An Empty Everything

Zayn was the first one to say anything to me. That should’ve been an alarm to me: Zayn usually kept his mouth shut; he had his opinions, but what was most important to him was that we were happy. He supported our happiness, which was a quality of his that made me love him even more. When he looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed together, looking down and rolling his lips together to try and find the right words, I just waited eagerly to hear what he’d say. His frown deepened when he looked up at me, a sort of brooding male model pout on his face.

“That girl we met yesterday, she’s the one you’re so mental over?” He asked me quietly, being thoughtful in his words as he always was. I felt myself turn a little pink, smiling widely at the mere passing mention of Kinsey, excited that he even brought her up. Zayn didn’t say anything for another minute, thinking again of the right words to say. “She’s…I don’t know, Niall. There’s something about her.”

I should’ve stopped there, should’ve really heard what Zayn was saying. He was my best mate. But in my head all I could think of was the way Kinsey crinkled her nose and threw her head back when she laughed, or how she mumbled in her sleep and sometimes her fingers twitched, or that she only liked one sugar in her tea despite the fact that she could easily eat three cupcakes at once. And the second thought I had was that they hadn’t gotten to properly meet yet, and surely they’d understand when they got to know her. I’d never known anyone like her. They could see by the way I looked at her, apparently, that I was completely enamored. They had to understand. They had fallen in love before, too, and I didn’t think they were being fair to me. I wasn’t even sure they knew what it was like. Did they know what it was like to be happy just sitting on a couch with her at some unknown hour of the early morning, surrounded by bags of chocolate candies and other junk food, laughing at whatever we’d found on the telly? Did they understand the way my heart felt full when I woke up early in the morning and she was still there, sleeping in one of my shirts beside me, a half-drank cup of tea on the nightstand beside her? Did any of them get a smile on their faces that they couldn’t help the way I did when I’d find little bits of her around my apartment—the smell of her perfume on the sheets, her jeans on the floor, a box of her favorite cereal in the pantry? I knew they’d been in love. But I was selfish about Kinsey, and I was sure that they just didn’t understand. In retrospect, it seems like they understood perfectly.

“She’ll warm up to you, you’ll like her. I’m sure of it. She’s just different.” I insisted, unable to control my smiling. Zayn’s face was blank and he was clearly unsatisfied with my answer. I was so frustrated. I just wanted them to love her too, not in the same way, but I was certain that if they didn’t love her they didn’t know what she was like. How could anyone not love her? I was so blind I didn’t even know it.

“I don’t know, mate. Be careful about her.” He cautioned.

Careful was one thing I could not be. It was beyond the point of taking caution. I had already fallen completely too hard and deep to consider being careful now. I wanted to be reckless; I wanted to stay up for entire days just to see how she spent her time, I wanted to keep her by my side all the time, I wanted to show her there was so much more to her life than she was allowing herself to have. I couldn’t be happy and be careful at the same time. I wanted to be reckless, and so that’s exactly what I did.

I started with her family. Ever since Kinsey had reluctantly given me that little peek at her life, I’d snatched it up and wouldn’t let it go. And one day, early in the morning when it was still dark out and neither of us was sleeping, she just said: “Let’s go.”

She got out of bed and pulled a Man U sweatshirt over her head (much to my distaste, because of course I’d have no luck getting a born and bred Manchester girl to see the fault in her ways), looking like a mop for a minute while her rust-colored hair swept over her face. She pushed it away and looked at me expectantly. I sat up. “Go where?” I said, stumbling after her and pulling her hips towards me while I sat on the bed.

“Home,” She said simply, dropping into my lap and swinging her legs. The only stupid thought in my head was, she smells so good, because she smelled clean and sweet, like she was fresh out of the shower and her clothes had just come out of the wash. It was a small miracle of the universe that girls can always smell good, and I was thankful for it every day. Even when Kinsey wasn’t around, I could smell her on my clothes and immediately be swept with comfort.

She stood up and pulled a pair of pants on, stepping into shoes and looking at me like I was incredibly inconvenient and she had no idea what on Earth she was going to do with me. “It’s a bit of a drive, sweetheart, so we’d better leave early.” That made sense, suddenly. I frowned while I rummaged through my clothes.

