Chapter 13: My Wish, Your Departure
(Niall Horan, age 20)
Verena's POV
Dad’s eyes landed on mine first, and then onto the rest of the boys. “You lot shouldn’t be here yet,” he seethed, clearly angered that we had realized the matter of the situation earlier than expected.
“Let me see him,” was all I found myself choking out in response.
Dad gave a heavyhearted sigh and pursed his lips for a few seconds as if contemplating on whether or not to let us in. After a few brief moments of thick silence, he offered a torn look to all of us before stepping aside for us to enter.
Though I knew that this was well enough the end of the line, some part of me was desperately trying to convince myself that it wasn’t. ‘Liam’s right, he’ll look at us with that goofy smile on his face and say that everything’s fine…’ I tried assuring myself repeatedly, praying that the sight of him I was about to see wasn’t going to be anything close to broken.
It hurt more to lie to myself than to get a grip on reality after seeing the scene in front of me.
Niall lay in the basic hospital bed beside a window looking out into most of Mullingar, displaying a painfully clear and beautiful blue sky in front of him. His body remained stiller than I had ever seen, legs looking too tired to even offer the smallest of twitches or shakes, arms locking themselves in one place hanging off of the sides of the bed. Those lively crystal blue eyes I had always loved were duller, sadder than I had ever seen them to be. The head of tousled bleach-blonde hair lay matted down against his scalp, looking as if it too was losing its life. Niall was hooked up to a series of wires, many of which I didn’t recognize what the uses were for. As for his face, it remained just as lifeless looking as the rest of his body until the boys and I arrived into the room. His colder expression morphed into one of embarrassment, the redness forming speaking for itself.
Our eyes met for a split second before he looked away out of the window, “Don’t look at me,” he mumbled without bothering to face the boys or me. Zayn grunted and leaned against the wall, not used to seeing his best mate in such a sour mood.
“Verena, dear-“ Niall’s father began to say, only to be cut off my his son’s now fuming voice.
“Leave, all of you leave me alone,” he spat, shocking us all with the change of tone and personality. None of us were used to seeing an angry Niall, out of everyone he was the most cheerful; the one that always had a smile on his face no matter what the circumstance. But there he was, seemingly angry with us all for no reason, telling us all to leave.
‘It’s getting to him, the time left,’ I thought while keeping my eyes locked onto his form now completely turned to face the inviting view the windows portrayed. I noticed him trembling faintly beneath the thin covers laid out on his body. My heart broke at the sight, but for the sake of him I kept myself composed for the time being. As much as I wanted to burst into tears and let myself be crushed by the massive weight on my shoulders, I couldn’t for his sake; not yet at least.
Zayn who had grown the most silent out of us all, decided to speak up, “We came to see you…that means nothing to you, Nialler?” he asked from his position against the wall, and I could almost feel the natural edge to his voice close at the brink of snapping.
Niall didn’t bother to answer for a minute, his trembling stopped but a small sob came from him before he turned away from the window and slowly lifted his upper half as he turned to us. “I told you not to look at me! Don’t pity me, get out!” he snapped after seeing Zayn looking his way.
Zayn’s patience with the situation had broken at that moment, and for once it seemed that not everyone was acting themselves at all. Liam, Harry, and Louis were quiet for fear of provoking Niall, and his family was seated nearby the bed not bothering to make any eye contact at all. Fed up with his best mate’s bitter mood, Zayn threw his hands up in the air, brows furrowed.
“You don’t want me here? Fine, Niall.” He coldly stated, for the moment seeming like he was cooled off, but ended up punching the wall with full force before exiting the room with the boys on his tail.
Liam frowned and looked back at everyone in the room while standing in the doorway, “Don’t mind him, Nialler. We’ll be outside…” he directed to Niall, who remained unphased by his mate’s words. In a split second, Liam was out the door lecturing Zayn on how to calm down and properly act. I heard another slam against the wall, followed by a sob.
“I can’t do it, mate,” I heard Zayn slur out; he was finally broken.
I found my own fists clenching out of frustration; I couldn’t hold back the need to break just as Zayn did any longer. Niall’s lifeless blue eyes locked onto me as I looked down, feeling my own eyes fill to the brim with tears.
