☀︎︎step into the light☀︎︎

“When have I ever said no to rubbin’ you down?” He smirks in a way that reminds Lucy of a schoolboy who just said a dirty joke.

“That one time in Glasglow,” She raises her eyebrow teasingly, making it seem like it was an inside joke which it definitely was because Harry blushes.

“I tried to get t’get it up, I was bloody smashed,” He defends, smirking micheviously when he pinches her and she jerks her foot off with a scowl, “Don’t forget I still helped you out plenty.”

“Mm, don’t recall,” YN obviously lies, biting back a smile as she scans over the menu, “What did I get here last time?”

“Y’got tha’ spinach pizza and we shared those garlic knots,” Harry hums, pouring them both water from the pitcher provided.

Jesus, he’s probably one of the most famous men on this earth with world tours and movies and companies but he still remembers what his wife ordered a dingy restaurant in Connecticut?

“Oh yeah, that was so good. Will you split those with me again?” She asks, putting back down the menu and sipping her water - well, chugging it really until it’s gone.

“Of course. I told you tha’ y’need to drink more water while we work out,” Harry frowns, pushing his glass towards her for her to sip on.

And it was just that, they were so domestic and so obviously in love - he had heart eyes for her and he was so attentive.

After they order, Harry’s phone buzzes and he huffs before he fishes it out to answer, “Wha’ Jeff?”

YN happens to glance over as she admires the art on the wall and Lucy quickly distracts herself with her book that she has open in front of her.

“No. I told y’that I’m not workin’ today. YN and I just want to-“

He’s cut off by whatever his manager is babbling about with a furrowed brow, his hand coming up to roll his bottom lip with frustration.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, fine, yeah,” Harry mutters hurriedly trying to get off the phone, “Alright, s’fine. As long as I’m home by five. Bye.”

YN looks back to her husband, “What did he just talk you into?”

“Meeting with Sony about the new album,” He sighs, running a hand through his curly locks, “Said I should be out by four.”

“Okay,” She agree calmly, nudging her foot against his with reassurance, “It’s fine.”

“I love you,” Harry replies with a small smile, secret and just for her, “Best partner I could ask for, so good t’me.”

Lucy resists the urge to pull out her phone to snap a picture or record their conversation - she was better than those intrusive fans.

They deserved privacy from the world like everyone else, sure she was eavesdropping but she promises herself that she won’t share this experience with anyone.

When their food comes, they both chow down on the pizza and garlic bread - talking animatedly throughout their meal.

She learns that Sarah and Mitch have had their baby on tour the whole time and Harry loves playing with him.

That Anne was coming to all the Los Angeles shows and staying at their house with them - planning a surprise party for her belated birthday.

That YN was flying out later in the month to support Gemma at a clothing campaign she’s doing with a British brand.

Then Harry shoves the last piece towards her, groaning, “Eat tha’, m’so full.”

For how lean and in shape Harry is, Lucy was surprised by how much he could eat and was quite impressed - boys and their metabolisms.

“I can’t, I’m stuffed,” She shakes her head, pushing it back towards him with a heavy exhale as she pats her stomach.

“M’gonna stuff you,” Harry mutters with that same wolfish expression before he stacks their plates and finishes his water.

“Don’t make promises you won’t keep,” YN purses her lips, reaching in her bag for his beanie and sunglasses.

“Oh, I’ll keep it, darlin’,” Harry gruffs with a low, bravado and a dark look at her even when she rolls her eyes.

And the Harry is handing the waitress his black American Express before signing the bill with a large tip.

A fan approaches with her cell phone out and in the couples face, “Excuse me? Can we take a picture? I’m going to the concert tomorrow!”

Lucy can automatically see them both tense up, opposite from how relaxed they were a moment beforehand.

Harry plasters on a smile but he kindly shakes his head and says, “Not today, sorry.”

The girl visible gets upset, frowning as she remarks that she’s his biggest fan and that she’s spent so much money on his merch.

“Okay, just one,” Harry replies tersely, he seemingly agrees because it’s easier than engaging in a fight with the ‘fan’.

Then the girl scampers of with a prize picture on her phone, already sharing it to social media most likely, with not care that she disrespected his boundaries.

“You’re okay,” YN murmurs as they gather their things, she steps over to him and tugs him into a hug which he welcomes fully, “Tonight, just me and you at the apartment - movies and snacks. Just us.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait. I need tha’. Just me n’ you,” Harry agrees a bit happier and he tilts his wife’s jaw up for a kiss before squeezing her one more time.

Lucy knows and has seen pap/fan pictures and videos of them being affectionate- remembers how bitter fan girls always say their relationship is exaggerated or even fake.

Well, there is absolutely no way they could fake the love that they have for each other, it was obvious to Lucy how in love they were.

She watches as they leaves, doesn’t miss how Harry lands a smack on her bum before intertwining their hands.

Lucy sticks to her words, never tells anyone but her mom about what she witnessed in that little pizzeria in Uncasville .

-

As for Harry and YN, when he arrives at the meeting headquarters, he’s bombarded by paparazzi but scurries inside.

YN - back at their hotel room, orders all his favorite snacks, sets up all the fluffy blankets and pillows on the living room couch for when he comes home.

She can tracks his movements on her phone so when he’s heading home, she jumps in the shower because she knows he will join her.

Which he does, as soon as he finds her, he strips out of all of his clothes - leaving his vintage bomber jacket and jeans on the floor as he crowds into her despite how massive the shower is.

He hugs her from behind and lays his forehead on the back of her head, “I missed you.”

“I missed you,” YN replies, putting her hands over his on her belly, “How was the meeting?”

“Stressful,” Harry sighs, pulling her back until she pressed up against his hard chest, “Already talking about the third album’s tour dates. S’just so much considering tha’ I’ve only toured the US for this one and have so many more dates in other countries.”

“Not surprised,” She replies with an edge of irritation, they always stretched him so fucking thin.

“Hey, hey darlin’,” Harry coos softly, kissing her hair, “As long as I have y’with me, m’good. S’gonna be okay, lovie. Don’t get all pouty on me.”

“I hate sharing you. I have to share you nearly every night with tens of thousands of people,” YN mumbles, turning around to smush her cheek against his peck, chest against his.

Harry can’t help but twitch at the feeling of her pert nipples on his skin but he chuckles deeply, “Darlin’, I come home to you, yeah? Every night, m’in our bed. I got a ring on m’finger letting everyone know who I belong to. S’just me and you, has been since we were sixteen.”

YN begins to pepper kisses on his neck as he massages at the little bit of pudge he can never get rid of on his hips.

“Sweetheart,” He groans loudly when her hand dips lower to grasp him in her grip and give him a few tight tugs, “How could y’think I belong to anyone else? S’your cock, baby.”

“Mmm, it is,” She agrees demurely, thumb rubbing at the sensitive spot beneath his crown before dragging over his drippy slit.

“Yeah, right like tha’,” Harry babbles, pushing into her hand to get a rhythm going - pants coming out from his plump lips as his eyes watch in rapt.

“Only I get you like this,” She states, almost to herself, as she sucks a gnarly hickey onto his chest near his sparrows - just to prove a point.

“Just you, you’re so good - fuck,” He hisses when she rolls his balls expertly with her other hand before he’s snapping out of it and shoving her off.

“Harry, what-“ She begins to ask, confused but she’s spun around once again and he pushes her against the cold tile - shushing her squeak at the coldness.

“Gonna let me ‘ave it?” His sex voice is in full force as his lips brush against her ear - she can feel how hard he is as he rubs up against her bum.

“Please, H,” YN whines impatiently, spreading her legs a bit further and pushing back until he snugs inbetween her cheeks.

“Yeah, s’okay. Let me give it to you,” Harry murmurs as he bends his knees a bit and grips her waist to position her until he’s slipping into her warm heat.

“Yes, shit,” She huffs as he begins a delicious pace that isn’t to fast but hard, enough that she has to focus on keeping her footing.

“Tha’s it. It’s all yours, take it, darlin’,” He encourages as he slams in with determination, hand reaching around to hold onto her breast.

“Baby,” YN moans loudly, echoing over the pounding water and echos throughout the room, “Fuck, that’s good.”

“God, y’so sexy. How’d I fuckin’ get you?” Harry hisses, he tugs her leg up and really starts fucking in until she’s screaming with pleasure as she orgasms.

Then he’s following behind with a few more directed thrusts until he’s spilling inside her - she can feel his ribcage expanding and deflating with each heavy pant of air.

“Mm, cuddle time now?” He asks innocently, like he wasn’t just spewing filth and fucking her brains out a minute ago.

“Y’in charge of scrubbing me since you insist on coming in me, then we can watch that new movie on Netflix, okay?”

Harry smiles boyishly, nuzzling her damp cheek.

“Y’act like it’s a hardship to wash up m’pretty lil’ wife. C’mon, spread ‘em.”

-

They’re halfway through the movie when YN pops her head up off Harry’s chest, “Can we go to that ice cream place down the street?”

Harry, who was admittedly dozing off, rasps out, “Y’want to go right now?”

“Please? They have fudge mint chocolate chip,” She gives him the best pouty lips that has him groaning but still agreeing.

“I’m only sayin’ yes because y’put out earlier,” He jokes as he tugs on his trainers and then his puffer jacket.

“You would have taken me if I hadn’t,” YN points out as she tugs on her own shoes.

He tries to conceal his fond smile but fails, “You’re right, still give you everything you wanted if you didn’t.”

-

Cameron was hallucinating, she was sure of it because when she steps in Big Scoops with her parents after a basketball game.

Harry fucking Styles and his wife are standing in front of him.

Holy shit.

She was trying to contain her fangirling as they stand right in front of her in line to get ice cream, like…what?

Cameron also completely regrets not turning in her chemistry essay because that earned her an F which in turn had her parents take away her phone.

She couldn’t document this moment.

YN and Harry both looked tired, Harry was standing behind his wife with his arms around her shoulders in a bear hug.

“Do you think they’ll give you a discount or a freebie?” YN asks her husband in a sweet, teasing tone.

“Y’have said that joke for the last eleven years and it hasn’t gotten any funnier,” He chuckles but it was with affection and tone like he found it funny but didn’t want to admit it.

“M’sleepy,” YN murmurs, a yawn following the statement - she turns around in his arms and hugs him, arms around his middle.

Harry waddles them forward when the line moves and she giggles cutely into his chest.

They were just so fucking cute.

“We can sleep in tomorrow,” Harry reminds her, quietly like he knows people might be listening to them, “Sound good, pet?”

“Mm,” She agrees, turning to order when it’s their turn and then Harry does - he steps forward to hand them his card and Cameron sees him sneak a fifty in the tip jar.

The teens behind the counter ask for a group picture which Harry agrees to but Cameron notices that the genuine, happy smile that he had for his wife contorts into a more tense, forced one.

She couldn’t really blame him. He was just trying to get a late night snack with his spouse before his show the next day.

Cameron notices that when they thank him and separate that YN rubs his back in reassurance and guides him out of the shop protectively.

She hears her murmur, “I know. Let’s go home, bub.”

She decides not to blast the encounter all over social media because tonight made him seem so much more human.

-

Lucy finds it to be such an odd experience, seeing Harry on stage the next night because of how she saw him the day before.

He was such a bright light on stage as he shimmied and danced like he was having them time of his life up there.

She is towards the back of the pit, when the show begins and YN trails out with Jeff and Tommy - Lucy makes eye contact with YN.

And to her utter surprise, YN beckons her over as Harry transitions into Only Angel, his wife yells over the music.

“Were you at the pizza shop yesterday?” YN asks curiously, leaning over the barricade.

Lucy is surprised by the fact that YN remembered her (she did have very distinct thick framed glasses and her hair was dyed electric blue so…).

She nods, starstruck, YN was even more beautiful close-up and her outfit fit her body perfectly, big engagement ring shining in the lights. ***(pretend the color matches his outfit).

“I just want to thank you for not blasting our business all over the internet, truly, thank you,” YN replies sincerely, a soft smile made Lucy feel welcome and less nervous.

Lucy had to take a moment to find her voice, “Y-you’re welcome, you guys deserve privacy just like the rest of us.”

YN turns to say something to Jeff that Lucy cannot hear and then she faces her again with an envelope in her hand.

“Two pit tickets, for tomorrow nights show,” YN informs her as she hands the shaking girl the item - ignoring all the other fans recording their interaction.

“Wha- are you?” Lucy stutters out in absolute disbelief - she had to be dreaming or something, instead she puts her foot in her mouth and chokes out, “Can I give you a hug?”

YN doesn’t think twice before she’s shooing off the security guards and reaching out to give her a tight hug.

Lucy pulls back, she happens to glance at the stage where Harry is staring at them intently - attempting to seem engaged in singing but he is watching protectively to make sure everything’s okay.

When YN and him make eye contact, she rolls her eyes at his watchfulness which makes him give her a dimpley smile and blow them a kiss.

Yeah, Lucy just won at life.

Part 24: Connecticut Night 1 & Night 2

Boston, Massachusetts

October 20, 2021

Of course we forgot to close the curtains again last night. I roll around in bed and open my eyes carefully thinking the bright morning light will be seeping into the room and wanting to adjust to it, but I find it still slightly dark with the curtains pulled down.

I also find Harry’s side empty which means he’s probably already out for the day and that he closed the curtains before leaving so that I could sleep in for a little bit longer.

I stretch my arms and back and realize I’m actually quite sore from all the sex we’ve been having. Harry’s in a sex craze lately and seems to never be satified and well I really cant’s complain cause he’s got me feeling very, very satisfied.

We are in Boston right now, and we will be here for almost a week, which apparently made more sense to Harry than just staying in Connecticut for these two next shows. I really think all this moving around and jumping from hotel to hotel is starting to take a toll on him, so I agreed with him when he suggested we just settle down in Boston for a few days and drive to the arena in Uncasville every night.

I reach for my phone that's been charging on my nightstand the whole night and get up from bed, walking to the kitchenette and find that Harry left some coffee made for me on the coffeemaker and a note next to it, written on the hotel’s stationery with his messy handwriting.

Just a reminder that you’re beautiful and I love you xx

PS. Went to the gym for a quick workout

PSS. Left some fruit in the fridge for you

I smile at his thoughtfulness and turn around so that I can grab the plate of fruit and almost drool when I look at the freshly cut pieces of honeydew melon and bright red strawberries. I set it in front of me and turn the switch on the coffeemaker to warm up the deliciously smelling dark liquid. I pop a piece of melon in my mouth and unlock my phone, deciding to scroll through my notifications while I wait.

I have a bunch of notifications from my family’s group chat, which I will have to check on later. There’s some work emails I will get to as soon as I take my coffee and turn my brain on. There’s nothing much really so I decide to tap on the Twitter icon and lurk on what Harry’s fans are up to this morning, a habit I’ve developed recently and that I find quite entertaining. Harry teases me about it but I shrug it off, telling him that at least one person in this team has to be in close contact with fans.

So now he even asks me what interesting things I found on my timeline.

His favorite tweets are always the ones that say things along the lines of “i can’t believe no one’s sucking harry’s dick after the shows”. Because then he looks at me devilishly and well, Watermelon Sugar high for the rest of the night.

