Stand By Me

Chapter Thirteen

Eight more nights pass and there's still no word from his Mum. He knows that he has a place with the Maliks, he knows that they mean it when they say he's one of them — he's even managed to call Louis and Zayn, Dad and Papa a few times, though sometimes he panics and calls them by their first names instead...but that isn't what's worrying him.

Those same 'what-ifs' play on a constant loop in his mind and he can't keep on ignoring them, shoving them aside as if they aren't real possibilities. Paul could have killed her. She could be dead, and then he'll never get to see her again, and the last thing they'd have done is fight.

The knowledge of that sits firm in his chest.
The last time he saw his Mum, he had told her he hated her and then run away. What if that's the last time he ever sees her? What if he never gets to say that he's sorry, that he doesn't hate her?

It keeps him up at night. He spends three nights in a row on the back doorstep with Louis before he decides to just lay in bed and toss and turn, because it isn't fair that the man has to keep staying up with him, even though he insists that he doesn't mind, that he's up anyway.

So he's always tired. It's not a big deal, except for when he fails four essays in a week and he can't focus in any of his classes. And when he can't seem to control his emotions anymore, rolling his eyes when teachers try to speak to him so he gets his first ever detention, bickering with Harry so that the two of them don't speak for three whole hours before they make up again, crying at some pet rescue shoe on the TV one night (even though Liam cries at it too, then says it's because he accidentally poked himself in both eyes somehow).

He's all up and down, and whether he's laughing or crying or anything in between, that constant stream of 'what if, what if, what if' shrouds his mind and stops him from processing anything properly.

Currently, a Sunday morning, he's drifting off at the breakfast table. Cereal turning soggy as it absorbs all the milk in the bowl, elbow rested on the counter, cheek rested on his hand, eyes barely staying open so that his head almost slips off of his palm and into his bowl multiple times before someone calls him out on it.

"Niall, sweetheart, why don't you go take a nap and come down for breakfast in a couple hours?" Louis — Dad — asks softly, and Niall lifts his head so abruptly that it's almost dizzying, vision taking a moment to refocus as he looks across the table at the man.

He shakes his head, letting go of his spoon so that it clatters against the side of his bowl and then rubbing his eyes, trying to wake himself up. "M'okay," he says quickly, stifling a yawn.

Harry is frowning at him slightly from his peripheral, whilst Liam smirks from the head of the table. "You shouldn't skip nap-time, Shorty. You'll stunt your growth," he says teasingly, and Niall glares at the older boy; he's been making more and more remarks lately, the same way he does to Harry, and it makes him feel a little less breakable.

"Shut up. Your girlfriend's taller than you, you can't talk," he bites back, and Harry snickers from beside him whilst Liam frowns, almost pouting.

"Lizzie isn't my girlfriend, we're just friends," he says firmly.

Harry laughs. "That's not what we saw in the hall the other day, you were all like," he starts making dramatic kissing noises, wiggling in his stool.

Liam stands up, armed with a spoon, looking ready to dive across the table, and Niall laughs along with Harry, feeling a little less asleep, a little less caught up in his own head. "That's not true!"

"Yeah it is, we saw you, didn't we, Ni?" Harry says, and Niall nods because it's true; they'd been on their way to Spanish when Harry had jostled his arm and pointed to the corner just behind the lockers where Liam practically had his tongue down some blonde girl's throat. They'd been disgusted at the time only to laugh about it later.