When You Must -Lirry & Ziall-

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

“How was Niall?” Dr. Ed Sheeran asks tomorrow, pushing his pale hand through his ginger hair. He’s tapping his leg and looking around like he always does when the sessions start because he’s an odd man with odd mannerisms. His black glasses are perched on his nose the glass is littered with fingerprints where he took them on and off with his fumbling fingers.

“Niall was good. He always looks good. Came home with me last night like he always does when I’m sad.” Zayn smiles lopsidedly and lies back in the dark leather chair he sits on. “Or when I’m lonely,” There’s a pause, “You mind me taking off my shoes?” Ed shakes his head and toes off his own shoes to show Zayn’s its okay. Ed tucks his legs underneath his butt and taps his pen against his lip, chewing on the cap. A nervous habit he had accumulated over the year of working in a psychiatrist’s office. All the sad stories he’s heard, he’s lucky he’s stayed sane and smiling.

“Does Niall always come home with you when you’re sad or lonely?” Ed poises his pen over his paper, doodling random hearts instead of penning notes about Zayn’s mental well being.

“Yeah,” Zayn says gruffly and shuffles his shoulders, “He doesn’t want me to be alone.” Zayn’s tone is defensive and snappy.

“Alright man, alright. Why don’t we start this session talking about what happens when Maria was fired?” Ed sits back with his crossed legs and looks satisfied as he munches on his pen cap.

“Why don’t we start somewhere else, a few days later, with my mum staying home to watch us. Me and Niall were outside, right? And guess who we saw across the street….

Across the street sits three boys munching on Oreos, dipping them in cups of milk and spooning the crumbs out with their cupped fingers. The two curly haired boys from before, both brown haired, with different colored eyes, and a new, older looking boy, with feathered, fringed hair and icy blue eyes and set, smiling lips and a thin, small body that reminds Zayn of a girls frame. There all resting on the houses porch, draped across the steps and eachother and wearing caps and cute, coordinated outfits.

Today Niall is wearing overalls, pulled over a powder blue shirt with white shoes with blue laces. He’s got a brace on his left knee over his pant leg that keeps blood circulating in his left leg. And Zayn, even though Tricia hates him, (she still has to dress him adorably,), is wearing a pair of black, reflective Jordan’s and yellow track pants, topped with a big black and yellow striped long sleeve sweater that protects him from the bitter wind.

It was almost Niall’s sixth birthday, Zayn thinks, it’ll be his birthday on January twelfth, and Niall’s on February 16th, the day his parents had randomly chosen to be his birthday when Niall no longer wanted to remember his parents by celebrating a September thirteenth birthday. So, with Christmas approaching and the boys decked in layers, Niall and Zayn with cute hats with tassels pulled over their ears, and gloves to warm their fingers, the boys eagerly await the passing of a new year.

All Zayn can think about is how next year, together, they’ll start kindergarten, and will have to go to school. And Zayn can’t help but think that, until then, there will be no one to go to Niall’s birthday party. Later that day when Niall is laying on the concrete on his tummy and drawing faces on the sidewalk with chalk, brings up the dreaded subject.

“I wish there was more people for us to play with.” Niall looks longingly over his shoulder at the boys playing soccer in the front yard across the street. A piece of chalk gets blown by the wind down the slanted drive and rolls till it’s stops at the curb across the street.

Zayn leaps to his feet. “I’ll get it!” He looks both ways before streaking across the street and bending down to pick up the piece of khaki colored chalk.

“Hey!” One of the boys yells, and Zayn jerks up, chalk in hand, and spots a soccer ball coming towards his head. He ends up butting the ball away with his face. The boys on the yard clap and yell, “Wanna play ball with us?” Zayn wants to; he hasn’t played any footie games in a long while, but then remembers the boys rude comments on Niall’s chair.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn says, all manners, “I can’t. My brother is across the street all alone-“

“Oh, chair boy?” One of the boys with unruly curled hair in a pair of high Nikes socks said; brushing his curls from his green eyes hastily. “Bring him! He’s like a cool transformer!” And Zayn nodded, racing across the street, and picking up Niall and setting him back in his chair.

“I don’t want to play with those mean boys,” Niall protests, crossing his arms over his overalls, “They don’t like me or my chair.” He wipes at his eyes a bit.

“But they do! They think you’re cool! They want you to come!”

“They do?” Niall asks, using his shirt tail to brush away tears.

“Yeah they do, I know they do.” So Niall lets Zayn led him towards the curious boys, and towards a new segment in life.