NO STRINGS ATTACHED

stuck in the middle with you.

That night felt like a long time ago now. The memory had a hazy glow of golden light filling it in Y/n's mind it felt so far away from where she was now. It felt unreachable and dreamlike.

And yet funnily enough Y/n still replayed it in her mind most nights when she couldn't sleep, it kept her up into the wee hours of the morning, and she wished she could understand. She just wished she understood it. But she still couldn't, no matter how many times she replayed it she always came to the same conclusion; Harry wasn't hers and he had never been. All those months really were just a bit of fun to him, a secret fling. She was sure most of his flings were secret, but then again maybe he just didn't want anyone to know about her. When they weren't talking and he was off being famous she saw countless paparazzi photos of him looking quite scandalous with many different men and women, and mentions of his new flings, and during university, he had a new person every week whom he'd come into her room to hide from while Y/n went out and made them guilt filled pancakes. Sometimes she'd bump into them around campus and they'd ask after Harry and she'd just give a shrug as if to say, what can you do?

Whenever she started to feel sombre about it all, and lonely without him, she reminded herself of the fact that he was so sick to his stomach embarrassed by the idea of people knowing about them, that he ended things with her just like that. With no consideration or gentleness which was so out of his character when it came to his friends. She had never seen him so callous with someone whom he claimed he was close to. Even if he saw her as just his friend, she didn't ever take him as that kind of guy. Harry was not a careless person, if anything he cared too much. Thought over and over before speaking.

It had been a month nearly two since that weekend of absolute foggy chaos. Everything was different now. But she could still remember that morning he came to see her crystal clear though, and that memory was grey and bitter now. It was early, and Y/n though hungover had woken up with the sun. Unusual for her, but something other than the Tequila had her feeling nauseous and his name was Harry. She felt something gnawing in her tummy, and it was almost like she could sense something bad was coming. She just really hadn't expected what did come.

Harry told her he would call her but he hadn't, which worried her because he always called. He showed up with little warning, Y/n had already rolled herself up in her blanket on the couch planning to spend the day with her face in her toilet. But she heard a knocking at her door just as she'd turned the telly on.

She opened it and was met with Harry's green eyes, the rims were red from a lack of sleep. His eyes were puffy and he looked about as terrible as she felt, she tried to assume it was just his hangover. His hair was wet and so was his jumper, it must've been raining, she hadn't heard it. He'd been up all night stressed out over thinking while staring at the new series of photos of Y/n kissing his cheek and him looking at her with these love-filled eyes. Not to mention there were so many of his obsessive fans commenting and being hateful towards her, her looks, everything. To Harry she was perfect and he despised what they were saying. He could handle what people said about him, but now that it was Y/n he wanted to cry. He never wanted her to know or read any of the comments. He couldn't bear it.

Y/n hadn't checked her Instagram for a few days but if she looked she'd see millions of requests to her Instagram. She wasn't much of a social media user other than the ones she used for contact with her family.

"Oh, hey." She said softly, voice all scratchy she looked very ill.

He had this look on his face, and Y/n could tell he had bad news. But she didn't expect him to say what he said.

He made them both a cup of tea each and they sat down on her couch but something was shaky and aloof about him. The early morning news played in the background and Y/n felt her head throbbing hard against her skull as she tried hard to focus on him.