Pretty Venom |N.H|

90

Niall Horan

December 24.

I definitely wasn't expecting to go to Jasey's aunt's house for dinner on Christmas Eve.

Granted, this is a holiday that is usually spent with family, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise to me that they had plans already made before I arrived, but my attendance there was something I never thought I would be checking off of a bucket list.

I was informed of this by Jasey just a few hours before we had to leave. This seems like a reasonable amount of time to prepare, but not in my case.

It only took me ten minutes to prepare myself physically, but mentally, that was a different story.

I want to be liked by these people, but when I arrived with Jasey and her siblings, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I was introduced as Jasey's boyfriend, which felt nice in the moment, but then it's questions from her family that don't feel like they will ever end.

Are you in school?

You're not? Why not?

Oh, you're in a band?

What kind of music do you make?

Isn't that a bit loud?

You go on tour?

Don't you get a lot of attention from women there?

And you're still dating Jasey anyway?

Then the questions that go to Jasey. I'm not sure if they're better or worse.

Does it upset you that he's away all the time?

You don't have a problem with all the attention he gets?

You're fine with people gushing over him? That doesn't worry you?

I wasn't even thinking about that. Does it worry her? Does it bother her? She's never said so, but I mean, if it did bother her, it's not something I can really control.

They all look at me funny, almost like I'm a zoo animal in front of them that they want to take pictures of to show to everyone they know. I really felt out of place then. I'm sure they didn't mean it, but still it felt like there was a wall between me and everyone else there.

The only person that didn't make me feel like an outsider was Jasey's younger cousin. I didn't even get the chance to ask her name, the way she kept talking to me with full, genuine interest. Maybe she came across that way because she's a child and they're always curious, or maybe she really did want to talk to me. Either way, I wasn't expecting a seven-year-old to make me feel the most comfortable at a family dinner.

After we finished eating, which she insisted that she had to sit next to me, almost causing a fight with her father while announcing that she was going to sit by my side instead of his, she pulled me into the kitchen to make cookies with her to give to Santa that night.

In there, I'm joking around with her and making comments about how the icing on her cookies look while she laughs and tries to interfere with my own.

Jasey would pop in here and there to check up on me, and also tell me how much better I've gotten with kids since my interaction with Maeve where I was forced to play mermaids against my will. However, she doesn't want to ignore her family for me either, but I can tell she's trying to balance everything well.

When we left, I was forced to promise Jasey's cousin that I would be back for her birthday. She also didn't tell me when that was, so now I'm holding onto a promise that I already feel guilty for not being able to maintain.