Sing till I fall asleep || H.S

eleven

Niall came over on sunday evening, which felt great in some way, and weird in another. He'd promised to help Charlie with his xbox game, and nobody was more pleased than Charlie about his soon arrival.

"Is Nell coming now?" He jumped up and down holding my legs in the kitchen where I was talking to mum.

"Soon, Char."

"I haven't seen Niall in forever, have you been fighting?" Mum asked concerned, I'd already told her it was because of his new girlfriend, but she refused to believe he'd stop coming around because of a girl, after all he was my best friend.

"I've told you he's got a girlfriend," I repeated for the probably fiftieth time now, giving Charlie a look to stop jumping on me.

Mum put down the knife she was holding to make Charlies lunch for school for the next day and rested both her arms on the kitchen island looking at me, "Promise you'd tell me if it was something else? I've noticed you had a thing-"

She was interrupted by the front door opening and Charlie then let go of me and ran to the door, followed by Henry, our dog.

"Hello you little shit!" Niall lift Charlie up in a hug just as he entered and the boy seemed over the moon to meet his idol again.

"Language, Niall," my mum mumbled as she walked over to him aswell to hug him.

Our families had become quite close over the years.

"Sorry, Jeanette, I'm just excited to see my bestest friend in the whole world," he said and put down Charlie on the floor to hug my mum. I stood by the doorframe with a grin, knowing he meant Charlie and not me.

"Nell, the game, it, you know- since- I mean," Charlie couldn't get his words out of excitement and just dragged Niall with him towards his room.

Niall gave me a smile and told me he'd do this first, then we could hang out.

Mum and I went back to the kitchen.

"Do you still like him?" Mum looked at me with puppy eyes. I did tell her a while ago I had some weird feelings for him, I didn't phrase it as 'being in love'.

I shrugged, looking out the door to make sure they left the hallway, "I think so, we've been drifting apart lately and I just miss us hanging out, I guess."

Mum nodded, cutting watermelon slices, "I think he liked you too, and maybe still does but also likes this other girl."

"He told me he loved her."

Mum looked at me apologetically, "I'm sorry, baby." I nodded in response a grabbed a slice of melon before she continued, "At the end of the day, you'll be happier if you tell people what you truly feel, even if they don't feel the same."

I knew she was right. And I had thought about telling him, but Erin was our friend now and I did like her, maybe she'd hate me if she knew? And maybe Niall also would? Would I ruin our friendship as well?

Then Niall came into the kitchen, "He told me he could play for half an hour."

Mum chuckled, "He tricked you, he already played his hour today." Then she shot an eye at me, almost as if saying 'do it now!' before turning her heel towards the fridge to put the lunchbox in. Niall and I walked upstairs to my room after he'd poked his head into the livingroom to say hi to dad as well.

"I think Liam and Lisa got together last night," Niall mentioned as he hopped onto my bed and lay on his side, I sat down in my armchair across from him and laughed.

"'Course they did."

"Are you alright, Maggie?"

I looked up at him, he hadn't asked me that in a while, not because he didn't care but maybe because we hadn't been a alone since that party a few weeks ago, and even then we talked about Erin. I wasn't sure how to respond, that I'm hopelessly in love with him and it's making me depressed or that I'm okay, and everythings fine.

I shrugged, "I've been feeling down lately," I mumbled, almost embarrassed to not be okay.

"Do you know why?"

Yes. "No."

"I'm sorry we haven't been hanging out as much, it's just-"

"Niall," I interrupted him, not wanting him to mention Erin or even say her name, not now.

He looked at me with a frown as I stood up and started walking around the room. "It's not about us, we're good." Was all I said. I'm such a coward.

Niall didn't say anything to that, he instead grabbed the remote and turned on my TV, then clicked on the Netflix symbol.

"Do you know how many episodes of Riverdale we've missed?" He asked me and then moved to the left on my bed, inviting me to lay down as well. Just like old times. I shook my head in response, glad that he changed the subject instead of trying to dig deeper. He knew I'd tell him when I'm ready to, whatever it is. "Nine!" He almosh shouted and started scrolling the netflix page.

It was a shit show, but it was our thing since it came out. We never watched an episode without the other. Sometimes before Erin we'd turn the show into a drinking game, drink everytime Veronica says 'daddy', Betty gets dark, someone sings or Archie wants to be a superhero. We did get drunk a lot during season three.

———

Niall left late that night, as usual whenever we hung out. We got through five episodes of the show before realizing we had school in the morning.

I was smiling to myself as crawled into bed, it was a good night.

Before sleeping I scrolled to my social media, as one does. Noticing how Harry posted something today. In black and white.

This time it was a picture of him in a rainjacket against some wooden wall. His hair was wet and he had his hands in the pocket of the coat.

The caption said 'It was all yellow.'

I grinned for myself, of course he would post a black and white photo with a Coldplay caption to say it's all yellow. I double tapped the photo and wrote a comment (friends do that).

maggiesams: witty

I noticed another comment from a familliar name.

zayn: oh what a thing to do

I clicked the profile, which to my disliking was private. The small profile picture was of himself, looking away from the camera in black and white, maybe Harry and him had the same aesthetic. I pressed the follow button and decided that was enough social media for tonight.

It had been a good night.