Convalescence

X.

~ mood for the chapter :)

Even after the entire night had gone by, Lili was unable to get over Niall's unexpected outburst in the dining room. It was strange and, frankly, a bit scary hearing him yell like that.

Honestly, she didn't even think he was capable of raising his voice at all.

But more than that, she couldn't wrap her brain around the fact that it actually happened. Niall openly admitted how crazy he was about her after all the waiting and uncertainty Lili endured.

"I'm falling for you faster than I've ever fallen for someone in my life, and you have no idea how scared that makes me."

It was his first real admission of feelings for her, and it made her impossibly giddy. She'd been desperately waiting for him to just say something; to be 100% honest about where his head and his heart were.

And though he alluded to how he felt about her every now and then, nothing was ever set in stone. It felt like pulling teeth with him. Not that it was any easier for her to do, but that was besides the point.

However now Lili knew for sure that she had whittled her way into his heart just as much as he had done to her.

There was only so much more indirectness she could have taken before it all became too much to bear. Thank god he spoke up at the right time.

He still had things he wasn't ready to share with her, which was fine. It at least gave her a bit more insight as to why he had such difficulty sharing his feelings with her.

She understood exactly where he was coming from. There were many things she wanted to tell him but didn't know how to put into words, either.

She was hesitant about absolutely everything regarding the two of them and where they stood, so she had no problem sympathizing with his fears.

Aside from everything she was going through personally - intimacy and trust issues - her feelings for him were certain, even with all the fears she had.

The worst part of everything going on with Niall had been not knowing if anything she was giving him was being reciprocated in any way.

The longer it had gone on, the more she started to doubt everything. All that they'd started to build together felt like it had come crumbling down around her. 

In the span of one week, Lili found herself falling in love, getting nervous over being ignored, becoming irrational and angry, before finally circling back to falling in love.

She had never experienced this kind of mental gymnastics in her life so she was glad that everything was, for the most part, settled and heading back to normal.

A lot of the drama was probably unnecessary or unreasonable, and any outside perspective would probably think at least one of the two of them was outright insane.

But Lili had been so far removed from relationships and the whole world of dating for so long that she sort of lost control and had to figure out how to get herself back to a more levelheaded state.

She knew nothing about what was 'normal' or expected when it came to this stuff.

Maybe rolling over and taking whatever was thrown at you, positive or negative, was how all good relationships started out.

A lot of it was hard for her to understand or work out in her head, and she let her emotions get the best of her.

For all she knew, it was normal to never be certain about the circumstances of your relationship, and anybody who had ever dated before understood how to maneuver their way through that sort of limbo.