this town

5. The smell of your perfume

                                          Niall

            the bell rings. I see Brooke talking to Emma. Brooke spots me within the chaos of the school. we say bye to Emma and start to walk to her house. We'll spend Christmas Eve morning there and then her family will come over to my house on Christmas Day. it switches every year. Christmas is both of our favourites time of the year.

            "Hi Marie" I say as i walk in the door.
"how'ya niall" she replies. "excited for christmas?"
"obviouslyyy" i laugh
i didn't stay long at Brooke's because i had to get everything ready for Christmas at my house.

                                           xxx

            "what'd ya get for Brooke this year" Greg joked. He was the only one who knew how i felt about Brooke. "Let's just say it's special"
So much was happening in my house everything went so fast. Before I knew it it was Christmas Day.

                                          xxx

            I seen Brooke and her family park outside. I ran out to help them in. As I took Marie's bag off her she messed up my hair. George gave me a look. Brooke's dad was quite scary but he's nice when you're on his good side.
when everyone's settled down, we all sit down in the sitting room beside the tree. we always do this thing that we call the "Horan-Jones gift exchange." Our mas swap presents, our das swap. Greg and Alex swap, and me and Brooke swap. Brooke always gets me the best presents so I'm quite nervous.

            Me and Brooke went last. She gave me this box. She could tell I was confused. "Open it ye dope" I smirked and opened it. It was full. There was the tickets from the funfair we went during the summer, there was a photos from when we we're babies until now, my favourite chocolate bar, a little note she wrote me, a wrist band from when we went on holidays and loads more. I couldn't think of what to say. I just hugged her.
"What did ye get me?" She asked excitedly. She has never been subtle. "I'll give it to you later" I say.

xxx

"cmon ni!" Brooke demands, "it's getting lateee" she whines. she starts to pout and make puppy dog eyes at me. she's not great at it but she's cute so I give in.
"fine" I say as I give her a little box.
she takes it excitedly from me. Sparkles in her big green eyes as she opened it. she looks at it and says "bestie rings!" she has a massive smile across her face and her cheeks are rosy red.
I was a little disappointed that she put the word 'bestie' in that sentence, but what did I expect.
She takes the small one and puts it on. She then grabs my hand and puts the bigger one on me. I catch my self smiling. Her ring has a little purple butterfly on it. Purples her favourite colour. My ring has a butterfly shape cut out of it. Her ring fits into mine.

While we were watching the Christmas movie we watch every year, I realised she hasn't laughed at it in a while. I turn around and see that she's after falling asleep. She's hugging the teddy, from the funfair, tight in her arms. She looks so peaceful.

Before I knew it all sorts of emotions rushed through my body. I just want to tell her how I've felt since the fair.
"I want to tell you everything, it's so hard, so hard" I sing softly to her.
"those sound like good song lyrics" I think to myself.
I grab the notebook off my night stand beside me and jot it down. I don't know why but I felt like I had to.

The next day after the Jones' went home, I still didn't realise why I wrote down that lyric. I've never even thought of writing songs before but it just came to me. I sat for ages trying to think of more but I just couldn't.
While I was cleaning my room after all the stuff after Christmas, I could still smell Brookes perfume in the air. All of a sudden it clicked. I ran to my notebook and wrote it under the first line. "The smell of your perfume still stuck in the air"
The two lines didn't really go together but I still thought they were both nice lines, so I kept it.