Twenty One
I told Liam everything that happened at Sophia’s that night. He listened intently, eyes widening with surprise as my recollection of the night progressed. When I finished, Liam sat back in the couch and said, “I guess you were really lucky with your timing,” he said. “How’s Sophia doing?”
“Not very well. She’s got bruises over almost every inch of her body, and deep cuts on her neck and arm. It’s bad. And that’s just the physical aspect of it. I can barely walk past her without her flinching or wincing.”
Liam nodded. “Well, that’s a little understandable. It must be hard to trust a guy after being treated so horribly by one. Maybe she just needs some time.”
I pictured the terrified look that was present in Sophia’s eyes the entire time I was with her. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s just… I’ve never been so… infuriated in my entire life. To see this girl that I care so much about, more than I care about myself. This girl that deserves everything good in the world but she’s been given all the bad. It’s just not fair at all. It’s not fair and I want to make it all better. It’s so hard knowing that I’m not enough to be the person that turns it all around.”
Liam watched me with pained eyes. “Don’t you give up, Niall. Don’t you do that. She needs you right now. You need to be there for her.” I sighed, running my fingers through my hair because I knew that Liam was right. He always was.
I tried to stay in that week with the boys, playing video games and eating and everything, but I honestly couldn’t stop worrying about Sophia. What was she doing? Was she okay? Is John there? Was she alone? Was she even at home? Was she thinking of me? I was missing her, but I really just wanted to know if she was alright.
I was in the middle of thinking about her when I got a text from her, asking me if I could come over. I got right up off the couch and grabbed my coat and keys. The boys all looked up as I got my things together, and I said, “Do you guys mind if I head out? I should check on Sophia…”
They all nodded and understood, and Zayn said, “Give her a hug for me!”
“Yeah, me too,” Harry said as well.
Liam held his hand up and said, “And me.”
“Give her a kiss on the cheek for me,” Louis finished.
“Well would you look who’s choosing to be unique once again,” Harry teased. Harry and Lou started arguing so I just decided to leave before I changed my mind to stay.
When I arrived at Sophie’s flat, she opened up right when I knocked. I didn’t even have time to say hi to her, because she grabbed my wrist, pulled me inside and slammed the door behind her before throwing her arms around my waist, squeezing me really tight. I hugged her back tightly, just happy that she was alright to touch me again. When she pulled away, I put my arms back around her and hugged her quickly. “That’s from Zayn.” I hugged her again. “This one’s from Harry.” I hugged her one more time. “That’s Liam’s.” She pulled away, smiling her smile, unmarred and beautiful. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “And that’s from Louis.”
Sophia thanked me and we sat down on the couch. “How are you doing?” I asked her.
“I’m okay,” she said. I looked over her. Her bruises were greenish yellow, they’d faded a lot since I last saw her. She no longer wore a bandage over the stitches on her arm, but stitches still remained in her arm. The cuts on her neck and arm were red and looked painful.
I moved closer to see them more closely and she tilted her neck for me so I had a better view. “Are you cleaning these, Soph?” I asked.
“Uhhh yeah…” she lied.
I sighed, getting a bottle of peroxide from her bathroom. “You have to clean these, they’ll just get worse,” I told her. I soaked a cotton ball in peroxide. “Which do you want me to do first?” I asked.
She held out her arm, so I lightly pressed the cotton ball against the cut, and she winced. “It stings,” she said through gritted teeth.
“It wouldn’t hurt so bad if you kept after it,” I said, continuing to clean the gash that stretched almost a foot across her forearm. I got a new cotton ball as the previous was stained with blood. Once her arm was cleaned, I moved to her neck, putting my hand on her jaw to get to the cut better. It split apart a little when she strained her neck, breaking open its scab. Sophia seemed to be more bothered by this cut, she winced and cried out a little when the peroxide got into her flesh. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
We were quiet as I continued cleaning out her wound, but Sophia seemed to be deep in thought. When I began tearing open a package of bandaids, she broke the silence. “I’m sorry for dragging you into all this,” Sophia said quietly.
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy. No matter the circumstances,” I reassured her. I peeled the paper off the bandaids and places four of them vertically along the slice on her neck.
Sophia made no eye contact. “I know… But you left, Niall.”
“I know,” I replied, looking down at my hands.
“Why?”
I gathered my thoughts before I spoke. I chose my words carefully, so I could explain to her in a way that sufficed without letting her know how I felt about her. “…I didn’t like seeing you with him. He never treated you the way you deserved, and it got to the point where I couldn’t stand watching it. I did the wrong thing. I should have stayed with you, so I could stop him before… before this happened.” I told her. “You didn’t deserve a thing he did to you. Not one thing,” I finished, looking her in the eyes.
“I did,” she said quietly, looking away. Her face was filled with such distress, and even though she was safe with me, it looked almost as if she was still entrapped in John’s merciless grasp.
My hand went to her jaw, pulling her chin up gently so I could see her face. “Sophia, you didn’t though. You don’t deserve that treatment now. You never will.” She still couldn’t look me in the eye, but hers were bloodshot. When she cried, her brown eyes turned green. They were so beautiful. “I hate that you can’t understand that you deserve more than anyone in the world. Can’t you see that?” I said. “Sophia, listen to me. Are you listening to me?” I asked desperately when she still averted her eyes from mine. “It kills me. Everyday it kills me that you can’t see that you are the most beautiful human that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Not just in the way that you talk and the way that you look. But you are just so unfathomably beautiful in the way that you are. Don’t you see that?” I asked again, my voice cracking a little. “I’m the luckiest person in the world to know you, I realize that now. I’m not going to take that for granted ever again. But this isn’t the Sophia that I’ve grown to care about so much. I miss her. And I’m going to help bring her back.” When I finished talking, my voice was almost a whisper, and my cheeks were streaked with tears. Sophie’s were, too.
