Capture My Heart (BK3: Niall Horan)

-Ch 9: October rain & internal sunshine.

CHAPTER NINE- Ocotber rain & internal sunshine.

-Ashley Dawson-

Around me a cold breath of air breezed in circles through the open window. I watched the net curtain flying in the wind, and my eyes picked out a plane flying overhead and I wished I was on it. I hated this feeling. That feeling where you don’t want to be in a situation so much anymore that every single travelling object you see pass you, you wish like hell that you were inside it, going to somewhere unknown. I’d always kind of dreamed of running away, to just leave the reality behind and go on an adventure. But I knew I’d never actually do it. That just wasn’t me.

I fingered a fresh curl that hung loosely with the rest to my ribcage. I checked for any split ends, but there were none, considering I’d had it trimmed a few weeks ago. I could feel the pulsation of my heart pounding like the fresh wake of rain against a plastic surface, drumming so hard and intently that it sent reverberation throughout the plates of the earth. Although this was not quite literal, it felt like it. I couldn’t believe how ridiculously pathetic I was being that I couldn’t even hear it for myself; I had to get someone else to receive the verdict before me. My tension span was expanding to the burst, and my mind was whirring with the possible scenarios.

But as I watched Niall and his cool and calm demeanour as he stood idly still, listening intently to the person on the other end of the phone. Nodding and ‘mmm-ing’ in the right places, I decided that I really needed to do some work on handling situations such as these. After all, it wasn’t like I was really a stranger to bad news. So it would probably make things – make my whole life – a whole lot easier if I could handle bad news well.

But this didn’t seem likely. As I could already feel something wrenching in my gut, it was like a spanner twisting and yanking at something until the bolt was so loose that it sprung a leak of tears and weakness. Although this hadn’t happened yet, but I could tell it was going to soon. Or at least I thought so. But I had also learned that the best idea was probably for me to not make predictions anymore, considering they seemed to aftermath some of the worse scenarios than it was in the first place.

The nagging thought of this not only being bad news, but terrible news, was evitable in my body language, and my gut, it was churning in undivided somersaults and I was breaching inadequate in fear. But I remained determined to stay as calm as possible. My fingernails dug deep into the materiel of the chair I was sat on as I watched Niall with a frown upon my facial features. He licked his lips, his brow creased in concentration as he listened to what the person on the other end was saying. I had a sudden yearning to say I would hear it, but something told me that he was almost done now, and that I would probably take it a bit better from him, rather than from a randomer I couldn’t even see the face of. For all I knew I could have been listening to a recorded message.

I could not supress how scared I was to have to go through the process of watching someone else slip through death’s door though, my sister, as well. Despite the young exposure I received well over a decade ago, I probably emotionally could not deal with losing someone else. Ageing did not make me immune to the concept of death, and I didn’t think anything ever would. There are no shortcuts to dealing with the annihilation of someone, you can’t avoid it, it’s like a dead end, but it’s so much more literal.

For some twisted and unfair reason I hated whoever gave me the news on my sister. Which was probably why it was none the wiser for Niall to take this phone call of verdict on her. Since if it was bad news, I would probably most likely in my spur of the moment be completely inhuman towards the bearer of bad news.

Something speared my inhabited thoughts that swallowed me a little too quickly. It was movement, and I looked up to see Niall mumble some kind of concluding thanks as if they had actually done us a life changing favour. Then he rolled his eyes before ending the call and looking up at me, seemingly slightly startled as he realised I was watching him. I shifted in the chair I was sitting on, the cushiony surface suddenly seeming very hard when mere minutes ago it had been plush and soft. The air seemed to thicken and the words that hadn’t even been spoken yet hung loosely in the air. I could practically see the gaps in the air around me that sported their open declivities for the shadows to fill. They were the shadows of words that enveloped the bad news I could feel coming.