13 versions of a heart // n.h. au

iii. katie

When I first met Katie, it was raining so hard in London that I couldn't see my hand if I held it out in front of my face. But I could tell she was beautiful. She came into class and brought the storm inside with her. Her hair was damp (her coat had no hood) and her shoes squelched when she walked. The first thing she said? "Dammit, I hate the rain."

– Niall Horan, Girls I Loved, page 32

As the tube hurtles forward, Mim reaches up to grab hold of something to steady herself. Across the car, she spots a teenage girl with brightly colored fingernails, Niall's book clutched in her hand. Goddammit, Mim can't escape that damn book; she keeps seeing it everywhere. She shoots the girl a glare, but she's not paying any attention. Too busy dreaming about meeting "twenty-something up-and-coming writer heartthrob Niall Horan," as the book reviewer for the Guardiancalled him just last week.

"This is a bad idea," Mim says to Cora, who, despite the frequent starts and stops of the train, has chosen not to hold onto anything. She's wearing heeled boots and skinny trousers and perfectly-flicked eyeliner that looks nothing like something the mother of a young son should have the time or energy for.

"It's a splendid idea," Cora says. Her hair is wound up in a messy bun, the kind that's perfectly messy and moves around but never looks mussed. "It's practically fate."

"Fate?" Mim wrinkles her nose. Fate is one of those concepts that only people whose lives have worked out perfectly believe in. Fate is something you believe in when you're married to your uni sweetheart and he's the same kindhearted boy he was back then but now he's a man, and you have a lovely child and a lovely job and a lovely house on the edge of the city – nobody's quite sure how you manage to afford it, but you do so anyway. "How the hell is this fate?"

"Well, you went to the bookstore to buy Joshy's book, and instead you bought Niall's. You saw the book, you picked it up, and you bought it."

"Momentary lapse of judgment," Mim says.

"Or," Cora continues, "fate. Because now we're going to his book signing–"

"Only because you're the worst best mate in the world and you're dragging me along–"

"Because you need to see him again, and you need to do it today," Cora insists, pursing her lips like this is the end of the discussion.

"I don't want to see him again," Mim says. The train's stopped again, and they're only one stop away from where they need to get off. Mim knows that this is her last chance to change her mind and head home, and she also knows that she isn't going to take it.

"That's not true. You don't want him to see you."

"No, I'm pretty sure I don't want to see him." Mim doesn't want to know if he's growing out his scruff to make himself look older, or if he's wearing that tie she bought him for Christmas one year. When she bought it, it was his only tie, but he could have dozens of others by now. Either way, she doesn't want to know. "And why's it so important that it be today, anyway?"

Cora doesn't say anything for a minute, which makes Mim look up from the cuticle she's picking at. Cora is staring at her, eyes wide. "Don't you know what day it is?"

Mim blinks. "It's Saturday. September... twenty-first?"

"Mim, it's the twenty-second."

"The twenty–" September 22nd. "Oh."

About a month after the breakup, Mim realized that she'd forgotten who she was without Niall. She'd been with him for so long that without him she didn't know which way was north. It was like they'd been in a car accident together, and the emergency workers were trying to sort out their belongings. Was this wallet his or hers? What about those keys? Except it was Mim doing the sorting, just Mim, all on her own, and it wasn't just objects she was trying to organize.