Pen to Paper [N.H.]

9.2 - Improvements - Follow

Chloe's POV

I get ready for my morning jog, but when I get out of the house, I find Niall, in workout clothes, sitting on the front porch.

'What do you want I'm busy.' I say towering over him until he stands up from his seat.

'Well, you said that every morning you go on a jog around the neighbourhood. Thought maybe I could join in. Why both workout alone when we can work out together?'

'Whatever try to keep up.' I coldly say as I start my run.

In the beginning, I run rather fast trying to avoid him. But knowing he won't give up, I felt bad about tiring him out and hurting his knees. I don't exactly know how much efforts he can put on them before they start hurting. So I slow down and now we're both jogging side by side. I catch my breath as he does the same. We pass through another block and he's not saying anything. I look at him, unbothered by the silence, he looks more like in content of just being there with me.

Another block goes by and now that my breathing is a bit more steady, I just can't stand the silence, so I decide to speak up. But not really having a specific topic to discuss, I just don't say anything.

Niall's POV

We've been running for about 10 minutes now. She was about to say something but she didn't. Before, no matter how bad things get, we always talked. And if we didn't, it would be a comfortable and somewhat comforting silence. But now it's different. It's like she doesn't know how to be around me. I'm okay with her being mad at me, well not really but I can accept it, and I can accept it if she doesn't love me anymore, or doesn't want to. But the hardest thing to accept in this situation is that I lost the friend in her as well. Before she used to still be around, we still talked and laughed. But now she's distant and I'm back to being invisible to her. I can't stand it. And I don't know how to fix it. I know I'm kind of forcing myself and my presence on her, but she hasn't exactly kicked me out. And I know that she can do it if she wanted to because she's done it yesterday.

I don't know if I should say something. 

'How are Julia and Shawn? Have you been talking to them?' She asks me.

'Yeah, they're great! They're both on tour so they're all over the place. It can get hard sometimes to get a hold of them. But we stay in touch as often as possible.'

'Aww, that's great! Tell them I say hi next time you talk to them. I really enjoyed hanging out with them.'

'Yeah, they have been asking about you lately. Everyone has. Even Conor and Lewis and my cousins.'

'Oh yeah? What were they asking and what have you been telling them.'

'They all scolded me for what I've done.'

'Nice. Learned anything?'

'That I'm an idiot?'

'Something useful?'

'That I should fix this?'

'How?'

'Well, the idea was to talk to you but you wouldn't let me.'

'Well, you're here now. Talk.'

'We're running!'

'Excuses.'

'Not really, I'd rather do this when I can see properly and not when we're breathless.'

'Yeah well, we can't always get what we want.'