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Apr 15, 2019

Unsettled

Brian hadn’t even bothered texting me back. He didn’t even ask what happened. He did call me immediately though.

Once he found out I wasn’t in immediate danger, he told me that he would meet me at one of the cafês down the block from me in fifteen minutes. He even stayed on the phone with me the whole time until he got there.

It didn't matter what he was talking about. His presence, even through the phone, was reassuring. He ended up spending the whole time on the phone talking just to let me know that I wasn't alone. He spent the time talking about his classes at Northwestern and friends of his that I didn't know and about how ridiculous the weather was and how annoying the clearly-from-out-of-town couple was beside him on the train platform. I knew what he was doing was all just a distraction, but even still it was incredibly comforting.

I didn't realize it until he walked through the door and hung up the phone and he strode over to me, but I hadn’t managed to take a full breath from the moment I’d woken up until I saw him.

I watched as he pushed the damp hood of his rain jacket back and ran a hand through his hair to lift it back up out of his face. He didn't say anything as he sat down across from me at the small table I’d chosen. He just looked me over, as if he was studying what he saw. I didn't see pity anywhere on his face. I saw only concern. I didn't know what the difference was until I saw it.

“Okay.” He nodded.

“Okay?” I asked, confused.

“You're okay,” he clarified.

“Physically, I guess.”

“You're strong, Ruby,” he said. “You reached out when you could have hidden away in your apartment scared and alone. You didn't though. You reached out.”

“And that makes me strong?”

“Absolutely.” He smiled. He said it with such conviction that it was hard not to believe. The waiter came over then and he ordered a black coffee. I thought of Niall.

“So,” he said as he took a sip of the scalding drink that had been immediately placed at his elbow. “You can tell me about the dream, or not tell me, but I'm here for you, either way, Ruby.”

“Okay,” I said. So I did. I ended up telling him everything about the dream. He sat and listened and took it all in, let me talk it through and process what I’d seen in my mind. After I had finished, Brian was silent for a moment, probably just thinking through what to say or to force me to reflect on how speaking it out loud made me feel, but I took the opportunity to ask him a question.

“Why couldn’t I do anything? Why did I just stand there?” I asked.

“It’s like I said at your very first class,” Brian said slowly, looking up from his coffee mug to hold my gaze. “I want the moves to be so ingrained in you that nothing, not fear or circumstance or whatever, will stop you from defending yourself.”

I nodded and felt my eyes start to tear up. I refused to let myself cry though, now wasn’t the time. I was safe. I was okay.

“You’re only just at the beginning the process. The learning is ongoing. The growth doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “And you’ve got your negative experience weighing down on you. You’re going to feel it more than anyone else, feel that fear come back to you in those situations until you're prepared until you let go of the fear.”

“Well, that blows,” I huffed out and looked down at my tea. The chamomile was only doing so much to calm my nerves.

Brian laughed at my response and oddly enough I felt it settle me down slightly. He was acting normal, laughing when he was supposed to, wasn’t tiptoeing around me. I looked up and saw him smiling down at me. Brian somehow just knew what I needed without me telling him. I thought of his sister, about what she went through, and I wondered if she knew how lucky she was to have him as her brother.

“It does blow,” he agreed with a smile. “You will get yourself back though, your confidence. Your knowledge and your ability in the classroom will make that jump to real life should you ever again need it. Plus, by talking to me--or anyone,” he gave me a pointed look, “you'll start to process the fear and let it go.”

“I don’t feel any less confident,” I said, ignoring the talking about my problems part of what he was telling me. “I still go out alone, at night even, and I don’t worry about it.”

“It’s an unconscious loss,” he said, nodding. “You don’t think about it, and you still feel relatively safe, but your dream is letting you know that you’re worried about it even if in a waking state you don’t think about it. Have you picked up any new habits or noticed you do anything differently since it happened?”

