Motel 6 // n.h

[18] The Truth

Avery Holmes

"I'm actually scared about what you're goin' to tell me." Niall admitted as he finally joined me on the balcony with a blanket in his hand. The air was cold, but it wasn't unbearable. He wrapped a part of the blanket around me and covered himself up with the other.

I smiled at him, reassurance washing over me. This was it, I was finally going to get the weight off of my shoulders.

After I showed Niall the scar on my belly, he insisted that we continued this back at the hotel. And I agreed, I wouldn't have wanted the waitress to overhear anything. The whole car ride, Niall sang along with the radio, and I tried to focus in on that, but it was really, really hard.

I exhaled loudly, closing my eyes, close to having a panic attack. I was so terribly horrified that Niall wouldn't react how I wanted him to, and that he wouldn't want me.

"Before you tell me, can I please kiss you?" Niall asked. I smiled at him and leaned into him again, kissing him quickly and briefly. He lingered for a while after I pulled away, probably hoping for not such a crappy kiss, but I didn't want to remember an amazing kiss if he was just going to turn his back on me.

He won't.

"Alright," I sighed. "I want you to know that I haven't told anybody about this. The only ones who know are me, Aimee, and Jake." He nodded, eyebrows furrowed.

"Were you in an accident?" He asked. I shook my head quickly.

"No, this was no accident." I said. "Someone did this to me on purpose." I had promised myself that I wasn't going to cry, but my face felt so hot and I could feel my eyes starting to water, as much as my mind protested it. Niall remained silent.

"I, uh, started dating Jake when I was a freshman in high school. He was an amazing, loving boyfriend, and we were together until our juinor year in high school. The summer after tenth grade..." I stopped myself, trying to regather my thoughts, to calm myself down. Niall rubbed soft circles into my back, but he didn't know the burden I've been carrying around.

"He changed, to say the least." I decided to skip the details. "He was more into partying, and dragging me along. He made me do things that I didn't want to do, like he controlled me. Hell, he did control me.

"Anyways," I reminded myself that I wanted this to be quick and as painless as possible, like pulling off a bandaid. "Um, Jake started to drink when we were juniors in high school. Pressured me into a lot of things, started.." I felt queasy, my armpits were incredibly sweaty. "He started to hit me."

I started to cry, not a full out sob session, but crying lightly. I didn't look over at Niall, I couldn't bear to see the expression on his face. I knew that he would get mad at me. For some reason, I had decided in my brain that Niall was going to be upset and outruled any other possibilities.

"I thought he would stop. He always told me he would, and I believed him because I loved him. I really, truly loved him and I thought he loved me. I was young and naive." I used the blanket to rub my eyes.

"It was right after Christmas break when it happened. Jake had become more abusive, actually hurting me to a point where it hurt to breath." Another pause of me crying. "I was so, so scared, and my parents were working through having problems and I didn't want to get in the way with my own problems, so I didn't tell anyone."

I could even turn to face Niall by this point, I just knew he would be angry with me. He'd be furious that I let Jake do this and that I annoyed Jake. This was all my fault, and I should have stopped it before it got out of control. I should have been better for him.