Convalescence

VII.

mood for the chapter :)

Lili woke up the following morning in a daze. It took her quite a few minutes to actually separate reality from dreams. Her head spun as messages from the previous night flashed through her brain as if playing on a movie screen.

She scrunched her fingers together into tight fists until her nails were digging into the skin of her palm - it was all she could do to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs into her pillow.

She rolled onto her back and stared up at the white ceiling, watching as a thin sliver of sunlight peeking through the curtains caught the crystal of her chandelier, causing perky rainbow reflections to dance along the walls.

That was sort of what her heart felt like, too.

She looked over at her phone and reached out from under the covers as if to grab it, but hesitated. What if unlocking her phone would somehow erase the memory of the night before?

Maybe she was experiencing some weird kind of lucid dreaming and the light from her phone screen would pull her out of it.

The memories felt more like hallucinations than anything.

She shook the sleep from her eyes and picked up the phone anyway. The first thing she did was read through the chat she'd had with Niall, heart fluttering at dangerous speeds as she scrolled. 

Every single message was still there.

So it hadn't been a dream at all...

It was surreal that he had even followed her in the first place, never mind the fact that they'd had a real conversation. And not just 'hey, how are you, what's up'. It was an actual real conversation between adults.

One that he initiated!

She thanked whoever might have been listening that she didn't say anything weird or stupid to Niall, which was typically her go to. Having the protection of a phone screen between them helped her be more confident. 

It was surprising just how easy it was to talk to him. The conversation flowed as if they were old friends who hadn't caught up in a while. 

For once, Lili didn't feel like she overshared or that he judged any of the things she said. He was truly kind, and a complete gentleman.

There had been moments where she'd typed something out but deleted it before she could hit send, but they were rare and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

She read through each individual message from Niall, studying what he said and the tone of the sentences. If he'd used a comma instead of a period, could that completely change the meaning?

Way to read way too far into this, Lili...

But anyway...

Nothing indicated that he had lost interest throughout the course of the conversation or regretted sending the initial message, which was a good sign.

And she remembered how quickly he would respond to everything she sent. Had he just been sitting next to the phone, waiting for a reply to come through? Was he as nervously excited about the situation as she was?

She smiled as she scrolled slowly down the chat. It was a very basic conversation, but it was nice to get to talk to him without the fear of looking or sounding like an idiot getting in the way.