“I check the locks two or three times a night,” I said so quietly I hadn’t even realized I was saying it out loud. I didn’t think he’d heard either, but he nodded to let me know he had. “I also have a hard time falling asleep unless I do it, and even when I do, sometimes I still take forever to fall asleep.”

“You’re worried about letting your guard down,” Brian said. “You’re not thinking about it, but your body is afraid to relax. You still feel unsafe at home? Usually, that’s where victims feel safest, away from the world.”

I took a sip of my tea and kept my gaze down until Brian’s silence made me look back up and meet his eyes, which were filled with suspicion. Because even though Brian knew I had been attacked, he didn’t know anything about what had actually happened.

His silence coupled with his gaze made me squirm in my seat. Until eventually I supplied the reason.

“It happened on my front porch,” I said and immediately looked down at the wooden table, studying the grain as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, my front lock was broken, or stuck or whatever, and the key was jammed and I couldn’t get inside to get away. I literally could only just stand there and hope that the key turned as I heard him come through my gate, climb my stairs, and grab me…” I trailed off.

“Ruby.”

I looked up. I still found no pity in his gaze, just understanding.

“You’re incredibly brave, you know.” The warmth on his face as I nodded at his words, even if I wasn’t sure I believed them, made the ball of tension that had been sitting in my stomach since I’d woken up on my floor sweaty and gross an hour ago just dissipate. I felt my whole body unclench, my muscles loosen as my nerves settled.

“You know that that doesn't make your house unsafe,” Brian said after a minute.

“Even if they never caught the guy?”

“Yes.” His voice was assured, confident in his convictions. “Did you know that people rarely ever leave their doors unlocked or forget to turn the stove off. We’ve got these habits so ingrained in us that we don't even realize we’re doing them. Which is why when we do think about it, we sometimes we worry that we haven't done them.”

I nodded. I did not know that.

“Ruby,” he said, “your home is safe. I promise. And if you feel unsafe remind yourself how silly you'll feel checking your locks twice a night just to see that you remembered it the first time, when you walked through it hours earlier. Plus, you live on the second floor. No one is going to go through the struggle of getting you up there.”

He was right. I knew he was right.

“But what if I can't fall asleep unless I check the locks again?” I didn't like how small my voice sounded when I asked that.

“Distract yourself. Think about something else. Don't let it consume your mind.” He shrugged like it was that simple. “Or,” he said, “tell yourself the truth. Be honest with yourself. That you're worrying over nothing at all. That you're safe and that you should stop worrying and just fall asleep.”

I took a deep breath and looked at him evenly.

“It can't be that simple.”

“Why not?” He asked.

“I don't know,” I said truthfully. “I just don't think it can be that easy.”

“The hardest things might actually be the easiest and we don't realise it because we’re blind to the answers that lie right in front of us. We constantly think everything has to be harder than it is, and it makes us sceptical to the easy solution.”

“That sounds like some philosophy bull.” I smirked at him.

“I'm literally in school to be a lawyer and confuse people with words.” He smiled back at me.

“I don't think that's what lawyers are supposed to do, actually,” I said.

“We lawyers can be multifaceted, have many different approaches in order to get our job done, to win our case.” His smile didn't falter or leave his face.

I rolled my eyes but smiled back at him.

“Better?” He asked.

I sat on the answer for a second. I was just feeling myself out, reaching my mind into my toes and fingertips and everywhere in between. I felt my nerve endings and felt for any still tension in my body.

“For now,” I stipulated, “better.”

“I'll take that.” He smiled at me before taking a large drink of coffee.

My coffee outing with Brian had been three weeks ago. Since then I'd had the nightmare, the exact same one, four more times. It was like I was cognoscente of the fact that I was sleeping and that it was all just a dream, but that didn't make it any less horrifying.