‘This really is the end of the line, isn’t it?’ I thought with my gaze to the floor, suddenly then getting a grasp of reality for the whole time we had spent at the hospital that morning. There wasn’t any holding back the memories flowing through my mind at that point, no holding back the vivid replays of each one of them, memory after memory cutting deeper and deeper into me.
‘I want to stay with you,’
‘Please don’t cry, come see me tomorrow at the park,’
‘Tomorrow, then,’
It stung, remembering every single moment leading up to this point in time I was dreading to face from the start. So much had happened in those years Niall and I had spent together, from that day we had made the promise to love each other forever, to the moment we had went our separate ways, and to all the experiences shared in these last two years we had spent after the separation. Everything was unforgettable, irreplaceable, and knowing that this was the possible end to all of it was the worst pain I could have ever felt.
“Maybe we should give you two some time. Niall, lad, I’ll be back with your medication soon.” Dad was the one that cut the uncomfortable silence short and lead Greg and his father out the door, all three of them giving a curt nod and wave, a sorrowed expression plastered all over Greg and his father’s faces.
As for me…well, I wasn’t sure whether to move or speak to tell you the truth. I could feel Niall looking at me, waiting for some sort of reaction to the state he was in. And after what seemed like minutes on end, I heard a faint thump against the mattress he was on.
‘It can’t be over…’ my body was frozen after hearing the noise and nothing after, the steady beeping grew slightly slower but still hadn’t stopped, which meant for the time being Niall was still alive.
Tears still on the verge of spilling, I managed to bring myself to look up at him. Out of fatigue, Niall had let his upper half give way and slump back down flat on the mattress, too exhausted to support himself. I let out a sigh of relief and tried not to look at him, gaze still fixated on me even in the flat-laying position he was in.
“You going to stand there forever, love?” he questioned, voice calmer than earlier but matching the current state of his body; lifeless and dry. “Come here,” he urged while motioning with one of his hands to come closer.
I was still somewhat frozen and unsure of what move to make next. But being that it was him, I complied and edged my way closer, drawing in a shaky breath with each step and feeling loose tears spill out and run down my cheeks. Was this really what he had become in such a short amount of time? A lifeless lad that didn’t look like himself at all, just an empty shell waiting for the world to take him?
‘It did this to you, Niall…the condition got to you,’
Soon enough I was at the edge of his bed, crouching down on my knees to be at eye level with the boy I loved beyond compare.
The first thing Niall did was reach out to take my hand.
“You know what I love most about you, Verena?” he asked, and stroked the length of my hand for a few moments as he deeply looked into my eyes, the small glimmer of tears forming. “You…made these promises to me,”
‘Stupid, you should’ve wished to become famous,’
‘And why’s that?’
‘You just don’t get it…because I’ll be with you forever no matter what. That’s a promise I’ll always live by.’
All the control I was trying to hold had crashed down into nothing in that moment. I knew what he was doing…what he was trying to leave me with; he was bringing these memories back in one last attempt to remain a part of me.
‘Don’t make it so hard, Niall,’
I had let my walls come down before he could continue speaking, I had let him see the mess of a girl I was going to become without him, I had let him see the effect his condition was leaving me with. And what a mistake it was to break that way in front of him; to cling to his hand so tightly it made him wince, to melt into a sobbing and weeping mess almost unable to breathe, to be pleading him not to go, because in the middle of it all I could feel him reaching his ending point too. The grip he returned to my hand began to loosen, but he still held on as tightly as he could.
The second thing Niall did was pull me forwards directly to him so that we were face to face, inches apart.
“Never letting me finish, huh?” he joked, somehow manifesting a sad smile. His hands cupped both of my cheeks tenderly and wiped away the never-ending spill of tears coming down. “As I was saying…you made these promises to me. Promises that kept me going…through every year spent with you, that first promise and all the others after helped me pull through it all.” He choked out this time, uttering a wheeze afterwards.
‘Then you don’t need me, I’m always bringing you down,’
‘Stop it, Niall. I’m always here for yo-‘
For a moment, the Niall I loved didn’t look so lifeless in front of me. Some color had returned to those captivating crystal blue eyes, filled with a single wish. “Want to remind me what that promise was, love? Let me hear it, one last time,” he pleaded with sheer longing in his eyes, a single tear escaping to beg for those words he so desperately wanted to hear.
