The minute where I tried ignoring the sound of my phone vibrating was probably the most agonizing one I've had in months. I know it would have been easier if I just switched it to silent or turned it off all together, but then I'd have to look at who's calling me – and that's probably the last thing I wanted to do.
But, seeing as I won't be able to get anything from this notebook in my head if it doesn't stop, I have no choice but to look at it. And cope with having to ignore the person that's calling.
I crawl across my bed, sighing as I pull my phone from under my pillow – where I've hidden it in a lame attempt to silence the annoying vibrating – and glance at the called ID before pressing the red button- actually, almost pressing the red button. Good thing I looked at the caller ID. Mum?
"Mum?" I say into the speaker, with a frown. I mean, this is when she normally calls, but I was convinced it was someone else calling.
"Hi darling," She greets me, the sound of paper bags being placed on a hard surface in the background. "Are you up? Am I calling too early?"
"No, it's like..." I bring my phone in front of my face, to tell her the exact time, "Past noon. You're home already?"
"Yeah, I'm on call today," She says and I nod to myself; she'd always leave the hospital early whenever she's on call. "How are you? How's school, is everything alright?"
"Um, yeah, everything's good. School doesn't start for another week and a half-"
"I hope you haven't stopped studying despite that, yes?"
"No, my bed is covered in textbooks as we speak," I sigh and roll from my stomach to my side for a second, to get a better view of my whole bed; I haven't noticed, but I was actually speaking the truth. My bed really is covered in textbooks and a few notebooks here and there.
"I'm serious, Niall-"
"So am I!" I defend myself immediately, "I'd snapchat you a photo of my bed, but you don't know how to use Snapchat."
"Alright, whatever you say." Whatever I say. If I were in Ireland, she'd personally come to my dorm to see if I really have books all over my bed. I'm already obsessed with knowing everything related to school, but she's on a whole different level. "What was the last thing you read?"
Of course. I knew she'd ask something like that. "Although the drafter creates the working drawings, the accuracy of the set of drawings is most often the responsibility of the design archit-"
"Okay, okay, I believe you," Mum exclaims urgently as I begin reading a line from one of my notebooks, quickly and in a flat tone, and I grin at her reaction; as a nurse, she could never understand my dad's, and my, obsession with constructing. The cherry on top of the cake was when my brother expressed that he wanted to be an optical engineer, ultimately leaving no one to be passionate about medicine, like she is. She was the one calling us interlopers, joke's on her.
"No, wait, let me ask you something," I poke my tongue out as I randomly reach for another notebook, "What do you call the long, colonnaded building that the Greeks used around public places and as shelters at religious shrines?"
"You've made your point-"
"It's a stoa," I interrupt her, "And I spent an embarrassingly long time thinking that it's a peristyle."
"That's good, sweetheart, you work on things that had you fooled all along."
"Wait, don't hang up. I'll stop," I say, unsure if she'd actually listen to me – this wouldn't be the first time she'd hang up on me because I'm boring her with stuff that she doesn't understand. "How are you guys? How's Greg? Denise? Theo?"
"Uh, they're alright, I guess. Greg's at work, Denise- I think she's taking a nap with the little one. Haven't gotten that far into the house yet."
I nod, assuming that she'd gotten in through the back door in the kitchen, and that she's still there. "And you're still not gonna return to your apartment, right?"
"They need me here," She says immediately, and I have to suppress a laugh or else she'd legit slap me through the phone. "Theo never stops crying, he's not that loud though, thank God. You were twice as loud as he is." There's a small silence during which I nod at the information, "I think I'm going to move back in." But then my mum breaks it, the most unexpected way too.
"Move back in?" I repeat, and she hums back in response. "Move back in with your son and his wife and their child?"
"I recognize that tone, Niall, you know I don't like it."
"No, I didn't mean it in a bad way, at all," I grin again, "In fact, you just gave me a reason not to get married anytime soon. Thanks mum."
I finally laugh as I hear her groaning on the other side of the world; she knows I'm not serious, but it's only natural of her to act heartbroken. "Speaking of that, do you at least have a girlfriend? Your brother was dating Denise at your age."
Well, that's what I get for teasing her. "No," I answer after a minute or silence, where I thought about what to exactly tell her. I don't even know why I was thinking about it, the answer is obvious. "I don't."
