You Found Me

You Found Me - Chapter Seven.

The second the boys stepped out of the room, Lucy screamed as loud as she could.

"OhmyfrickengoshthatwasfrickenOneDirection! OhmygoshIthinkI'mgoingtodie." Her soft pink lips exploded with emotion and her blue eyes were sparkling. "Allie...what...what just happened, how...you, you met them...before...how...?" Lucy trailed off, her cheeks a blossomming pink.

I shifted and laughed awkwardly. "I...I, well--"

"And what did Liam say about you and Niall Horan?" Lucy demanded, her hands on her hips. "What the fuck, Allie? You didn't tell me this? What?" She paused. "I just...wow."

I bit my lip. "Er. I guess that's a lot to take in right now--"

"No shit, Sherlock."

"--but I just...I don't even know, Lucy. I saved Harry Styles' freaking phone from being molested by a bunch of teenage girls."

She glared at me. "How do you know Niall?" Her voice softened. "Please tell me? I'm your best friend. Why don't I already know? Best friends tell each other everything, right?" Her blue eyes were wide with hurt. "So...why?"

"Because!" I bit my lip as my green eyes filled with tears. "I don't want to remember, Lucy! I've been trying to keep everything about my childhood a secret so that maybe one day I'll forget it, too."

"Why?" Lucy looked puzzled. "Niall--"

"It wasn't him," I choked out. I looked her straight in the eyes. "It was everything else."

(flashback)

The somber white floors of the hospital disappeared behind my ballet-flatted feet as I walked straight and with a purpose. Niall stood next to me, his blue eyes wide with fear, as I clutched onto his hand for dear life. Every few seconds I would have to turn and stare at him, to make sure he was real: that he hadn't slipped away from me like everyone and everything else in my life did. But every time I turned to look, he was still there, his expression clouded and his eyes trained on the floor. I clutched his hand harder as we approached the hospital room.

Number 335.

Niall looked at me cautiously, and I bit my lip, my heart thudding in my chest. Slowly, I reached out a porcelain hand to the doorknob, and the entryway was revealed. I sucked in a breath. Here we go.

My father and my brother sat next to each other on blue chairs, each chair turned to face her. A nurse slid a clipboard up onto a wall and came over to check her IV. And there we stood. We looked so out of place, myself in my ballet outfit as I had just gotten out of dance class, and Niall in his burly winter coat and white beanie, inside the toasty warm hospital room full of white-clad doctors and nurses, and people dressed in lowlight who had come to visit their loved ones.

That's why we were here: to visit loved ones. Just one.

My mother.

When she saw us enter, the doctor helped her sit up, and her face broke out into a smile.

"My baby," she whispered, wincing, and I raced over to her side.

"Mum." My voice cracked. "Mum, I..." My throat closed and I couldn't speak. All I could do was stare. She looked so broken; so void of life. That was so unlike her. Her smile would light up a room; her voice would ring like a bell, capturing your attention with a single syllable, and you wouldn't look away. You just couldn't. She captivated you. She was so ... marvelous. But all the happiness had drained from her face and her green eyes...my green eyes...were pale and unseeing. Her voice was weak, and she could barly lift up her hand to touch my face.

"Honey...this is going to be good-bye for awhile," she told me, her face sad.

My eyes brimmed with tears. "No. No, no, you have to stay. I can't be without you!" A tear spilled onto my cheek.

"But don't worry," she continued. "I'll always be with you. I promise."

"No. Mum...no, please. I need you. Please." The tears were coming faster now, and my legs shook. I could barely keep myself standing upright. "Don't go." The two words were barely audible.

She smiled weakly. "I love you, Alison. Forever and ever, no matter what."

"I love you, Mum." The tears caught on my jacket and I felt Niall materialize next to me.

My father and Aidan were sitting in the corner, Aidan's eyes fixated on me and my father's as unseeing and blank as my mother's.

The doctor cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, but you all need to leave. I have to prepare the patient for the operation."

I glared at her. She called her 'the patient' like she was an animal with no name. I wasn't going to leave. I grabbed onto Niall as the world slipped away.

"Good-bye, Allie," my mother said quietly.

"Good-bye," I whispered.

And then the door kissed shut.

Five hours later, my mother died.

Five hours later, my father disappeared.

Five hours later, my brother and I escaped.

And, then, before I knew it, Aidan and I were saying good-bye to everything. Aidan had worked enough and gotten enough money for two plane tickets to live with our aunt in Venice Beach. It was hard to leave. To leave the house we loved, to the place we'd lived all our lives, and to our friends. To Niall.

When I came to hug him good-bye, he had a funny look on his face. Like his mind was far away and his heart wasn't really in our departure.

The last memory I have of Mullingar is looking back from the front seat of the car and seeing Niall standing in the snow alone. He had his hand up in a final departing wave and he mouthed the words 'I love you.'

A tear streamed down my cheek as the car turned the corner.

"He was the only stable thing in my life," I said to Lucy. "My father has been missing for seven years. My brother and I took care of ourselves. We had no one."

"You lived with your aunt didn't you?" Lucy asked. "Right...?"

"She never cared about us. She kicked us out of her house when I turned seventeen. Aidan and I each got our own place," I told her, wiping away a tear. "And then...I put my foot down. I decided I'd make my own way. And I have. But...with Niall I just see everything I ran away from...everything I'm trying to forget."

"You can't keep running away from everything, Allie," Lucy told me quietly.

"I know...I know." I bit my lip. I thought of Niall standing out in the snow in my final memories, mouthing the three words I'd always said to him in a brother-sister-type way.

But that was different.

I saw pure pain radiating from him. Every time I thought about him, I felt weak. I felt guilty. I broke him.

And now I was going to fix him.