You're Still Loved, I Swear *One Direction*

Chapter 11

Niall cautiously opened his eyes; he was surprised he slept even a little bit. It was hard resting in a foreign bed in a foreign room, and though he’d done it on tour all the time; it felt different because he wasn’t as happy to be in the hospital as he would be at a hotel.

And he was so stressed out; it took forever to fall asleep (though he couldn’t remember when he did). He just wanted to cut, the whole time. He felt like shit because he barely saw the boys and when he did they were crying or stressed over something the crazy Dr. Gilbert said.

He didn’t even want to die. When he was cutting and slashing his legs open, death was the last thing on his mind. He just wanted relief, but being in this hospital with all this pressure definitely didn’t bring relief.

The boys would cry and ask why he’d try to die, and Niall would cry too. Except he was crying because he never had the chance to say ‘I didn’t try to die.’ He was crying because he felt like they weren’t listening, and he was sure as hell tired of being unheard.

“Ni, you’re awake.” Liam softly smiled at him, fresh tears stinging his eyes.

Niall, emotionless, stared at him. “Yeah, and I’m gonna leave, right?”

“Yeah,” Zayn interrupted, “We were just signing you out, and we needed you to sign a few things.” He passed a small clipboard with a few medical release forms to Niall. The blonde quickly filled them out, because honestly he just wanted to go home and cut.

“Done.” He croaked, passing the papers back to his black-haired friend who smiled at him. After the nurse came in and unplugged Niall from his heart monitor and I.V. machine, he changed into some clothes that Harry had brought.

And then, he quickly left the hospital with the boys (minus Louis, he wanted to drive so he pulled their car around the back entrance of the hospital in case any fans were out).  After they all packed in the car, it was silent for a few minutes.

“If you want to shave,” Louis started, breaking the silence. “Come to one of us, we all have extra razors if you need them.”

Niall snorted, “I’ve been hospitalized once and you already took my razors away.”

“We just care ‘bout you, Ni. We don’t want you to…to…t-try again….” Harry trailed off, his voice going weak in the end.

The blue-eyed boy just groaned, “I wasn’t trying to die!!” He shouted, causing the other four in the car to flinch.

“Then what were you trying to do?”

Niall just groaned, “Just leave it.”

“No, Niall. What were you trying to do?” Liam pressed.

The Irish lad gulped and fiddled with the hem of his sleeve. It’d been so much easier telling that intimidating psychologist what he was doing, but for some reason it was harder telling the boys.

Harry stroked Niall’s knee, “We’re all adults here, Ni. We won’t judge.” He cooed, leaving the blonde boy to swallow his tears.

“Just leave it.” He repeated, knowing very well if he told them what he was doing then he might cry.

Harry groaned, “We just care about you.”

“If you cared about me then you’d realize that I never even fucking cut with a razor.” He snapped.

It was quiet for a few more moments, because nobody knew what to say. Except Zayn, “We realized that, we just didn’t know how far you’d go to hurt yourself.”