Note To Self (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter Eighty Nine.

Fourth of July weekend. The sun was high in the sky, quite literally trying to bake every person who dared stand in it's rays, and Harry was exempt from his duties at grandma's. Every year was the same. The entirety of their community would pack their things and head off toward the local campground, and they'd spend their weekend beside the lake with barbecue in the day and too many beers in the night. Lexie's birthday was the fourth as well, and that meant it also turned into a children's birthday party.

Plastic table cloths draped over the picnic tables, Disney princesses adorned the paper plates, and Harry wore a cardboard party hat against his will. He sat directly beside the squirmy eight year old while she begged and begged and begged to be allowed to open presents, but not everyone had arrived yet and she was already growing impatient. It was eleven a.m. and Mrs. O'Donald was already starting to become irritated with the spoiled birthday girl. She gathered a roll of party streamers off the table, and she sighed. "Sophie, could you take her swimming or something? Distract her for a few minutes."

She absentmindedly looked up from her phone screen, perched on the very edge of the table as if she were trying to exclude herself from the situation entirely. Clear on the opposite side Harry sat on, as far away as she could get. She glanced to her sister, and ripped the party had she'd been forced to wear off her head. "Just let her open a present."

"Yeah, let me open a present."

"No," she refused. "Cake, then presents."

"Can we have cake then?" Lexie tried.

"No. Not everyone is here yet."

Lexie growled out in frustration, "Why not? It's important to be punctual!" Her forehead fell to the plastic tablecloth that had been increasingly rumpled and torn by her squirminess. "I miss Ms. Gerald and the gerbils."

Harry tried not to snicker.

Lexie's head rapidly popped back up when a thought surfaced in her spastic mind. "Is one of my presents a gerbil?"

"No, Lexie," Mrs. O'Donald breathed. "We've been over this a hundred times, you're not getting a gerbil."

"You guys are so mean to me," she grumbled, and she climbed down to plant her bare feet in the grass.

When she began to walk away, her mother called after her stomping figure. "Where are you going?"

"Swimming," she spat. "Because I'm not allowed to do anything else."

"Not alone you aren't." Her mother's eyes connected with Sophie, whose eyes connected with Harry's and she sighed.

"I don't want to go swimming."

"Just do it," she urged. "What's the worst that can happen? You'll have fun?" Sophie's head shook in refusal, and she picked her phone back up to avoid her mother. Her head was shoved, "Quit moping and spend time with your sister. It's her birthday."

"You too," Harry's mother chimed in. "Go entertain the children."

Harry's lips parted, but Mrs. O'Donald saved his ass before he got the chance to argue. "No, I need him." She held the streamers out for him to take, "You're the tall one. Hang these."

That was something he could do. He could hang streamers from tree branches while he listened to the sound of kids splashing in the water, but he most definitely did not want to join in on the fun. Though, Lexie didn't stay gone for long, because her need for presents was insatiable. She lead the way back up to the picnic table, dripping wet after the streamers had been hung and the tablecloth she'd ruined had been fixed. Sophie trailed behind, trying to tuck the towel to hang around her chest without having to hold onto it. It fell anyway, and she held the cloth tight to her body to keep her insecurities hidden away. Just like Harry, she wasn't a swimmer simply because she didn't like swimwear.