Hiii,
i'm here with the second chapter! Hope you will like it!đź’•
⋆⭒˚.⋆
NIALL
“Hey,” I said into the phone, and the second the word left my mouth, I knew this wouldn’t be an easy conversation. Clara’s voice was quiet—too quiet—like the faint clink of a spoon in a porcelain cup.
“Niall… we need to talk,” she said. There was no anger in her voice, no coldness. Just… exhaustion. The kind you don’t build over a night, but over months of quiet, unspoken sentences.
I didn’t answer right away. I just stared across the street at the garden gate, the neatly trimmed bushes, the sunlight dancing in scattered patches across the pavement. A completely ordinary, quiet, wealthy neighborhood. Too perfect a backdrop for something painful.
“I’ll come over,” I said finally. I had to be the one to say it. Otherwise this would never start.
Clara’s place was only a few minutes away. But as I pulled up in front of her building, that same uncomfortable feeling seized me—the one I’d been pushing down for weeks. Like I already knew what was coming: this wasn’t a conversation about how we’d move forward, but about how we’d let go.
When I walked inside, she was standing by the kitchen counter, her slim figure washed in soft afternoon light. She held a mug of tea, the steam rising slowly as if trying to fill the space between us.
“Hi,” she said, forcing a small smile. But even that motion looked like a cracked piece of porcelain—beautiful on the outside, hollow on the inside.
I smiled back, though I didn’t feel it. I sat on the couch; she remained standing across from me, her hands wrapped around the mug. For a second, I caught myself missing the time when she used to sit beside me. When she wasn’t afraid to come close. When there wasn’t this distance stretching between us like an invisible rubber band, ready to snap.
“Niall,” she began—my name careful on her tongue—“you know I love you. In my own way.”
My stomach twisted. She didn’t mean it cruelly—just painfully honestly.
“I love you too,” I said, but even as the words came out, I felt how different our meanings were. Mine had become more obligation than anything real.
Clara sighed. The kind of sigh that tells you everything is beyond saving.
“This…” she tried again, another soft exhale breaking through, “this isn’t working, Niall. Not like this. You know it. And so do I.”
I didn’t protest. Didn’t pull away. Because honestly—she was right. We both knew our relationship had never been more than easy smiles, staged hand-holding photos, and a neatly packaged romance for the public. Yes, it was PR. Partially because it worked, partially because neither of us had time for something real.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. Not because we were breaking up. But because I’d let it drag on this long.
Clara came closer, set down her mug, then sat beside me. She didn’t hug me, but she took my hand. And weirdly, that was the most genuine thing that had happened between us in months.
“You really are a good guy,” she whispered. “And you deserve someone who can actually be there for you. Not just on weekends. Not just in front of cameras.”
Her eyes clouded for a second, but she didn’t cry. Clara never cried. She always held herself together—always too polished, too perfect. Her long honey-blonde hair fell over her shoulder like it had been crafted specifically for magazine covers; her skin was porcelain-pale, but not sickly, more like she carried an untouchable glow. Her brown eyes were deep and clear, but somehow always looked past me, as if half her mind lived elsewhere. She wore flawless blouses, moved in soft, precise motions—she simply didn’t know how to exist at a bad angle.
And that was the problem. Next to her, I always felt like a guy who’d forgotten to iron his shirt.
“I hope you’ll be happy someday,” she said.
“You too,” I replied. And I meant it.
We stood. A short, soft hug. No more, no less.
As I stepped outside, I saw the curtain shift—Clara’s silhouette watching me leave one last time. A tiny, delicate movement, but somehow it felt like closing a book too quickly, before you’re ready for it to end. I shut the gate behind me, and even the air seemed different—thicker, heavier, infused with that strange emptiness breakups always leave behind, even when the relationship was mostly just a prop.
I got into my car, rested my hands on the steering wheel, and let the sunlight warm my fingers. A strange calm settled over me. Not comforting, not freeing—more like the quiet that comes after a long cry, when you’ve run out of tears and all that’s left is silence. A little painful, a little light, bittersweet in the softest way.
