Through the Lens

Goin Out

"Oh, and I figured you might want this." He shrugged as he handed me one of my t-shirts that I'd left with Hailey, and I felt my stomach tighten at the idea that she didn't want it.

Niall must have seen the look on my face as I hesitantly took it from him, holding it in my hand and staring down at it as the familiar sting of rejection made its way through my body.

"I forgot to give it back to her." He quickly said. "We were doing some shots and she said I was dressed too formally so she gave it to me to put on for the pictures, I forgot to give it back before I left so I just figured you might as well have it back."

I could tell he felt the need to explain it to me, knowing what I had obviously been thinking. I swallowed hard and nodded, doing my best not to let it dampen my mood since I knew I still had to spend the night out with them.

"So, how was it? You get the shots you wanted?" Liam asked as I pulled some beers from the fridge and handed them each one.

"I'm not sure yet, I haven't looked. I wanted you guys to look with me." He shrugged. "I wanted to see them for the first time with you."

"Well it's that fucking precious." Louis laughed. "You warm my heart, little Nialler."

"Yeah, yeah." Niall chuckled as he pulled out the USB from his pocket and motioned toward my living room.

He walked over and plugged it into my TV as I used the remote to put it on the USB setting and the first photo flashed up on the screen. A warm feeling washed over me as soon as I saw it, immediately recognizing the background as Lily Ridge and smiled to myself. Niall was sitting on the edge of a cliff, looking to be thinking about something, and I knew Hailey had taken it without him knowing.

The four of us sat, scanning through the photos, Liam and Louis in awe of some of the things she'd captured and blabbering on about how nice it looked there and how they wanted to visit. Not surprisingly, she seemed to capture the emotions of the album rather than just a photo of Niall in a nice place. Her talent for making you feel things in her photos was obvious, as you could really feel the rawness of Niall's pain or the lightness of his laughter. I felt my own emotions being reflected as I saw the images of Niall looking like he was missing someone, sitting somewhere alone and thinking about them.

Niall had left me a copy of his album as soon as I got back, and I'd been listening to it pretty regularly in the past few days, and I'd be lying if it didn't make me wonder who half those songs were about. I'd known Niall to date here and there, but as far as I knew none of them were ever that special to him. He used to talk about some girl back home, but never really gave many details and at times it just seemed to painful for him to talk about. I'd figured he was long over it by now, but his album would appear to show otherwise. I wondered if maybe he had more insight into the way I was feeling than I had realized, and I felt bad that I'd obviously missed that he was going through something at some point.

We scanned through the photos of Niall sitting on a bed, looking down at his hands while he wore my t-shirt, and I felt a strange sense of relief at the idea that his story about my shirt seemed to match up. I knew it was ridiculous, but I just needed to know she hadn't given it to him because she didn't want it and he just didn't have the heart to tell me.

My heart stopped in my chest as I flipped to the next photo and saw her face looking back at me, my breath hitching in my throat as I stared up at her. She was beautiful, as always, but there was something in her face that just wasn't the same. She was smiling next to Niall, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Her eyes weren't sparkling like they usually did, still looking blue as ever but missing that glow that I loved so much. She was tired and sad. Nobody else would have noticed, but I did.