“You want to go home? Like…home, home?” I asked her cautiously. She stood on her tip toes behind me to rest her chin on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around me and humming in my ear. I was reminded of the fact that I hadn’t told her I loved her still.

“Manchester,” She murmured, the vibration of her voice tickling my skin. I rubbed my eyes to try and wake up. “I want you to meet my family. Well,” She stopped and thought. “Rather, I want them to meet you.”

She had to have known I would’ve given her anything she wanted. I frowned, worried because wasn’t meeting a girl’s family a big deal and wasn’t her family a complete mess and didn’t she hate going home? But Kinsey was confusing. She was impossible to figure out. The minute you thought you had her, she proved she’d been tricking you all along. So when she told me she wanted to go home and she looked at me with her big jewel eyes and tilted her head, what other choice did I have other than to get my keys and get in the car? She curled up in the passenger seat and smiled at me, holding my face with both hands to give me a big sloppy kiss on the cheek. I thought it was a little funny that Zayn had been warning me to be careful with her, and here I was at whatever-o’clock in the morning going to make a trip on a whim to meet her family.

Driving from London to Manchester was a bit of a road trip, but Kinsey was always a good passenger. She didn’t boss around my driving, she turned music up loud when she wanted to sing or turned it down low when she wanted to talk. I could sacrifice my own need to talk just to listen to her. She leaned her head against the window and curled up in her seat complacently.

“It’s funny that I wanted to go back, isn’t it?” She wasn’t looking for a response, so I made none to allow her to keep talking. She sighed. “I reckon it’s mostly to prove that I’m alright on my own.” I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. She was pretty much just talking to herself, but that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it just the same.

When Kinsey talked just to babble on and clear her head, it was just as enjoyable as having a conversation with her. Oftentimes that was how I learned more about her in a backhanded sort of way—like how her first kiss was when she was in detention and she was 13 (“Michael Stroblick,” She’d said, making a face. “He had a lot of freckles and he was always a troublemaker, so of course I fancied him, but you’re much cuter than he is. And a better kisser.” And she pinched my cheek.); that her favorite color was turquoise because it reminded her of her dad for some reason; or the one place she wanted to travel more than anything was Greece because she loved Greek mythology. She told me she thought I wore funny shoes a lot of the time but that I could get away with it. She said she never thought she’d be as happy as she was when she was with me. And she told me that she’d only met me because she’d been snogging an intern who let her into that party (“A terrible decision at the time, but I’m glad I did it now,” she’d said with a wink. “You’re a much better kisser than him, too.”). For some reason, Kinsey talking was like Louis talking and I could hardly go a minute without laughing. It just never seemed like either of them were serious, and the way they spoke cracked me up. I wasn’t jealous that she’d gotten to that party by snogging an intern. It was hilarious, actually.

“You snogged an intern!” I was choking on my own laughter. Kinsey grinned. “You’re—you’re a fucking slag, you are!” I was laughing, though, so of course she knew I was joking. She feigned offense anyway, putting her hand over her heart and pouting while I continued to cackle in the driver’s seat.

“I’m not,” She whined. “I just had to meet One Direction, Niall, you don’t understand!” She grinned mischievously and only fueled my laughter.

She said when she lived on her own she wanted a big house that had a porch with a swing, and a roof she could lie on to look at the stars. She had been smart enough to go to university on scholarship, but her family made a huge issue out of it and forbade her to go. And then, funny enough, she left to move to London a few weeks after turning down her scholarships. That had been the last straw to her, she’d said, and she was done. Now, she was coming back to prove that she was stronger than what they’d made her. I guess I was kind of a trophy that way, but I didn’t mind.

We’d been on the road for hours before Kinsey finally gave me the last directions to her house. It was a skinny townhouse that was falling apart where it stood, standing on a crowded and dirty street where there was a homeless man sleeping in an alley and another house’s front door blocked off with police tape. And here I was, parking my Range Rover. Kinsey looked at the house with a blank face, still curled in a ball in her seat. Without a word or even a telling look on her face, she abruptly opened the door and hopped out onto the street, waiting to hold my arm to walk up the steps to the door.

Before we were even at the door I could hear how loud it was inside—someone was having an argument quite loudly and slamming things around, there seemed to be a television on, and underneath all that you could still hear the voices of her family and someone playing the radio. Kinsey squeezed my arm and pulled a spare key out of the mailbox to let herself in. Anyone could’ve walked in the front door to rob them blind and they wouldn’t have heard it coming.