"You hesitated," She finally says, after a minute of silence, making me breathe out a laugh. I'm an ocean away, and she still pays attention to every breath that I take. "Why did you hesitate? You're not twelve anymore, I won't get angry if you've kissed a girl. You can tell me."
What is with her and asking me whether or not I've found a girlfriend every other time we talk? "I really don't have a girlfriend. But there's this one that makes me want to rip my foot off and eat it, so-"
"Oh! Tell me about her!"
Yes, that's right, of course she wants to know about the girl that makes me want to eat my own foot up. "Uh... her name is Freya, and..." And I'm actually telling her about Freya because there's no one else that actually wants to listen about her. "She's kinda-"
"Wait, Freya?" Mum cuts me off, "The girl I talked to when you were in the hospital?"
"Yeah," I reply slowly, remembering that they did in fact talk to each other. "She's just really-"
"Wait, tell me what she looks like," She interrupts me once more, "Wanna put a face to the name."
Sighing, I let my head fall into my free hand. She just has to make me think about her face – I'm not gonna get angry though, I brought this on myself. Talking to my mother about girls. It's like I'm still drunk. "Um, blue eyes, curly hair-"
"What color?"
"Brown, mum," I grit my teeth in annoyance and wait for a few seconds, to see if there's anything else she'd like to say. "She's 5'8 and tan. Really tan. Does kickboxing as a hobby. Never wears colors. Listens to indie-rock bands. Wants to be a brain surgeon. Will be the reason I'm six feet under."
"Niall!"
"That's Freya in a nutshell," I continue, ignoring her disapproving tone. She should be used to it by now, I've gotten exceptionally carefree since I moved to the US, I tell her shit like that all the time. "Anything else you'd wanna know?"
"Yeah, how old is she?" She asks, catching me a bit off guard. "So far she sounds like she's older than 18-19."
I gulp inaudibly; if I had to use one word to describe my mother, it would be old fashioned. In her mind, the man has to be older than the woman, among other ridiculous things. "Um, she's 23."
After my answer, there's a silence during which I want nothing but to slap myself as hard across the face as possible. Why'd I have to specifically tell her the age? I could have even lied about it, said the number that would please my mum. I mean, the way things are going, they're probably never going to meet each other or anything. "Um, did you say twenty-three?"
"Yeah, mum, but look, it's nothing- Jesus, hold on for a second," I sigh and place my palm over the speaker as I hear someone knocking on my door; I put up a don't interrupt sign that's so big even a half blind person could read it, who the fuck dares to knock? "Go away!"
"It's me."
Oh. Oh. Well, okay, I can make an exception. "Uh, you know what?" I say to my mum as I urgently get off the bed, and shove most of the books at the foot of it to make it look neater, "I gotta go, I'm gonna call you later for su-"
"What? You don't get to hang up on me, I swear to God-"
"That's exactly what I'm gonna do and I'm really sorry, I love you," I say quickly, jogging to the door of my room and mentally preparing myself to open it.
"This is not the end of the conversa-" Is the last thing I hear before ending the call; I open the door as if it's a band-aid, to realize that I wasn't just imagining things and hearing voices – it's really her, and she's really here.
"Hi," I say, flatly and a little dumbfounded, staring at the 23-year-old a mere foot away from me. She has her hands behind her back, and an insecure little look on her face. And she's here. "Um, sorry about that. Thought it was one of the guys."
"It's okay," She says quietly, giving me an uneasy smile before looking me up and down, and eventually setting her eyes on mine. "Can I come in?"
"Uh, sure," I move away, and wait for her to slowly walk in before closing the door, and locking it again. One thing I've learned from living in a house full of 20-somethings, never leave the door unlocked. No matter what you're doing. Somebody is going to barge in sooner or later. "Sorry about the mess, I was, erm, trying to study."
Freya turns around, with the smallest of smiles, and continues walking backwards with her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. "Study? You don't start school until another-"
"Yeah, I know, I was sort of... revising," I stammer, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed, with her a few feet in front of me. "You know, checking if I still remember what I've learned in my first semester, 'cause I'm still gonna need it. I've come to a disappointing conclusion."
"You don't have a clue, do you?"
I frown, and narrow my eyes up at her fairly amused face as I pull my legs on the bed to cross them, "What makes you think that?"
"You look quite clueless."
