I'm Home with You: A Niall Horan Fanfiction

Chapter 10: A Family Invitation

One day until Christmas.

Six days since that whole #NiallsMysteryGirl thing went down.

I haven't gone on any of my social media accounts since then.

I haven't even seen Niall since we said our goodbyes that night, either. We laid together in the grass until three in the morning the day the world found out about our friendship. Management got in contact with both him and I. They told us that we were not allowed to hang out anymore because of Barbara. That killed me. Niall was the one person I could turn to in this mess. He was the one person who could understand because he got so much attention on a daily basis and now we were basically punished from seeing each other. To make matters even worse, we were punished from seeing each other so that Niall could pretend to be in love with another girl.

In those six days, Aunt Jayne and I have gone out to eat, went to a bunch of touristy places, and sometimes stayed at home doing nothing but she always managed to make it incredibly fun despite what was happening.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!" She greets me as she runs into my room at seven thirty in the morning on December 24th, tripping over her own two feet and falling into my lap, almost single-handedly destroying the drawing I'm currently working on.

"Oh shit! I'm so sorry! Is the drawing ruined?" She asks in between my hysterical laughter.

"No, no it's fine." I say, trying to calm myself down.

My Aunt begins laughing too and seats herself on the edge of my bed.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" She asks me.

"Christmas?" I ask "I guess. It'll be weird without mom and dad. So weird. Mom always used to decorate the entire house. Every inch of it, even the shower rods, and the air conditioners, and the backs of the toilets. She'd buy Christmas-themed cookies, toothpaste, accessories, and we'd only watch Christmas-themed specials on television. She'd say Christmas is such a rare and joyous holiday that we should celebrate it as much as possible when it does come round. Dad was never one for going crazy about things so every year after Thanksgiving he would cringe a little at the amount of decorations we had to put up, but he would never say anything because of how happy he knew it made mom. He loved her more than I've ever seen anyone love somebody before. I know for a fact he'd never do anything to hurt her, even if it was just telling her to calm down a bit with the decorating. I think that's one of the things I'll miss most about my parents, how in love they were."

My Aunt looks at me and then at the ground, frowning.  She opens her mouth to tell me something but quickly shuts it again. "I'm going to go make breakfast." She says.

She gets up without another word and walks downstairs. After a few minutes I can hear the sound of things frying in a pan.

What the hell was that? Why did she act so odd? 

I shrug it off and go back to my drawing. It's only when the frying stops that I can hear the soft sobbing coming from the kitchen.

NIALL'S P.O.V.

"Did you invite Amelia tonight?" Dad asks me as he leans against a kitchen counter.

I close the fridge, two soda in hand. I hand one to him. "I can't, Dad. Managment's orders."

"What? You think that I'm going to invite the paps to our Christmas Party?" He chuckles.

"Dad it's not even a party. Just you, me, Greg, Denise, Theo, and some of your friends."

"Still, you should invite her."

I sigh and close the fridge. Dad puts a sympathetic arm around me.