One More Night (Niall Horan)

Chapter Five: Fans and Hospitals

(Not edited)

Flashes, that’s all the details I could give you of our return home. Was it a lucky guess that Niall and I would be returning home that day, and the world’s paparazzi were at the gates, waiting for us, as were Harry and a girl... the girl seemed completely out of her comfort zone in a swirl of lights and screams. But there was something, the blonde girl, eyes wide from shock, her hands clasped around my curly-haired friend’s arm, visibly tense, but leaning slightly into her touch.

Tamia.

My eyes were transfixed on the girl’s as she slowly looked towards us, but unlike relaxing, that I would most definitely have done if the people who I was waiting for had finally turned up, she seemed even more on edge.

Harry waves at us, wrapping his free arm around Niall who still has a hold on my hand. There is no time for extravagant greetings, we needed to get out of there, and, I needed to get to my sister and baby nephew.

I’ve fought through my fair share of paparazzi crowds, but this was by far the worst. They didn’t give in, they grabbed arms, clothes, bags, anything to get our attention, or even a glance for that winning shot for their newspapers and magazines. Tamia burrows her head into Harry’s chest as he leads the way, Niall attempting to push paparazzi from in front of us, but no matter how much protecting he can do, nothing prepared me for what I faced outside that airport.

I now understood everything. Maybe we didn’t realise it, but Niall and I made the best and worst decision to run away for those fleeting days, maybe somewhere deep inside us, we knew that no one would be sympathetic, no one would love that we ran away, no one likes Ninnox.

It wasn’t like a typical love story, the lovers run away and hide away from their fears of rejection and hatred, they can’t magically come back and everyone is just happy that they are safe and well. Far from it, no one was supportive of our decisions. We acted like careless teenagers who understand nothing about the world.

Outside there were thousands of girls, boys, adults, and even more paparazzi. Unlike the response that would normally be expected, immediately, there were boos, shouts of disgust and hatred, and I’m pretty sure it affects Niall more than me. A girl throws her chips at us, and I swat them away from my face as we pass.

“I HATE YOU LENNOX!”

“NIALL WHY DID YOU GO FOR THIS SLAG?”

“YOU SHOULD JUST LEAVE ONE DIRECTION”

“YOU BOTH CAN’T EVEN SING”

I never once hear a kind word, I never once see one girl shove another, sticking up for us, they were a united front. It’s our fall from grace. We’ve hit rock bottom. Now the only person I have is Niall.

*

 The car ride is silent, Tamia is sat in the front with Harry, whispering so that we can’t hear, Niall’s head is buried in my neck, I know he’s crying, but I can’t find a single word of comfort for him.

“That was horrible.” Niall whispers, just as Harry and Tamia wanted their conversation kept from us, Niall wanted his kept from them. “Why did we abandon them?” He asks, referring to the fans. Those girls, and few boys, who had posters of us in their rooms, knew our songs by heart, supported us through it all. But we abandoned them, the fans who had done nothing wrong.

“Because we blamed them, not us.” I answer truthfully, my voice low so that the two lovebirds can’t hear me from back here. “We’ve made so many mistakes, we’ve hurt so many people. Yet, we blame everyone else for the stuff we did. You cheated, I hit back. I dated Rob, you kissed me. I accepted the proposal, you tried to stop the wedding, I got married anyway. I made the video, I left the video there, I separated from Rob, and you took me back. Sure, it wasn’t our fault that the video got released to the whole world, but it might as well have been. This is all our doing.” Niall shakes his head still resting in the crook of my neck.