INDECENT 》Harry Styles #Wattys2018

》Chapter Seventy-Three

She doesn't speak, nods only, while she falls to her knees tiredly to clean the mess she made. I don't know what it is, but just looking at her is making me feel sick. The ways she moves, how she puts the shattered pieces one by one in a morbid almost ill order, sends off many warning bells.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Jade jumps the second I raise my voice a little therefore I force myself to lower it. She hasn't looked at me in the eyes once, it's unbearable. She looks frightened, terrified.

"He's the contact I told you about." Karen moves to my side pointing to the weirdo.

"The one who gave us false informations?" I point out gaining a narrowed look from him. Karen tries to smooth the tension by taking the lead of the conversation.

" Cole." She starts and the boy, who looks so young by the way, creeps a weak smile.

" I thought I'd never see you again." Karen shrugs shaking her red hair everywhere. I zone off and point my burning glare to the only thing that matters to me. The only thing I've been searching like a madman and now that I found her,  she still feels so damn far.

" Jade?" I speak as softly as I can. She stands and points to the bathroom.

" I'm gonna take a bath."

" Another one?" Cole looks concerned as he narrows his gaze over Jade's figure. She blushes and scratches the nape of her neck violently.

" Do you need help?" I divert the attention from her so that she will stop shaking and feeling uncomfortable. She nods once again however to my surprise, she grabs Cole's hand instead, linking her fingers with his. I stop breathing, bewildered by the scene before my eyes.

" I'm coming, go ahead and start, baby girl." This time the grin on his face is wide and warm as he places an encouraging kiss over Jade's head. I bolt, aiming for his neck but Karen sizes me making me spinning, avoiding the target for just an inch as she lets me falling to the couch.

" Harry! Be careful." She emits a fake giggle to dismiss the situation and Jade walks away not knowing what is going on. It's clear everybody is trying to keep her out of drama and I want to know what I'm missing.

"What  the fuck do you think you're doing!" I spit, feeling so much anger I could just erase him from this earth with a snap of my fingers.

"What do you think you are doing?" I snort and step closer, a cloud of rage raining over my good intentions.

"She's my girlfriend, you don't get to kiss her like that. Not in front of me." He doesn't even answer me and just steps into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Shit, I'm gonna beat the living shit out of him.

"What the fuck is going on here? Why doesn't she want to talk to me?" I dart my mad eyes to Karen and she sits down looking depressed.

" Men are so tardive." It's the only thing I get from her before she turns the TV on and ignores me. I stay sited, my jealousy growing as I imagine tones of bad scenarios happening in my bathtub. I'll burn that tub as soon as they walk out.

" I can't do this. I'm going to bash his face."

" You aren't doing anything besides keeping your envy under control and letting Jade be."

" How can you ask me this?" Karen cheeks turn red; she snaps throwing the remote to my face so hard it hits my temple.

" How? Because this has nothing to do with you, okay?"

" My girlfriend walks in my bathroom with another man and you have the guts to tell me this has nothing to do with me?"

" Yes. Jade has been through enough, already. There's no room to pity or care about anyone else, now. Do you have any idea how hard it can be? The stronger the person is, the harder it strikes. Can't you see that it broke her?"

I want to yell at Karen and make her telling me what is it that she is talking about, however, my blood runs cold and I don't dare to. There's only one thing that could tear Jade's spirit apart and it's the worst thing that could happen to anybody.

"She needs to feel protected at the moment. Of course she doesn't want to be with somebody who doesn't understand. She is searching for a safe place and right now that boy, is her safe harbour."

"Why did she come here, then? Why did she come to me?" Karen is fuming and I can see in her green eyes how annoyed she is by me.

"I told them to come here. She wanted to go to some kind of apartment in the middle of the bloody city." Louis. She wanted to go to Louis' and not me.

"She's perfectly fine with Cole, he's a good guy. You should be kissing his feet, she even walked out of there alive. So for the love of Jesus Fucking Christ, you'll leave them alone until she tells you otherwise. Because if you don't, then you are no different from whoever got their hands on her."

"What are you saying?" I hear myself saying, even though the voice is so labile, I doubt it's mine.

"She's been abused, Edward. It's written all over her." My face falls and I feel dizzy. My Jade, my sweet girl.  My mind can't process it or accept it. I just feel so defeated and I can't help but crying. What have I done to keep her safe? Nothing. No wonder she wants to stay with Cole, he saved her life. So i just stay there, weeping like an idiot because there's nothing else I can do now.

Jade's Pov.

Cole turns the faucet off and I strip down of my clothes, feeling so much pain as I get my legs out of my jeans.

"Are you planning on telling him?" He breaks the silence, helping me out.

"No." He doesn't fire back, just hold my hand as the hot water touches me, burning even harder. 

I stretch my limbs, dipping in till the water covers my mouth and just blankly stare at my fingers. I deserve the pain and I welcome it. I've been feeling so numb, I need it like oxygen.

"You'll let him torturing himself thinking you have feelings for me, instead of the truth?"

"There's not much I could tell him anyway." I don't recall anything really, that pill took away most of my memories and I'm so grateful.

"Will you at least talk to the boy and reassure him?" He tries to make me talk but I don't want to. I wish somebody could reassure me.

" I can't even look at him, let alone talking. I don't want him to stare at me like I'm damaged. Nobody wants to hear this type of story so I might as well forget it."

" But it happened, you can't move on if you don't admit it."

" I don't want to. This is who I am now, a broken piece that fits nowhere. I feel like I've been contaminated, almost radioactive." I haven't cried once since, and I feel so empty and hollow, I might as well be dead and not knowing it. "If I say it out loud, I'm too afraid of what would happen next."

" Jade, you need to fight this.." I shake my head and just grab my face in my hands.

"I just want for you people to act like nothing happened. No need to manage me with care."

" Jade?" I lift my eyes to look at him, and I see tears threatening to fall from his eyes, I'm so sick of this already. Why can't I grief for myself?

" I'm so sorry." He breaks and his arms wrap around my tiny body squeezing me till his bones glue to my own. " It was all my fault."

" It was not your fault." It never occurred to me that Cole could feel guilty, I was too caught up in my own world to care and that scares me. The lack of empathy is frightening, I have never lived without it and it's so weird not to think about others first.

I'm wrapped into this huge white robe, sustained by Cole's arms and the only thing I wanna do is falling back to sleep where nobody  can ask questions, but I know there's a curly boy waiting for me in the other room.