× Horan
It was passed two in the morning when we decided to call it a night. After we had gotten out of the hot tub, Lynn and I had stayed up and watched a series called Stranger Things and we refused to go to sleep until we saw every episode. We were not disappointed.
Lynn's hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her white Nike shirt was tight along her chest. The bottom hem went just below her navel and exposed a thin line of her tan stomach.
I watched her from the bed as she milled around the room, just looking around at the knickknacks and books on the dresser, peering outside at the backyard, or flipping open a book on one of the shelves. She already brushed her teeth and gotten ready for bed, but apparently she got a new burst of energy. I on the other hand couldn't seem to keep my eyes open.
Then suddenly Lynn stopped walking around when she saw something on the dresser. It was a candle. Then she was moving again, to her duffel bag and dug out her purse. She found what she was looking for and went back to the candle before picking it up and climbing onto the bed next to me.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Conquering a fear," she explained without looking at me.
The candle was big with three wicks sticking out of the glass dish. The label on the front said hot buttered rum. Lynn looked down at the lighter she had gotten out from her purse. I recognized the pattern on the lighter as the one I had given her for Christmas and grinned to myself. I watched her movements as Lynn's breathing became shallow and hands start to shake.
"Are you alright?" I asked her, scooting closer.
She nodded robustly, like she was trying to convince herself more than she was me. "Yes. I'm fine. Just... I'm fine."
Lynn was afraid of fire. I knew that, of course, but I guess I never realized how bad she had it. The bonfire a couple of weeks after she joined the team was a big blow out so it was a little understandable. This was just a little flame and Lynn was hesitant with it.
I reached over and tried to take the lighter from her so I could help, but she jerked away, her grip on the lighter tightening.
"No, let me do this," she pressed. "I can't let a stupid little flame prevent me from smelling nice things."
She made it clear that she wanted to do this alone, but I didn't move away from her. Her thumb was over the wheel and I watched as she pushed down, a small flame immersing the wick. From the sudden light of the spark, Lynn jumped a little, but kept holding onto the lighter nevertheless and proceeded to light the candle. When all the wicks were lit, she capped the lighter and the flame disappeared.
"You did it," I whispered, knowing how much the accomplishment meant to her.
She nodded timidly. "I did."
Lynn kept her eyes on the small flames, the golden glow bouncing off her skin. There were shadows casting down one side of her face, the flickering fires making the darkness dance. She looked absolutely beautiful in the soft glow of the flame.
"Alina is the reason I'm afraid of the dark," I said into the silence.
Thinking about how Lynn invited me to her once childhood home and having me there to watch the video her mum left her, I figured it was only appropriate that I didn't keep any secrets from her anymore.
"It's not because of the things that could be hiding in the shadows, but I'm afraid because what the darkness can do to people. It's... symbolic, I guess."
Lynn didn't say anything, and she didn't have to. Alina committed suicide and I didn't have the slightest idea why. She seemed happy, but I guess everyone seems happy when they're not. She had a good life; I was always there for her, her parents were kind and supporting. I didn't see why she had the desire to just leave like that. To leave me.
"We had a date," I continued as I slipped down further onto the bed. "We were going to see a movie, but when I picked her up, she wouldn't answer the door. I thought maybe she fell asleep, so I went inside and... found her."
"Oh my God," Lynn said quietly.
"She was on her bed with a bottle of pills next to her. She did fall asleep, but she never had any intention of waking up."
Lynn moved the candle to one hand and grabbed my hand with the other. Involuntarily, my fingers automatically wrapped around hers.
"She didn't even leave a note..." I added.
I looked over at the football night light plugged into the wall. Since Alina's death, a lot had changed with me and I was sick of it. I shouldn't be afraid of something as childish as the dark. I shouldn't be afraid of getting my heart broken again.
Without thinking, I removed my hand from Lynn's and quickly got off the bed and walked over to the night light and clicked it off. Darkness blanketed the room except for the small glow of the candle in Lynn's hand. I quickly got back into the bed and leaned down and blew out the flames.
Lynn gaped at me with horror. "What did you do that for?" she asked, utterly confused and pissed. "I finally got the courage to light those and you just blew them out!?"
"I figured since you got a little closer to conquering your fear, that maybe it was my time to do the same. I'll start with one night and see where that goes. However," I added quickly. "I'm not sure that's very fair because ever since we started sleeping together in the same bed, I'm not afraid anymore."
"Wish I could say the same," Lynn said under her breath, looking over at the unlit candle on the nightstand.
