Capture My Heart (BK3: Niall Horan)

-Ch 5: Insoluble noises & brief returns.

CHAPTER FIVE- Insoluble noises & brief returns.

It was the hollow, spearing pain that told me my instinct of the other morning was right. It was the feeling of complete guilt and lost hope that enveloped my body in the fear of those brief words. It was supposed to make it sound better, as if it wasn’t bad enough to be explained in vast detail. But brief said it all. They only wanted to tell you the minimal because they didn’t want you to panic, to get upset. I’d been through this enough times to know this and their lies were so transparent. I respected that they were white lies, but I hated the false hope they were laden with. They made you assure yourself that everything might just be okay, when they knew it wouldn’t be. Did they not know, that the higher you go, the harder, and longer the fall?

The raindrops trickled like incoherent rivers down my cheeks, one of the things I loved about the rain, was the way it covered tears. But then I felt something hit me, and even though I knew it was stupidly impossible for two in the morning: I wanted some rays of sunshine to sleet through the thick, bleak canopy of clouds. But of course this didn’t happen, and besides if it had, there would probably be some mass movement in meteorology.

It was only as my feet began to press against the wet tarmac that I noticed really how weak I felt. I felt so guilty, but I always did. After being there such a short space of time ago, and being so sure something was wrong but leaving anyway, it was automatically my fault. Somewhere, I knew it wasn’t my entire fault, but the majority was. Who else’s was it? It was nobody’s.

The autumn leaves were wet as my feet slid across them, they littered the tarmac of the car park, in one corner, they were piled high. The pile situated underneath a tall, spindly, pine tree that undeniably trickled water onto them, leaving them soaked in one patch. The wind was just as cold as how I felt; it felt like a whole other world to how I felt mere hours ago. Of course, something had to go wrong when I was so happy. Always in the wrong place, at the right time, things never went right.

I found it hard to run. It didn’t come easily like I did on the vast, commodious track on the fields with Tom. My legs felt stiff, all of me felt stiff, and numb. It was almost as if this was a sign of how helpless I really was. I could almost hear a venomous voice slurring in the air, it slipped in between the wind that hushed through my ears, and it told me that no matter what happened, I could do nothing to help my sister. Suddenly, I got some crazy pang that told me I should have become a doctor, since everyone around me or myself seemed to get hurt, skills like that might be useful. But I brushed this instudious thought off, realising just how ridiculous it was.

Even though I was not running alone, it felt like I was. Because even if he knew her well and cared about her, Niall wasn’t in the same position as me. I couldn’t explain what a horrible feeling it was to know that your family was literally slipping away from you. I didn’t know where my Mother was, I didn’t think she was even in the country. I knew my Father would be here soon. Despite our rocky relationship, my Father was a good man, with a big heart and he was not going to leave Ellie’s side the same as I wasn’t. It’s one thing to feel the people who raised you slipping away, it’s another for pretty much the only other direct family member to be absent from the world itself. Ellie was always the middle, what are you supposed to do when the middle isn’t there anymore? Everyone knows the middle is the common ground; it’s the thing that strings everything together and keeps it safe. It saves everything from falling apart. In all honesty, I didn’t even think there were any building blocks of my family left anymore.

The sign towered above me, the letters were bright. Bolded, underlined, and illuminated by both the moonlight, and dim backlight that gave a soft, pale glow that was probably supposed to be inviting. I looked away as Niall looked at me, I didn’t want to see anyone’s pity. As soon as the doors opened, the bright waiting room in all it’s coffee table, central heating, magazine and scratchy chair glory, I didn’t even want to go in. Gone were the cravings for sunlight, I wanted to be back outside in the place that matched my mood, the situation that slurred inside of me. The rain hammered down still, alight in the headlights of a car for a few seconds, and then a figure scrambled out, the car turning, and driving away. And the raindrops were faint, but still there as they slashed through the shadows of the hospital car park, breaking through all as they pelted down onto the tarmac.