Fake (N.S)

42.

Niall's POV

My mother's words were still burning in my mind and the longer I thought about it, the weirder the situation seemed to be. She had to have had some sort of ulterior motive for this. Perhaps she was trying to guilt me into listening to what she and my father wanted. 

The thought of her genuinely accepting me had never crossed my mind. To my knowledge, something like that would never happen. I had learned to never expect something like this to happen when it came to my parents. 

It had been a long time since I had been so confused about something that wasn't about Harry and even longer since I had cared about something that one of my parents had said. However, I was definitely not expecting the sudden recurrence of my issues with my parents to be a result of one of them being nice to me. 

I was a little annoyed that she had practically implied I had become a different person because I was gay, especially since she had known about my sexuality long before that conversation had even happened. Though I guess this whole experience was new for her and she didn't really know how else to address the situation.

That is, if she even meant what she said.

~

"That's uncalled for, even for someone as...heartless as her," Louis told me after I had explained my mother's actions to him, Leigh-Anne looking up from the book she was reading to tune into our conversation.

It seemed as though my lack of care for my parents had also caused me to forget that Louis probably hated them more than I did. His eyes were narrowed in what I could describe as equally angry and confused. 

"I would say the same but I don't know. It seemed kind of...genuine to me," I shrugged.

"Ni, after everything she has done to you, do you really think it's a good idea for you to trust her based on an apology that's most likely half-arsed?" he asked, peering over at me with a pointed look on his face.

"I'm not saying I trust her, Lou. I know that I need to be careful but she's my mother. Is it really that bad if I hang onto the hope that I could finally have a parent that gives a shit about me?"

"Maybe. You don't exactly have a reason to give her that chance. What brought this on in the first place?" he questioned, seemingly trying to wrap his head around everything. 

"I honestly don't even know. Like...one minute she was criticising me and the next she was telling me that she wanted to grow to accept me."

"That seems suspicious. Maybe she found a new girl to set you up with. Or she's trying to convince you to go to conversion therapy or something," he shrugged. 

"It didn't seem like it. As little time that I've spent with her, I know her well enough to know that she would just outright say things like that. It's never stopped her before."

"Louis might be right, Niall. I'm not saying that what you're doing is wrong but maybe you should be cautious," Leigh piped up.

"I know. I'm not going to just accept her apology straight away, I just-- I feel like maybe I should at least try to sort things out with her," I murmured, my hand running through my hair. 

Honestly, I knew that trusting her was probably the worst idea I had ever had but there was some part of me that felt like I had to do something. In the off chance that whatever intentions she had of talking to me were positive. 

"We know that you're smart enough to figure this shit out on your own and we'll be there for you either way," Louis shrugged.