My chest was aching as Collin called me over the moment Harry and I walked into the studio. I had to have known that he was going to want to talk to me. He was going to want to know why I was late, and even more than that, why I was late and came in with Harry. I didn't come up with any better explanation except for the truth, which I didn't want to share. I racked my brain trying to think of things so say during the short walk from the door to the office. No such luck.
"Do I even have to say it?" Collin said as he leaned up against the table and crossed his arms. "I've told you so many times before, I don't want to have to say it again. You know I don't want you and him to have a relationship so stay away from him," he stiffly said. I almost wish he was actually yelling at me and not looking at me with that disappointed look on his face. His voice was pretty quiet, making it even more evident that he was disappointed in me.
I looked around the room. I had to avert my eyes away from the horrible looks that my boss was giving me. I knew that this could be the end of my job here, hell it could even be the end of my career. Who knew when I'd be able to find another job like this again? There's not a station out there, besides this one, who would hire a high school graduate who didn't even attempt to go to college.
"Why were you with him?" Collin asked, cutting off my thoughts.
"What?"
"Why were you with him?" he said in pieces to emphasize each word.
"The truth?" I questioned stupidly.
"Obviously."
"The truth is, Harry had to drive me back to campus because he had driven me here. We got my car from the Starbucks and he said he was going to drive be hind me so he could walk me to the dorm room just incase anything happened. Lucky for me that he did because Jason showed up right outside my dorm so Harry suggested that I stayed with him for the night so that I could avoid having to face Jason. When we got back to his place I was so exhausted and I just forgot to set my alarm. Nothing happened," I added. I decided it was best to leave out the part about going to dinner. If Collin knew that I was spending more time with Harry than necessary, he would probably fire me right then and there.
"So he drove you here again today?" Collin said too calmly.
"Yes," I answered.
"And he'll have to drive you back home, I'm guessing?"
"Yes."
"That's the last thing that I want to have happen between you and him outside of work. I mean it when I say that I don't want to have to say it again, stay away from him."
"I really don't get what the problem with me and Harry being friends," I blurted out.
"Oh I'm pretty sure you two are more than friends," Collin said moving away from the spot he was standing at and rolled his eyes. "At least not to him."
"What's that suppose to mean?" I asked raising my voice.
"If he wanted you to come over to his house, he wants way more than friendship." I stayed quiet as Collin was bashing Harry. "I bet he even let you sleep in his bed with him." The blank stair on my face gave away that answer. "See? I bet he tried to make it out that he didn't want to disturb you or make you uncomfortable so he stayed as far away from you as possible. But he, as every guy would know, that you would move over towards him. It's disgusting."
I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what I could say. Everything that Collin said, it happened. I hated how accurate he was. I didn't even want to think about the fact that it was possible for Harry to have done and said everything just to get me to sleep in the same bed as him. He wouldn't do that. Would he? Who was I to know? I've only know him for about six days.
"What do you care what Harry and I do in our free time?" I snapped with the anger building up inside of me. Half from Collin bashing Harry and half from the fact that he could be 100% right about Harry's actions. Part of it might also have been because of all of my emotions that I've been having over he past fire days. "It's my life. I can do whatever the hell that I want. I can hang out with who I want and I can do whatever I want. Nobody and I mean nobody can take that away from me." At that point, I felt like I didn't care what was going to happen to me. I didn't care if I was putting my job on the line with my tone and words I was using. I had way too much anger built up inside of me.
"Katherine," Collin breathed out calmly, moving closer too me. I hated hearing my full name come out of his mouth. I just didn't sound right.
I didn't know what was happening. I had expected him to flip out and yell back at me.
But that didn't happen.
Instead he came over slowly and hugged me, he hugged me really tight. His long arms wrapped completely around my torso.
"Katie," he whispered as I pulled away from the hug.
Before I knew it, his lips touched mine.
"Why did you do that?" I shyly asked trying to step back to create more distance between us, but failing because of the wall that stopped me.