I breathe out a laugh while she smiles sheepishly at my reaction; it's not exactly the fact that I don't remember most of what I've learned in school that's making me seem clueless. I mean, that is one of the reasons, but still not the biggest one. "I kinda am."
She takes a few slow, hesitant steps toward me, and I dare myself to keep my eyes on hers as she walks; we're talking to each other as if nothing happened, but when it comes to physically being around one another, that's a whole different story. It's like we're afraid we'd burst into flames if we got too close to the other one. "Can I try to be of some motivation?"
She starts pulling the random notebook I've grabbed off the bed out of my hands, and walks backwards to her previous spot, with it in her hands. I blink, trying to figure out how in the world is she going to try and motivate me, but just shrug when I don't think of anything. "Um, okay?" I'm not sure if there's anything that could get me motivated, but if she thinks there might be something, I'm sure as hell gonna let her try.
Freya clears her throat at my approval, flipping through the pages. "What have you been revising?"
"Everything."
Giving me a small smile, she turns a random page and scans what I've written on it; then leaves the notebook on the window sill to my right and turns to me, her face dead serious. "What is the written communication, issued by an owner authorizing a contractor to proceed with the work, and establishing the date of commencement of the work called?"
I blink again, my eyes a little wide; she remembered all of that just from looking at the page? "Um, I- uh, that's, that's a notice to proceed."
She gives me another smile, this time one in satisfaction. "Correct."
With that, she unzips her jacket and carelessly throws it to her right when she takes it off, and ignores my baffled expression as she takes my notebook again; now I get it. She's going to take her clothes off for every correct answer of mine. This was a good idea, I can basically feel my motivation going through the roof.
"The arranging of parts or elements into proper proportion or relation so as to form unified whole."
"A composition," I say slowly, not to mess up the word, holding my breath as she nods at me, this time pulling her sweater over her head and leaving herself in a skin-tight, almost see-through button up shirt. I use that as a chance to quickly cross myself; God bless America. God bless England. God bless the whole fucking world.
She lets out a small sigh as she drops the sweater on top of her leather jacket, strolling over to my notebook to flip through another few pages. "Manner of arranging and coordinating the parts of a compo-"
"A form," I exclaim immediately, my heart thumping and a wide grin spreading across my face as she shakes her head in annoyance and amusement, and starts unbuttoning the shirt. My heart is starting to beat in my fucking ears.
Freya turns another few pages while unbuttoning her shirt with her left hand, tilting her head to the side as she scans the page for a question. "Division 7 of the Mast-"
"Wood, Plastics and Composites," I interrupt her again, expecting her to tell me something like 'slow down, I can't take my clothes off that fast', but she actually stops unbuttoning her shirt and turns to face me, a frown on her face. Oh no. No, no, no, no-
"I'm afraid that's incorrect," She says, in a light tone, barely being able to fight back a laugh as I widen my eyes until they're almost out of their sockets.
"What? No, it has to be that. You're messing with me. Please don't mess with me."
"I'm really not messing with you," She shakes her head innocently, "What you said is Division 6 of the MasterFormat."
It's the fucking MasterFormat, there's nothing more basic than the fucking MasterFormat, she has to be messing with me. "Um, then, then it's- Masonry?
Freya shakes her head again, giving me a small shrug as she starts buttoning her shirt up again. Alright, this is becoming alarming. "Wait, wait! It's- it's Openings! No? Then... Finishes? Equipment? Furnishings? Can you just stop doing that for a second?" I almost yell, causing her to widen her eyes as well, but also stop buttoning her shirt. "You're... you're asking about the current MasterFormat, right?"
She nods slowly, trailing her fingers up to another button just as slowly. "It's... it's... it's in the Facility Construction Subgroup, right?"
"Yes, but that's not what I asked," She replies flatly, continuing to clasp the little black objects back together- I'm going to fucking hurl myself off the house.
"Jesus Christ," I sigh to myself, closing my eyes so that I wouldn't have to look at her. "Metals? Specialties? Finishes? No, I already said fucking Finishes, is there anything even left? I know it's not reserved for future fucking expansion, Freya, this is not fucking funny-"
I cut myself off and open my eyes abruptly, as I feel a pair of hands on my shoulders; next thing I know my hands are on her waist, she's straddling me and there are less than a couple of inches separating our bodies. "Thermal and Moisture Protection," She whispers, leaning in closer but all I can do is close my eyes again, and groan at the information.
