It had been quite a while, but long was never long enough when I was with him. I never forgot that. Knowing that I was starting to doze off, I snuggled deeper into his chest, tracing patterns there since his skin was still bare. After moving my entire body closer to his, I suddenly wished that I hadn’t.

Harry unraveled himself from me and stood up. He walked to the foot of the bed and put on his jeans. “Do you want some sweats?”

“No, that’s alright.” Great, he was leaving. He grabbed his button up shirt from the night before and then his Jack Wills jacket that had been thrown into my hanging chair in the corner. I just laid there in bed. Assuming that when he said that he never stopped wanting me, he meant that he wanted me for awhile and now he just had to break it to me that it’s now too late. I thought that this would be the beginning of what we were intending to do before that night, but it was really just the beginning of where we had left off; just more pain and hurting me. He walked over and planted a kiss on my forehead, and walked out my bedroom door, closing it, but just leaving a crack. I assumed he didn’t want to slam anything for fear of hurting my head, but he knew that no matter what, he was hurting my heart. With tears in my eyes, once again, I heard him close the door to my apartment. I closed my eyes and begged for sleep to overcome me.

I had been drifting in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours, but when I looked at my clock, sleep was only coming in like five minute spurts. After about five of these had occurred, I heard someone at the door. Contemplating how important they actually were, I laid there, but then I heard the stranger just walk into the house. My eyes opened wide as I pulled my comforter over my head; as if a killer would walk in and be like, “Damn it! She’s got a blanket! Erg, maybe I’ll have better luck next door.”

What I did hear was, “Didn’t I leave you awake? Wow… You were smashed,” he almost chuckled. Part of me was relieved; a huge part was excited that he was back.

“My head still hurts,” I groaned. He opened my door and the sweet sent of Starbucks instantly filled my room. It was so strong that it almost hurt my head more, but you couldn’t deprive this girl of her Starbucks; heaven help anyone who tried.

“Then I’ll just…” He started to say; I could hear the smirk on his face.

“No! I’m up!” Hurling myself from my bed, I ran over to him and retrieved what was rightfully mine.

“That’s what I’m talking about.” He winked at me; why was I so easily put off by that? I playfully backhanded his arm, and I knew that it didn’t hurt him because it kind of hurt me. I started to walk back to my bed, but I heard footsteps walking in the opposite direction. “You can’t tell me that you’re going back to sleep again.” Harry smiled, sitting down on the couch. “I mean, you’re beautiful when you sleep, but I don’t get to talk to you when you’re asleep.” It was a straight shot from the end of the bed to his place on the couch. He put on his best puppy dog face before I gave up and followed him out to the living room, not knowing why he didn’t want to lay in bed and drink coffee; probably because he was already dressed, most likely for the day. I sat on the arm of the couch next to him. He did what I never would have expected; he moved uncomfortably towards the couch’s center so that his shoulder wasn’t against my leg.

We sat there awkwardly for a few minutes, and I knew that there was another conversation that needed to be had. He knew why I was hurt, but I couldn’t think of any reason for him to be upset besides the fact that I hadn’t forgiven him at the drop of the hat.

“Not that this hasn’t been fun and all,” I started as he chuckled, “but you know what we have to talk about now, right?”

He set down his coffee and grabbed my hand, “Is this something that we really need to discuss?”

“It absolutely is.” A look of despair came over his face.

“But why do we have to make it resurface?” He was begging me to just skip over his side of it.

“Because I wasn’t the only one who got hurt, and I need to know why you were hurt.” He looked up at me.

“Are you joking?” His face was near disgust. Shit, I had to be delicate. I hated that that was all it took to piss Harry off, but I needed him, so delicate it was.

“I’m not… You know good and well why I was hurt and I want to know too.” Put all the blame on me; that was a good path to take.

“Hannah, the night that I called you, when I was sick, you posted on Twitter that I was a waste of your time and that since you had a night off from me, you were going to get smashed.” I had never seen Harry like this before. There were tears forming barriers over his eyes and his knuckles were white because his fists were clenched so tightly.

I remembered… There was no way that… Oh my God, it was. Harry had hooked up with a skank to spite me. He wasn’t the one that had started all of his, I was. I had never known that he had seen those. I had never known that he took them in such a harsh manner.

“So you were sick?”

