Matilda | Harry Styles

TWENTY-NINE

"Then I don't think I've ever dated anybody, until you," I said, honestly, speaking my thoughts aloud. "I've been with people, but - I don't know," I bit my lip. "I don't even know what it was."

"I've had things that I thought were relationships," he said, then, "I've had people lie, or mimic a connection to try and get something from me. But they weren't real, like you are." I felt that, too - it felt like whatever I'd had before, wasn't real; it would be disingenuous to categorise it as such, when I had something so, so real, right in front of me.

"So, I suppose I'd never dated anybody until you, either, then," Harry said, his knee nudging against my own.

"You were my first one-night stand," I said, suddenly. For whatever reason, I was blurting every thought that I was having, out, without even really meaning to keep talking. The glint grew more prominent in his eye, and his lips twisted into that beautiful smirk of his.

"I don't know if we can call it that, anymore," he pointed out, "because, one became two, and then two became three, and then we-"

"I mean, before everything else happened," I said, breathing out a short laugh at the irony.

"You were mine, too," he replied, then, causing me to raise my eyebrows.

"You're a liar," I huffed, tilting my head back against the couch for a moment.

He laughed softly, reaching for my knee with his hand, this time, "You were the first that counted," he corrected, and I playfully narrowed my eyes at him, forcing him to continue.

"When I was a teenager, I definitely did it a lot more. The past couple of years... I don't think I did, at all," he said, flickering his eyes away from me for a second as if checking the accuracy of his answer, "Not for ages... I got to this point where I didn't go out much at all. It was my career, or nothing." He glanced at me, to catch the playful narrow of my eyes. "You didn't know me before I met you, Iz. I was pretty uptight."

I gasped playfully, miming shock. He was right in that regard, but I'd definitely known him when he'd been denying his feelings for several weeks - I'd seen him uptight. "No way."

"Shut up," he mumbled, pinching at my leg and causing me to kick it outwards, only for him to grab it in his hand and bring it to his lap. "Iz, before you, I stuck religiously to every single rule I'd set for myself. I didn't date, I didn't hook up - none of it. You're the one who made me break every rule. The fact I left that bar with you so quickly; the fact I took you to my house -" he paused, shaking his head, "you changed everything."

"I can't say I'm sorry for that," I said, feeling my heart race as he hooked his arm around my leg where it was in his lap, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of my knee. It was quick, and chaste, but it was still enough to make my body tingle.

"I'd never want you to," he replied, tilting his own head back against the couch, now. "But I've never had anything, with anybody, like this. There's a reason why you scared me so much."

"Do I still scare you?"

"Sometimes," he returned, his hand tracing mindlessly over my leg. "I like it, though."

He was so willingly open with me, that it often left me at a loss for words. It was so reassuring to hear how he felt for me; and to hear that it matched exactly with how I felt for him, too, but it was also kind of terrifying. He seemed to encapsulate it all so well; that his perspective had shifted upon meeting me, just as mine had, upon meeting him. I supposed I'd broken every rule, as well, because he, too, had changed everything.

It felt demeaning of everything we had to even attempt to liken it to anything I'd had before. Because he was so much different; he was so much more. Harry was everything I could've ever wanted.