Chapter 24 - Confession
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” He asks and I blink in shock and confusion, all at the same time. I start to frown, not understanding. I look at him as if he lost his mind, but he’s so serious. He lost the goofy smile.
“W-what do you mean? Tell you what? You brought me here!” I protest, suddenly feeling very defensive. I even move a bit farther from him, a bit scared.
“C’mon, stop with the game. You know what I mean and you know why I brought you here,” he insists and I snort.
“Of course I know, you told me I lost the bet, that you found your super mystery girl.” Ugh, I sound so bitter when I say that. “But besides that I don’t—”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” He cuts me off again, with the same question and I start to get desperate. Tell him what? There are so many things, but I don’t know what he means exactly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the girl at the ball?! That’s what I’m talking about, Ella!”
And that’s the moment I freeze and I feel like even my heart stops beating. I can only blink in utter shock and seeing Niall’s serious expression is making things only worse. Maybe he notices that because he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a few seconds. When he opens them again, he smiles at me.
“How— how did you find out?” I ask, not even trying to deny it. I know if I try, he’ll only yell at me.
Niall takes another breath and leans in to grab my hand, putting the orange aside. “I always knew,” he explains with a smile. I don’t even try to shove him off, I’m still too shocked. “I’m not stupid, you know? Yeah, I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, and you kept telling me you didn’t go to the dance. And even Harry told me that you were indeed working the whole night, but nothing else made sense. I knew it the moment we met at the stables, when you were so nervous. I saw your eyes, Ella. No mask could hide your eyes. And your smile, and your laughter, and your voice. This is not one of those cheesy movies where the characters are so oblivious when the truth has been in front of them the whole time.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?” I ask, slapping me mentally for thinking that I was hiding it all this time, that it was a secret. But Niall knew all the time.
“I wanted you to tell me. I knew it was you but I didn’t understand why you didn’t tell me. You knew I was looking for you yet you didn’t say anything. You pushed me to fix things with Zoe. Why?”
I look away because I don’t even know how to start explaining all the things I did and the reasons behind. Telling him that it was because he’s a celebrity is not true, not completely, at least. There are so many other things that held me from telling him and I don’t know how to explain myself.
“Ella,” he calls me. “Help me to understand,” Niall adds pulling my hand, urging me to look him in the eyes.
“I— I felt guilty for kissing you when you had just broken up with Zoe, for getting in between somehow. And you know… you’re a guest in here and I shouldn’t even be friends with you, and Rhonda and… I’m sorry,” I finally say, looking down, not being able to meet his eyes. “It was easy to hide it, to hope you would drop it. That girl at the dance wasn’t really me,” I add before I feel his hand taking my face, making me look up and meet his eyes.
“It was you, just a part that you don’t show all the time. But that girl who made me forget all my problems that night is you, don’t you see? You did the same night after night.” I take a deep breath, shaking inside for how close we are, for the way he’s holding my face so gently. “You should’ve told me.”
“But— but you were so happy looking for her and I thought you didn’t know so why? I didn’t see the point. You wanted her. And if you knew it was me, why did you do all that? Making girls try the mask on and all that?”
He laughs, that full of life and heart-warming laughter of his. “Because I wanted to see your reaction, I wanted to make sure it was you. You were so jealous,” Niall says and I pull back, offended.
“I was so not jealous!” I protest and he laughs even harder.
“Oh yeah you were. It was like you couldn’t roll your eyes more every time I mentioned Cinderella,” he pushes and I do that, I roll my eyes.
“Because it’s stupid saying that.” I fold my arms and he is still laughing.
“You know what gave me the last clue to be a hundred per cent sure it was you? Because I wanted her to be you with all my heart. I was even scared she wasn’t you,” he says, serious this time and when I look at him my heart skips a beat. “The letter you left in my room.” I frown and he chuckles softly. “Who else would leave that letter on my bed? And it was right after you cleaned it, so it had to be you.”
“It could’ve been another maid,” I protest and now he rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine. It was me.”
“I know,” he says, leaning closer. “And can I ask you for something?” He inquires, once again cupping my face.
“Depends,” I say and he chuckles again. I’m serious, though.
“You know what’s going on between us, I know you do. Please, don’t run away from me anymore.”
I look him in the eyes and I see the honesty in them, the intensity in his words and how much he means all what he is saying. But what’s going on between us? What exactly? I don’t even know how to feel with this new knowledge anymore. All this time I thought he didn’t know, that he wanted another girl, when he was just testing me, when he played me fool. But what now? Yes, I know I have feelings for him, strong feelings, but I really don’t know what all this means to him. A mystery solved? A chasing that finally got to its end? A summer fling?
What’s going on between us?
I don’t get to ask him that out loud when his lips are on mine, pressing softly, catching me off guard. My eyes widen in shock and one second later they close, willing to give in to the kiss. Again. My hand, the one that was on my lap, raises to his neck, holding on to him as I kiss him back.
He’s still a guest in the retreat centre, he’s still Niall Horan, mega popstar, but nothing of that matters when I kiss him, when I feel him wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me towards him, pressing his body against mine as he kisses me deeper, tilting his head to the right for a better angle. I wrap my two arms around his neck and react to his movements with the same intensity.
