Love is a Time Limit (Niall Horan)

Chapter 1: Wishes

Chapter 1: Wishes

(Niall Horan, age 18)

My life is a ticking clock.

You'll have to be spending a few nights at the hospital, I'm sorry son. 

I'll never live a long and healthy life like everyone else in this world. 

Maybe you could get the boys to visit you sometime, I'm sure they'd love to see you when they aren't on tour.

That's all I'll ever be, just a time limit waiting to end.

If only your mum was here, maybe then things could brighten up for you... 

As I lay here inside this barren Hospital wasting away, I find myself looking back on the story my pathetic excuse of a life has went through. Funny how I've still got roughly two years to live and yet my mind keeps replaying these memories I went through; the good, bad, and ugly this world has thrown at me to chew and swallow in the end. Maybe I'm breaking on the inside as well. I feel it, the more I think about my story, the more these cracks grow...and soon I'll shatter. 

~~

(Niall Horan, age 8)

Two young hearts under the same sky. One beating faster than the other, but both soon to be chained together for the rest of their lives.

"Take off your shirt." Verena's soft, youth-ridden voice filled the empty space in the barren hospital room. The small girl held her father's stethoscope in hand, and was prepared to play the role of a doctor to listen to her best friend Niall's heartbeat. 

The blonde ever so shyly agreed, unbuttoning his pajama shirt and taking it off in one easy move. He  watched her with burning cheeks and a drumming heartbeat as she pressed the cold metal onto his young skin and listened to his heartbeat. Each faint thump making Verena's pupils widen with interest and excitement. The human heart had always interested young Verena, the fact that her successful father who was a cardiologist only drew her in with the meaning the organ held. 

Niall, blushing and feeling his heart hastily quicken edged away and pulled the linen covers of the hospital bed over his chest in a small attempt to hide the shivering goosebumps grazing his pale skin. 

Verena let out a childish giggle, "I've never heard what a heart sounds like, you know. Yours is the first of many I'll hear." she beamed, and snuggled into a rough feeling pillow laying on the hospital bed. Niall curiously watched her after quickly slipping the button up top of his pj's on. Spending night after night at the hospital in Mullingar was a pain, but also the key to keeping himself healthy and in check.

A rush of pain seethed through Niall's chest suddenly, spurring a groan out of the boy. He clenched the fabric of his pj's tightly, enduring the heavy feeling and stinging pain going through his chest. "These pains never seem to...leave." he struggled out, desperately trying to take in a decent breath through his peachy colored lips. 

Verena who had taken notice of her friend's struggle, rose with a worried expression. "Should I get dad?" she asked and let her fingers tangle through the mess of blonde hair on Niall's head to offer comfort. In response, Niall weakly shook his head no as the painful feeling in his chest slowly died down after a few moments of laying there in the bed.

It was frightening to say the least, Niall knew all too well about about his condition at that point. He knew about the possibility of him dying whenever these small pains would arrive, they were signs of an oncoming heart attack. Needless to say, his heart was weaker than most.