Night Shift [h.s]

twenty five

☁️ HARRY ☁️

Lana had drifted off to sleep pretty quickly the moment she laid her body down in bed. It was like sleep just overtook her and I could only imagine how utterly exhausted she was. Her body just needed her to stop and slow down, though even still she was worrying about Harmony and desperate to go and pick her up from school. I think she just had a hard time resting. It probably didn't feel right for her for sit back and relax whilst the world was still turning around her. She was a natural carer, it's just what she done. She hardly even took two minutes to rest.

Though unfortunately for her, she was going to have to get used to resting sooner rather than later because there was no way in hell that I was going to let her keep on like this as her pregnancy was progressing. I was expecting her to have her feet up and to purely just enjoy motherhood. There was no way I would allow her to do half of the stuff that she does now.

She just needed a break. She needed someone else to take the wheel for a little while. She needed someone else to come along and take care of her. She had been doing this by herself for such a long time, I could only imagine how tired her body was. All she had ever done was take care of other people, for once in her life, I think she just needed someone else to take care of her.

But Lana was prideful and she didn't like to ask for help, the world really had to be crashing and burning for Lana to even raise her hand for the slightest bit of help. She didn't like to ask for it. She didn't like to be a burden, though right now, I think that was the least of our concerns. She had an excuse to be a burden and nobody was judging, I especially wasn't.

I always felt such a wave of adrenaline wash over me whenever I knew I was about to see Harmony, I really wasn't sure why but everything within me was almost filled with a type of fear. Perhaps a fear of not being good enough. I felt as though I had to prove myself to both Lana and Harmony and I wanted to prove that I could look after them. I could be there for them if they just let me in. I needed Lana to take that leap of faith. I needed her to have hope within me.

I wasn't quite sure there were even words to describe how utterly out of place I felt standing in the playground at Harmony's school, scanning the area to see where I could just slot into the crowd without getting noticed too much. These parents must have this routine down like clockwork and I probably stuck out like a sore thumb standing here. I had never done this before and everyone could probably see that.

I was even close to texting Lana to check that I was in the right place and I was definitely supposed to be doing this, but then I stuffed my phone back into my pocket and realised that I needed to figure it out for myself, I was a grown man and Lana was sleeping. This was something I had to tackle alone.

Much like this morning, I was already preparing myself for a total meltdown when Harmony came out of the school gates to discover that her mum still wasn't here to pick her up. I knew that she'd probably be filled with dread when she looked out on the crowd of parents and failed to spot her mum waiting there for her. Instead, I'd be there for her. A man she hardly knew. A man that had just come into her life within the past few weeks and she had no idea of what was going on. I don't know if she was old enough to really understand.