Each time I had it, I'd wake up sweaty and gasping for air. It was exhausting. I wasn't falling back asleep after that. So each time it happened I'd just get up and shower and start my day a few hours earlier. I was actually quite proud of the fact that although the dream--nightmare--had deprived me of quite a lot of sleep, I wasn’t letting it get to me too much. I didn’t suddenly become afraid to walk home at night or anything, but I was a little upset at my inability to do anything to defend myself in the dream.

It never changed the dream. I'd just be frightened into being immobilised and I would do nothing to defend myself, like someone who was weak and ill-prepared. Like I had been the night my actual attack took place. So not only would I wake up scared, but I'd wake up frustrated with myself, disappointed for not even having used my strength and my knowledge to attempt to defend myself.

I knew it was only a dream and that even though I'd frozen as a response in the dream it did not mean that I would freeze in real life as a response. Still, if it was my only indication of how I'd handle a situation, my prospects didn't look all that great. I knew it was a process like Brian had told me, but I had my doubts.

After the first one, Brian made me swear that I would let him know if and when I'd had another nightmare. So I would let him know via text sometime during the day that I had woken up from it again. He would acknowledge what happened and then tell me to get to the gym that evening, that he would meet me there. The one time it had happened the same day as class, Thursday, he told me to get there an hour earlier than usual.

We'd only had two self-defence classes since my first dream because of Thanksgiving, for which I flew home on Wednesday night, dealt with my family well into the evening on Thursday and then flew back to Chicago to be ready for work the next day. My mother was disappointed, but she had been each of the Thanksgivings before this since I’d been in Chicago as well. It was a slight annoyance that she couldn't just accept it and enjoy our time together instead of sulking, but I'd grown accustomed to it.

The days leading up to, and following Thanksgiving, were just as chaotic and frenzied at work as I had predicted they would be. Louis and I were in the bakery from dawn until well past dusk each day. We probably put in eighteen-hour days for that entire week except for the holiday itself, and I knew Louis had snuck into the bakery late Thanksgiving night to sort things out for Friday morning because he told me how displeased his mother had been about it when he left her house and his sisters to go back to work.

As a group, we had our annual Friendsgiving the Sunday before the holiday. Harry and Ana hosted, as I’d done it last year and Cleo had done it the first year; we were rotating throughout the group. Between Louis’ desserts, Liam’s cooking, and Harry and Ana’s wine pairings, we were all heartily stuffed and blissfully buzzed. We’d all brought something though, to help alleviate some of the stress of one person doing all the cooking. I’d made mashed potatoes. Apparently, after I’d made them year one it was a requirement that I do it every year.

We all played games and ate even more food and teased Harry when he’d fallen asleep on the floor between dinner and dessert. Niall and I endured a bit more teasing, although, after some time, our friends had started to relax with the couple jokes and the we-told-you-so’s. Niall had integrated himself fully into the lot of us. Obviously, he already had an in with Louis and me, but he bonded with each of us in his own way. I think he liked getting closer to Cleo because she was very loose-lipped about embarrassing tales from my past.

Brian, when I'd walked into the gym the first time after my second nightmare experience, put me to work on the punching bags in the corner of the room and not just to work on my form, but to get out some of the frustrations I was feeling. He turned on some heavier rock music than he usually played during class as he guided me through each workout, both of us having our hands wrapped and boxing gloves on. Brian said the pair I was wearing was one of his sister’s old pairs.

That one Thursday, that we’d gotten there early and by the time actual class was set to start, both of us were already drenched in sweat and exhausted, but Brian didn’t complain and I just took it in stride. I couldn't even try to convey my gratitude for Brian’s response. Somehow he just knew what I had needed without me telling him.

He kept trying to get me to talk to someone--my friends, my sister, his sister, my parents--anyone, but I wasn't budging. I didn't see how their concerns and their pity would help my situation. It would only add stress. Once I said no once, he would shut up though and let me just punch it out, which was incredibly helpful for my mental state.

At the third session, I had stopped midway through and turned to him.

