Getaway Car [HS]

Chapter Forty

The next ten hours of the day at Alanis' soon-to-be abandoned apartment were a blissful reprieve from the reality of her future. They decided not to talk about what was planned to happen on Saturday, instead opting to gossip about their men and have one last movie night before they're to part ways for a little while. In her heart, Harley knew that everything would end up alright. She and Harry would do what they were ordered to and find her in whatever far-off country Zayn told her to flee to, but the small part of her that remained uncertain needed to stay with her for as long as she could.

Just in case it was the final time.

It wasn't Harley who decided when it was time to leave, though, it was Alanis. Having a best friend who understands you to your very core is a double-edged sword, in her opinion, because while it makes for wonderful days like the one they spent together, it also means that they can spot the true intentions of your heart from miles away.

She could tell that Harley was lingering long after the last movie ended not because she wanted to stay the night but because she was afraid of what might happen when she went back home. Not in a way that meant she was concerned for her safety—as Harry once said, he would never—but in a way that meant she was concerned for the outcome of the conversation they were due to have.

But, according to Alanis' take on it, there wasn't much to worry about.

"Babe, if you think he isn't in love with you, you're stupid, okay? If you forgive him for what he did, then tell him that. If you don't, then say that. Men aren't that complicated. I know he seems like he is, but I bet he's just scared shitless that you won't feel the same way."

So, she drove back over to their apartment building with that on replay in her mind, hoping against hope that Alanis was somehow right and everything will be okay between her and Harry again the second she walked through the front door.

The front door sits in front of her for a long moment before she can summon the strength to unlock it. She stands there for a long time, imagining all the different ways this could go wrong and end in her never getting to have him in the way she has for the past month or so, and tries to keep herself from getting worked up over it before they even have a conversation. For all she knows, Alanis could've been right. What if, just this once, something goes her way? She has lost everything—her brother, her parents, her autonomy, her potential in life—but the one thing she couldn't survive losing is him.

If she didn't push through all of the hardship for a reason, if it wasn't for him, for something at least, then she won't know what to do with herself. When Alanis leaves New Orleans and gets shipped off to whatever country of her choosing, Harry is the one person she will have left in this world. What happens if he casts her aside because he can't handle the pressure of meaning that much to her? The question she didn't dare present to Alanis when she said he probably feared her rejection was: What if what he's afraid of is her loving him back?

In the end, she opens the door like she would rip off a bandaid. The last thing she expected to see when rushing through the front door, however, is this.

Harry spins around, on defense immediately with a pair of Christmas tree ornaments raised as make-shift weapons before he sees who it is and visibly relaxes for a second, then halts as though he remembers the sour note they left off on. In the corner of the living room, a real tree is propped up in a stand and lit up with white string lights. Dozens of ornaments, which she assumes are brand new considering the fact that she has never pegged him for an avid celebrator of Jesus's birthday, already hang from the limbs of fresh pine that extend out from the trunk and sprinkle needles onto the towels he laid out on the hardwood floor.

For a second, they can't do anything but stare at one another across the immeasurable distance that has grown between them in less than a day and, somehow, shrinks into nothing the second he realizes that she came back. Part of him couldn't help but wonder as he paced around the kitchen in the moments following her departure if she was leaving him forever. If last night was the final straw and she was going to ask him if they could fulfill the plan he offered her in her kitchen early last month. For her to flee and leave him as the sacrificial lamb to pay the price for her escape. He decided as he went out to shop for Christmas decorations that he'd do it if she asked. If that was what she wanted, he would do it for her. It would be the least he could do.