Matilda | Harry Styles

THIRTY-FIVE

"What is it?" I asked. He appeared to have forgotten, briefly, his own statement, appearing to have grown lost in our brief physical interaction. I knew the feeling.

I drew my knees to my chest to enable him to take a seat on the bed, in front of me. He did so, immediately reaching for my legs to draw them back over his lap, as he always did. I met his eyes as his lips twitched a little, as if masking some kind of excited anticipation.

"You're not going to like what I say at first. But, then you'll like it. I promise," he said, then. I raised an eyebrow.

"You're scaring me."

"Well," he said, pursing his lips as he pinched gently at the fabric of my sweatpants. "I may have lied about next week. A little bit."

I narrowed my eyes at him, anxiously waiting for him to continue. He didn't speak, letting the silence fill the air between us, only amplifying my nerves.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" I asked, referencing his prolonged gaps between sentences. He grinned.

"Yeah. Is it working?"

I attempted to dig my knee into his ribs, where my legs were in his lap, but he only laughed, closing his palm over my leg and easily thwarting my movements. 

"Please just tell me. You're making me nervous," I said, honestly. The suspense was killing me, not even soothed by the tracing of his hand on my leg.

"Well," he said, his eyes locked onto mine, "I know I said California. And I know you won't think that you'll like it, but I want you to let me do this for you, please," he said, mysteriously, and I only stared at him, suspiciously waiting. What was he talking about?

 "I want to give you a good birthday."

My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach. No. I didn't do birthdays - that was a no, without a doubt. I hadn't wanted him to even know that it was coming up - it meant nothing to me. The day needed to pass like any other. I'd done my best to ignore that the day was even approaching; the last thing I wanted to do was highlight it. 

I bit my lip, "Harry-"

"Let me take you to Italy. Please." 

My lips parted in shock, my eyes scanning rapidly over his face.

"N-No," I stammered, dumbfounded at the sentence that had just left his mouth.

"Iz-"

"No, Harry, it's not-" I stammered again, cutting off my own sentence to stare at him in pure disbelief. "It's too much. Please. I don't even celebrate it-"

"It's not too much. I've been wanting to take you for months, now. Let me take you." 

I remembered, a while back, when we'd still been in that awful stage of avoiding our feelings for one another, how he'd told me that Italy was his favourite place in the world. With everywhere he'd been, and everybody he'd travelled alongside - Italy was his favourite place to be, and he'd told me that he liked to go, alone. He'd said that he was always drawn there; to every part of it, and that he thought I'd love it, just like he did. I never thought I'd actually experience it - I never thought he'd ensure that I did.

I opened my mouth to speak again, only for him to lean forward to take my face in his hands, pushing his fingers into my hair. 

"Shh, stop. Stop," he murmured, shaking his head and scanning his eyes over my face as a smile began to pull onto his lips, "you didn't think I was actually just going to let it pass, did you?"

I bit my lip, staring at him for a moment. I didn't know what to do, or say. I pressed my lips together, letting his eyes burn into my own. I felt so much adoration for him in that moment that it hurt, even with how much fear I felt in me. The slightest acknowledgement of my birthday felt like my worst nightmare, but I should've known from the moment he'd heard about it that he wouldn't just let it go.