I grabbed her hand in mine and ran my thumb over her knuckles. Lynn shimmied down under the duvet and rolled onto her side, facing me. I took it that it was time to go to bed, so I followed suit. Against my self-control, I reached out and pulled Lynn toward me. She didn't protest, and instead tucked her head under my chin and closed her eyes.
× × ×
This house was never truly a home to me. Everything was steel and cold and held none of the things a normal family house should. Like pictures. There were no pictures on the fireplace mantle, or the end tables, hanging on the walls, or even in a photo album stuck on the shelf. No sign a family, or any human being, had lived there.
Not only did the house look cold, but it was cold. My mum never stayed in the house; too busy at her office at the law firm, so I guess she didn't see the need to put the damn heat on during the winters.
"Comfortable?" I asked Mum who was sitting on the living room sofa with the news on the telly and flipping through her emails on her phone.
Greg and I had just gotten her home from the hospital and I was told that I had to stay with her because Greg had to take Theo to a dentist appointment. I wasn't exactly thrilled about that for two reasons: I had to spend more time with Mum, and I had to spend more time in the house I despised with all my heart. It wouldn't have been so bad if Martha, the nanny, still lived here, but Mum let her go saying something like "she was a waste of space" or something along the lines that made me what to yell at her more than I already did.
It wasn't all bad, though, I mean, Lynn was here with me.
"Fine," Mum said without looking up from her phone screen.
When we went to pick her up from the hospital, Mum didn't even look at Lynn, which I presumed was a good thing for both Mum and Lynn. They clearly didn't like each other. Even now, with Lynn standing next to me, she didn't look up or say hello. In fact, Mum didn't even say thank you to her own kids for bringing her home or for visiting her in the hospital.
"The doctor said you should cool it with work related things," I advised.
"The doctor's a dumbass who doesn't know what he's talking about."
I didn't care what Greg said, I wasn't going to stay there and just watch Mum do everything the doctor told her not to do and then be ungrateful about everything else. So I grabbed Lynn's hand and started walking to the door.
"Let's go," I said without giving Mum another look.
But Lynn pulled back. "No, wait," she said softly. "I- I want to see your room. The room you grew up in."
I sighed and looked up the stairs. Lynn had showed me her room at her grandmas, not to mention the place she once grew up, I figured it was only fair to show her the place I spent most of my time in when I was a kid. So I pulled her upstairs, her hand still in mine, and went down the hall and into the bedroom I hadn't stepped foot inside since I left three years ago.
"Wow," Lynn said when she walked inside.
The room was black and white, lacking any depth of "fun" when I was younger, apparently. In the center of the room, pressed up against the wall, was a queen sized bed with a black duvet lying askew on the grey sheets. My old record player sat on a small table at the foot of the bed and posters of old bands I enjoyed and sports teams were tacked to the wall. In the corner of the room, sitting next to the small fireplace with the telly mounted on the wall above, was my acoustic guitar sitting in its stand.
I stood in the doorway, reminiscing, as Lynn walked around the room, looking at the collection of CDs on the shelf.
"I wish I had a room this big growing up," Lynn said.
I remembered this room like the back of my hand. I remembered that the floor would squeak whenever I got out of bed on the right side, I remembered when I stood in front of the fireplace and looked out the window, I could see through the big oak trees and into the bedroom next door, and I remembered keeping my-
"Oh..." Lynn said, picking something off the floor that had slid out from under the bed. A sly grin played on her lips when she looked at me. "What's this?"
I walked over to the bed and sat down. "You know what it is."
"That's funny; I always pictured you as a Sports Illustrated kind of guy, not Playboy."
"Wasn't satisfying enough."
Lynn cocked an eyebrow at me before dropping the magazine on the floor again. "I'm surprised you even have these. Didn't you have girls to help you out?"
"I wasn't like that when I lived here," I confessed with a laugh. "Sleeping with those girls started when I went to UNI. This room was strictly mine. The only girl who's even been up here was Alina, but we never did anything... not here, anyways."
Lynn ran her fingers along the bed sheets. "So... you're saying this room hasn't seen any action?"
"I guess?"
I saw Lynn's mind working as she got closer to me, standing between my legs. "Think it's about time to change that, don't you think?"
Before I could answer with a comment of my own, Lynn leaned down and planted her mouth firmly against mine. Her lips opened ever so slightly and I took that as an invitation for my tongue to slide in. Then suddenly, I felt her pull away and I opened my eyes to see that Lynn had fallen to her knees in front of me, pushing her hair over a shoulder.
My dick twitched with anticipation. "Oh, fuck," I sighed, knowing what was coming next.
"Eager," Lynn grinned as her hand trailed up the rough fabric and over the growing bulge in my jeans. The sudden involuntary thrust of my hips confirmed her observation.
