Always

Chapter 34

After nearly a half hour of standing numbly in my entryway, I finally managed to force my limbs to carry me upstairs to my room.  My chest felt empty, like my heart had been shattered, the pieces crushed to dust before melting away in my blood.  Every breath I took burned my lungs, threatening to stop their function with every shaky inhale.  My mouth was so dry I couldn't even swallow. 

I fell backwards on my bed, taking no caution as I did so.  I stared at the ceiling with dry eyes, surprised the tears were yet to fall.  This couldn't be real; Harry didn't love me.  Not only did he not love me, he left. 

I had admitted the most important detail of my entire life so far only for him to reject it and leave me, just like in my deepest fear.  Watching him hastily walk out the door without so much as a glance back at me had absolutely crushed me. 

The look on his face when I said those fateful words replayed over and over again in my head: shock, fear, confusion, all reactions I had never wanted nor expected to see.  Sure, I hadn't expected him to say it back, but I hadn't expected him to abandon me.  He had done to me exactly what his worst fear was, exactly what I had promised never to do to him: he had let me go. 

It was this thought that finally released the choking sob that had been strangely absent until now.  It wracked through my entire body, shredding me from the inside out before finally escaping my throat, unleashing an unrelenting series of sobs.  Tears flowed freely from my eyes as I made no attempt to stop them. 

I sat up, hunching my body over as I rested my elbows on my knees and put my face into my hands.  Trails of salty tears streaked down my cheeks before splashing onto the skin of my thigh as I struggled to take in a solid breath.  This was worse than anything I had imagined possible. 

If anything confirmed the depth of my feelings for Harry, it was this.  This crushing agony that had stolen every ounce of happiness from my body was surely proof that I loved him, needed him.  Yet here I was, alone, without him, with no way to console myself. 

I had no concept of time passing as I continued to cry.  Minutes could have been hours or seconds- I had no idea.  My posture remained in the hunched position the entire time, reveling in the stiffness that had settled over my body.  Good.  The only thing I knew was that I was that I was not okay.  My heart was absolutely broken, my insides devastated by the rejection. 

I ran out of tears to cry at some point, but the sobs that racked my body refused to relent.  It felt like someone had shoved a white-hot iron down my throat, searing the tissues there, perpetually damaging me.  My muscles protested as I still neglected to move, the position and detrimental sobs doing seemingly irreparable damage to them.  Still I didn't care.  The image of Harry's face, looped with the final image of him leaving me, played continuously in my head.  Over and over, it haunted me. 

How could I have been so completely and desperately wrong?  How had I convinced myself that he would maybe say it back?  I had been so foolish to think that he would without even really considering the possibility that he would reject me.  I had had myself completely convinced that he felt the same way I did that it had barely crossed my mind to consider the worst. 

Clearly what I had been thinking was not the case.  Was this pain worth telling him when we could have probably continued on as we were?  Sure, he wouldn't have known how I felt, but he would still be here, holding me, smiling with me, kissing me.  It was impossibly hard for me to not regret telling him, especially now when all I could focus on was the gnawing pain inside me. 

I sat there the entire night, broken, shattered.  I was unable to gather myself long enough to even lie down.  Hours and hours must have passed, an entire night, even, because before long I could see streaks of sunlight drifting across my room, hinting that morning had come despite my belief that the world had surely come to an end.  A new day had started and I felt no better, worse actually, than I had the entire night before. 

Somehow, I had managed to avoid my mother, who had come home late and gone straight to bed.  Today, however, would be much more difficult.  I wasn't ready to tell her what had happened; I was still foolishly clinging to the hope that Harry would change his mind and come back to me, in which case she would never have to know that I had had my heart completely shattered.  I had a long day ahead of me.

***

Harry's POV

She loves me.  Joey loves me.  It had been two days since she told me and it still hadn't sunk in.  I had never heard such glorious words spoken to me, yet I, like an idiot, had left her.  What should have been the best moment of my life had quickly been ruined by my idiotic, despicable actions.  I ran from her without even stopping to think about potentially saying it back, or even considering how nerve-racking that must have been for her to admit.  I am a coward. 

Why couldn't I have been brave enough to say it back?  Why did I have to pull such a typical dick move and leave when she has always been nothing but open and honest with me?  To say I despised myself right now was an understatement. 

I paced around my room, mind buzzing a thousand miles per hour, self-loathing coursing through me.  She must hate now; I know I sure hate me.  This amazing girl, this astounding person who has chosen me, of all unworthy people, had admitted that she's in love with me and I left her like a scared little boy.  I do not deserve a moment of her attention, much less her love.

If only I wasn't such a coward, I could have told her that I've been in love with her since practically the day we met.  Of course I'm in love with her, how could I not be?  I've been in love with her from the day she kissed me, and fell more and more every single time she so much as smiled at me. 

I'd never had such a beautiful person so much as notice me, much less love me.  There was no way I deserved her to begin with, much less now.  How could I possibly have been so stupid?

I shoved my hand through my hair, pushing it up even more.  It was practically standing up due to the amount of times I had hastily run my fingers through it.  For the hundredth time, I thought about calling her to apologize.  Surely she wouldn't accept; I had pulled the lowest move possible and she had yet to try and contact me.  If that was any indication, she clearly wanted nothing to do with me now, and I didn't blame her. 

Why hadn't she called me?  Because she has some sense, you idiot.  I scolded myself.  She hasn't called me because she knows that she deserves better and that she should be done with me.  She should find herself someone who isn't always nervous and awkward around her, someone who is capable of returning the expression of feelings I had never earned in the first place. 

My eyes were starting to sting from the near constant staring at my phone, silently begging it to ring and for her beautiful face to pop up on my screen.  It never did, though.  Not once.  Every time it did happen to ring, my heart would leap up my throat only to plummet back down to my stomach when it inevitably wasn't her. 

I couldn't call her.  I couldn't do that to her after abandoning her; I didn't deserve her love when I couldn't even tell her my true feelings.  The best thing for me to do was to leave her alone and let her move on with someone who deserved her the way I never would.