Darren stands up, pulling her hands from James and pushing him back a step. “You may need me, but I don’t need you,” she finally says. As each word slips from her mouth, the pounding in her head is seceding and the ache in her heart is starting to ease up.

James, however, doesn’t find this very enlightening, and he laughs. “Let me just enlighten you, sweetheart. You can’t live without me just as much as I can’t live without you. Should I remind you of whom you were before we met? I helped you through that shitty part of your life and-”

“You can’t live without me?” Darren scoffs. “You’re never around me, and when you are, we have a strong physical attraction that leads to other things. So you can’t live without me, or you can’t live without the physical attraction between us?”

“Oh, whatever. You initiated shit, too. Don’t change the damn subject, here!” James shouts, his face red with anger.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Darren screams. “I can change the subject if I want, so let me change it one more time. We are done, so I want you to take your bullshit and leave.” She takes the two steps to the door and opens it before walking inside. Before she shuts it, she takes one final glare at James. “And my life may have been a mess before you came along, but as time went one, you only screwed me over more.”

Darren slams the door shut and locks it. James starts to yell from behind the solid wood, but Darren walks away, even as he pounds relentlessly on it. She finds herself in the living area. Jack and Finn sit on the couch, looking both concerned and fearful at the same time. The siblings all glance back and forth between one another. Darren can notice her brothers’ needs to say something, but she just shakes her head at them as a way of saying she doesn’t want to talk and heads upstairs to her room.

When she gets to her room, she slams her door shut as well. She changes into a pair of pajamas that she found lying on the floor and crawls under the covers of her bed. The poor girl lays there, almost lifeless, staring up at the ceiling. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t move. She just blinks, breathes, and stares until her eyelids fall heavy and sleep overtakes her.

~

For the first time in a long time, other than when she had her cast, Darren doesn’t go to the roof in the morning. She doesn’t even get out of bed. Instead, she continues to just lie there, no longer staring at her gray ceiling. The sun rises, but Darren does not care to watch, and she lies there, in her bed, emotionless.

At 8AM, Finn knocks softly on her bedroom door. “We made waffles for breakfast, Dare. You might want to come down before they get cold.”

Darren doesn’t move or make any effort to get up and go eat breakfast, which is extremely odd. Usually when Darren is sad, or mad, she eats. She’s never been the type to skip out on a meal or say she isn’t hungry, especially not when she’s upset about anything. In fact, Darren tends to eat a little more when she’s upset, but she doesn’t.

Four hours later, and it is now noon. The only movement coming from Darren is when she tosses and turns to find a cooler spot on the bed, or a comfier position. This time, Jack taps his knuckles against her door, asking her to join him and Finn for lunch – parking lot tamales, her favorite. Jack walks back down the stairs, in hopes that she’ll be walking down the steps behind him.

An hour and half later and Jack and Finn are still sitting desperately at the kitchen table for Darren to come down and join them. Now they are worried.

“It isn’t like her to skip meals, Jack, and she’s not sleeping, I know that,” Finn says.

“I know, and tamales are her favorite. I didn’t hear anything on the roof this morning though, which only makes me worry more,” Jack tells him.

At this point, they both can agree that something is wrong. They are both aware of the break up and the screaming. Hell, the whole block could probably hear the yelling from the likes of them. Something just isn’t right, though. Darren should be happy now; she’s free from that asshole of a boyfriend she had, but there she is in her bed, not eating, not moving, not really doing anything. So Jack and Finn pad up the stairs until they are at the face of Darren’s bedroom door. Jack knocks. Finn speaks.

“Darren, can we come in?”

Behind the door, Darren only blinks and breathes, but she knows she has to respond to her brothers. Her voice is soft and meek, just loud enough for the boys to hear her tell them, “No.”

“Do you want to come down and eat?” Jack questions, hopeful.

“No.”

“Can we get you anything?”

“No.”

Jack sighs, happy that she spoke, yet upset that she won’t let them in or eat or accept anything from them. Finn gives him a look that says ‘what do we do now?’ but Jack just shrugs. They get into a hushed argument over what to do, but Darren can still hear their whispered yells. She closes her eyes and listens to their debate, inhaling and exhaling with no emotion. Finn finally stops their petty argument and speaks directly to Darren.

