Loved You First

“So, where are you going?” Sean asked Mae curiously as he watched his girlfriend fix her hair and make up in the bathroom.

“I’m just going to go out to dinner with Niall,” she replied honestly as she applied some mascara. She still had no intention of telling Sean about her past relationship with Niall because she didn’t want there to be drama this summer. There was already enough with the scene that Niall caused yesterday between the two of them and she didn’t feel the need to involve Sean.

“Are you two like super close, then?” he wondered, his voice void of jealously and envy. Sean was never one of the guys to be jealous of the other males that Mae spent time with, and she loved that. She felt like she didn’t have to hide anything from him because he trusted her. The only thing that she ever hid from him was the relationship between her and Niall. And she thought that was for his own good and to avoid causing Sean to become the jealous boyfriend.

Mae nodded. “Yeah. We are.”

“I think I’m going to go over and hang out with Liam, then,” Sean commented with a small shrug. “He and I hit it off pretty well I think. He was nice. And he said that anytime I wanted to hang I could hang out with him.”

“Well, good,” Mae nodded, putting her a little more at ease. She didn’t want Sean’s mind to wander while Mae was out with Niall, and spending time with Liam would avoid just that. “I’m glad you’re getting along with them. It makes things easier.”

Sean nodded his head and continued to watch Mae get ready in front of the bathroom mirror. Neither he nor Mae noticed how dolled up she was getting until Mae actually looked at herself. Her hair was curled to perfection, she had just the right amount of make up on, and her outfit was one of the cutest she owned. She didn’t realize how much effort she put into looking nice for the dinner she was about to have with Niall, and she tried to ignore the thought that she was getting so prettied-up for someone that wasn’t her boyfriend. And that someone was a man that she may still have feelings for, even after a year of not seeing him.

+

“Thank you,” Mae said politely as Niall opened the door for her of the restaurant they chose to dine at for the evening. It was somewhere close by the beach houses and it was somewhere that Niall and Mae hadn’t been to last summer. It was odd for Mae to be in the car and alone with Niall, she felt like it was so last summer. But even if it was so last summer, she secretly loved the feeling.

Niall nodded his head with a small smile on his face, before walking in the door behind Mae. They went over to the hostess and she led them over to a table in the corner of the restaurant, as if she knew they wanted privacy and had to talk about a past relationship that both of them didn’t want to end. After they both took their seats at the table, a waiter in his mid-twenties came over and took their drink orders before sauntering off, leaving them to discuss everything that happened last summer and during the past year in private.

“So, Sean’s a nice guy,” Niall said casually as he looked up at Mae. He didn’t want to get right into discussing about the terrible ending to their relationship, and he didn’t want to piss Mae off right when dinner started. He wanted to talk to her on a friend level just to see how she would act towards him. He hadn’t spoken to her in a year, and he knew he had to ease into the discussion, unlike his stupid move he pulled yesterday. But that stupid move resulted in him having dinner with the girl that he knew he could love more than anyone. It was the girl he first said ‘I love you’ to and meant it. It was the first girl that he was his complete self around. And it was the girl that Niall would choose over anyone in the entire world.

“Yeah, he is,” Mae agreed as she gazed at Niall. It sent shivers down her spine when she made direct eye contact with him, and she missed that feeling. She missed the feeling of knowing that she didn’t have to act like someone she wasn’t when she was with Niall. She didn’t have to pretend she was someone else when she was with Sean, but Niall made it so much easier for her to be comfortable with herself, even after not seeing him for a year.

“He’s easy to get along with, and I’m glad you found someone to appreciate you who wasn’t so far away,” Niall commented, his eyes never breaking contact with Mae’s. He cracked a smile. “And you were worried about me finding someone better.”

“I never said he was better than you, Niall. Don’t make it seem like that,” Mae said quietly as she broke eye contact with Niall and looked down at the wooden table.

“So…it’s just for convenience?” Niall pressed, a hint of humor in his voice.

“No. I didn’t say that either,” she said, shaking her head. She looked back up at him. “Are you just going to interrogate me the whole night?”

Niall shook his head as their waiter came back with their drinks. He set them on the table before taking Mae and Niall’s food order, and when he finished he left them alone again. Niall sighed to himself as he tapped his fingers on the table, and he glanced up at Mae. She was looking at him with a slight frown on her face.

“What?” Niall shrugged.

“Why?” she asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Why what?” Niall wondered as he leaned on the table.

“Why did you just end it?” she questioned as she shrugged her shoulders. Niall watched as Mae’s eyes welled with tears, but he knew she wouldn’t let them fall. He was surprised that after finding another relationship to invest her feelings into that this conversation would be so hard for her. Knowing that the break up got to her showed him that she still felt something for him, and even though he didn’t like seeing her upset, it made him happy.

“Because…I worried about you a lot,” he answered truthfully. “Whenever I would go out with the guys, I always had to worry if you would approve of what I was doing. I was never doing anything bad, but it still crossed my mind. And I worried constantly that you would find someone better than me at school,” he sighed to himself. “I just got tired of worrying, I guess. And I thought maybe if I ended things it would be easier.”

“I worried about you, too,” Mae said as she stared intently at her glass of water. She swirled her straw around the cup to avoid eye contact with Niall, because she knew that if she looked into his eyes she wouldn’t be able to say what she wanted to. “But I thought that caring so much for you and always worrying if you were okay was telling me that you…were the one. That I cared so much about you to the point that it hurt. I was in love with you, Niall. And you totally just screwed me over. How do I know you won’t do that again?”

“You don’t have to worry,” Niall said as he continued to watch Mae play her drink. But he knew she was listening to every word he said. “Because I learned my lesson and I made the biggest mistake three weeks after summer ended.”

And those words that came out of Niall’s mouth were the words that caused Mae’s inside to turn in the best way possible. Hearing Niall say that he made a mistake when he broke up with her was what she was waiting to hear for a year. But there was one problem: with Sean in the picture, she thought that it could be too late.