“Aren't you ridiculously busy with being a student? Don't you have more important things to be doing with your time?” I had asked over the music.

He wiped some sweat from his forehead, his hair had started to flop into his face, and he looked straight at me.

“Ruby, your well-being is important to me. I can make time for you. Now c’mon, show me that combination again.”

I had smiled and nodded, setting my feet again and getting back into it.

As it was now, I hadn’t had the dream in four nights. I was feeling steady, but I knew I would probably have the dream again in the near future. I tried to accept it while also keeping the thought out of my mind so that it didn’t drag me down and consume me.

Now that it was mid-December the cold weather had settled over the city as if it would never leave as if it would never be warm again. I was bundled up and walking to Niall's--we were doing dinner together. He was cooking.

The trees that lined the streets I was walking along creaked and swayed in the wind that came off the lake. Everything I looked at as I walked seemed like a varying shade of grey under the clouds overhead that were dark with the threat of rain.

I had made a bold choice to walk instead of taking the train. It took the same amount of time either way, and the walk didn’t bother me, but I knew my city. I was well aware of the fact that it could start pouring down rain on me at any second and I’d be trapped in the thick of it.

My face was buried in my scarf and my fingers were numb by the time I made it to Niall’s building. I had tried texting him that I’d arrived, but the tempered glass wasn’t registering my fingers as they tapped on it fruitlessly. After a minute of struggling and trying to warm my hands, I just hit the home button until the voice command came up and I told it to call Niall.

He sounded out of breath when he answered. “I’m on my way down,” he said.

I laughed a bit at his voice, the slight urgency in his tone as he jogged down flights of stairs as quickly as he could.

“Okay.” I hung up a moment later as I saw him come through the front door of his apartment building.

He didn't say a word as he came up to me and hugged me really tightly, his face burying into my shoulder as he held me and breathed deeply.

“Hey,” I said softly as I hugged him back. I didn’t want to read too much into it, but it felt like he was holding me to comfort himself and not just because it had been four days since we’d seen each other.

“Hey. Are you alright?” I asked.

He took another deep breath and nodded into me before releasing me, stepping back a bit. I realised then that he was only wearing athletic shorts and a T-shirt. He must've been freezing outside.

“Yeah, I'm good.” He reached down for my hand and squeezed his palm in mine. “M’fine.” He started guiding me inside and into the elevator. He lived on the eighth floor.

His hair looked all rumpled like he’d stress run a hand through it repeatedly, and his eyes looked tired. His shoulders were slumped as he leaned back against the elevator wall as the doors closed and we began moving up.

I didn't buy for a second that he was fine. Hypocritical of me or not, I wanted to know what was wrong.

We rode the whole way up in silence; it wasn't uncomfortable. I was just full up with questions that were trying to come out and bombard him with. When we got through his front door, we kicked our shoes off and I turned to him expectantly.

“Niall?” I asked sceptically.

“Hmm?” He hummed as he led the way into his living room. I picked my favourite fluffy blanket of his up off the chair on the way and followed him to the couch.

“What is it?” I asked.

He sat down and left a space beside himself for me. I sat criss-cross beside him, facing him, and pulled the blanket across my lap. I noticed how the apartment smelled as a result of whatever he was making. It smelled like… No. I was imagining that. I had to be.

But I wasn't. It smelled like Indian food, like curry. I wanted so badly to know what he was making for me, but that could wait. I was more concerned about the troubled look on his face.

I picked up his hand beside me in both hands and began drawing circles on the back of it with my thumbs.

“I talked to my brother today,” he said eventually, calmly.

“Greg?” I asked. He hadn't mentioned if they kept in touch regularly, so I was wondering whether it was good or abnormal to hear from him.

“Yeah,” he said and took a deep breath, looking down at his hand in mind. He looked up at me and I felt something stir inside of me. Apparently, seeing Niall upset was making me upset.

Niall took another deep breath.

