❝Well I could be angry, but you're not worth the fight. And besides I'm moving on. I've counted to ten, and I'm feeling alright. And besides I'm moving on.❞ ▬ Interlude: Moving On, Paramore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sometimes, when you receive important news, everything else just melts away. You ignore your phone vibrating in your pocket, the clock slowly ticking on the mantlepiece. The gentle feel of your mother's hand on your arm. You forget your past and present and future, or at least, the parts that don't involve the news that, currently, is all you care about. You're stuck in a moment, a brief passing of time in which this information is pretty much what your world revolves around, and nothing else. That's how I feel now.
My father's murderer has been captured. For now, nothing else matters.
I know immediately that this news is good news. But, for some reason, I don't cheer or even smile. I simply look away from my mum, my gaze fixing to the carpet, more specifically focusing on a speck of dirt carried in by one of the policeman's shoes. I wonder why it took so long, whether they really have found the right man, or simply caged an innocent person. After all, it's been five years, and five years is a long time. How possibly could they have tracked down the killer after such a long time? The failed investigation ended years ago; I still remember the detectives informing us so.
As if reading my thoughts, one policeman clears his throat and tells me, "The murderer turned himself in this morning. He had your father's wallet and identification, as well as the weapon used. He said he couldn't live with the guilt. He still needs questioning, but later today, if it proves that he's the killer -- which will most likely happen, as the evidence sways that way, and he's confirmed it himself -- he will be jailed for life. No person should get away with what he's done to your family."
Only now do I look up, my vision blurred with tears. I meet the policeman's brown eyes, and then the other's. Their expressions are equally sombre. I revert my gaze to the floor.
Movement around me startles me. Mum scoots over, wrapping her arms around my body. I relax into her embrace, looking up at her. I notice that her moss-green eyes are as watery as mine, but there's a difference: Mum's lips are drawn into a faint smile. Niall comes over too, quietly, sitting down carefully on the arm of the sofa. He's hesitant to hug me, but I blindly reach out with one arm and hook my hand around his waist, pulling him close. It's a messy tangle of limbs and bodies and I can barely see through the thick wall of tears, which has quickly built up across each eye and is already spilling over onto my cheeks, but they're not sad tears, they're happy tears. It's a good moment, a moment of understanding, of moving on and forgetting.
Now I know that the murderer of my father has been captured, I feel like I can finally close that chapter of my life and begin to write a new one. I guess the idea of my father's killer still walking the streets a free man, the knowledge that he never got what he deserved, was one reason I could never let go of what happened. But now, I finally can. This time tomorrow, when the man is jailed and the investigation will close, so will the door leading into that part of my life. It will be locked forever. And when that happens, a hundred windows will open, too. It will still hurt, of course it will; not a day goes by where I don't feel pain and grief over what happened, and I'm sure I'll remain that way for a long time. But now, I can finally say that the murderer has been brought to justice.
Another thing I take solace in is the fact that the killer turned himself in, that he obviously spent every day for the past five years feeling so guilt-ridden that he simply couldn't live freely any longer. It fills me with relief, the fact that he knows that what he did was wrong, that he knows he tore our lives apart. It pleasures me to think of him crying, hating himself, the guilt ripping apart his life as the death of my father did ours. And now, he's finally going to pay for what he did. He's going to rot in a jail cell for the rest of his days with nothing to think about but why he's there.
"Would you like us to tell you any more details?" The policeman in the armchair says quietly, leaning forward and looking directly at me. "Details regarding who the murderer is? His age? Name-?"
"You know what?" I interrupt, wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my jacket. "I don't want to know. I don't care anymore. He doesn't deserve a single second more of our time. Let him rot in prison for the rest of his life. Let him absolutely despise himself for what he did to our family, for what he did to my dad. Let the guilt rip him apart. But, as for me-" I get to my feet, feeling somewhat indignant. "-I'm done with this whole thing. Thank you for your time."
When I leave the room, I feel like I'm leaving it all behind; a huge boulder I've dragged around with me, a huge burden lifted off my chest. As a result, I feel light and weightless. I jog up the stairs two at the time, running into my room, ignoring the blood stains on the carpet. I reach over to grab the photograph of my father atop the chest of drawers, before falling back onto my bed. My smile is wide and genuine, the photograph pressed to my chest so Dad can hear my racing heartbeat.