“Of course I was Hannah! I would never lie to you.” His shoulders seemed to drop in defeat. “I was pissed. I thought that I had missed my shot, doubled up with the fact that you were glad to have a night without me; it hit home.” He ran one of his hands through his hair, as I had trapped the other to the couch with both of mine.

“Harry, I never meant it that way… I wouldn’t never intentionally hurt you, how could you not know that already? We’ve only known each other since… How long has it been?”

“Like forever,” he answered. “Now that you know, can we be done with this topic now?”

“I have to tell you one more thing,” I said, near a whisper. He looked at me quizzically. “Even when I saw you with that girl, I still wanted you too. When I was walking away, it took all that I had not to turn around and run to you.” I pulled him into my arms, feeling his shoulders shake slightly, but that was okay because I knew that mine were too.

We sat where we were for probably an hour. I had turned on the telly and we were both just catching up. Suddenly, Harry had a very curious question. “So how’s Marcus?” How did he know about Marcus? Why did he want to know about Marcus? Sitting there for a minute, I decided that Lou was a dead man. Marcus was my ex boyfriend. He was amazing, but he wasn’t for me.

“Lou?” I clarified.

A look of slight hurt came over Harry’s face, “Yeah,” he admitted quietly. He looked me in the eyes; he had a really reoccurring habit of doing that to me, knowing that I can’t normally be dishonest when he’s looking me in the eyes. But in his eyes, there was pain. Knowing that he was interested in me, I figured that my dating another guy and him finding out from Louis was a real kick in the nuts.

“Marcus… isn’t in the picture anymore.” My voice went quiet.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No you’re not,” I sort of chuckled.

“Yes I am. You know that I can’t stand to see you hurt.” His face was sincere, and I sort of knew that it did really kill him to see me hurt.

“Yeah, on the surface you’re sorry, but you know that deep down…” I said smiling a little.

“Yeah,” he smirked and nodded his head. I knew it. “I’m kind of glad that I’m not having coffee with a taken woman.” I grinned at his remark. We played off of each others’ laughter until we were both laughing louder than we should have at the pitiful statement. Once we both calmed down, “So what did Marcus do to piss you off?”

“Erm…” Leave it to Harry to pick another topic that I really didn’t want to talk about. “It’s really not important.”

“If it’s not important then there’s no reason that you can’t tell me.” His look was innocent, but he had no idea how difficult it was; he had no idea how many men wanted the same thing from me.

“It’s not a big deal to you, but it was to me.” His face showed some sorrow and some interest also. “He wanted more from me than I was comfortable giving, and tried a little too hard to get it than what I was comfortable with.” There was no interest now; there was disgust, and anger, and a lot of sorrow.

Harry’s hands were shaking; he rubbed the back of his neck, and looked at me, fury in his eyes. “How… How hard did he try, Hannah?” His nostrils were flaring and I almost knew where he was going with this.

“He almost wouldn’t take no for an answer,” I responded quietly. It didn’t matter how softly I spoke; Harry exhaled sharply and stared into my eyes.

“Almost?” he quizzed.

“Yeah, he almost wouldn’t. Everything’s fine though Harry.” I rubbed his back soothingly. I was glad to know that he was so concerned for me. “I’m fine. I’m alright, and nothing happened. I wouldn’t let it.” My voice cracked slightly and before I knew it, I was in Harry’s arms.

He rocked me as he held me in his lap in the hug that he had me locked in. In the moment, Marcus had scared me, but I’d dealt with it. Harry wasn’t over reacting, but his fresh reaction was excessive compared to my adaption to the idea of what had happened.

“Harry, I’m really fine. I promise.” He pulled me away.

“But it’s my fault,” he said in a low whisper. How could he say that? There was no way that anyone could have known what Marcus was going to try. I looked at Harry, pain on my face with his accusation. “I should have dealt with it.”

“Dealt with what?” I brushed my fingers through his curls.

“I block out hate tweets all the time… But I couldn’t just deal with yours. If I had dealt with it, then you wouldn’t have been with that douche bag in the first place.” His eyes started to swell slightly and it was now my turn to hold him.

Notes

I've been working on this chapter on and off all day everyone. Gotta stay focused. My finals are coming up so I might not be able to post for awhile, so I've got to finish as much as I can before then :) I'll try my hardest!
xoxo Hannah <3