"What-?" I groaned. "What made you want to do this?"
"Your mom," she said, and then laughed from the disgruntled look on my face. "She doesn't like me and I don't like her. Want her to know exactly what I'm doing to her son, so don't hold back."
I watched helplessly as Lynn slowly unzipped my pants and tugged them down to my knees before she planted the smallest of kisses to the tip of my cock through my Calvin Klein's. I groaned and leaned back onto my elbows. I was hard now, so much so that it hurt and Lynn was enjoying herself way too much from my excitement to even consider picking up speed.
"Get on with it," I growled through clenched teeth.
Lynn laughed and stuck her fingers in my boxers and pulled them down, just enough to free my cock.
It felt like I was in a sauna for the mass amount of head radiating off my body. But I didn't have the time to remove my shirt before Lynn hovered her lips above my hard length. Her big, blue eyes were glued to mine, watching as I twitched with each pass of her breath as her mouth closed in on where I wanted her most.
She slipped me past her lips in one smooth motion, bobbing her head and hollowing her cheeks. I groaned as her tongue slid out to lick a strip from the crease of my thigh over to the underside of my cock, stalling for a moment to suck faintly at the one little spot she had found that drove me wild.
"Ah, Jesus, right there," I murmured, holding her head steady while my abs contracted with pleasure.
I spit out vulgarities that were laced with Lynn's name, knowing that they would travel through the open door of the bedroom and to my Mum downstairs, because frankly, I wanted her to know just how good Lynn really was for me.
Curling her tongue to prod under the sensitive ridge of my head, she reined back, pursing her full lips around my tip and sucking gently until my hips ticked with need almost to the back of her throat. She gagged slightly, but she didn't protest. I thumbed at the obscene outline of my cock bulging in her cheek.
I sat back up and threaded my fingers in her hair to gently guide her up and down my length, running my bottom lip through my teeth and nearly drawing blood when she flattened her tongue to take me deeper. Lynn inhaled steadily through her nose and swallowed around me. She hummed and I could feel the vibrations from her throat, making my head lazily fall back to my shoulders.
I roughly rocked my hips forward; the action causing my length to slide over her tongue and hit the back of her throat. Her eyes pinched shut from the harshness and she pulled off me with a gasp, flicking her watery eyes up to my face.
"Sorry, love," I said softly. "Just so fuckin' good, hard to control myself."
She cocked a brow and flashed me a smirk before leaning down and capturing one of my balls in her mouth. I couldn't stop my moans and swears as she paid close attention to each one before moving back up and pressing her tongue out to flick along my reddened tip. I shuddered as she pushed me back into her mouth, steadily working me with both her hand and rolling tongue.
Tightening her throat around me, my body shook with the feeling of her tongue as I pull my hips back and thrust them forward, steadily fucking into her mouth. Her glassy eyes fluttered close, fingernails digging into the soft flesh of my hip and a whimper coming from her sore and over-used throat.
"Christ, I'm- I'm going to come."
Lynn pulled off me with her most innocent look and sat back on the balls of her feet. I could see her chest rise and fall to catch her breath as our dark eyes locked with each other. She wrapped her nimble fingers tighter around my cock, holding the pink tip right on her tongue. Long strokes of her hand caused my body to tense; beads of sweat dripping down my forehead as grunts left my mouth.
Just as I felt myself start to twitch in her hand, I yanked her hair back and bared her throat. With a stream of four letter words, I came in thick strings over her neck and face.
"Hey!" she protested, her voice sounding wrecked as she blinking through the sticky mess that got on her lashes. "That was uncalled for."
I ignored her as my hand in her hair moved to the side of her face, my calloused fingers tracing her soft cheek. Before she could even pull in a needed breath, my lips were on hers. Her hands automatically curled up around my neck, fingers running through the back of my hair as she tugged me deeper into the kiss. I laughed, brushing my nose at the side of hers before I slowly pulled back and stared at her.
"You look really hot like this," I breathed out. "Shit, can I take a picture of you?"
"Absolutely not," Lynn said as her tongue licked her lips to catch what she could reach. "You taste like old pennies, you know that? There's this lingering aftertaste of acidic in my mouth. I kind of like it."
"Yeah?" I asked, still a little fucked out from my high. "Well, you've got this weird citrus thing going on down there and I've never tasted it in another girl before. You should consider bottling that up and selling it or something."
"Ha-ha," she laughed wryly, pushing me down against the bed playfully before standing up. "You have something to wipe this off with?"
"Just grab a shirt," I offered as I clumsily pulled my boxer and jeans back on.