I turned the key, the engine hummed to life, and I slowly rolled out of the driveway. The sunlight streaked across the hood, little flashes of brightness.
And then, as if the entire morning cracked open in a single moment, I saw her.
A car stood crookedly near the exit, hood popped open—like someone had surrendered mid-battle. Beside it, a girl. Long, wavy brown hair caught by the wind, her face inches from the engine, staring into the mess of metal and cables as if every bit of automotive knowledge on earth had just evaporated from her mind.
And the closer I looked, the clearer it became: she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Her hands hovered over the bolts, her lips pressed tight, her eyebrows knit together—the classic “if I stare long enough, maybe it’ll fix itself” expression.
I stopped. Automatically. Instinctively. I’m not sure which. I just suddenly found myself stepping toward her, watching a girl I’d never seen before… and feeling something stir in me.
Not love. Not fate. Not some mystical sign.
Just that spark of curiosity you feel when you stumble into someone in the middle of their own story, and you can’t help wanting to know how they got there.
“You know you can’t park here, right?” I finally said.
The moment it left my mouth, I felt like some wannabe traffic officer scolding her over the world’s least important violation.
She snapped her head up.
“And according to who?” she shot back.
Her voice—yeah, definitely not the “oh thank god you stopped to help me!” type. More like “if one more thing goes wrong today, I swear I will lose my mind.”
And weirdly, that made her even more real. Not polished. Not performing. Not trying to please. Just raw, honest frustration.
“According to me,” I said, fighting a grin. Because something about her… it was intriguing. That spark in her. Most girls I’d met tried too hard to be cute, or perfect, or agreeable. She? She was just… her. Messy, annoyed, sincere. And she’d snapped back without hesitation.
I liked that.
People like her made you feel awake.
She looked around, finally noticing the blocked driveway. I watched the recognition wash over her, watched her shoulders drop, watched her fierce-cat energy flicker for a moment into something almost shy.
“Oh!” she blurted, the word tumbling out so honestly it nearly made me laugh. “M–my car died. Uh... sorry. Really. I didn't mean to, I just—”
And then she rambled herself into knots.
I smiled. Not a camera-ready smile. A real one. Soft. Uncontrolled.
“Let’s take a look,” I said, because leaving her there wasn’t an option. “May I?”
She nodded quickly and stepped aside. A warm, summery, faintly fruity scent drifted toward me.
Strawberry.
Not that I meant to analyze it—but her hair definitely smelled like strawberries.
I leaned over the engine, and it only took a few seconds to figure out there was nothing major wrong—just something refusing to cooperate. Typical. And somehow, standing there next to her made the whole situation feel both funnier and more complicated than it should’ve been.
I felt her watching me. Not subtly. Not shyly. But intensely, like if she blinked, I’d accidentally dismantle the entire engine. And somehow… I found myself enjoying that attention.
After a minute, I shut the hood and straightened up. My voice came out a bit deeper—maybe from concentration, maybe from her.
“Maybe it just needs a little momentum,” I told her. “Hop in, I'll push. If we're lucky, it'll start.”
She looked at me like I’d told her I could perform miracles.
“Sure! Yes! I mean… okay.”
I nearly laughed again. She was adorable in a very unpolished way.
She climbed in, I positioned myself behind the car, and started pushing. The gravel crunched under my shoes, the sun heated my back, and something strange stirred in me—because somehow, in less than five minutes, I’d felt more alive around this girl than I had around others in weeks.
The engine sputtered, then roared to life.
And that’s when it happened. The second the car came alive, the radio blasted at full volume.
Summer Love.
Seriously? That song? Right now?
She panicked immediately, slapping at the controls like she was trying to put out a fire, and when she finally managed to silence it, the sudden quiet was so sharp it made me snort.
I couldn’t hold it back—I laughed. Loud and honest.
