Here For You

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Niall could feel his heart breaking for this beautiful in front of him as the words rang in his ears. How could someone not know how to love himself? 
"Li--" he started to say, stroking Liam's hand, which was still loosely gripping  his collar. "You're beautiful and perfect; how can you not love yourself?" 

Liam's eyes turned harsh again, brown orbs burning from the unspent tears. "I'm disgusting and worthless, anything but beautiful. My parents hardly care about me and left me in a state of depression for months before they finally realised that something wasn't quite well with me. Even now, I barely see them. And at school?  Have you ever seen me really talk to anyone but you and your group of friends? Everyone can see that I'm just a waste of space, just another bloke whom they'll see a couple times in their lives. But you, you somehow think that worthy of attention." 

Tears began to roll down Niall's rosy cheeks even faster. "You--you are none of those things. People don't talk to you because of the goddamn walls you've built around yourself, not because you're what you think you are. Even when you were closed off to the world, I could see in you that you needed someone to show you.  Someone who could show you what real love is like. And I mean it when I say that I love you. I fucking love you and I'll be damned if I can't change the way you think about yourself, Liam!" Niall was mad; not at Liam but whoever had driven Liam to such places.  Those bastards deserved to get some sense knocked into them for making Liam think like thus. 

The brunet let out a harsh laugh. A tear escaped the corner of his eye, unbidden, as he retorted  "You keep telling me that you love me; you keep telling me things that are impossible. You're only lying to yourself if you truly think that you can fall in love with someone as pathetic as me. Or have you forgotten whom you 'love'? Have you forgotten already what a pathetic piece of sod that I am?"  

Liam let go of Niall's shirt roughly, shoving the smaller boy away from him.  He turned on his heel and started to walk away, back to his house.  Fuck school, he didn't want to go to that prison in disguise anyways. He could always fake his father's voice and call in sick. 
Before he could take a full step, he was yanked backwards.  Warm fingers were encircling his wrist, not letting him budge one bit. 

"Let me go, Niall. I've a headache so I don't wanna be dealing with you now." He felt himself being whirled to face the blond boy once again. "We're gonna deal with this now, Liam. I'm not lettin' you go anywhere until either I can move on or we can move on." Liam glared at Niall as he shook off the pale hand and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'm not going anywhere. So. Fuck. Off."

"Make. Me." Niall gritted out, imitating the other's intimidating tone. 

The tears were beginning to dry on Niall's cheeks as Liam drew back his arm and punched Niall in the gut. Letting out a pained gasp, Niall sank to the ground, knees hitting the ground. He reached out with one hand to steady himself while the other hand was pressed to his stomach. But Liam swept his arm off with the his toe, almost making Niall scratch up his face on the pavement. 

"There. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way inside. Away from you," he spat out. 

Again, like before, Liam managed half of a step before he felt himself falling, face-first, to the ground. There was an added weight on his back. Liam reached out with his arms before his face actually touched the pavement. Feeling the skin on his palms scraping, he groaned from the mixture of pain of pleasure.  

Niall was still breathing hard from having been punched in his stomach, but he kept Liam trapped underneath him. His knees bracketed Liam's thighs as he let Liam flip around to face him.