“—fucking serious, Mum! Did you think about it at all? Honestly, it’s like—” I could only assume it was Langley, Kinsey’s older brother, because he looked only a little older than she was and had the same rust colored hair. He was yelling, clutching the edge of the counter with a tight grip, and their mother was standing on the other side with a sad frown and her arms folded.

“Hi!” Kinsey announced, practically shouting but smiling delicately, like she was the guest of honor at a tea party. Langley swiveled his head so quickly it looked like it was about to fall off. The argument had stopped, and now the only noise was the television blaring and the sound of feet pounding down the steps.

“Kinsey?” Langley stared at her and moved away from the counter slowly, not even noticing me despite the fact that Kinsey clutched my arm like it was saving her life. “What…what are you doing here?”

Before Kinsey could answer, there were two more siblings flouncing into the room. Her little sister was a tiny little thing, with the same messy reddish hair and a wide smile that was hidden when she buried her face to hug Kinsey around the waist. I knew that had to be Sicily, and the muscular blonde boy was Oliver. Sicily was squealing nonsense and still clutching Kinsey, Oliver was beaming and waiting for the chance to hug her, and Langley was still waiting for an answer. Mrs. VonOuthend, it seemed, was unaffected. She looked at Kinsey with only a small hint of surprise in her raised eyebrows. I noticed an open and half-gone bottle of wine next to her on the counter.

“Thought I’d pop in for a visit,” Kinsey smiled, hugging Oliver but keeping one hand resting on Sicily, who was still clutching her.

Langley stared at her. “You live in London, Kin. You don’t really ‘pop in’ for a visit when you live that far away, especially after your big dramatic move-out.”

“Whatever!” Kinsey said loudly, trying to talk over her brother. Oliver snorted at her and rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Langley, I’m here now. And I wanted you all to meet someone who is very important to me.” Her smile widened and she patted my arm.

Now their gazes turned on me, as if suddenly realizing there was another person in the house who wasn’t a family member. Sicily peeked her head up from Kinsey’s waist to stare at me with giant saucer eyes. I smiled at her. “Hey there, beautiful,” She turned about 500 shades of red and buried her face in Kinsey again. “You’re Sicily, aren’t you?”

Kinsey pried her sister off and pushed her towards me, although she still shrunk back and wouldn’t look at me. She did nod, though, in response to my question. “Sicily, you know who he is, don’t you?” Kinsey smirked and Sicily turned red again.

Mrs. VonOuthend had lost interest in her daughter’s return and picked up her bottle of wine as she left the room. Kinsey scowled after her, folding her arms. Langley looked at Kinsey with a facial expression of well, what did you expect? and sat in a chair at the kitchen table. “This is Niall, Mum,” Kinsey shouted after her. “If you give a shit.”

“Language, Kinsey Claire!” Was her mother’s response. I felt remarkably uncomfortable.

Kinsey’s bedroom was probably smaller than my bathroom. When we lay in her bed we were tangled up in each other trying to fit, staring at the ceiling, ready to go back to sleep because we had nothing else to do. “You know, Niall,” She said in the tiniest voice I’d ever heard. “I really do love you.”

My entire world stopped. I sat up and stared at her, but, as usual, she wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t believe after all my mumbling and puppy eyes that she just flat-out said it. But then there was the fact of it: she loved me, she loved me. Kinsey said it. Kinsey said she loved me. For her to feel that was massive. But for her to admit that, out loud, to me, was ten times as massive. She loved me. I was sitting in her little bed wrapped up around her, exhausted, far from home, feeling unwelcome and unwanted by her poor excuse for a family. And she loved me.

Finally she blinked her glinting hazel eyes and raised them to look at me. I can’t imagine how my face looked, but I probably looked like a complete idiot. “I…I love you too, Kinsey,” I breathed. Her lips twitched into a small, satisfied smile. She closed her eyes then, completely at ease, so much more calm and tranquil with me than I could ever dream of being around her. And she loved me. It was just confirmation that she wasn’t a lost cause. I didn’t feel quite so ridiculous for being so in love with her.

She loved me. She loved me.