Then I stepped up to her window.
“I think you’ll be alright,” I said, giving the hood a friendly pat.
As I walked back to my own car, that warm feeling spread through me again.
⋆⭒˚.⋆
As I left the girl with her now-functioning car, I couldn’t shake the strange buzzing energy that lingered in the air between us. For minutes it clung to me, and I wasn’t sure whether it came from her, from me, or from the entire morning suddenly shifting into something unexpected. All I knew was that it’s rare to trade sharp words with a stranger and still walk away feeling something light and annoyingly pleasant that you can’t quite explain—just that you like it.
Sitting in the car, I tried to brush off the whole thing with a simple, “Okay, she’s just a girl, don’t make this a big deal,” but the scene kept flashing back in my head: the way she snapped her head up, how fiercely she looked at me, as if determined not to let even a hint of weakness slip through. And then that moment when she realized what was happening—the tiny, startled “Oh!” she let out…
Bloody hell.
That “Oh!” is going to live rent-free in my head for days.
And the Summer Love fiasco blasting from her radio—Christ, I still couldn’t stop laughing at that. The way she scrambled for the volume like the car had spontaneously caught fire… If she really was a fan, and judging by her reaction, there was a damn good chance of that, then she must’ve been dying inside. But somehow the whole combination, her car, the music, her eyes, the panic... felt more alive than anything I’d experienced lately.
On the drive toward the Wells Fargo Center, the whole encounter kept poking at my thoughts. I didn’t want to dwell on it, but it kept circling back: Could someone really crash into your day like that on a random morning, out of nowhere, without even knowing what they’re doing?
I pulled into my designated spot and, still sitting behind the wheel, called Simon. My fingers trembled slightly as the call rang, even though the breakup hadn’t been dramatic. Clara and I were always more of a concept—a polished package—than a real couple, yet ending something still leaves a pinch somewhere inside you. The call was quick, businesslike, smooth as anything like scheduling a haircut. “After the show,” he said. And that was enough.
I hung up, took a long breath, and stepped out of the car, letting the backstage chaos swallow me whole.
Inside, everything moved like a perfectly rehearsed machine: cables snaking across the floor, sound techs shouting instructions, glowing screens, security walking with purpose. On show days, the world always feels like it’s spinning faster. The boys’ voices carried over the noise immediately—Louis shouting something stupid, Harry laughing loud enough to shake the room, Liam trying to keep everyone in line, and Zayn leaning against a speaker with that effortless cool he was born with.
“What are you grinning at?” Louis shot at me, eyebrow raised.
“Just in a good mood,” I said before I even thought about it. No way was I explaining it. The lads would twist it into something ridiculous in two seconds. They’d never take me seriously if I said some random girl on the side of the road shook me up more than anything else had in weeks.
Anyone with half a brain would twist that.
Rehearsal went smoothly—muscle memory by now. Mic check, lights, a quick run-through of the choreo, even though we improv half of it onstage anyway. The speakers vibrated under our feet, the black stage shimmered beneath the overhead rigs, and sunlight streamed through the upper vents, giving everything a soft golden glow—like the concert had already begun.
These moments were my favorite: the minutes when the world slows down, the air hums, and my heart already knows exactly what it will feel like when tens of thousands scream in unison.
The afternoon disappeared in a blink: changing clothes, cracking inside jokes only we understood, takeout lunches on paper plates, sound checks again and again. And then suddenly I was standing in the dim backstage, listening to the roar of the crowd. The lights were warming up, the bass thumping through the side speakers, the boys buzzing with their own nerves: each trying to hide it behind humor.
And right before I ran out onstage—when the crowd’s scream rolled over us, when the lights burst awake—the girl flashed into my mind again. Her hair, her face, that sharp retort she threw at me without fear…
With a smile no one could see, I whispered under my breath:
“I hope you’re out there in the crowd.”
Then I sprinted onto the stage, and the world vanished behind me.
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