‼️this chapter contains the mentioning and description of abuse‼️
Niall
Penelope was still sleeping when I carried her to the couch, I looked down on the little girl in my arms. The tear stains were very noticeable and for some reason her freckles were more noticeable now then ever before. Her little band-aid on her chin was completely soaked from her tears.
Completely ridiculous. I don't understand why a person would do that to a little girl like her. She deserves so much more. Even though I don't really know the whole story, it is still mad that someone who called himself a dad would do such a thing.
I laid her down on the couch before wrapping her in a white fluffy blanket, witch made her stir, but her eyes kept closed. Harry came over to her and laid Elliot where her arm was. We all sat down on the couch and just looked at each other waiting for someone to say something.
"So I think we should decide on a way we can talk about this with Penelope without it getting too traumatizing for her" Liam finally spoke up.
"Yeah, but I don't think there is a way of talking to her without it being traumatizing" I sighed.
"Your probably right Niall. But do you really think we should discuss about this now? I mean Miss Clarkson said that we should talk about it when she feels comfortable enough with us" Harry chimed in.
"I do actually think we should. Just because now when it have become a whole thing we can't just say that we don't care and then bring it up later, then we would have to do this thing one more time. It's better to have it done with. Just like pulling away a band-aid" I explained as I stuffed my mouth with a handful of chips.
What? I eat when I get stressed.
"Yeah maybe your right Niall" Harry agreed.
"So if we're going to talk about this with her, how should we really do it?" Louis asked.
"Maybe we should just ask her about it and let her speak. Not ask too many questions" Zayn suggested.
"Yeah might be a good plan" Liam smiled.
"Should we just wait until she wakes up?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, might be good. She maybe needed some sleep" Louis sighed.
"Should we eat dinner now or should we wait?" I asked.
"We could eat now and if she wakes up she can just join us and talk after dinner" Liam explained as he stood up from the sofa.
"Okay well then I have a surprise for you" Zayn smiled while grasping his hands together before we begun walking into the kitchen.
"What surprise?" I asked.
"Ta-da!" Zayn sang as he took off a kitchen towel from some sort of pie tin.
"No way!" Harry bursted out when he saw what it was.
I got quite happy when I saw it as well. Who doesn't like Malik's meat pie? I mean come on.
"And guess who made it?" Zayn asked.
"Yeah Zayn we know you made it, whatever let's eat" Louis went on, almost taking a piece out of no patient.
"Yeah that's true but one more person helped" Zayn chuckled, stopping Louis before he could even touch it.
"Did you invite a girl or something?" Louis wondered, smiling.
"You guys are impossible. I can give you some hints though. She-"
"Ha! So it is a girl" Louis chimed in.
"Yeah, but can you let me speak?" Zayn asked with an annoyed giggle.
"Okay as I said, she was recently adopted by five guys, have blond hair, you know is very clumsy. Do you know who I mean?" Zayn asked with a little smirk.
"No not really" Louis admitted with another smirk. He sure knew who it was.
"Tomlinson" Zayn sighed as he pushed Louis a little on the shoulder.
"No I'm kidding. Did she enjoy it?"
"Yeah she did, but got a little bored after a while, other then that she liked it. I think" Zayn explained as he grabbed the pie and walked to the dining table to set it down.
We all sat there eating Zayn's and Penelope pie. It was unbelievable. We really didn't talk that much at dinner like we used to, only a couple of small talks here and there.
Harry
I was in my own world enjoying every second of this pie. Niall and Louis were talking about some sort of soccer thing, not that I really cared. Liam and Zayn talked about how Zayn was going to get a new tattoo of some sort.
But all I ever wanted to talk about was this pie, I know I know I probably sound a little bit over dramatic but seriously if you would've tasted it you would definitely have liked it just as much as I did.
I was about to put in another bite of this amazing pie in my mouth when I felt someone pat on my knee. I looked to the side and saw Penelope, she had Elliot tight in her hand and some really tired eyes.
"Hi sweetie" I smiled as I picked her up, letting her sit in my lap. The rest of the boys turned the attention to me and Penelope. Well mostly Penelope.
"Did you sleep good?" Liam asked, she just nodded before she settled more in my lap, resting her head on my chest. My heart melted.
"Do you want some pie?" Zayn asked as he pointed to the almost half eaten pie, ready to give her a piece if she wanted one.