My timeline finally loads, showing the latest most relevant tweets from the last few hours and my mouth falls as soon as I start scrolling down.

What

The

Fuck

I run to my bedroom to put on a hoodie and a pair of sneakers, just enough clothes on so that they can run to the hotel gym and look for Harry.

I open the door almost tripping with my own feet because I’m in such a rush and throw it close with a loud bang. Oops.

I almost sprint down the hallway and into the elevator where I press the button to the second floor where the gym and indoor pool are located.

Someone has some explaining to do.

I finally get to the gym door and push it open in a frenzy, probably looking like a maniac but after one quick look around I realize there’s no else but Harry lightly jogging on a treadmill in the back of the room, while watching a tv show, probably The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, on his iPad.

Great, we are alone. I don’t want to cause a scene.

“Excuse me” I say as soon as I’m close enough to him. He turns his head around and his eyes almost bug out his head when he looks at me, standing in front of him with my arms crossed over my chest and my most accusatory look on.

He almost trips over the treadmill but is able to turn it off in a hurry. I chuckle on the inside but keep up my act for him.

“What´s wrong?” Harry asks, trying to catch his breath quickly and taking his AirPods out of his ears so that I have his full attention. All the color drains from his face. Mmmm, what have you really done, Harry Styles?. He is looking at me expectantly so I decide to go straight into the matter.

“You’re in a Marvel movie and you didn’t tell me” I exclaim loudly and he jumps back a bit, seemingly very confused at how I’ve suddenly got this piece of information.

“Shhh” Harry shushes me, looking around. There’s still no one but us in here and the news it’s all over Twitter anyways.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re in a Marvel movie?” I whisper-yell this time.

“How do you know that?” He asks, still looking confused. He grabs his towel from the Treadmill console and gets off it, taking a step closer to me.

“How did you find out about that?” He asks again. He looks pretty out of breath, he was in the middle of a run after all so I reach for his Hydroflask and give it to him, and he smiles at me gratefully with adoration in his eyes. The looks he always has for me.

Anyways, I’m mad. Back to our fight.

“That doesn’t matter. Why didn’t you tell me? That’s huge H” I say, turning my frown into a pout, the one that Harry finds utterly adorable.

As expected he lifts his fingers to my chin, lifting my face so that I’m looking at him and leaning in to press a kiss to my lips.

“Don’t be mad Bunny. It completely slipped my mind, I mean it was so long ago, I didn’t even remember that was coming out soon” He says and I know he’s being sincere but I don’t understand how it could have slipped his mind that he’s in a fucking Marvel movie.

“Be serious” I tell him, but my lips are back into a small smile, not being able to suppress my chuckle at how utterly adorable he is.

“I’m serious, it slipped my mind. You know I have so many projects at the same time and I’ve been completely absorbed by the tour and Pleasing coming soon, and it also feels like we filmed that so long ago” He explains, lifting one of his hands to scratch at his neck and I can’t help but chuckle. He looks concentrated, like he’s trying to figure out how that huge fact slipped his mind.

“Okay” I say, trying to suppress a big smile “I’m not mad at you anymore”

Harry chuckles and presses his lips to mine again.

“Good” He mumbles against my lips still teasing me “You look very cute in those pajamas”

I laugh under my breath, still kissing Harry. I didn’t even take the time to shower and change before coming here. I was on an absolute mission.

“I can’t believe my boyfriend is an Avenger” I say and Harry throws his head back with a laugh.

“Well, actually I’m not really an Avenger, love, more like an Eternal” He explains.

“Doesn’t matter. Same thing” I get on my tiptoes and throw my hands around his neck, pressing our chests together “I’m so proud of you”

“I love you” Harry says leaning in to kiss me one more time. Suddenly, he lifts one of his hands to the back of my neck and presses me tighter to him. Our tongues start to dance slowly against each other.

“Harry, someone could come in” I breathe out, separating our lips a millimeter. Harry whines at the loss of contact.

“Doesn't matter” He mumbles and kisses me again.

“Someone could see us” I say again but he doesn’t break apart from me.

“I don’t care. Let them see us” He says with so much certainty that I let myself relax and melt against his lips “I can kiss my girlfriend if I want to, wherever I want to”

“I love you too” I whisper back. His hand trails down my neck until he rests it on the low of my back.

“I’m glad I’m forgiven,” He says. I can literally feel his smirk against my lips.

“Actually, on one condition” I say and take a small step back, so that we can look at each other “You have to introduce me to Salma Hayek, I absolutely love her”

Harry smiles and holds his hand out for me to take.

“I will introduce you to the whole cast baby” He says and pulls me with him. We leave the gym doors all smiley, Harry holding my hand with our fingers intertwined while I make jokes about how impatient I am to see him in a spandex suit.

“You’ve seen way more than that baby” He says before the elevator door closes.

--

I walk out the ensuite where I just finished doing my night skincare routine and smile at the sight in front of me. Harry’s laying in bed reading on his Kindle, with his reading glasses on and shirt off. Definitely one of my favorite sights in this bubble of domesticity we have created.

His show tonight was amazing as usual, though I teased him about his outfit being the same colors as the last show’s but inverted. The smaller sized arena gave the show a cozier feeling that I really liked. I told myself to enjoy it because from now on, I know that Harry will only become bigger and bigger and therefore, his shows will never be small and cozy again. And I love that for him.

He looks up from his reading and gives a small tired smile. I know the hecticness of the last couple of months is starting to take a toll on him and that’s why I’ve been taking care of himself as much as I can, reminding him to take his vitamins and stay hydrated because I really want him to be at his healthiest.

Being caring and nurturing is my love language.

“Come here” Harry says and I smile, climbing on the bed and setting myself next to him, as close to his body as I can. He immediately places a hand on my back and rubs it tenderly. I sigh out of contentment and lean in to press a kiss to his chest.

“I love this” I say and he looks down at me smiling “I love you”

I see a glint in his eyes and for a moment I think they’ve watered slightly but I can’t tell for sure. I know that he gets emotional sometimes and I just let him be, not wanting to overwhelm me. He has no problem opening up to me when he wants to and I respect that.

I’m a very intuitive person and I’ve quickly learned that with Harry, respecting his boundaries is the way to have him be comfortable enough to open up, so that’s exactly what I do.

“Mmm, you smell so good, like the beach” He says, leaning in to press a kiss to the top of my head.

“It’s my new coconut oil body wash,” I explain, cuddling closer to him.

We stay in silent for a bit, just indulging in each other’s warmth and in this moment I remember that my mom always says you know when you’ve reached the highest levels of intimacy with someone when you can just be in silence together and remain completely comfortable.

“Hey Em” He finally says, breaking the silence.

“Mhm?” I reply, getting sleepy but wanting to reassure him I’m paying attention to him.

“Last year was really tough but you’ve reminded me that I really love life and I really love what I do” His words hit me deep, making my heart hurt slightly for him and now it’s my eyes that water. I don’t want him to ever feel anything but happiness.

“Well, I’m here to stay” I tell him with a small chuckle, trying to lighten up the mood and it works cause I hear him chuckle.

“I would really hope so,” He says. He reaches out to switch off the lamp and once again we fall asleep in each other’s arms. A habit that will never get old.

--

October, 23 2021

Mohegan Sun Arena, Connecticut

I blindly walk down the corridors of the empty arena early in the day while scrolling down my Google Calendar on my iPad. The quietness and almost somber feeling of the arena is such a huge contrast to last night's ambience, with the fan’s energy seeping through the roof.

I get a quick text from Harry, letting me know golfing is good and I type a quick reply and letting him know work around the arena is going well too.

I smile to myself and think about how everything’s been a dream and so incredibly good lately.

But apparently not as good as I think.

Life has a way to go in your favor sometimes and other times it’s like it fits the pieces just the way needed to work against you.

Because what are the odds that I would be walking past the arena staff’s lounge at the exact same time that two girls from the crew are talking about me.

“No wonder why she barely does any work here, she’s fucking the boss”

I hear the words so incredibly clear, like they were amplified just for my ears and my stomach drops to the floor immediately. This is exactly what I feared the most.

I stay frozen in place not really knowing how to react to the words I just heard and the multiple laughs that followed them. And it all becomes much worse and I recognize the voice immediately.

Lisa.

My very first friend here and the one who helped me fit in in my first week. Before I even met Harry.

The sour tone with which she pronounced those words dig deep into my heart and I feel all my trust issues resurfacing.

But the worst thing of all is that I find myself immediately blaming myself.

I’m finally able to force myself to move forward and I sprint down the hallway with my heart beating a thousand miles a minute and my hands shaking. I let out a breath I’ve been holding the moment I finally spot the door to Harry’s dressing room and barge in, locking the door behind me.

I rest my back against the door and start trying to breathe in and out, like Harry has been helping me practice for these moments where my anxiety takes the best of me.

This really is my fault.

I feel incredibly dumb because I knew this was going to happen. We should have never made our relationship public until the tour was over. But we rushed into it because we were so wrapped up in our own bubble that we felt completely invincible. I just couldn’t say no to Harry when he asked me if I was sure about telling the band and crew about us, not when he’s so happy every time he introduces me as his girlfriend and when he’s able to hold my hand whenever he wants.

But I can’t only blame it on him. I also wanted to be able to enjoy our relationship outside of the confines of a hotel room.

And these are the consequences. People talking about me like I’m just some kind of gold digger or whatever, I don’t even know what it is that they think.

I remind myself what Harry’s told me multiple times, that our relationship is ours and that we shouldn’t care about what anyone has to say about it. But it’s just too hard. Especially when my ex-boyfriend made me feel all the time like I was useless and I couldn’t be anyone without him and I still have so much interiorized trauma about that. I thought that chapter of my life was already closed but apparently it isn’t.

I keep on breathing in and out, with my bag still pressed to the back of the door and clutching the iPad to my chest. I can see the screen lighting up with notifications, texts from Harry probably, but I can’t bring myself to answer him right now.

I feel like I’m starting to calm down a little bit but then the words resonate on my head again cutting like a knife.

No wonder why she barely does any work here, she’s fucking the boss

And then I feel betrayed. The reminder that it was Lisa, whom I once considered a good friend that was talking about me like that makes it all feel much worse and I can feel the vomit rising through my throat.

But once again my insecurities get the best of me and I’m blaming myself again. Maybe it was my fault because I ended up neglecting our newly formed friendship.

A knock on the door forces me back to reality, I clear my throat and take a big breath before opening it and finding Tommy on the other side. He seemingly notices something’s off with me because he looks at me curiously but I give him the most reassuring smile I can right now and he shrugs it off.

“Are you coming with us Em? We are about to leave now. It’s an hour long drive and H wants to grab a bite somewhere nice and then walk around Boston for a bit” He waits for me to answer and I try to force myself to say yes, that I’d come with them and meet my boyfriend who’s excitedly waiting to see me but I can’t, I really need some alone time right now.

“Actually, I’m going to stay here. I have a lot of emails to get to” I say with an apologetic smile “Can you tell Harry I’ll meet him here tonight?”

“Are you sure?” Tommy asks and I nod eagerly.

“Positive” I say, as convincing as I can.

“Okay, let us know if you need anything” He says before turning around and skipping down the corridor.

I close the door again and breathe, the couch looks pretty comfortable and I feel so drained out that I decide a nap is a good idea right now. So I make myself comfortable on the brown worn out couch and I fall into such a deep sleep that I don’t even hear my phone ringing with Harry’s texts and calls.

-

I wake up to the feeling of a soft touch caressing combing my hair. I open my eyes and I’m met with a pair of green ones staring worriedly at me. Harry’s kneeling in front of me caressing my face in a comforting way, helping me wake up.

“Hey Dimples” I say in a hoarse voice, a consequence of my apparently 4 hour long nap.

“Hey baby” He says “ Are you feeling alright? You didn’t answer my texts”

“Yeah” I say, sitting up and stretching my arms “I’m sorry, I fell asleep”

Harry nods while still staring at me, trying to decipher if I’m telling him the truth.

“I brought you some food, I figured you wouldn’t have gotten any food around here” He hands me a white paper bag and I smile. I open it and smile at him gratefully, I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast and I really am hungry.

“It’s a falafel kebab, I knew you’d love it as soon as I saw it on the menu” He gives me a toothy grin and I smile back at the fact he’s always thinking about me.

I take a bite from the wrap and almost moan at the taste and feeling of food finally hitting my stomach.

“It’s so good” I tell him and immediately grab another bite.

“I know my Emi’s taste” He says in the most adorable way and I continue chowing down.

Harry chuckles and sits next to me on the couch. We sit comfortably in silence while I eat. I’m really enjoying this kebab and Harry just stares at me with adoring eyes.

Harry waits till I’m finished eating to speak again.

“What got you so upset today Em? You know you can tell me anything” He asks, too straight to the point for my liking. I wanted us to avoid the elephant in the room for a little bit longer.

“How do you know I was upset?” I ask him, in an attempt to distract him from the real issue here.

“You were so excited about sightseeing around Boston but chose not to come and took a 4 hour nap instead, I know you too well baby” He explains and I lower my gaze, so that he can’t read through my eyes how troubled I actually feel.

“It's no big deal, I promise. We can talk about that back in the hotel” I chose to say, there’s no point in pretending that I’m just fine, but I don’t want to cause him trouble just before his show.

And also maybe I’m just blowing everything out of proportion and I can play it cool with him, then we will both laugh about it and that’s it. I will just try to ignore what I heard.

Though it’s going to be pretty difficult with the words on repeat inside my head.

No wonder why she barely does any work here, she’s fucking the boss

“Em please, let’s talk about it right now” Harry says, his tone becoming slightly more insistent but still under control. I know however, that it’s just because he worries about me.

We can’t have this conversation here though. Not yet.

“Tonight, Harry” I say firmly and look at him sternly, so that he gets the hint to stop pushing the topic.

He just looks at me and nods with a frown. I sigh and sit up so that I can get closer to him and I can grab his face between my hands. I rub his cheeks tenderly and connect our eyes.

“I just don’t want to talk about that here so we’ll talk at the hotel, okay? I promise you everything’s fine” I press my lips to his and he brings a hand to my lower waist.

“Okay my love” He says and I smile at him reassuringly, getting a smile out of him too.

“I love you” He says pressing his lips to mine once again.

·”I love you H” I reply. We kiss for a little while longer until it’s time for him to start getting ready. And the process starts one more time.

I finally breathe out when Harry leaves to the stage and I start praying that time passes slowly so that I can delay explaining to Harry why I was upset today.

I see Harry being wheeled on stage and I turn around to find Tommy and Jeff in the usual place.

Here we go again I guess.

--

“Okay, so tell me baby. What got you so upset, mm?” Harry says as soon as we cross the door to our room. He barely even leaves time for us to drop our stuff onto the table when he’s speaking. He walks over to where I’m standing and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me to him.

He’s being really sweet with me and I pray to god I don’t ruin the mood too much when I tell him about it.

“I just heard some people making some comments about me today but I should just ignore it to be honest. It really is no big deal” I say, trying to play it cool though my voice quivers a bit. I hide it well enough though.

