Better Than Words

Chapter 33 - Painful Happiness

Niall's POV

It's been about 10 minutes since Jesy's been here and so far all I've gotten out was 'um' and 'wait' and 'don't go'. This isn't going as well as I planned.

"So are you going to talk and form coherent sentences or just mumble out a bunch of nonsense?" Jesy sneered and gave me a glare.

"I know you're mad that I lied to you. I didn't mean to, I just knew that you would be mad if I told you I was with Leigh." I explained to her.

"Well I'm angry anyway." Jesy said and glared at me some more. I just want to shrink back and disappear.

"Yeah, yeah. We know that Jesy would kill you if you were caught with me. Can I go now? I don't want to third wheel or anything." Leigh said.

Jesy looked sideways at Leigh and Leigh gave her a look back. I'm in a big mess right now.

"No, you can't leave." I told her firmly. She just gave me a look. "Okay, here I go." I added.

"You've said that 3 times in the last 10 minutes Niall." Jesy pointed out. I sighed and gave them both my best puppy eyes.

"You two have known each other longer than I have known either of you. You've grown up with each other; you've been through everything together. Tell me I'm not wrong when I say that this week is probably the longest you haven't spoken to each other." I started.

They both just stared at me, "I don't want to be in the middle your friendship. I don't want to be the reason why you two stop being friends. I know that Jade and Perrie are trying hard with the both of you but you're meant to be a foursome, not two separate pairs." I explained.

They softened their glares at me, which is a good sign. "So, I'm not going to date either of you. I'm going to put aside all of my feelings. I'm going to put your friendship first." I finally said.

"That doesn't erase the fact that you do feel something for Jesy." Leigh said after awhile.

"But that's not what I care about right now Leigh. Yes, okay, I like Jesy. But I love being both of your friends more." I explained to her.

"We can't ever be just friends again Niall, you know that. All nine of us are fully aware of your feelings for one another." Leigh said to both Jesy and I.

I looked at Leigh and her tears were about to fall but she's holding them in tightly, "Leigh..." I began but Jesy spoke up.

"I don't want to be with you Niall. I don't want to be in a relationship right now." She said.

"I'm pretty sure I'm still not ready to be in one either. I need to focus on finals and acing these tests." I told them.

"If you two are just saying that to spare my feelings, stop it. I'm not a helpless person. I can handle the pain." Leigh told us and stood up.

She was about to toss some money on the table but I pulled on her arm and sat her beside me.

"Look, the last girlfriend I had was Sam. She meant everything to me; I was completely and utterly in love with her. One night during a party I left her alone for 5 minutes and you know what happened? She got raped." I started.

I haven't talked about this since it happened. It still hurts me every time I think about her. She was everything to me.

"I went mad, I punched the guy so many times, I couldn't get the image of her bruised and bloodied up out of my head. The lads had to pull me off the guy otherwise I would have killed him." I explained to them.

"I thought I took good care of her, I loved her so much. I thought I was the best boyfriend in the world. I turned my back for 5 minutes and that's what happened to her." I sighed.