Love is a Time Limit (Niall Horan)

Chapter 11: Always Yours

Chapter 11: Always Yours

 (Niall Horan, age 19)

The time spent with Verena that following year added together to make up some part of a once ended romance coming back to life. For the most part, Niall and Verena were finally happy now that they were officially a couple and that things had returned to a more normal atmosphere, and life those days felt lighter on the shoulders for everyone’s favorite Irish lad.

 A few days after the visit to Mullingar, the boys said their goodbye’s and left for a series of hectic months of touring after leaving Niall with some memorable gifts on a day he was hospital-bound. Niall however had no other choice but to call it quits with One Direction because of his condition, leaving him to stay in Mullingar while his mates were off to see the world and preform in front of thousands of screaming fans on tour.

However, that all had happened just around a distant year ago; so much had changed for the better but it all eventually started to decay into the rotted mess it originally was. Sure, on the outside, life was well again for him; no heartbreak, no more tears, no more mistakes made. But beneath it all life was getting tougher despite all of the happiness, not just for Niall but for Verena as well. Time was running out and both of them knew it; the truth pushed to the back of their minds but still turning up unexpectedly at the worst of times. Though they both tried not to think about the future, that single thought of what was to come would always find a way to come back.

The strain and true effects of the heart condition were starting to kick in by the time Niall reached nineteen. Chest pains grew heavier, breathing became a struggle more than once every few days, and the young lad found himself practically glued to the cold confines of the hospital whenever these symptoms would arise. Those lonely nights without anyone for company in the darkness of the cold hospital room gave him time to think about everything, as well as miss the things he had left behind. He missed the boys more on those nights; they had become like brothers to him and had made the two years in London feel like a dream. Though Mullingar was home and held the warmth any hometown would, just being there was a slap in the face for Niall; never ceasing to tell him that this was it, this was his final stop.

‘One day closer,’ he would say to himself with every morning greeting him. It was true; one more year left until his life would be limited to days, hours, even minutes. Verena’s father had more than once mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to live past twenty, and because there was no cure or anything readily available to help ease the condition even, Niall had taken those words to heart and was attempting to prepare himself for that final day and those last critical moments of his life.

‘--- months left until they come visit,’ he would think at the end of each passing month, thoughts wandering to the boys he had to leave behind and of the fame he had to throw away. It had its perks; not being under the limelight of fame, but it still stung to be brought back to the truth. Niall Horan was not the carefree, food-loving lad the public made him out to be…he was more corrupt than they would ever know. This was real, these moments were real, and fame was just a short-lived life of lies.

He was simply playing the waiting game at that point.

The recently celebrated New Year’s was no different from the last one spent in Mullingar the previous year;  all feeling natural and real, a true heavyhearted welcome to the predicted final year of his life. As bittersweet as it was that night, one memory on the first day of that New Year would always hold a permanent spot in Niall’s heart. And as with every special memory in his life, Verena had much to do with it.

The countdown was long over, drawing a close to the small gathering at the Horan household to welcome in the year. Greg had gone off to sleep in hopes of calming down his light whiskey-induced headache, and Niall’s father was drifting in and out of sleep in front of the brightly flickering television projecting a televised countdown event drawing to a close.