Who Do You Think You Are

Chapter 31 - And it's no joke to me

Niall decided that he would take the book with him so he could read it to Stacy when he got back. He walked outside for a bit, wondering to himself about the clover. He noticed that there was mail in the post-box and so he went to fetch it. 'Just in-case there's somethin urgent' he thought. He went through the envelopes in his hand and placed them one by one on the bonnet of the car until he found one marked 'important'. When he read the return address and the stamp he realized that it wasn't a bill or bank statement. It wasn't even from England at all.

"You ready to go, bro?" Zayn asked as he exited the house. Niall didn't seem to hear him.

"Brazil?" he asked, all perplexed.

"Oh yea, Stace was plannin on going to work there for a while. In fact, I think she was supposed to leave tomorrow."

The blood drained out of Niall's face. "What?" he asked sounding winded. "You, you mean you knew about this and you never told me?"

Louis came outside and was about to lock up. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking from Niall to Zayn.

"What's wrong? Stacy's leavin the fricken country and I didn't even know about it! That's what's wrong!"

"Niall," Louis tried to calm him down. "You weren't around when we found out and then we were going to tell you but..."

"Yeah, rub it in my face. I wasn't around," Niall said, more angry at himself than at the boys.

"No, no. That's not what I meant." At that moment, all the energy drained out of Niall's body. The envelop fell out of his hand and he just stood there speechless and numb.

***

For the entire drive Niall was silent. Zayn and Louis didn't know what to say, so neither of them uttered a word. When they finally arrived, Niall had a shower and went straight to bed. Zayn tried to speak to him, but he wouldn't have any of it. It was like he was trying to escape. So Zayn left him to get some rest and went to take a shower.

Zayn's P.O.V.

When we got back to the hospidal, there were fans evrywhere. Somehow, they always find us. I really wasn't in the mood to get mobbed and I was glad that Paul and Andy were around. They had hung out at the hospital with us for most of the time - Paul ever since last night, and Andy joined him in the morning - though they hadn't been needed until now. Then the worst thought ever popped into mah head. "What if...?" I quickly tried to dismiss it. There was no way... I glanced over at Niall. He wasn't handling things too well.

I thought getting him out of this place for a little while would do him some good. And it did - until he found out about Stacy's plans to go to Brazil. We managed to push through the crowd of fan-girls.

I was the last to get through. When I did, I saw Loueh huggin Niall, who still had a fan's pen in his hand. He never liked saying no to the fans.