1944 [n.h]

chapter fourteen

My brother hadn't touched me.

On the other hand, my mother used that belt like it was a poisoned snake. Whether it started off as my punishment and then lead on to her anger of my father, it went on, and on. My brother had to tear her off of me in the end, yelling at her as she screamed and sobbed.

I think, a part of her snapped, she'd began gentle, almost terrified to touch me, but then, after the second hit something inside her broke and all of her emotions came crashing down around her. She was yelling and screaming, hitting me repeatedly as I sobbed and begged her to stop, Niall standing in the corner in fits of tears, knowing he could do nothing.

My mother yelled my father's name, as if she were angry at him for dying, which clearly she was.

She was furious and heartbroken that my father had let her down.

I can still remember the day he left, it was a couple of months before my brother, and we all stood on the doorstep of the bakery. I was only thirteen and I was blubbering and hugging him tightly, pleading him to stay with us. My mother kept a straight face until she sent us all in.

I remember looking out of my bedroom window and watching my father, kneel in front of my mother and hug her tightly, his cheek pressed against her tummy as tears streamed down her face.

She cried for my father then.

And she cried for my father tonight too.

It had been the early hours of the morning when nobody should have been awake, but everybody was. I don't think anyone could sleep after we'd all had such a close encounter with death.

Archie dragged my mother in to her bedroom as niall collapsed by my side and pulled my hair away from my face.

"Are you alright? He asked frantically as I nodded weakly and lean against his chest. A sigh escaped his lips as he held me tighter, his hands were shaking and cries escaped his lips as he rocks me back and forth, trying not to touch my painful and stinging back.

"I'm s-so sorry." He cried quietly in to my neck. "Im sorry, im sorry." He begged as I placed a weeping kiss against the side of his head. He had done nothing wrong. The fact that he was here and had stayed made the whole situation so much more bearable than it could have been.

Niall's quiet cries were the only thing that was heard throughout the night, or the morning, they filled the house, despite how silent he was, they were more like terrified whimpers as I stayed silent in his hold.

...

The next morning flowed by like a solid continuation of the achingly slow night. I stayed huddled on the floor with niall as he kept a cool cloth pressed against the marks on my back. My mother, brothers and Ruth left when the sun came up; making their way down to O'Malley Street to observe the damage. I was ordered by an exhausted mother to bake until my fingers ached to compensate somehow for last night's damage to the community.

So niall and I locked ourselves away in the back of the bakery and he watched me.

"How do you not get tired?" He laughed, leaning against the wall with his ankles crossed and arms knitted across his chest. I looked up at him, my face laced in amusement as I shook my head.

Being with Niall, even on a morning as dreadful as this one, made everything seem somewhat less painful. Niall made the world more bearable for me. Without him, I don't think I would have been able to cope.

we just seemed to ignore the rest of the world and everything bad that had happened, and just focus on us.

"You are literally training every single day and you think making a loaf of bread is difficult?" I asked as he let out a loud laugh. I wiggled my finger, summoning him over as he smirked and padded to me.