Downfall [Punk Niall Horan]

30

I sat lying awake in the quiet room, staring blankly at the cream colored walls in front of me, somehow taking comfort in them.

Niall had long since fell asleep peacefully on the bed while holding me to his chest, not even bothering with keeping himself away from me anymore. With great effort, I managed to break free of his grasp without alerting him that I was awake.

Now, as I had been for the past hour, I was sitting on the window bed to the bay window. I ran my hands absentmindedly over the soft, green covers with cream flowers on them. There was no possible way my mind would let me sleep after what I concluded and confirmed to myself today.

I was in love with Niall.

I was in love with the angry, brooding man who could sometimes let his guard slip just around me when I forced it out of him. The man who would do anything to keep his friends safe, or his family depending on how you looked at it. Niall, the one who kidnapped me with his snarky attitude while pulling me from civilization, had also managed to steal my wounded little heart.

Niall was the one who hated my family, and well everyone for that matter, and lost his own. In what world would that even happen? What world could I ever possibly harbor feelings for the man that was basically a bipolar sociopath? Maybe that description was a bit harsh, but he did kill without even batting an eye as far as I was concerned. And his mood was always changing constantly. One minute he could be loving and playful, and the next minute he could be, well, Satan.

But how he managed to lock my heart in his own calloused hands was a complete mystery to me. I barely knew him, but I felt like I had known him for centuries even though I lived for almost nineteen years.

Niall was always around with my father, being on his Secret Service team, but I had hardly ever payed the young boy any attention. Niall made me feel special, protected, different. That was a lot more than I could say for anyone else in my life.

He had made me feel most alive in the short three months than when I had basically been locked away in a dungeon for 18 years. My secret had only been spoken to one person, and it was him for some reason that I didn't know until now. Also, he was the only other person who knew about my disease besides my Grandfather as far as I knew.

Maybe it was because he knew so much about me just by looking into my eyes and in his own special way cared about what was wrong and what was happening. And the fact that he made me feel like I was constantly on a roller coaster with adrenaline pumping through my veins and setting my every nerve in fire.

Or maybe it was just the fact that me dying would have killed him psychologically and psychically. Niall telling me that he couldn't live without me finally made everything click into perfect place, and suddenly my muddled feelings didn't feel so muddled anymore.

But I hated myself for it.

Hated myself for loving someone like him, who was never shown genuine love and who had never shown it himself. He had been rude to me when I did not need it nor deserve it, even if it was only for my own good. Niall didn't understand how much I was hurting on the inside, or maybe he did, but he just didn't care.

That was also another reason why I hated myself for loving him. Pain would come with this instinct to love him, I knew it was inevitable. It was an old rope, just waiting for one tiny thing to snap it in half. One word or single action to break it completely in half. I didn't want to be hit with the onslaught of emotions or instincts, but it wasn't like I could very much stop them either.

This was a weird feeling to me, something I never had felt before. It wasn't like familial love like I held for my brother, but more like an all consuming flame that you didn't quite want to escape. You wanted to be burned by that flame, and it burned you in the best way possible. It was a life jacket that kept you afloat in the deep, ever changing seas.