[3709 words]
Niall
A few days later, and we were in my car, driving to my place with a quick stop to do some groceries. I was excited to get home with Patri finally, not because I got tired of her flat; in fact, I loved it more the more time I spent there with her. Her roommate wasn't home much, so that's definitely helped me feel at ease while spending our days in their flat, but my excitement definitely came because of other reasons. Well, mostly because we didn't spend a single minute there ever since we got back together, and my heart literally ached to see her around my things again. I feel like my home was always a safe point, a permanent place in our relationship, as most of our time together has been spent there. Partly because we rarely went out anywhere if so, we left the country, but also because of the quarantine when we spent so much time living together. We created so many memories there that it was physically hurting me to be between those walls after we broke up. I guess that tension in me every time I crossed the doorway without her always lounged on the surface, and I was fucking ready to leave that behind and have my girl back there. And to create new, everlasting memories there with her again.
Patri was luckily doing much better than a few days ago, and that's why we also agreed that it's time to get out of the comfort of her room. Her throat still hurt a little, and she had an incredibly ugly cough, but after she got home from the hospital, she didn't have any more fever, and the dizziness and nausea were in the past as well. As for me, I felt my throat to be a little sore as well, but I tried to cure it with big cups of tea and a nauseatingly sweet and sharp mix of honey, ginger and propolis - the secret ingredient that in Patri's and her dad's opinion cured everything. Something had to be about it because my throat didn't get worse ever since I was eating the mixture with her every night before bed.
I held up the door of my local store for Patri before I stepped in, right after her and grabbed two baskets, handing one over to her.
"Pick up anything you want, and we meet up at the candy aisle," I told her with a smile when my eyes found her surprised look. "Just go. Everything you crave for," I said again before she could've asked what my intention was, and I stepped out from behind her, making my way to the first shelves.
"But I'm paying for myself," she called after me, and I nodded with a smile.
"As you wish."
The thing was, she lost some weight, and it scared me to hell. I knew it was because I barely could get anything into her due to her sickness and the pain in her throat, but it left an uneasy feeling in my stomach, still. She was incredibly pretty and attractive in my eyes, no matter what, but I wanted her to be strong and healthy again, and I figured, with some food for the soul would help her to get back into her form again.
That's why I filled my cart with everything I knew she loved and some other unnecessary things, but it will be fine on my shelf at home.
Soon I found my way to the sweets, picking up chocolate filled with strawberry mixture, Reese's and cookies with white chocolate chips because I knew Patri was obsessed with all of them. I picked up a package of my favourite sour candy just when Patri turned around the corner and walked up to me without looking at anything on the shelves.
"You don't want anything sweet?" I asked with a smile when she stopped in front of me.
"As I see, you took care of the sweets," she answered, nodding at my cart, and I picked it up from the floor.
"You can never have enough sweets," I grinned, and she rolled her eyes at me playfully before she turned around then grabbed something. It was dark chocolate filled with orange pieces.
"Strawberry chocolate not your favourite anymore?"
"Oh, yes, but this is a tad bit better to snack."
"That's not the point right now."
"What it is then?" she asked as we started to walk down the aisle.
"I just thought we'd buy some food for the soul now that you haven't eaten almost nothing but soup and tea the past few days."
"Oh," her lips quirked into an adorable smile as her cheeks flushed. "It was a good idea. I'm actually really excited to eat everything," she confessed, and I chuckled.
"Good. Do ya need anything else?"
"Nope," she shook her head as we walked to the cashier, but then she turned down to the toiletries while I stood at the end of the queue. A few moments later, she was behind me, holding up a pink toothbrush in front of my face. "For your bathroom," she said, and I smiled at her like a fool because this simple thought meant more than anything.
I grinned at her, and when she grinned back, I knew she knew what went through my mind. It was a simple, basic thing, but it meant pretty much to me. To us.
After we both paid —I didn't even try to pay for her anymore even though I couldn't not think about how she said she was struggling because she couldn't work much the past few weeks— we finally made it home with all the food we bought.
I closed the door behind us, placed down the paper bags and took a few steps closer to Patri, slipping my arms around her waist and hugging her from behind.