"Yeah" She whispered, her voice a little hoarse.
"I heard you cooked it" Louis smiled, now gaining Penelope's attention.
"Yeah, I did" She proudly said as she sat up again in a straight position.
"All by yourself?" Louis asked again with his eyebrows raised, maybe wanted to see if she would really tell the truth.
"Yep. All by myself" She smiled while she nodded.
Zayn opened his mouth and gasped in surprise. "What about me?!" He asked, clearly offended.
"You didn't make the pie, I did. You just did the stuffing" She argued, already looking more awake then a minute ago.
"Yeah true, but I sat it in the oven. If I wouldn't have done that we wouldn't have any pie at all" Zayn noted.
It was really funny to watch Zayn really trying to win an argument against a literal five year old.
"Yeah sure. But I think I could have easily manage to figure that one out, all by myself" She smirked before crossing her arms.
"I guess you were right Zayn we have a little sassy one on our hands" Louis admitted as he laughed at Penelope's comment.
Penelope giggled. "Just for your information, I won that one" She sassed witch made us all laugh even more.
"Yeah, whatever you say, you won" Zayn chuckled before he continued eating his pie, looking a little bummed.
"I'm sorry honey but you have to move if you want to eat" I cooed as I lifted her off my lap. She went and sat in her normal chair.
✰ ✰ ✰
We had satten down at the dinner table for a quite a long time now. It was really just Penelope who had food left, me and the boys had already eaten everything up.
Suddenly Penelope just started to laugh hysterically. We all looked at her and just waited for her to say something. But no, she just laughed.
"What happened?" I asked, but no, no answer.
After what felt like a good five minutes she calmed down a little.
"Can you tell us now. I want to laugh just like that for five minutes straight" Niall chuckled as excitement filled his voice.
"Yeah okay. There was this girl at the adoption center, who's name was Nicki and every day she would tell me a joke, and one just popped up in my head." She explained almost starting to laugh again.
"So you were laughing at a joke for almost five minutes straight?" Louis chuckled, looking at her with disbelieve.
"Yeah.." She giggled.
"That's my girl!" I cheered as I lifted up my hand for her to five, which she did. "You have to tell me the joke now" I insisted with excitement in my voice.
"Okay so, what did the two lamp posts say to each other?" She asked, grinning. Everybody shrugged, waiting for her to tell the us the answer.
"Don't look I'm changing!" She bursted out before she started to laugh again, with me not long after joining her. The other guys just chuckled a little. She was so happy now, it would be kind of sad to break her happy bubble.
"Guys.." She suddenly said as she sounded everything else but happy, like she just flipped a coin on her mood.
"Yeah sweetie?" Liam asked, his eyebrows was furrowed with worry.
"I'm sorry.." She sniffled as she now had tears in her eyes, ready to spill any second.
"For what?" I asked, clearly confused, I mean she was happy a minute ago.
"That I locked myself in the bathroom" She cried as she now had a few tears slowly going down her cheeks
"Aww it's okay, I promise." Liam cooed as he came over to the left side of her chair before he started rubbing her upper arm, insight to comfort her.
"And I'm sorry for all the other stuff that I've done to make it hard for you. It was very nice of you to adopt me and then I treat you like an old rag" She sobbed as a couple of tears left her green eyes.
"Awh, you did nothing wrong sweetie. You just lived a little and I think it's exactly what you should do, you shouldn't feel guilty. You should be like the five year old that you are and have fun" I comforted as I bent down on the right side of her chair as I started to wipe away some tears from her cheek.
"Okay.." She sniveled as she started to sob, mixed with sniffles and hiccups. But she didn't do it loudly though, she just did it really soft.
"Aww come here" Liam again cooed as he lifted her up, which she immediately responded to by clinging to his shoulder, sobbing her emotions away. He looked at us with a pouting face.
I hated seeing her like this. The thing that it was this time was that it wasn't just like bawling your eyes out because you got a little scratch. This was soft little warm tears that really had a meaning behind it, it really came from the heart. It broke my heart hearing her little sniffles.
Liam rocked her back and forth trying to calm her down, which kind of worked.
"I think I'm ready now" She sniveled with a crack in her voice.
"What are you ready for sweetheart?" Zayn asked.
"To talk about the thing. The thing about my dad." She said as she turned her head up and looked at all of us, her cheeks flushed pink from crying.
