Rewinding Time (Narry)

Chapter Eighteen

At the beginning of this fanfiction, I felt like the writing style was very dialogue-heavy and didn't have much description or enough inner thoughts from the characters. Trying to avoid a dialogue-heavy style eventually caused me to focus too much on inner thoughts and the story barely went anywhere. I'm really sorry my writing style is somewhat inconsistent. I'm still trying to discover a comfortable medium. Anyways, we all know what comes next... no matter how many times I say thank you for reading and supporting, it's never enough, so thank you!

⌛ ⌛ ⌛

❝NIALL❞

"How do I look?" Harry asked, spinning himself around in a full circle for me to see his outfit in its entirety.

"Good, just like you always do," I replied, smiling softly at his reflection in the mirror. Harry returned my smile for a second before his face dropped again to its previous depressed state.

It was easy to tell that Harry was considerably upset over what had gone down during breakfast; I know I would be upset if mum were to announce I was engaged to some girl I've never met before—especially since I'm not even attracted to girls.

The past few hours that I've spent with Harry were some of the most intimate hours of my life; not sexually intimate, but spiritually, if you will. I've always thought that Harry was a horrible player who treated everybody around him like trash, but he really was just a lonely boy who was too afraid to keep anybody by his side for too long because the fear of losing them outweighed the other benefits. I never realized how fragile he really was; Harry always came off as confident and condescending, but it was clearly all a façade.

Harry didn't need to speak much for me to understand him; his body language was easy enough for me to read, for once. Despite me not fancying Harry all too much, it was wrong for anybody to feel like trash on their own birthday. I sympathized with him. No matter how rubbish I was at making people feel better, the least I could do was treat him like I would Louis or Liam. What Harry needed right now was somebody by his side to remind him that he wasn't alone.

Harry continued to stare at his reflection in the mirror, tugging at the multiple layers of clothing that draped his body, clearly a nervous reaction. After redoing his bowtie about five times, Harry finally broke his gaze away from the mirror and wandered over to the window, peering out at the people below. Despite the storm that may be burning inside the pit of his stomach, the weather outside was considerably calm and quite beautiful. He traced the glass softly with his finger, watching it leave trails in its wake.

Once he returned his attention to the commotion below, his face scrunched up in disgust and anger flashed momentarily through his eyes. I inched toward him and glanced out the window to see if I could catch a glimpse of what was causing him to make such a face; much to my surprise, Zayn was standing among the crowd, gazing up at the window with a sorrowful expression. Harry immediately backed away from the window and began pacing around the room.

"Harry, I'm sure Zayn didn't mean to upset you," I said, glancing down at my hands while I spoke. "Zayn understands you better than anybody else. I'm sure he wants nothing more but to be there for you if you'd only let him."

Harry abruptly stopped pacing about and locked his eyes onto mine—they were as cold as ice and were almost completely void of emotions.

"It was only a matter of time, Niall. Everybody eventually leaves me. One day, you too will leave me."

"I'm never going to leave you," I replied, approaching him cautiously. Harry's eyes dropped as he turned his attention to the tips of his shoes. I stopped in front of him and reached for both of his hands, gently clutching them in my own.