Bittersweet

13

"Esme..." He whispers to again as he sits besides me. "We shouldn't be filled with hate so much. We need to meet each other half way."

We do. I just don't want to.

"Forget apologizes and what ever crap-, that's not going to change what happened nor will it help anything. I'm okay with starting over if you are."

Am I okay with that? I mean, apologizing wasn't going to happen, so isn't that good? It's a start, right? Ugh, why was this so hard. Being friends isn't rocket science. Ew, science. Thank god those days are over with.

Before I knew it, Niall was back on his feet and walking away. I quickly scurry to get up and open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. What do I even say? What did he say again? Geez, I have horrible memory, he literally spoke five minutes ago and I forgot.

"Did you-." Was all that I manage out.

He stops and looks behind at me when eyebrows furrowed.

"Uh...there's this-. Did you know that...inside the garden there's a pretty green house and it reminded me of the one from high school, I don't know if you'd like to see it or something I get if you don't I just thought it'd be cool maybe not I dunno possibly-"

"Sure." He stops my dumb rambling and tries not to laugh. "Oh, okay...lets go?" I nod like a lunatic as I lead the way down the stairs. As we walk past the kitchen to get the the back, everyone stares at us with confusion and awkward silence. I mean, it was forced silence but it didn't mean they couldn't talk to each other.

We stay quite as we walk through the beautiful garden that made me think of the garden in the first Princess Diaries movie.

The greenhouse sat in the middle of the garden and it was pretty big, possibly the size of my apartment back home.

"Now I know why you like this place." Niall says, taking in the new atmosphere.

"And why is that?" I ask, already aware of the answer but he doesn't give it to me. A secret of mine was how much I loved flowers. I could stare at one for hours and not get bored for some odd reason.

"Gerbera daisies," His voices scares me at first since he had disappeared for awhile. When I turn around he's holding a dull pink Gerbera Daisy in his hand with the dorky smile I once loved. "They're your favorite and this place has every color. But you've always loved this one the most."

Without warning he slides it between my ear and bites down on his bottom lip. I quickly turn back around and focus back on the strawberry bushes, picking the most red ones. He starts to do the same, placing them in the woven basket.

"So where did you go to college?" I try to make small talk.

"NYU. Only because it was the closest and at that time I had just started to realize a girl shouldn't be stopping me from my life." He answers with a tiny laugh.

"At least it didn't take you longer." I shoot him a crooked smile. "I'm glad you're happy. With Emma, I mean."

"She helped me a lot, actually." Was the only thing he chose to say. Why was he being so guarded with this, it's not like I said I hated her, which I don't. I couldn't, it would be horrible if I did because there wasn't a flaw on that girls' head.

"It's scary to think we're getting older." I sigh, twirling a strawberry in my hand. "It is. But it's mandatory to age, just not mandatory to grow up." He agrees.

"I'm pretty sure it's mandatory, Niall." I laugh, biting into the strawberry and sitting on the cleared wooden bench. "No it isn't!" He yells, but for once he's not serious about it."Just you wait. When we're thirty, we'll still be just how we were in high school."