Gotta Be You [Complete]

Chapter 40

Isla's POV

I took a deep breath and looked out the front window as I waited for Niall to start talking and asking questions. He'd most likely ask the same questions as Harry did.

"So, you excited to go home?" 

I whipped my head towards Niall and stared at him with surprise. This was totally not what I expected him to say.

He looked at me quickly when he realized that I hadn't replied yet before facing the road again.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I shook my head as a small smile crept on my face. "Nothing. I was just surprised."

"About what?"

I paused to think about how I could explain to him how nervous I was when he said he wanted to talk. I shrugged before turning my attention to him again.

"I don't know," I said. "I just thought that you wanted to talk about something else."

"Like what?"

I mentally face-palmed myself. Why did I have to say that? I should have just left it and answered his first question.

"I thought that you would, you know, wanna talk about...us."

Niall's face turned serious for a second but then it softened before he gave me a small smile.

"I mean, you said you were glad that Zayn was sleeping so that we could have the chance to talk," I explained.

He chuckled. "I meant that I'm glad he's sleeping so I can have this whole car ride to talk to you without him annoying us." He grinned at me and I couldn't help but smile back.

Relief washed through me at his words and I finally relaxed in my seat. "Oh," I said. "Okay. I was so worried. I mean, not that I didn't want to talk about us. I do but I didn't want to right now. I mean, I do but, you know, I just--"

"Isla, it's okay," Niall said, laughing. "Stop rambling."

I grinned at him, still feeling embarrassed.

"I mean, I do want to talk about...us," he said, "but I thought we'd save that for later. I want to enjoy our first time alone together first and not talk about serious stuff yet."

The smile on my face grew as I looked over at my best friend. I felt relieved that he didn't want to talk about certain things right now. I don't think I could handle it after my talk with Harry and the near-kiss I had with him at the gas station. I needed to clear my head first.

"Sounds good to me," I said. "And, yeah, I'm so excited to finally go home. I miss the girls so much. And my family." My smile disappeared as I remembered how I was forced to cut off interactions with my parents. I needed to see them soon.

"Hey, Niall?"

He looked over at me. "Yeah?"

"Is it okay if we visit my parents sometime soon? It's just...James forbid me from having any contact with them and I owe them an explanation."

He looked at me with a sympathetic look before placing one of his hands on my knee.

"Of course," he said. "I'm so sorry he did that. It must've been hard."

I just nodded.

"We'll see when we have time to pay them a visit. I'm sure they'll be happy to see you after all this time."

I haven't seen them that much since I moved out since they live 8 hours away and I would have to fly to see them. But even when I was living with them, I rarely saw them since they were working most of the time or they were at business meetings. And then when they were home, they would be too tired to go out or spend time with me. I wasn't upset with them about it, I know they worked hard to pay for our house, our food, for my school and for everything else. I just wished that they would've spent more time with me when I was younger, when they had more free time and when parent-child bonding time was essential. But it's all in the past and they're still my parents. I love them more than anything and I think that visiting them is the right thing to do.