Night Changes (N.S MPREG)

30. (!)

Niall's POV

The bathroom was silent, aside from my soft cries and Harry's reassuring murmurs every so often. I didn't really want to say anything, not really knowing what exactly I would say to him. I knew that I was just being overly sensitive. 

Someone would occasionally come in to use the bathroom, though they wouldn't say anything to us. They would simply send the two of us a confused look and continue with what they were doing. If anyone was aiming to give us a hard time, they were discouraged by the harsh glare Harry would give anyone that looked at us for too long. 

I felt guilty about causing Harry to worry about me. I understood that people were saying rather harsh things to me but I couldn't help but feel like I was overreacting about it. To me, there was no reason for me to cry in the way I did.

I knew it was inevitable that people were going to say things like that, so I shouldn't have reacted like this. I should have ignored them, just like everyone was telling me.

"You alright now?" Harry asked, pulling away to look into my eyes. From staring into the bright green, I couldn't see anything that would suggest he cared about coming over to comfort me but I still felt bad.

"Yeah. I'm fine now," I responded softly, the corners of my mouth pulling up to flash him a small, but grateful smile.

He seemed to believe me, because he smiled in return and pulled away from me. He pressed his lips to mine briefly and stuck out his hand, silently gesturing for me to take it. I did as he wanted and slipped my considerably smaller hand into his. 

He helped me climb off the bench, knowing that it would be difficult for me to do that on my own with the baby bump. His hand slid down and wrapped around my waist, holding me close.

"I'll take you to your friends," he offered. I was grateful that he bothered to offer me. I knew there was no way I'd get the confidence to ask him that myself.

One part of me wanted to say no, show Harry that I didn't need his protection and prove to him that I wasn't a child that needed to be looked after. Though the more reasonable part of me convinced myself that saying no would be dumb.

It hadn't even been a day since people insulted me. I knew that I couldn't handle any more hurtful words for at least the rest of the day. Ideally, for the rest of my pregnancy but I knew there was little to no chance of that happening. People were judgemental, that was something that everyone had in common. Whether we wanted to judge others or not, we all did it. i just had to be the lucky one that was now on the receiving end of it. 

"Okay," I replied.

We both walked out of the bathroom. The staring began to happen as soon as people noticed our presence. I could tell people wanted to say something to me but they were obviously scared of Harry or something because they said nothing and avoided looking at the boy next to me.

Harry left me as soon as we arrived at the cafeteria. He promised to meet me by my locker after school and pressed a feather-light kiss to my forehead.

I blushed and made my way over to grab my lunch, before walking over to sit with the others, who thankfully didn't notice mine and Harry's brief interaction. I noticed that Louis wasn't there, which was strange.

I sat down next to Eleanor, causing her and Zayn turn to look at me. I could tell that Zayn told her what had happened, as she looked as though she knew what was going on.

"Are you okay, Niall?" Eleanor asked, gazing at me sympathetically through her long eyelashes.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just overwhelmed. I should have expected it, to be completely honest. High school students are predictable, it was obvious they were going to say that to me," I replied.