Just Consider It

That night, I lay in bed thinking, listening to the sound of Niall breathing in and out next to me. I was exhausted too, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for a while. The past few hours seemed like such a blur. One minute, I was without Niall and the next I had him again.

“We’ll make it work,” he promised right before we went to sleep. “I promise we will.”

“You think?” I asked.

“Yeah. If you think I went through all of this for nothing, H ‒”

“Hey!” I started to interrupt, but then he pounced on me, pinning me to the bed and tickling me, making me shriek with laughter, and I thought, yeah, this could definitely work.

Right as I felt myself beginning to drift off, I realized I’d forgotten something. I grabbed my phone and turned it on, turning the brightness down so I wouldn’t wake up Niall. I opened a new text to Maggie and typed only five words:

I went and got him

Her response, despite it being three o’clock in the morning, came almost instantly.

I knew you would

* * *

The next month or so was difficult; not only were finals upon us, but Niall and I also spent a lot of time working out our issues. After the first awful talk we had together, the one where we both ended up in tears and I threatened to leave again (although it ended in makeup sex, so it was okay), things began to get a little easier.

We spent an entire Saturday together, holed up in his dorm where no one could bother us, studying and getting food delivered and just talking, really talking for the first time in months. “You could come see me over the summer,” Niall said tentatively. “For a few weeks or so. If you want.”

I was going back home for a little while, to see my parents and work on my relationship with them, too. But with their blessing, I now had permission to spend a few weeks in August in Ireland with Niall, and then when school started again, we’d go back together.

“I’d like that very much,” I agreed with a smile.

“Good.” He went back to studying, and I watched him for a moment, It was the beginning of May now, and the sun was bright, shining through the window and illuminating him right in front of me. And in that split second, I made my decision.

“Niall.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m ready to talk.”

He and I had agreed that when I was ready to share the more personal details of my life with him, I’d let him know. Until then, he said, he was happy to wait. Incidentally, Niall was the opposite, a literal open book.

He looked up. “You are?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He shut his book and faced me. Now that I had his full attention, I was a little nervous. But I began anyway.

My parents, while I knew they loved me, had funny ways of showing it. Or rather, hardly ever showing it. Avery and I were never good enough: an A- could become an A, and an A could become an A+. Even an A+ only received minimal praise. It affected Avery and I differently: she accepted the fact that we’d never be enough and found validation in other ways, such as sleeping around and partying with friends. I, however, continued to strive. I believed that if I tried hard enough, stayed up that one extra hour studying, put that one extra detail into my essays, they’d be proud. But if they were, they never said anything.

Growing up without love made it even harder for me to feel it, much less reciprocate it. I’d let boys in only to be tossed to the side, cheated on, hurt, whatever. And eventually I began to realize that love, real love, just wasn’t for me. I closed myself off, began to have flings just for the thrill of it without ever gaining any satisfaction.

When I came over to England, I was ready for a fresh start. And deep down, there was always a part of me that was too willing to open my heart, as shown when I met Tyler. And by now, it was a struggle to allow myself to feel things for other people, especially when they were raw and painful and breathtaking like the love I felt for Niall.

“So, yeah,” I finished. “And that’s where you came in. You’re my Achilles heel, you bastard,” I said, trying to make a joke, but his face remained tight and tense.

“And then I left too,” Niall said finally. “God, I can’t believe myself.”

“What? What are you talking about?” I said, confused.

“I told you I’d never do anything to hurt you, and then I pulled a Tyler and did just that, God, Hero, I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I protested. “It was mine too. If I just talked to you, everything would’ve been fine.”

“I made you believe that I didn’t love you,” Niall said quietly. “I tried to force you into something you weren’t ready for.”

“It wasn’t you,” I said forcefully. “It was me, too. Okay? Stop blaming yourself. I mean it.” To prove my point, I scooted closer and took his hand. “We’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”

He nodded, but his jaw was still clenched, so I leaned over and pressed little kisses to it. That was my favorite part of this; being able to touch him whenever I wanted to. Having someone who wanted me just as much.

Niall giggled and shut his book. “Okay, I’m bored of studying now. Let’s watch a movie.”

So we snuggled on his bed and picked out a movie, but by the end of it he was dozing off on my shoulder, so I turned the TV off and carefully tucked us under the covers. I watched him sleep for a little bit before I asked, “Hey, Ni?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you know from the beginning that we were supposed to be together?”

He didn’t answer for a second, but then he said, “Yeah, of course.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, H,” he mumbled. “Even when you hated me I knew. I knew that in every single life, we’d happen. That’s why I waited.”

“You waited,” I repeated.

“Uh-huh. We’re Hero and Niall, Niall and Hero. No matter what we do, we’ll end up together. Me and you.”

I smiled at that, tucking my head into the crook of his neck. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Me and you.”