Prove Me Wrong (Ziall side Larry)

viii.

He didn’t know how to begin this. As in he had no idea how to not make this more awkward than it already is. Because that’s what it is right now. Painfully and embarrassingly awkward. He’s sitting rather stiffly on mostly moist soil, the person he’s been pining for since high school a few inches away from him and it’s still and silent but not calm. He could hear his heart pounding so hard and he thinks may be he shouldn’t have been so rash after all.

But he has been waiting for this moment to happen for ages. And he is not supposed to be talking himself out of it. He was just taken by surprise because when he went out for a walk this afternoon, he hadn’t exactly factored in “forcing Niall to talk after accidentally walking in on his workplace” in his itinerary.

Soon, the internal dialogue began: Do I start with I like you a lot? Or maybe something like would you stop running away from me? that finally led him to settle on, “I can’t believe what you did in the locker room that day.”

Niall bit his lip as he turned crimson. He opened his mouth to say something when Zayn held up a hand to stop him, “I get dibs at talking, remember?”

The blonde nodded and closed his mouth.

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” he continued. “I just wasn’t expecting it, you know? Because how could you like me? We’ve never even talked before that day. We’ve never been in a class together. Never in the same club or sport. Just never in the same place at the same time. At least not for long stretches of time, like, I dunno. I get ten minutes at most to see you. Like, we were just never given a chance to interact and—”

As Zayn continued to talk, Niall was becoming redder and redder because he realized that oh my god. Zayn is right. I must have looked like a proper creep and what am I doing with my life? Honestly? How could I even think to do that? How can I just barge in his life, in that sweaty and foul-smelling room and tell him I like him that damn much?

 

“—everything’s just so unfair because I like you a lot and it was agonizing to only see you for a few minutes each day and you went and did that thing that you did and I couldn’t believe it and I was just so happy but then I guess you took my shock as …something else and the next thing I knew, you were out of the locker room. And you wouldn’t even look at me during the days that followed. And just fuck. It hurt. And then I saw you walking down the street two years later and I thought I was over you but apparently I wasn’t and I just…I need to be the one to do the confessing this time, Niall. So, here I am and there you are and I can’t even remember half the stuff I’m saying because I’m still working on how I’m going to tell you that I’ve spent this whole time trying to forget you but I can’t and I want you, I still do and would you please go out with me and shit, I hope you still like me because I’m going to stab myself right here if it turned out that you’re over me and I’m alone in this and I’m just being really stupid,” he finished lamely.

Niall was glad he was sitting because he might have fallen into the river if he wasn’t. Because whoa. What the hell just happened? He couldn’t remember half the things Zayn said either not because he wasn’t listening, he was. He just got stuck between the I like you and the I want you and I want to go out with you bits.

And as he looked at Zayn who was looking back at him expectantly, he realized that it was his turn to talk. So he talked.