Justice has been served, I think, grinning.
There's only one thing left to do, now. I have no excuses. I'm really doing it -- moving on, that is -- and to fully allow myself to do so, I must be honest with Niall. I have to tell him the truth. And I'm going to do so before the day is up, whether I like it or not.
●
Niall climbs the staircase, while the wall to his right, adorned with framed family photographs, twists and contorts into a blurry mess beside him. He rubs his temples, clutching the wooden bannister until his knuckles turn white. It's all in his head, this erratic movement of the walls, brought on by a sickening feeling in both his stomach and his brain, and he knows this; nevertheless, he can't help but stumble on the final step, his sweaty grasp slipping helplessly from the wood and falling to his side.
When he reaches her bedroom, and peers in through the crack in the doorway, the fear and guilt and trepidation briefly melts away. The walls stop moving and the world turns quiet. The discomfort is momentarily replaced by the emotions he always feels when he looks as her, which are now familiar: love and adoration and thankfulness. She's lying on her back atop her baby-blue duvet, the subtlest hint of a smile drawn across her pink lips, a photograph clutched to her chest and her chocolate-coloured hair fanned out around her head. Her eyes are closed, and she doesn't move when Niall enters the room. He looks at her for a moment, just taking her in. But then, as he steps closer, the floor creaks beneath his shoe and the nervousness returns, and he swiftly disappears back behind the door, quickly descending the staircase. Right now, he can't bear to face her. He just knows he'll say the wrong thing, act shifty and guilty, and she'll know he's hiding something. Something big.
He nearly told her, a week ago during their midnight picnic, when he divulged information on everything else. He nearly let The Big Secret spill out into the open. But at the last second, something stopped him, and he kept his mouth glued shut. He realised that he wanted more time with her before everything got ruined by the truth of his past; he wanted more time with her as his girlfriend before their precious relationship became hideously tarnished, as it most definitely would once she knew the truth.
Now, he pokes his head round the living room door to find Anna's mum conversing quietly with the police. "I think I'm going to head home," Niall stammers when they all look up at him, falling silent as they do so. "I think... At a time like this... Anna deserves some time alone."
"Okay, Niall," Anna's mum says, nodding in understanding. "I'll see you soon, love."
Niall nods at her, gulping as he swallows away the thick lump in his throat. As he turns away, he tries his hardest to avoid eye-contact with the policemen, but to simultaneously remain nonchalant. It's a tricky task. "That's Anna's boyfriend," Niall hears Anna's mum tell the policemen as he leaves the room. "His name is Niall..."
The front door slams behind him. Niall tilts his head up to the sky, which was cloudless just ten minutes ago, but is now dotted with grey clouds, which are swarming in, taunting him. Niall curses beneath his breath, partly in regards to the unreliable English weather, but mostly because he's so freaking angry at himself for getting himself into this situation. He's trapped in a tangle of lies, a web of dishonesty, and he has no idea how he and Anna alike are going to get out of it unscathed. Because there's no doubt that, when the truth comes out, it's going to affect them both badly. She'll never speak to him again, nor want to see him. And without Anna by his side, the world won't be worth living in anymore.
Niall reaches into his back pocket, pulling out the change from the tenner Anna gave him earlier. He mutters his destination to the bus driver -- he only knows what to say due to the amount of times he and Anna have travelled this route together -- and slips into a seat towards the back of the almost-empty vehicle. For the entire journey, he leans his head against the window pane, which rattles uncomfortably beneath his skull.
In the five minutes it takes to travel across town to the road outside the area in which his decrepit house sits, Niall debates whether to tell her the truth or simply bottle it up forever. He decides that the latter would be a foolish idea. The guilt would eat him alive and he wouldn't be able to enjoy their relationship one bit, knowing what he's hiding from her.
Which leaves... Coming clean. He wants -- or rather, has -- to do it, but not yet. As the bus pulls up to the correct stop, he settles on the perfect date and time: on their one month anniversary of becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, after their special meal out, which he is going to arrange and pay for using the £200 won from the competition. He decided that the second he won it, but refused to tell her as he wanted it to be a surprise. He still does.