I looked away, feeling unable to look at him straight in the face without breaking down even more. Seeing him in such a state was killing me already, but hearing those words and his dry voice he was trying to imprint into my mind was only making it hurt more.
The third thing Niall did was pull me up onto the hospital bed with him, forcing me to look down at his face.
“Look at me when you say it, don’t be afraid to cry,” he whispered with an even dryer sounding voice than earlier.
And so I did. I looked down at Niall Horan, the boy I had promised to love forever since the beginning I had learned about the heart condition, the boy I never lost feelings for ever since we made that single promise and wished for his long life on a mere balloon at the docks. I looked into the eyes I knew would soon be closing, the eyes I knew I would never again be able to see, the eyes that were keeping themselves open just for me in those last moments.
‘Then…let’s call it an end, shall we?’
‘Promise me you’ll be happy…’
As I spilled out the promise we had made, every promise we had made to each other since then on as children, I could see something in Niall’s eyes faltering. It wasn’t just the fatigue kicking in…I could tell that there was a limited amount of time left.
The fourth thing Niall did was pull me in close for a kiss.
I could feel the faint beating of his heart against my own chest, now that he had pulled me in so close. He pulled his lips away, hungry for more just as always. “I’m going to miss those lips of yours,” he whispered, another small array of tears flowing down his eyes as he leaned in again for another deeper kiss, making sure to savor the moment as much as he could. Two kisses didn’t nearly seem enough for him.
‘I’ll take you there one day,
You’ll see the endless sky at night,’
I could feel it as he kept settling my trembling lips down with his own, I could feel the life draining from them so easily. But why now...? He was staying alive earlier; vibrant with anger, but still looking livelier than he was with me lying on top of him.
The fifth thing Niall did was grasp my hand and pad it onto the exposed skin on his chest right where his heart was.
He sniffled and wore a smile mixed with both pain and warmth as he held the palm of my hand onto his chest, heartbeats gradually growing slower and slower. “I need you to do two things for me…” he whispered sternly, careful to not sound too cold.
“Y-yeah…” I breathed out, tears dried on my cheeks and savoring every remaining thump I could feel through the pale skin of Niall’s chest.
He leaned in again before speaking, kissing my lips once more in an effort to calm me down, and then putting his own palm against my chest just over where my own heart was beating.
Something was killing him to say those next few words. “Tell Zayn and the boys…that… I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” his voice trembled out as I felt his body quiver while more tears flowed. He loved the boys like he loved his own family, especially Zayn. Seeing him at such a low point did nothing but eat my heart knowing I couldn’t do anything.
I nodded weakly in response and rested my free hand on Niall’s cheek, for a moment exposing that signature toothy smile I had fallen in love with. “And the second thing…?” I whispered with curiosity.
Niall grew quiet after that and took his palm off my chest. His short-lived smile had faded instantly, and I knew it must have been something serious he wanted me to do. The heartbeat underneath my palm kept thumping at a slower and slower pace; finally evening out into one that was close to stopping. I couldn’t take the feeling underneath my touch, so I pulled my hand away and climbed off the bed, returning to the crouching position to his side.
‘Come on, tell me,’
Niall turned his head and reached out to take my hand again. “I need you to…” midway he stopped himself short, choking on his own dry and flat words. He let in a quivered breath and covered his tear-dripping eyes suddenly, and without looking at me said the most aching of words. “I need you to forget me, love. Forget me and live a free life without any pain, you hear? You’ve promised me so much these years, and it’s kept me going…but you deserve to be happy.” He croaked and wiped his hand away from his puffy red eyes, which now were fully looking into mine waiting for an answer.
“No.” I flatly answered with, not wanting to sugarcoat anything. Promises were promises, and even if Niall wasn’t going to be there by my side anymore in the future, it didn’t change the fact I was going to keep every promise made to him. “I always keep my promises,”
He licked his lips and chuckled dryly as if not believing a word I had said in response. He squeezed my hand again, “How can you keep a promise that’s already broken, love? You can’t love me anymore, look at where we are,”
I had to admit that in some way he was right; I had broken all of my promises, or at least was going to break them. Though I could love him forever, Niall would simply be a memory and nothing more once he was gone. And as for every other promise I had made, those would all be lost and broken soon enough as well with him gone.
