Need You -N.H- Book Two

Eleven; Endless Words

Endless Words

"Can I talk to you outside?" I ask Niall has he stands cleaning the dishes from breakfast shoulder to shoulder with Lou. It was an uncomfortable position to be in for both of them but there wasn't much else of an option at this point. Niall sighs dropping a dish into the water, he turns slowly to face me and dries off his hands on his pants.

He opens the door for me carefully, leading me out into the garden where everything seemed a bit more relaxed and peaceful. He stops just short of the back roses bushes, turns to me and gives me the most pathetic smile I've ever seen.

"Are you okay?" I ask and he just laughs at me.

"I know what I said to you last night Sarah, I'm sorry." He whispers it so quietly you could only hear it if you were absolutely silent. I bite my bottom lip trying to calm the sea of emotions that was rises in my throat. "Her being here is fucking with my head if I'm being totally honest."

I don't say anything, just continue to let him speak because he wants to explain I'm going to give him that option. I won't say things I know nothing about and only cause him to shut down, or at least I'll try my best not to.

"I didn't think I would ever see her again Sarah," his lip quivers, he's dripping with sweat and I can see from the distance we stand that he is shaking. "I thought I had closed that chapter of my life," he says.

"Ni," I say gently "I know about the drinking."

"Lou told you," he says shaking his head and looking to the sky. He lets out a deep sigh, closing his eyes he steps back from me trying to compose himself.

"He shouldn't have told you that stuff, I wasn't in my right mind. Greg had fucked off and I was in a really dark place Sarah."

"I'm not judging you for the past," I say carefully not wanting him to walk away from the conversation we needed to have. "I'm just trying to help you avoid falling back down that hole Niall."

"I'm not," he says in defense. "I was just caught off guard yesterday when she showed up, I was mad at myself for not telling you the second she came into this house."

"I don't care about that, if she's here to help your mother then so be it. But be careful Niall because I don't think she's as wonderful and as nice as you and Louis remember."

"Nice and wonderful?" he laughs "I remember a lot of things but I can't forget her leaving and it hurts me more than her being nice. This isn't about me falling back in love with her Sarah, I never fell out I just moved on."

I swallow the pain in my throat, my heart closes tightly and aches inside my chest like someone has just stabbed me clean through the back. He closes his eyes again, balling his hand into his flat palm. He knows the severity of his words when they leave his mouth and he regrets them it's all over his face.

I don't say anything to him, I just turn and walk back through the garden and into the house. Lou stands in the kitchen finishing the dishes as Chelsea reads a book to Mrs. Horan in the study. Like she knows she looks up to me, a polite smile on her lips but something darker in her eyes. I'm fighting the tears with so much force a pain pushes into the back of my head causing an awful headache.

Louis reaches out for me but I just brush him off I walk through the house and back to the car. Pulling the door open I sit inside and lock the doors trying to gain a minute to myself to process. I let the tears fall now, in the comfort of the quiet car. I hang my head low, the last words he had said running through my head like a broken record.

Had he moved on? Or was I just some distraction to keep his mind off of her? There was a good possibility that he really did love me, but did he ever love me like he loved her? I slam my hands against the cars dashboard over and over again. My palms sore from slapping the rough plastic out of anger and despair.