Harry seems to be able to read me too well, cause I feel him tense immediately. He moves his hands to cup my face so that I’m looking at him.

“Some people as in some people from the crew?” He asks me but I know he’s already putting two and two together and just wants me to confirm.

“Yeah” I say in a whisper, lowering my gaze slightly ashamed. I really don’t want to cause any trouble around here and much less be the reason Harry gets mad at anyone from his crew.

“What were they saying?” He asks, his tone more firm, and I know there’s no way I will be able to make him forget about it now.

“Harry I promise it’s no big deal, I probably just overreacted anyways” I say but he interrupts me. My feelings betray me and a single tear rolls down my cheek and he notices immediately, wiping it away with his thumb.

“Em, tell me please. What did you hear them say about you” His tone is firm and right at this moment I can tell he’s not only my boyfriend trying to protect me but also Harry Styles, the boss.

I swallow the knot in my throat and prepare myself to be honest with him.

“They said that of course I don’t do any work around here because I’m fucking the boss” I let out quietly but I can tell Harry heard me perfectly. In a matter of seconds I notice his shoulders tense and he clenches his jaw like I’ve never seen him do before. For a moment I fear will be break it.

He breathes through his nose once and then it’s official.

Harry Styles is mad.

He lets go of my arms that he had been holding in a comforting way and turns around, walking to the window where he stands looking out the city with his hands on his hips. I decide to give him a minute to think because I really don’t know what to say to calm him down.

I had never really seen him like this. Like I can see the rage coming off his pores.

He finally turns around and looks at me.

“Who said it?” He asks. His voice firm and angry. I know he’s not mad at me but I still feel horrible to be the reason he’s gotten like this.

“Harry, it really doesn’t matter” I say, taking a step towards him.

“Em, I said who said it?” He interrupts me. His tone is even firmer now and I know I can’t mess around with him right now.

“We knew people were going to talk either way” I say trying to calm him down, I feel myself starting to get anxious again.

Harry starts pacing down the room and I just stand there, staring at him and not knowing what to do. He finally stops and looks at me.

“I will fire them. '' He says quickly and I immediately jump and walk over to him.

“No Harry you can’t do that” I say walking to him and standing right in front of him so that he knows I’m being serious now too. He can’t fire Lisa because of me I will never stop feeling guilty about it “You can’t just fire people that don’t like me or that have something to say about me”

I try to reason with him

“Yes I can and I will. If anyone has a problem with you they can come directly to me and say it to my face,” He says with so much firmness and certainty that I know there’s not much fighting I can do. He has made up his mind.

“Harry I will feel horrible if you fire them because of me” I plead, my voice breaking slightly.

This is my fault after all.

“Em, why would you feel bad about it? You did nothing wrong don’t you see? They are the ones going around talking shit about you, the sweetest and kindest person on this tour” His tone has elevated and I know it’s not directed at me but at the situation still, my eyes water.

“Don’t yell at me” I say quietly and Harry's gaze softens quickly when he hears my words.

“I’m sorry babe I didn’t mean to, I’m just so fucking mad” He yells to the ceiling, grabbing at the roots of his hair.

He starts pacing around the room again and I decide to sit in a corner of the couch, with my knees pulled up to me.

“I will tell Jeff to fire them and tell them that they will still get paid what their contract establishes but I don’t want them around here anymore” He says “Would that be a good compromise?”

I look at him with watery eyes and I shrug. Harry sighs loudly and I know he’s trying hard to control himself because of me.

“Bunny, it’s not because of you that I want them gone, though I won’t lie and say that’s not the main reason because I care about you too much to let people step over you, but also I can’t have people that discuss mine and my partner’s private life around” He tells, I can see the frustration rolling off him “They even signed NDAs for a reason”

I nod because I know he’s right, though I still feel like I caused all this mess. Harry walks over to the couch and kneels in front of me. He grabs both my hands between his and his green eyes meet my gaze. I notice that they have started to soften.

“Em, I’m so tired of people always having something bad to say about my partners, it’s been going on for my whole life and I never do anything about it because I always avoid confrontation. But you’re not just another partner to me” He says and I look up at him “You are the woman I’m in love with and they will respect you as much as they respect me”

He takes a deep breath in and lifts our hands to his lips to press a kiss on my knuckles.

“If anyone has a problem with you around here they better leave anyways, cause I plan on having you here with me for many more tours to come” He adds making my heart perform a somersault inside my chest.

I mouth the words I love you to him. Because I do, I really really do. And hearing him say with so much certainty that he wants me with him for the long run brings me some of the comfort I need right now.

“You won’t be able to protect me from people talking about me and our relationship all the time though” I tell him.

“I know, but if it’s something that’s in my hands I will do it. I will protect you and make sure that we have the best ambience for the both of us and our relationship around here” He lets go of my hands and brings his hand to cup my cheek rubbing it tenderly.

“Thanks” I tell him truthfully “I don’t think I’ve ever had someone care for me as much as you do before. It takes time to get used to it”

I chuckle a little bit but Harry shakes his head.

“Emilia I promise you I will take care of you and protect you for the rest of my life if you allow me to” He says and my eyes water again but this time for complete different reasons.

I’ve never felt so much love in my life before.

“Now what do you say about a bath mhm? I think we both need it. I’m still fucking mad I’m just good at disgusing it for you” He says, making me laugh and we both stand up from the couch.

“Let 's go''. I bought your favorite lavender bath bombs” I tell him and he smiles.

“My angel” He says, leaning down to press a kiss to my bare shoulder and walking behind me to the bathroom.

I still don’t like the idea that people will get fired because of this but I know Harry’s right after all and in the end he can’t have people like that around him. So I will try to just shrug it off.

They still will get paid at least, I tell myself.

And they will learn a lesson to not trash talk other people.

God, Steven is right, I’m too nice.

I’m really going to have to grow some thicker skin if I plan to dive right into this world with Harry for the long run.

“I will get the water just as warm as you like it” Harry says after taking his shirt off and I nod, smiling at him.

I definitely plan to be here for a very long time.

--

All my flowers grew back as thorns

Windows boarded up after the storm

He built a fire just to keep me warm

All the drama queens taking swings

All the jokers dressin' up as kings

They fade to nothing when I look at him

And I know I make the same mistakes every time

Bridges burn, I never learn, at least I did one thing right

I did one thing right

I'm laughing with my lover, making forts under covers

Trust him like a brother, yeah, you know I did one thing right

Starry eyes sparkin' up my darkest night

Call It What You Want - Taylor Swift

Leave me a message, I will appreciate it!

The wind had whipped against his face as he stood motionless in his new all American driveway, with his step-father and mother’s dream home looking back at him with the same voided gaze. The moving trucks had long since backed into the driveway, and while they filed through the boxes that made up his entire life back in London, he tried to take his new surroundings.

Everything was different. From the taste of the wind to the set-up of the city. He had begged his mother for months not to let things come to this. He got on in knees, begging for her to find a way to let him stay; to keep him the same small town he had adored since the beginning of his life. When his mother had finally sat him down and told Harry with a heavy hear that it was a necessary sacrifice. Arthur had done so much for them; his mother explained that she loved him enough to give this to him in return. A rare job opportunity across the pond that could lead them to live the life they had always dreamed.

At ten years old, Harry couldn’t understand what that meant. The extent of his knowledge of love was Alyssa in his first grade class, and other than that, his parents were the only example he’d ever had. So, with great reluctance, he nodded. Feigned understanding and kept his mouth shut as he kissed his mother as if to tell her he would no longer complain.

Harry sat tight lipped in the backseat, watching the outside of the window as empty plots of land passed them by and he tried to wrap his head around why exactly anyone would be willing to uproot for the United States, of all places?

“How do you feel, Champ?” Arthur piped up from the driver seat. He looked at the ten year old in the seat behind him, watching the cars next to him as he shrugged without much more emotion than that.

It was a difficult adjustment for any child to move; let alone to a new country where he was sure the kids in his school would point and laugh at him. By the time he was 15, he would be reduced to the common American that he and his friends would laugh about in primary. Harry blew a raspberry, studying the large, open garage door in front of him. Outlined with beige housepaint from the sturdy columns that kept the very reason for the ache in his chest standing tall before him. He could hear his mother distantly directing the movers on where the couch would go, and he watched his step-father lift boxes and delicately kiss his mother on the cheek as if to remind her that he appreciated her allowing this more than anything in the world.

“Hi.”

The voice was unfamiliar, the very thick Texan accent he had been dreading hearing since he had touched down in Texas. He turned on his heel to see a scrappy brunette, no older than nine and a half herself. Coke bottle glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose and a slight frown on her face as she lifted a plate of cookies to his face despite her eyes being focused on the ground in front of her. She wasn’t wearing shoes; only one purple and yellow polka dotted socks on her left foot and a pastel pink and white sloth on the other. She was clad in a black zip up sweatshirt that read Niagara Falls, New York in tight lettering on right breast. Her cerulean blue sweatpants in tandem to the socks were what told him the girl was nothing short of a mess. And Harry could not have dreamed of receiving such a form of entertainment on what he would consider to be the worst day of his life.

“Hi.” He cracked a smile, analyzing the pout on her face. She looked more nervous than anything else; maybe there were hints of dread in her eyeroll as he shifted his eyes back and forth between the girl in front of him and the plate, she had been presenting him with.

“My dad made these for you.” She muttered, lifting her arms an inch further, reassuring Harry to please take the cookies. “They’re chocolate chip. He didn’t know what you liked, so he made my favorite.” They were still warm if the steam emanating from the chocolate was anything to go by. Harry took the plate out of her hands, causing her to immediately drop her hands to her sides, her gaze refusing to meet his own.

“Welcome to the neighborhood.” Before turning on her heel and making her way back to the house next door.

+

Harry’s first day of school was slow, and just as he had guessed, everyone either thought he was weird for having an accent that made him different, or so cool and interesting nobody would leave him alone.

He felt alienated in a way he had never felt before.

There were people who weren’t always nice to him. Maybe give him a hard time now and again, but Harry was always just popular enough to evade bullies. Here? A different story entirely. He could feel people whispering about him on the playground. It was a new insecurity bubbling under the surface, and he felt ready to go just about batty until he caught sight of a familiar face doodling on the picnic benches with the same coke bottle eyeglasses and messy brown hair, he had seen but a week earlier outside of his new home.

With ease, Harry made his way over. Plopping down across from her with an expectant look on his face. There was nobody else around left to stare, but he could tell that she felt his presence judging by the furrow in her eyebrows and the rounding of her eyes.

“Hi.” He cracked a smile, further analyzing the shock written over her face. Much like their first meeting, her eyes were focused on the journal in front of her, open to a page of what looked to be a bird on the left hand side among a long page of writing. “I like your socks.”

A hesitant eye met his through the thicket of her hair that was hanging into her face. She looked at him, partially interested and another part perturbed by his interest in sitting down next to her, let alone trying to speak with her. She wasn’t sure entirely why she entertained it. Perhaps it was the helpless crush she had been nursing since she was him for the first time, or perhaps it was the fact that her father had been pushing her harder to make more friends and put herself out there.

“Thanks.” She mumbled. “My dad got them for me.” Little pink sloths with tree branches decorated her legs today, with a mint chip coloring the background. He had to say—they were in good taste. He liked sloths, and he had an affinity for bright colors since he could walk. There’s a pause for silence between them, and a palpable awkwardness that settles finely between them. Harry clears his throat, finding great interest in his hands.

“I’m Harry.”

“I know.” The girl giggled, shading in the very same sketch Harry had looked at earlier. “Our parents met. My dad told me about you.”

“Oh, okay.” He nodded before looking back up to her quizzically. “What’s your name then?”

“Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Harry played around with the name on his tongue for a few more moments before returning his attention to her. “How about Sloth?”

“Sloth?” She clarified, confused more than anything else. She had never had a boy such as look in her direction, much less talk to her at all. The fact that he was showing her anything other than disgust was a shock to her in the first place. She had trouble making friends, and if she could make them, she couldn’t keep them. Sophie wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with her, but she was beginning to appreciate the kindness of her new neighborly neighbor and couldn’t wait to tell her father that perhaps she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her elementary school life as an outcast.

“Like a nickname.” Harry remarked, as if it were obvious. Sophie only had one nickname throughout her young life, and it was her grandfather’s endearing voice sounding a bellowing Peanut! Through the house or the neighborhood. Sloth. She allowed the idea to simmer a few moments before eventually nodding her head in agreement.

“On one condition though.” Harry peered into her eyes, waiting for her clause. “Will you be my friend?”

Harry smiled, digging his hands into his coat pocket to bring out the carrot sticks his mom had packed in his lunch in case he got hungry during recess. He set them on the table, offering one to his new companion.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

For the first time, things don’t seem so bad.

“Casey?” Sophie quizzed, noting the change in Harry’s body language. From the pink tint that swept his cheeks at the mention of her name and the fiddling with his fingertips as he coyly turned away with his lips pursed. He sighed dramatically, Sophie also understanding she had offended him by her indifferent tone.

“Is there something wrong with her?” Harry defended. “Is it that hard to believe she could like me back?” Sophie shrugged, studying the beds of her fingernails in hopes to find something more interesting than where this conversation was headed. Harry nudged her shoulder, encouraging Sophie to speak up into the now awkward air between them.

“It’s nothing.” She shrugged. Harry’s eyes burned into her; knowing that was far from the truth. Sophie let out an exasperated huff. “Fine. One time, in second grade, she spilled chocolate milk down the front of me because we wore the same shirt on picture day.”

Harry’s eyebrow raised comically. “Is that what you have against her?”

“It was a nice shirt!” She snapped, because, in all honesty, it was one of her favorites. She remembered her father picked it out for her that morning after curling her hair for her. (Lots of trial and error, and she did still look like a mess despite the brown stain that decorated her shirt in the photo. She still loved her Dad for going through the trouble of making her look presentable.)

“That was a long time ago, Sloth. Maybe she’s changed.” Harry posed, sighing, and turning closer to her as she ran her fingers through the dirt beneath her. They were sitting under the Oak tree in Harry’s backyard, the same place they had spent their time talking and playing the last year. Sitting in the grass, occasionally playing pirates between discussing their days and what the newest gossip was going around the school. “We’re twelve now, Soph. Not seven. She’s had a lot of growing up to do, and I’m sure you have too.

Sophie nodded hesitantly. Harry was right. Casey probably had changed. Sophie knew she had, at least. Two years ago, she couldn’t look boys in the eye. She cowered at the thought of boys even thinking about talking to her. The only boy in her life she was able to peacefully relax around was her dad, and even then, sometimes she had to go to her room when he had friends over because men made her nervous. Now? Things couldn’t have been more different. All she could ever think about doing was looking at Harry. His eyes, his mouth, his nose. Everything about him was dreamy to her. He was her crush—her first real crush that wasn’t from a movie. That she could see whenever she wanted to. She had liked boys from school before, and they were okay. They rarely looked in her direction, and when they did, it wasn’t ever for anything more than borrowing a pencil.