Niall steps off the bus, sauntering through the woods and back to his house, just as a light drizzle begins to patter down. Niall scowls, goosebumps forming on his pale skin. He hates the rain; it scares him, even. Back on the streets, rain meant coldness, darkness, wetness. It meant nights huddled up beneath nothing but a blanket, shivering vigorously, teeth loudly chattering. Every time Niall came close to death, he swore it would be raining. Or maybe he'd just been imagining it.
Usually, he'd head inside to place buckets in certain, particularly leaky areas of the house. But instead, he takes a turn and walks straight to the edge of the cliff. After standing there for a few silent seconds, he simply sits down, skinny legs dangling over the edge.
Looking out over the grey horizon, Niall thinks about Anna. He knows that, now, she can finally be happy. Because sometimes, when something bad happens, you just need closure. All you need is the key to close and lock that door on that part of your life forever. And he really is happy about that, happy that Anna will be more so from now on. But then he begins to think about the circumstances, about the arrest of Anna's father's killer... And everything in his mind goes a little fuzzy.
Maybe he should just turn himself in now and be done with it. But no. He's too scared and selfish, too unbearably cowardice, for that.
She finds him there a little while later; he knows it's her without even turning round. She slowly sits down beside him, hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket. When he looks at her, he tries to smile but can't. Luckily, she's not smiling either.
"I thought I'd find you here," she comments. There's a long silence, during which the only sounds to be heard are the distant splash of the ocean's waves, and the heavy thud of his heart. Niall says nothing, picking at a blade of grass on the ground between them. He grabs a handful of green and rips it from the floor, tossing it before him, watching as it floats and flutters into the ocean beneath them. After that, he remains still. He can't quite seem to meet her gaze.
"Are you okay?" She asks gently.
"Yeah," he replies, a little too quickly. He inhales and exhales deeply. "Just... It's a lot to process."
She shuffles up, eliminating the space between them. Thigh to thigh, hip to hip. She rests her head in the crook of his neck and he can feel her hair tickling his chin, the warmth radiating through her body to his. He wraps his arm around her waist and holds her tight, blinking back tears.
"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" She says, closing her eyes. "I feel so... relieved. I feel like I finally have closure. Like I can be done with that part of my life, after all this time of letting it ruin me."
But you can't, Niall thinks to himself. Because once you know what I've done, you'll never be able to forget.
"I still miss him so much," she goes on. "Not a day goes by where I don't need him and want him and think about how much I love him. The pain I feel when I think about him... It's blinding. But it's just life, isn't it? That man... They've arrested him now. He's gone. I feel... safe."
Niall's grip tightens on her waist. He stares straight ahead. He feels like he's about to explode.
Screw the romantic dinner. He can't live a lie. He can't let this go on. He has to tell her... Now. Before he drowns in his own guilt.
He angles his body slightly away from hers, so that she moves her head from under his chin. They turn to face each other, and he looks into those perfect eyes, knowing that it will be the last time. He leans in to kiss her, her lips soft, the taste of salt from the sea breeze evident on her lips.
Pulling away, he takes a deep breath. She will never forgive him. "Anna, I-"
"Niall?" She says at the exact same time, and he's too weak to ignore her and simply keep on speaking. So he nods at her, encouraging her to go on. "There's... there's something I need to tell you. Two things, really. They're probably going to make you hate me or not want to be with me anymore and I know this is sudden but I can't keep it in forever. I can't."
Niall stares at her, waiting, his mind buzzing. And then she tells him.
●
I watch as his face hardens, eyebrows knitting together in confusion and frustration. "You- you what?"
"I slept with Harry," I repeat. The words taste vile on my tongue, and I wish I could stuff them back down my throat, back into non-existence. But they've already been said -- twice. There's no turning back. Niall begins to say something but I talk over him, desperate to explain myself before he thinks the worst. "It was a long time ago. Years ago. Before I knew you."
"That's how you know him," Niall whispers. I can tell that he can't bear to look at me; he keeps lifting his gaze to meet mine before quickly tugging it away, chewing his already-chapped lip. It's like I'm a school teacher, telling him off -- but he's done nothing wrong. "That's- that's how he knew you were a great kisser." He nods in understanding, as if it's all finally making sense.
"I should have told you sooner," I say. "I'm sorry."
"It's not the fact that you didn't tell me," he mutters, "it's the fact that you did it."
