I'm Home with You: A Niall Horan Fanfiction

Chapter 1: Recounting and Restarting

I take a deep breath and grip the steering wheel of the rental car so tightly that my knuckles turn white. 

Relax. Stressing isn't going to solve anything. I say to myself over and over again though it doesn't seem to be helping. 

It's not the driving part of today that's making me nervous, I've been doing that for three years now. It's the driving in a foreign country for the very first time on my way to meet my estranged aunt two months after my parents died part of today that is giving me the butterflies in my stomach.

I sigh and question my impulsive decision to accept my Aunt Jayne's offer to stay at her house for the holidays. When she offered at my parents' funeral, I wasn't thinking rationally when I said yes. I mean, would you have if you had just lost two of the most important people in your life at the same time. If I didn't accept the offer, what would I do during winter break? Rent a hotel room and be by myself on Christmas crying over my Mom and Dad? No, that definitely wasn't going to happen so I figured that it would be nice to stay with Aunt Jayne, no matter how long it's been since I've seen her (8 years, if you were wondering) or the fact that she lives on a different Continent. 

My Aunt Jayne has always loved traveling. She's been almost everywhere in the world but for some reason her favorite place has always been Ireland. She made the decision to move here years ago before I was even born. My mother had been heartbroken - my aunt and her had always been incredibly close - but she supported her decision because she knew how happy my aunt was to have the opportunity to live in her favorite place in the world.

They didn't let distance get in the way of communication and spending time together. My mother and Aunt Jayne would talk on the phone almost everyday for hours at a time and for as long as I can remember, my mother, father, and I would visit her every summer.

Summers in Ireland were fun. It was always exciting to be somewhere else besides my boring old New Jersey town and I actually made friends with a few of the kids in the neighborhood. 

Many people may actually be familiar with one of them in particular. His name is name is Niall Horan.

Niall was so fun and carefree. He always came up with these jokes that had me laughing until I couldn't breathe and he had enough energy to last for days.

Soccer was his favorite game to play. Every day each summer he would knock on the door of my aunt's home and when I'd answer he'd smile widely with his charmingly crooked teeth and say "Hey Meilie! Up for a game of football?" 

I'd laugh at his routine question but would say yes anyway because he was my friend and I wanted to spend time with him.

We'd play all day together until we'd both get called in for dinner and then we'd come back out to play again. Niall never liked playing games that required much physical activity after dinner because he always ate so much so we would do things like thumb wars or tell scary stories. Sometimes we'd even sing together.

My favorite memory of Niall is the summer when I was eleven. I had been sitting on the porch steps. The sun was setting and I was growing impatient as I waited for Niall to finish eating dinner so that we could play for one more hour before we both had to go back inside. I had been picking the petals off of a dandelion nearby when Niall excitedly bolted out of his house carrying a blue velvet bag.

"Meilie! You'll never guess what I have in here!" He exclaimed as he grabbed my hand and brought me over to the grass, spilling the contents of his bag onto the lawn.

They had just been marbles but at the time the sight of them made my eyes grow wide with delight. 

"Where did you get them?" I asked in complete awe.