still. // nh

four

Eventually, I was able to finish the can, rolling the smooth metal between my palms before glancing over at the group to see Niall already watching me with a half smile. His friends were laughing and talking around him, a few more crushed up cans littering the ground around them. Even just knowing them for such a short amount of time, I could see how close they all were, the comfortableness they had with each other. I thought of my small apartment of LA, the empty walls and the chaotic noise of the world outside my window somehow making the inside of my apartment seem that much more silent.

"You ready to go, Chelsea?" Niall asked, tilting his head towards the path that would lead back up to the top of the cliff, and I nodded, walking a little closer to them. Niall began to toss his empty can into a nearby trash can, apparently much to the distaste of Amelia.

"Oi! Niall, you eejit, you know we have a recycling bin at the hotel, don't ruin this beautiful island with your trash," She chided him, playfully smacking his wrist before collecting all of the empty cans and instead placing them in her own backpack.

The rest of the boys rolled their eyes, Declan looking at his girlfriend with a quiet endearment.

"Should've warned you that Amelia is greener for the environment than she is for St. Patrick's Day. Irish down to the core, she is," Michael laughed, earning a glare from Amelia.

"Yeah, no need to get so thick about it, I just forgot," Niall shrugged, laughing as he stepped closer to me. "Anyway, meet you all back on the boat?"

The rest of the group agreed, and before I knew it, it was again just Niall and I as we made our way back up to the cliff. This path was carved straight into the cliffside, sloping slightly and curving all the way up to the top. Much different than the path I initially took, this one had trees bordering only one side, with the other side completely open to the sun and sea. Though I could feel my heart beginning to beat rapidly inside of my chest, Niall seemed as collected as ever, his hands tucked into the pockets of his shorts.

"Like I said, people cliff-jump all the time, so this path was made for people to make it back up. One of the few ways Maya Bay is slowly getting more touristy," Niall said a few minutes later, breaking the slightly awkward silence that had grown between us.

"I didn't even realize this was here. I, uh, took a different way up, I guess."

"Thought so, I don't remember seeing you on the way up." Niall murmured, ruffling a hand through his quickly-drying hair, and again, a silence settled between us.

I began to wonder just what Niall was thinking, as he walked beside me whistling an unfamiliar tune. I tended to do that a lot, wonder what other people were thinking. It came almost naturally, I'm sure, to almost everyone in my generation, with all of the social media posts you need to spend hours crafting in order to be good enough to get liked. But right now, I was wondering just what, exactly, Niall Horan was thinking as we walked together. I wondered if he was annoyed or upset that he had to leave his friends to walk me back up, if he was only accompanying me because of manners his mother raised him with. He didn't act annoyed, no expression crossing his face less than an easy smile, nothing in his voice giving away these emotions. But maybe that was just his personality.

"What're you thinking about over there?" Niall asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Honestly? I'm wondering what you're thinking about." He seemed slightly shocked by my answer, his eyebrows lifting slightly, and maybe it was just the openness of this island, the freedom I was still coming down off of from cliff jumping, maybe it was  just wanting to break out of the habit of thinking one thing but saying something completely different. Or, maybe it was just my usual tendency to deflect questions off of myself, which I have become too used to doing recently.