Chapter 25 - Cheesiness

It turns out I end up wearing the mask. It wasn’t actually pleasant how it happened. I was running, he caught me, we both fell. I tried running away again. He didn’t let me. He pinned me against the ground and made me surrender after tickling me until I cried for mercy. Then I had to wear the mask.

“Just like at the ball,” he says when I’m finally wearing the mask, we both still sitting on the ground. He then cups my face gently, slowly, his smile small yet so warm.

I feel my heart doing a backflip in my chest when he says that, and although we’re outside, sitting on the ground, not even on the blanket, even when there’s no music, when we’re all alone here, when I’m just wearing my uniform and he’s in his comfy shorts and tank top, it does feel like at the ball. Like it’s that night again. The way he looks at me, the way he makes me feel. But there’s a difference this time because now I know who he is and he knows who I am… and I’m not running away from him.

I lean in and press my forehead against his.

I still can’t believe that he fooled me all this time, that he knew from the beginning it was me. How naïve of me, right? Believing I had the control. I was so sure I was going to win this bet because I thought I knew things he didn’t know when actually he had had me in his pocket all this time.

But you know what? I’m relieved. I’m actually relieved and happy that he knows, that I’m not hiding anything from him. I’m happy that he’s not looking for anyone else, that every time he was talking about Mystery Girl he was actually talking about me, wanting me, seeing me. All that pain I felt before, all that disappointment, all that anger is now gone and it’s like it was never there.

I really don’t know where this is going or if we have a future or not, I don’t even want to think about that yet. It’s too soon. I still believe he’s not my prince charming, he’s not here on his white horse to rescue me from the shitty life I’m stuck in. He’s not here to save me because he can’t do that, I do that myself and I have sorted it out. I’m just waiting to be free, all I need is patience. But he’s here… not in his shiny armour, not on a white horse because Persephone has chestnut hair, but that’s not the point. The point is that he is here with me and I don’t really know what that means.

I know I have a shitty life, but I’m not that miserable. I have Liv and Charlie… and Harry, okay, I do consider him a friend now. But I also have Niall now but he’s not a friend, he’s something else. Maybe he’s here to balance my life a bit more, to add more good things that I can focus on. Maybe he’s here so when I feel I can’t do this anymore, when I want to give up and just quit I can say: ‘No, I have good things that make this bearable. I have Liv, I have Charlie, I have Harry and I have Niall. I’m blessed in other ways.’

I don’t know, I’m not sure, but that doesn’t really matter right now. He’s here, that’s all I care about at the moment.

I lean in even closer and as I close my eyelids I just wait for the moment and it’s not too long until I feel his lips against mine in a sweet and soft kiss. My hands sneak to his neck, tangling my fingers in his hair as I tilt my head to the right as he does the same, deepening the kiss.

In one moment as I retract to take a breath, I take off the mask and put it aside before I grab his face and kiss him again, more passionately this time. No mask hiding who I am, no secret this time. Just the two of us.

When I break the kiss I don’t exactly pull back, instead I hide my head in the crock of his neck and hug him, surprising him a bit, but he recovers because he hugs me back, tightly, pulling me against his body, putting me on his lap.

We don’t say anything, we just stay there in silence, hugging each other as time passes by. I don’t know what he is thinking right now but I do know what it’s in my head: I’m happy right now. I feel light and protected somehow. Again, it’s not like I need Niall to protect me or to fight for me, but it feels nice to be in his arms, sheltered. It’s nice to lean on someone and just take a break for once.

“What are you thinking?” He asks in my ear, his hot breath tingling there.

“That I didn’t realise how much I wanted slash needed a break until now. It feels good to be like this,” I confess and I feel his arms hugging me tighter.

“Breaks are nice,” he replies. “I feel like mine has finally began.”

I don’t reply to that, I just smile as I snuggle a bit closer to him. Many things cross my mind to reply to what he’s told me, because I feel it’s special, it’s not just any sentence. But I’m not good at things like this one. I’m really not good at replying to this kind of stuff.

He finally pulls back and strokes my hair until he ends cupping my face with his left hand, a smile on his face.

“Will you stop running away from me?” He asks for the third time and I chuckle. He isn’t going to let that one drop, is he?

“I’m pretty sure that if I try, you’ll catch me anyways. You’re too fast for me, literally. I need to work out.” It’s his turn to laugh and shake his head.

“Do you really wanna run away from me?”

I smile as I try to look serious this time. He won’t give up on that, he’s very persistent. I guess we have that in common: we don’t give up. He won’t let me just ignore that question, as I won’t give up and give Rhonda the satisfaction to know she won by quitting.

“No, I won’t run away from you anymore. Happy now?” I blurt out throwing my arms in the air and he bursts out laughing.

