× Horan

There are two places on campus where I could be free and let my mind relax from anything that might be going on at the time. The first place was the football field. There was something about kicking the checkered ball and hearing the swoosh of the net that seemed to set my mind to rest. The second place was the gym. The sound of medal clanking against medal and the sweet satisfaction of feeling good as I ran on the treadmill or doing fifty push-ups was my escape from reality.

Or it was until my phone rang from my bag and I saw the caller ID.

I stared at the device for a few seconds, bracing myself to answer. I knew this call was coming, I was the one who provoked him to get back to me... but it was still hard. I haven't talked to him for years. I was pretty sure our last conversation ended with a fuck you or a I hope you rot in hell.

"Yes?" I finally answered into the receiver.

"Hello, Brother," Greg responded monotonously. "Long time no chat."

Hearing his voice made me miss home. That was a lie, if I had the choice to never go back to Mullingar, I would make it my mission to never see that place again. What I missed was the happy times before things went sour.

"I got your message," Greg continued. "It's a weird request. Can I ask why?"

I hesitated to answer. "It's for a girl."

Greg busted out laughing and if I was in the same room as him, I would have punched him in the face. I had the desire to just hang up on him, but I needed him to call me back for a reason and I didn't think I had the guts to call him again. This was a one-time thing and after I got Greg to do what I wanted, I was happy to go back to ignoring each other.

"Ah, now I understand," Greg said. "I'm shocked, really. I thought you would be in this hole of shag and ditch forever after, um, Alina..."

I chose to ignore his carelessness with the mention of her name because I really needed this to happen, and soon. "I did something shitty and I really need to make it up to her somehow."

"Now that sounds like the Niall I know. Fucking up and desperate enough to win the girl back that you would even talk to your own brother."

"So can you do it?"

"I can do what I can. Talking to Matty is the easy part; it's finding him when he's in a good mood that's hard. You're going to owe me."

Jace walked into the gym right then, holding a newspaper in his hands.

"I have to go. Keep me updated. Sooner the better." I hung up before he could say anything else and stuffed the phone in my bag again and pushed it aside.

Jace threw the newspaper at me.

"Page nine," he sternly said and took a seat on the bench in front of me. "It's the Lion's Den and I really think you should take a look at it."

Taking the newspaper, I flipped through the pages until I got to the right one and quickly scanned through it. I remembered a small girl coming up to me in the library last Sunday asking if it was okay to interview me for the school's newspaper. I didn't realize it would be out so soon.

At the top of the page was the headline: "For the Love of the Game" and attached below was a picture of Lynn and I standing together with wide smiles on our faces. The picture was from one of our first games playing together, before things got complicated. Below the picture was the subtitle: "Red cards and the green light?"

The article listed our answers from the questions the girl asked about eating habits and who our favorite footballer was, boring things like that. I skipped those questions and went down to the ones I knew Jace was referring to.

As we all know, Niall Horan got a red card at their last away game from punching one of the opponent players in the face. As soon as the news was released, rumors were flying as to why he would risk something like that... and then it made all the sense in the world. Why else would anyone do something so stupid if not out of affection?

I asked Horan about Lynn Mercury in the library last Sunday and he didn't seem excited to answer, but I didn't take a no for an answer. When I asked him how it was like to work with a girl, it took him a while to answer.

"It's hard, but doable," Horan said eventually. "We're all used to playing with males that we forget that we need to watch what we say in front of her and to make sure we're not too rough. But that was in the beginning. Lynn won't let you get away with treating her like a princess. She came into this sport knowing exactly what to expect, and she won't take anything less."

I then asked him if it was distracting to play with Lynn since he doesn't think of her as one of the lads.

"No," he had plainly stated. Horan then made up an excuse to leave. I was left sitting there with an empty question that answered more than he probably anticipated.

Hoping for some more insight, I hunted down Lynn. She was on her way to The Courtyard Bar for work and the only way she would answer the questions was if I walked with her. I wasn't about to let her slip through my fingers again, so I did as she asked.

I skimmed through her responses, ignoring the fact that she said I had a big ego because, well, she was right.

But it wasn't until I asked about her and Horan's chemistry together did things start to get interesting. She never gave me an answer, but when her boss interrupted us; the relief in her eyes was obvious, which was enough of an answer for me.

Now I only have one more question: What's really going on in those locker rooms?

I closed the newspaper and threw it a few feet away on the floor, disgusted. Jace was looking at me, waiting for my reaction, but I just shook my head and stood up.

"What do you think Coach will think about this?" Jace asked, watching my every move.

"I don't give a shit what he thinks," I snapped. "What I'm more concerned about is the sanity these people have. All they should be worried about with me and Lynn is if we'll win the next game, not the possibility of our budding romance."

Jace picked up the newspaper and looked around, probably making sure we were alone before continuing. "I know it's not ideal, but Coach always told us that publicity is publicity."

"This isn't how I wanted to get my name out there..."

I wanted to go professionally, everyone on the team did. I worked my ass off to become captain and to have a name for myself only for it to be tarnished because of rumors that weren't even true. I wasn't even sure who to blame because it wasn't like Lynn had a choice in this either. We would forever be known in the football industry as those-two-players-who-most-likely-shagged-during-halftime.

I haven't spoken to Lynn in the past three days out of fear and shame. I was disgusted with myself for the things I had said to her at The Courtyard Bar, and what made it worse was that I only said it in spite. I never should have made the comment about Bradley, but it just came out. I didn't mean it, I was just pissed she was diminishing Alina like something less than what she was to me.

So for the few days since, I've been avoiding her. I seemed to do that a lot when I fuck up instead of owning up and apologizing.

