Humane (Liam Payne)

Chapter 6 ~ Parker

Chapter 6~Parker

As I sat under my tarp, I stared at the piece of paper in my hand. It was wavy and tearing from the many times I crumpled it up and smoothed it out over and over. He gave it to me two days ago, when we ran into each other—yet again—at the gas station. It’s like he was always showing up, always offering me something. It was gross almost. I bit my lip and stuffed the paper in my short pocket. It was another warm day out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating down on Miami.

This was killing me. Staying here in this dark alley all the time was boring, lonely and despite the weather, wet. I slipped on my flip flops, pulled my hair into a messy ponytail and walked to the nearest park, sitting myself down on the bench. I had a zip-up sweatshirt on, so I hid my face as best I could without looking like a murderer.

I thought about my parents, I thought about what they were doing right now. They were most likely sitting on the couch crying filling out applications for a missing person to put in the newspaper. I smirked, thinking that when I ran away from home, they were crushed, but when my brother left to live on his own when he was younger than I was my parents didn’t seem to care as much.

My phone buzzed. Garrett was calling me, like he had since I ran away. My parents called me, but I had to turn off my phone since they wouldn’t stop calling me. As the days went on, they still called, but not as much. I pressed ignore and put my phone in my pocket. I hated ignoring Garrett’s calls, but if I told him why I ran away—although I’m pretty sure he knew the reason—it would bring up a conversation I knew neither of us wanted to have. No matter how much it had been haunting us for.

People passed me by without a second glace. I’m not the kind of person you would notice when you passed by on the streets. I had brown eyes and straight brown hair, and was five feet six inches, so I didn’t stand out in a crowd. All throughout my life people told me I was pretty, that I had a wonderful future ahead for me, but growing up, I never felt like that. I looked out my window and saw such happy families with laughing and beautiful children, but I knew that would never be me. Even when I was five years old I knew my family wasn’t like that. Frankly, it wasn’t hard to put together if you lived in my house.

As I was thinking, a head of blond hair caught my eye. When I looked up, my breath got caught in my throat. Niall Horan was walking past me. I started choking from the shock, and Niall looked over, and his blue eyes widened when he saw me. Did he know who I was?

"Are you okay?” He asked his Irish accent so much more clearly in person.

“Yeah, thanks.” I said when I recovered, hiding my face.

“Aren’t you Parker Harrison?” He sat down next to me.

He knew who I was! “Aren’t you Niall Horan?” I asked, and he laughed.           

“I know it’s you. Liam talks about you a lot.”

My head snapped up. “What did you say? Liam does? Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he’s worried about you.”

“I don’t even know him.” I mumbled.

“Yeah.” He agreed. “So are you just sitting here, continuing to be ‘missing’?” He used air quotes around ‘missing’.

“I guess so.” I said and sat back.

“Are you really staying on the streets?”

I frowned. “Who told you that? Was it Liam?” I snapped.

“Yeah, why?”

“What else did he tell you?” I ignored his question.

“Nothing.”