“I don’t even know what to say,” she said, completely shocked.
I laughed a little, taking her into my arms. “You don’t need to say anything,” I said into her shoulder. Her hair was soft on my cheek and she smelled familiar. I felt her spine beneath my hands, the tiny little thing she always was. This was a different kind of tiny. It was a sad kind. “I just need you to understand that you’re safe with me.”
“I know that,” she replied. “Why did you come back?” she whispered after a few moments.
“I just realized that I can’t live properly without my best friend beside me,” I said, pained, wishing that I could mean more than that to her.
Sophia was quiet, still nuzzled into my shoulder. “Can you stay with me?”
“Of course.”
“No, I mean for a few days.”
I pulled away from her arms to look at her face. “Absolutely.” A small smile broke across her face. “I’ll just have to get some clothes and things…”
“I’ll come with you,” Sophia said.
“Are you sure? I won’t be long.”
“No, I want to see that boys, too,” she insisted. Sophia ran to her room and retrieved a sweatshirt from the sea of clothes on her floor and carefully slid into it, minding her stitches and neck.
When we reached the flat and walked inside, all the boys were sitting on the couch together. “Well, well, well. Look who we’ve got here!” Harry called, smiling widely.
All the guys got up off the couch and gave Sophie gentle hugs and kisses. “You’re looking great, love,” Zayn told her, kissing her cheek. She smiled and told him he wasn’t looking so bad himself to which he laughed.
Upon seeing the boys, her mood seemed to have lifted a bit. Maybe it reminded her that not all boys in the world would treat her the way that John had. It was relieving, but the relief faded a little after they had finished greeting each other. Sophia returned to her previous closed up body manner, pulling her sweatshirt collar closer to her neck to hide her cut and wrapping her arms around her chest. She put up a good front, when she said “I’m about to take him off your hands again, don’t get too excited,” heartily. She couldn’t fool me, though. I saw right through her.
“I’m going to stay with Soph for a few days to keep her company,” I explained. They all understood, and I got a bag of clothes together in my room. I came back into the kitchen with my bag and guitar to find Louis making Sophia crack up, and it was good to see. “See you guys in a few days,” I said as we walked toward the door.
“Text us, Niall!” Liam called, concerned, as always.
“See you soon Sophie!” Harry called. She turned around, waving. I waved goodbye, too, shutting the door behind us.
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It was late, and Sophia and I were on the couch together. Her wounds were burning, so she held a bag of peas on her arm and neck. This brought her usual near-freezing temperature to actually freezing, and even wrapped in a blanket by my side, I could feel her shivers easily. “You’re in for a lot of fun these next days, Soph.” I told her, raising my eyebrows to make her laugh.
She did. “Am I?”
I nodded. “You’re going to be too busy with me to think about anything but how much fun you’re having.”
“Whatever you say,” she said.
We sat next to each other for another hour or so in comfortable silence, watching a movie. She shivered again. “Maybe it’s time you took the ice off, love?”
She shook her head, holding it firmly to her skin. “It’ll hurt then.”
“I know, but you’re cold as ice. Here, I’ll take the ice and go make you come tea.” I stood up, replacing the blanket to her shoulders and removing the bag of peas from her arm and neck. Once her tea was made, I brought it out to her, and she took it graciously in her delicate fingers. Crawling back beside her under the blanket, she smiled thinly from overtop the mug.
I tilted her neck to examine the wound there, and I could feel her eyes on me as I did. The skin was closing up, which was good. I ran my fingers carefully across her maimed flesh and she shivered at my light touch. I smiled crookedly, so close to her face that I could feel her cool breath across mine. I could practically taste her lips from the spot I was in, and it brought back the fond memories of when I had been lucky enough to taste them in reality. I bit my bottom lip to suppress my lust. That wasn’t what Sophia needed. Not now, at least.
I settled back in beside her and watched TV while she finished her tea. When she was done, she leaned forward and put the empty mug on the coffee table. She turned back to face me, and there was a strange look in her eyes. It was almost sad or pained. Her eyes watered a little. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
She didn’t reply. She just slid closer to my side and rested her head on my shoulder. I moved my arm and rested it around her back, and she sighed into my side as I ran my hand along her back in smooth circles, lulling her to sleep. I looked down at her face as she fell asleep. She looked sad and angry, even in her sleep. Her eyebrows were scrunched slightly together, and she was pale. In the fluorescent light of the TV screen, I could see the bruises in her face more clearly, and she looked battered. There was the old Sophia hidden somewhere underneath all that. There was still a strange sense of calm. The same peacefulness of the young girl that I had always admired. Somewhere beneath the bruises and cuts was the same beautiful girl that fell for. And in remembering the way she looked in my eyes only moments ago, I swear that I saw something else, even if it makes me crazy to think so.
Staring at this sad but beautiful girl, I realized that she was the only person I would ever love so completely. She was the only person in the world that I knew I would never have a doubt about. And remembering how she had looked at me, I saw that maybe she was beginning to feel the same way for me