Love Me Like You Do (z.h. mpreg)

chapter thirty-two

"In the morning, she was not sure that she had slept as much as lived a set of vivid dreams, letting them linger so that she would not have to open her eyes and see the room."

-Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn

-

It was a start. Albeit a rocky one, but it was still a start. For as long as he had been fearing doing this, Niall knew he also owed it to himself to have closure. He wanted it, needed it, but with his heart telling him one thing and his mind another, it was difficult to decide what to do. He knew he needed to make up with his mother, but at the same time, he wanted so badly to see her hurt, to see her suffer; he craved it.

He felt really and truly stuck, so to clear his thoughts, Niall decided he would explore the house, seeing as he hadn't the chance to yet. Zayn and his mother were with the kids, so Niall left his spot leaning against the bedroom wall and peered into the very next room. It turned out to be nothing special - just a small office with a desk and chair, a cabinet, and a large window with fluttering muslin curtains. The next was the bathroom, and at the end of the hall, his mother's bedroom. Niall decidedly kept that door closed, and moved across the corridor to the room adjacent to his and Zayn's. The boys had slept in here, but as it was dark last night when he was saying good night, Niall hadn't had a good chance to look around.

There was a large bed with a fluffy white duvet and a mountain of pillows, two cherry wood bed stands with lamps, and a wardrobe. Niall stepped in further to admire the wardrobe when he saw it out of the corner of his eye.

There in the corner on its stand, hiding in the shadow of the dresser, was a small guitar. Niall's fingers ached at the sight of it; he wanted to strum it so badly, yet it was just another chapter of his painful past. He knew how to play because he had taught himself when he was younger, skipping classes to find an empty practice room where he could play, escape, without interruption. But when he left school, he left his guitar. To even look at it was hard, because of all the painful memories attached to it, but what was even worse was that it was difficult to look at because it had made him so happy once. With that, Niall quickly abandoned the room, and shut the door rather harshly behind him.

—

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, Niall decided he was done walking about the house. He didn't care to run across something else that would make him remember what he had worked so hard to forget.

The house itself was quiet; Harry was asleep in his pen in Niall and Zayn's room, and the boys were off playing somewhere. Niall turned out of the front door, hands deep in his jumper pockets, then rounded the side of the house and walked about the back garden, deep in his own head. The slight chill of the wind gently whipped his hair and stung his face, and only then did Niall notice his husband, standing farther along the beach.

Niall watched him for a while, wondering what on earth he was doing. A small pile of what looked to be flat, smooth stones lay at Zayn's feet, and Zayn would take one in his hand and try to skip it across the water. A soft smile curled on the edges of Niall's mouth, and he watched Zayn give a few unsuccessful attempts before finally managing to skip one rock several times across the secluded little inlet of water.

The coarse sand shifted under Niall's feet as he walked, getting more and more slippery as he neared the icy waves. His arms wrapped about him for warmth, Niall observed as Zayn skipped another rock three or four times across the surf before Zayn noticed him. Niall picked up a rock for himself, weighing it in his hand before looking to his husband as to what to do next. Niall widened his stance like Zayn, bent his arm back, and let go of the smooth stone, only for it to sink before it could skip across the waves. Annoyed, Niall picked up another one and sank that too, only to find Zayn quietly laughing at him, showing off that adorable smile where his tongue hid behind his teeth.