Broken Strings || Niall Horan [AU]

22 | the two of us

❝We took a chance; God knows we tried. Yet all along, I knew we'd be fine. So pour me a drink, oh, love. Let's split the night wide open, and we'll see everything we can, live in love in slow motion, motion, motion.❞ ▬ 18, One Direction.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Anna," Niall says softly, later. We're on the end of the pier, watching the sky bleed out. Glorious shades of blue and orange and pink blend together over our heads, the sun heading down to greet the horizon.

A gentle breeze plays with my hair, while the shouts of children, still playing on the beach, linger in the warm sea air. This, I realise, is what summer is for: watching the sun go down with somebody you love, basking in its warmth and letting the golden glow of it touch your face.

I look up at him, wondering how I got so lucky, thinking about all the bad things that led me to him and realising that, to grow flowers, you have to have rain. "What's up?" I ask, gently bumping my arm against his.

"Earlier, you-" he begins, faltering. He clears his throat and starts again. "What was it you were going to tell me?"

"Nothing," I say. "Like I said, it doesn't matter."

He grabs me then, a little too hard. He obviously didn't mean to, and he instantly loosens his grip, looking at me with a mixture of pain and guilt in his pale blue eyes. "No," he says. "It does."

I sigh, realising that there's no way of getting out of this one. Niall is stubborn, and besides, he cares about me -- he wouldn't let me simply not tell him what's on my mind. I turn back to the ocean, knowing that looking into those eyes whilst telling him the truth would be a struggle. I keep my gaze fixed to the horizon; it's a steady, unwavering line, and I know that as long as I can keep looking at it, I can pretend that none of what I'm about to say matters. "I was going to kill myself," I murmur.

I can feel Niall move away from me. He takes a step back, and when I turn to shyly meet his gaze, I can see that his hand is covering his mouth in shock. He slowly lowers it, and then parts his lips to speak, before looking away, silent. I can see in his eyes that he isn't comfortable with what I've just told him.

"I should've told you," I stammer. "God, I'm sorry. But I didn't want you to see me as weak. I didn't want you to think that I... I didn't deserve you." I look down at my feet and notice that one of my laces is untied.

"You think you don't deserve me?" He says at last. He shakes his head, baffled. "It's me who doesn't deserve you."

I scoff. "Yeah right, Niall."

He takes my hands. "Are you okay? You're not... You don't still..." He trails off, and suddenly, everything seems quiet. It's getting darker now, and the beach is beginning to clear out.

I graze my thumb along his skin, looking down at our entwined fingers. "No, I don't still want to kill myself. I'm okay. I feel happier now than I ever have."

I'm surprised to see that he's smirking. "Good," he says. "So what's the problem?"

I don't have an answer for that.

He pulls me over onto a nearby bench and wraps his arm around my shoulder. We look out at the rolling waves of the ocean, and I nestle my head beneath his. "Is that it?" I ask after a while.

"Is that what?"

"Is that all you're going to say about it?" My words come out rushed and unsteady. "Because I was going to die, Niall. I would have thrown myself off that cliff and died and we'd never have met. Ever. You'd still be in that house, you wouldn't have met the boys, we'd be apart, forever... Doesn't that bother you?" I know that I should just forget it, but for some reason, I can't. I want him to say more about it. I want him to understand.