Harry Styles
"I'm gonna tell you the story of how I knew I was in love with you."
The voice sounded so distant that it took me several seconds to recognize it was Cleo, even though she was right in front of me. She intertwined her fingers with mine and squeezed my hand softly, as if she wanted to let me know she was with me.
I knew she was, I could still listen and see, even though it'd often get mixed up with the overflow of memories currently suffocating my brain.
This was something hard to explain... I was here, but I wasn't. I was awake but I wasn't. I simply disassociated to an extent that I wasn't in control of my brain anymore, I was just there.
My mind felt detached from my body and I was conscious of it. I was numb and emotional at the same time, a fucking blurry mess. Even when Zayn came into the bedroom, he looked distorted as if he was a hallucination. I knew he was real, but I honestly didn't feel real anymore.
I heard Cleo when she mentioned Anne was here. Anne... not my mother.
Because she wasn't my mother.
Did Cleo know? Did Anne tell her?
Was it really Cleo lying down right in front of me or was I dreaming? She looked so beautiful that sometimes I thought I had to be daydreaming ever since I met her.
I mean, it was hard for me to understand how someone so strong like her would love someone as weak as me.
Would she love me in the same way now or would she just pity me? If she knew the truth, then she knew I was a mess.
I knew my name was Harry.
I was born in London and I had an older sister called Gemma.
We were kidnapped nearly twenty years ago, when I was only five years old and she was eight.
There was a van and some men I had never seen before, it all happened so fast. I remembered my head hurt a lot and I was worried about being late for dinner.
I was worried about not having my toys with me when I was literally kidnapped and about to be trafficked.
It hurt to admit it. It hurt to remember. But nothing hurt as much as actually going through it. Repressing all of this inside my brain when I was only a child was actually impressive, it hurt so much that I wanted to pretend it wasn't real. I wanted to forget so bad that it happened, the trauma was strong enough to cause amnesia.
I woke up one day and the pain was gone.
Hidden, actually. Locked away inside my mind as I tried to protect myself.
My sister wasn't with me anymore so I figured forgetting about her was the answer. And I had no idea what happened to her.
I didn't blame Anne for not forcing the truth on me when she realized I had disassociated from my past. I was thankful she kept the lies going because if I knew the truth, I wouldn't have handled it. Even as a child, I wanted to die. I felt dead already when she found me, and I just knew I wouldn't be alive until today if she had forced me to remember. And then I wouldn't have met Cleo.
I wouldn't have met the one person I loved the most. The only one who had never lied to me. The one who was keeping me sane right at this moment.
Anne found me inside that bunker when I could barely move, I hadn't eaten for too long and I knew I was about to die. I was the last child in there because I wasn't worth selling, like Desmond once said.
I was so fucking glad he wasn't my father. And also that Cleo had killed him.
He thought he loved Anne in his abusive way, that's why he let her keep me... like I was a fucking pet. That's why he never loved me or even bothered to show any affection. He treated me like one of his employees and I used to think I was special because he trusted me to work for him.