“You've been really kind and patient about not asking why I went home to Ireland after college, and you should probably know why. I just don't… I just don't like to talk about it because I get upset. Being on the phone with Greg brought some of it back up. That's why I'm a little… I don't know. Whatever I am right now.”

I nodded. I was unsure of what to say, but he squeezed my hands in his. The one time I had mentioned his return home to Louis, before Niall and I even got together, he had told me it was personal and that Niall would tell me whenever he was ready. I hadn't pushed it at all, or brought it up since, to either of them. I had harboured all of my curiosity inside myself.

I was glad he was saying something about it, even if it was difficult for him, emotional for him. It meant he had trust in me. It meant that our relationship meant enough to him that he was telling me about his brother and what had happened to him when he was back in Ireland. I kept my face calm for him, in case he needed me to be steady on right now.

“Thank you for not pushing me,” he said.

“I would never.”

He gave me a small smile, all he was capable of at the moment I think, judging by his extra pale face. He looked in front of himself toward the wall and started talking.

“Just after my senior year of school my dad got sick,” he said. He took a deep breath. I watched his chest rise and fall with it. “Really sick and he didn't tell anyone…”

There was a pause as he fought to compose himself. Even though he wasn't looking at me, I could see the struggle in his eyes.

“Growin’ up it was always just me, Greg, and dad,” he continued on. “We were all three really close to each other. So it hit us hard when Greg and I did find out about it. He had cancer--it wasn't a good diagnosis, and he refused treatment, saying he wanted to go out his own way, on his own terms. And Greg wasn't supposed to find out, but my dad had passed out on him because he wasn't taking proper care of himself.” Niall’s voice broke on that last word, so I squeezed his hand in mine. His gaze shifted from the wall to our joined hands.

“Greg was pretty close to our dad, but he has a family of his own, and I had graduated and was only working an internship, so it became my responsibility to start taking care of him. I moved back a week after we found out.” I squeezed his hand again.

“So for two years I took care of my dad, giving him his shots and pills, and then,” his voice cracked again, “and then he was gone.”

I ached all over with second-hand pain at Niall losing his father. I could feel Niall’s sadness emanating from every inch of his body, rolling off of him in waves and crashing all around him, including into me. I could hear the grief as it invaded his tone. He cleared his throat.

I knew in that moment that there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say that would have any effect, soothe the ache he was feeling. It was too late for condolences and it wasn't like I understood what it felt like to lose a parent. I just wanted to make Niall forget the sadness and not feel it anymore, but I knew I couldn't. And that hurt, too.

So I reached one of my hands up and cupped his cheek. Finally, his eyes lifted to mine and I tried to convey, with just my gaze, everything I was feeling, and how much he meant to me.

I figured that because he didn't talk about why he went home, and with what Louis had hinted at, that it would be something like this, something horrible. Hearing it though, having my suspicions confirmed felt like someone was holding my heart and squeezing it tighter and tighter.

Niall’s red-rimmed eyes searched mine and stayed on mine as he kept going.

“I knew when he didn't… when he didn't turn on the radio when he woke up--he always turned on the radio first thing he did--that he wasn't… that something was wrong. So I called Greg and then I called the emergency service and I went in and checked.”

He closed his eyes and the tears fell from them, began rolling down his face. I swiped my thumb along his cheek and brushed some of them away.

“I knew right away,” he said, opening his eyes again. “I opened the door and I knew and I could only look from behind the door. Even now I can't get the image from my mind. It was… Ruby, I never felt so lost. He'd taught me everything in the world. He taught me music and about girls and helped me with my maths and always supported my writing… and he was just gone. And suddenly I was this scared little kid and I was stuck back home away from my best friend and the life I had made for myself. I was just alone.”

I struggled to keep my own tears from falling. More than anything I just wanted to make him feel not so alone.