“Dare, is there anything, or anyone, that can make anything better?”

Darren blinks her eyes open and tries to think of something, anything, or anyone who can possibly make this better. The thought of food is making her feel sick, but she promises herself that she’ll eat later. There is absolutely nothing that can make her feel better. She could have Blithe come over, but Blithe will just deny that she’s happy and pity her. Caspar will want to throw a party, and a party is definitely not something she needs right now. Everyone else will just keep apologizing to her and pitying her for her heart wrenching breakup. Well, maybe not everyone.

Darren reaches up for her phone that sits on its dock on her bedside table. She unlocks the screen and uses only one thumb to tap and scroll through her contacts list. When she gets to the contact she’s looking for, she taps the contact and scrolls down to the share contact button. Darren quickly shares the contact info by sending a message to both Jack and Finn before putting away her phone and going back to stillness.

~

The doorbell rings, awakening Darren from her short nap. She hears the front door open and shut, and she curls up with a pillow in her arms. A few minutes pass before she hears light footsteps coming up the stairs. There is a soft knock on her door before the knob turns. Darren, who happens to be facing the door, blinks up at the trespasser and uncurls herself from her pillow to sit up. Harry closes the door softly behind him and walks over to Darren’s bed where she has already made a place for him.

“Hey,” he says softly. He takes a seat and immediately pulls Darren into his embrace. Darren wraps her arms around his waist and buries her face in his shoulder. She sniffles and Harry tells her that it’s okay to cry. Normally, Darren would just shake her head and pull through it without shedding a tear, but after a full night of feeling absolutely nothing, she can’t help herself.

The tears start to fall; one by one until a steady stream of waterworks are flowing freely down her face. A sob escapes her throat, and she clings onto Harry tighter now. Harry secures one arm around her, running the fingers of his other hand through her hair to calm her. For at least a half hour, the he just sits there with her, listening to the sound of a broken girl’s tears.

When Darren finally pulls back, she uses the back of her sleeve to wipe some of the water off of her face, sniffling back the rest of them for now. “Thank you,” she whispers, not fully trusting her voice.

Harry gives her a short smile and nods. “Do you, um, want to talk about it? I hear that girls like to do that sort of thing.” Darren smiles slightly at his attempt for humor because it works. “It would help to lift any weight off your shoulders.”

“I broke it off with James,” she says. Harry puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “A year ago, I could have told you that he was it for me, but now that I think of it, he’s always been an asshole. I was just too blinded by how much he helped me in my life to see it.”

“What do you mean by blinded?” Harry questions.

Darren sighs. “Maybe I should just start from the beginning. It’s about time I told someone my whole life’s story… Trust me, it will all make sense by the end.” So Darren starts from the very beginning of everything, back to a time before she had ever even met James. It seems useless having to go back so far, but it all ties together in the end.

Before James, even before Blithe, Darren was a daddy’s girl. At the age of twelve, however, the bond between father and daughter started to lose connection, about the time Darren’s hair started to change its color naturally. Darren became lost and confused from the cold shoulder she got from her dad.

By the day of her thirteenth birthday, Darren’s light brown hair had become darkened into a reddish auburn color. She woke up that day and ran downstairs, happy to know that her father should be home from his three-month business trip out of the country. Her mom had been cooking pancakes and her father sat at the table reading the morning paper. To say her dad was as happy to see her as she was for him is an understatement. When he first caught sight of Darren’s new change in hair color, he dropped his coffee mug to the tiled floor, shattering it. He was anything but happy, and he quickly asked Darren to go upstairs straight away so he could talk to her mother.

Darren obliged with a frown upon her face, but she waited at the top of the stairs, listening on the heated argument that occurred. Her dad started to yell to her mother about how he can’t stand it anymore, and by it, he was referring to Darren.

“Look at her hair! That is no child of mine and we both know it, Rebecca. She was a mistake – always has been always will be,” he shouts.

“We’ve talked about this before, Andy. You said you would love her as your own. So maybe she isn’t your child; she is mine. You promised me… you promised that little girl…”

“Can’t you see, Rebecca? She is just a reminder of that terrible mistake you made when you slept with that other guy. I can look at her no longer; I want her out of my house. She is no Harries.”

