Illicit [Harry Styles]

Chapter 48

"You... I trusted you," I whispered in disbelief, whether it was with him or myself I wasn't sure. He didn't reply, a look of remorse painted across his features as he stood before me wordlessly. His eyes were looking deep into mine, but there was no decipherable emotion behind them, he just looked dark. "You knew what that meant to me... and you... you told everyone? You spoke to your druggy friends about me like I was a toy for you to play with?"

"Jess..." he eventually managed to mumble in a miserable attempt to stall for time since he had no reasonable excuse, his hand hastily reached out to me to try and calm me down, but it had the opposite effect.

I dodged away from him, using the backs of my hands to wipe my tear-stained face as I stepped back in full on hysterics now. "Don't you dare touch me! You're a scumbag!" I screamed. "I'm the only person on this planet to give you the time of day and this is how you treat me? If you think you can talk about me like I'm shít on your shoe when I'm not around, and then act like you're a changed man and want to better yourself and all this when no one else is around you can think again."

"I didn't mean it," he choked out, "You know it's hard for me—"

"Don't even try that with me, Harry! I'm not listening to your sob story anymore after what you've said about me behind my back." Although this was most unfunny moment of my life, all of a sudden a sadistic laugh spluttered from me, "Maybe I should do what Louis said and go and tell your friends all the secrets and deep emotional things you tell me when we're alone? They'd love that, wouldn't they? Tough guy Harry chased his pathetic conquest up the road close to tears to beg for another chance."

Harry's face went from soft and shameful to hard and scornful in seconds as soon as I started giving him a taste of his own medicine, saying it how it was. I could tell he was holding back, but he looked like he would snap any second if I carried on. But what did I have to lose?

"I changed my whole world for you, because I actually thought I saw something in you. I believed I could help you, and in a way you could help me as well, but I guess I was wrong. You're a lost cause, Harry, an absolute train wreck," I spat, hateful in the heat of the moment and wanting him to feel as much pain as he made me feel.

When he ripped himself away from the spot he was standing in, I flinched. Despite being completely baked, he stormed off and yanked open the door of his car and drove away in a flash. His tires screeched as he sped off down the road as quickly as he could, leaving a cloud of black smoke from his exhaust behind. And that was that, he ran. Harry had caused an absolute shítstorm and just left us all behind to suffer the consequences.

Since I had nothing to take my feelings out on now and the anger had faded to heartbreak again, I burst out in a sob and warm, fresh tears spilled down my cheeks. I physically crumpled to the floor, falling to my knees and just crying as Mckenzie and Louis rushed over to comfort me. The two of them pulled me up and I leaned on them weakly as Mckenzie threw her arms around me and Louis rubbed his palm over my back.

"I'm just as low as him," I wailed, my tears soaking my best friend's jacket, "I stooped to his level saying all that spiteful stuff."

"You're not, Jess. He deserved to hear it, it was all true. He's an idiot for thinking something as petty as what he did was worth the risk of losing you, and I bet he's seeing that now," Mckenzie said confidently in a bid to drill the idea into my skull from the get go, hugging me tight for support at the same time.

"I gave up everything thinking he cared, but he didn't even try and fight for me," my voice was loud and slurred from sobbing and I'm surprised either of them could work out what I was saying by now.

"That's because he knows there's no excuse for the shít he's pulled," Louis concluded. "Come on darlin', let's get you out of the cold."

I was put into the backseat of his car and sat there numbly during the ride home. I was running out of tears having cried so much and I just stared into space the entire time I was in the car. For once, Louis' car was dead silent and all the windows were wound up since it was so cold out. Not one of us said a single word.