Always & Forever (A Niall Horan Love Story)

24. Complete

OMGGGG. This... I'mma cry. Can you guys support me when I cry?? CUZ I DONT WANNA END THIS STORY! :(

Anyway. This chapter, two more, and an epilogue. Okay? Don't... IDK just I CANT EVEN RIGHT NOW.

Read on! xx

*UPDATE- as of 2-28* I'm changing some things around a bit in order to accommodate for me new story! xx

Chapter 24- Complete

Niall-

Lucas. The one who had always been so careless about his actions- the one who had actually made me think he was my friend for a moment, now decided to betray Harry like that? He'd sold Harry out, broadcasting information about him that no one, not even his parents, had a right to know. Some harsh and dirty details about his experiences with girls were public now. I knew Harry had done things with girls, he'd been a bit reckless (and still was) but did that mean Lucas, our party planner, could do that to him for the sake of a silly and meaningless job? No. I was so rigid with anger when Harry explained everything that I couldn't even think straight. Being famous had its perks, but I'd never felt so betrayed like this by someone so close to us. 

Even if it was the next morning, the fact still rang eminently in my mind: we’d been betrayed.

Harry said that he’d been out with a girl when the problem started. He was still in disguise, thankfully, keeping him out of the public’s eye. But the girl he’d been with kept asking inconspicuously about his past. “It was like she knew something was up,” Harry said, hanging his head low. When they passed by a magazine/newspaper stand while walking down Main Street, the headline rang clear to him. “It was… well, you know what it said. And it was true. But I didn’t know how anyone, besides Lucas, could have known.” The girl was so troubled by his past with girls that she’d called off the rest of the date, not that Harry blamed her. He needed some time to clear his head after reading that about his own past.

Of course, Harry probably had a bigger right to be angry about this. I hadn't been close to Lucas in the sense that I hadn't been able to trust him from the get-go. But Harry, poor naive Harry, was so trusting that he'd volunteered information to Lucas. And the hardcore partier in his quest for fame and money had taken Harry's trust and crushed it under his greedy hands. Wroth with anger, I discussed the details with Harry, and then scheduled a meet with Lucas, somehow sparing a heated discussion with him over the phone. 

After re-reading the article about Leah, I realized something. I was wrong to leave her in the dark. Once she read this, she’d probably be torn, and I couldn’t have that. It just wasn’t… it hadn’t been very gentlemanly of me to walk out on her like that. Lucas hadn’t been a hundred per cent truthful when he’d called. That’s when the idea began to form in my head, the details slowly taking form. It would work, and it was something I’d wanted to do for months, but it was unfolding now, forming into something beautiful that would make her smile. I just had to find the time to do it.

Liam was in his room studying for school; Zayn and Louis had gone out on dates for lunch, but I texted them a reminder to meet us at our flat about a half an hour early so that we could discuss the incident with them. They both agreed; the time was set for dinner- just the five of us and Lucas, and of course Paul and Jim. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, that Lucas would probably end up leaving before dinner. But it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.