Actions Speak Louder Than Words (A One Direction Fan Fiction)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Niall stayed at my house a while before he said he had to go. I decided it’d be nice to spend some time with my family on New Years day, so that’s exactly what I did. We did things like we used to when we were all kids; we spent the day playing with our new toys we got for Christmas; mine being my new ipod this year. We had a nice dinner with our grandparents and then played cards all evening until it was time to go to bed.

I was interrupted while we were playing cards by my phone buzzing in my pocket. I checked the caller ID to see who it was; it was Liam.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hey Jennifer, can you talk for a sec?” he asked sounding concerned about something or other.

“Yeah sure.” I said standing up and leaving the living room.

I went to the hall where it was quiet.

“I just bumped into Niall on the way to the shop a while ago. He was acting really strange and didn’t want to tell me where he was going. I eventually got it out of him that he was going to the pub…” Liam told me.

He what?! He was going to the pub?! After what we spoke about this morning, I couldn’t believe my ears!

“And he begged me not to tell you.” Liam continued. “I didn’t want to be a bad friend and rat out on him, but I’m worried about him, so I had to tell you.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment, I was just taking in all this new information.

“No, thanks Liam for telling me, it was the right thing to do. I’m worried about him myself Liam, and don’t worry about it, you’re a great friend to him.”

“Jennifer, is everything okay? Is there anything you want to talk about?” Liam asked; concern was etched in his voice.

I shook my head, then realised he couldn’t see me.

“No Liam I’ll sort it out, it’s okay.” I stated.

“Okay…” I could tell by his tone that he wasn’t happy with that answer but let it go anyways. “Well if you need anything I’m always here.”

“Thanks.” I said simply. “Well I better go now, bye Liam.”

“Bye Jennifer.” And I hung up.

I slowly made my way back to the living room to rejoin the game of cards.

“Is everything alright pet?” My granny asked.

“Ehm yeah.” I nodded; lying.

Honestly I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t concentrate on the cards anymore and ended up losing loads of money. All I could think about was Niall. He said he’d stop turning to alcohol with his problems but straight away he headed to the pub. I didn’t know how I was going to fix this even though I had told Liam I’d sort it out.

When my grandparents left I headed to bed and made the decision to go over to Niall’s in the morning and confront him about what Liam told me. I think it goes without saying that I didn’t get much sleep all night.

The next morning my dad decided that we were going to go visiting for the day. Meaning we’d go around to the houses of all our distant relatives, have tea, talk small talk and answer the same monotonous questions again and again. I hated visiting family members that I barely knew, but I definitely wasn’t up for it that day when I had other things on my mind. My plans to confront Niall had to be postponed which really annoyed me because I had spent all night so nervous, trying to figure out what I’d say to him; and now I had to wait until the evening to go through with my plans.