Undesirable // Niall

9

The room is silent. I can't bare to look at Harry, can't bare to see him bury his head in his hands even though the real victim here is me.

The other boys are averting my gaze, no-one can even stand to look at me. I've said too much, shown too much. Been to open, fuck.

"I'll go next then?" Zayn questions breaking the elongated silence.

I nod desperate for the attention to be taken off me and thrown onto someone else.

The other boys nod in agreement, all eyes turn to Zayn.

"Well my names Zayn Malik, I'm 17 from Bradford and as I said before I'm a drug addict.

I know what you're all thinking. Everyone looks at drug addicts like they're not human anymore or like something seriously bad must have happened in order for them to sell their soul to the devil or some shit. But you're wrong."

No-one dares to breathe.

"I smoke Marijuana almost daily, and snort coke when it suits me. It started when I was 15. I was at a party, drinking underage and watching the high school girls wander around like live bait.

My friends were smoking, I wasn't really interested. It just seemed like something I would avoid at all costs.

They offered me some but I refused, it went back and forth for so long I almost forgot my answer.

I had to get out of the stupid house and away from them. What I didn't expect to see was my dad out on the back porch a high school girl on his lap placing pills onto his tongue.

My own father disgraced me. All my life id been proving to him that I could be a good person that I could treat women nicely.

That one day I could get married to someone and be faithful. That one day I could look back and be proud of myself.

He had always told me that I could do it.

And yet there he was breaking every rule I'd worked hard to uphold. I just didn't see the point anymore, for trying to be better when my idol of a father never was.

That night I got higher than the Empire State. I drank like a Irish man and I took away some random girls virtue.

I sold away all my possessions in a game of beer pong and I made one hell of a name for myself.

I gave it all up, everything I'd worked for.

To this fucking day I still have nothing to work for because I can't look back and be proud I sold that rite off when I saw my father betraying his wife."

The room fell silent again as each of us were left to our own devices.

I turned my gaze to the sleek metal design of the room.

It must have been a studio at some point the sound didn't echo like an auditorium.

"My names Liam."

I looked over to the preppy boy leaning forward in his chair fiddling with his hands.

I couldn't see anything wrong with him, he seemed perfectly fine, normal even.

He didn't belong here with the rest of us.

"I've had a pretty messed up childhood."

Then again maybe he did belong here.

"Anyway my names Liam Payne, I'm seventeen, from Wolverhampton and--" he paused swallowing heavily. Averting all of out gazes.

I snuck a look a Simon, his face was passive.

"And I-I can't go home anymore because if I go home I'm reminded of my brother."

I took a quick look at the other boys three of us were wallowing in despair one was about to be and the other looked genuinely concerned of his whereabouts.

"My brother was twelve when he died I was thirteen. It was an average afternoon after school. We were walking home through the back way with alleys and side doors.

I hated walking back that way it gave me the creeps but I did it for him, my little brother. He wanted to play by the river where all the graffiti on the walls are.

I refused at first but his sad little face made me change my mind. For hours that afternoon we lay on the rocks and made stories up about the people who decorated the walls.

We went through hundreds of scenarios, made up countless lives all following different patterns splashed across the walls.

It was breaching dark when we finally left weaving our way through the backstreets. As the sky grew darker I ran faster joking that we were out running the sun.

I had one job in my childhood, to look after my brother, to make sure he got home safe every day and that he was tucked in safely every night.

Yet when I turned around to help him along he was no-where in sight. The dread I felt was unimaginable piercing through my heart, making it hard to breathe.

I couldn't concentrate, couldn't formulate a plan. That's when I saw him, he was in the arms of four men, they were holding him down as he screamed.

One of them drew a long knife that glinted in the evening sky. He caught my eye and screamed my name.

His frightened voice rocked through me. I whispered that I was sorry and I ran, before the men could catch me too.

I left him there. Surrounded by men with knives as he howled my name into the darkening sky.

I had put a distance between us when I heard a earth shattering screech then nothing. Nothing after that and I knew what had happened.

I couldn't even face my family couldn't tell them the truth. That the reason their youngest son was dead was because their eldest was afraid of protecting him.

I told them I lost him, I told them I'd spent the entire afternoon searching for him.

They called the police and they searched day and night for months. They never found him."

No-one spoke as Liam challenged us with his gaze. No-one had the strength to speak to even breathe.

As much as I was horrified from the other boys Liam's story made me fearful beyond words. He left his own brother alone with men who I presumed raped and killed him.

But I couldn't judge, rather his family have one son then two dead. But then again what kind of family wants a son who let their brother die.

Liam was suffering not as much from the events but from the need to hold it all in and never tell anyone.

The silence continued as all eyes watched Louis waiting for him to explain his part of the story.

Little did we know that his story was far worse than any of us could have ever imagined.