Cruel Summer | Harry Styles

Three: Humiliation for All

Harry woke up the next morning feeling...happy. Of course, he instantly remembered the night before and then felt more than happy, if the jolt under the covers was any indication. He hadn't been lying when he said he wanted to see Della again, to fuck her again. What she said rang in his head as he made himself an espresso and scrolled through his missed messages from the night before. She wasn't unknowable. No one was unknowable.

Even as he thought it, he knew Della was an exception. There was something about her that he knew was just untouchable. Harry could already understand that there were parts of her that he might never be able to know. Not that he wanted to know them, or could, realistically, since if things were going to stay casual they would need to stay superficial. Knowing her wasn't really an option, so this whole, "unknowable" thing would never really be an issue.

Suddenly, he felt the way he did the night before: insecure and rejected.

She had spoken as if their roles were reversed, as if she was the one with the money, the fame, the influence—as if she was the one who everyone wanted something from. And Harry had been made to act out of the part of someone trying to convince the other that they didn't want anything other than company. It was a little degrading, now that he thought of it. Then, he felt ashamed when he realized he had probably put more than one person in the exact position he had found himself in the night before.

He ran his hand over his face and then through his hair as his happiness drained out of him. A hollowness remained, and he knew he needed something to fill it. He cursed himself when the first thing that came to mind was Della.

***

She didn't bother brushing her hair, just pulled her fingers through the knots at the nape of her neck and then fluffed up the top for some volume. She had woken up late, exhausted and slightly hungover.

Although Harry offered to stay the night, a boundary needed to be set. She didn't want to lead him on, to let him think that them sleeping together meant a closeness, or that she trusted him to any degree. No, there would be no sleeping over, especially if he wanted it to happen again.

She looked out onto the balcony and saw the remnants of the night before. Still only dressed in her panties, she walked outside, stacked the glasses and brought the bottle inside. She dumped whatever was left in the bottle down the drain since it already smelled of vinegar and washed the cups quickly.

Really, she wasn't sure how she felt. He was hot and it was fun and she was being honest when she said she had nothing to offer. Maybe with someone like him that would be okay. Maybe it could work. She was a nobody and he was a somebody and wasn't that the way with those kinds of things? Didn't it always have to mean nothing? Didn't it mean secret, dirty sex in private places, in private moments, but never anything more? Della could work with that. She had enough room for something like that. Was it what Harry wanted? She wasn't sure—but did she really care what he wanted? That was a conversation for another time.

She shrugged on a pair of cream colored linen shorts and a sheer, white t-shirt. She had barely shoved her feet into her tan leather sandals by time she was shutting the rental's door behind her. She needed a coffee. And maybe a tart. And to probably call her mom.

By time Della got to the bottom of the stairs, calling her mom was no longer part of the plan. She just didn't want to hear any of it. She didn't want to hear about Addie, even though Della knew she should sit quietly and listen to her mother's gushing considering her sister had just received her first degree. But she always had to hear about Addie, whether her mother was gushing to her or around her to others. She didn't want to be asked if she had found herself yet, in the mocking tone that she knew it would come in. She didn't want her mother to put Addie on the phone because she would have to hear the idolization in her sister's voice and Della would feel like a fraud. What she wanted was to be left alone—and to send postcards into the void. That way she could talk and not have to hear anything back.