Treacherous

Chapter Forty- Two

*~*~* Niall's POV *~*~*

Natalie continues to stare blankly at the wall as I sit on the other side of the bed facing her back. She's been like this for an hour, switching back and forth between being completely still and shaking violently from sobs that rack through her body.

Whenever the sobs come I make sure to rub her back comfortingly. She deserves to have someone there for her even though I had no one.

It's another hour later that she just sits up and wipes her eyes, sniffling one last time before smiling at me. It's the fakest smile I've ever seen, and it makes me frown. She must do this a lot.

Even I have to admit, though, that if I hadn't seen her in such a horrible state I would've mistaken this smile as a real one.

She's had lots of practice.

"Drop the act," I state blankly as she pushes the blanket off of her, that same sick smile still glued to her face.

"No," she replies back simply, still smiling.

I give her a pointed look, but she simply ignores it. Yeah, she's had lots of practice. It doesn't even look as if she's been breaking down for the past 2 hours.

"I'm fine," she says, ignoring every single glare that I throw at her.

"Why don't you just tell me what's bothering you? I know for a fact that what you just did was not you 'being fine'." My teeth grit together in anger and frustration as she refuses to tell me what made her act in such a way.

"I can't tell you. I just can't." Her words make me frown as I realize that this is exactly what I've been doing to her. I don't tell her the information she wants to know, but she knows that something's wrong. She's seen all of the pictures and she doesn't believe a single one of those lies I've told her and the rest of the world.

Surprisingly, I haven't gotten any texts from TGWD telling me to stop talking to her and to just ditch her at any given time. It's worrying me and I find myself checking my phone every few seconds.

She could be doing undescribable things to Amie for what I'm doing right now. She could be waiting for the exact moment for me to slip up so she can find the pleasure in killing the only thing I'm sure I love. She could be doing a numerous amount of things to her while I sit here comforting a girl I barely know.

I snap back to the real world and Natalie looks at me with a sympathetic smile.

"You're crying again." Her hand moves to my face and I flinch, but she only wipes away the tears I didn't know had fallen. "I'm not going to hit you," she says softly.

I pull away from her touch, knowing that there is no way that I deserve to feel something as relaxing as another person's gentle caresses on my skin. My own hands wipe under my eyes until every single tear is gone.

A fake smile forms on my lips just as it happened to hers only minutes ago. She frowns deeply at my actions, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Please don't do this with me. I'm only trying to help. You just need to tell me what's wrong," she pleads, taking my hands in hers. I stare at the stark contrast of our skin colors. She's so tan compared to me, but this is probably the lightest color she's ever been. I'm so pale.

The reason of why I look like this runs through my mind and I pull away again, standing up and moving to the complete opposite side of the room. She has a defeated look on her face when I turn back around.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I just don't deserve anything or anyone nice like you." I sniffle at the end, wiping under my eyes again. A flashback of when I slapped Amie reiterates in front of me and I have to muffle a sob.