Her Name Was Marty (Niall Horan)

xi

previously...

“Well, as I was saying before, I’ve planned an entire day for us tomorrow. It’s going to be great- wait, you’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

xi:

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”/Toni Morrison/Song of Solomon

“Paragliding?” I repeat the words as they sit on the page in front of me. Niall nods, signing a contract that doesn’t hold the paragliding ‘liable’. “What’s this?” I ask him again, even though he already tried to explain once, but at the time I was too busy just watching his mouth move as he spoke the words.

“Basically a contract which says that if you die, then it’s not their fault.” He speaks quietly so that the men who were planning on taking us up the mountain don’t hear him. I shrug, signing my name underneath his and he chuckles.

“What?” I ask him, and Niall shrugs. “Seriously, what?” When he still continued to chuckle to himself.

“It’s just weird, I know you as Marty Alexander, it’s weird to me that your name is actually Martha.”

“No one calls me that though.” I tell him. “Marty has been my nickname since the first time I watched Grease.”

“Not even your family calls you Martha?” He asks incredulously, but I’m not sure why he’s so surprised. When you get a nickname from such an early age, it sticks with everyone.
“Weird family members that I see once every five years do. That’s about it. Oh, and my ex-boyfriend did. He refused to call me Marty, which I insisted was basically my real name anyway, he wanted to be ‘special’ by calling me something different. It just pissed me off though.”

“Note to self: Don’t call you Martha.” I nod and he laughs again, rolling his eyes as he leans over to kiss my cheek. I like that. Niall can so easily turn little small displays of affection into things that I hold I dear in my heart. His kisses on the cheek whenever he likes, holding onto my waist to hold me close, all kinds of kiss, all kinds of hugs.

“Are you guys ready?” Niall looks down at me to confirm that I am as ready as he is, and when I nod, the professional paraglider leads us to his van. Niall and I sit near the back, as two men place all of the equipment into the back of the van.

“This is going to be incredible.” I squeal as the van roars to life, our two professionals in the front of the van as we begin our ascent of the mountain.

The van bounces on an uneven road, our height roaring higher and higher and yet I’m not nervous that I’ll basically be jumping off the top of a mountain, because Niall kisses my hand to calm me down and we talk about nonsence things.

“So how long have you been here?” One man, Dean, asks.

“Just coming up to two weeks.” Niall answers, and the other man, Quince, asks us a question that neither of us had given thought to.

“Well this is a great way to end a holiday, are you returning home at the end of the week?” Neither of us speaks, and whilst I look to Niall to answer again, he’s looking at me with his own questions whirling in his mind.

“Not sure. We’re sort of going along with it.” I tell them, stuttering and umm-ing when I try to find the right words to describe our holiday to two men who we don’t know.

“That’s the best type of holiday in my opinion.” Quince nods, “How long have you two been together?” Once again, we exchange looks to decide who would answer the question.