The Marks You Left (Niall Horan)

Thirteen | Hello, Summer

THIRTEEN
_______

A Month Later

Noelle

"Ow," I whimpered, letting off the weight of the dumbbell hit the floor loudly.

"Elle...your hand isn't going to magically get its strength back right away, you know that, right?" Jennifer said in obvious.

I sighed, knowing she was right and rose up my left hand, eyeing it; attempting to move all fingers correctly without groaning in pain.

"Of course, I know that. I just think that pretending like nothing is wrong with it tricks my brain that it's completely fine and I can exercise in peace." I defended. "It's been a month."

It had been a month. A month since I last saw Niall. A month since the embarrassing accident. A month since I made the decision to get my life a little better and make a countdown on my phone of no drinking. At all.

Did I lose contact with Niall Horan after he walked out that room in May? Of course not. We both equally kept our promises of keeping updates with each other through texts and rare phone-calls when we got the chance. The timezones were a wreckage due to his traveling, so I never made a big deal about it. A text a week was enough sometimes.

"Just stick with some cardio for now, yeah? I cannot lose my gym buddy over a fucking dumbbell. How embarrassing will that be?" Jennifer joked.

Rolling my eyes at her comment, my lips parted to talk back, but my actions were stopped when my phone vibrated on the gym floor and we took a glimpse.

Jennifer let out a soft, sarcastic awe at the contact and slid the phone over to me as we sat on the mats.

"Wow, you got that man falling real hard for you. Oh, how it is to live your life!" Jennifer moaned in jealously.

"Oh, please, it's just updates. We don't actually talk." I mumbled out, looking down at the screen.

iMessage
Niall H.
At Spring Fest LA now . Guitar string snapped and almost cut my lefty ... reminded me of you . 😂😂😂😂

"You're smiling like an idiot, Elle." Jennifer frowned. "He's eating you up with a simple text. That's not really girl code of you."

I didn't realize I was smiling hard at the message. It wasn't because it made me laugh, which, I mean, it did, but it had been a few days since I received a text from Niall, so having to see his name again made me feel jittery.

"Fuck off. You know I can't help it." I confessed.

Jennifer took hold of her cold hydroflask and opened up the lid to hydrate herself before making another comment.

"I know you can't. Madly obsessed with that man all childhood. And now you have him like that...I don't blame you a bit." Jennifer laughed to herself.

I didn't respond to my friend. Instead, I wiggled my fingers on the iPhone screen, trying to think on what to send Niall before he doesn't respond for days again.

"I can't believe Niall Horan came to the condo like nothing. Are you sure you just gave him a hand-job?" Jennifer joked out.

iMessage

Haha, funny, Horan. 😅 Hope you are okay.

I scoffed at Jennifer's straight-forward question, "What? Why would you ask something like that?"