Chapter Text
Niall's P.O.V
I never thought it would come to this. I have been sad for many years. In fact, I can't properly remember a time when I was truly happy. The other guys here play football and they get permission to go to the cinema with girls from school. They sneak out past 12 AM when Mrs. Jenkins, our "mum" is asleep. I watch Jake, and Elyar my roommates, pack overnight bags and open our room window to go out. They think I'm sleeping. I give them no reason to think I'm awake. I shake involuntarily at the thought of Elyar and Jake knowing I've seen them leave. I would get another beating, that's for sure. Yeah, Jake and Elyar are a year older than me, and in their heads, that means I'm inferior to them. I can be pushed around and I can keep my mouth shut, because I'm younger. And I haven't done a thing about their abuse. I am the youngest in our house. In all of the other rooms there are boys that are older than Jake and Elyar, or at the least they are older than me. So I keep my mouth shut, and I do the chores, always keeping my eyes on the floor.
I’m 14 years old right now. In 3 months I will be 15. I’ve been in the orphanage for so many years now, that I’ve lost track of the time. When I was really young four or five years old I used to count down the days. I used to run through the halls, sliding on my bare feet. Mum would yell at me and tell me to stop my nonsense. One day, she said, I would fall and get hurt. What she didn’t realize was, I was already hurt. I had a crack lining my outer shell. It was really miniscule and no one could see it. But, I knew it was there. And as the days longed on, and the newly wed couples came to adopt, and I was shot down on another home, the crack became larger and larger. At some point it did shatter. I stopped running through the halls. And when new couples came in to adopt I didn’t smile wide, and try to be cheerful. Sometimes I didn’t even leave my room. Mum would come in as the couple was about to leave, and she would say,
“Niall, what are you doing in your room? There is a nice young couple downstairs and they are expecting to meet everyone from the house. Now come on, get downstairs.”
Of course I would go down. But, I would not say a word. The couple would look to me, and at first I could tell as their eyes scanned my thin body and took in my blonde hair, that I was a possible candidate for their search. Then they would ask me my name, and that’s when it would go downhill. Sometimes I would mumble “Niall” under my breath, other times I wouldn’t say a word.
There’s something about a really quiet kid that scares adults away. I learned that right after I stopped talking to the possible adopters. They would nod their heads toward mum and tell her they would keep in touch. A couple days later when Fred or Jim, or whoever at the time was the youngest in the house got a call to be adopted, I would know my silence scared them away from me.
Mum has caught on to my silence. At first she got angry at me. She told me what I was doing was wrong. The word she constantly told me was potential. She said I had the potential to be adopted, and that I had the potential to live a normal life. For a long period that was the only word she would tell me. I never listened though. I stopped speaking altogether. Now mum is just sad. She focuses most of her attention on all of the other boys. Secretly, I know she still hopes that I’ll speak up. But I never do.
My mind thought back then if the young couples didn’t like a kid that was silent- then surely other kids wouldn’t like a silent kid either. As I started a new primary school I tried this new tactic out. It didn’t work at first. A young boy named Kevin, who was told to be my buddy, would not let me be. He was constantly talking and he was constantly asking questions.
I stared at the floor as Kevin rambled on about how his mom just bought him a brand new red bike. I suppose he realized at some point that I was not looking at him. He stopped short in front of me and bent down to look right up at me. Kevin was taller than me but in this position I was taller, and I felt so much in the spotlight under his gaze. He stopped talking and he reached out to direct my chin towards his.
“Niall why won’t you look at me? Please just talk to me. You look so sad, and I don’t want you to feel sad anymore.”
I didn’t answer him. A small part of me wanted to answer him that day. If I had, maybe my life would have been different. Maybe I could have rid of my isolating tactics and I could have gotten adopted. But, that’s chance, and I didn’t speak to him that day. Eventually, like mum he grew tired of trying to get me to speak. He became friends with a kid named Spencer. Since that time I still see Kevin and Spencer in secondary school, but Kevin does not make any effort to talk with me. Every once in a while I’ll catch his eyes across the room and he’ll look sad for me. It’s ridiculous though, he should hate me because I never gave him a chance.
Tonight Jake and Elyar have snuck out to meet up with more girls. Their only sixteen years old, two years older than me, and they have so much more confidence than I do.