Call Me Ella (ft. Niall Horan)

Chapter 24 - Confession

Chapter 24 - Confession

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” He asks and I blink in shock and confusion, all at the same time. I start to frown, not understanding. I look at him as if he lost his mind, but he’s so serious. He lost the goofy smile.

“W-what do you mean? Tell you what? You brought me here!” I protest, suddenly feeling very defensive. I even move a bit farther from him, a bit scared.

“C’mon, stop with the game. You know what I mean and you know why I brought you here,” he insists and I snort.

“Of course I know, you told me I lost the bet, that you found your super mystery girl.” Ugh, I sound so bitter when I say that. “But besides that I don’t—”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” He cuts me off again, with the same question and I start to get desperate. Tell him what? There are so many things, but I don’t know what he means exactly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the girl at the ball?! That’s what I’m talking about, Ella!”

And that’s the moment I freeze and I feel like even my heart stops beating. I can only blink in utter shock and seeing Niall’s serious expression is making things only worse. Maybe he notices that because he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a few seconds. When he opens them again, he smiles at me.

“How— how did you find out?” I ask, not even trying to deny it. I know if I try, he’ll only yell at me.

Niall takes another breath and leans in to grab my hand, putting the orange aside. “I always knew,” he explains with a smile. I don’t even try to shove him off, I’m still too shocked. “I’m not stupid, you know? Yeah, I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, and you kept telling me you didn’t go to the dance. And even Harry told me that you were indeed working the whole night, but nothing else made sense. I knew it the moment we met at the stables, when you were so nervous. I saw your eyes, Ella. No mask could hide your eyes. And your smile, and your laughter, and your voice. This is not one of those cheesy movies where the characters are so oblivious when the truth has been in front of them the whole time.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” I ask, slapping me mentally for thinking that I was hiding it all this time, that it was a secret. But Niall knew all the time.

“I wanted you to tell me. I knew it was you but I didn’t understand why you didn’t tell me. You knew I was looking for you yet you didn’t say anything. You pushed me to fix things with Zoe. Why?”

I look away because I don’t even know how to start explaining all the things I did and the reasons behind. Telling him that it was because he’s a celebrity is not true, not completely, at least. There are so many other things that held me from telling him and I don’t know how to explain myself.

“Ella,” he calls me. “Help me to understand,” Niall adds pulling my hand, urging me to look him in the eyes.

“I— I felt guilty for kissing you when you had just broken up with Zoe, for getting in between somehow. And you know… you’re a guest in here and I shouldn’t even be friends with you, and Rhonda and… I’m sorry,” I finally say, looking down, not being able to meet his eyes. “It was easy to hide it, to hope you would drop it. That girl at the dance wasn’t really me,” I add before I feel his hand taking my face, making me look up and meet his eyes.

“It was you, just a part that you don’t show all the time. But that girl who made me forget all my problems that night is you, don’t you see? You did the same night after night.” I take a deep breath, shaking inside for how close we are, for the way he’s holding my face so gently. “You should’ve told me.”