Gotta Be You [Complete]

Chapter 32

Niall’s POV

My heart thumped against my chest as we passed by a road sign that said, “Welcome to Presteigne”. We were finally here.

It was a cozy little town, filled with little houses and shops. There were no tall buildings anywhere around and we passed by a couple of farms before we got to Presteigne.

We were 5 minutes away from Joe’s Café, the coffee shop that Isla was seen working. Soon, Harry was taking shorter turns as we maneuvered around the small town. 

I was fidgeting my feet again and my heart was beating even faster. I was getting incredibly nervous. 

I suddenly felt a hand being placed around my shoulder. I turned my face and set my eyes on Liam.

“It’ll be okay, Nialler,” he said, “we’ll all be here with you. And you have nothing to worry about, Isla will come home.” 

I suddenly grew sad again as I recalled my conversation with Harry at the gas station. Another thought had been bothering me since then. 

“But…if she wanted to come home, why didn’t she?” I said. I paused. “Maybe…maybe she’s happier here…”

I saw Liam, Louis and Zayn give me sympathetic looks.

“If she was happy then we would’ve heard from her,” Zayn said, “if she was happy, then that means that she’s moved on and she would’ve talked to us. But since she hasn’t, it means that she’s still affected from what happened and that means that she’s not happy. I think she’ll only be happy if she’s back home. Her real home. And we’ll all tell her how much we love her, how much we miss her and how sorry we are for what happened. Once she knows that we still care about her, she’ll definitely want to come home. She probably thinks that we don’t care about her anymore or that we’ve forgotten about her since we haven’t been able to find her. That may be why she hasn’t talked to any of us or why she hasn’t come home yet. She just needs to know that she still has people who care about her, who love her.”

We all gawked at Zayn with our mouths hung open.

Where the hell did that come from?

“Are you sure you’re not a girl?” Louis asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

Zayn laughed and shook his head. “I’ve just had a lot of time to think. And I just have a harder working brain that all of you…” he looked between all of us, “…combined.”

“Hm, and here we thought you were just sleeping the whole time,” Liam said, “it would’ve never crossed our minds that you would be…thinking.”

“Shut up,” Zayn said with a smile.

“We’re here,” Harry said.

My heart skipped a beat and I stopped breathing. I turned my attention to the outside of the car. We were parked on the side of the road in front of a shop that said, “Joe’s Café”. 

We were here.

It took every ounce of my self-control not to just burst through those doors and scream for Isla but I had to calm myself down. 

I took a deep breath. “Shall we go?” 

“I guess this is it,” Harry said. He was the first to open the door and we all followed suit and got out of the car. We gathered on the sidewalk and glanced up at the sign.

Then Liam gave me a pat on the back, ushering me forward towards the door.

My feet felt like jelly. It felt like someone had taken control of my body and was forcing me to move. My heart was pounding in my chest, feeling like it was going to burst out any second.