screaming color // n.h. au

part 11

new years' eve at the jacobs household is little more than a glorified regular day. alfie is allowed to stay up until midnight to usher in the new year, though he falls asleep on cole's lap in the den just after 10 pm. at 11:30, cole extricates herself from underneath him and goes to call niall.

she's been thinking about him: thinking about him when she wakes up every morning alone in her bed, thinking about him when she makes breakfast for alfie and drinks her tea before it cools. every night, she picks up the complete works of w.h. auden and runs her finger along its worn spine and thinks of niall's hands, holding the book, holding her hands, holding her. there's a part of her that's eager to get back to uni, eager to sit a little bit too close to niall when they're doing coursework together, eager to accidentally fall asleep in his bed after studying one night.

and then there's a part of her that fears it, fears seeing him again, fears the way he might look at her now, after their last conversation. something's changed between them, and cole is afraid of it, afraid of what it might mean and how it might feel, the kind of afraid that keeps her awake at night, blinking up at the ceiling through the darkness and wondering, does he like me too? because that's what it is, isn't it? cole likes niall, and while she's finally admitted it to herself, she's not sure she's ready to tell him yet.

although she has a feeling he might already know.

so cole leaves a sleeping alfie on the couch in the den and goes into the loo, where she shuts the door partway behind her in case alfie wakes up and needs something. it's new years and she should be with niall, but she isn't, because she said no. the best she can do, she reasons with herself, is call him.

she sits on the floor, leaning against the tub. her mobile rests on her palm and she blinks down at it, waiting for something she can't name – courage, maybe. she's waiting for courage to spark up in her gut and help her hit the call button.

when she finally does, he doesn't answer. three rings, then five, then seven. then it goes to voicemail, a robot voice announcing that "the person you have tried to reach" – niall interjects here, saying his own name in the rough accent that always makes cole's stomach flip – "is not available right now."

cole doesn't leave a message. she hangs up and sets her mobile on the tile floor beside her. the floor is cold and she presses her palms to it, letting the chill seep into her body through her skin. it's a good thing, that niall didn't answer. it means that he's busy, with his friends, or his family. he's not sitting at home on new year's eve, wallowing because cole couldn't – couldn't, wouldn't – come to visit.

or maybe he's snogging another girl, somebody he used to know from school, or maybe a neighbor. when they were small, they swung side by side on the swings, competing to see who could swing higher. she's the kind of girl who knows what she wants.

and then cole's mind comes up with a third possibility, the worst one of them all. maybe niall's screening his calls, ignoring her because he doesn't want to talk to her. he doesn't want to hear her voice as badly as she craves the sound as his. he doesn't want to fall asleep thinking of her, as she's done every night since they last spoke. she falls asleep with his image in her mind, stained on the inside of her eyelids, so familiar that it's nearly a part of her now.

cole feels her eyes tear up. she tries to blame it on the holiday stress, or on her exhaustion. tries to laugh it off, tries to wipe it away. but there's niall nonetheless, his laughter echoing in her memory and his face, oh, his face. she can't stop seeing it.

"what's wrong, coley?"

cole jumps. she looks up to find alfie standing in the doorway of the washroom. he blinks at her through tired eyes and she thinks, how small he looks, practically swallowed by the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"nothing, alf, i'm fine." cole wipes at her eyes at pulls herself to her feet. "c'mon, it's time for bed."

"i know there's a boy," alfie says softly, as cole shuts off the hall lights and pushes him toward the stairs. "i know all about that?"

"oh yeah? what do you know, then?"

alfie turns on the staircase and wraps his arms around cole. he's a step above her, making him a full head taller than her, though they're usually around the same height, and she presses her face into his chest and fears the day he breaks some girl's heart, or, worse, some girl breaks his. how do you let your baby brother grow up? how do you let it happen without breaking your own heart in the process? look at him now, trying to take care of her. her heart hurts with it.

cole pulls back and looks at him, looks at her baby brother, the smartest kid she's ever met, the golden boy. in the darkness he looks older than twelve, looks wiser than somebody his age should be. she wishes her mum knew how much she's missing out on.

"i know that you have that book that you never read," alfie says. "the old one, on your night table. he gave it to you, didn't he? but you don't like poetry."

"c'mon, bed," cole says, ruffling alfie's hair. she shoves him lightly toward the next step and he obliges her, climbing the rest of the way up. at his bedroom door, he looks at her over his shoulder. "goodnight, alf," she says softly. she can hear her dad snoring from his room down the hall.

"goodnight, coley," alfie says. "it's gonna be okay, ya know?"

"sure," cole says. though she doesn't know. she doesn't know how things are going to be with niall when she returns to school next week. as she climbs into bed and looks at but doesn't open the complete works of w.h. auden, she thinks of her brother's chess game. in chess, you can control most of your moves, but sometimes it comes down to chance. just like in life, maybe. just like with blond irish boys who read poetry for fun and haunt your day dreams and the ones you have when you're asleep, too.

cole goes to sleep with niall's face in her mind and a new thought in her head, a thought that maybe, just maybe, she has more control over this thing than she thinks. but it'd be okay, maybe, if she didn't.