Little White Lies

Chapter 11: "tell me the story"

Niall's POV

"My baby you're okay." My mother leans over and hugs me, crying on my shoulder.

"Mum when did you get here?" I was shock and confused. Then it all came to me. "Where's Ashley, Ashley is she okay?" the room falls completely silent with only a beep filling the air in a rhythmic tone. 

My mum moves to hold Greg's hand at the foot of my bed, I look at where she does, to my left I almost die. Ashley. Her chest rising unevenly sharp and slow, long clear tubes fill her body.

"Ashley," I can't hold back the cries, "Ashley babe please wake up please," my voice gets caught in the tears that started. I try to get up but the way my leg is lifted makes me fall back onto the semi soft bed. I wrap my arms over my eyes. The door opens and I slightly peek to see who it was. Liam.

Liam doesn't know that I may have been sedated but I could still hear, I mean who couldn't hear him yelling. His eyes bright red and puffy, his hair no longer combed only in a mess.

"Hello Maura, Bobby, Greg." I could see the smile hurting his face.

"Hey guys can me and Liam have a second alone?" everyone started to file out, as soon as the door closed Liam leaned over and hugged me, we held each other as we cried.

"Thank you Liam, thank you for being there for her... and for saying the things you said to Emily." He let go and wiped his eyes.

"You heard all of it?" I just nodded my head; a long beep came from Ashley's machine that nearly gave me a heart attack. A nurse quickly came in and added a new bag to her IV. Then another nurse came in with a cart.

"Mr. Horan?" she asked looking at my chart. Liam went and sat on the chart on the other side of me. "I'm here to put your cast on." The woman at Ashley's side started to roll her out.

"Wait wait wait wait, where is she going, where are you taking her?"

"Mr. Horan calm down she is just due for some test she'll be back in a few minutes." Before I could say anything else she shut the door, then everyone started to come in.

A few minutes turned into an hour then 2 hours and by the 3rd hour I called in the nurse. She came in with a smile.

"Yes Mr. Horan." She had so much pep for working with sick people all day.

"Please just call me Niall, and they said she was going to be back in a few minute...they said that 3 hours ago. Where is she?" I was getting restless being in the hospital room alone. Everyone had to leave due to visiting hours.

"I'll check now, dinner should be by in the next hour." She shut the door and I pulled up my twitter. I quickly tweet that I'll be okay and I'm going to be here for a while. I ignore the questions of who I was running after, some rumors being it was a fan.

"And I found your sleeping beauty." The small nurse pulled in Ashley. Her body looks pail and cold making me want to jump out of my bed and hold her. She hung up all the IV bags and rehooked the heart murmur. As soon as the machine turned on Ashley's chest rose like a deep breath, it stayed there for a while then fell and went to a regular rate.

The nurse left and I tried to get up as quickly as I could. My hospital gown sent a shiver up my back due to the limited material covering my back side; thank god they let me keep my boxers on.

I limp my way to chairs by the window tugging along my IV stand. I pulled the chair next to Ash's bed and sat there looking at her hurt body. I grabbed onto her hand squeezing it. a part of me died as she didn't squeeze back, or smile. I look up to her lips and see the tube coming out of the corner of it.

I look down and pinch the bridge of my nose as I start to cry again. I squeeze her hand again, I just need that one reaction, just one. A smile or a squeeze back.

"Niall?" I shot up and see a much younger girl in the door way.

"Who are you, who let you in? Don't I already give enough to fans why can't you leave me alone for two god damn minutes?!" I would never say that to a fan but it just came out.

"No I'm not a fan, I am but that's not why I'm here. I'm here because of Ashley." I look at her as she walks to the other side of Ash and hold her hand. "Is she going to be okay?"

"I hope so, how do you know Ashley?" where the hell are this girls parents?

"She's my big sister." Okay now I know this is a lie, Ashley doesn't have any siblings. "I'm in the big brother big sister program, Ashley's been my big sister since I was 4."

"How old are you?"

"I turned 9 2 weeks ago. Ashley threw me a surprise birthday party, it was awesome." She gloats but then she walks towards me. "She really likes you."

"Huh?" I sit up straight as she stands in between my legs and looks at Ashley, I'm still holding on to her hand.

"She talked about you all the time, she told me you remind her of a leprechaun. Every time I saw her I always made her tell me the story how you two met." She turns and has a sad smile. "Can you tell me?"

I let go of Ashley's hand and stand up, I walk over to the bed and lay down. I scoot over and pat the small space. Her smile grows and she leaps in.

"I'm Aliya by the way." She pills the warm blanket over her.

"Niall, but you already knew that." She grabbed my arm and pulled it over my shoulder.

"My foster mom won't be back till 8 so don't leave any details out." she looks up to me and waits.

"Um, okay I was back stage waiting for my friends so we could walk down to the lawn seats and all of a sudden I see a girl waiting by herself, now I didn't want anyone to hurt her so I had to be her body guard and she was automatically attached to my big muscles, then we fell in love." I look down to Aliya and she covers her mouth to stall the giggles.

"No, that's not what happened," she laughs again, "It went like this, you were standing alone watching and dancing to Olly Murs and then you saw Ashley and walked up to her. She was freaking out because she had seen you all day but she was so nervous to go up to you."

"Oh really, then what."

"Well then you said hi and she remembered her friend said to play hard to find or something like that," She was playing hard to get, she got that right. "Then you offered to buy her a pop," which was really a margarita. "And you two danced the whole day together and then you asked her for her phone number, she tried so hard not to look so happy or excited." Aliya leans her head on my side as she traces the outline of my other hand. I look over to Ashley and smile, I thought she didn't like me and she was only using me for drinks that night.

"Then you walked her to her car and before she got in you said you really liked spending the day with her and gave her a kiss on the back of her hand. She drove all the way home with butterflies in her stomach and a big smile. The end." Aliya claps her hand.

"Wait but you left out the best part." She furrows her eye brows. "You forgot to say she couldn't resist my stunning looks and said I was the fittest guy she ever see." Aliya giggles again and pokes at my arm.

"Yeah real fit." She rolls her eyes making me laugh. She starts to yawn and cuddles into my side, I smile as her short curly hair tickles my arm.

"Aliya di-," I look down and see she had fallen asleep, I take one last look at Ashley. 

"You gave me butterflies too." I smile to her and close my eyes.