Lightweight

Chapter Sixteen

Those five words stopped Annie in her tracks. Niall definitely just blindsided her. What was he thinking? Did he really just say he loved her? What did that even mean? Love...was that even real? Annie had no idea, she loved her parents and me, her sister, but to love a person not blood related, to be in love with somebody, she had no idea if that was even possible.

"W-w-what?" Annie stammered, she was now wide awake, snapped out of her sleepy state with those words.

"I love you Annie," Niall repeated.

Annie was shocked to say the least. What had she done to make Niall feel that way? She didn't know how to evoke those emotions in another human but somehow she had just managed to. Annie might have been overreacting but she didn't know any other way to react. What the hell was Niall thinking? He knew Annie was crazy, he couldn't just say something like that. Annie tried to respond but she couldn't think. Was the room getting smaller? She opened her mouth but realized she couldn't form a single word.

Niall saw in Annie's eyes, the terror, confusion and panic. "I understand if you can't say it back, Annie," Niall said, "I just couldn't keep it in anymore. I've felt this way since the first minute we walked into that pool patio and saw you trying to get away and ever since then the feeling has grown stronger. I just thought you should know."

Annie was still frozen in every sense of the word. What the fuck was Niall telling her? She didn't know how long they had been together but she was well aware that it hadn't been that long, was this how every relationship was? FUCK! Annie just wanted to scream. She hated having emotions and hated sharing them even more and there Niall was spilling his guts and expecting her to do the same. What was she supposed to do, to say? Annie knew what she wanted to do; she wanted to get up and bolt out of that door and run far, far away and never stop. Why was she feeling like this? Niall made her so happy and hated being away from him. Why should the fact that he loved her make her want to escape? Maybe it was just the fact that he said it out loud, Annie had no idea.

"Annie, please say something, anything. You don't have to say you love me too, I didn't expect that. I just couldn't keep it in any longer," Niall said, "Come on Annie, speak!"

"I, I, I think...Niall, how could you feel something like that?" Annie asked, "How do you even know what that feels like? You may just think you feel these things but maybe you're just imagining it or I tricked you somehow. Do you even know what you are saying?"

"Don't you dare say that, I know I joke around a lot but I am completely serious right now Annie," Niall said, "You didn't trick me into feeling this way and I completely am not imagining the fact that I love the crap out of you."

"How do you even know what that feels like?" Annie shouted, hysterical.

"You just know," Niall said with a sigh, "It's when you can't stand to not be in the same room with a person. It's when the slightest bit of pain they feel kills you ten, twenty, times over. The moment they smile your whole world brightens because they are your whole world. It doesn't matter how long you have known a person, you just feel it. Every second I see you and am with you I can't be anything but the happiest I have ever been, and when you're away I don't know what to do with myself. I'm terrified for when we have to go back on tour, I don't know what I will do. That is love."

"If that is what love is," Annie began, she got out of bed and began to pace the room, thinking hard; Niall was the only person she wanted to spend her day with but things were going too fast, way too fast. She thought about all of the feelings swirling in her mind and her heart, what did she feel? What did it all mean? With Niall she felt something that she couldn't explain, she had never felt it before. "If that is what love is," Annie repeated, "then I think I could feel that too, one day, maybe."