Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

1ˁᵀ CHAPTER

She probably as well hates her life at the moment, but has already gotten to the point where she doesn’t care. Much, anyway.

Her whole family is back in Leeds; she’s left her hometown to study journalism in London, and since then life hasn’t been the nicest to her. But then again, Leesh doesn’t care. Honestly, she has come to terms with it long ago. Studies are over, she doesn’t own any big dreams, has always been quite the average girl when it comes to that, and she has even had a few dates here and there, but getting into something serious isn’t really her style.

The most serious relationship she has been into was probably the one with PJ, and even though he still comes after her once in a while, they didn’t really work out. She’s sure she’s the issue, ‘cause PJ is certainly fit and good, and sometimes he might be childish, but that’s one of the things she still loves the most about him: the way he can take the weight off her shoulders when everything is just overwhelming. They’ve remained good friends.

And yet, that’s it. She can’t bring herself to make her life any more interesting than what it is at the moment. She can’t really complain, though. Despite her days not being exactly the most exciting one could wish for, she’s found great people here, and can’t imagine her life without them anymore. She’s not the most popular either, but she’s okay with it. It’s never good being too known, whatsoever.

By the time she makes it back to the room, she’s already sweaty again, clumps of dump hair stuck to her back and forehead, hot towel not being used for anything if not to try and fail at drying her, then being dismissed anyway because she can’t bear wrapping herself in it when the touch of every single material simply burns.

Yet, she forces herself to put into the fresher clothes she manages to find, wishing more than ever she could have a working fan to at the very least blow her a bit of less-warm air, if that’s all she could get. And then again, the last fan she’d bought is thrown somewhere in that tiny room, waiting for repair but getting none it’s been a couple of years.

She hates herself for it; but what can she do?

Before falling to her bed, she dares to open the window – as the usual having to use more strength than she’s willing to, to get that damn glass to go up without falling back down and crashing her fingers against the sill (it’s happened more than she’d like) –, and soon enough is greeted with more heat and the sound of some pissed driver honking somewhere outside, nothing different from what she’s heard since she moved there.

And a second later, when she thinks that’s it, the moment she finally gets to drift off from living hell, her mobile rings on the bedside. It’s with a long sigh of annoyance that she allows her arm to reach for the phone, fingers finding their way easily to the cheap furniture because she’s been there long enough to do anything inside that room blindfolded. It’s not hard, whatsoever. It’s probably been mentioned already that everything is unnecessarily small, so.

“’lo?” Leesh chokes out, already standing to her feet again as she nearly crawls over to the trash-y thing she calls fridge, opening it quickly to grab the last bottle of cold water she has stocked there, muttering a ‘shit’ under her breath because she’s not even decent enough to put water into freaking bottles she’s been keeping empty on the little table next to the door instead.

“Leesh, love!” a high-pitched voice cheers on the phone. The girl has to hold back the urge to tell him to fuck off and just go on with whatever he wants now, but stays silent, because. Well, there’s no way he’s going straight to the point, she knows it. “How’ve you been doing in this lovely, lovely evening?”

“Bursting into flames sounds like a good definition to me,” is her response, and even though she tries not to sound too bitchy, she knows she doesn’t succeed. Heat is the spark she needs to be the most negligible she can, and no fresh water running down her throat can quite fix it.