Nothing in her life had ever felt so real. Not when it compared to Harry. She had convinced herself she was making things up. The electricity that would shoot to her heart when he would hold her hand on the swing set so they could swing in unison, or when he would bend down to tie her shoe for her after calling a time out in freeze-tag, all because he was afraid, she was so clumsy, she would stumble over her own feet.

If Sophie were honest, she couldn’t be mad about Casey’s mutual crush on Harry. In fact, she hadn’t been upset about the picture day fiasco since it happened. But she felt the need to give Harry a reason to dislike her—to see past Casey and look at who was sitting right in front of him. Her father had advised her a long time ago not to be that girl; that she shouldn’t tear another girl down to make herself feel better, and she assumed that included situations of having a crush on the boy best friend of her dreams. Regardless, girls needed to be nice to other girls. Even if they like the same boy.

How could Sophie blame him for falling for Casey when she didn’t own a pair of American Eagle jeans, and Casey did?

“How did you find out about this anyway?” Sophie muttered, digging her hands further in the dirt to prove some sort of distraction from the conversation at hand. Nothing was working. The thought of Casey and Harry would weigh on her mind long into bedtime, and likely to the wee hours of the morning when her father would wake her up for school tomorrow.

“Miranda is Casey’s best friend. She told Kyle, and Kyle is my best friend, other than you, of course. So, Kyle told me.” Harry beamed. The smile that overtook his face made the ends of her mouth pull, creating a genuine smile of her own. Even though her heart hurt, and they were smiling for different reasons, at least he was happy.

“I think I’m going to ask her out tomorrow.”

A green fire burned in the depths of her chest, continuing to smile. She sent him an encouraging nod, wondering if the next time she would see him, he would be taken.

+

Sophie and her father had always been close. Two peas in a pod, ever since her parents had divorced and he got full custody of her. It had been the two of them since she could remember. Long weekends spent together on the lake when he would teach her how to fish, or the loud car rides home from school when she would tell him about her day. Or her favorite time, dinner. They would sit next to each other on the sofa, and she would vent to him about whatever problems were plaguing her twelve year old brain.

Clyde’s personal favorite time with his daughter had always been eating together on the sofa. It was one of the few times he felt he could see her, and not just as the beautiful little girl he had been raising on his own. He could see her personality, her blossoming opinions.

Clyde felt like he was watching her grow up in those moments. When she would ask him about hypotheticals, such as what to do when you’re harboring feelings for a certain young British best friend who lived next door. From the moment she had confided in him, instinct told him to shoo away whatever little Casanova had managed to squeeze his little girl’s heart. But he knew Harry. Cautious, kind, and shy little Harry who only ever called him Mr. Novack even after countless reminders Really, Clyde is just fine.

He had told Sophie to be supportive. Share her feelings, even if it didn’t feel like the right time, and there was always a chance Harry would reciprocate. If she didn’t feel she was ready, she needed to take a step away and try her hardest to put on a brave face in front of her friend. Going to bed that night, she reminded herself to be gentle with her feelings, yet brave.

She had done well enough all day. Walking with Harry to school that morning and proceeding to meet him in hallways between their passing period, she had no idea how rotten it would feel to see them at lunch.

Their hands were interlaced, making their way through the cafeteria as Harry kept his eyes on her like a stupid puppy in love. Sophie couldn’t help but stare in a mixture of astonishment, sadness, and resentment.

Sophie huffed, resting her chin on her hand as she watched them talk, his hand in hers while they sat next to one another. She was okay with watching from afar—until Harry took out his Pop tart and broke it in half. Lending one half to Casey, and the other for himself. It was always their thing. And perhaps it was silly for her to be so upset, but she knew when she told her father, he would scold her for it later when she came back down to earth. If anything, she was mostly sad. A piece of her had been severed, and it was walking around holding Casey’s hand, when it should have been her own.

At this rate, she knew she had a choice. Walk around in a huff or accept her fate and resign herself to becoming a lone wolf once more until she picked up another friend from class. The drop of a black lunchbox next to her snapped her out of her daze; looking up to her right, only to find the infamous Tyler from her science class. She looked at his lunchbox, then back up to him, as if unsure if he had chosen the correct place to sit.

“Is this seat taken?” It wasn’t—but Sophie wasn’t sure if that was the correct answer or not. He hadn’t always been the nicest to her. In fact, she could remember a few years ago when he would point at her and make fun of the glasses, she had now swapped out for contacts with the encouragement of her father to make the change before entering middle school, and after seeing how ruthless the kids could be, she wasn’t so sure she would have made it out alive had she not listened to him.

Reluctantly, she obliged. Tyler plopping down next to her. “Where’s your friend?”

Sophie shrugged, “Young love.”

Tyler’s eyes followed Sophie’s gaze to the table across the lunchroom, where the pair were sat with Casey’s friends while Harry bobbed his head unknowingly to everything they said. It was his first week as a boyfriend, so a nervous call to Sophie last weekend after a frantic Harry had raved about Casey agreeing to be his girlfriend, he wasn’t so sure what came next.

“Does this mean I have to kiss her?” He shivered at the thought, nerves crawling into his throat.

“You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for!” Sophie assured. “Maybe try holding her hand? Walk her to class, maybe. If she wants something, she will tell you.”

She was surely cursing herself for being so supportive and helpful. Watching the two of them wander around campus left nothing short of a bad feeling in her chest as she tried to pay attention to the conversation at hand. Tyler looked back to her; sympathetically pursing his lips before digging into his lunchbox.

“I know it isn’t strawberry, but maybe you like cherry too?” What followed was the sweetest gesture she thinks anyone could have made. A silver package with two cherry pop tarts. A grin pulled on the side of her mouth. In that moment, any ill feeling she had towards Harry had dissipated and been replaced with a flurry of butterflies. Nobody other than Harry had showed her such a kindness before.

“I love cherry, thank you.” Instead of splitting them, allowing himself one and Sophie the other, he broke the first piece into two halves, extending his arm to her as if it were a romantic gesture. She gleefully accepted. They watched each other out of their corner of their eyes, wondering if the other felt the same warmth from the moment.

+

“Were you and Tyler holding hands after school today?”

It was a fair question. He hadn’t seen much of Sophie around school, and when he did, she had her nose stuck in a book or she was too busy smiling widely at Tyler from across the hall as she twirled her hair on her finger. Harry wasn’t jealous by nature. He found himself to be well-grounded, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t have feelings for Sophie. Not scrappy haired, coke bottle glasses Sophie who couldn’t look him in the eye the first month they were friends. It wasn’t possible. She was his best friend, and before anything else, she would remain such. Her place in his life was not open for replacement, and he made it clear to Casey that their relationship would not change no matter what feelings she held towards her. Sophie would always have a place with him. But the sooner he realized he had been leaving her behind in pursuit of his first romance, he had also realized that Sophie had found a new object of her affections. He would deny it until he was blue in the face, but Harry had a little green monster on his back that was getting bigger and bigger every time he saw them together.

“Yeah, for a bit.” A blush spread across her face, to the tip of her nose. Her father had called her out on it as well, wondering what kind of special this Tyler had to be to snap Sophie out of her year long Harry daze. It had been two weeks. Two weeks of utter bliss. Calling her pretty and telling her he liked her shirt. Listening to her talk about whatever new record she had taken up listening to, and the works. Tyler was doing all the things Harry used to do when he still had the time for her, and now, he was regretting even asking Casey out in the first place.

“Do you like him?” Harry had never had to pull information from her before. Sophie gave him everything without putting up so much of a fight. Her guard was always down, ready to burst with whatever answer to the question that Harry had posed. He had never seen her so reserved. So reluctant to share. Harry’s ego panged with hurt as he stared at her shy form a bit longer, tucking her knees under her chin as she bit her lip.

“I think so.”

The unexpected and dreaded answer snaked through Harry’s right ear and out of the left. That wasn’t the answer he was hoping to hear, but it was exactly as he suspected. Two weeks of him trying to be a good boyfriend, and suddenly, his best friend was slipping away before he had the chance to hold on tight and keep her. Harry nodded, trying his best to smile proudly.

“You’ve come so far, Sloth. Do you think he likes you back?” Sophie giggled. The kind of giggle he had never heard before. The kind of giggle that made the earth stop revolving around the sun, the kind of giggle that made everyone stop and stare. She had always been cute. He had always thought she was, in the way a friend would. But the giggle that slipped from between her lips was surely heaven sent, and Harry wanted to hear the sweet symphonic for an eternity, and even then, it wouldn’t be long enough.

“He already asked me out.” The news had hit him like a ton of bricks, whatever smile on his face had dropped and his developing stoic features turned to her.

“Did you say yes?!” He exclaimed. Sophie shot up from her comfortable place under the very same oak tree, covering his mouth with her hands so he knew that he couldn’t shout about these things.

“My dad could be in the backyard!” She snapped. It wasn’t as if he would care either; it was just embarrassing. He was her dad, and though they told each other everything, he would want to meet him, and Sophie would never be ready to watch her father and whatever boy she brought home interact without wanting to rip her own hair out. “To answer your question, no. I didn’t answer. Told him I wasn’t sure yet.”

Harry’s raised brow did nothing to quell the anxieties brewing inside of him. What would become of their friendship if Sophie had a boyfriend, when they were already slipping away from one another?

+

“The fair is coming to town next week.” Casey smiled, leaning into the locker next to Harry’s. “Maybe we could go this weekend?”

Harry breathed in a bit; bracing himself for the comment he was about to make. He knew Casey and Sophie didn’t always get along. And he also knew that Casey had a bit of a jealous streak when it came to Sophie, despite her shiny new relationship with Tyler. It was all she had been talking about lately. Their normal decompression time after school and turned into hours of her gushing over her new boyfriend, and as happy as Harry told himself he was that they both had romance in their lives, two months of hearing about Tyler carrying her History textbook was getting old. Nonetheless, he had proposed that he and Sophie return to their normal Friday night ritual of watching whatever terrible movie they could find in her fathers’ collection and pretend to watch it while they discussed other things. Normally, it would end with Harry falling asleep on her living room sofa and waking up Saturday morning to Mr. Novack in the kitchen making Sophie’s favorite—strawberry waffles.

“I have plans with Soph this weekend, Case.” The subtle eyeroll was not missed by Harry, and as upset as it made him that the only two girls in his life that he chose were at odds, he really liked Casey. Too much to dump her over disliking his best friend, and while it made him feel shitty, he lived with childlike optimism that some day they could get along. Casey sighed, unrelenting in the fact that she wanted to go to the fair with him on Friday, and if inviting Sophie meant she would get what she wanted, she would do it with great reluctance.

“Maybe invite Sophie to come with us.” Harry quirked an eyebrow at her.

“What, like a double date? Have her bring Tyler?” Casey shrugged.

“If that’s what she wants.” Harry bit his lip, thinking on it briefly.

“I can ask.”

+

Harry had gone out of his way to ignore seeing Sophie in any romantic situation for his own sanity. Not because he liked her, but because he thought of her like a sister. A pretty sister that he thinks he would jump in front of moving traffic to protect. Therefore, it was understandable why he was so bothered watching Sophie walk through the fair holding hands with her boyfriend.

He tried not to be bothered. And he likes to think he’s putting up a good enough front for everyone involved that he isn’t annoyed or hurt in the slightest that they’re walking ever so slightly in front of him and Casey, seemingly in their own world.

“Which one do you want?” Tyler mused, looking down to Sophie with a sweet smile on his face. “I can try and win it for you.” He tunes out whatever conversation they’re having, trying to focus his attention on Casey who had been uncharacteristically silent for the bulk of the night.

“Are you okay?” He whispered, placing his hand on her shoulder so she knew that he was there for her. Casey’s eyes were locked on the ground as she shrugged, leaning her head onto his shoulder. She didn’t say anything. Harry bit into his bottom lip, not sure what to say, but holding her anyways. He wasn’t very good at being a boyfriend, he thought. And Casey reminded him that they were both still learning the ropes, but he felt like in all his 12 years, he should be somewhat better at this than he was.

His attention is brought back to Sophie and Tyler when he hears him mutter apologies about being unable to win the stuffed bear sitting on the top shelf. He can see Sophie hiding her mild disappointment, but Harry likes to think that he knew her better than anyone else ever could. She wanted the soft bear on the top shelf—she would get him, even if it meant embarrassing Tyler in the process.

It took four tries, but eventually, much to Casey’s dismay, Harry presented Sophie with a bear half her size by the Ferris wheel. He could feel Tyler burning a hole into his back as he stared at the scene, feeling pride swell in his chest as she wrapped her arms around his neck and thanked him profusely before looking behind him and going straight back to Tyler to show him the coveted prize Harry had won for her, and Harry sees a fish in one hand and hears a gasp from Sophie, only to realize he had been outdone.

“I think I’ll name him- “

“Harry?” He’s quick to turn his attention to the girl in front of him. The one that had been looking for his attention all night and hadn’t been getting it because his emerald eyes have been fixed on a certain brunette with a soft voice and happened to rival Casey in every which way possible since the second grade. “I think we should talk.”

He knew where this was going, and he could feel a piece of his heart chip away. Casey was irritated, and he would be too if she had been paying attention to Tyler all night too, who was supposed to be her best friend that she felt absolutely no feelings towards. It was silly, all of it.

+

He wasn’t sure where Sophie went, but his mom had told them both to be in front of the ticket booth in the parking lot at 8 pm sharp to be picked up. Harry had made it there just before 7:32, freshly broken up with and feeling more down in the dumps than he had when he had gotten there. His first relationship lasted a little over a month. He supposed that was a good place to start, but he was now forced to confront the conflicting feelings he was getting for Sophie. He didn’t understand, and no matter how badly he pushed them to the side, every time he tried to deny the way she smiled put a pep in his step and butterflies in his stomach, it became harder to look past the truth that had been sitting in front of him since the first pang of jealousy since the Tyler’s entrance into their life.

“You’re early.” Sophie announced, causing Harry’s back to straighten at the notice that he was now being watched. He shrugged, not paying much attention to whatever it was she was going to have to say. He had been sitting on his own for the last twenty minutes pondering what he could have done differently so he could have left tonight with someone he could send hearts to and call his girlfriend. “Are you okay?”

Another shrug, Harry focuses his eyes down to his lap, tracing over the seams of his jeans in concentration. He was willing to talk—it just felt embarrassing. Emitting a casual sigh, he looked to Sophie who had worry in her eyes, hands full with a big teddy bear. Harry noted the absence of the fish Tyler had won for her. “Casey broke up with me.”

Sophie’s bottom lip jutted outwards. Despite the upsetting look on her face, he could swear he saw the ends of her mouth pull with satisfaction at the news. The observation threw him for a bit of a loop but tossed it out the window as she plopped down next to him in the grass, throwing her arm over his shoulder. “Her loss.” She mumbled, pulling Harry in for a hug for his own consolation.

Harry was sad for a moment, but it seemed the warmth emanating from Sophie’s baby pink cardigan was enough to warm his heart once again.

Sophie had only ever verbalized being afraid twice in her life. At least to Harry.

