That One Night

Chapter 22

"Look, you don't know how sorry I am and I really do hope that we can still be friends after this." he says. His voice still broken.

I nod and try to smile. I fail.

"The reason is..... well it's because...." Niall struggles to say.

"Just say it Niall. I'm not going to be here for much longer and if you're not going to tell me then I'll just leave and never look back." I say to Niall so it would hopefully hurry him up to talk.

"Fine. The reason why is because I was worried that if your mum knew that you were with me, you wouldn't be able to stay here. I know it sounds fucked up, but it sounded a lot better in my head. So I lied to your mum and pretended to be you. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for you to be so angry with me." Niall rushes his words.

"Oh" is all that I could say.

"But before, why were you like that. You know..."

Niall jumps in before I can finish. "Because. I felt incredibly guilty for what I did. I may look tough, but when it comes to someone that I care about, this is what happens to me. Especially if I've done something like this."

I laugh. A bit too loud and Niall's face turns into a deeper frown.

"We haven't even known each other even twenty-four hours, how can you possibly care for me that much?" I'm still chuckling a bit at Niall's earlier words.

Niall looks even worse than before. My way with words I guess. But seriously, he doesn't know me, why would he care so much about me?

"Look, I didn't mean it in that way, I mean that we've never met before in our lives and you suddenly care so much about me. It doesn't make sense." I say to try and recover from my earlier words.

"It's just that... that.... you know what, forget about it. You'll just probably laugh at me again." Niall's face hasn't changed its facial expression.

I feel really bad now. He was bad before, but now I've just made him worse. Should I leave? Should I apologize or just leave? I don't know. But what I do want to know is what Niall was going to say to me until he stopped himself.

"No, I won't laugh. I promise. I didn't mean to laugh before, it was just that you claim that you care for me when you don't even know me." I say trying to make him change his mind to tell me.

"Fine." He lets out a breath that he was clearly holding in from the beginning of our conversation together.