Strings Attached (Harry Styles FanFiction)

31. Do You Trust Me?

He pouted before pulling the worn fabric over his head. As soon as his glazed forest eyes emerged, peering back in my general direction, he gestured clumsily, yet again, for me to move back to him.

“No, I-I need to tell you something,” I whispered, ducking my head and watching him carefully through my lashes.

“Sleep first.” He sounded like a child, teetering on the edge of consciousness. My heart broke at the innocent expression in his confused and tired eyes. I’d already put him through so much, more than he’d ever deserve. Where were Harry Potter and his f.ucking Dementors when you needed them? I’d gladly give up my soul if it meant I wouldn’t be tainting his.

“Harry, please I-,” My voice cracked slightly at the end. His eyes snapped up to mine, clearing away a bit of the fog lurking in their depths, “Christ, I can’t do this.” I whimpered, wrapping my arms around my knees, hiding behind my dark curtain of hair.

“Angel,” he hummed. I tracked his shadow in the dim light filtering in through the curtains and flinched away as he reached out for me.

“No, please... I-You’ll hate me...”

“I could never hate you.” I snapped my tear filled green gaze back up to his. The sincerity there ripped me to the core.

“Oh my f.ucking god, you’re going to hate me.” I hadn’t even managed to tell him anything and the panic attacks were already beginning to set in. There was no goddamn way I was going to be able to do this. I could hear him trying to reassure me, promising me everything that I never have and never will deserve. I needed to tell him. I needed him to understand how f.ucked up and damaged I was. He deserved so much better than me.

You can do this, Cassie. Please, you have to do this. No more lies.

"I-... It-it was Him," I stuttered, choking on the weak gasping breaths filling my suffocating lungs. Black and red swam through my vision as I struggled to control the raging panic attack.

"Who was, Angel?" He cooed, reaching out to brush away the tears sliding down my cheeks. Once again, I flinched away and the hurt and betrayal already shining bright in his jade eyes magnified.

"I-I tried, Harry. I really tried, I promise! He just... He won't leave me alone! I moved across the f.ucking ocean..."

"Who, Cassie? Who?" He reached forward and cupped my face gently in his palms, forcing me to meet his gaze.

'Cassie, we all have demons in our past, you just have to fight through them.'

'Take up your sword of truth and justice. There's not a problem in the world that it can't overcome.'

'You have to confront your problems head on, Cassie, running from them will only make them worse.'

Even after all of those visits and the counseling I'd never been able to tell a soul about what happened to me. No one knew the true cause of the bruises and the scars. I'd thought that it would make it easier, that way I could pretend that nothing had happened. I was wrong.

Deep breaths, Cass, you can do this.

"Adrien." The word slipped out on a tiny breath of air but it was like a 5-ton weight had been lifted and the entire nightmare slipped free. Harry's went rigid beside me as I curled in on myself, the heavy sobs distorting the desperate words pouring from my mouth but somehow he managed to understand.

"I-... It was Adrien," I breathed a foreign sense of relief slowly began to flood my body. I'd did it. I finally told him.

"What?" He looked even more confused than before but now anger simmered in those malachite orbs, darkening them so that they almost were almost indiscernible from his dilated pupils.