This Love (Niall fanfiction)

chapter 15

Cleo's P.O.V

I had no idea he even had a sister. He barely even told me about himself in general. Niall's eyes started to water and I slowly walk over to him contemplating if I should comfort him or walk past him. He looks down again, letting out a choke, indicating his upcoming tears.

"Get out of here! No one is supposed to be in this room."

I speed up my pace in his direction and wrap my arms around his body, one of my hands going to the back of his head and he instantly cries silently. Niall buries his head in my shoulder, just standing there.

It feels kind of weird considering that were just on the verge of an argument and now he's tearing up in front of me. Another thing that must feel weird for him is that since I'm shorter than him, he is somewhat bending down with his head in the crook of my neck.

"Sorry for yelling at you and sorry for throwing up in your car." I go ahead and apologize while we're listening to each other.

I've never seen him like this before, well considering we practically just met, he doesn't seem like the type of guy who would cry like this. Especially on my shoulder, but I comfort him just like I had been comforted whenever my parent's had been ripped from my life. His hands go around my waist, pulling me closer, in a non-provocative I still feel his tears on my dress from last night.

"She's gone," His voice cracks.

"I'm so sorry, Niall." I squeeze him even tighter. I feel the lump in my throat grow as I watch a strong, defensive, rude guy, turn into someone completely vulnerable.

"What happened?" I say softly to him as he sniffles as comes up from my shoulder. We leave the room and Niall shuts the door, leading us downstairs.

"I don't like talking about it." He says sitting down on the couch. I sit next to him, turning to him, bringing my knees up.

"I understand." I nod.

"I want to tell you though." He said looking at me. I smile and look down. He clears his throat and swallows.

"She drowned," He said looking off into space. The small smile on my face drops instantly along with my heart.

"It was three years ago and we were at the beach. Me, my mom, my dad, and my younger sister. She was 9 years old," He swallows deeply continuing.  "God she was young," he sniffed and put his head down. I rubbed his back with my hand, as he struggled to continue.

"She went out there by herself. She asked me to go out there with her, but I didn't feel like it. So, she went by herself. She was okay swimming near the shore, but out of nowhere..." He stops.

"Niall it's okay, you don't have to continue if you-" I said rubbing his back up and down. He shook his head, deeply sighing and continued.

"She looked so happy," He said remembering her. "but once I saw that big wave come towards her, I yelled her name and she looked confused then turned around and saw the wave. She turned around and screamed my name trying to swim towards me."

My eyes started to water listening to Niall.

"I hopped off of my towel and ran towards the water. I tried to find my parents, but they left to the car to get surf boards. I jumped in the water trying to find her, but I couldn't find her. I swam underwater in better hopes of finding her. I found her passed out. I brought her to shore and the lifeguard was sitting there talking to some girl. My parents finally came over, dropping the snowcones that they had brought for us in the sand. We rushed her to the hospital."

Niall was choking on ever other word at this point. I kept telling him that he didn't have to go on if he didn't want to, but he insisted.

"The hospital said that she must have hit a rock while she was swimming away. The wave was so massive it had her swimming in a different direction that wasn't the shore and she ended up slamming into a rock that gave her a concussion."

Niall's face was red as he continued. "We couldn't stay the night at the hospital, but at 4 in the morning they called us saying that she didn't make it." He puts his hands on his face.

I reached over him and threw my arms around his neck as he sobbed into my neck. "It's my f-fault Cleo." The fact that he blames himself for this hurts me because I felt like that at one point and I still do occasionally.  There's nothing he could've done to save her unfortunately. I had to learn that about my parents.

"No, it's not. Don't say that."

It was hard to hug him from the position I was sitting in. He must have read my mind because he grabbed under my thigh, bringing it across his leg making me straddle him, not meaning it in a sexual manner. Niall hugged me tightly, while  continuing to cry into my sweater.