All the questions, all those thoughts vanish from my mind as he keeps kissing me because nothing else matters. That same connection I felt at the ball, that same magic that made the world stop around us is happening again and it makes no sense to me, but I can’t stop.
Niall pulls back for a second, just to take another breath and kisses me again. I don’t know where all this is going, I don’t know if all this is even a thing, but I guess I’ll have to care about it later.
After a while, we finally break the kiss and we both are breathing heavily, but he still keeps me close to him, his arms so tightly around me and I didn’t even notice when he brought me up to his lap.
“Do you… do you have an idea for how long I wanted to do this?” He asks and I shake my head before pressing my forehead against his. “Since that night at the stables.”
I don’t know how to reply to that. What do you say when a boy tells you that? ‘I wanted to kiss you, too’? ‘Well, that’s nice’? ‘Good for you, boy’?
“I’m so glad I can do this now freely,” he adds and kisses me as if to make emphasis to his statement. I don’t complain, my head is kind of bubbly and I’m not really thinking. “Ella,” he says, pecking my lips softly once again. “You didn’t answer, though.” I look at him, playing with his hair a bit. I still don’t know how to reply to that. “Will you stop running from me?”
Ah! He meant that answer.
Well, he’s still a celebrity and although I don’t mind that anymore, or at least not that much, it still would bring me loads of problems with Rhonda. I don’t know if not running from him would be wise. Yes, I can’t deny that I like this, that I really like Niall and that knowing he was looking for me, knowing it was me, really wanting me all this time makes me really happy, but still… Rhonda is there, she hasn’t gone anywhere.
“You know… this place used to be a retreat centre for any kind of people. For all those who needed a break, but since my dad died, Rhonda turned this place in a retreat only for celebrities. I don’t know why, but she’s kinda obsessed with them,” I say still close to Niall, my hands still in his hair. “And I feel like with that, she closed the door to all those people my dad wanted to help. She destroyed what he built up with so much hard work and… and I dunno. Since then I’ve felt like every celebrity represents all what my dad didn’t want and what Rhonda wants. And I hate her. I hate everything she loves.”
“Where are you going with this, Ella?” He asks, and I see concern in his eyes this time, and I feel it in the way he hugs me tighter.
“I mean that you are what she loves and that’s one reason why I pushed you and I ran away from you. And just being here with you is like accepting what she loves and what she did to this place.”
“But I have nothing to do with that!” He protests, finally getting where I was going with that. “That’s absurd, Ella.”
“I kinda know it,” I confess, a bit ashamed. “And to be honest, I don’t even mind that much anymore. That you’re a celebrity. I don’t even see you like that anymore,” I smile and I see him smiling, as well. “But if she knows I’m with you she’d go all ballistic. She’d make my life even worse. You know why I was working all night at the ball, even though it was my birthday?” I ask and his eyes widen in shock. “Because it was my birthday, because she knew and she wanted me to work all night instead of celebrating. The Summer Ball? That was a tradition my dad started for my birthday, to celebrate my birthday. She turned it into a reason for me to work even harder. If she finds out about this I don’t know what she’d make me do and I’m so close to leave this place, to be finally over with all this. I don’t want to make things worse.”
I expect him to say he understands, that he doesn’t want to make things worse for me. Don’t guys tell you that? Isn’t that the romantic, cheesy thing to say? Instead, Niall kisses me as if I haven’t said a thing all this time. And the worst part is that I kiss him back, forgetting what I just explained to him as well.
When he breaks the kiss he holds my face in his large hands. “Then she won’t find out,” he says. “You’ll do what you want and we’ll keep it secret until you’re free from her. I’m good at keeping secrets,” he winks at me and I laugh. Well, he kept a relationship in secret from the whole world for a long time. If there’s someone who can keep a secret from Rhonda, that person is Niall.
“I’m still not sure if this is a good idea,” I muse and he laughs.
“I’ll convince you otherwise. Plus, it’s fate. You’re my Cinderella and you can’t run away from me anymore.”
I laugh at him. Why, out of all the guys in the world, did I have to choose the cheesiest of them all? “You’re so cheesy. Seriously, how’s that you don’t have diabetes?”
He laughs again and then his eyes open as if he remembered something. “It’s not as cheesy until I do this,” he says and then puts me aside with such ease that I’m impressed. I didn't think he was that strong. He then looks for something in the basket and I frown, until I see him taking out the mask, the very mask I used at the ball. “No Cinderella tale is finished until Cinderella tries the glass slipper,” he says and I burst out laughing.
“I ain’t gonna do that!” I exclaim, still laughing.
“Oh c’mon! Amuse me, please!” He insists, trying to make me try the mask. “Please, please, please! I need closure.”
“No!”
“Please!”
“No!” I exclaim and rise to my feet. “Only over my dead body!” I exclaim and sprint off, running before he can catch me. I won’t try on that mask.
But I should’ve known by now that Niall Horan doesn’t give up that easily. I should’ve known…
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Dedication to @ElliePie21 because you like my clffhangers, you appreciate them!
Bel, xx