.Perfect Fantasy. |H.S.|

Chapter 28. Point Of Origin.

Suddenly, I did not wanted this to happen.

"I know that I trust you enough to tell you stuff, I've told no one... about this, whole thing."

"You, uh, don't have to—" I whispered, barely breathing, pleading him with my eyes to stop.

"Is all I thought about, this past days, you know." Harry rubbed his forehead, threading his fingers into his hair and staring straight ahead, he took a long gulp of the champagne. He licked his lips dry and continued. "I can't think about the fact that I trusted no one with this, and it's eating me alive now."

Oh, fuck. No!

I felt the energy shifting in the room with that tiny spark of insecurities where you don't even know how a conversation is going to unfold. It could go anywhere. It could be anything. And yet, my heart was feeling heavy with the assumption that I was an awful person for that not-trusting-enough argument, days ago. This was my reward, and I was feeling like shit for speaking my mind without thinking.

"Really, Harry, there's no need for you to—"

"The tracking is safe inside my London house," He started, clearly ignoring my request to avoid the current conversation. "I have security at reach, and if something gets compromised, we're going to be notified right away, and probably have some time to do something."

I slowly looked up to his eyes, and he was still looking at me, addressing every single flinch or reaction. "So we're safe for now?"

"I'd like to think so, yeah." He ran his hand through his hair again and then leaned over as he dropped his hands to his knees, the flute resting in between them.

"Feels good to know that we're safe, I feel so guilty for the suitcase disaster."

"I know, and I feel so bad for how things went from there."

"I told you not to worry about it, I understand."

"No, you don't." There was a pause in the conversation, and then, he began shaking his head as he looked up at the ceiling. "You don't know about this, but she stole things from me, important and private things." There was a hint of desperation on his voice, his thumb was scratching the side of his mouth now, and the thin line of his lips was firmer. "Useless stuff like some shirts and personal shit, uh, some rings and music recordings." He closed his eyes as he sucked in a breath of air. "But she also stole my journals, and I've been freaking out about those for some weeks now."

My shaky hand refused to hold the glass any longer. I placed it in the coffee table on the side and turned my body to him, letting him know that I was listening, and truly, my whole attention was on him. Every single word and feeling crawling into the deepest memories, knowing in my heart what he was talking about.

"She kept sneaking into my house, undetected, God I don't fucking know how she managed... But she did, not every night, but I have to admit that I felt it... I felt her presence there, and I didn't liked it." My stomach was sick with the sudden mental image of her gliding through his house and sneaking into his personal belongings, I tried my best to follow his story but my mind was placing the fiery look of her eyes as she talked about him. Like she owned him.

"How did you... uh, feel it?" My voice was barely a whisper, and I pressed my back to the arm of the couch, I needed some comfort as I became aware of the goosebumps rising on my skin.

"I don't really know, there was this unnatural feeling, like when someone is looking at you but you can't see that person? Uh, like when you're alone in the backyard and you stare at the trees and you wonder if there is someone there in the dark... kind of like that." His words scared me to the core, my mind trying to figure out how much was he terrorized by this woman, and what was truly going through her insane mind. "And I wanted to believe the bloody security system, I really wanted it—"

His words hit home and I was afraid to acknowledge the truth out loud, because he was totally right. I thought immediately about the day of my attack, how I felt that staring vibe at me, and my skin had a loss of temperature, with the slowest shiver of fright.

"But there was one night, like two days before everything... uh, went to hell." Harry sighed softly, leaving his own glass behind and rubbing the palm of his hands against his thighs, the movement capturing my attention as he continued on his story. "I'm a really simple guy, you know, almost on the boring side." He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "I always do stuff in a regular way, you know, phone, shower, music, tea, going out with Jeff, sleep." With another deep breath, his eyes shifted to the window behind me, then brought them back.  "And in those days, I added one particular task to the routine... I started checking the back of my house from my window."

Before I could even think about it, my perplexed mouth was asking. "Why—What was there?"

"I don't remember that day and what exactly happened, but I was taking a shower and there was steam all over the place, and I remember staring at this fogged figure through the glass, and I knew it was a person, standing there and watching. I fucking ran out of there but there was nobody."

"So naturally, I was on the edge, that night when she..." He stopped for some minutes, his eyes shinning with tears of frustraion, and I realized with a heavy heart, that I've never seen him this upset. Not even in the hospital. Each long breath was expanding his chest and with a painful grimace, he said the words he was holding." I can't shake the thought that I should've asked for help, I should've done something else, like move out with Jeffrey or check into a hotel."

Oh, God. I didn't know who this Jeffrey was, but my blood was like a damn icicle, stiff and frozen, and even though I let him talk fully, my mind was spinning in circles from all of this new information.

"I should've asked for help... done something..." He repeated, more to himself than to me.

"Why didn't you—"

"Now I feel stupid for not doing, uhm, that." As he talked, and out of pure instinct, I reached up with my trembling hand and grasped his wrist, touching him lightly before moving my hand into his hand. My nerves sizzled when I felt his fingers threading with mine, and he hand squeezed me in reassurance. Just once, it was a tiny but firm grasp. "But if I can say it now, I truly thought this was a fan, and I've never felt threaten by them, so in my logic, it made sense that I was just relying on my house surveillance..."

My mind was a mess. It was a bittersweet mixture between knowing that he was letting me hold him and the fact that he was trusting me with his experience. My brows raised as I let my mouth word a question that was lingering in me. "But it still amazes me, how does she manage to go so undetected in so many places?"

There was a shocked silence following my words, as if we were both looking for the answer to it. Silence. There was a painful, torturing silence, with fleeting glances. No one rushed for the truth, only assumptions and inside throughts, but the flicker of something reached me when I felt him tense under my grip.

"She is like a trained person." He said, so suddenly that I thought I had imagined it.

"Like a trained—" I muttered tasting away the explanation. I closed my eyes and took several deep, calming breaths. "Yeah, what if she is?"