Teach Me || h.s. au

vii

"Elise, darling, what has gotten that frown upon your face?" Tammy asked, her smile being replaced with a sympathetic frown.

"You, sounding like my mother," I cracked a smile, that could easily be seen as a fake smile.

Tammy rolled her eyes at me, removing herself from behind the counter to grab her things, and my pack of smokes before leaving. "Seriously, what's wrong." She locked the door, turning her head back towards me. "You seemed happy when I spoke to you earlier."

I sighed, and ran my fingers through my hair. "Harry went on another one of his rampages, one I do not know the reason for, and he managed to destroy a prized possession of mine."

"What was it?" she asked, her attention more focused on out conversation to notice the angry drivers who were flipping her off as we walked across the street, when the "walk" symbol had turned into the red "do not walk" symbol. I gave them an apologetic look.

"It was a book of mine. It was really special to me though." I stop talking to let Tammy answer her phone.

"How did you get my number?" She says into the receiver, her eyes looking at me. I returned a confused glance toward her.

"The phone is for you," she says, handing me the phone to me. "It's Harry."

I shook my head, really not in the mood to talk to him at all. Tammy nodded, and held the phone back to her ear. "She doesn't want to speak to you right now." She continued walking after we received a few strange looks from the people in the café to the left of us. Her still objecting Harry's request to speak to me. If I wasn't mistaken, she seemed to be enjoying her conversation with Harry. She had an amused look on her face, until he had something to wipe it off causing her facial expression to go from pleased to hurt and angry in a matter of seconds. She had spoken words into the receiver that caused a mother to cover her daughters ears and give us a disgusted look. I mouthed an apology for Tammy's spoken words before taking the phone from her grasp.

"I wasn't done yet," she protested but made no move to grab the phone from me.

"Yes, you are. Go get us a table at the restaurant, I'll meet with you there in a minute." I pointed to the café with the name I made no effort in learning to pronounce. She huffed, but did so and left me to sit on the bench that was luckily placed in front of the store I stood at.

I took a seat and a breath before pressing the phone to my ear. I hesitated with the words I wanted to say to him, but he spoke up before I had the chance, "Elise?"

"Harry," I mimicked.

"We need to talk. Now."

"I'm with someone right now. You can wait for me to get back." He was mad, it wasn't that hard to tell. But he had no reason to be as upset as he was.

"I'm not arguing about this. Come home, right now." He was irritated, it was clear in his voice.

"No, Harry." I said, and finally ended the conversation to spend the rest of my afternoon with Tammy, who should have never been brought into this. How on earth did he eve- Oh. My phone. How could I have not noticed earlier.

I walked over to where I had told Tammy to wait, to find her sat down and already speaking with a waiter. I need to apologize for whatever Harry had said to her, and my carelessness with my phone and leaving it at home.

"There she is!" Tammy said, the angry look that was earlier plastered on her face, gone. The waiter turned his head, a puzzled expression overtook his face, quickly turning into a smirk afterwards.

I recognize him. "Devon?"

"Elise, right?" He said, that smirk still on his face, like he was permanently stuck that way for a long time. "How are you?"