"Will you marry me?" As the tears were welling up in my eyes, the words registered in my mind. All I could think about was Niall. Why did I lead Harry on for so long? I started to cry and Harry got up and hugged me.
"Please tell me those are happy tears." I shook my head and backed away from him.
"Harry, I-I can't marry you..." My voice trailed off and I turned away from him trying to figure out what to say. Why on earth would he propose to me merely after 8 months?
"Lie... please don't say you're in love with someone else." I sobbed like an idiot.
"I can't do that Harry, because I can't lie to you. It just hurts me that you two are so close." I turned to face him, and he looked devastated... just as I was about to speak, Niall walked in.
“What did you do to her? Why is she crying?”
“I asked her to marry me.” Niall jolted his head towards me and this time he was devastated.
“And I said no.” I put my face in my hands because I didn’t want to look at either one of them. I loved them both. But I just can’t see myself with Harry for the rest of my life.
“It’s him, isn’t it.” I looked Harry straight in the eyes. I had never told Niall how I felt about him, so this was the moment of truth.
“I’m so sorry.” His eyes filled up with tears.
“You cheated on me?”
“I would never. You know I’m not like that. But somewhere along the way, I just fell in love with my best friend.” Niall realized what was going on and held his head. I was guessing that he didn’t love me, why would he? I was always just his best friend, we never talked about each other romantically.
“Did you ever love me?” Harry really did look devastated. He turned his face from me instantly regretting the words he let slip from his mouth. This is the worst possible thing I could do to him. I walked closer to him.
“Harold, look at me.” He looked back at me and I touched his cheek and grabbed one of his hands. I continued. “I loved you from the very first day, and I never stopped. And in a way, I never will. You will always be my first love, and for that you’ll always have an imprint on my heart.” I let a tear fall from my eyes and disregarded it. Harry wiped it away.
“If you want to be with him, you can.” I seen Niall lift his head out of the corner of his eye.
“Harry, he doesn’t know I’m in love with him.” Harry looked at him.
“Do you love her?” This was the moment of truth. I was finally going to find out whether Niall loved me.
“More than anything.” My heart skipped a beat and I died on the inside. Harry looked back at me.
“He’s one of my best friends, and I want him to be happy too. I’ll be fine. If he thinks he’s found his princess, then I don’t want to stand in the way of that.” I could tell it hurt him to say so, but in a way it also warmed my heart. I could finally be with the boy I was in love with since I was 5. I grew up with Niall, and I met Harry when Niall had me flown to London to meet the band. Harry and I had a connection and we started dating after they were eliminated. Neither of us wanted to distract him from the competition, so we had decided to wait. What I didn’t realize was that every time we were together, all I could think about was Niall. It just sucks that figuring out we loved each other was at the expense of breaking Harry’s heart.
“Listen to me babe, you guys obviously belong together. You had to be with someone else to realize that. And I do understand. It hurts me, but I’m not going to stand in the way of true love.” I didn’t know what else to say so I hugged him. He hugged me back and I whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“And I do love you.” He hugged me tighter.
“I love you too.” We let go of each other and Harry left. I watched him walk out and wiped my tears away. I turned to Niall and he was smiling. I cracked a smile and he came over and picked me up, spun me around and held me tight. Like I had said, we never discussed it. So his silent embrace meant everything to me.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”
“Better late than never. If you hadn’t started dating him, I would have asked you out.”
“Why did you wait so long?”
“Because I didn’t think anything of it. When I found out I was going to be in a band, I wanted to have you before someone else could, and then Harry beat me to it.
“Well, you have me now and that’s all that matters.”
He had one hand on my cheek and the other hand on my waist. I put one hand on his cheek and the other on his chest. He’s gotten much more built since X Factor. We looked each other in the eyes, and he finally kissed me. I could feel the chemistry and I felt like flying. We broke contact.
“Can I be your prince charming?”
“You can be my everything.” We both smiled and I leaned my head on his chest and he hugged me. This was definitely going to be the start of something amazing.