"Thermal and Moisture fucking Prote-" This time she's the one to cut me off, by pressing her lips against mine; and suddenly, it's like yesterday didn't even happen. It's like I didn't tell her that I loved her and it took her eleven hours to say it back. It's like I didn't kiss Leanne and she didn't bring up freedom again. I'm going to have to reconsider my priorities if kissing each other is all we have to do to forget about our problems.
She brings her hands to either side of my head, holding it firmer than needed as the kiss turns desperate and needy, just like last night all over again. "I'm sorry," She whimpers, completely out of breath and yeah, this is really turning into last night. "I keep fucking up, I'm so sorry."
"Freya, baby," I try pulling away from her – as much as I love kissing her more than anything else, we actually need to have a real conversation about it. Not yell at each other or joke about it. Just talk. And then continue kissing. "It's not all your fault-"
"But it is!" She sighs, exasperatedly as she finally pulls back, "Everything that went wrong, everything bad that happened, I was the one who caused it!"
"Freya-"
"The first time I almost lost you?" She continues, her words successfully making me speechless. "It was because I made a big fucking deal out of you kissing me. Second time? I lied about my own name. Third time? I was this fucking wuss who didn't express her feelings for you, even when she's known about them for the longest time, and you said it first!"
"Freya." I repeat again, trying hard not to break into a smile because of her rant. "I did a lot of shit too, give me some credit for it." She sighs and shakes her head at what I'd said, but doesn't look annoyed; I should accept that whenever we're trying to solve a problem, I'm going to bring humor into it. "I'm always the one that leaves. I never stay to actually talk to you. Instead I get drunk, and kiss girls that I don't even have feelings for-"
"Tell me one thing," She interrupts me, calmly, closing her eyes after her request. God, I can only imagine what she's going to say when she's pulling that face. "Did you sleep with her?"
Once again, she's successful at making me speechless. "Freya-"
"Just tell me," She repeats, squeezing her eyes shut for a second. "I get that you were angry at me and that's why you kissed her, but if you slept with her-"
"Hey," I grab her chin between my thumb and fingers, not giving her a choice other than to look at me. "I didn't sleep with her, okay? I came in, went straight to my bedroom and slept for ten hours straight. Didn't even wake up with a hangover."
She blinks at me, fighting back a smile while looking at me for a long few seconds; it's like she's trying to tell through my expression whether I'm lying or not. And I'm really not lying, I really didn't sleep with anyone. I was too angry to let myself be around someone with fragile bones. "Okay," She finally says, rubbing her forehead with her fingers.
I place my hand on her jaw, rubbing her cheek with my thumb, causing her to look at me again. "I would have told you if I did," I say quietly, "If I'd slept with her. I know it probably wouldn't get me anywhere, but, I... wouldn't want to lie to you."
Freya raises her brows at me, nodding her head firmly in an impressed manner, and I swear I can see tears forming in her eyes. God dammit. "You're one in a million," She breathes out, through a smile, "Thanks."
Still smiling, I lower my hand to her waist, to pull her a little closer to me. "You know what'd be really cool?" I begin, letting out a small sigh, "If you told me other things you think I should know. Anything at all. So that, when you're acting weird like yesterday, I know there's a reason for it."
Her expression keeps turning serious throughout my whole suggestion, and by the end of it she looks like she's having trouble breathing- why am I not surprised? "Craig is the only boyfriend I've ever had," She starts, her voice a little shaky, and it takes me a moment to realize that she's actually started talking about those things. "And I have no other relationship to compare ours to. Craig is all I've ever known. And roughly translated, physical abuse, emotional abuse and constant infidelity and actual possessiveness is all I've ever known."
She sounds so calm. I can almost see her breaking on the inside as she talks about him, but her voice is so calm. Like she's dealt with all of it and it comes naturally to her. Those things come naturally to her. "He's the only man I've ever loved and it's terrifying that-that he turned out like that. He's the only man I've ever said 'I love you' to, and it's terrifying that he took it for granted. It's terrifying that he thought he could do whatever he wanted with my heart just because he had it, and it was at his mercy. Because I was at his mercy. He ended up breaking both of them."
"Why do you compare me to him, then?" I speak up; my intention wasn't to interrupt her at all, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. "Why do you even feel the need to compare me to anyone? I'm-I'm not anyone else, I'm me. I'm Niall. I watch sitcoms and overdose on Slurpees. Dates with me include take-out food and board games. What you see is what you get."