"Did you know that Lynn is seeing someone?" Jace changed the subject, making me whip my head in his direction. "Well, I mean she said she went on a couple of dates with him so it must be something..."

"Who?" I asked.

"That lad who always wears skinny jeans and Chelsea Boots. I think his name is Harry. He might be in a band, I don't know. Did you not see him when he dropped her off at practice yesterday?"

"Yeah, but I thought he was just giving her a ride."

Jace shook his head. "They're going to Thomas' Halloween party together. Lynn seems to really fancy him."

"Good for her," I said bitterly.

"I hate seeing you like this. You were never... It all started a few weeks after Lynn joined the team."

"I really don't want to talk about her right now," I deadpanned as I took the spot next to Jace on the bench.

"You have to. Niall, I was wrong when I told you that you should think whether it's worth getting caught over. I don't think you have a choice anymore."

"Suddenly you're a therapist who knows how I feel?" I accused, but I only had to laugh at my words. Jace was always the one person who knew me better than I knew myself, so basically, he probably really does know how I feel and I was the one on the outside looking in.

Jace's jaw clenched and I knew I was being unreasonably stubborn. His black hair was sticking up and away from his forehead and his bright blue eyes bore into mine. The concern on his face was almost scary.

"When you first kissed Lynn, I asked you how it felt and you gave me a descriptive detail about it," Jace continued, ignoring my input. "I was drunk at the time, but I remember it. You didn't describe it in lust. You spoke about her like you were hypnotized by the girl, like you-"

"Don't!" I shouted and stood up again in frustration. "That isn't- That's not true, Jace. I don't- I can't..."

"You need to stop denying it to yourself, Horan!" Jace shouted right back at me. I was scared that someone might hear us from the hall and come in to see what was going on, but from the look on Jace's face told me he didn't give any shits about that. "You had your time to think about it and it's clear as day to me. This desolation you put yourself in to stay away from her is wearing you out; the whole team can see that. Avoiding Lynn like this is only going to get harder and harder and the more you do, the sadder you will get.

"It's worth getting caught over, Niall. I really think it is. This isn't science; there aren't any equations or textbook answers for this. It's just you and your head that is looking for a hypothesis. So what's keeping you from going after the one thing that can make you happy?"

I thought for a moment, and then I realized. It was the one thing that put me in this situation in the first place so many years ago - the one thing that I had trusted and loved. It left me in doubt and in a state of hatred. Except, I needed to stop sugarcoating it and start thinking about it as it really was: It wasn't a thing, but a name.

"Alina."

Jace paused and looked at me sadly. Jace knew the story of Alina and I. I didn't know Jace when she left me, but he understood the pain I went through because he felt that pain himself.

There was a girl - I think her name might have been Hazel - who Jace was dating back when he was still in secondary school. Apparently they were as happy as could be, just like I was with Alina, when one day she just dumps him without any reason behind it. Jace told me that he wasn't in love with the girl, but the pain was real nevertheless. It also probably didn't help that Hazel started going out with Jace's best friend a few weeks later.

"You need to stop looking for happiness in the same place you lost it," Jace told me.

The only reason I was really staying away from Lynn was because I didn't want to get hurt the same why I did with Alina. It was cruel for what she did, but it wasn't like I was any better. And Jace was right. I wasn't going to be happy if I stuck to my past's poison. Five years was enough time to self-loathe. Five years of screwing myself over, screwing my friends over, and just screwing some random girls.

"Tell me right now how you really feel about Lynn," Jace said. "If you can convince me that it's not worth it, I'll stop pushing it on you."

"I-" I started to speak, but I was at a loss for words.

Lynn made me feel a lot of things. She made me angry, she made me happy, she made me feel confident, but she also made me feel like I'm a failure and total shit.

"She scares the hell out of me," I started again, more confidently. "But she also calms me at the same time. It's a contradiction that makes no sense whatsoever, but it somehow balances out, I guess."

Feelings were always hard for me, even when I was with Alina, so I always broke it down to a science. Lynn made my blood flow increase, high amounts of dopamine shooting through my body. She made my serotonin levels lower and all I can think about, dream about... is her. And at the same time my skin would grow hot, my mouth would go a bit dry, my pulse would become elevated, and I would have a strong desire to hit something or shout at her in rage. Everything about her was so contradictory that... I didn't have a methodical reasoning for it.

The feelings I was having, the ones I couldn't even begin to explain, have intensified into something even greater and I knew I was fucked. There really weren't any calculations for this, and that terrified me the most.

"Whether I can narrow this down to a science or not, it doesn't mean shit," I admitted to Jace bitterly. "She's a dreamer and I'm a realist. It just... it's not like it's going to happen anyways."

"Maybe that's what you need, Niall, a dreamer to look after you, to get out of your fucking head once and awhile and just... live." Jace paused to read my face, but I wasn't giving him anything to go off of. "And maybe Lynn needs you to keep her from, I don't know, flying out of orbit."

I shrugged, finished with the conversation. If he was telling me that what was good for myself was to get out of my head, than he had lost his bloody mind. I relied on my head; everything I fucking did was thought out, planned, coded, and neatly placed on a mental spread sheet. I can't just abandoned it and take spontaneous risks. It wasn't in my nature.

But that was exactly what Professor Haskins said, wasn't it?

Science is in no way a solid predictor of your future. It's literally just a feeling. It all comes down to you.

"How often does this happen to you, Niall?" Jace spat at me. "How many times have you felt like this in your life? You need to stop making up excuses. Do whatever the fuck you want, but like I said before, it's worth getting caught over."

And with that, Jace left the gym, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

"Fuck," I said into the empty room.