Twenty One Letters To Niall

Two Letters To Niall

Niall jumped on the hotel bed, exhausted. He yawned, stretching, when he heard something crackle. Oh yeah. The letters. Twenty one of them, all still there, all still accounted for. Slowly, so he wouldn't wake someone up - the walls in this hotel might as well have been made of paper - he opened the second letter and began reading, squinting to see in the darkness. 

Dear Niall, 

 

Everytime I sleep I whisper good night to you. 

 

I don't even know why. But I've done it from the beginning, and maybe it helps me when the nightmares come. Jade told me they'd go soon, that one day I'll be able to look back at my past without freaking out. but they've been getting worse. Every night. 

 

Why am I telling you this? 

 

I don't know, really. I've locked up those memories for so long that it hurts to talk about them, even think about them. So I'm writing them down. I'm not going to tell you everything. But maybe a little can't hurt, to tell you about me, and just me. I remember when I was younger, my dad used to take me out to the park. Not mum, not Eliza. Just me. It was a relief to get away from it all, let my dad push me on the swings and let it actually be about me, for once. Not Eliza, because that's all it was normally about, and that was never going to change.

 

Or so I thought.

Niall frowned at letter. He didn't understand. Who is Eliza? Her sister? He held the paper closer to his face, struggling to make out the words in the fading light. 

 

I've tried everything to get the nightmares to go away, yet nothing ever works. Not once in the past month have I had a proper night's sleep. Tiny little Ruby gave me one of her plastic dolls to keep, one with a blue plaid dress and black plaits, and painted sky blue eyes. To protect me, she said. I had to shove it in my cupboard because it reminded me too much of things in the past, things that I don't want to be reminded of. She's the only one apart from Jade, my social worker, who knows that I get nightmares, and this is because her room is right next to mine, so she hears me screaming. 

 

Oh god, that sounds morbid. I should shut up. Maybe I'll cross that bit out.  And then, maybe I won't, because this is a diary in my mind. You're not gonna read this, so I'll carry on writing, pouring out my life and feelings onto this page. Actually, screw that. I'm not ever, ever, going back to what happened in my past.

 

I saw you today, on the television, in some sort of interview. I had like a panic attack, aha. But then I had to turn it over because Jenna wanted to watch Hollyoaks. Boooo :(

 

In spite of himself, Niall smiled.  Even now, after all this time, it felt strange to know how much he and the boys were a part of people's lives, an everyday thing, important. He was just Niall from a small town in Ireland, y'know? It was still weird to be known all around the world so commonly. 

I love your interviews! You guys are hilarious. Though I still miss you guys on the stairs, like when Louis started feeding you guys salt and pickle tea, or when you had all the onesies on. The girls at school had a onesie sleepover last week. I've seen the photo's on facebook. Looked like fun. 

 

I'm going to stop writing now because it's half 12 and I have an exam tomorrow. I'll probably mess it up anyway, because not exacty the cleverest of people, but I don't want to make it worse. 

 

Good Night.

 

Lots of love, 

 

Charlie  ♥

He noticed the way she always signed a little heart next to her name, as if saying lots of love still didn't show how much she loved him. Or maybe he was overthinking that, that was just how she signed her name. Out of habit, maybe. 

 Already, Niall was beginning to get to know Charlie.

Charlie. Was that short for Charlotte? He turned over the envelope in his hands, searching for an address so he could reply to her after he'd finished. But he couldn't find any, only the fan address and the date she wrote it. Wait. He was in a hotel, so how on earth did the letters get here? 

Who delivered them? Post people don't deliver things to hotel rooms. Why not send it where it should've gone, to the Management, where they would've sent her an automated reply? 

How would a post person know where he was? Why would they deliberately go out of their way to get it to him, even if they knew Charlie wouldn't get a real reply otherwise? 

But if a proper reply was what they wanted, why was there no address to reply to? 

Niall's head began to ache, and he realized he'd been sitting there for a long time, over thinking  things. Questions swam around in his brain, so he put the letter back in it's envelope, stuffed it back under the pillow with the other letters, and drifted off into to sleep. 

He would read the rest tomorrow.