Honest Illusions [niall horan]

Chapter 6

Aubrey's P.O.V.

Vibrant colors of yellows and greens faced the walls of the room I found myself standing in the center of. A simple, white rectangular door was positioned in the center of the wall directly in front of me. The more I stared at it, the more befuddled my mind became. Where the hell was I? I was supposed to be leaving for London in less than six hours, yet I was in a place I had never seen before. No sound could be heard- everything was dead silent.

"Hello?" I called out as I took a step closer to the door. Nothing. Walking closer to the door, I felt myself shaking with every step. The metal of the door handle felt cool yet heavy against my clammy and shaky skin. After taking a deep breath, I twisted the door handle only to be met with my living room. My nerves felt frozen once I saw the person seated against the couch straight across from me. "Mom?" I whispered, in shock that she was actually here right in front of me. In return she smiled at me before she averted her gaze away from me.

Without any hesitation, I sprinted to the couch where she was sat at. It had been so long since I could wrap my arms around her. The minute I had my hands tightly wrapped around her shoulders, she pushed me off of her, making me fall to the ground. My eyes widened at her action as my tears freely fell down my cheeks. "You're a monster," she said, except it wasn't her voice. It was his.

Each word echoed off of the walls of my living room, making me want to completely disappear but I couldn't. The door disappeared and suddenly I felt the room getting hotter and hotter before I felt myself fall into a pit of darkness. Right before everything turned black, I heard my name being repeatedly called, but I couldn't distinguish the owner of the voice.

"Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey, wake up," I heard being yelled into my ear while a force was pushing against me. Dazed, I struggled to peel my eyes open. Once my eyelids lifted themselves up, I was greeted with a concerned Pete, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"What's wrong with you?" I whispered.

"The question is what's wrong with you? You kept shaking your head against the pillow, mumbling incoherencies, and you're sweating like crazy," Pete replied as he placed a hand against my forehead. It was all a dream- a nightmare more like. I had frequent dreams where my mom, dad, or aunt would appear, but I never had anything as extreme as this last one. Niall's words still echoed in the back of my head, especially since the sound came out of my mom's voice.

"Just a nightmare, I'm fine." I shook my head at him. Pete decided to sleep over last night since I was heading off for London at four in the morning the next day. Due to my late notice, Rachel couldn't get me flight sooner than the date of the fashion show. Luckily I would arrive there a little less than three hours before it was set to start. In that time, I could get settled into my hotel, get myself ready, and also suffer from a severe case of jet-lag. The downside was I couldn't leave until two days following the fashion show which only made me dread my flight to London. Apparently a day long trip across the ocean isn't considered professional business worthy.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Pete asked. Both his hands were gently placed around my upper arms, his fingertips lightly tapping against my skin. This wasn't the first time I awoke in the middle of the night with a bad dream. Pete witnessed more than his fair share of my traumatic episodes, yet I never liked discussing them. Most of the time they involved Niall, and I really didn't want to discuss him with Pete. Other times, it just hurt to recount the horrors I had gone through, even if it was just a dream.

"No." My eyes trailed away from his gaze all the way down to the cut of of his navy v-neck.

"Aubrey, I-" I cut him off before he could continue since I already knew where he was going with this. It was the same montage every single time.