Red [S.M] [N.H]

Never Be Alone

•Niall•

We sit there for a few minutes and I comfort her, running her back until the crying seems to have subsided enough for her to talk. "I'm sorry," she says weakly, lifting her head from my chest and wiping her red rimmed eyes lightly.

"There's nothing to be sorry about darling. All I ask now is that you tell me about what's wrong." I reach up and wipe a tear gently from her face with my thumb and she looks at me carefully again, her large eyes looked a bit scared.

"You can trust me." I promise and she sighs, "promise?" I nod, "Promise," I hold out my pinky and she links hers with mine and we shake on it. "I'm not sure where to start..." she sighs. "From the beginning, the beginning of all this stuff with your parents."

She nods slowly and thinks for a second before opening her mouth, "alright, well, I guess it all started when I was little. My parents had never gotten along, but I didn't get that as a child I guess, when you're a kid, you just see everything as a happy experience. I just saw them fighting and my dad leaving all the time as something that everyone's parents did. He always left us with my mother, us being me and my sister Kinsley, and my mother absolutely hates me. She always liked my sister because she was a bright kid, even when she was young, and she was just a perfect angel. She made sure I knew this. I have dyslexia, so I was never bright, I always tried my hardest to read and understand numbers in math, but my mind jumbled them up and caused them to bounce around, it still happens to me today, because it never goes away. My mother never understood this, she just kept telling me it was my fault, that I should learn to work harder, to do better like my sister always did. I tried to, I worked myself to a breaking point but it still was never enough. Growing up, my mother had standards that I could just never fill. The first time she hit me was when I was 5, I pushed myself harder, reading everything, trying to fix my brain, hitting my head against a table to see if it would fix it, but it never worked. From then, my mother found that she rather liked hitting me, it gave her a power over me. She did it for everything, if I didn't clean the house how she wanted, if I couldn't read her mind. She's always made me feel like I was worthless, like I don't deserve anything, that I'm stupid and will never amount to anything. It got worse when my sister left for college, my mother had no resistance, as my sister would often try to stick up for me. But my sister moved out for good, all her stuff is out, but she visits and picks me up and we go somewhere. The reason Aria and I became so close is because when I was little, she was always right around the corner, so I'd run there whenever I was too scared to be home, which was every day. My mother would leave me home alone a lot too from a young age, so I would always go over there then too. Her parents were always willing to take me in, always acting like parents to me because I didn't have mine. They fed me, took care of me, even bought me presents on Christmas. My mother always puts on this face of niceness when she meets anyone, no one would have any idea, and she would always give me 2 cheap presents on Christmas so that people wouldn't suspect that there was anything going on. It just goes to show that no one knows what happens behind closed doors." She breathes and finishes her story and I notice my eyes are filled with tears, I wipe them away and pull her into my arms.

"Dylan... I am so sorry, you should not have to go through that." I say sincerely, feeling a lot sadness and anger. "It's really ok Ni, I'm used to it." I oull her out of the hug and hold her by the shoulders and look into her eyes. "Dylan, no one should have to get used to that, you don't deserve that, no one does."

She looks down, "well... I am."

"Dylan, you can't go back there." I say. "Niall, I have to, all my stuff is there and my mother will kill me..." she trails and I shake my head. "We will go back when it is for sure a time your mother won't be there, we'll get your stuff and you are getting out of there."

"But where will I stay?" She questions, tilting her head. "You will stay with Shawn and I on the tour bus. You will come with us, I will talk to management about it. You'll finish up your schooling online,"

Her eyes fill with tears and she smiles, "you'd do that for me?" She says shakily. "Of course." I smile warmly and she grins and hugs me tightly. "Thank you so much." She says and I nod and grin, happy to help.

"Now, when will your mom for sure not be home?" I ask. "She won't be home all day tomorrow or pretty much for the week, she might come home late at night though." She explains and I nod, "okay so that is when we'll go. Would you rather me tell shawn or would you rather tell him yourself?"

"You can tell him... it hurts to go through the story to be honest." She explains and I nod again. "That makes perfect sense."

"Thank you again." She beams and I smile at her, "you don't have to thank me beautiful." I say and she blushes, making me grin, God she was so beautiful.

•Aria•

We arrive back to his hotel, his suggestion after we decided we were both cold and a bit tired of walking but didn't want the date to end. We walk up to his suite and he unlocks the door, I look around at the huge room and my jaw drops.

"Oh my gosh! You said hotel not mini mansion!" I exclaim and he just chuckles. "Well, make yourself comfortable," he goes and sits on the couch and I look around a bit more before sitting next to him.

We hear some low voices from the room next to us, "oh, looks like Dylan and Niall are still hanging out," Shawn notes, motioning to the adjoining door from where we were hearing the mumbling.

"Awe, that's cute, you guys have adjoining bedrooms," I say and he chuckles and rubs the back of his neck, "oh yea, we're adorable... wanna go scare them?"

"Do I?" I say excitedly and jump up and he leads me to the adjoining door, putting a finger to his lips and opening the door quietly, we enter and Dylan is sitting on Niall's LAP!! holy crap... they're super close together and talking quietly.

Shawn does a silent countdown and then we both scream in sync, causing Dylan to fall off Niall onto the ground with a thump and then a small "ow!" comes from the ground.

"Crikey! You gave me a heart attack!" Niall exclaims in surprise as Shawn and I burst out laughing, falling onto the floor.

"T-that was t-too good!" I laugh and breathe heavily and Dylan and Niall glare at us, but we just continue laughing, out of breath.

"Ha. Ha. Very cute." Dylan says sarcastically and Niall shakes his head at us.

"You have to admit! That was good!" Shawn quips and Dylan and Niall shrug, "fine." They say in sync, pouting at us.

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-laney