Fate || n.h au

Aonú

CHAPTER 6

"After you." Niall said confidently whilst opening the car door for me.

"Thank you." I said chuckling flirtatiously, sitting inside the familiar warm car seat.

He jumped into the drivers seat to my right and immediately started the car. He turned the heat on without haste before rubbing his cold hands together and breathing into them, something I had seen him do previously, so I assumed it was a habit of his everyone he was cold.

"I forgot to thank you for sticking up for me earlier." Niall said quietly, placing both of his dry hands on the steering wheel.

My eyes shot up to face him and he was staring at the road in front of us. As much as I wanted to make eye contact, I'm glad we didn't, because I knew if we did I wouldn't be able to speak.

"You don't need to thank me Niall," I said sweetly, "it needed to be said. Sean's just a dick sometimes."

He chuckled at my use of language (probably more so because I'm so "innocent" looking) and quickly turned to look at me.

"I'm not used to people-girls-sticking up for me, I guess." he said, his smile turning into a straight line.

I studied him briefly, not really sure what he meant by that. I think he noticed the confusion on my face because he proceeded to tell me more about it.

"I've just never really had the best luck with girls." He stated bluntly.

I was in pure shock at the words falling from his thin pink lips. How could a guy like him have girl trouble? I would think he'd have loads of girls chasing after him as if he was a dog chasing after his freshly thrown tennis ball.

"But I'm hoping this one works out." He said, glancing over at me with a small smile.

"Me too." Was all I managed to cough out quietly. I couldn't believe how nervous I was.

Loosen up Maggie, it's just a boy.

But he wasn't. He was so much more than that. Charlie Donnelly was just a boy, a boy that my friends made me "date" in the sixth grade for a whole of two weeks. But Niall was different, Niall was...lovely.

••

"Here we are." Niall said as he parked the car in front of the ocean. I knew exactly where we were, the boardwalk. I hadn't been here since I was merely 8, and it brought back heart-wrenching memories.

*flashback*

"Shut up!" My mom shouted from the front seat.

"But mommy why do we have to leave so early?" I said through tears.

"Because your father has to go to work so he can pay the damn bills, do you want him to get fired?! if he gets fired we'll be out on the streets! "

She slapped me hard across my small face, causing my nose to bleed and for me to cry harder. My dad just sat in the driver's seat, completely motionless. Seeing him not even flinch at the fact that his daughter, that he claimed to "love so much," was getting hit by his wife, her mother.

"Don't fucking hit her." My older brother, Neil spat bravely at our mother. She just glared at him, knowing that because he's 13, hitting him would be more of a burden on her rather than anyone.

"Selfish brat." My mother spat at who knows which child before pulling a container of "medicine" out of her purse and swallowing three capsules dry. She had taken them so often she didn't even need water anymore.