“So I stayed. I stayed for the funeral and stayed to take care of the house and stayed because of Greg. I stayed because Greg was the only connection I had left to my dad, the only family I had left. And I couldn't bring myself to leave. Until… until Greg realised I wasn't moving on at all. He started me going to therapy and talking to someone about it and we started going through our dad's things and Greg eventually decided, when I was ready, to put the house up for sale.

“After that was decided, I called Louis and apologized for just leaving him. And you know him,” he shrugged, “he didn't even let me apologize. He told me that he'd be glad to have me back, and that I was still his best friend and that he'd always be there for me.”

“So I found the job here, and when the house sold I took my half of the sale and used some of it to buy a plane ticket and some to settle into my apartment. And just walking out of O’Hare and back into the city air I felt lighter than I had in years. I literally came straight from the airport to the bakery where I saw Louis again and where I met you.” He smiled a watery smile at me and I blushed as he leaned forward and kissed my forehead.

“When I walked into the kitchen and Louis was just… so normal, acting as if nothing had changed, as if we were still best mates I finally felt those last few pieces of myself come back to me and settle into their proper place.”

I nodded at his words and wiped my misty eyes. I hadn't even known. He just seemed so bright when we’d met that day and he was, but it was because he was being remade and given his friend back. It wasn't just because that's who he is--light and full of life. It was because he was euphoric to be back.

“I called Greg when we were walking to lunch just to let him know I'd gotten in and that I'd met up with Louis and that my stuff that was shipped was arriving soon. Even after only a few minutes on the phone, Greg could tell I was better here than I had been back in Ireland.

“He called today to tell me that he and his wife are pregnant again. That it's a boy this time around. That they've already decided to name him after dad…”

I couldn't take it anymore. I moved so that I was straddling him and holding his face with both hands as he spoke. The added contact seemed to soothe us both a fraction more. Niall took a deep breath.

“It's such good news, y’know?” He asked. “But when he said they'd already decided to name him after our dad I just kind of broke down again.”

I leaned in and placed my forehead against his.

“I’ve come to terms with everything that's happened… I really have, but I miss him every day.” He paused. “It helps that I'm back here though, with friends. With you. I don't feel lonely anymore.”

“You're not alone,” I managed to say. My voice was thick with the tears I hadn't cried.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

I let go of his face and wrapped my arms around his back, hugging him close to me, as close as I could pull him. I buried my face in his neck and just breathed deeply.

I hadn't needed a boyfriend when I met Niall; I was perfectly content and self-sufficient. But I loved that he was in my life in this capacity now. He made me feel safe and strong and I couldn't imagine life without him anymore.

Just knowing that I could make him feel like he wasn't alone, knowing that I was someone he trusted to talk to and someone he could talk to about his dad and bond with over our dad’s mutual love of music… knowing that I was just as solidified in Niall’s life as he'd become in mine made me feel calm and content all over my body, head to toe.

Niall wrapped his arms around me then, holding me close just like I was holding him.

“I love you, Ruby,” he whispered against the skin of my neck.

I wasn't sure if he realised he had said it, wasn't sure if he intended for me to hear it. But he did, and I had.

It felt like my whole body came to life when he said those words. As if for so long I'd been feeling emotions and going around on autopilot, not knowing that there was more, that I wasn't aware of what I didn't have.

It was like when you get your first pair of glasses. Your vision had gotten worse little by little and you didn't realize you couldn't see until that moment when they slip the glasses onto your face for the first time and you realise just how much of the world you had been missing.

I didn't know what I didn't know.

“I love you too, Niall.” I was certain of it.

I felt him release a shaky breath as we both pulled back and met each other's eyes. The ocean-blue was something that I could drown in, but I never did. Instead, the blue kept me lifted up, so that I was floating blissfully on their surface.

I let out a breath of my own, a little chuckle as the tension was released from my body. Niall laughed with me.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I kind of ruined the vibe of the date with my sad story, didn't I?” He asked.

I smiled and shook my head.