"Welcome home, babylove," I mumbled into her ear with a smile before I pressed a long kiss at her cheek.
"Hmm," she hummed with a smile, laying her arms on top of mine and nestling her head to my shoulder, which only made me tighten my grip around her. "I love you," she whispered, and I pressed another kiss at her face, whereupon she turned her head to me.
"I love you more," I answered before I captured our lips in a sweet kiss, sealing our words with it and washing away the past. Because we came out of it stronger, and all that really mattered was that we were here. Together.
I walked through the house, which I always did if I came home after a long time, just to be sure that everything was fine. Actually, it had been only a few days since I checked everything, but because I slept at Patri's the last couple of days, I didn't come home, not even to pick up clean clothes. Mainly because Patri had a bunch of pieces that I gave her years ago, and to be honest, I rocked her clothes too. She wore mine, I wore hers, and that's how we spent the last couple of days.
"When was the last time you were home?" Patri asked once I walked into the kitchen, where she put our food on plates and into bowls.
"On Monday after I left you in the hospital, why?"
"No, I mean the last time you were properly home, and you slept here."
"Umm... well, that was when I was waiting for you to get home from your parents. I was working on Hand In Hand."
"Oh," her cheeks flushed, and I smiled back at her when she looked at me with a shy smile too.
"It's funny because I wrote all of my songs here in the past years, but I worked more on the one that kind of brought me back to you in the studio."
"What do you mean you wrote all of your songs here?"
"Like, literally here. In the living room," I nodded my head towards it, and she grabbed a few plates while her eyes wandered into that direction too before she looked back at me. I followed her, picked up as many things as I could, and we walked to the living room, sitting down on the couch and putting everything on the coffee table in front of us.
"Weren't you in LA much? Like from what Lia told me, I got that you spent most of your time there before you started tour."
"I definitely spent much more time in LA than before. Especially right after we broke up. I remember getting up a few days later after you left because I felt like I can't stay here another minute. Everything reminded me of you," I looked at her, grabbing her hand and pulling her into me because it ached in my heart how sadly she looked back at me. "I think it'd have been much harder if I had stayed," I continued because I wanted her to know my side of the story too. She was always so open and honest about what had happened, about how she felt back then, and I knew it was my time to open up and talk about it too. "And it definitely helped that I had Julia and Mully in LA. She made me help realise and accept things, even if it took me a long time. And Mully helped me to forget by keeping me company and getting pissed with me every other day. That's why I felt relieved when Jules went to visit you. I knew you needed her just like I did to somewhat process everything because I think to this point, if I had stayed here without her, the heartbreak would've crushed me down. I was fucking done with everything, Patri. Remembering back, I don't even know how I managed to live through it."
"I know," she whispered into my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her tighter. "I felt the same."
"I also know now that it wasn't the best thing, hiding in LA from everything that happened. But honestly, how to deal with that kind of pain if not by repressing and denying everything?"
"I couldn't do that anymore. I had done it so much the months before that I couldn't anymore. I felt through that pain, and I took it as my punishment for doing this to us."
"I'm so sorry you thought you deserved that," I kissed the top of her head.
"So how come you wrote your songs here then?" she whispered.
"Well, I learned that if you push things aside and don't deal with them, they will eventually come back and bite you in the ass the worst possible way. And that's when I understood what happened for the first time. I was denying it, but deep down, I was so angry with you. And then the feelings rushed back to me, forcing me to just pause, take in the moment and realise that this must've happened to you too. That was when I saw past my anger too and broke down because I missed you so much. I felt like I'm gonna go crazy if I don't deal with my emotions, and I knew I needed to get home because I needed the inspiration that this place holds to finally sit down and write. So I got back, and I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, and you have no idea how much useless stuff but also how many good things I had once I was past the creative rush. Jules and JP told me I have songs for at least two strong albums, if not three. And I wrote all of them here."
