Live Love and Niall Horan

Chapter Forty Three

LIVE LOVE AND NIALL HORAN

Chapter Forty Three

The doorman immediately grabbed Creepy Guy and Ben rushed to me.

"Come here," Ben pulled me up, examining me.

There was a messy hole in the jacket I was wearing. His jacket. I was still too stunned to speak. Did Creepy Guy just try to... knife me? The doorman from the building was keeping hold of Creepy Guy as he tried to struggle away. Within minutes, a crowd had developed.

As Ben reached out to touch the hole, I saw the blood on the blade was not mine, but his. The blade had sliced the side of his finger, but it wasn't very deep. The hole was directly on one of the pockets and Ben slid his hand inside. No pain, no blood. As far as I could tell, I wasn't hurt. What had been the cracking noise?

Ben's hand closed around something in my pocket. His iPhone. There was a deep gash in the screen where the knife had obviously impacted. A long crack now went all the way across, but there was no way the phone could work at all. In the center, there was what looked like a hole of crushed glass.

A string of words that burned my ears came out of his mouth in relief.

"Thank God you forgot to wear a jacket today," Ben muttered, pulling me to him in a tight hug.

"What's going on here?!" an authoritive voice barked out. The crowd parted so he could walk through. A police officer.

"This... hooligan," the doorman spat, gesturing to Creepy Guy whom he kept a tight hold on. "Tried to attack those two."

The next minutes seemed like a huge blur. I could feel Ben, holding me up the whole time which I was grateful for. I felt like I was going to fall over at any given moment. My instincts had been right. Creepy Guy was more than just creepy. What if I'd brought a jacket, so I wouldn't be wearing Ben's? Or what if he'd taken out his phone before he'd given it to me? The thoughts sickened me and I certainly didn't want to talk about it.

I felt Sandra, Avery, Chanel and Raine by my side, talking to me but it felt like there was a glass wall between us. Their lips, everybody's lips were moving yet I couldn't make out a single thing. Stumbling backwards, I walked straight into Ben. He was talking with the officer.

"I don't think I can go to Sandra's tonight," I whispered to him.

I really didn't want any company. I wanted comfort. But the person I wanted comfort from was on the other side of the ocean.

"I'll take care of it," Ben nodded. "It'll be okay."

It seemed like an eternity before the officer let us go. I still felt like my mouth had been glued shut. I couldn't even look at Creepy Guy, but I didn't have to. The officer hauled him away.

"C'mon," Ben said to me, hailing a cab. "Let's get you home."