His grip suddenly loosened completely before he leaned in for another kiss to steal as he fell back limply on the mattress. He had stolen one last kiss from me; it was the last time I had felt his lips on mine. For the next few minutes we remained in a familiar silence, this time more painful than comforting. He looked at me without saying a word, eyes grazing over every part of me as if taking it all in one final time. I looked back at him as well, keen on remembering every bit and piece of this boy I was now forced to let go of. Once more I burst into tears, softer than before but still holding every ounce of hurt.
The final thing Niall had done was life up my chin to look him directly in the eyes and say, “Love…I can’t do this anymore.”
After speaking those last words, I noticed some of the color leaving his eyes and he kept them locked onto mine still, the saddest of smiles forming and staying on his pale face.
“No…” I whimpered, realizing that it was in fact now over. It was all over. We were over.
Dad suddenly burst through the door with a variety of pills in hand, everyone else following in his wake.
“Save him!” I screamed, tears brimming over the edge as I shook Niall’s hand violently, desperately trying to get his distant sad smile to liven up. “Save him, goddammit!” I screamed again, pleading to dad, to anyone, to come and bring him out of the sleep like state he was drifting into.
Dad shook his head while observing the monitor, “We can’t.” he replied, trying to stay as neutral as possible. Niall’s father and Greg were bouncing off the walls, unsure if to consult dad or to be by Niall’s side. Zayn and the boys tried talking to bring him out of the drifting state, but to no avail.
My own hand squeezed his tightly, “Don’t ever let me go, okay?” I pleaded, not earning a response as the beeping on the monitor slowed down more and more, Niall’s grip slipping away and his eyes gradually closing.
I never wanted to say goodbye to him. I never wanted to have to let go of everything and all of those years.
The grip on my hand was fully released eventually, but his smile still was on his face, looking up at all of us with eyes beginning to close. I screamed at the sight of the blue fading away even more, the lifeless blue now becoming shielded with the pale of his eyelids.
Zayn shook Niall rapidly; no response. Liam and the boys tried shaking him as well; no response either.
“Get up! Come on!” Zayn shouted, shoving Liam and the boys aside and shaking Niall faster and faster to get him to somehow bring life back into him. Liam and I held him back after he grew more violent, endlessly shaking and talking out to his mate who was already past the point of no return.
‘Better?’
‘Better.’
“You’re going to leave me here with nothing…” I found myself crying out, but never earning the response from him that I wanted to hear. Niall’s eyes remained half-open, looking up at me and the rest of the boys just barely.
“It’s done, it’s over,” Zayn grunted and walked out of the room with a mass of tears streaming, slamming the door roughly before letting out a few loud curses. Another loud thump against the wall.
There had to be some way to keep him alive, even just for a while longer. None of us wanted to say goodbye, none of us wanted to have to live without Niall in our lives. But the fact of the matter was that somehow we had to.
“I love you…” I weakly stated, praying and hoping that he would open his eyes and liven up to respond and tell me that he loved me too. But of course, the only response I received were his eyes fully closing shut, a final goodbye to replace the words he couldn’t let out to speak.
Liam had broken out into tears but remained in the room, Louis and Harry were also on the verge of crying but had gone out to find and bring back Zayn. I was a cruel person, lying to keep Liam’s hopes up as well as keeping me from breaking down. I had told Liam that Niall was going to be fine….and in response he assured me that Niall would be there smiling waiting for us. But no, it all seemed to turn out the opposite way that day.
By then, Niall’s eyes were fully closed, broken smile still on his face, and the sound of the cardiac monitor now into one constant and long beep. “He’s-“ I breathed, eyes wide from the shock of everything.
“Gone.” Liam finished, wiping away any visible tears and clenching his jaw. I wailed and broke down again, wanting for everything to be okay again just as it was the day before, just as it always was. It had taken him so suddenly out of the blue that I wasn’t sure how to assess everything.
Gone.