The first time was when they were twelve, and Harry’s step-father had an all expenses paid trip to Disneyland, courtesy of his job to congratulate him on his recent promotion. And because Harry’s older brother had expressed his disinterest in going, the Styles family invited Sophie. She had never been on an airplane before—let alone left the state of Texas since she was a baby and went to visit her Grammy in Oklahoma. Harry held her hand the entire way there, and only let go the moment they had touched down at LAX.

The second time, they were fifteen. And while their respective partners were annoyed at the thought of them having to spend time together at all, they did it anyway. Harry had come over for dinner at the request of her father. I don’t even remember what Harry looks like anymore, I only ever see that Alex kid!

After a gruelingly long conversation with her father, they retired to the backyard in an eerie silence that fell over the gazebo and lingered between their gaze on her pool. Rocks and other foliage decorated around it, Sophie stretched out her legs, kicking them out in front of her before looking over to Harry and sighing. She leaned her head on his shoulder, continuing to watch the sun was beginning to set over the water and the mind numbing Summer heat would become a gentle warm breeze with the coming of nightfall.

Harry reached over, kissing the crown of her head before petting her hair in the way he always had—the way that he knew would bring her comfort in a situation he figured was weighing on her greatly. “What’s going’ on, Sloth?” She would answer in her own time, but he wanted to put out a conversation starter for her. He would be ready when she was, and he could tell she was gearing up to speak by the way she began clearing her throat and fiddling with her thumbs.

“Last weekend…Alex, he said something, and I told him I would think about it, and—”

“Hey.” Harry chimed. “Slow down, slow down.” There were tears prickling in her eyes, and Harry knew better than to push when it wasn’t warranted. He would let her speak at her own pace, allow her the time she needed. She took a deep breath.

“Alex wanted to take my virginity last weekend. And—and he’s pissed at me.”

Oh, Harry thought. Oh. The moment came and went, and he was left stunned in the same position he was in thirty seconds ago, unable to blink. What was it that he could say?

“Oh, um—”

“I’m scared.” Harry pulled his legs in, brining them to his chest. He looked over to Sophie, the resigned look on her face telling him that she was beating herself up over telling him no, and there was no reason for her to be so upset in the first place.

“Look, Sloth. Look at me.” He blustered. Her head turned in his direction, matching his position. Knees tucked to her chest, looking over at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong, alright? If you aren’t ready, you aren’t ready. That’s…that’s something you should do with someone you love, and who loves you, alright? If Alex can’t…respect that, then I don’t know what else to tell you. Other than dump him.” He asserts. Sophie sighs, watching him carefully with tears brimming in her eyes. A light chuckle falls from his mouth to break the mood, and he tucked a stray hair back behind her ear. “What are you crying over, huh?

Sophie shook her head profusely, bringing her hand to her face as she sucked in a breath and let the waterworks flow down her cheeks. Harry maintained his pervious position, with his hand tucked high up on her back, moving upward and downward as a means for comfort.

“I just…I don’t know if anyone could ever love me, you know? And what if this is my only chance?”

A ball in his throat tightens, and he’s never had the urge to shout I do! I can! So much in his life, but he keeps quiet. He rubs her back and tries his best to keep her calm and reassure her that there isn’t much about her that isn’t there to love. He’s known since they were twelve, and while he’s pushed so much of those feelings aside to put her first, he isn’t sure if he should anymore. If the perfect opportunity had fallen into his lap to just tell her, how could he find the courage to do it without ruining everything.

“Sophie.” He asserted, and her eyes never break from his. The words are on the tip of his tongue, all he needs to do is push them out. Say them, and feel the weight lift off his shoulders. And her eyes are bearing into his soul. And it feels as if she can see him, in entirety for the very first time in years. But the hint of confusion in her eyes is something he caught onto quickly, and he realizes he’s been quiet far too long to not say anything. Her phone breaks through the silence and she’s quickly excusing herself to the other side of the backyard for a moment alone to speak with the very man in question and judging by the tear stains splattered across her cheeks when she comes back, Harry can tell that whatever news she received probably wasn’t any good.

+

Sophie had been sad.

For obvious reasons, no break-up is ever easy. When Sophie wasn’t crying, her bottom lip was quivering, or she had slumped shoulders and her head pointed down at her feet. Ultimately, they both knew that time would heal all wounds, but it had been uncharted territory for both. They’d had their fair share of crushes through the years they had been friends, and the duo could remember the mess that was Harry getting dumped by Casey all too vividly for it to have been roughly three and a half years ago.

Harry couldn’t help himself. Sophie had been so down it felt like the ever clear vision of her smiling was beginning to fade, and it was his favorite thing to see every morning when they would arrive at school, or when they met under the willow tree in the quad for lunch. So, he did the unthinkable and went to the craft store ten minutes before they closed on Sunday night, and made a note to arrive to school ten minutes earlier and Sophie for his plan to be executed with perfection.

Harry made it with 7 minutes to spare, as when he packed into his mother’s car, her father’s car still hadn’t left for work, meaning that Sophie still wasn’t ready. He was gnawing at his fingernails, hoping to god that he would be able to get away with what he was about to do without any questions from passerby’s who would be willing to blab to Sophie if they saw him. He studied the hallway, assuring that there was nobody paying close enough attention. If anything, his locker was right next to Sophie’s, and if he needed an alibi, he could always keep that in his back pocket. He slipped the piece of construction paper through the grate despite knowing her locker code, it seemed to be less suspicious if he did it this way. Sighing in relief that the dirty evidence was now off his hands, he could breathe normally once again. Without a moment to spare, his phone vibrated in his back pocket.

Sloth: where r u?

+

“It was…exactly what I needed; you know?” Harry nodded, listening carefully. She hadn’t stopped talking about the secret admirer she had seemingly picked up over night who had begun dropping notes in her locker under the mysterious pseudonym of X. From the moment they sat under the tree for lunch, Harry could tell by the smile on her face that she had received his note. His heart began picking up in speed as he watched her cherry blossom lips gush over the words, he had stayed up into the late hours of the night writing with her in mind.

The card itself was simple. Red construction paper cut into the shape of a heart, decorated with sunflower stickers and tasteful glitter. An amalgamation of everything he knew she could possibly look for in a letter from a secret admirer. He had typed the mini poem itself out on his mother’s laptop, and printed it with his step-father’s printer, promptly ignoring Arthur as he asked Who’s the lucky lady, kiddo? Harry shook everyone else off as his mother gently pried into asking who he had found that was deserving of such a gift, to which he smiled and told his mother someone special.

You are the moon.

You are the sun.

You are admired by plenty,

But never seen by the whole.

I see you,

And I cannot look away.

-Someone who deeply admires you. X

It was nothing special; but something he had deeply mulled over in his head and spent hours stressing over if it was the right thing to say or not. And he was unsure of himself. If this was a good idea to begin with. But he remembered the sad look of Sophie’s face after getting the call from Alex. After he had dumped her for not sleeping with him when he wanted her to, not when she decided she wanted to, and he knew he would give anything to see her as she was before Alex had drove a wedge between them. But he couldn’t say Alex’s worries weren’t warranted. He wanted to keep other boys at school at arm’s length because of his own insecurity—but if Harry had the confidence that Sophie wouldn’t reject him, and he wouldn’t ruin their friendship by doing so, he would have swiped her right out from under his nose.

“Do you have any idea who it could be?” Harry pondered aloud. He wanted to gauge where he minds was at, and who was at the forefront. He had a feeling she would have never expected it from himself, even though he had told her time and time again that there wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do, a mountain he wouldn’t climb for her to keep a smile on her face.

Sophie shrugged. “Maybe it’s Alex.”

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. That was quite possibly the last thing he wanted to hear. “Or” He suggested. “Maybe someone heard about the break-up and saw a chance to make a move.”

Sophie nodded, running her thumb over the raised stickers on the side of the heart in deep contemplation. There was always the possibility it was Harry himself dropping love letters int her locker; but it all seemed too good to be true. Her life had never been the type to be ripped out of the very pages of a romantic novel, so she pushed it to the very back of her mind, never to be considered again in the event she begins to believe that it could be possible, and winds up breaking her own heart if it wasn’t the case.

“Yeah.” She mutters. “That could be.”

What began as harmless, now has Harry in pieces.

He had lived in fear that going to the grocery store would warrant being caught. May it be by Sophie herself, or her father, or anyone who would see her walking around with a flower the next day. So, to avoid detection, he went to the next best thing. Ms. Darwin from down the road. Ms. Darwin who prided herself on her green thumb and had the front and backyard to prove it.

“Thanks again, Ms. Darwin.” She swatted his arm.

“Cut that out. It’s my pleasure.” She effused. “You just gotta promise to bring this girl ‘round once you win her favor.” The ends of Harry’s mouth pulled into a slight smile. The problem he had yet to pose to Ms. Darwin was the chance that the girl would never be able to come over, seen as he hadn’t the slightest clue how to tell her about his feelings. He decided it was best not to fret over something that seemed to be so far away.

“Absolutely.” He chuckled, making his way to the door. “I owe you. I’ll be here at 10am sharp to mow the lawn.” Ms. Darwin nodded in agreement, holding the door open for him and waving goodbye as he made his way down the sidewalk and back towards his house.

He had spent the last year leaving Sophie notes every day, and as far as he knew, she never expected a thing. If she had, he would assume he would have heard something about it by now, other than her constant wondering when the guy was going to grow the guts to reveal himself. Enter, Harry in pieces. Senior Prom was on the horizon, and Sophie was prattling on about being asked, and while he had it on his mind, he wasn’t sure if he should go about revealing himself in the process or insist that he was extending his hand as a friend.

And then, Prom queen and king nominations went out. And Harry was nominated. Along with his girlfriend, Emma. It wasn’t such a bad thing, either. But he wasn’t sure how to go about such a precarious situation when the only reason he had ended up with Emma in the first place was, so he didn’t feel so alienated when it came to his messy feelings for Sophie. It hadn’t been long, by any means. They had only been together for somewhere along three months, but it was long enough for the student body to take notice, and Harry to begin to buckle under the pressure of what exactly that meant.

Emma was the first girlfriend he had that actively chose to be kind of Sophie. That insisted she didn’t mind their relationship and encouraged him to hang out with her. She made it hard not to like her. Emma was perfect in every way—and as a result, he had chosen to file his feelings for his best friend under something that was never to be addressed again. It wasn’t as if any of it was realistic to begin with. He and Sophie had been friends too long to even begin thinking about going there. But despite it all, he kept moving forward with being Sophie’s secret admirer, because what would it mean if he stopped? The obvious answer, Sophie would piece things together and things would end in Harry tragically losing a best friend that he had for the last seven years. He had reached the point of no return, meaning, as he trudged home in the beating sun with a blue carnation ready to be set in water overnight, only to be placed in water, he needed to devise a plan.

He couldn’t lie to Sophie any longer, and as his relationship with Emma as still, for all intents and purposes, in development, there was much to think about. And he settled on what to do as he tossed himself onto his duvet cover inside his room, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

He would ask Emma to Prom, as they were both nominated for high school royalty, and propose to Sophie that she meet her secret admirer outside, where he would be waiting with bated breath and his heart in his hands. If she showed up and didn’t immediately look horrified, Harry would be honest with her. If she looked in the slightest upset, he would simply tell her he was out for fresh air.

Harry sighed before getting up and settling down at his desk where there was a cut up piece of construction paper, and his mother’s computer. He wondered briefly if there would be any way for him to make it out of this unscathed. Without losing Emma’s trust, or Sophie’s friendship.

+

A blue carnation taped to the outside of her locker, along with a piece of pink construction paper cut into a heart. All the workings as they had been for the last year, only instead of puffy sunflower stickers, her admirer had decided on cartoon fish that outlined the outside of the heart, along with a typed note.

You’re the only fish in the sea for me.

Will you go to Prom with me?

Yours,

X

P.S. Meet me outside. Next to the fountain, right before they announce King and Queen.

The moment was gone before Harry could be anxious about it coming; Sophie had already begun gushing over meeting whoever had their sights set on her by the time third period came around. It was the only class they had together before lunch, meaning Harry would get an earful before Emma even had the chance to register what exactly was going on.

She was nodding along, feigning understanding as Sophie haphazardly explained the situation to her. Explained that she had been waiting to meet her admirer since the first note a year ago, and how she was over the moon at the prospect of finally matching up a face to the name.

The notion made Harry feel sick to his stomach, dropping his untouched peanut butter and jelly sandwich back on to the table without taking a bite and wiping his palms over his jeans, trying to give Sophie his full support without raising any suspicion.

“Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?” Sophie’s mouth opened, and then closed, looking to Harry for an explanation that he didn’t quite have. Emma looked between them before speaking again. “Not that I’m angry! I just wish I had known earlier so I could have been more excited when you first brought it up!” She squealed, reaching across the table, and squeezing Sophie’s hand in obvious support.

+

Harry knew he wasn’t anything special, but the smile on Sophie’s face when she saw him across the dancefloor at the long awaited Prom, she had spent the last two months harping on making perfect, he thought he must have cleaned up well.

Emma had insisted on matching, despite his protests. The last thing he thought he was show up to a high school event in was a three piece forest green suit with his girlfriend on his arm in a matching floor length gown that showed the expanse of her back. And as much as he adored how beautiful she looked, and elated she was at their matching attire, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if he were wearing something that matched the deep purple dress that Sophie had bought at the very last minute. When she showed him the photos, he couldn’t stop the dip in his heartbeat and the grin that overtook his face at the notion of what she could look like with her hair curled and pinned to the back of her head, the dress itself wrapped around her neck and draped over her form like it was a piece of fabric thrown together only to be worn by her.

And Harry was right. About everything. The way he could feel a halt in his breath as she waved manically from across the dancefloor, squeezing through their peers to make it to the other side to meet with her other friends.

When she makes her way over, the first thing Sophie noticed was Emma wrapped around Harry’s left arm without any sign of possibly relenting. While there are parts of her that she would close her eyes and try to wish away, the nagging jealousy in the pit of her stomach never quite faltered. When she allowed herself to venture into that place, the one where she and Harry could magically fall in love and be with the other, she imagined that she would be the same way as Emma. Holding on for dear life, in fear that the moment he leaves her clutches, there’s a chance he would slip away. Instead of showing her feelings on the outside, she forces a grin onto her face as she looks at the couple in front of her.

“You two look…incredible.” Sophie breathed, shaking her head in disbelief.

“You look so beautiful, Soph.” Emma bubbled, not letting go of Harry who simply chuckled at her with a blush on his cheeks that Sophie couldn’t tell came from her compliment or Emma’s.

“Not bad for a sloth.” Harry lightly bumped her shoulder, unsure of how else to construct a sentence on how exactly he felt looking at her all dolled up. The remainder of the night felt like he was on auto-pilot, walking wherever Emma dragged him next, may it be on the dancefloor or to the snack table to numb her hunger with the fruit and cheese plates set up for them. He looked around the room, unsure of how close the clock was ticking to the ultimate moment of truth, where he was needed out in the courtyard for more pressing matters. Without a second thought, he checked his watch noticing he had roughly ten minutes before the big announcement, meaning there were ten minutes to get to the courtyard before Sophie could arrive. Every nerve in his body felt like it was on fire as he mumbled to Emma that he would be back soon, only for her to pull him back to face her.