“Absolutely not,” I shook my head again. I stood up off of his lap and made my way over to the corner where he had his record player. I knew that while the record player was new, a lot of the records were originally his father's.

He followed me and stood beside me as I searched through the piles of music, finally stopping on one and pulling it out. When he saw my choice he nodded his approval and wrapped his arms around me from behind. He placed his head on my shoulder as I slid the first record out of its sleeve and placed it down gently, lifting the needle and letting it land right at the start of the album.

Back in the U.S.S.R. started playing and I felt Niall kiss my neck.

“My dad's favourite song by the Beatles is on this record,” he said.

“It's mine too,” I said.

“You already know what song it is?” He asked, sceptical.

“If it's not Blackbird then I seriously question everything I thought about him as a music man.” I laughed when he squeezed my waist and lifted me up off the floor for a moment.

“It is Blackbird,” he said before spinning me around and kissing me sweetly.

“I love you.” I smiled against his lips.

“I love you too.” He smiled back at me before pulling away and guiding me to the kitchen with his hand in mine. “Also, I am apologizing now just in case I completely ruined this whole meal in an attempt to make curry and samosas.”

Standing side-by-side in front of the stove I could see the curry simmering on low before I looked sideways at Niall and then out at his apartment.

I loved his apartment. It was quite modest in size and decoration. The dark floors and furniture, the white walls--empty but for the Irish flag on the wall opposite the couch--, and the open floor plan. The small galley kitchen and breakfast bar dining area looked over the living area and on the other side fed into the hallway that led to his bathroom, bedroom, and front door. It was small but homey.

Even with a lack of wall decor, Niall had found a way to make his space his. There were a few floor plants, and more than a few succulents lined the windows that stretched from waist height up to the ceiling around the back three walls of his apartment to open the kitchen and living area up to the city. He also made sure that he always had a set of Christmas lights plugged in to make the whole area glow at night--or on a rainy day.

“You attempted to make Indian food from scratch for me.” I nudged his hip with mine. “This is one of those situations where it's the thought that counts. Even if it tastes terrible I'll still love that you tried.” He blushed. “Plus, if it really is that bad we can order takeout from the Indian place a few blocks over.”

Niall laughed and ran a hand through his hair. Seeing his smile, hearing his laugh after the heavy topic we’d just moved away from made my heart soar. I had managed to make him feel light enough to laugh just minutes after he'd been crying. It was indescribable how much that meant to me, how good it made me feel.

“Well then, I suppose we should try it all and decide on a verdict.”

“I suppose we should.” I smiled at him as he began plating the food for us and we sat side by side at the end of the counter on his small black stools to eat.

“Thank you, by the way,” I said before we started.

“Don't thank me yet you haven't tried it,” he said with a smile.

“I meant for opening up to me,” I clarified.

“Oh,” he said quietly and looked down at his bowl in front of him.

“I want you to know that you can talk to me, about anything.” I reached out and put my hand over his.

“I appreciate that,” he said with a nod.

He then waited, rather impatiently, for me to take my first bite. I took a spoonful of rice and curry and raised an eyebrow at him before he nodded to nudge me to finally taste it.

I rolled my eyes with a smile on my face, but I put the food in my mouth and under his watchful--nervous?--gaze I decided that he did okay.

“It's good,” I said.

“Good?”

“Try it.” I nodded.

He let loose a breath that I don't think he was aware he'd been holding, and he tasted his own creation.

“That's not bad!” The surprise in his tone made me laugh.

“Give yourself some credit,” I said through my laughter. “This is your first time making it, and you did well! I really appreciate you trying to make it, too. It means a lot that you took the time to learn and to do something like this. Who knows, I might even get Louis to bake a soda bread and then pretend that I made it for you.”

Niall laughed heartily at that.

#in which we get really heavy again #BECAUSE WHY NOT?!#1dff #fic: oth #fic: only ticket home #OTH13

takemedancingmaine