“That’s the spirit, Ella!” He jokes and now I laugh with him. Or I do that until he kisses me again. We’re doing that a lot and I’m not complaining.

After a while my legs start to feel numb so I need to stand up, with Niall laughing at me. It’s not my fault that I don’t have the best circulatory system and my limbs fall asleep so fast.

Niall picks up the mask carefully and hands it to me. “This is yours,” he tells me as I take it. “It’s a rather beautiful mask. And you look lovely with it.”

“Charlie gave it to me. It was part of my birthday present,” I say without stopping the smile on my lips.

“Oh right! It was your birthday and I didn’t know. Happy belated birthday, Ella,” he says with a big smile. “I owe you a present,” he then adds winking at me.

“Idiot,” I mutter and he raises his eyebrows. “Don’t bother, it went by already.”

“You can’t stop me, though. I’ll get you something and it’s gonna be special and you’ll love it.”

“Blimey, aren’t we bossy?” I fold my arms, sticking my hips to one side. He only laughs, grabs my face to give me a quick kiss.

“I just state facts,” he says. “Let’s go back to the food, though? You ran before I got to eat a sandwich and I’m hungry.”

Chuckling I nod and then he grabs my hand, entwining our fingers together as he leads me to where the basket with the food and the blanket were left before. I laugh again at how cheesy that is, but it was part of the bet and he won… not fairly, but he did. And I’m actually enjoying this but I won’t tell Charlie about it or he won’t stop teasing me about it.

Oh yeah… how is he going to react when he finds out? And Liv? I guess Harry is going to be happy that he won’t have to kick his band mate’s arse anymore. I’ll guess I’ll know when I get to tell them… probably not that soon.

Niall and I sit back on the blanket and eat as we have a normal conversation and as it happens with Niall, we laugh a lot. It’s just so easy to tease about everything. But we get to know each other better with every joke. Now that this whole mystery girl slash mystery guy is solved, it’s even easier to talk to him. As easy as it was at the ball, maybe easier. And it’s great.

When the sun is about to set we decide to go horse riding. If there’s a time that’s my favourite for horse riding it has to be twilight. There’s something about the colours, the atmosphere. Everything feels different, more special. So we pick up all the stuff and follow the watercourse, seeing how it grows wider and wider as we get farther and farther away from the retreat centre, away from my family’s property. We finally arrive to the lake.

Well, it’s not a lake-lake, it’s more like a pond, a big pond and by it there’s a humble house, not too big, not too small, but it looks so comfy. And there’s also a dock and two boats, one at each side.

I know where we are.

“Woah, I didn’t know the retreat had a lake,” Niall comments, taking notice of the landscape. He looks a bit awestruck and I don’t blame him, it’s a beautiful place and that’s why I can’t stop smiling. The lake is so beautiful and I can’t believe I forgot about this place.

“It’s not part of our property,” I tell him and I feel his eyes on me. “It belongs to a family, the Hamiltons. My dad always wanted to buy this place or to get to some agreement with the owner, but he always refused. My dad wanted to have a lake as part of the retreat so much. He could imagine how much that would help the guests,” I tell him. “This place is as beautiful as I remember. I used to come here with my dad but since Richard Hamilton refused to sell his property we didn’t try again and I never came. I had forgotten about this place.”

“It’s absolutely breath-taking. This family is lucky to own this,” he says and I nod.

“He has only daughters, I remember. I think he had one about my age, I don’t remember much. I was really young when all this happened. Dad was barely starting with the business.”

“I like that you always sound so happy and proud when you talk about your parents,” Niall points out and I look at him this time. “I mean, you still look sad but happy at the same time.”

“Because I only remember them with good memories. It makes everything much more bearable.”

“It’s a wise way to do it,” he compliments and I smile.

“Let’s go back. We shouldn’t be here, it’s private property,” I tell Niall and he nods so we turn around, back on our tracks.

I’m really happy that Richard Hamilton never sold this land to Dad nor agreed to anything. If he had, now this large family would have to deal with Rhonda. Now this place would be under her care. It was a bummer back then but now I realise it was for the best.

Some things don’t go the way we plan, but sometimes those are the way they are supposed to go. Sometimes we don’t see it, but that is how it was supposed to happen all the time.

Like it happened with this lake.

Like it happened with Niall. I wasn’t supposed to like a celebrity, but here I am, with one, horse riding, smiling, having a great time.

Some things don’t go as we plan, but sometimes that’s for the best, even if it’s hard to see at the moment, we eventually see it. I’ve seen that today.

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Dedication to @Maria_Rod because I laughed at the part "I was waiting for this moment between Ella and Niall for so long!! (only since yesterday, but it really looks like a long time ago)." I like comments that make me laugh.

Bel, xx