Summer '09 [Niall Horan fanfiction]

Chapter Eight

And here’s Chapter Eight, I decided just to upload it all at once. Please fan/vote/comment!!

Gracias! <3 vb123321

Chapter Eight

The next morning came all too quickly. We all returned to our cabins to get dressed for that day, no one talking to each other. Everyone was so groggy from about three hours of sleep (or less like Niall and I) that breakfast was rather subdued. Niall sat next to me, but neither of us seemed to be able to find anything to talk about. Afterwards, the exhausted-looking counselors told us to go clean up our cabins before meeting in the barn for the parents’ show.

As our cabin was a filthy mess, thanks to my cousin, it took some time to clean up though we had started the night before. I packed relatively quickly, stuffing my duffel bag full of dirty clothes and stashing it next to my bunk. Then I helped sweep and tidy up the rest of the cabin, chatting with people as cheerfully as I could. Someone started a sing along, and though my heart wasn’t in it, I sang anyway to cherish those last few moments of ranch camp.

As soon as I had finished, I scampered down to King Ranch, stopping in their doorway. Someone had started a pillow fight, and so the counselors were in the middle of the cabin shouting for the boys to control themselves. Niall was reclined on his bed, just laughing at the chaos, and José was hitting him with a pillow. My guess was he had initiated the pillow fight, until Cole dragged him away to clean up the black hole that was the counselors’ room.

“Hello,” Niall greeted me, sitting up and beginning to throw clothes into his duffle bag. “All packed already?”

“Girls are more organized than guys,” I explained, leaning against his bedpost and ducking away from a flying pillow.

“Huh.” He snorted but smiled at me. “I’ll hurry up and finish here – then maybe we can visit the horses one last time?”

I agreed readily, helping him by hunting down some of his possessions that were scattered throughout the room. The other guys were laughing and talking rowdily while shoving their suitcase lids down on mounds of dirty clothes and who-knew-what, and I dodged them as I handed Niall his last t-shirt. He squashed it into his bag, zipped it up, and chucked it on his now-stripped bed.

“All right, let’s go.” He stepped around piles of the guys’ belongings, grabbing my hand as we moved towards the door. Shouting something in the counselors’ direction about meeting them at the barn, to which they replied incoherently, he pulled me out of the cabin and led me towards the barn. There, we leaned against the fence of the corral, watching the horses stand around while they waited for the campers to come.

“I’ll miss you,” he said suddenly, his beautiful eyes still fixed on the horses, and though he had said it several times before, this one pierced straight to my heart, forcing me to blink back a sudden rush of tears.

“I will, too.” I barely managed to get it out, avoiding his eyes because I knew that if I looked at him, I would probably start crying.

“You’ll miss yourself?”

Now he had made me smile. “I’ll miss you,” I whispered, and then he was looking at me and me at him, our eyes creating a bridge between us. I was afraid to break it, to look away, to kiss him, even, because that would mean closing my eyes and destroying our connection. He seemed to feel the same, merely tucking a strand of hair behind my ear; and then finally I did break the bridge, leaning my head against his shoulder as he put his arm around me.

The other campers arrived at the barn about ten minutes later, and we separated, joining our cabins as we began to prepare our horses. I could already hear the parents gathered in the arena, the sound of their talking coming to us in the barn. Mine had already picked up my sisters and were waiting to watch me. Niall joined the boys and I the girls as we began to process out.

The show was fun enough, and I was sad that it would be the last time I would ride Rip until next year, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Niall and his eyes and his unruly hair and the feeling of his lips on mine…I almost forgot to halt my horse in time. The rest of the show went by in such a blur that I could barely remember what happened in it several days later.

Then there was the normal rush back to the cabins, exchanging hugs and phone numbers and tears as we said good-bye to everyone. Niall met me at the door of my cabin, just as I was stepped out to meet my parents, who were waiting for me a little ways away in the clearing. He was smiling but his eyes were serious as he pulled a phone out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“Didn’t think I was just going to let you go, did you?”

I looked at the phone. “Ireland’s awfully far away,” I said hesitantly. “The distance rates will be terrible.”

Niall frowned, flicking his hair out of his face. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“We can Snap Chat or something,” I reassured him quickly, smiling. “And you can still have my number. Maybe I can talk to my carrier to see if we can work something out. Here.” I punched in my number, and then allowed him to type his own into my phone. After he handed it back, I saw with a grin that he had added a heart after his name.

“I’ll see you next year, then, I hope,” I said to him, and he shrugged, the smile replaced by an upset look. “Don’t worry. We’ll meet again someday.”

“That sounds like a line from a movie.” He laughed, then touched my face. “I’ll miss you,” he said again, and then, even though my entire family was watching, he leaned over and kissed me one last time on the lips.

And then he was gone.

I was in a dazed as I walked over to my family. My little sisters were tugging on my mom and dad’s shirts, demanding to know what they were laughing about. My dad was looking at me with raised eyebrows, my mom with a half-disapproving, half-amused look. I barely saw them, still concentrating on the pressure of his lips. Dutifully embracing my parents and siblings, I ignored all their questions, merely answering that the two weeks had been great.

“More than great, by the looks of it,” said my dad, taking my bag and smirking, and we began to walk towards the road that would lead us out of the camp to the car.

“David, hush,” intervened my mom, smiling. “This reminds me of when I went to summer camp here, and my sister and this boy dated…”

As the story unfolded and we walked down the path, the familiarity of family crushing in on all sides, I took one last glance back at the camp, seeing the tops of the cabins and the wind vane on the barn and the pasture. I heard the last few neighs of the horses, the departing shouts of the counselors, and the voice of a blonde-haired boy saying that he would miss me.

And then I turned and faced forward, leaving camp behind.