We fell into silence after I ended my story, and for long minutes, we just sat on the couch, cuddled together, processing the things that had left my mouth. After a little while, I started to believe that I had talked Patri into sleep but then she suddenly lifted up her head and looked at me with her big, teary, green eyes and tear-stained cheeks. My butterflies awakened in my stomach, and my heart dropped at the same time because she was so insanely beautiful.
"I didn't want to make you cry," I mumbled and cupped her cheeks, brushing away her tears and kissing her forehead. "Don't cry, babylove."
"I'm just... it's hard to hear how heartbroken you were," her voice was trembling, and new tears slipped free from her eyes that I quickly kissed away.
"I know, shh, I know," I tried to comfort her, and when my hands slipped down from her face, she leaned her temple against my cheek, bringing her face close to mine.
"How did you decide which songs you wanna release?" she asked lowly, and I caressed her back up and down as I took a big breath to carry on.
"Up until that point, as I said, I worked here alone. Then I asked Julia's and JP's help because I trusted them the most with what I had. Julia firstly looked at the songs from a personal point of view, for which I couldn't blame her, but I needed JP's opinion as a songwriter. And so he made Jules realise that that's what I asked from them. They helped me to sort the songs out. We had two categories first; too personal and not too personal, but this system eventually failed when we realised that everything was too personal, and we needed to look from a different angle. We had maybe only three songs sorted out that were really fucking deep. But I love them still, I love to sing and play them, and that only the three of us heard them makes it so much more special, I think. Well, four of us if you wanna listen to them?"
"Is that even a question? Of course, Ni."
"I'll need a guitar."
"Not now because you're hoarse, and we don't want that to get worse."
"Yes, doctor," I grinned and kissed her head.
"Continue."
"Well, we sorted the songs out. I don't even know how at one point I was hurting so much I can't even remember that time quite clearly."
"Gosh, I had this too. I've just time blanks where I'm not sure what happened or how I even got through things. Isn't it fascinating how much heartbreak can take from you? How it forces your brain to just simply don't remember for your own sake? I'm sure it crosses the line of trauma."
"I don't know, Smarties, but I don't want to get through that ever again."
"We won't because we've each other," she whispered, and I tightened my grip around her.
"Yes, we won't," I agreed, my heart fluttering because her words didn't leave much room for interpretation. And it made me incredibly happy that she saw things the same way I did. There was just nothing that would make me let her go. Ever again.
"So you kind of presented your management and colleagues Moonflower as done?"
"Well, no, I said I have this, I want to work with this and didn't even mention the ones that didn't make it into the album. I don't know how people would've reacted to them, but it was for the better not to find it out. So I went into the studio, and we started recording. Jules and JP kept coming with me even though I didn't ask them. I think they knew I needed them there, plus they had already invested so much work into the whole album it wouldn't have been the same finishing it without them. Plus, there were days, songs, I needed to record without people, and they were the only ones to stay and help me out because I couldn't do it with everyone else."
"The songs you can't perform as well?" she asked silently.
"Yes. How do you know that?"
"Basically, the only thing Lia told me about it. I didn't know they worked with you on Moonflower."
"I think it was hard for her too. We made it as easy for her as we could, but she suffered too."
"I know."
"So she didn't tell you then how there's more behind Hold than you'd think?" I asked with a smile on my face, excited to finally tell her and talk about Moonflower with her after so much time.
"No," she looked up at me, her eyes as clear as ever, almost shining at me in the purest green. Her eyes were always glowing like this immediately after waking up or crying, and I loved to stare into them.
"Well, hold also means something else, doesn't it?" I grinned even wider when her eyebrows pulled together, telling me that she didn't get it just yet. "In a different language," I helped her, and now her eyes really did light up as she understood what I meant.
"No way," she whispered, and I giggled.
"Yes way," I chuckled.
"H-how, I mean, have you looked it up? How did you come to the idea?"
"No, I remembered how you told me once that it also means moon in Hungarian. I had the song concept, and so I wrote it. But other than Jules, JP, you and me, no one knows what it stands for. And I've been reading stuff on Twitter because I was curious if someone makes a theory about it or something. They always try to read so much into my songs and why I wrote them."
"And? Did they?"
"No," I smiled. "At least, as far as I know. I didn't spend much time on socials after Moonflower released."