“Where are you going? They’re going to announce king and queen in five minutes!” She puzzled. All Harry could feel was his pulse picking up speed the longer Emma held onto him, hoping to whoever was above him calling the shots that she wasn’t waiting out their alone, wondering if the person who had been so fascinated by her wad also going to stand her up. He couldn’t face her after the fact—he couldn’t and now it was as if the universe had placed the perfect fork in the road. He could have one, or neither of them, but only if he acted now. The lump in his throat grew as Emma searched his face for answer, only to be left speechless when Harry didn’t say another word. He pulled his arm back; palms still damp with uncertainty.

“I’m heading to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” Emma searched his features for something to clue her in to what exactly was lingering right under the noses, but nodded in understanding, nevertheless.

“Just…please be back in time.”

Harry wouldn’t, but he knew that. There was no reason for that when he was certain he wasn’t going to win. He nodded wordlessly, turning into the crowd of people hovering close to the stage. The closer he gets to the door the more his pulse picks up, and it feels as if everything around him was happening in slow motion—had he considered every consequence that would come from this? Not entirely, but he could see the empty courtyard beyond the tall glass doors. A foundation sitting in the middle, with a thick green background that made the scene look as if it were ripped from a movie. A serene garden setting, unsure of what would lie ahead the longer he stood in the crowd, second guessing his ability to look Sophie in the eye and unload feelings that he forced into dormancy in fear of her rejection. He lifted his foot to make the jump—to finally do something for himself, rather than resigning himself to becoming a background character yet again in Sophie’s life. He had waited a year. She knew how he felt. She just needed to know it was him that felt that way. And when he finally talks himself into walking outside, the drowned out sound of music stops and there’s a voice coming over the speaker that had been blasting Beyonce’s greatest hits. And suddenly, before he can even begin to register what’s going on, everyone is staring at him. And they’re cheering, and a spotlight finds him at the edge of the crowd. He caught a side glance at those glass doors, everything he had ever wanted on the other side. Before he can think to run, he’s being swept away, and Sophie had become nothing more than a stained glass picture in the forefront of his mind, because of course. Of course, he would win Prom King when the girl he’d been in love with is waiting for him to confess that he had been sending her the letters she had been gushing over. And he feels a wave of useless hope wash over him. Because maybeshe would wait for him out there. Through a slow dance with his girlfriend. The girlfriend who was smiling at him expectantly as they made their way down the side stairs of the stage and wrapped her arms around him in a daze of love and swayed with ease to the beat of a song that he couldn’t remember.

He paints a smile onto his face—because he should be happy. Happy to be there with a girl that couldn’t dream of a day she would wake up and not be in love with him. Harry should be happy that he’s counting the days until summer vacation, and he only had a few months left of high school. College luring around the corner. But the inexplicable sinking feeling returns when he does everything, he can sneak a peek outside, and he can’t see anything.

The dance ends, and he pulls away softly with a sad smile and Emma excuses herself after pressing a chaste kiss to his lips in hopes of spending some time with her friends before the seemingly magical night dwindles down to its end. And Harry is once again refocusing on the doors outside. The glass doorway that didn’t seem as daunting as it did before, because now he had a sense of clarity. He wasn’t happy, and he couldn’t be until he knew that Sophie knew. His shoes squeak against the shiny floorboards as the doors open and he’s left alone, without a trace of the one person he wished were there.

And everything in the universe feels like it’s falling apart around him. He had no idea where to look for Sophie, no idea where to even begin with what to say. Was she as devastated as he was? His head falls into his hands, but the fresh air provides Harry with enough to know that the feeling of wanting the world to swallow him whole is just his brains way of dealing with his own fuck-up, and the chilly spring air that whips against his cheek reminds him that this isn’t really the end of the world—it just feels like it might be.

Harry sighed, gathered what was left of his dignity and made his way inside. The first sight he sees is—surprisingly—Sophie. Wide eyed and all smiles, looking up to a nameless lacrosse player that Harry only knew because of his short stint on the yearbook committee earlier in the year. He watches closely as they pull apart, Sophie’s mouth moving but he can’t quite read her lips for what she’s telling him, and she begins to walk away, right towards Harry. His mind shuffles, but it can’t come up with something concrete to say. So, when she walks to him, he grabs her hands in a fervor before anyone else can pull him away from doing the one thing this entire night had been meant for. He led her to where they should have been in the first place.

“What’s going on?” Her voice piped up from behind him. He turned around, not sure where to settle his eyes. His palms were sweaty, and he was so nervous, he didn’t think he would be too upset if the world had swallowed him whole in that moment.

“Listen, Soph- “He began. His erratic, uneven tone made him cringe because he could feel how embarrassed he was, but now he could hear it.

“It was Ryan!” She burst. “He came out here, and I asked him if he was the guy, I had been waiting for and…he said he was, and-and I told him how I had a crush on him last year, and-Harry I’m just so happy.” She gushed, on the brink of tears. “I can finally put a face to the name, and he’s been nothing but a dream all night.”

Any show of emotion on Harry’s face had fallen. All of his hard work had been attributed to someone who he didn’t even know, and that wasn’t the worst of It. She was happy. The pure joy on her face couldn’t have sold him any other emotion than that of elation. And though the thought crossed his mind, shaking her shoulders and screaming It was me! he knew better than that.

“Oh my god,” He spluttered, both in a mixture of confusion, anger, and embarrassment that he had even thought of telling her his feelings. Now was not the time, nor the place to make confessions of his caliber. Not when she was the happiest, he had seen her since the beginning of him even becoming her secret admirer. “Soph, that’s amazing.” Harry pulled her into a hug before she could see the scowl cross his face. He squeezed her as tight as he could, as if the moment he let go, she would be gone for good. He sniffled slightly when she pulled away from him, the confusion written all over her face when she wiped a tear from under his eye.

“What happened, pup?” She whispered. “Why are you crying?” A humorless laugh slipped from his mouth, Sophie smiling up at him as she held his cheek in her hand.

“Nothing’.” He shook his head. “I’m just…really happy for us.” He nodded, as if he were also trying to convince himself of the sentiment.

Sophie chuckled, nodding along with him. “Things are looking up for both of us, aren’t they? Your highness.” Harry swatted her shoulder, shaking his head at her.

Despite his disappointment in the situation, there was one thing he knew: The universe, God, whomever it may be, was doing everything they could to prevent Harry from telling Sophie how he felt. And if this situation had taught him anything, it was that he needed to look ahead; perhaps to a future that did not include coming home to her.

+

From the few interactions Harry had with Ryan, he had learned two things: Number one, Ryan was a vapid individual. The worst Harry had ever met. He was completely lacking in any sort of depth that Harry felt was necessary to keep up the façade Ryan had been holding up to keep Sophie interested in him. And the second thing wasn’t so much of a fact as it was an opinion, but Harry couldn’t get over how bad he was for Sophie. He noticed every little thing on the few occasions Sophie had begged him and Emma to come with them on a double date. Ryan had no consideration for the little things that mattered. Every instance Harry pulled out a chair for Emma, or opened the door for her, Ryan was fixed on showing Harry up rather than catering to his own girlfriend’s needs.

He had perfected the art of the side-eye when it came to sitting outside of Cold Stone on a balmy Friday night that three of them happened to catch off of work—excluding Ryan, who had expressed to the group that he was venturing into working for his father once they had graduated, and since his father made so much money, there was no need for him to work a minimum wage job like the rest of them. The eyeroll that accompanied Emma and Harry was not reciprocated by Sophie. On the contrary, she kept her head down and continued to wordlessly work on her ice cream, avoiding Harry’s gaze.

He knew Sophie all too well to not see through her cavalier behavior. She was disappointed. Deeply so. Ryan had done his best to pose as the person behind the sweet notes she had been receiving in her locker for a year; but all Ryan had done was prove himself to be yet another disappointment in a line of heartbreak that had been following her down the line of ghosts of boyfriend’s pasts. Harry could see it written on her face after they had separated, and Harry left the two of them alone to say goodbye before he drove her home since it made the most sense. He watched as Ryan carelessly stuck his tongue down her throat, and traced his hands over parts of her body that allowed fury and jealousy to bubble in the pit of Harry’s stomach because -- who the fuck did this guy think he was? Despite his own discretions, reminding himself to leave things be, because fate had reminded him time and time again that he and Sophie were never meant to be, he wrote himself off. No matter his feelings, nobody deserved to be treated as nothing but a prize. Because Harry knew that Sophie was a prize. In fact, she’s the greatest girl he had ever known. But she was more than that. She was made up of so many things that could only be packaged into one, fully formed individual that had captured his heart.

All at once, he knew that he needed to mind his own business. The situation hadn’t become bad enough for him to stick his nose where it didn’t belong—and it wasn’t as though he hadn’t been in the same situation where Sophie had stomached a less than desirable girlfriend who had disliked her and did everything to prove themselves better than her when there was never a competition to begin with. And Harry had truly done his best to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself, until a week after school ended and he received a call from Sophie a little past seven in the morning, asking him to meet her at the diner downtown because she missed him. Ignoring the flutter in his chest at the idea of being missed by her, he got dressed as quickly as he could and prepared for another interaction that would leave his soul yearning for more.

The drive was less than ten minutes, and he had arrived to see Sophie sitting alone in her car with an emotionless gaze locked on the phone in front of her. Upon pulling up next to her, she felt his eyes burning into the side of her face and lit up at the sight of him. They settled into a booth in the back, the same place they would sit after football games and sip mint chip milkshakes and talk about whatever gossip had lingered from the week before.

“What’s with you dragging me out of bed before noon on a Sunday morning?” Harry bantered, only to receive a breathless laugh in return. There was something off about her. From the way she dipped her straw in and out of her Sprite and spoke calmly about the last few days and what she had been up to. Her back straight and looking into his eyes with a confidence he had never seen her wear before, but he had decided it was his favorite thing on her to date.

“Can’t I miss you every now and again?” She joked. Harry shrugged, leaving the ball in her court as to where the conversation was supposed to go. In a normal setting, their friendship had gone from hanging out nearly everyday to being lucky if they caught the other once a week, if that. Their lives had picked up before the other had the chance to notice, and before they knew it, their friendship had slipped to strictly phone calls and texts because in the last month specifically, Harry had always been with Emma, and when he wasn’t, Sophie would be with Ryan.

“Ass kisser.” Sophie snorted at the comment, Harry continued. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Ry invited me over for the weekend since his parents were gone, and we had sex. And then I broke up with him.” She shrugged, taking a sip of her Sprite, seemingly unbothered by the entire ordeal, leaving Harry wide-eyed with a thousand questions to run past her. “Don’t look so shocked, I know you couldn’t stand him.” She giggled.

“I mean…why? I thought you were into him?” A sad smile creeped over her lips, seemingly recalling a not-so-distant memory of their double-date and the nightmare that was Ryan’s possessive behavior.

“I didn’t love him.” She stated. The waitress came by, dropping off the pancakes and syrup they had ordered beforehand. She picked at her food carelessly.

“You were only together a few months. You don’t have to love him yet, Sloth.” She pursed her lips, sucking them towards her teeth, allowing her mouth to twist to one side as if to communicate that she had not given him the full story quite yet.

“Yeah, but…I just don’t think I could ever see myself loving him. Y’know?”

It felt like music to his ears, but a nightmare all at once. He remembers the conversation they had after Alex had dumped her. And the many conversations that had followed about their virginities. Harry felt like a hypocrite for being sad. For being jealous, and even for wishing that it could have been him. He and Emma had sex, and while Sophie knew that about the two of them, it felt different because he hated the thought of her being with anyone that wasn’t him. And it made him feel possessive over something that did not belong to him. He resented the part of himself that dreaded this conversation, but giddy to hear that the wet blanket named Ryan was finally at its end.

“Why’d you do it if you don’t love him? I thought that was part of the deal for you?” He asked curiously. He couldn’t say his curiosity wasn’t completely piqued.

Sophie shrugged in response, taking a bite of her pancakes, and swallowing before responding. “I guess I just wanted to. I mean, I don’t regret it. I think—I think I was just young, with Alex, Y’know? And afraid of regretting it because I knew I didn’t love him, and I knew he wasn’t a good guy. Even though I don’t love Ry, he made sure I was comfortable, and I felt loved in the moment. That was enough for me.”

Harry nodded in understanding, dipping into breakfast of his own. A comfortable silence fell over the pair as they dug into their breakfasts before Sophie spoke up again. “How is Emma?”

It was a question, to be sure. If he and Emma had been together, there was a mutual understanding between the two of them that Harry didn’t really care to talk about her. She was his girlfriend, but he liked to keep his time with Sophie as just that. His time. He didn’t want to waste it talking about the trivial problems that came and went with his girlfriend. But he also knew that was a side effect of his ailments. When it came to Sophie, he didn’t really care what they talked about. If it wouldn’t infringe on the bubble, they created when they were together, where he could have her all to himself even if it were just for the time being.

“Good,” He held his breath before taking a long, deep exhale. “We’re in that stage where we aren’t sure if we should break-up or stay together and go long distance.” Harry divulged. “She keeps on asking me what I think, and I don’t really have an answer.”

Sophie finished chewing before swallowing once more, pointing with her fork. “What does that mean? You don’t know if you want to be with your girlfriend?” She conversed, and the flutter in the pit of her stomach didn’t let Harry’s apprehension go unnoticed. He shook his head, eyebrows furrowed.

“It sounds bad when you put it like that.” Harry scratched the side of his head, trying to find the right words so he didn’t seem like such as asshole—but it seemed they were few and far between. “It’s just—there’s an entire world out there, yeah? And we’re already going to different schools. A year and some changes are a lot in high school, but what is that when there are miles between us and opportunities knocking on both of our doors?”

Sophie opened her mouth as if to comment but closed it quickly. Weighing the optional responses in her head that didn’t seem to point to the obvious answer she wanted to lead him to, that it seemed he was considering himself. She bit her lip in concentration, the lull of silence carrying on a bit longer than it seemed it was meaning to. Sighing, she settled. “Sounds like you have a big decision to make.”

“Yeah.” He nodded in agreement, forcing his head back down to look at his plate. His eyes leading back up to her across from him, tilting his head to the side. There was a lot to unpack between them. This much, they both knew. And though the universe, God, whoever was calling the shots, seemed to be determined to lead the two of them away from each other, Harry couldn’t help himself from putting out feelers for how she might react in the wake of him being single again. “What do you think I should do?”

It felt like a trap—sounded like one, to anyone who was not privy to the prior conversation. Truth be told, Sophie knew her answer before he had even asked her how she felt. Of course, she loved Emma. Emma was wonderful, and one of the few romantic interests in Harry’s life that didn’t immediately read her to be a threat and treated her with the respect and dignity every human being deserves. They had even become friends in the time she and Harry had spent together. The truth was hard to swallow, but it didn’t make it any less factual. Sophie loved him—more than she should, and certainly not in a friend way. She had been suppressing it for years, and while there was nothing stopping her from being honest with Harry, she knew better than to sabotage a good thing in his life. There were times she was a third wheel, and the way Emma looked at him in the passenger seat of his car on their way to school couldn’t have been anything love. Her selfish tendencies wouldn’t outweigh what was best for him, at least not this time around. She refused to play that part in his life of sabotaging the girl he loved, and who loved him from being together.

