Picture This (Niall Horan Trilogy)

-Conclusions aren't always fairytales [Chapter 83]

Ashley's POV:

Silence or rather absence of conversation is something which I have grown to loathe more and more since leaving Niall a matter of months ago. We have not uttered a word to each other since the break up and it’s killing me more and more every day. Maybe this is my fault and I should speak to him but I doubt he’d want to speak to me, I mean he probably hates me after what I said. I was pretty bitchy and I can’t face sparking up civil conversation because I just wouldn’t know what to say or how to cope.

Niall, I miss you and I’m sorry. I think about you every day and I just really miss you. I didn’t mean what I said. I love you…

*saved in drafts*

I have about a million texts like that in my drafts, each one sadder than the last but I don’t have the confidence to send them. I’m too scared to even look back through at how many of them are drafted to the boys, mostly Niall, but there’s a small percentage to the other boy’s too. I miss them all so much, but none as much as I miss Niall.

I didn’t mean any of what I said and I’m sorry. So fucking sorry. I screwed up and I miss you so much. I know I’ll never love someone like I love you. I still do, Niall. Just please, let me know that you don’t hate me?

*saved in drafts*

In pure frustration and disappointment in myself I slammed my phone down onto the coffee table the tears escaping my eyes. I couldn’t lie to myself about how much I had cried since. Every day I shed at least one tear over that boy. Why? Why is it so hard for me to let go? Because he’s amazing, everything was so perfect why’d I have to go and let my mother make me fuck it all up? I lost him. Someone so amazing and I let him go. I don’t think I’ll ever find love and perfection like that again, it’s the type you can’t forget and never get over. They say time heals everything but right now, every second it just feels worse. Another second we both spent apart without the other, him hating me and me loving him. It’s just so, I can’t even.

My phone blaring out with an incoming call was what snapped me from my latest breakdown. Hastily wiping my tears away I didn’t bother with disguising my voice as I was expecting it to be either Mallory or Ellie. It’s not that Faye and I aren’t friends…yeah actually we’re not friends. Nothing official was ever said but we just drifted apart, she has her life with Harry and modelling and I had my life with Niall and now I have my life here, in New York, on my own. I suppose I have Elise whose okay and I have Justin who I’ve grown close to but really, I’m on my own.

What really shocked me was that it was my Mother. Why would she be calling me? I’m aware it’s two days away from Christmas but I wasn’t under the impression she cared about me enough to call. Like Niall and I, me and my mother hadn’t spoken in a while, but I can’t say our absence of conversation was one I disliked.

“He…Hello?”

“Ashley honey, how are you? I must warn I don’t have an awful lot of time.”

Of course she doesn’t, she works, no time for distant daughters around here. Really that was all code for say you’re fine I don’t have time for your problems. As always, keeping up my excellent relationship with my Mother.

“I’m fine.”

I replied bluntly.

“Good good. Now I must cut to the question here, when are you planning on flying in?”

“Flying in?”

“For Christmas. You are planning on coming home for Christmas aren’t you?”

I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me.

“I wasn’t…I didn’t make any plans.”

“Ashley we haven’t seen you in over three months! You didn’t come home for your birthday either. Are you just planning on staying there for your whole life?”