My Summer Love~ A Niall Horan Love Story

Chapter 15~ Photographs and Memories

"Photograph" - Ed Sheeran

"We make these memories for ourselves where our eyes are never closing, hearts are never broken, and time's forever frozen still."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The lads and I had been working on that song for almost two hours and we had written two different verses and a chorus. All we had left was a bridge and then we would FINALLY be done with lyrics. “Okay, so onto the bridge,” Niall said. They all were sitting around me now, some in chairs they’d gotten, others on tables or in the floor because they were too lazy to go get chairs.

“Right,” I began and paused for just a second to think until I came up with an idea. “Well, we have to keep the little story going… I mean, we told a story through the verses, so we’ll have to finish it in the bridge.”

“That’s true,” Harry added from his place on the floor. “We need to keep it going… So we just got done saying, erm…”

“We’ve got, ‘I look around and all I see is people stopped, starin’ at me, but I don’t stop, no. I keep goin’. I just step into the light to begin’,” Niall filled in for us, reading the lyrics off the paper he had been writing everything down on.

“Okay, well what happens after that?” Zayn asked from his seat on the nearby table.

“Aine’s the writer here,” Niall said defensively.

“You’re a writer?!” Louis shouted. I lightly laughed, smiled, and nodded my head.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’ve finished five books.”

“That’s so cool!” Louis yelled again. I rolled my eyes at how over-dramatic was.

“Did you ever finish that one you were working on when we were little?” Niall questioned me.

“You mean ‘Destiny’?” I asked, but he gave me a confused look. “I mean ‘The Best Summer Ever’?” I corrected myself. “Sorry, I changed the name when we were thirteen.”

“Ah!” Niall said and nodded his head.

“Now back to the song,” Liam said getting us all back on track. That was why it was taking us so long to write that song. We kept getting side tracked onto different subjects, not to mention the fact that Louis kept running out the door to get more carrots.

“Right,” I started turning back to look at the paper that was still in Niall’s hands. “So we’re continuing the story, then.” All of the lads mumbled their yesses and discreetly nodded their heads in agreement. I sighed and pursed my lips to think with everyone else through the silence.

“Well, you’re in the lights now where everyone can see you,” Zayn began and we all looked over at him. “What if, you know, everyone turns to watch.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I drawled out. “How about ‘I look around and they’re all starin’ at me’?” Niall quickly wrote those words down so I guessed that was a yes. I tried to think harder, but only ended up drawing yet another blank. “What would you guys do if I just randomly started dancing?” I questioned and just started fist pumping.

“We would look at you like you were crazy because that is HORRIBLE dancing,” Harry told me.

The light came on in my head. “That’s it!” I exclaimed.

“What?” Harry asked. “That you’re a really bad dancer?”

“No!” I shouted. “I mean yes! But that’s not what I meant.” All the boys laughed at me for admitting that I was a bad dancer. I wasn’t going to lie. Dancing was pretty much the only thing I couldn’t do. “It goes ‘I look around and all I see is people stopped starin’ at me. They look at me like they think I’m crazy!”

“That’s great!” Niall exclaimed. “Well, not the whole ‘bad at dancing’ thing, but the lyrics.” I chuckled and he blushed slightly before jotting down the words I’d said.

“Come on, let’s keep it going, guys!” I said.

“Keep what going?” Louis asked. “Carrots? I need more carrots!” He jumped up and continued shouting all the way to the kitchen and came back with a new, un-opened bag of baby carrots.

“How many carrots do you HAVE?” I asked in disbelief as he came running back into the room. He’d already had two whole bags of them.

“A lot,” Liam replied for him as Louis tore into the plastic bag and began devouring the carrots inside of it.

“Well, we have to keep going. We’re almost done!” I shouted.

“Calm down!” Louis yelled back. “Carrots are my brain food!” My eyebrows furrowed as I gave him a bewildered look.

“You have a brain?” I asked. Niall began cracking up laughing and grabbed my hand to hold it in his as Liam and Zayn laughed with him. But Harry had a difference of opinion.

“Hey!” Harry exclaimed and sat up on the floor. “Don’t pick on my boo-bear!” I once again got a confused look on my face.

“Boo-bear?” I questioned both Harry and Louis. Harry stood up and acted like he was offended.

“Yes, boo-bear!” he yelled at me. My eyes instinctively widened.

“Sorry,” I said drawling it out. “It just sounds more like the old nickname Niall had for me than a nickname for Louis.”

“What nickname?” Zayn asked Niall and I. I smiled, blushed, and Niall squeezed my hand tighter for a moment.

“That has an interesting story behind it,” Niall told the lads as the memory played through my mind again.

*Flashback*

“Aine!” Niall shouted to me again for what seemed like the billionth time in the past few minutes. “Come on! You don’t have to look perfect to go to supper with my family!” I sighed and brushed through my hair once again. I knew myself that I wasn’t trying to look good for Niall’s family, but instead for Niall himself. 

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and met my own emerald green eyes, framed only by a little bit of mascara. I wasn’t going to wear anymore either. I mean, come on now, I was only eleven. I didn’t normally wear make-up anyway. Only on special occasions… and this was definitely a special occasion.

Niall knocked on the bathroom door once again from outside in the hallway. “Aine, please come out,” he pleaded with me. “I’m sure you look beautiful.” I blushed and tried not to smile as I looked down to make sure my dress was straightened. It was nothing too fancy; just a simple black dress. I realized it was straight and took a deep breath before I opened the door and stood where Niall could see my full profile.

“How do I look?” I asked with a hopeful expression on my face. Niall said nothing as he stood there with his mouth hanging open and my first instinct was, of course, to panic. “Oh my god, I look horrible, don’t I? I can’t go out there looking like this,” I whisper-shouted over to him. Remember, I was a very shy person as a child.

“No, no, no!” Niall exclaimed interrupting my tyrant, knowing that was the one and only way to stop my pointless rambling. He walked over to stand in front of me and pulled my chin up to make me look into his clear, crystal blue eyes. “You look amazing,” he whispered to me sweetly. “Now let’s go.”

“One second,” I said and quickly walked back into the bathroom to look in the mirror at myself again.

“Aine, please come on!” Niall shouted another time. “I’m gonna start calling you bird because you’re always looking at your reflection.”

My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at his figure standing behind me through the mirror. “Bird?” I asked in disbelief.

Niall smiled and nodded. “Yep. Let’s go, Bird!” he finished and turned off every last one of the light so the two of us couldn’t even find our way to the exit. “Be careful not to run into the mirror thinking it’s the way out, Bird!”

*End Of Flashback*