Trouble. (niall horan au)

chapter 27 - rebellion time

"Jesus, Zayn," Niall fumed, his slender fingers threading into my hair as he glared at his friend from over my head, "Can't you save making girls cry for your free time?"

I furiously rubbed my eyes. There were a few things as pathetic as hysterically crying in front of your peers, but yet despite how hard I tried to stop, it was as though my tear duct had recieved a fatal blow and now refused to do anything but pour out every bit of emotion I had stored inside. My tongue curled up in my mouth to give another example of what Zayn could do in his free time, but for once the words got stuck and no snappy reply could leave my lips. Only deranged hiccuping and senseless babbling.

"I can't stand watching girls cry, it's so sad," Harry whispered. He stared off in the distance for a second, his own eyes going misty.

"Great, now we've got two girls crying," Zayn said.

"Wait, you guys," Liam exclaimed, bobbing up and down around the edge of our circle, "Did you not hear what I just said. I got a blow job. Ask me about it so I can tell you in exact detail."

Louis looked around in a flustered panic. "Should I pull the fire alarm?"

"Life," Harry declared. He held a clawed hand over his heart. "Oh, life." I'm pretty sure he was full out crying now. It was hard to tell through my own blurry vision. It was like looking through a glass of water, everything distorted and wavering.

Zayn pulled the cigarette from his lips, letting out a final puff of smoke at Harry. "If you don't stop crying I'm going to put this out on your arm."

"I'm going to pull the fire alarm," Louis decided solemly. He rose to his feet.

"My man meat," Liam continued to blather, "It was up in someone's mouth. Imagine if my ding-a-long was a tuba, and she was a well-known tuba player."

And that's when I heard a calm, underlying tone I recgonized, laced underneath all the chaotic rambling. I turned around, surprised to find Niall so close. Our noses bumped lightly. I reeled back in surprise, but his fingers hooked into my front short pockets and pulled me back. They wriggled lightly against my thigh. His eyes meant buinssness. The normal blue had turned dark and unforgiving like the ocean during a storm, ready to batter anything in sight.

"Abbey," he was saying. "Abbey Farrell."

"I thought she was going to bite if off," Liam said in the background. His voice dropped several octaves. "Not that I would've minded."

"I'm gonna do it," Zayn threatened, holding the glowing red end of his cigarette dangerously close to Harry's arm. "Give you something to cry about."

"Abbey, sweetheart," Niall said. And he was there, and I suddenly realized he was usually there- like always picking me up for school in the morning. Or more like, waking me up when I overslept and standing there laughing as I ran around trying to furiously cram food in my mouth and get dressed. And he would brush my bedhead while I brushed my teeth, his lilac hair soft in the early morning light. Maybe I was purposefully forgetting to turn on my alarm these days, so I could wake up to him shaking my shoulder or blowing on my face like an idiot and just hear him laugh laugh laugh. His presence had become something constant that worked its way so effortlessly into my life that I hadn't even realized it was there.

"Niall," I said, hating that my voice sounded like a whiny prepubescent boy. "Niall, I can't do this. I can't tell you why I'm afraid of touching. I'm sorry." Suddenly I couldn't stop, as though I had to be heard above all his idiotic friends screaming in the background. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm-"

His hand closed over my mouth gently. "You, Abbey Farrell," he said, "Will never need to apologize for this." He then whipped around and bellowed, "WILL YOU LOT SHUT THE FLYING FUCK UP."