Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You

“Is it weird?” I asked as I watched him crouch down in front of my record collection as I propped my leg onto the coffee table. I took a break from icing my leg, because it had started to burn and I tried to hide how much it truly was hurting--even after Niall had kindly put the bandage on it. There was still bruising.

“Is what weird, love?” He said absently, tugging records out of their places, turning them over in his hands, and putting them back.

“Your life,” I chuckled. He turned his head over his shoulder and gave me a funny look. “You know what I mean,” I reasoned. “Everyone knowing your name, the sold out tours, the music videos, the girls--the everything.” I was truly curious. I could never wrap my head around being famous. Of course that was because of lack of experience, but even when I would watchTV alone in my apartment at three in the morning trying to imagine what it would be like for everyone to know who I was, I still couldn’t do it.

He sighed, but smiled. “Definitely the weirdest thing I’ve ever experience, I’ll tell ya that.” He ran his hand through his blonde hair while he looked down. “It’s not anything I’ll ever get used to.”

He stood up from his spot on the floor with a record in his hand. When he put it on, I smiled as I heard Bob Dylan’s voice. “I didn’t know you liked Bob Dylan!” I said excitedly as he came to sit in the recliner next to my small couch.

He slumped back comfortably and closed his eyes, resting his head back. “His music relaxes me.” He smiled lazily with his eyes still closed.

“I didn’t realize I was making you nervous,” I said quietly.

“Girls like you make me nervous. I can’t help it.” As he finished his sentence, he opened his eyes to look at me. And my smile was so big, I could feel the crinkles around my eyes.

“I feel like I’m in a constant dream, really,” Niall began talking about his career again after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “It just... I can’t really explain it. I feel ridiculously alive but oddly in a daze at the same time.”

I looked at him from my place on the couch. Niall looked peaceful under the soft light of the lamp and I felt my heart swell. I wanted to know what he meant fully. I wanted to feel what he was feeling. I wanted to get to know him in a way that would allow that. “I know I sound absolutely mental,” he chuckled, dragging me out of my lofty thoughts.

“It’s not,” I said quickly, offering a smile for good measure when he looked at me.

“Enough about that,” he waved it off. “Josie, Josie, Josie.”

He began to ask me question after question after question. He stuck with the basics mostly: favorite color, favorite food, middle name, favorite band, favorite movie, etc. We had a lot in common, a few differences sprinkled in between. We were laughing together and when the clock got around to midnight, he was sitting on the couch with me with a beer resting coolly in his hand that I had offered while I sipped on a wine cooler.

“Do you have to be going?” I asked when I noticed the time.

“Not unless you want me to get going.”

I shook my head and we continued with our conversation seamlessly. While the time continued to fly, our gestures became warmer. He would say something and quickly brush the back of his hand against my thigh. I pretended that I didn’t want to squeal like a twelve year old girl and tried my best to play it cool. But eventually, the music in the background and the wine coolers relaxed me and was able to simply enjoy his company fully.

“Question.” Niall stated and reached his hand on the back of the couch, leaning forward a little. “Love. Ever been in love?”

I felt sad all of a sudden. “No,” I blurted out and frowned at my lap. “I’ve loved, but not the kind of love to be in love.”

His lips stretched into an empathetic smile before taking a swig from the brown bottle. “Me either.” He smiled sadly and laid his head on his arm.

“That’s stupid.”

“What?” He choked on his laugh and flicked me a smile.

“That’s stupid. I don’t know why girls wouldn’t like you.” My words were a little slurred, but-- “I’m not drunk and I mean what I’m saying.” I said after he looked a little unconvinced by what I was saying. “You’re just oblivious to all the girls in love with you.”

“They sure ain’t in love with me.” He breathed and looked at the ceiling. “It’s pretty easy to think you love someone in a boy band. Even easier when you’ve never met them. It’s been going on for years.”

“You sound sad.”

He shrugged and drank what was left of his beer. “I’m gonna flip the record over,” he told me before getting up and walking toward the corner. I watched after him helplessly. I wasn’t sure why it would make him so sad. How could having everyone love you make you sad?

“I like your music taste, Josie.” I smiled at his compliment when I heard Led Zeppelin being played. “Spent my days with a woman unkind.” He began singing under his breath as he lingered around the room, looking at the pictures of my friends and family I had carefully displayed. His hands found their way stuffed into his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched slightly forward. “Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine...”

I wished he’d stop. Because I’d never witnessed someone trying to make another person fall in love with them. I had especially never witnessed someone trying to do it to me. But I knew that was what Niall Horan was doing as he stood in my small, cramped apartment living room singing Led Zeppelin. Whether he knew it or not, that’s what he was doing.

He finished his tour of the wall and came back to stand in front of me, taking a peek at my hurt leg as I watched his lips move effortlessly with the lyrics. “I better be off,” he murmured between lyrics. “Thanks for, uh,” he said as his cheeks turned a little pink. “Letting me break into your house, fix up your leg, and drink your beer.” I laughed at how he managed to say it all in one breath and rested my hand on his arm instinctively, since he was now leaning on the arm of the couch toward me.

“Here comes my favorite lyric.” His voice was barely audible--whether it had been because I was drowning in his eyes or because he whispered, I don’t know. “Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never been born. Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams...” He looked up at me beneath his eye lashes. My breathing became quick and quiet under his stare. “Telling myself it’s not as hard, hard, hard as it seems...”

As the song faded out, he straightened up. His cheeks were still a little pink and I found it ridiculously adorable. “I’ll call ya soon?” He half stated and half asked as I walked behind him toward the door.

“Hope so.” I managed to say beneath my smile.

He nodded and went to turn on his heel, but stopped midway. He looked at me cautiously and then his eyes lit up suddenly without warning. He pulled me into a hug. My breathing became regular again when I heard his soft heartbeat. As he pulled away from me, I thought I felt his lips brush against my temple. And as I watched him walk through the door, my head became dizzy and I felt happy.