The Bucket List (A Niall Horan Fanfic)

Chapter 23: Conversations, Confrontations, California

I squinted my eyes open when I heard my alarm begin to loudly blare and rolled, over, flinging my arm around to slam it off. I rubbed my face as if that was to rub the sleepiness away as I groaned at the time; 6:01. I had gotten four hours of sleep. Why did I ever put myself through that? I practically fell out of my bed, catching my balance as my feet hit the hard carpet. I lugged myself over to my suitcase to grab my laptop and a pack of poptarts that I had bought at a grocery store when we first arrived in Arizona. I slightly smiled as I opened the shiny package. Poptarts were my favorite and honestly, I would eat them at any meal. I climbed back onto my bed as I shoved one of the poptarts into my mouth and sprawled out in front of my laptop, instantly going to my articles. For the next two hours I tirelessly scrutinized over my best ten articles and made them as flawless as a girl with four hours of sleep could manage. Some articles I had half-finished, thinking I would have time to come back to them and figure out a good ending. Instead, I was messily drooling over my keyboard in sleep deprivation.

At about seven forty, I heard a knock on the door. I stumbled off the bed and to the door, slowly opening it. To my surprise, Harry was standing before me in his sweats, while his curls were thrown in every which way.

“What are you doing up?” he asked, scratching his head groggily.

“You knocked on my door,” I said, turning my head in suspicion.

“Right,” he said looking down, his raspy morning voice sounding particularly low. “I woke up at six and couldn’t sleep.”

“Well I don’t have any magical sleeping powder for you, but you can come in if you like,” I said, walking back into my room and closing my computer shut. I climbed back onto my bed, not dairng to mkae eye contact as my gaze shifted around the floor.

“You’re scared aren’t you?” Harry asked before grunting as if he found this discovery amusing.

“Of you?” I asked, trying to turn the conversation into a joke, replying with sarcasm, “Yes.”

“No, you’re scared of getting too close to any of us,” he said, nodding as I shook my head back at him.

“And if I am, am I not justified?” I asked pleadingly, “I’m only going to be with him- I mean you guys for two more months. That’s not a very long time.”

“You could always stay,” Harry mumbled and I let out a long breath that was close enough to a sigh. “You don’t have to go to Julliard.”

“Can you hear yourself,” I said, throwing my hands into my hair in frustration.

“Do you love him?” he asked suddenly, staring at the ground as if he couldn't make eye contact even if he tried. I sat there for a moment in shock at the question until he looked up at me, expectantly. His green eyes looked weary and torn. But I slowly nodded and smiled.

“I’ve never really known love, but if this is it, then I think I do,” I said, quietly. The funny thing is that what I thought was love was really just a justified emotion that sparked when I was with Niall. I later learned that love is much more than that. I hadn’t gotten to the end of my bucket list, so I really had no clue what love really was or how to define it.

After a few moments he nodded and got up from the end of my bed. Looking at me, he said, “Well either way, I’m not sorry about last night.”

“I love California so freaking much!” I said, sticking my head out the car window as we drove away from LAX and breathed in a big strong breath of hot LA air. The wind flapped past my face and through my long hair as it forced my eyes shut. My favorite part about California, by far, were the palm trees. They made me feel like I was in paradise, yet compared to how far I had been from home in the past year, California felt like a five minute walk from my home town, Vancouver. My lips parted into a smile as I let the hot sun beat down on my freckled face and the salty air filter through my lungs.