A Rhapsody Of Sorts

11- It's Feeling Real Again

September 15, 2012.

He shrugged his blazer off and clutched it in his hands for a short-lived moment before he held it out for me.

"Wha—?"

"It'll hide the bruises."

"Harry..." I took it in my hands, wrinkling it with my tightened fists. "This is a bad idea," I muttered, even as I slid my arms through the sleeves and mirrored his anxious expression.

"Don't worry. Just—just let me drive you home." He reached around me to push open the door, his hand placed at the small of my back to guide me out into the sunlit afternoon.

As I walked through the doorway and tucked my sunglasses on over my eyes, I could only hope that leaving with Harry and the tangent of rumors that would come with it was, as Harry had ensured, the lesser of two evils. I still struggled to decide if I would rather put myself through the onslaught of questions about the bruises on my wrist that were obviously caused by a too-tight grip, or put Harry through the pain of being seen with me. Harry didn't seem to mind, but I felt unnerved leaving the party wrapped up in something so undeniably his.

When Harry and I approached the back gate, his suspicions about the paparazzi were confirmed. They were lined up like children looking in on animals at the zoo, pressing their faces and cameras through the cast-iron bars, as they bustled around one another and yelled for us to look at them.

Harry's blazer was lengthy on me, reaching well beyond my waist and completely covering my backside. The shoulders were slightly too wide for my frame, and the sleeves were long enough to fall past my fingertips. I gripped the cuffs firmly, holding on to them like they were the only things stopping me from collapsing on the ground in the worst possible moment my legs could have chosen to give out. My pace was wobbly, and Harry noticed, pressing his hand into my back to keep me steady.

"That blazer clashes with your top a bit, don't you think so, Oliver?" one of the paparazzo inquired when the security guard held the gate open for us to pass through.

"Are you two official, then?" another one begged.

"Isn't he a little young for you, Oliver?"

"Harry, what d'you think of Oliver's affair with Hutchinson?"

"Just ignore them," he whispered, his lips uncomfortably close to the shell of my ear and his heavy palm searing the space between my shoulder blades. "The car park's not far."

I kept my head down while Harry led us through the throng of photographers, forcing myself to keep up with his long strides. He looked down at me every few seconds, biting his lip and puckering his brows, and I wished he had sunglasses on so I didn't have to see his troubled expression.

The paparazzi trailed us throughout the short walk. They couldn't follow us into the multi-level car park, but they kept taking pictures while we walked around the cement barriers and got on the lift. We stayed silent through the ride up to the top floor where Harry's black SUV was parked.

He walked me over to the passenger side and kept his hand on my back while I wrenched open the door, and he only let me slip away from him when I hopped up into the seat and settled back. He shut the door behind me — carefully, as if he was afraid to startle me.

I was immersed in thoughts of Fox and Matthew, wavering between infuriated and sullen. Fox had put me in a place that I hadn't known in a long while, a place that felt a lot like immeasurable emptiness. Loneliness was something that I knew well, but emptiness was different. My heart was pounding in my chest, my hands shaking, my frown twitching.

I was slowly disappearing into that terrifying delirium, wishing more than anything to see the fond way Matthew would gaze at me whenever I combed my fingers through his hair and stayed in with him on Friday nights. I needed to see his eyes again.