“I don’t think I can really help, H.” She muttered. “This is something you have to do on your own.”

“But what if I want your opinion?” He hesitated. There was another pregnant pause, and Sophie couldn’t look away from the plate of food in front of her. It was as if he were dangling himself in front of her; telling her that he would be hers for the taking if she just said the words. But Sophie knew better—and what was good for her. If Harry had ever wanted her, he wouldn’t be with Emma, and she would have picked up on it by now. “Soph?”

Sophie cleared her throat, pushing her food around on her plate before looking back up to him. The jade eyes caught the slightest bit of sunlight before she spoke, “Emma is good for you. I think you two should work things out.”

His heart deflated as he nodded in understanding, wondering if she was right. It wasn’t fair of him to base his next move so closely to Sophie’s feelings for him, but there were moments where he couldn’t help himself. He had put out feelers for her, and she declined them without the slightest hesitation in her voice. The thick, awkward tension that had risen between them made things come to a bitter halt. No more laughter from either of them, both too twisted in the daring action that Harry had just made by challenging the feelings that had never been spoken aloud.

When they finished their food, both rose at the same time to pay the tab. Harry swatted his arm at her, beating her to the front register to catch their waitress, as well as leave her a tip in case either of them decided to come back. No words were exchanged, not a single peep since the assertion that Harry should give Emma a chance to work through things and try something along the lines of long distance. But everything felt wrong. From the delivery of the words to the notion of the idea itself. It’s all crystal clear to Harry, and it had since they were kids. He wants her to want him in the same way that he does. He had always known Sophie to be the one to pick-up on flirting. Not unless she was explicitly told by someone that they were interested, or she may as well have assumed someone was just telling her they liked her make-up that day and thought she looked pretty.

They had made their way out to their respective cars, both waiting for the other to say something first. The lull in conversation was anything but normal, and it wasn’t ever they had both felt a pressure between them where neither knew what to say. Harry leaned against the same silver Honda CR-V that he and his mother had joint custody over, while Sophie just stood across from him, avoiding his gaze. When she finally looked up at him, her expression was unreadable.

He wasn’t sure why he did it. Perhaps it felt right in the moment, or the sun, the moon and the stars had all aligned perfectly at that moment in time for him to lean in ever so slightly, her body pressed further into her own car that was parked next to Harry’s. And he kissed her. A cosmic revelation came upon him when their lips touched—a cruel reminder that her perfectly pouted lips slotted perfectly against his own when she pulled away in a tizzy, wiping her mouth despite the fact it lasted for a total of thirty seconds anyway. His eyes widened as the gravity of the situation dawned on him, the horror written all over Sophie’s face as he’s shuffling around to find the keys in his pocket to escape whatever bind he had caught himself in the middle of.

“Uh- “He began.

“It was a mistake,” She insisted. “A really, really fucked up mistake.”

“Sophie.” Harry began, to which she only shook her head. He couldn’t read her emotions from looking at her face, and he supposed that was the part he was most afraid of. Her looking at him differently, regarding him with such a disgusted manor she refused to even smile in his direction again. He supposed that was the worst punishment of them all—perhaps even worse than not seeing her again, because at least he would be able to live with the good memories, not plagued by the ones that added up to be the result of his poor decision making.

“Don’t.” She demanded, the tone of voice that which didn’t fall under any of the known reactions in his repertoire when it came to Sophie. He feels like he can hear the faint choke under the pressure in his ears. If she were crying, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. So, he’s silent, watching her carefully as she traces the bottom of her lip with her fingers. And with that, she left. She got into her car, backed out, and left as Harry stood there, dumbfounded, and cursing himself for even thinking it had been a good idea in the first place.

“Have you told anyone?” Her hair was perfectly fanned against his grey pillowcase, her eyelashes fluttered against the arm she was pressed into, and there were traces of her mascara that came off in mini flakes as she carelessly rubbed her tired eyes on his arm. If Emma had the choice, she never would have to leave the haven of Harry’s bed. Not even with the door ajar, when they could both hear his stop-dad’s heavy footsteps coming up the staircase and peaking around the door, just to make sure everyone was still above the covers and still had their clothes on.

The conversation was somewhat bittersweet. Bitter because he didn’t want to have to stomach everyone’s reaction, or the look of joy or anger on Sophie’s face when she realized what was going on. Sweet because he would be with Emma, and now that he had settled his fate with Sophie; he could take things seriously between the relationship that he did have.

“Not yet,” Harry began. “I was thinking about announcing it at the party tomorrow.” He felt her nod against him. Emma’s head lifted, resting her temple in her palm.

“How do you think Soph is going to feel about that?”

Emma tried not to meddle in the affairs of their friendship—Harry had always told her how important Sophie was in his life, and she never had a problem with that. Until one day, it all seemingly fell apart. Their relationship had quickly been transported from one not being seen without the other, to not being able to stomach one another if they were more than a foot away from each other. It wasn’t obvious, but Emma knew better. After a year and a half of knowing both, she was able to pick up on something not being right.

Harry had done all he could to dodge the question. Work around it, bring up something else, or just avoid it entirely and pretend as if Sophie never played a major role in his life, but it all came from a place of never wanting to relive that day, and avoiding it as much as he could. They were civil to one another. Hugged at neighborly events, or when their respective parents would come over to the other’s house for dinner, but the times that had once been reserved for strictly the two of them had fallen into a state of obscurity.

Harry couldn’t say that he wasn’t upset. It was upsetting to lose a friend, especially when they didn’t feel the same way. The agony he had gone through after ignoring Sophie’s repeated calls and texts because he was too much of a coward to just face her. It was easier to let her go than it was to feel his heartbreak into two jagged pieces as she quietly told him over the phone that she never really saw him that way. It’s all for the better. He had to tell himself that losing Sophie as a means of self-preservation was better than losing her because of his thoughtless actions. Though, neither was better than the other. But Harry had to tell himself something to keep him from jumping out of a window just to hang on to every word she said about him.

Harry shrugged, dispelling a hard sigh from the back of his throat. “I guess she’s going to have to live with it.”

+

The joint going away had been an ongoing joke between Arthur and Clyde since they discovered how close Harry and Sophie were when they were kids and gleefully told their parents they would be going to the same college.

And then, there they were. Sat in Sophie’s living room with a banner that hung above the sofa that congratulated them on their biggest achievement thus far—graduating from High School. Neither side of the pair had worked up the courage to tell their parents about their falling out, and because neither of them had the courage to do so, they were stuck like this. In the awkward situation of Sophie’s friends on one side of the room with Harry’s on the other, each of them more confused than Harry and Sophie themselves about what exactly was going on. Despite the tension in the room thick enough to be cut with a knife, Sophie was looking forward to hopefully getting Harry alone.

It had been a month. A long, lonely, and ultimately unsatisfying senior year that was meant to be spent with her best friend by her side, but there was a wrench thrown into that plan when he decided it would be a good idea to kiss her. The initial shock didn’t set in until long after she had arrived home and had dinner that night.

What did it mean?

Does he have feelings for me?

Was it an accident?

Would it be a mistake to tell Emma when I know how I feel about him?

She had explored her options. She had weighed out the consequences, and after countless missed phone calls and eventually unreturned, dry texts, she realized the only way to get him to listen to her would be telling him exactly how she felt. Explaining to him that she was sorry—even if it was too late to apologize for her cavalier attitude in the wake of the disaster the quickly snowballed into their friendship outside of the kiss itself.

The problem was getting him alone. He had made a point to keep Emma glued to his side, and the few times she caught him without her, he would find some way to occupy himself and look busy. She found herself in her backyard, looking over all the people nursing their cups filled with alcohol, or the non-alcoholic beverages that were there for the kids.

“Hey.” She turned her head to the sound of that deep familiar voice she had come to know so well, and the same eyes she would dream about from the tender age of ten years old. Everything she had been fighting for, now standing ahead of her, yet her heart was pounding with the least bit of excitement. The grin on his face didn’t match the somber tone of his greeting. “Emma told me you’ve been trying to talk to me.”

Sophie had to hold in the bitter chuckle threatening to slip from her throat. “You finally decided to listen to me after months of avoiding me?”

Harry took the seat next to her, biting his lip and nodding. “I deserve that.”

“You never let me explain myself.”

“I know- “

“You never explained yourself.”

“Soph- “He whined, wanting so badly to chime in and tell her that he knows he’s been selfish. But what else was there to do? He had spent so long waiting for her, so long for a moment when he allowed himself to kiss her, and when he finds it at the worst possible time, he hides away like the coward he knows he is. He can’t help but be afraid—and he doesn’t understand why Sophie isn’t.

“No, listen.” She shook her head, interrupting him for the final time. “I had a lot of time to think about it. I was shocked, okay? And—and that’s okay. It was okay for me to be shocked, and you know it was wrong to do—”

“Sophie.”

“Please let me finish, Harry.” Sophie fumed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think and even though it was terrible timing, and I know you have Emma—”

“Sophie. Stop.” He barked. He couldn’t bear it. Didn’t want to hear her stutter over excuses for him or allow her to apologize for something he knew was his fault to begin with, and he already felt guilty for the announcement that was sure to be coming in a few moments. It was over, and it was something he simply needed to accept. And it was time for him to look forward—towards a future with Emma by his side, ready for everything that came their way.

Harry had forged a feigning of acceptance for the way his life was turning out. He made a point to shut down the parts of him that held unwavering devotion towards Sophie. He had to if he ever wanted to move on with his life—and this was the closing chapter. He would go with Emma, move to Houston, and keep Sophie as close as he could without falling for her again.

Harry had never truly shouted at her before. Perhaps jokingly, but never without an ounce of playful edge to his tone. She snapped her mouth shut, looking back to him with his lips pulled tight into his mouth. The confession of her feelings on the tip of her tongue before he had so rudely interrupted. It was bursting within her to tell him she was sorry for her reaction, and despite that, she was willing to admit she had enjoyed the feeling of his lips against hers more so than anyone else she ever had the pleasure of inviting there. Seemingly tiptoeing around her own brain which fixated on the idea of being honest, she settled. “I just want us to be okay again.”

Harry frowned, turning towards her, and pulling her into a hug they had reserved for their most intimate of conversations. The ones that took such an emotional toll on the other, they were hiccupping in air, trying to find their footing. The kind of hug that always made things okay again. “I love you, Soph. Of course, we’re okay.”

The gravity of his words was unmatched to the explosion that had erupted when she had heard the blessed three words, he had deprived her of all school year long, as they went about avoiding each other and spent the entire time wanting the other back more than anything. “I love you too, H.” She sniffled. “Can we not fight again?”

Harry simply nodded, holding her into his neck. The excitement can be seen on Emma’s face from afar as she walks towards them and swings her legs over the picnic bench and settles across from the rejoined friends. “Did you tell her?” She squealed.

Sophie pulled away, holding onto Harry’s shoulder with a playful smile on her face. “Tell me what?”

Harry could feel his palms begin to sweat as he looked between the two women, clearing his throat before muttering a quiet, “Not yet, Em.”

Sophie’s face fell in confusion, eyebrows furrowing as she watched Harry bring his fist to his mouth suppressing his mouth from moving any further. Out of anger or sadness, she couldn’t be sure. Emma’s face fell into that of shock, her eyes rounding out.

“Oh. Oh shit, I thought because you guys were…fuck. I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Sophie began preparing herself for the worst, unsure of what exactly that might be.

“Cake time!” The group heard Clyde shouting from across the backyard, only causing Sophie to look to Harry.

“What is it?” She huffed at Harry’s silence, only turning his head away. “What!”

“I’m not going to A&M with you.” Silence. Unbearable silence before he spoke up. “Houston offered me a full academic scholarship, Soph. And I took it.”

Anything she could have said became lodged in her throat, tears brimming on the cusp on her eyelids as she began to nod. “To be with Emma?”

Harry grunted at the tenson that had once again returned between them. “Yeah,” His gaze followed hers, watching the white fence she had quickly adapted to staring at in the time it took for her and Harry to solve one problem, only to be faced with another. “But we’re going to be an hour and a half away from each other. We can see each other on weekends and hang out whenever we want!”

Truthfully, Harry just wanted to see the bright side. He didn’t think she would care. He thought she would nod and pretend as if it all meant nothing to her in the first place. But Sophie’s entire world had fallen apart. It should have been clear to her along time ago the world they had built together since they were kids was going to come falling down the moment he entered a serious relationship with Emma—but she didn’t think it would hurt this much. She didn’t think she would feel so betrayed, even with their longstanding uncertainty of where they stood with each other.

“We’ve talked about A&M since middle school, Harry—I thought that…I thought?” She couldn’t find the words to speak but felt overtaken with devastation. For the first time, she would have to share him. And not in the ways before. Harry was always right there, at her disposal and despite it all, she always thought she would come first. He had always told her their relationship would come before anyone else. He kissed her. One effortless movie kiss in front of a diner—and he had changed his mind. Gotten it all out of his system before she even had a moment to come to her senses about her feelings all over again.

Sophie turned to him once again, patting his hand, a smile pulling the sides of her cheek. “It’s all good.” She muttered. “I’m happy for you.” But Harry knew better than to believe that.

It seemed to be obvious that in the years that followed, a lot would be able to change.

Harry was six weeks into his first semester when Emma decided they needed to break-up. She cried in his dorm room, apologized profusely, and claimed that she didn’t think things would change so much in the matter of two months. Harry wanted to scream. Cry. Throw his TV out the window, kick in the drywall, anything to get his anger out because he gave it all up to be here. He had done it again—invested his future so deeply into someone who didn’t feel that way towards him, only this time, he made the mistake of believing that she did. He wished he could have felt a fraction of animosity towards her—but he couldn’t. Not even when he tried. She didn’t ask him to go to Houston University, he volunteered after he kissed Sophie and thought that this was the right thing to do. Make it up to Emma after being in love with his best friend the entire time they were together.

To make matters worse, there was nothing he could do to get to Texas A&M. It was going to cost him an infinite amount more—and he was stuck. Stuck in Houston with Emma, and Sophie became so swamped during the week, all he really could do was stick to his room and go on the prowl on weekends.

Harry had never been the selective type when it came to hook-ups. Mostly because he never had them. He stuck to commitment because it freaked him out too much to be with a stranger. Until he slowly fell into the groove of making bedroom eyes at women from across the student union, and before he knew it, he had added ten more notches to his belt and an even bigger void in the center of his chest that missed feeling like sex had a meaning at all.

His life had become static around him. The few times he did see Sophie, he would drive to College Station to see her, and her faceless boyfriend Trevor would tag along because Sophie divulged his fear of other men after being cheated on six separate times. And if Trevor weren’t such a tool—Harry doesn’t think he would mind half as much. Anytime he moved near Sophie, Trevor would puff out his chest. Anyone could call Harry’s crazy, but it was all too much. He was over it. Over those feelings that plagued him, and though he wanted to remain peaceful, there were always moments of bitterness when he watched Trevor and Sophie for too long, some part of him wondering if in another universe, it ever could have been them.

