Infatuation // Harry Styles

Chapter 16

♡ chapter 16 ♡

        My hand was cramping, fingers aching, screaming for me to stop. But I bit my tongue, focusing on the detail, the outline. I had to get this right. I had to get it precise. I still had the memory, the beautiful memory, yet I have yet to draw it until now.

        Harry's smile.

        I wanted to keep the memory forever, embrace it so it wouldn't have the chance to slip away from me. And yet I also wanted to wake to see it every morning, to see it in the middle of the day to pull me out of my sorrows, to see it before I fell asleep as if his smile alone had the power to keep the nightmares away. I never wanted to see him frown again.

        Jacob peered over my shoulder, rolling his eyes but a small smile stilled on his lips. "So that's what it looks like to see Harry Styles smiling?"

        Pursing my lips, I looked down at the drawing, trying to figure out if I had managed to ace the details, sketch the precise way his lips curled, eyes crinkled. I concluded that I had done a decent job, at least from pure memory.

        "Yeah, kind of."

        He nodded. "I'd say he looks one-hundred times hotter smiling."

        I laughed. "He looks pretty attractive anyways."

        "True, but a smile always looks better on a person."

        "Who's getting all deep and sappy now?"

        Jacob rolled his eyes again. "I'm just being honest. Sometimes honesty is sappy and pathetic but hey, whatever."

        The more I stared at the drawing, the more I found wrong with it. A frown etched across my features as my smile faded. "I screwed it up," I murmured to myself.

        "What do you mean?"

        I shook my head. "I screwed it up. His eyes are wrong, just..." I closed my notebook, sighing. "I need to see him smile again to get it right."

        "So, go get chased by a goose again."

        I gave him a look. "He won't even talk to me now, remember?"

        "Right, right," he breathed out, shaking his head. "Well, plan it to where a goose attacks you when he's around and then-"

        "Jacob."

        "Sorry." He raked his fingers through his short hair. "My advice is kind of crap because my mind is all jumbled what with everything going on and..." His eyes fell.

        I mustered a smile. "It's fine. I appreciate you helping. Now, considering it's a school night-"

        He groaned. "You're going to make us go to bed early?"

        "Well, you are secretly staying at my house right now, so yes. We're going to bed the time Grace goes to bed. It's ten o'clock. That's not too early."

        He muttered something incoherent under his breath, but pulled the covers back, sliding into one side of the bed. I set my notebook aside, taking my place and switching the lamp off. I could sense Jacob was still awake, and he spoke to prove me right.

        "Do you think my parents will ever care about me?"

        Frowning, I looked over at him, but the darkness of the room gave me no avail to see him, just his silhouette. "I think they care about you, they're just-"