everything I didn't say

forty two

NIALL'S POV:

I can't help but smile when I read Leah's words. 

They are beautiful and honest. They are so true.

I can tell she put a lot of work in this and I am so impressed by it. 

I never really knew, until right now, the way she truly felt through our journey. She never expressed how badly she hurt or how she felt but she did in this paper. I hadn't realized she had gone through so much trauma. Even when she said how she felt, these words make me realize it ten times more.

I never realized, either, how much she loved me. She truly doesn't show it as much, but she doesn't have to say it. I see it when she smiles at me when she thinks I don't notice, and I see it when she pulls the covers over my body when I sleep in her bed with her and they have fallen. I see it when she holds my hands, even when they're shaking and sweating. I see it when she brings home my favorite movies and makes my favorite foods when I don't ask her to. 

"Niall?" Her small voice says behind me, mail that I threw on the floor in her hands. She walks up closer to me and I set her paper down, afriad I wasn't supposed to read it.

"What are you doing in here?" She throws her bag on her bed and I stand from her desk chair.

"I came in here looking for you, then I just started looking at all your old papers. You've really progressed this semester." I compliment her and her small smile afterwards is one of the most beautiful sights. "Thank you." She walks closer, putting her hand around my back. 

"What's this?" She grabs the envelope from her school out of my hand. She reads over the first few words out loud before smiling, jumping into my arms, telling me how proud she is. I'm just glad she didn't read the whole letter, to the part where I'm on academic suspension.

I laugh into her hair and she sets herself back down on the ground. 

"I knew you could do it." She smiles at me, setting the envelope down. 

"Thank you." I reply in return. Do I bring up the paper? 

"So, uh," I start, not finding what to say with my awkward words.

"What's wrong?" Her green eyes grow wide as she thinks she has done something wrong. 

"Nothing, I promise." I reassure her and she nods. I reach behind me, grabbing the paper off her desk. I hold it out so she sees what it is.

"You read it?" She looks up at me, even though I'm not too much taller than her. I nod.

"You weren't supposed to." She blushes and looks to the floor, embarrassment across her face. "I liked it," I say, reaching for her chin to bring her beautiful face back up to me. "I thought it was really, really good."

"I hope you aren't mad. I know some things I said weren't the nicest."

"They were honest." I grab the paper from her hands and look at it as I speak. "You see me in a completely different view than everyone else and you'd never let me think that. So, seeing it for myself was amazing."

She has shyness in her eyes even though she shouldn't feel shy around me.

"Hey," I say to her. "I loved it."

"Thank you." I grab the paper from her and read over my favorite lines on the page. "He broke my heart into a million little pieces, but I continously picked them up and put them back in his hands." I read, "I am willing to screw up twice a day for the rest of my life if he would accept my screw ups the way I would his."

I can't help but smile while I read those. I have one of the worlds sweetest girls here in front of me and I'm so lucky I get to call her mine.

"So this is the exam you turned in, yeah?" I smile down to her and she nods her head.

I put my arms around her waist from behind her and she puts her small hands on my arms. She leans her head back into me and I kiss the top of her head. "I guess this was just everything I never said to you through it all."

"I made it through my first semester of college in one piece." She whsipers and I smile, though she can't see it from in front of me. "Yes you did."

"Oh!" She jumps, startling me. "I almost forgot." She moves to the bag on her bed.

"Look." She holds out a paper for me to see. I grab it from her and she watches me look at it.

It is dated all the way back to August.

"What is this?"

"My first assignment for creative writing. We had to write about ourselves. He gave it back to me when I turned in my exam. It's a gem."

"This was before we met wasn't it." I ask and she nods. I look back to the paper again.

"This is terribly writen, Leah." I laugh when I read it.

"That's not the point." She giggles, pointing to a sentence at the bottom. "Read this."

"Since I'm far away from home, seven hours to be exact, I hope to escape from my past. Here, I hope I find new beginnings, new chances, and new adventures. I hope I meet amazing people and experience amazing things with them." I read aloud.

"Keep going." She instructs when I stop.

"I feel like in college you're supposed to meet someone that you fall in love with. I have little faith in myself actually going out and finiding someone, but I have high hope of someone finding me. Probably accidentally, but this is a big city. I think its bound to happen."

"So, what do you say? Was it an accident we found each other?" I look down to her. She shrugs. "I'd like to think if Julie didn't introduce us we would've found each other eventually." I laugh at her imagining us meeting on our own.

"Things would have been so different."

"Better or worse?"

"They probably would have been better, if I'm being honest. But that doesn't matter, I wouldn't change a thing."

I lean down at kiss the best thing that has ever happened to me.

"I wouldn't either, Leah."