At the peak of his low and the summer into his third year, he met Carly. The gorgeous co-worker that had flirted with him during his afternoon shift at the gym on campus, and it seemed everything else slowly fell into place. And things were good, Carly was good. Except for when Sophie came to visit on a three day weekend, and Carly yapped on about how flirty the pair were together.

The worst part was she was wrong. Harry had given up on seeing her that way the moment Emma dumped him because he found that it was all Karma for what he was doing and feeling behind her back. She was a good girlfriend. Kind, considerate and loved Sophie the way she loved a best friend. And he liked Carly far too much for her to be insecure about his friendship when Emma was the one who had every reason to.

It was a week until his college graduation when he caught Carly with her skirt around her ankles in their shared apartment with their other co-worker—Conner.

Everything that had been going so well had begun to slip, and this time, Harry didn’t have school to keep himself grounded, in his desperation, he called Sophie who immediately set him up with just enough gas money to make it to her place, and a comfy spot on her couch while she made him hot tea to his exact liking.

“I don’t get why I have such bad luck with girls.” Harry groaned, leaning his head back onto the sofa.

“I don’t know why I have bad luck with guys, but you don’t hear me complaining about it.” Harry’s head shot up, looking at her from the other side of her black leather sofa.

“No fucking way you have bad luck.” Sophie shrugged.

“I guess Trevor was pretty handsome.” Harry rolled his eyes at the comment, choosing to ignore it, only to be nudged by Sophie’s foot across from him. “You’re pretty handsome too.”

They both chuckled lamely. “Thanks.”

There was a comfortable silence, the muted movie in the background forgotten amidst their conversation. “I’m sorry about Carly.”

“Don’t be.” Harry shrugged. “I should’ve known it couldn’t last after the shit she said to you.”

It was funny how their friendship had evolved yet stayed the same all at the same time. They were older now; wiser beyond their years and in insurmountable amounts of college debt—Sophie at least. And it seemed their childlike hope was what set them apart from the rest. They had spent their entire lives dreaming, coming up with different scenarios in which they would move-in together and live. “Sometimes I wish we could just move away from it all.”

There’s a quiet pause as Sophie considers her next words. “What if we did it?”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up in confusion. “Pardon?”

“Moved. To LA, like we said we would.” When they were kids, they would always discuss the what-ifs. One of them being college, the other being moving to California. Obviously, when they were children, they were much more imaginative. Creating alternate realities where they were both celebrities and hung out with movie stars along the walk of fame. But their lives were very real now—and they had both reached a natural end to their time in the very place they had grown up. The stagnant nature of their lives post college was beginning to catch up to them, and it felt as if it was the natural next step in their lives. Moving.

Harry had to think about it. In the span of four years, he had his heart broken, his life rebuilt with another woman, only for his heart to be broken all over again. He felt like he was constantly chasing something that he couldn’t achieve if he stayed in Texas. Similarly, Sophie had her fair share of ups and downs through her years in college, but it seemed her three year long boyfriend knocking up another girl was the cherry on top of everything. They had both spent their lives stagnant. Living in the same state with the same faces around every corner. While they were far enough from home to notice, they were too close to ever become truly comfortable. Change was on the horizon, and they both knew it as they looked at each other, Harry’s mouth twisting into a grin.

“There’s someone I want you to meet. And I think you’re going to like her.” Harry smirks, throwing himself onto their now shared black leather couch they had brought with them on their move to California.

After nearly two years of living with Harry, Sophie wonders if she’ll ever actually like whomever captures Harry’s attention and deems them worthy enough to be met by Sophie, who has ultimate final say in who stays and who goes.

“Who is it this time?” She challenged, grinning from ear to ear as she focuses intently on the potatoes she’s been peeling for dinner.

“Her name is Gracie. I met her about a month ago when Inna put me on the feature, I told you about. The one about the artists who busk on the beach and performed that incredible set in San Diego in March?” it took Harry roughly a year to break Inna down and talk her into hiring him on as a full time staff writer for the LA Times. It began with her affinity for publishing his freelance work, and what began as a writer innocently trying to make it in the heart of the city, slowly blossomed into a beautiful professional relationship. Inna believed in Harry in a way that his mentors and professors never had. He worked hard only to be rewarded by Inna giving him one of the biggest Arts and Entertainment features of his career. It was a piece on the artists everyone around LA knows about—but the world has never seen. Gracie was a part of the huge busking scene down by Venice beach, and was well known to those that frequented cafes throughout the city. She was known by most, but not recognizable. Until Harry’s article which featured an interview with a few of the artists themselves—including Gracie. Gracie Wilkens wasn’t by any means famous, but she very well should have been. With her easily distinguishable vocals and insane talent on the acoustic guitar, it was a wonder she hadn’t been picked up by anyone yet.

During the interview is when Harry’s interest in her turned to infatuation. She was gorgeous. Deep skin, big brown eyes and a smile that melted his heart. It felt impossible for Harry not to fall head over heels for her. It had been so long since Sophie had even seen Harry think about a woman in a long term way, and while she was slightly bitter, she promised herself not to let her ugly feelings rear their head into the night ahead of them.

+

“Can I get another scotch on the rocks?” Sophie shouted, waving down the bartender.

She’s nice. Play nice.

The bartender nodded in her direction, getting started on her drink right away. Sophie leaned her back against the bar, looking back towards the table where Harry sat, arm around the waist of the new girl—Gracie—who had captured his attention long enough to warrant Sophie meeting her.

What she didn’t anticipate was how lovesick he would look. How his eyes would constantly linger on her to make sure she was having fun. Paying for her drinks and making her laugh to enjoy the choir of a thousand cherubs singing in his ears.

Sophie was jealous. Cut and dry.

Gracie was beautiful, but did she know him? Did he crawl to her couch when he was cheated on? Did they sit under the same tree and talk about their futures together? She was used to Harry finding another person to give his heart to—the instant feeling of third wheeling when they got to their location. She had never seen him so lovesick in her life. Not with Emma, not with Carly, and certainly not with any of the hook-ups he had since their move.

“So? What do you think?” Harry snuck behind her, whispering in her ear to which she jumped slightly, causing him to place his hands on her hips before moving to slide into the bar seat next to her. The flush to her cheeks wasn’t necessarily due to the feeling of his hands on her hips, though it certainly wasn’t something to discount.

“She seems sweet.” Sophie acknowledged the question by hardly answering it. He didn’t want the answer, as it would only lead them through more chaos than they had already been though. They had reached a brief halt in their lives, but this time, it was calmed. They both landed their dream jobs, and as twenty-six year old’s living in LA, it wasn’t that bad to seek the next big thing in life. Which, for both, happened to be a relationship. Sophie wasn’t stupid, though. Harry had been looking for love in all the wrong places because he just wanted to feel something. And she couldn’t blame him—but the only time she ever felt something was when he made subtle flirtations to keep her on her toes.

“That’s all?” He tried to dig for more, but there was nothing much to say other than that. Sophie had just met her, and instantly wanted to hate her. Sophie tensed her shoulders, bringing them into a shrug much to Harry’s dismay.

“Are you sure you can’t stay?”

Sophie rolled to the other side of the bed, picking up her panties that were tossed to the side carelessly after she had arrived late from work. She slid her work blouse over her head before leaning over and planting a kiss on his lips.

“I shouldn’t. I have a meeting with the Art director at work. Wouldn’t want to disappoint him.” She pouted, allowing Ben to lean in for another kiss.

“Something tells me he wouldn’t mind.” He whispers between planting another one on her, and then down her neck. Sophie giggled, shaking her head.

“No, really. You promised this wouldn’t affect my work, so I really have to go.” She remarked, moaning as he made his way further down her neck. “And you’re making this really difficult.”

“Fine.” Ben finally relented, perking his head up and pouting as he watched her slip her skirt on over her ass and strap her heels back on to make her way to the door. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

Sophie bit her lip as she swung the door open, smiling to him. “Of course, you will.”

The walk of shame commenced. Down the hallway, to the elevator, and back down the street where she would walk back home at dusk with her pride at an all time low, and her dignity in her purse. She never planned for things to pan out this way; but because life had such a silly way of working out, it was as if she couldn’t have changed things if she tried. Ben wasn’t her boss—not yet. He had been working on getting her into his department since they had met each other at the staff Christmas party a year ago, but the beauty editor at BASIC was too enthralled with her to let her go. Ben had been promising her a promotion and a transfer over to the art department since they began sleeping together—and it was losing its appeal. Quickly.

Sophie sighs, unlocking the apartment door to find a sea of candles and a table set for two in the middle. Her heart sinks—she had forgotten, and her mood had suddenly soured even more now at the reminder.

Harry had begged to have the apartment to himself because tonight, he was going to tell Gracie he loved her, and he vowed to himself alone that this time, he would mean it. His relationship had been so much different than anything he had ever experienced before, and he truly felt like a different person now that he had Gracie in his life. He felt like she brought out the best, while Sophie had to keep herself from asking what exactly he saw in her.

Harry had never been so quick to jump before. It seemed to all be unfolding before her eyes, even though she was only there for a momentary glimpse into their relationship, but the single thing she had seen had been enough. Gracie hated her. Hated her so much, that she had to glare anytime Harry had turned around. Apparently, she had even worked up enough nerve to eventually make a comment.

She was minding her own business, making herself breakfast when Gracie sat herself at the counter, watching Sophie carefully crack eggs over a pan with her head cocked.

“Is everything okay?” Sophie questioned, stopping what she was doing before turning to the woman in front of her. She was clad in only a t-shirt over her thin frame, Gracie’s eyes narrowing at the challenge.

“No.” She quipped. “But I do have a question.” Sophie stayed silent, allowing her to jump off the counter. “How long have you been in love with my boyfriend, Sophie?”

“What?” She snapped. “What the fuck are you talking about?” She spluttered.

Gracie looked over to where Sophie had cut up her avocado and tomato to be placed on her breakfast sandwich, snatching a piece of fruit to snack on for the moment of confrontation. “How long have you been in love with Harry?”

“I’m not in love with Harry,” Sophie rebutted. “We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

Gracie nodded her head, looking around the kitchen before her gaze landed back on the girl in front of her. There was a pause, before she sighed and backed away. “It’s bullshit and you know that.” Gracie pursed her lips. “Fuck off, Sophie. And I mean that. Harry isn’t going to end up with you. I’ll make sure of that.” Before trotting off back to Harry’s room.

It had led to countless awkward encounters after the entirety of Harry and Gracie’s six month relationship, to say the least. It had weighed on her. As much as she wanted to tell him, she didn’t want to inconsequentially threaten their relationship. Despite her feelings she was willing to live with them for the rest of her life without saying a word. Mutually, without ever discussing it, Harry and Sophie had both decided their romantic ships had sailed and they had concluded that they would be forced to reserve their feelings for the other unless the other one said something first, but neither of them would in the fear of ruining what had already been threated by their kiss so many years ago.

“What are you doing here?” She could hear Harry from the kitchen making his way to the front door. “I thought you were going to stay at a friend’s place?”

“I forgot.” Was the best thing she could come up with, and it was the first words to come out of her mouth. Twice in one day she had accidentally buried her pride before doing something she would regret. The last thing she wanted was Harry thinking she meant to ruin this for him, especially when he was so excited about it.

“It’s okay, she canceled anyway.” He shrugged. “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about something.” Harry began. Sophie sat down on the love seat across from him, waiting for whatever it was he had to say.

“Gracie wants to move in together.” Sophie couldn’t control the disappointed What? That left her mouth. It was as if what happened a few months ago in the kitchen was a warning, and this was her wy of living up to her promise that Sophie needed to stay away. Her behavior hadn’t changed, and this was the result.

Harry looked confused, to say the least. His eyebrows pinned to the top of his head as he digested her reaction. “Yeah. That’s why I was going to tell her I love her tonight and accept her offer to move into her place.”

A rage ravaged the inside of her brain, the brink of a jealous streak she had sworn to break. She can’t find the words to speak, she can only roll her eyes and laugh humorlessly. “Of course, you’re moving in with her.”

Harry’s taken aback—he had never seen her like this. Not once in the time they had known one another. “What does that mean, Sophie?”

“She’s ace at acting. That’s what that means.” She snorted, crossing her arms like a petulant child. “I’ve tolerated her for you, but I don’t know how much more that I can take.”

Harry’s confusion is quick to frustration because it’s all coming from left field. He had seen the two interact, had seen them hug and laugh over drinks anytime they were all out together, but now, come to find out, for Sophie, it had all been an act. “You can be so fucking mean, Sophie. She’s only ever been nice to you.”

“In front of you, sure.”

Harry feels like he’s been left on a sinking boat, ready to capsize. “What the fuck does that mean? Where the fuck is this coming from? You were fine one minute, the next minute you learn I’m ready to commit to someone, you spring this shit on me?”

Sophie jumped to her own defense, left vulnerable after her choice not to tell Harry immediately after it happened. “You don’t even see how spiteful she is.” Sophie’s arms fall to her sides. “She can’t do any wrong in your eyes.”

Harry’s eyes soften, not understanding Sophie’s frustration. “What happened that you didn’t tell me about?”

Sophie shook her head in disbelief. “Some shit about me being in love with you and that I can’t have you.” The words are venomous to him. It’s the only topic the two of them had never been able to approach, and when it is, it’s in spite. Said so incredulously that it’s almost unbelievable to imagine a world where she could be in love with him, or the other way around. Their realities were so closely intertwined, their ability to turn a blind eye to what was in front of them only made the situation worse. “She wants you to herself, Harry.” She begins a short pace back and forth in front of the loveseat as Harry tries to digest all the information that’s been given to him, but he can’t help but see the parallels between the supposed Gracie from Sophie’s contrived mind, and the Sophie that he’s known.

“Like you?”

She stops, turning her head back to him. “What?”

“The way you want to keep me to yourself, Sophie. You’ve never liked anyone I’ve dated. You always find something wrong with them because you’re afraid of being alone and unsuccessful, and when I’m gone, you’ll be all of the above.”

“What?” Her voice cracks. “Is that what you think of me?” A burgeon of tears bustle at the forefront of her eyes, and Harry can’t contain his frustration. All he can think about is the way she discounted his feelings. Made the idea of being in love with him sound as if it were too hard to do, or something she couldn’t be bothered with. But Gracie—the one who did love him? Being thrown under the bus? He couldn’t be bothered with her, or her crocodile tears. “I’m not afraid of being alone, or unsuccessful. I would be fine without you; I choose to keep you around!” Sophie blustered.

“You aren’t afraid?” Harry questioned callously, on the verge of tears himself. “Is that why you’ve been fucking the Art Director at BASIC for the last six months?”

He had never called her out so directly on something, especially when she had shared her shame with him. She wasn’t proud of what she was doing with Ben, and it certainly wasn’t going to guarantee her a spot in her dream position either. It was a low blow, and as cold as he could be amid a fight.

“She doesn’t want me in your life, Harry.” Sophie sniffled, trying to ignore the influx of salty tears making their way down her face.

“Yeah? Maybe it’s for the better.”

+