"Oh okay, are you sure?" Niall asked.
"Yeah" She smiled as she tried to wiggle out of Liam's arms. Liam let her down.
"Where do you want to sit then?" I asked.
"In the living room" She simply said while taking Elliot that she'd left on the chair.
I let out my hand and she took it. We all walked into the living room.
"Can I sit in your lap?" She asked me when we got there.
"Yeah of course" I smiled as I sat down in the sofa and then lifted her up on my lap. The other boys just sat nearby and looked like a mixture of sad and happy. They all had that plastic sad smile on their faces.
"Okay whenever your ready love" Louis said as he patted her knee.
Penelope
"I don't remember the first thing I'm going to say, but my mummy have told me it later on." I said. They all nodded understandingly.
"So when I was one years old I got Elliot from my mom, I think that's why I love Elliot so much" I explained as I hugged Elliot, knowing that she will always be with me if I have Elliot.
"And then when I was about to be four years old, my mom was going to go grocery shopping, and I wanted to go along with her but she said no. Later on I asked dad why I couldn't and then he said that was because mom was going to go and buy me some birthday presents and that I couldn't see what it was, because it was supposed to be a surprise. Later that day the phone rang and I answered and it was mom, she said that I was going to tell daddy that she loved him and that she loved me, it sounded like she was crying so I asked her why she was crying but she didn't answer so I turned off the phone just thinking that it just went off. Later that day we drove to the hospital and my mom was there and she had lots of weird strings and needles on her body, it looked so scary. A doctor came in and said that we could say our goodbyes. He also told me that my mom had died, she died in a car crash." I sniffled as I felt the lump in my throat starting to come back again.
"Later that night when we were home my dad drank some liquid, he got all weird and starting to yell at me for no reason. And since that day he would be angry and hit me, he always said that it was my fault that my mom died" I lamented as I started to cry into Harry's chest.
All of the other boys had tears in their eyes and just looked really upset. Harry rocked me back and forth as he rubbed my back.
"And by the basement I mean, it was there he would punish me if I did something wrong or disobeyed him. He would always yell bad words to me, that's why I'm used to them and why I said it before like I didn't care. I'm sorry" I apologized as I tried to speak through my sobs.
Harry
"Okay honey I want you to know that no matter what you ever do, or what you say we would never ever hit you or try to hurt you, okay? Remember that" Liam explained sternly.
"Okay" She sniffled as she nodded.
"And remember that you could talk to us anytime about anything, okay?" Niall added, she nodded.
"And if you ever get hurt or if someone hurts you promise that you will tell us, okay sweet?" Zayn asked.
"Yeah, I promise" She nodded, one of her last tears falling.
"And honey I need you to know that it was very brave of you to talk to us about this very big subject with us, Alright?" Louis said.
"Thanky" She proudly said.
"And Penelope, if some boy ever come and try to break your heart you know that you can just come to us and then we can give him a little fright, okay?" I told her, she just laughed a little.
"Yeah" She chuckled. "I love you guys" She smiled while she looked down shyly in her lap.
"And we love you more" I smiled as I lifted up her chin with my ring finger. She yawned and got tears in her eyes like you get when you yawn too big.
"Are you tired?" Liam asked with a little chuckle.
"A little" She admitted before she got the chance to yawn again.
"A little?" Zayn asked as he giggled.
"Okay, what does this sound like? We go to sleep now and then we will do something fun tomorrow" I suggested as I stood up from the couch with Penelope still in my arms resting on my hip.
"Yeah, deal" She smiled as we walked up the stairs with the boys not far away.
✰
Soooo, in my opinion This was a little sad 😢
The thing was when I was planing this chapter I was planing it to be like a five pages chapter, so it just was like a filler chapter, but no😂it's almost longer then the other chapters I think. Whoops 😬😆
Anyhow I hope you liked the chapter, and if you did remember to give it a vote, maybe comment something 🤷♀️
Oh holy guacamole I almost forgot to mention Louis new single "two of us". Omg like literally the most amazing song, so personal and just a beautiful song and personal lyric, I think very many people can relate to the lyric. I'm very proud of our little bean and I know his mom is as well.
Okay let's not forget the live performance he did. He was just so amazing and so strong to stand there and sing. Lots of love to him ❤️❤️
Treat people with kindness and have an amazing day✨