That Smile (A Niall Horan Fan Fiction)

Chapter 9: Happily Miserable

Lauren looked on as a very happy Sammy boarded a yellow taxi that would take her to the airport. From there she would take a plane to London to visit Harry who was flying her there for the Thanksgiving holiday.

It was now November and August seemed like it had been years ago.

The past few months had flown by and Lauren and Niall remained friends. But nothing else, just friends. Lauren's patience was starting to wear thin though. He just kept toying with her feelings and sending her mixed signals with his overly sweet messages and late night Skype calls.

And now Sammy was flying to London to visit Harry who was so in love with her while she would be heading back to her average life in Texas for the week. At least while she was in LA she could pretend that her life was better than it was. But Lauren knew that she had no room for complaining, people had it way worse, it just seemed like this stuff always happened to her and she was getting sick of it.

"You coming, Lauren?" Elyse turned around to face Lauren.

"Yeah," she said lightly. She turned around and walked with her best friend back to their dorm room. She was still lost in thought, which was something she had been doing a lot lately.

"You okay, Lauren?" Elyse spoke as they entered their room.

"Yeah, why?" Lauren said fake surprised. Even though she knew why Elyse was asking.

"Oh, you just seem to be quieter than usual lately. Is something bothering you? Did something happen that you didn't tell me about?"

"No, I'm fine." Lauren shrugged it off and went to her bed where her suitcase sat open with a pile of unpacked clothes next to it.

"Are you sure?" Elyse wasn't quite satisfied with her answer.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She barely glanced up before looking back down again.

"Alright," Elyse scowled. Something was definitely up. But it was Lauren so it could be any number of things.

Lauren fisted a shirt and forced herself not to cry. She only let a few tears escape as she folded it and placed it in her bag. She couldn't help but think that she was tired of crying. And she seemed to be doing a lot of that too lately.

Maybe it was time to let go.

***

"He's literally everywhere I go!" Lauren almost threw her phone against the seat in front of her. Lauren and Elyse were currently sitting on their airplane back to Texas waiting to take off. Lauren had decided to go onto Tumblr for a few minutes before they forced her to turn her phone off.

Elyse looked at Lauren. She was just shocked that Lauren had said something because she hadn't said much since they went to bed the night before. It was probably the longest Elyse had seen Lauren go without running out of breath from talking so fast.

"Who?!" She looked at her best friend incredulously.

"Niall! That stupid Niall Horan. He's everywhere. He's on my Twitter feed, he's on all of the TVs, he's on every magazine cover that I pass and now all I see are pictures of him on my Tumblr! I just can't get away from him!" Lauren fumed.

"Wait, what's wrong with Niall?" Elyse asked, confused. Lauren hadn't been telling her anything so she had no idea something was going on if there really was something going on.

"I just can't stand him." Lauren spit out as she turned off her phone and put it away

"Alright, and why can't you stand him? I thought you were completely in love with him?" Elyse asked thinking that her best friend was just being overdramatic, because she tended to do that sometimes.