Illicit [Harry Styles]

Chapter 37

"You fücked up, do you realise that?" I asked him, not willing to look at his reaction.

"I fücked up? If it wasn't for me you'd still be with him now!"

"You made it ten times worse for all three of us, Harry! I didn't want him to find out like that — from you. He probably wouldn't have hit you if you would've just let me tell him."

"But you wouldn't! And I couldn't care less that he hit me, I could've knocked him out if I didn't think..." he trailed off, appearing to be a bit uncomfortable but disgruntled.

"That you deserved it?" I finished for him.

"No," he snapped quickly in defence.

"Now is not the time for you to play tough guy, Harry, I'm serious. Pretend you have no soul or emotion another time, whatever, but not right now." I found the courage to glare at him and the expression I was met with was firm and irritated — probably that I'd just caught him out.

"You chickened out, if I hadn't have stepped in you wouldn't have told him. I was probably a bit insensitive, but can you blame me? I was fuckíng raging!"

"We can't change what happened now, as much as we both may want to. But you need to understand that ultimately I chose you — I gave you what you wanted — and that's how you chose to treat me. Think about it, Harry, you're not doing yourself any favours."

"Stop 'Harry-ing' me," he mumbled under his breath like a child being scolded, not even looking at me.

"Is that all you have to say?" I challenged him, and his eyes flickered up to meet mine before falling back to the rug in the middle of the room. He had one chance to make this right.

I stared at him for what must've amounted to five whole minutes, watching the cogs turn and the thoughts being processed in his head, waiting for him to put his pride and ginormous ego behind him for once. The opportunity I gave him to speak up came to no avail, and eventually I had to force myself to walk away.

I sighed, muttering, "Okay, fine," before standing and going to storm out the room. When I'd made it just past where he was sitting I turned back to him as if telling him this was it — it was now or never. He had this strange look in his eyes like he was panicking and his mind was strained but whatever it was that had taught him to hide behind this wall just wouldn't let him knock it down and act on how he felt.

I sighed again and saw myself out. I guess this really was it — the end. I'd lost them both.

My feet carried me up the driveway and to the pavement, beginning my walk home without a second thought. I was sniffling to try and hold back the tears that threatened to fall for the thousandth time in just under a week as I walked; the last thing I wanted was to cry when I was nearing town where there'd likely be people I know there to see it. I'd changed so much about myself for Harry, and it's like that's all it was that he got a kick out of; when it came to him changing even the slightest thing for me, he flaked out.

I had been walking for roughly ten minutes when the beep of a car horn pulled me out of my miserable moping, it made me jump but I didn't bother turning around to inspect where it'd come from. That was, until I felt and heard the presence of a car nearing me, and my mind was taken back to a horrible place: the night I almost got attacked. Someone was driving alongside me and slowly at that, and the only thoughts rushing through my mind at a hundred miles per hour were negative ones about how I was definitely about to die.

However, I then heard a voice that I recognised calling my name, which put me at ease — or at least slightly, being that I probably wasn't going to die after all.