New York [harry styles au]

22

22.
Harry's birthday was not only a highlight of 1973 for the good reasons, it was the bad impact it had that stays with me to this day. He was a man with a mission, that's all I could say. The mix of positivity and alcohol during the night seemed to have the opposite effect on him as it came to midnight. We left Beatrix, Smith and Angelina as I could feel myself falling into a deep slumber at one of the bar tables. Harry hailed the cab, we arrived at the apartment, went to bed and that was that; or so I thought.

A deep sleep, the deepest I ever recall having, caught up to me as my head hit the soft pillow. Harry's arms wrapped tightly around my body and I felt safe, safe enough to sleep without warning of any outside danger. I half expected Harry to stay in that position the whole night; half expected because I was simultaneously having a dream about Jonathan Golden holding the gun up to him. Harry was faltering, Angelina was stood beside him and Jonathan's whole demure screamed murder. A gunshot rang through the outdoor air of my dream and I saw Harry's painful face glance towards me before he fell to the floor like a plastic dummy. Angelina screamed and that caused my eyes to shoot open in shock, finding the dawn from the window of Harry's room a sudden comfort to my view. I was still caught between reality and dreams as I felt Harry's mouth against the skin of my forehead, the poignant smell of whiskey blessing my scent from his mouth and he softly whispered "go back to sleep, baby."

I followed this order, wondering a bit about why he was awake so late, and my shaky breathing eventually disappeared to return my conscious back to a dream slightly more positive than the previous. My mind stayed that way, lost in a happy place, until the even brighter daylight was streaming through the edges of Harry's curtains and I knew that it was morning. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and turned to touch Harry but my hand instead hit the cotton sheets of empty space beside me. My eyes fell on the space with worry, where was he? I peered at the alarm clock on his bedside table to find it reading 7.29am. I'm sure he would be in the kitchen cooking breakfast, or even just having a shower in the bathroom. But traveling into the kitchen and bathroom in hopes of finding him diminished this hope. That was when I truly began to panic. The only object in the kitchen was an empty whiskey bottle and a used shot glass on its side beside it, a puddle of whiskey covering the counter island.

I even began to think of the possibility that I drank too much last night and didn't even end up leaving with him, Harry being stranded outside in the hallway instead. My hand clutched the handle of the apartment door and I swung it open to find a desolate corridor. A sigh escaped my lips as I grabbed a glass of water and moved to the sofa in the living area, taking deep breaths to keep calm. I was unsure of whether calling the others may help decipher his current location but I knew deep inside that they wouldn't have a clue either.

Just as I was about to reach for the phone anyway, the door suddenly swung open and in casually walked Harry. He had a bounce to his walk, a bounce of adrenaline, one that could make him seem in a happy mood. But one glance at his face changed that, he looked a mixture of frustrated, angry and enraged. I opened my mouth to ask of his whereabouts as he paced towards me but he didn't say anything as his wet lips instantly crashed against mine. My hands fell against his chest, believing this to merely be a welcoming gesture, but the taste of whiskey in his mouth and his heavy breathing dismissed this. His lip movements were different than usual, much more sloppy and forceful, I pulled away after only a few seconds. I took a step back to see a wild, resentful look in his enlarged irises and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared in that moment. His chest rapidly moved up and down with his breathing like a serial killer. His stare didn't move from me like he was the predator and I was the prey. He eventually peered to the floor as I studied him and his hand reached up to rub his forehead. That's when I noticed the bruises all over his arms, the blood splattered along his knuckles and the scratches laced between the skin of his biceps. I was speechless and equally clueless as tears began to rim the bottom of his eyes.

"We need to leave." He muttered, now ashamedly looking at anywhere else in the room but me.

Silence filled the room again. I couldn't bring myself to say anything to him; I couldn't even mutter a word. I felt frightened by this enraged Harry that had suddenly returned into my life, different to the last I had come to love. His dress shirt, the one he was wearing last night, was ripped at the seams.

"We need to leave." He repeated, his eye contact instantly reaching mine again in a frightful manner.

"Why? What have you done, Harry?"

"Something bad. Something so bad that we need to leave." He slurred before pacing to grab the suitcase beside the sofa. His hands clumsily opened it up, discarding the letters and notes of money from inside of it, letting them fall to the floor around him. He grabbed my coat from the dining chair and rolled it up, putting it inside the suitcase. I couldn't bring myself to stop him in his small pursuit.

He kept hurriedly packing the suitcase as I sat upon the other sofa, trying to catch my panicked breath before it left for good. It was at least twenty minutes before a loud knock was heard at the front door. I stood up, thinking it was one of the others, and moved towards the door.

"Stop! Don't fucking go near that door." Harry almost screamed, but he was cautious of the volume of his voice.

"Why?" I asked, wide eyed. "Who is at the door, Harry?"

He ignored my question as he instead paced towards the balcony of the apartment, searching the walls around it for a method to escape-- a pipe or some sort of metal mechanism.

"Harry! Answer me!" I shouted and he immediately stepped back inside, running towards me and grabbing me. I wanted to scream and hurry away for my life, but his force stopped me as his hand swung to my mouth and held it closed. My eyes were wide, my heart rate erratic and the knock at the door grew louder. He softly pushed me into the bedroom and sat me onto the bed. His mouth stayed beside my ear.

"Stay in here. I'm doing this for you-- I don't want you locked up for this. I've hurt Jonathan, I've hurt him so much that he couldn't even stand up and we need to leave before this escalates even further. We're in danger-- we're in so much danger now, Winona. Do you get that?" His face was extremely close to mine and my eye contact stayed on his as I nodded. He peered at my lips and desperately engulfed them with his once again, as though it prevented him from growing even more insane. He had did this out of good, but it had traumatised his personality. The man before me now was cold and scared as he left another deep kiss at my forehead.

And there was another knock at the door.