Lynn looked around and found a white shirt, expected it to make sure it was clean, and started rubbing it on her face and neck until she was cleaned up, or as clean as she could get with just a shirt. She looked around the room again, out the window, at the posters on the wall, until her eyes landed on something in the corner of the room.
"You have two guitars?" she asked, looking at me.
I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah," I said. "The one back in my hall was from my granddad for Christmas when I was thirteen. This one was from Alina."
Lynn picked up the guitar carefully, like it might shatter just from her touch, and looked at it. She ran her hands down the neck and gently plucked a string. It was horribly out of tune, but I hardly doubted Lynn even noticed. When she went to set it back down on its stand, something inside rattled, making her stop.
"What's that?" she asked, confused.
I shrugged. "No idea."
Sticking her fingers through the sound chamber, Lynn fished out something small and white. It wasn't until she was unfolding it did I realize it was a piece of paper.
"It's for you," Lynn said softly, handing me the note.
Hesitantly, I reached out and grabbed it. It was a letter, and there wasn't any denying from the handwriting who it was from.
I remembered looking through the window of a music store with Alina and saying that I could die happy if I owned the Fender DG-60. So, using all the savings she had from babysitting, she bought me it, wanting nothing else in return. That was a week before I found her lying on her bed with a bottle of pills.
The top fold of the paper only had one word: my name, written in the same writing I used to see every day when she wrote on the back of her printed photographs. I didn't need to open it to know what the note was.
The room around me vanished and I was alone with nothing inside but the note in my hand as I slowly unfolded the paper and read.
Niall,
There are some things in this world I can't explain. You are one of them. I could never understand how someone so bright, so smart, and so good could ever love someone like me. You're comparable to sunshine, but even your rays couldn't cast out all the dark places in my mind.
I don't know why I'm so sad all the time. It's selfish. I have loving parents. Good friends. And you. I'm selfish. And I'm sorry. I don't even have a good excuse. I just need to do this. And I hope you understand.
I put the note in your guitar so no one but you could find it. I hope you read it. I hope you forgive me. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you. I love you, Niall. And I'm sorry.
I'm so selfish.
Alina
I read the note over and over again, the note I thought was never written. She put it in the guitar she had given me so I would be the one to find it, not knowing I would stop playing the moment I found her on the bed.
I felt sick to my stomach.
It was getting harder to breathe as everything came back into focus around me. The sniffles were hushed at first as I attempted to hide my grief. There was a burning in my throat and I knew that I was going to cry. Lynn must have seen that, too, because she came and sat next to me on the bed and put her arm around my shoulders. That was all it took for me to lose it.
As much as I tried to hold it in and overcome the wave of emotions, I broke down entirely. All my defenses washed away in these salty tears.
I laid my forehead down against Lynn's chest, finding comfort in her steady heartbeat, but it wasn't enough to stop the beads of tears falling down one after another, without a sign of stopping. The muffled sobs wracked against my chest. The world turned into a blur, and so did all the sounds. The taste. The smell. Everything was gone. The last painful emotion slammed against me before I lost the feeling of feeling until I was just numb.
"I always asked how she was; I gave her plenty of opportunities to tell me that something was wrong," I said between my sniffles, my voice muffled by Lynn's shirt. "Why didn't she say anything? Didn't she trust me? Why didn't she tell me, Lynn?"
Lynn ran her hand up my back. "Some things are too dark to be let out into the light."
I couldn't begin to imagine what Alina had been going through in her own mind that was so dark that she couldn't even tell me. I had no idea she was depressed; she didn't show any signs that should have set off warning bells, but maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. There was a constant smile on her face, the photographs she took were always bright and colorful, the midnight conversations we had consisted of the events of the day we just had. Not once did she let me in, and I think that hurt most of all.
Lynn's hand was in my hair as I finally started to calm down. She was rocking us back and forth much like a mother would do with an upset child. I had once said that her touch acted like a personal Xanax. The second she started to sooth me, I felt myself get calmer and calmer.
I wasn't sure how long Lynn had been holding me, but I eventually pulled away and ran a hand down my face, removing the wetness from my cheeks and under my nose before I turned to Lynn.
"Do you have that lighter on you?" I asked.
She looked confused, but she dug it out of her pocket anyways.
I pressed down on the wheel of the lighter and watched as a small flame lit up. Without a second thought, I took the note that was in my hand and held it up to the flare. The note caught fire instantly and I watching it burn, the last words to ever come from Alina sweltering up in ash, gently floating down to the carpet.
Alina's death changed me in more ways than one, and I wasn't going to let her rule my life anymore.