Freya breathes out a laugh at my little speech, covering her face with her hands, "Yeah, but-"
"No buts," I cut her off, getting a hold of her wrists to move her hands away. "I'm 19, Freya, I'm a kid, I don't know the first thing about life. I wouldn't do the things he did to you. I couldn't. I'm not him, I'm simple. If I tell you that I love you, it's because I mean it. If I tell you that I think you're gorgeous without any make up on, I mean it. I mean everything that I say, you're safe with me. Your heart is safe with me."
I think that listening to Seth read poetry out loud is kinda paying off. "I'm gonna keep fucking up, I hope you know that," She says after a minute – during which she was a little speechless, if I may – nodding at me to further confirm her statement, making me laugh lightly. "It's not going to be intentional, but I'm probably not going to be able to help it, so take this as a formal apology in advance. I'm sorry. I-I love you and I'm sorry."
She closes her eyes as soon as she finishes her last sentence, as if she's scared to see my expression when I realize what she'd said. That's too bad; I think her words caused a lottery-winner-kind of look on my face. "I love you too," I say quietly, mentally high-fiving myself when I don't mess up any of the words, and bring both hands to her face. "Just for the record, if I ever start yelling at you, just start taking your clothes off and I'll become speechless."
Freya leans her forehead against mine, her eyes squeezed shut in laughter, "God, you really like seeing me naked, don't you?"
"My favorite sight in the world."
"I should give you a lap dance sometimes," She says, sounding casual, while I'm sitting here, already having a problem with how tight my pants are becoming. "See if I could make a living out of that, I'm already past pole dancing."
Well. There's one way to solve my tight pants issue. "I don't," I start, but lean backwards a little so that I can look at her, and make her see the frown on my face. "I don't want you to dance for anyone else."
My quiet tone clearly surprises her, I mean, we have been laughing until half a minute ago after all. "Would you be jealous?" She asks, just as lowly as she tries leaning forward, but I put my hands on her neck to keep her in her spot; if I'm ever going to end this bullshit, it's going to be now.
"Yes," I reply, flatly and honestly, "And angry. Because I don't want anyone looking at something that should only be meant for me."
Her expression becomes serious again – she knows where I'm going with this. "Only for you?"
"Only for me."
"Do you worry that there might be someone else?"
"All the fucking time."
Freya breaks the serious moment with a breathy laugh, but the tension basically forces her to go back to being serious again. "Me too. I worry about that too."
"You don't have to, though. You've never had to worry about anyone."
"Not even Leanne? She has feelings for you, I hope you know that."
I shake my head at that – it's really not something I want to discuss right now. "It doesn't matter, I don't have feelings for her. I don't have feelings for anyone but you. I don't wanna be with anyone but you."
She licks her lips at my words, her breathing becoming audible when I'm finished. "Are we really doing this?" She says, barely over a whisper, "Putting a label on us?"
"I like labels," I respond immediately, "They're safe. You know what to think, you know what to tell people."
"And you want to tell people that I'm your girlfriend?"
I feel like my entire being is unraveling because of what's just left her mouth. "That's all," I nearly whisper, looking down at her body before looking into her eyes again, "Could you make that happen for me?"
She blinks at me a couple of times, her lips parted, and then just leans down to kiss me. The lack of an actual answer is making me restless; I'm literally on the edge of either pulling away and forcing her to say the damn word, or continue kissing her – which would eventually lead to her clothes being ripped off her body. Neither sounds like something she'd be appealed to.
"Come on," I mumble against her lips, since she has no intention of pulling back either, "Are you answering or procrastinating on answering?"
Instead of answering, she pushes her body harder against mine, almost making me fall backwards. That would've happened if I hadn't moved my hands behind me to support myself. "Do you want me?"
I frown into the kiss; if she still feels the need to ask stuff like that, then I'm doing something wrong. "Of course I fucking want you, the hell do you think I've been-"
"Then consider me yours."
I just did something right.
*******
i was a little drunk when i wrote most of this, i'm gonna be honest (it's almost five in the morning now and i'm prolly gonna be late for school lmao)
there was supposed to be the soft smut thing i was sorta talking about in this, but i guess i'll get to it in the future chapters merp (and you know the drill, 200 comments for an update in 3-4 days) i love you! :-)