. She was barely 4 and yet you were teaching her how to braid hair now. I don’t understand why since she can barely brush her teeth by herself, but whatever. “Try and hold the braid a bit tighter, sunshine.” I heard you correcting her, and before I knew it, she was tugging on my hair again. I had to pretend this didn’t hurt as much as it did. Now I understand why Madi’s always complaining when you do her hair. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to you to just let her practice on one of her barbie dolls. Actually, it probably did and you just thought it’d be fun to mess with me.

We’ve been together for almost 6 years, you lived right next door to me in Holmes Chapel, and I guess you could say you were always there in my life. I still remember the sleepovers we used to have in grade school. You pretended like you were coming over to hang out with Gemma, but I knew you were there to see me. Our parents eventually became friends, sort of having to because of all the back and forth we did going to each other's houses. You were there for me during all of it. You even went with my family when I auditioned for the X Factor. That was sort of expected though, we had already been dating for a few months, and I knew you would have either way.

When One Direction formed everything was changing so fast that we barely got to see each other. The minute I finally had a bit of a break, I flew you out to L.A, and I suppose we really missed being together. Because by the time the band’s debut album came out, you were in the early days of pregnancy with our daughter, Madison. It was a complete shock, no 17 year old plans to have a kid that young. Our parents were disappointed (we expected that), and management was furious. The boys were rather fond of our little bundle of joy though. Niall was even her godfather, much to your older brother's dismay. I wouldn’t trade this for the world though. Just me, my two girls, and what I think is a braid but really just looks like a big knot in my hair. I turned my head slightly to the left, and that's when I spotted the pink bows on the counter. Oh fuck me.