Ready To Run // h.s

twenty three

  "Don't waste your time." I said. "We just need to get out of here and forget about it. Do you think we left enough kibble for Cat?" Who was I kidding, Harry always left her with enough food to last her a whole year. I wondered how Cat was doing- this was the longest that she had been away from Harry and I. I imagined her, laying in our big comfy bed all alone while we were on the floor of a jail cell.

  "Someday we'll laugh at this." Harry chuckled. "Maybe not today, but someday."

  "Not a day anytime soon, that's for sure." I yawned. "I was scared out of my mind. Not for being arrested, although that's bad, too, but for my parents finding out. I'm so scared they'll find some way to get me back to them and make me-" I stopped myself. "I don't want to go back to them."

  "Don't worry." Harry whispered, taking his pointer finger and tracing my lips. "I won't let them take you away from me." He then began to trace the features of my face- my eyebrows, nose, some freckles that were dotted across my cheeks. It made me so relaxed that I felt like I could fall asleep, even though we were laying on a concrete jail floor.

  "After this we're both going to need to get professional massages." I chuckled.

  "We can do a couples massage!" Harry joked.

  "I'm gonna need a couple massages to fix my back from this floor." I yawned. Harry laughed and pressed his lips against my forehead. My eyelids were beginning to grow heavy- never once had I imagined falling asleep like this, but we had to make do with what we were given. 

  "This will be an interesting story to tell my management team." Harry groaned. "They'll want to meet with me to hear the whole story and then we'll have to speak to PR to get things worked out if any stories get leaked."

  "Sounds complicated." I muttered. "Usually when something happens in my family our representative does all the talking and we try and stay out of the spotlight." 

  "What sort of things?" Harry asked. 

  "Well, uh, my dad's been suspected of cheating on my mom several times. Usually once or twice a year a story comes out and we have to go into a sort of hiding until it all blows over and our representative comes up with a cover story." 

  Harry stayed silent. Never had I opened up with someone about this, not even my closest friends. But then again, my closest friends were just the daughters of my dad's colleagues, not actual friends. The subject was still a bit touchy for me and sharing it with someone else made me feel like I was begging for their pity that I didn't even want. 

  "Were the rumors true?" He finally dared to ask. I let out a loud sigh.

  "Probably." I laughed bitterly. "We never spoke about it as a family, but I wouldn't doubt it was true."

  "I'm... sorry about that." Harry mumbled. "Doesn't seem like a fun situation to be stuck in the middle of. But at least you're out of it now, yeah?"

  I closed my eyes, taking in the warmth of him.

  "Yeah."

  Suddenly, Harry's warm body was no longer pressed against mine. He had gotten up and stood at the corner of the cell where he picked up what looked to be a small metal screw. I frowned, resting my head in my hands as I watched him take the screw to the wall and begin to scratch.

  "Harry!" I whispered. "What are you doing!?"

  "Leaving our mark." Harry whispered back. "Come look."

  Once he was finished, he stood back to admire his work. Written on the wall was "H + M" surrounded my a heart. I laughed and shook my head at him and how crazy he and this whole situation was. What he had written sent butterflies fluttering in my core and as I stood with a goofy grin on my face he took my hands and brought me back to our make-shift bed that we had created on the floor. 

  Shortly after, on a concrete floor in a jail cell, at early hours in the a.m, far far away from friends and family, with a criminal record and our initials forever printed on the wall, we fell asleep. 

.

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  The next morning, I woke up alone in a jail cell and freaked out for a solid ten minutes until a different police officer came and let me out. He explained that Harry was speaking to the chief of police, and when I asked for the time he said it was nine a.m. Somehow I had managed to get a really good nights sleep on that floor, despite my back being one huge knot. 

  I was taken to an office room, where a large man sat behind a desk. Harry, who had bags under his eyes and a sleepy smile on his face, sat opposite him. He waved at me before speaking to the chief of police once more. The chief handed him a blank piece of paper and all Harry did was write his name down on it before standing up.

  "We're good to go." Harry grinned. "Are you ready, or would you like to stay longer?"

  "I'm ready." I said quickly.

  The two police officers gave us a friendly goodbye and before I knew it we were outside. The sun was blinding and I squinted just to get a good look at my surroundings. I wasn't sure what kind of strings Harry had pulled to get us out of jail, but I knew that he had done something.

  "Turns out the chief's daughter is a big fan." Harry said smugly. 

  "So we got out... because you gave an autograph?" I giggled.

  "Essentially." Harry shrugged. "We waited that many hours just for me to sign an autograph." We both shook our heads at the crazy situation that we were just in as we got onto a main road and Harry attempted to hail a cab. We both probably looked like complete wrecks and neither of us had gotten a shower or brushed our teeth in too many hours.

  Finally, a cab pulled over and we got in. It was refreshing to see how nice the cab was in comparison to the gross backseat of the cop car and I prayed that was the last time that I would have had to sit in the back of a cop car. 

  "Where to?" The driver asked Harry.

  "Anywhere but here."

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  YAY FOR BUSTIN' OUTTA JAIL

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-delilah