"Why?"
"Because I was afraid what I might read about it. People's opinions, their theories, questions. You know how you said songwriting for me is kind of like journaling for you or others?"
"Yes."
"Well, now I felt like I shared too much about us, about you, about myself to the whole wide world. Could've been a diary entry, read out loud and recorded for everyone."
"That's why you didn't want to release at first anything."
"Yes. We weren't together anymore, but I felt so fucking overprotective of you. That's why it was hard to share anything, even singing that you've brown hair and green eyes felt so intimidating."
"That lines are in Wildflower, right?" she smiled shyly, and I tucked her hair back behind her ear.
"Yes."
"I love the opposition between Wildflower and Moonflower," she admitted, her cheeks flushing in the most adorable pink.
"Me too," I grinned. "I didn't forget how we talked about that you like when there's more thought put into little things like this."
"Like the album called Moonflower and the intro Flor d'Luna in Spanish," she bit on her lip, and I nodded with a smile.
"Or that's how the idea came about Hold."
"And Those Nights. When there's no one to hold on to, Those nights make her remember that she still got the moon," she whispered with that adorable rosy cheeks, shy smile, glowing eyes, and I fell in love with her for the millionth time again. I pressed my lips against hers, and she warmly welcomed my kiss, pulling me closer to her and hugging around my neck while her fingers dived into my locks at the back of my head.
"Have you seen live performances on the internet?" I asked curiously after our long kiss, and I felt her pause for a moment before she let out the air that she was holding back.
"No," she admitted lowly. "It took me months to listen to Moonflower. I didn't even dare to think about listening to a live performance, I'm sorry."
"It's fine, don't worry about it. I asked because... well, tell me that I'm cheesy but I swear there's something magical in the air when thousands of people sing these lines with you," I smiled, goosebumps crossing my arms only at the mere thought of it.
"I believe you. And I hope I'll get to hear it soon," she smiled, and I pecked her lips again. "I once dreamed that I went to a concert. I looked after tickets the next morning when I woke up, but I was too scared to buy one."
"I wish you'd have come."
"I know me too. But I was even scared to listen to it."
"You heard it for the first time after months?"
"Yes. I was so scared to hear your voice, I cried about it nights, stressing because I knew I needed to listen, but I was literally so scared."
"And I was anxiously waiting for you to reach out. Say something. Send a message, even with Julia."
"And I'm sorry I was scared to do so. But I hated myself more after listening to it."
"Patri, don't say that!"
"I know it's bad, but it's the truth. I was fucking angry with myself. Doing this to you, to both of us."
"That's why I thought, you'll reach out to me. I thought Moonflower can't be any bigger of a hint of how much I miss you and love you."
"It was. But not an I want you back. And I wanted to respect that after I screwed up everything."
My mouth was already opened to respond to her, but with her words settling in me, I closed my lips. She was in one part right about it. The songs may not have said that I want her back. But I felt it every single day we spent apart. No matter how angry I was, how sad, devastated, broken and lost. I never stopped wanting her back.
And so I told her that, and a little more tears fell as we reminisced in our heartbreak. She then asked me to turn Moonflower on and we listened to it for the first time together after a year and a half while cuddling in our favourite spot on the couch, where we haven't sat together ever since she told me that she can't do our relationship anymore. But that didn't matter anymore. Because we were us again.
•••
HIIIIIIIII
You guuuuyssss😭😭😭😭 i'm so effing proud of this chapter😭 well mostly because of the whole concept and songs and names and stuff I came up for Niall's third album and aahhhh i was so excited when i wrote this🥺 i really hope you liked it and it meant something to you just like to me and to them🥺
Aaa the next chapter will be also good, cannot wait for you to read it!!🥰 i hope you're doing good and you take care of yourself!!! I'm starting uni tomorrow and i'm soo effing excited🙈 though I wish I'd start medical school like Patri sigh🤧 but hopefully next year!!
Anyways i really hope you had a good start of October and that you can enjoy the last warm sunrays wherever you are in the world!🌞 love ya loads, see ya soon☁️🤍