When Love Heals - A Niall Horan Fanfic

Chapter Two.

 Unlike the first time they met, Lydia recognised Niall the second her eyes landed on him.

“Oh shit, sorry, sorry!” Niall stuttered, grabbing onto her arms after crashing into her and almost knocking her down.

“It’s fine, don’t worry abou –“ Lydia laughed, but was cut off when her eyes lifted to the boy in front of her.

She almost couldn’t believe it. What were the odds of bumping into him twice in a week? Niall was wearing black Ray Bans and a snapback, obviously trying to defer attention from himself. But he wasn’t hard to spot.

“Oh, hey! I know you!” Niall said, and it surprised Lydia to see recognition dawning in his eyes. “From the hospital, right?”

A thousand thoughts ran through Lydia’s head. She couldn’t believe he remembered her. Why woudl he remember her? What should she do? She quickly decided that it would probably be best that she didn’t freak out on him and instead went for the let’s-act-cool approach.

“Yeah, nice to see you.” She smiled a little, but inside she was cheering and doing a celebratory dance at how calm she seemed when she half wanted to fan herself and faint from their close proximities.  

“Do yo-“ Niall started to speak again, but he was cut off by Lydia and Meredith’s drinks order being called out again.

“That’s my drink,” she said apologetically. “I better go get it.”

Niall nodded and watched her retreat to the till to collect the drinks. She was stunning, he thought. And she had some air of confidence, some sparkle in her eyes that he just couldn’t ignore.

“Mer!” Lydia hissed as she slid back into her seat opposite her best friend who was currently analysing her nails and mumbling about how dare one get chipped.

“Huh?”

“That’s him!” Lydia jabbed her head in the direction of the front of the café where Niall was ordering a drink.

“What?” Meredith said, bewildered.

“Him!”

Meredith threw her hands up in frustration. “Stop talking in riddles, woman! I don’t understand!”

“That. Is. Niall. Horan.” Lydia said slowly, watching Meredith’s widen.

“The one that bumped into you?” She gasped when Lydia nodded. “I almost came over to beat him up for being so rough around you!”

Lydia laughed at that. The situation was so surreal but hearing her over-protective best friend say something so normal proved that she hadn’t gone mad and hallucinated that the attractive popstar was here.

“Hello?” Meredith picked up her phone when the familiar marimba sound started playing.

Lydia took sips of her drink as she listened to her best friend mutter replies of ‘no!’ and ‘oh my god!’.

“You have to go?” Lydia said sadly as Meredith hung up the phone. The tanned girl nodded as she slipped her arms into her leather jacket

“Yeah, disaster at the salon. Sorry Lyd.” She downed the rest of her drink and placed a quick peck on Lydia’s cheek before rushing out into the busy London street with a ‘I’ll call you later!’ called over her shoulder.

Lydia sighed. She really needed a job or something, she couldn’t just do this let’s-sit-around-and-wait-to-apply-to-uni shit any longer. It was bad for her health. Well, her mental health, maybe not her physical one.