"Why shouldn't I?" he suavely said stepping closer to me, closing the small distance I had from him and moving a piece of hair off of my face and letting his hand linger on my cheek.
"Because I didn't want you to do that," I whispered, feeling the tears well in my eyes.
"Yes you did," he said before pulling my body into his.
I hated the way he was taking advantage of me. He knew how horrible I was at standing up for myself. When Jason and I were together I use to come into work every morning telling him about our relationship and how he would take advantage of me, scare me with his forcefulness. He knew that standing up for myself was my weakness, and here he was using it against me.
I wasn't going to let that happen this time.
"Get the hell off of me," I said as I pushed his chest before he was able to kiss me again. The strength in my voice didn't last much longer as I practically whispered, "don't do that again."
I walked out of the room as the tears really began to sting my eyes. I rushed to the bathroom set in the back of the studio, hoping that nobody would see me.
Obviously life isn't that fair.
"Katie?" Harry called from behind a shelf. I rushed right past him, hoping that he wouldn't follow me. I didn't want him to see me cry. I was sick of crying.
I rushed to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I paced back and forth while running my hands through my hair. I felt the tears stinging my eyes even more. I lunged over to the sink and splashed some water on my face, hoping that it would wash out the small drips of water that were blurring my vision.
"You're fine, Kate, you're fine," I told my reflection in the mirror.
I grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser next to me and dried my face before opening the door to go back to work.
I stepped out to see an orange hatted boy sitting on the wall parallel to the bathroom. "Are you alright?" he asked in a hushed and concerned tone as he rushed up from where he was sat and moved over towards me.
"I'm fine," I choked.
"Come here," he said before pulling me into a tight hug. He held me so close to him. I had my head against his chest, the air was so quiet around us, the only sounds I could he were of my soft sobs and his heard beating. I tried to steady my breathing in sequence with every other heartbeat, hoping that it would get me to stop crying. I had no such luck. "It's ok," he said as he rubbed my back.
I tightened my grip around him, realizing that I was just going to have to cry it out, as much as I hated it. The problem was, I didn't even truly know why I was crying. It either had to do with the fact that Collin made a move on me, or just because I've been so stressed out for the past few days. Thinking over everything that has happened to me since the moment I left Jason only made me cry harder. Him showing up at the party, him showing up at work, the dream I had about him in my dorm room, him being at my dorm, and the dream last night that I had about him at Harry's. It was all just too much for me to handle.
"Thank you, Harry," I weakly said as I pulled away from his gentile embrace.
He cupped his hands around I face and brushed off the tears that were still dripping down my face with his thumbs. "Are you going to tell me what happened?" he asked looking deeply into my eyes.
"Collin kissed me," I blurted out. I really didn't want to tell Harry what happened, but I had to tell someone. I knew harry didn't really like Collin much because of the fact that he's been telling me I need to stay away from Harry and everything.
"He what," he asked emotionlessly.
"He was along me why I was late and why I came with you and he kissed me," I sobbed.
"The prick," Harry said stepping away from me and shaking his head.
I could see the anger filling up in Harry's face. If it's one thing I've learned about his is he doesn't like it when guys are forceful to me, or, women in general. "Harry it's no big deal, I'm fine," I said trying to calm him down.
"Clearly you're not fine," he said. "You're crying for fuck sakes."
"I know, but just, just don't worry about it, I'm fine, really. I'm just so stressed out about everything that's been happening this week."
"You sure you're ok?" Harry softly asked as he came back over to me and cupped my face in his hands again.
"Positive," I breath out. Harry embraced me with one las hug before we went back to the floor to work.
***
"How about instead of going out to dinner, we go back to my place and I cook you some wicked Ramen noodles?" Harry asked with a smirky smile as we clocked out of work for the day.
(So sorry that it took forever to get an update out. And I apologize for this one being short. I've been so busy this whole week. I really hope I can start getting more updates out. What did you think of this one? What do you think of the whole story? I hope you guys are enjoying! Love you, all! Thanks for reading!! ♡)