That simple word said it all. Niall was gone, and there was nothing any of us could do anymore but cope with the facts. What had all started as a hopeful game of waiting had turned into one of the most heart wrenching moments of our lives. The boys had lost their best mate, I had lost my love, Greg and his father had lost both a brother and a son. Niall essentially was gone for everyone.
Greg and his father soon after left the room just as Harry, Louis, and Zayn had arrived.
“So that’s it, huh?” Zayn asked, voice breaking and annoyed with the constant beep of the cardiac monitor. I nodded simply and he turned away, sobbing and unable to grasp the scene in front of him.
“Fuck…fuck…” he cursed over and over again, slamming the wall with his fist full on each time. Harry urged him to stop and tried to calm him down along with Louis.
I couldn’t stay to look at Niall any longer, to tell you the truth. It was a cold move we pulled, the boys and I, but we left the room not long after Zayn had come back with Harry and Louis; none of us could bear to look at Niall. That unexpectedly he had left us, taken by the condition choking him for so many years. Maybe now, he was happier wherever he had gone.
In our situation however, everything got worse once we got back into the lobby to talk things through. Zayn was crying the most in front of us all, but keeping himself silent as his body shook while wiping away any tears spilling out of his eyes. I wanted to help Zayn that day; I wanted to be there for him so that in return he could be there for me. We both lost the person we cared for most, but for some reason he seemed to be taking it harder than I was.
I didn’t want to think about that blatant fact; that Niall had died. Hell, I didn’t want to think about those final moments we had just shared together before everyone had returned into the room at all even. As much as I didn’t want to let myself cry again either, Zayn was the one that hit me with another flood of hurt.
“What did he say to you, when you two were alone?” he asked, for once not looking as intimidating now that his eyes were soaked and red.
‘Tell Zayn and the boys…that…I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,’ the simple of his voice ringing through my mind, though gone now, had triggered another breaking point in me.
I couldn’t answer Zayn’s question just yet…telling him and the boys what Niall had told me was going to have to wait for a more stable time.
Zayn and I locked gazes while he waited for an answer that I couldn’t provide at the time. Instead of saying any form of words to Zayn or the boys, I lost control and felt my knees give way. I had ended up on the floor, now completely the mess of a girl I was trying to keep myself from becoming again.
Harry’s arm slung around my waist and easily lifted me back up before he planted a brief kiss on my cheek. “It’s okay, love,” he assured, though we all knew that everything was so far from it.
I could barely breathe with how much I was sobbing and weeping for Niall. The realization that he truly was gone hit the hardest when we were all together in the lobby after it was over. Zayn and I simply stared at each other for a few seconds, setting his question to the side for a moment as he tried to stop the shuddered breaths and quivering hands.
“Dammit,” was all Zayn said before he pulled me into the tightest of hugs, releasing every bit of any rough emotions he was feeling at the time. His grip was much tighter than Liam’s even as I felt his body shake from the lack of stability.
The rest of the boys had joined in one the embrace as well, clinging to each other like the brothers they had bonded so well to become, clinging to each other for dear life as I took the spot of their lost mate. I trembled, we all trembled and held on tightly for a few minutes, too afraid to let go and break even more.
I remember Harry trying his hardest to calm me down, whispering “it’s ok,” or “you’re fine love, relax,” over and over again, never ceasing to stop the sea of words.
Nicotine and Vanilla were all I could smell and think of in the embrace of the boys. Nicotine and Vanilla was all I had now, Zayn was all I had now.
‘You’ll always be mine, love’
‘And you’ll always be mine,’
Love was a time limit, and from the looks of it…it all passed me by quicker than I could have ever imagined.
‘Alright, it’s a promise. And I always keep my promises,’
Though I may have run out of time, there was no way I was forgetting about Niall Horan, no way that I was going to let him slip out of my life even with the thought of him gone.
I was always going to keep that first promise we made at the beginning.
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A/N: Just the epilogue left, everyone. For everyone out there that will probably give me shit for having Niall die, sorry I’m not sorry. This was made to be a sad story, and if I intended to keep him alive it wouldn’t have been so extremely sad throughout every chapter. But feel free to give your opinions, I always read every comment and appreciate every amount of feedback and support you all give me