As it turns out, Darren had been a creation from an affair her mother had with another man while her dad was away. He had forgiven her eventually, even when she found out she was pregnant. Of course, everyone was unsure if Darren was actually conceived by Andy or by the unknown man from her mother’s affair. He, however, promised to love the child as if it was his own, but as time went on, Darren only brought back the distant memories of her mother’s mistake. What a way to hear the break it down that she was just the result from a mistake.

Darren ran right back down the stairs and put herself into their conversation. After much yelling, arguing, and heartbreak, her mother ended up siding with her father, and Darren was to be enrolled at Miss Merriweather’s Boarding School for girls, effective immediately at the start of summer.

In the months between her birthday and summer, Darren started to rebel, as much as one can at the age of thirteen at least. She slacked off on her schoolwork, stopped wearing the sparkles and put on the thick eyeliner that drives parents crazy to see on their teens. Darren constantly got in trouble at her public school for fighting and refusing to obey her superiors, and the act continued as she transferred over to the boarding school.

Miss Merriweather’s is where she met Blithe. They weren’t friends at first. In fact, they were complete enemies. One day, they both found themselves in detention for getting in a fight, but they both ended up finding out they have a lot in common and decided to become best friends. Throughout secondary school, they ditched classes, participated in underage drinking, and went to many parties with the boys from the public schools in the area.

By age fifteen, Darren had lost her virginity while highly intoxicated at a party. She found fun and release in drinking and one-night stands, and she started to sleep around a lot. In her senior year, she even slept – not once, but twice – with her English teacher to boost her grade, but that isn’t the point. The point is that Darren was a mess, and she was destroying her life by being a wild party girl.

On Halloween of 2015, Darren found herself at yet another party, and the next morning, she woke up at a stranger’s house. Evidently, that stranger’s house was James’. Somehow, he said some words that just stuck to Darren, and she realized that she didn’t want the life that she was living anymore. She didn’t want to be the girl that every guy had slept with, and she didn’t want to grow up to be just another teenage fuck-up. James helped her past her dark time.

“That’s why I felt blinded,” she finishes. “He helped me get back on my feet, and I’m thinking that’s probably why I loved him, not genuinely but because he’s the reason I’m a better person than I used to be.” She stares down at her lap, twiddling her thumbs. When Harry stays quiet in thought, she adds, “I’m sorry if that was too much information. I just… had to get it off my chest I guess.”

Harry shakes his thoughts. “No, it’s fine. I asked, and I’m glad that it’s off your chest.”

“Thanks, for being here and listening to all of my problematic life.”

“It was a pleasure,” Harry smiles, happy that he can finally understand the secrets behind the girl before him.

Darren lies back as she lets out a yawn. She puts her hands on her stomach and moves her head so she can still look at Harry as she lies back. “What about you? Anything you want to get off your chest?” Darren shuts her eyes, thoroughly exhausted by all of the heaviness that has been lifted off of her.

Harry chuckles. “Maybe another day, when you aren’t so tired.” Darren nods her head, asking him to promise. “I promise. Now, get some rest; you need it.” Darren says okay, snuggling into a pillow by her and falls into sleep after Harry pulls her blanket over her. He whispers his goodbye as he leaves the room.

When he steps into the hall, he shuts her door behind him and turns to face both Jack and Finn. Both are sitting against the opposite wall, staring up at Harry, dumbfounded.

“How did you do that?” Jack asks.

Harry furrows his eyebrows. “Do what?”

“She cried and told you her life story. Then, she said she was sorry. You’ve only known her for what? A month? She never cries, at lease not in front of people, and she doesn’t ever say sorry because she doesn’t believe in apologizing. She’s never even told anyone her whole story other than Finn, me, and possibly Blithe. What makes you so special?”

Harry stands there, unsure of how to answer Darren’s brothers. What does make him so special? “I… I don’t know.”

Notes

Who is happy that Jarren is finally over?
Who is less confused now that you know most of Darren's life story?
What does make Harry so special?

I bet none of you were expecting an update so soon, buuuttt I just had to for three reasons: (1) I finished and was like, "oh my gosh, I must share this now", (2) there 100 subscribers for this story now and the literally means the world to me (so THANK YOU), and (3) I was just in the mood because it's my birthday!!! This unicorn is officially 14! So let me know what you all think of this chapter.
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~A