After The End: Book 1

24. Babysitter

I let my eyes stay glued on the hole too long. I looked at the crackling vines off of it and imagined that that's what Louis forehead would have looked like if I hadn't stalled as long as I had or if I hadn't shoved him onto the bed behind me and begged for his life. They had planned on blaming me. Someone would have found my corpse with a gun in my hand next to his own and they would have seen that crackled hole in his skull and thought that I had killed him.

I didn't realize the waves of nausea coming over me at first. Then I felt the tension as my entire body trembled and my eyes unblinkingly widened and stayed fixed on the hole. My palms burned where, inside my pockets, my nails dug into them with clenched fists.

"Harry?" Lux's soft voice permeated my fog. She was still beside the hole, holding the picture in her hands and looking very concerned.

"Cover it!" I said pulling my knees up to my chest. I needed to breath. I needed to shut off the full body reaction before Lux's concerned face registered any more of the obvious distress in mine.

Lux stuck the poster back up, leaving it completely crooked. She approached the sofa and crouched beside me, placing a hand on my arm. "Harry, are you okay?"

I ignored her, breathing slowly and deeply instead.

"Louis told Naomi that you didn't want to talk about things," Lux said softly. Was her voice soothing? No, she was way too annoying for that. I wanted to tell her to leave me alone but I knew she'd ignore me. Instead I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead into my knees. "There's stuff I don't talk about either," she informed me. "We all have fun traumatic things we keep inside."

"No offense Love, but this isn't the trauma olympics," I looked up to meet her eyes and immediately regretted it. He concerned face was only inches from mine. I hoped my voice wasn't shaky as I tried to deliver my punchline. "And if it was, just for the record, I've literally died like twice so I'd be winning."

Lux allowed a smile to break through only slightly in her tense face. "And what was that like?" She inquired. Her hand was rested on my forearm still. I wondered if Naomi had told her what it looked like under the cardigan. Louis and her seemed to really enjoy gossiping.

"I don't remember," I lied. Cold. Dark. Empty. Nothingness. "It was like going to sleep."

"Well don't die again," she instructed playfully. I could still see she was studying me for any more signs of distress. "If you die we'll never have our chance."

I rolled my eye and considered pulling my arm away from her grasp but concluded she was holding a little too firmly. Fighting her off might hurt. "We  won't have a chance anyways," I reminded her. "You're not my type." Lies.

"I'm totally your type," she informed me. "Plus if Naomi can kiss you, I'm sure I'm only a few compelling lines away from getting your pants off."

I had to keep myself from laughing. Then I froze. "Naomi told you that she kissed me?" I said tensely.

Lux laughed, apparently pleased with herself for catching me off guard. "Don't worry, Louis doesn't know about your guys little preteen moment."

I looked at her very seriously. The night had been a decade ago, but I remembered every bit of it. I had been tired and frustrated and just as scared as she was but she'd been mean to me and I'd snapped. In true Harry fashion I had totally trauma dumped on her, like the sad teenage boy that I was, desperately seeking empathy. I've always been pretty difficult to work with, I supposed. Still, that was my first real kiss from a nice appropriately aged girl. It felt personal. I felt violated to know the experience had been talked about.

"I'm not sure what she told you," I said carefully. "But it's probably not true."

"7 minutes in heaven?" Lux pushed. "You were all nervous according to her. Then she totally sprung the kiss on you out of nowhere and she could tell you were going to dream about it for the rest of your life."