Read Between The Lines

Part 7

Then it hit me.

They were victim tears.

This boy feels my pain, he knows the emotions. But why does he know the emotions? He shouldn’t do. Without warning a strange urge to protect him flashed through me; like I didn’t want anything or anyone to hurt him, ever.

‘Hey, you okay?’ I smiled warily at him not needing to force a concerned note into my voice because it was already there. Proving involuntary that no matter how much I hate these boys and their ‘perfection’ I care.

He smiled back at me through his tears and as I continued to stare into his eyes I barely noticed the other guys looking at me in disbelief as Liam blurt out. ‘You’re the one with their arm gashed open and you ask me if I’m okay?’ He questioned with a teasing note in his voice.

‘Yeah, about that…’ I stuttered, adding an awkward note to the atmosphere.

‘I was walking along this wall that had barbed wire at the top and I got distracted and fell and I cut right down my arm’ I lied easily but felt the need to explain to them, wanting to hide my pain from them, even though they had seen enough in the alleyway.

I switched my gaze to the small blonde one, Niall? Was it? And he looked at me disbelievingly. ‘We saw the whole thing’ he stated emotionlessly.

I shrugged; not caring that they caught me lying and let out a deep sigh.

‘okay, make sure you take care of him’ I nod at Liam as I stand up avoiding their gaze.

 Before any of them could say or do another thing I walked off down the road.

Why? Why did I say that? I don’t give a flying fuck what happens to one direction…

At least I don’t think I do.

Niall’s POV

After a minute of staring after her retreating figure, I tore my eyes away from the alley way girl. She was so interesting. Admittedly fragile… and broken but still interesting.

As if in silent agreement we all got to our feet and followed the girl.

Zayn let out a deep sigh and we all looked at him with amusement in our eyes, ‘What’s wrong now zynniieewanneeyyy?’ I screeched with an impatient tone to my voice.

‘Alleyway girl won’t be getting far with that arm of her’s’ He stated wearily.

‘I know I don’t understand why she didn’t tell us the truth about what happened to her and why she won’t let us in. I mean if we were going to hurt her then we would have done it already right?’ I questioned, whilst continuing following her limping shadow down the road.

Instinctively all of us lads looked at Liam and he shook his head, and just looked down at his feet before muttering ‘I know what she’s going through lads to an extent but I can’t read her mind ya know.’

‘STOOPPP’ I yelled out without warning, pausing both the lads and alleyway girl on her way. ‘We gotta help her home lads’ I stated before running straight up to her and walking along beside her as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

I watched as her eyes widened sensing that I was stood behind her and then she gave a small faint smile that I would have missed had I not been staring right at her.

‘So what’s your name alleyway girl?’ Liam asked casually as the rest of the lads surrounded us and we all continued walking. She stared up in surprise at us all and I could almost see her mind turning, as she was trying to figure out if she was actually going to tell us her name or not.