Counting the Stars

“You know, the sky looks the prettiest at night,” A familiar Irish accent spoke from behind me. I turned around and there stood Niall in all of his glory. He hadn't changed from his concert clothes and he seemed to be out of breath.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, worry evident in my voice.

“A little bird told me you were thinking of flying back to California, and I wasn’t going to let you do that,” He shrugged, walking up and standing next to me, “I’ve always wanted to spend an entire night seeing how many stars I can count. The stars are kind of like the moon, no matter where you are, someone else is always looking at the same stars.”

I looked at him with a confused expression, “Why are you being so nice? We haven’t had a proper conversation in a week and when we do, we argue.”

Niall scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, “Well… Uhm.. Eleanor kind of told me about you after your little incident and uhm… Yeah.”

My jaw dropped in horror.

“I kind of figured after you made the comment about being a dick… Which you aren’t, by the way. In fact, I think you’re a lovely person. Callista’s a pretty cool name,” Niall began to ramble, laughing after he finished.

Well, there it was. One less person who would have to find out and it just so happened to be the last person I wanted to know. I ignored what Niall was saying and continued to stare out the large windows at the night sky. The clouds were dark gray and low on the horizon, while all the stars were illuminating the sky above them. Had I not seen the Florida sunset, this would have taken the cake for the best scenery. It would have to settle for second best.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Niall spoke up, interrupting me from my thoughts.

I shrugged, “What is there to say?”

“I dunno… Maybe that you’re sorry for lying to me or how happy you are to know that I’m not kept in the dark anymore, just something. I need you to start opening up. The entire time we’ve been on tour I’ve been so open with you since the beginning, and you haven’t said anything. I just need to know what you’re thinking,” Niall sighed.

“I’m thinking that coming on this tour was a mistake. I’m thinking that becoming so close to you was a mistake. I’m beginning to think everything I’ve ever done has been a mistake because I always seem to fuck it up. Maybe I’m just one big mistake.”

Niall placed his hand on my shoulder and spun me around to where I was facing him directly. His blue eyes that were always so bright, playful, and happy looking were no longer any of those. They were a darker blue and looked sad. His eyes were mimicking exactly how I felt.

“I’d like to think you’re the farthest thing from a mistake, Ky- Callista. I’ve never met anyone that can play the drums like you do. At first it was really cool because I was under the impression that you were a guy, but to know that you’re actually a girl makes your talent even more special. For the first time in a long while I found someone who I could instantly confide in. I didn’t think twice about ever telling you something because I knew I could trust you.

You’re not a mistake at all. There are so many perfect things about you that I didn’t begin to notice until I actually thought about it. Every time we play a show, your smile reaches your eyes where normally you would just half smirk, half smile. Whenever someone mentions food you have a bounce in your step that isn’t present until then. No matter where we are, you have to brush your teeth at 11:15 or else you begin to have a panic attack.

You have a slight lisp whenever you say a word that ends with ‘s.’ That’s when your tongue sticks out slightly between your teeth and your face ends up scrunching in concentration to properly say the word. At night when you get really tired, your hand always reaches up to twirl a piece of your hair and then you realize it isn’t there, so you instantly put it down and begin to twiddle your thumbs,” Niall smiled proudly after he finished talking.

My cheeks began to heat up and by now I was most likely the color of a tomato. That had to have been one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me and I was fighting off the happy tears that were sure to fall. Showing emotions was a sign of weakness for me.

“Niall… I, well… I already bought a plane ticket back to LA. I can’t continue on with this tour as a girl,” I sighed, not letting myself look into his eyes again.

He grinned and held up his own plane ticket, “So did I and yes you can. We’ll go back to California, you’ll pack an entire new wardrobe fit for your own gender and we’ll have a meeting with management. Eleanor told me you found just about every legal loophole you could find. Between that and me being there saying we want you to continue the tour, they can’t say no. We’ll come up with some cover story for the press about how Kyle got sick so you’re his sister and we found a replacement. We’ll find a way to work this out because I’m not letting you leave me… Well, us. I’m not letting you leave us.”

I couldn’t help it, so I broke down in tears. I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him. My head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck. If I had the option, I would have staid in that position for forever.

“Flight 267 to Los Angeles International Airport is boarding passengers in Group C, section 25-35,” The announcement over the intercom interrupted us, causing us both to pull apart.

“That’s us,” Niall smiled.

We walked up to the front of the group and handed the stewardess our tickets and boarding passes. She scanned them and handed them back to the both of us, wishing us a “happy flight and safe travels.” We thanked her and walked down the runway to board the plane.

“You’re lucky we don’t have a show for three days or we’d be screwed right now,” Niall laughed as we found seats next to each other.

“Would we really?” I joked.

“We’re screwed either way. Your best friend in management isn’t going to be very happy with your decision to lie to us all,” Niall smirked.

“Not the monster!”

--

The redeye flight to Los Angeles took about 4 hours, give or take. I had slept through most of the trip, so I wasn’t entirely sure. Once we landed and were off of the plane, we collected our luggage from baggage claim. Before we had taken off I made sure to call my mom and let her know I was coming home. Like she had promised, she was standing by the entrance waiting for me.

“CALLISTA!” She grinned and ran towards me, engulfing me in a hug, “You aren’t allowed to leave me ever again. I missed you so much.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled away from the hug, “Mom, you’re embarrassing me.”

She looked over at Niall and her mouth formed a wide ‘O’, “Oh, okay. I see how this is. Hi, I’m Mrs. Blake, Callista’s mom. I hope she hasn’t caused you too much trouble with her antics. Her dad and I told her it was a bad idea from the beginning.”

By the time we got home from the airport, it was almost 6 in the morning. The sun was beginning to rise to begin the day. During the ride to my house, Niall passed out in the back seat of the car. Once we got to my house, it took almost ten minutes to wake him up and get him into the house.

“Niall, wake up. You can sleep when we get inside,” I huffed, trying to pull him out of the backseat.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me on top of him, “Can we please just sleep here?”

“No, Niall. We can’t just sleep in the back of my mom’s car. Get up,” I laughed.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to his chest. He snuggled his neck into the crook of my neck.

“We’ll wake up tomorrow and go to the meeting with The Monster. But for now, we’re sleeping in the car. Goodnight, Callista,” He whispered.

I sighed, giving in, “Night Niall.”