"I can't change the past," I say, my voice loud to cover the wild beat of my heart.
"I can imagine you two together," says Niall, his voice laced with bitterness. He stares at his lap. "I can imagine you kissing him, touching him, him touching you..."
"Don't," I whisper, cold air from the ocean whipping at my face, thin needles of rain attacking me. "Don't you dare."
"You think I can help it?" He scrambles to his feet. "I can't. I can't stop seeing it. It makes me feel sick." He begins to stalk off in the direction of the house, arms folded across his chest, head bent against the rain.
Quickly, I get to my feet and run after him. I grab his arm but he shakes me off, annoyed. As he climbs the steps of the house, I yell, "you know, we were different people back then. We were drunk and stupid and I regret it the next morning, and it meant nothing. Can't you understand that?"
He whips round. "Was he good?"
"Oh, for God's sake-"
"Was he?" He glares at me, and I've never seen such pain written across his expression. I'd feel sorry for him, but I'm too frustrated to be. Why can't he just accept that it was years before we'd even met?
"What am I supposed to say?" I ask, glaring back. "No, he was shit? That would be a lie, Niall. I enjoyed it, at the time. Of course I did. But it was a dumb mistake and I felt disgusted with myself the next morning. So, there. I wouldn't take it back, but I wouldn't do it again, so what's the freaking problem?"
"The problem is," Niall huffs, turning back to push open the door, "he's good-looking and cool and charming and smart and funny and he gets all the girls and he got you first. I hate it." He runs his hand through his rain-dampened hair and heads into the main area of the house.
The thought of Niall being jealous of Harry had never crossed my mind. I storm after him. My voice comes out quiet and soft, despite my hardened stare. "I've never felt this way about anyone before, Niall. Not Harry. Not anyone. The way I feel about you... This is all new to me. Just like it's new to you. And I don't care about your past, nor should you care about mine. I... I need you. Please don't hate me because of this. Please..."
What happens next is too sudden to comprehend. He pushes me up against the nearest wall and kisses me, hard. His lips feel so good; I crave his touch. His hands travel down and he lifts me up, holding me tight while I run my hands through his damp, thick hair. He's kissing me harder than he ever has, touching me and holding me in ways I've never experienced. It's as if he's trying to prove a point -- and I love it.
I know he wants this to go further. His lips travel to my neck, planting warm kisses all along my skin, the hem of my shirt trapped between his fingers. He tugs it upwards, but I put my hand on his and stop him. "Niall," I say, breathlessly. "Does this mean you forgive me?"
"I need you too, you know. I'm never letting you go." His cheeks are pink and he's panting, hard. He lifts me down, carefully; we both know that here, now, on a rainy afternoon in a dusty old room with no form of protection, is not the time nor the place -- we don't need to say it aloud. We end up sitting on the floor. Niall grabs an old, tatty cushion, holding it over his crotch. He's clearly very embarrassed. "Wow," he says.
I smirk. "If you kiss me like that every time I mention someone I've slept with, I'll start making things up. Like, I totally slept with Louis..."
A gentle smile tugs at his lips. "Shut up. You liked it?"
I nod. "Yeah. But there's something else," I blurt.
"Something else?"
"That I wanted to tell you."
"Oh. Yeah." He nods in understanding, clearly steeling himself for whatever's to come. "Go ahead."
"On the morning we first met," I begin, "I was going to... going to..." I stop, unable to say it. I just can't seem to. The words won't come. They physically won't. They stop and die in my throat and on my lips.
Maybe in an hour I'll be able to say it. Or ten minutes. But, in this second, there's no need. I'm here with him, and he's with me, and things are good. So for now, I simply mutter, "It doesn't matter," and hold his hand, and kiss him softly, and think about how, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here right now, feeling such adoration, such happiness, such... love.
And, after all, some things are better left unsaid.
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author's note: wow, it's been like, three months, but here it is. the next chapter of 'broken strings'.
i really hope you guys liked this. i'm sorry if you didn't. i feel like i've lost my writing mojo. i just need to get back into it, ya feel? college has been tiring me out so much :( but omg thank you so much for getting this to 1k comments! that's crazy wowowowowowowow.
dedication goes to melissa for always being there. 'nuff said.
love you all xx
by the way -- vote and comment?