falling for him // ziall

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Zayn’s POV

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat softly and spoke into the microphone while unfolding my paper.

“Throughout these past four years, we’ve grown up. Yes, we might’ve come to uni thinking we were ‘adults,’ but little did we know we weren’t. We had so much maturing to do… We came to uni as kids and throughout uni we became adults,” I looked at the silent audience. My heart was thumping loudly in my chest begging to get out, but I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a deep breath and carried on as if I wasn’t nervous at all, “We made mistakes… Hell, I made many of them,”

I chuckled and shook my head, “We broke promises, we had fights,” I looked at the graduates until I spotted Niall who was quietly avoiding my eyes and biting his nails, “But, the best part about having fights, was that we made up, because we are now adults. We handle stuff like adults now. We came as teens who didn’t know how to handle a bump along the road,” I looked at the other students sincerely, the nervousness now gone, “But, now we can handle anything because we are grown up. This experience is what made us, us. I know no one wants to graduate because we all made such great friends,”

I know spotted Liam, Louis and Harry, “Not even great friends, brothers…sisters. These past years took us from strangers to family…” I looked at Liam, who was in quiet tears and smiled at him encouringly, “I know we are all going our separate ways and probably not seeing each other ever again… but, I truly hope we all keep in contact because you all are family to me… Some of us maybe even became more than family,”

I looked at Niall and smiled sadly at him, “These have really been the best four years of my life… I’ve made so many memories during uni, parties, new experiences, risks and mostly love… Personally, these have been the best four years of my life…”

I looked at all of alumni, “Well, you know what, now that we are going out there in the cruel, real world… It time to forgive and forget and go out there in the real world and make those mistakes and learn from them as a new born person… I want to give a massive thank you to everyone in the faculty for helping me become who I am and to all the graduates for being such amazing company. So, together we will leave with no regrets and only memories…”

I smiled at everyone and walked silently to my seat in the audience. The claps roared and my pulse jumped with adrenaline. I looked down and smiled, people actually liked my speech that I barely prepared overnight. I looked to my side and saw if Niall was clapping… he wasn’t. Well, someone didn’t like my speech that was somewhat in directed to him…

*****

We were sitting in our seats and the dean began to prepare his certificates and started calling out the names by alphabetic order. All the memories started to pour to me as if the sky was crashing down on me and as if these were my last minutes in Earth and a flash back of my college life was coming to me.

“Nina Dobrev,” The dean ended with her for the people with last names that began with D.

Nina… She was my ex-girlfriend. She was a cruel minded person that I feel bad for and decided to date… I finally realized she was a bitch; nothing more than that and nothing less. I remember when we used to date and I wrapped an arm around her or just show some affection I could see Niall cringe and tense from the corner of my eye… I’m glad I broke up with her… or she broke up with me; for seeing me kiss Niall…

“Niall Horan,” The dean called as he got to the H… The memories poured down on me like a huge storm cloud over me that I couldn’t back away. They just kept flooding and flooding to me like a tsunami…

I remember sitting on my bed on the computer with my headphones plugged in and waiting for this new roommate to come. He came in with a shy smile and a long-sleeved grey cardigan, bags in hand. I remember looking at him seriously and being very curt and not as polite with him as I wish I would’ve been…

Just seeing Niall walk up the stage and claim his certificate while shaking the dean’s hand firmly brought so many memories.

I looked back at how he told me that Louis and Niall pretended to date just to get Harry and me jealous and realize that I really actually love him and not Nina…

As soon as Niall flashed a smile to the crowd and most likely to his family, the memories of seeing that gorgeous, pearly smile paired with his adorable braces came to me.

I treasure the dates in which we watched Finding Nemo together and the one where I took him to a drive-in theater and we watched The Notebook, when he took me to find Easter eggs with him and his family as tradition, our anniversary in which I took him on a hot air balloon and the latest date in which Louis and Harry joined us and many more…

All these memories were overwhelming me…But what I never realized was that somewhere along the road I was falling for him…for Niall.

****

“Zayn Malik,” The dean finally called after what felt like an eternity.

I trotted to the stage overly excited to finally get uni over with and gone out of the way.

“Congratulations,” The dean said as he took out his hand for me to shake.

“Thank you,” I said sternly and shook his hand firmly while taking the certificate and smiling at him politely. I then looked at the crowd and spotted my mom and sisters waving happily while my mom filmed me I smiled widely.

Liam, Louis and Harry were called and I smiled at each of their names. We really have grown to become a beautiful family… University check!

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A/N: Wooooo they graduated! Hip hip horray! :) Sorry if this is short and sucky I also apologize for taking forever to update... Thanks for all the lovely comments in the last chapter I read them all and I'm sorry for taking forever to update yeah, I just wrote that, but whatever. I wrote this in a hurry because I need to study for a Math quiz and Geography test. Anywho, three more chapters plus the epilogue and my first ever fan fiction is done! I'm really awful at writing graduations, personally I haven't graduated college but I saw my sister graduate when I was like 7 and my dad was like super impressed with the girl who did the speech, but this is not a good speech so don't blame me. ((Did you spot the indirects directed to Niall? no oh.)) THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH THAT MEANS LIKE LITERALLY THERE'S NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE THANKYOUUU THANK YOU. ♥ ps. who saw the VMA's today. woot woot 3/3 awards :)

Thanks to: TornbyHoran for the idea of the speech :)