Somewhere In Between // Niall Horan

Chapter 14: Goodbye

❝ Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting. ❞

~~~

      The two-week mark of Niall’s time in Neverland was a special occasion.  Two weeks in the real world, a tiny infinity in Neverland.  Things were settling down, but not for long.

    Everything was a cycle, and the cycle was becoming more and more familiar as time drudged on.  They’d whisper about themselves, their demons, and how they’d fare back in the real world.  They wouldn’t get bored, of course.  No one got bored in Neverland no matter how mundane the activities seemed (it’s something only Neverlanders would understand, remember?).  There was no excitement since the paparazzi scare, no meltdown since That One Time, no spontaneity since the tree climb.  And still Niall and Whitney were perfectly content.  Peaceful, too.

    Everything was quieter.  Oh, Neverland was still chaotic and full of hysteria, but it was definitely quieter under a certain sprawling tree tucked away in the edge of the state of mind.  There was more thinking, more reflecting.  Glances were frequently exchanged, sighs were periodically released, and conversations were steadily dying down.  It was still, and it was rather nice.  It wasn’t like they didn’t want to talk to each other.  They just figured they’d had a good dose of talking already.  Niall mostly observed.  He wasn’t really one to simply observe – everyone knew he liked talking as much as he liked eating – yet he found himself doing a lot of it in Neverland.  And Whitney mostly thought.  She thought about her parents, Bree, and how to help Niall find his “in between” like she’d told him.

   Everything was suspenseful, like the entire world was waiting for something to happen soon.  Like it was waiting for the six figures on an Irish boy’s wrist to turn midnight black.  The combination got blacker with each passing second, but not black enough.  The countdown was slowing down, but it hadn’t stopped yet.  Something was going to happen soon, and the owners of the two matching combinations were bracing themselves.

   During his two-week anniversary in Neverland (though unknown to him), Niall’s train of thought was chugging wildly in his mind.  Thoughts of not seeing Whitney every waking moment didn’t quite appeal to him, and he wanted to make sure of something.  “Will we be able to see each other at all when we wake up?  In person?” Niall asked Whitney out of the blue, destroying the silence.

   “Why would we?” she asked back.  “You’re in...London, right?  I’m in California.  Unless one of us somehow teleported to the other place while we were in comas, then I highly doubt we’d see each other once we’re back.”

   “Oh.”  Her response put a damper on Niall’s demeanor.  For some reason, he was almost worried to wake up without Whitney.  She said it would be like waking up in Neverland, but she was with him from the moment he opened his eyes here.  Sure, the boys and his family will be there, but what would it be like without Whitney?  “C–can’t we still be friends in the real world?”  He stumbled over his words, attempting to make his request not seem as odd as it had sounded in his head.  

   Whitney hesitated.  A superstar boy bander about to embark on a world tour wanted to remain friends with someone he met in a coma.  Mhm, that wasn’t strange at all.  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Niall.”