Burn (A Niall Horan Fanfic)

Six ~ Niall

Her eyes widen and she gulps. She picks up her menu and covers her, now red, face. I sigh. Great I fucked it up.

I look up from my lap to see Liam and Evan staring at me.

"What?" I scoff. They both shake their heads and look at their menus again.

That dumb waitress is walking towards us and I just want to slap that smirk off her face. Quinn glances at her and sighs a bit.

The blonde bimbo stops at our table, snapping her gum obnoxiously.

"What'dya want boys?" I stiffen at the fact she's excluding Quinn. I look at said girl to see her zoning out with a glossy look to her eyes.

"Quinn, know what you want?" I ask, emphasizing her name.

"Um, I'll just have the peri-peri..."

I smile a little at the fact that we're getting the same thing.

"I'll have the same." I reply as the waitress writes the orders down.

Evan and Liam order their food too, but I'm not listening to what they're saying. I'm too busy looking at Quinn's confused look of furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips.

"Hey." I whisper.

She looks up at me.

"What's wrong? Did I hurt your feelings?" I ask like the idiot I am.

"Nothing, it's nothing, that was nothing." She shakes her head. "Do you actually think that way about me or are you just sympathizing?"

"Why would I joke about that?" I furrow my brows.

"Because that's what happened befo- I mean, never... never mind." She cuts herself off and she's fidgeting with her fingers.

"Wait, what? You've been lied to like that before?" I ask, dumbfounded.

"Obviously. I mean look at me, I'm like a disaster waiting to happen. I've heard it all before." She snaps. She blinks her eyes quickly which are welling with tears.

"Sorry." I mumble.

"Not your fault." She shrugs, running a hand through her hair while looking at her lap.

I move a bit towards her. She sees what I'm doing and just stares with watery eyes. I open my arms slowly and she leans forward to give me a hug. She wraps her small arms around my torso and I wrap mine around her shoulders.

I hear sniffles and feel a wet spot growing on my shirt. She leans back and giggles.

"Sorry," she whispers and tries wiping the spot away, but it doesn't work.

"It's alright, love," I reply, "but why don't you go get cleaned up, yeah?"

She nods and stands up to go to the bathroom. As she makes her way over there, Evan says something that breaks my heart a bit.

"She's fragile, Niall. She's fallen too many times, been broken too many times. We've tried fixing her, but nothing- scratch that- no one works. She needs someone who'll be willing to stick with her and pick up the pieces." His eyes are sad and almost dark as he tells me this.

Liam looks at Evan with a small sympathetic smile. I frown and just stir my pop with my straw.

"Why?" I ask quietly.

"What?"

"Why her? Why is she like that?" I ask solemnly.

He just shakes his head, "She'll tell you when she's ready. I mean, if you plan on sticking around. I can tell you're fond of her and she seems to be warming up to you a bit, too." He ends with a smile. A genuine smile.

I feel a sense of determination strike, but I don't know what to make of it.

"Hey hottie," I hear from the side of our table. I look over to see the waitress staring at me.

I jump a bit, but not without rolling my eyes. I rolled them so far, I'm surprised they didn't get stuck backwards. If only we had Louis's sass to get the annoying bitch away.

She's sitting there staring at me like she's trying to get in my pants.

"Hello? I'm talking to you." She snottily says.

"What?" I snap back.

She sits next to me and places a hand on my thigh. I stiffen and pick her hand off of me.

"You know, you're really hot." She whispers in my ear.

"Nice to know." I reply coldly.

"I was wondering-" She's cut off by a noise.

Everyone at the table looks to where it came from.

I see a broken Quinn. Her eyes look like they were never wiped. A choked sob escapes her lips as she sees the girl gripping my arm tightly.

"Quinn." I say, trying to stand up.

She shakes her head. She starts running towards the door, but trips doing so.

The blonde bitch laughs a little and I push her away.

"What the hell is your problem? I've never been so disgusted in my life." I yell at her. Her eyes widen at me.

I walk to Quinn and pick her up.

"I can't even make a badass walk out without messing it up." She chokes out, a bit jokingly, but still serious.

"I'm sorry Quinn, it wasn't what it looked like she ju-"

"Save it. I've heard it too many times to know it's not true. I thought you liked me, but I guess you're just trying to lead me on like everyone else. I'm just a toy, aren't I? One of those stretchy toys where you pull and pull, but it never breaks, until you pull it too far and it snaps. I sn-ap." Her voice cracks because of her tears.

My heart cracks because of her tears.

"N-no. Quinn, stop it. Let's just sit down and eat, have a good time, yeah?"

"Whatever," she mumbles and sits down.

Our food already came but I didn't even notice because of everything that just happened. Quinn pokes at her food with a fork and sighs. I just stare at my own chicken.

"So um, Evan I was wondering...do you, ya know, wanna hang out sometime?" I hear Liam ask and I look at him to see a small blush creeping up his face.

"Oh! Uh, sure Li." Evan replies and I notice Quinn looking at them too. "That'd be great." He says with a smile.

"You and Quinn should come and meet the others after this." Liam tells Evan.

I chuckle a little and see that Quinn's giggling a bit, too.

"That would be nice." Quinn says quietly.

I smile and take a bite of my food. Soon we've finished everything.

I stand up and hold out a hand, nervous of what Quinn would do. A bit to my surprise, she takes it.

"I'm sorry about earlier." I apologize as she stands up.

"It's fine," she shrugs," it's just, ugh, it's just a long story, but I'll tell you sometime, yeah?"

"Alright," I say, smiling, which she returns.

"Come on now, I think you'll like the guys a lot." I tell her and she squeezes my hand, not letting that beautiful smile her face.

A/N: Oooo a lot happened here! Sorry I take so damn long to update things, but I'm sure once this story gets going it'll not only be hopefully better, but it'll also be updated more :)

Hope you're well, lovelies,

-Mads-