I Wish (Niall Horan)

Chapter Twenty Four

Twenty Four

Sophia smiled and sat up on the couch.  “Okay,”  she said, watching me get up and go off to her room.  I returned to her with my guitar in hand and sat down on the couch.  Sophia sat cross legged and smiled.

“I’ve been working on this forever, and I just finally got it right.”

“Well show me!”  she said enthusiastically.

I half smiled at her and found my fingering on the stem of the guitar.  I took a deep breath before I strummed a delicate G chord.  I continued with the next chords in the intro before I sang, but I didn’t dare look up at Sophia.  However she was reacting to the familiar melody, I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus if I peeked at her.

I found my voice then, and I began to sing the quiet lyrics as best as I could in my tone. 

“I know that it is freezing, but I think we have to walk

I keep waving at the taxis, they keep turning their lights off

But Julie knows a party at some actor’s westside loft,

Supplies are endless in the evening

By the morning they’ll be gone.”

I went onto the next verse then, and I was overcome with the emotion that the lyrics brought back.  I couldn’t take it by now, I had to look up.  I took a quick glance from under my lashes at Sophia.  Her eyes were fixed on me, and they looked red.  By the time I began the next verse, a tear had slipped down my face.

“And I know you have a heavy heart, 

I can feel it when we kiss.

So many men stronger than me

Have thrown their backs out trying to lift it

But me I’m not a gamble, 

You can count on me to split,

The love I sell you in the evening by the morning won’t exist.”

More tears fell from my face as I remembered the times that it was literally too painful for me to be in the same room as Sophia.  When I wanted to be with her so badly that it hurt.  When I would be kept up all night thinking about her nonstop.  All these emotions returned to me then, and I remembered why I loved her so much.  How much I still love her.

“You’re looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black.

You just keep going to the bathroom

Always say you’ll be right back.

Well it takes one to know one kid, I think you’ve got it bad.

But what’s so easy in the evening by the morning’s such a drag.”

I drew in a shaky breath and focused my mind on the final verse and chords of the song.  My voice shook on a lyric through an almost-sob, but I kept singing, and I heard Sophia sniff.  She was crying.  She was doing a lot of that lately.

I finished up the song,  “What’s so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight…“  I played the last chord, finishing the song completely.  I couldn’t look up though.  I wiped at my red eyes quickly, and took in a breath through my mouth.

I was about to look up when Sophia whispered,  “You remembered.”

I chuckled a little, more tears coming.  “Of course I remembered,”  I said, my voice cracking.  I finally looked up at her, and she was crying, really hard.  I put my guitar down on the floor, and returned my attention to a beautiful, crying Sophia.  “Please don’t cry,”  I begged.  “Why are you crying?”  I asked her.