Ferocity | Harry Styles

Chapter 6

Harry woke Melody early on the morning that he was being discharged. She felt almost like she was floating as she drifted around the room and packed up his things as well as her own scattered belongings. The sun was peeking through thin gray clouds and she felt warm.

"Babe, do you wanna call a cab?" she asked, tossing her phone onto the edge of the bed where he was perched, waiting for a wheelchair. All of the paperwork was already completed. Melody had already picked up his prescriptions from the pharmacy. Both of them were beyond ready to leave.

But Harry stared at her, his brow furrowed. Babe?

She waved a hand at him. "Hello? Are you okay?"

He licked his lips and nodded curtly before he picked up her phone. Melody lugged both the bags that she had packed up over each of her shoulders and wandered over to where Vanessa awaited her in the doorway.

"I'm so happy for you guys," Vanessa said.

Melody grinned. "We still have a lot of recovering to do."

"Just, please don't kill yourself trying to take care of him?" Vanessa and Melody scooted out into the hall as another nurse steered a wheelchair into the room and began helping Harry into the seat. "I know you've been waiting for this but you need to keep some time for yourself, too. Paint a little, write a little."

Melody rolled her eyes. "I'm a big girl, thanks."

"I'm serious." Vanessa's eyes were pressing as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "You've been there for him and you'll still be there for him, but you're also a person."

"I get it, Vanessa."

Harry wheeled himself over. His arms were gaining strength quickly but his muscles tired too fast for his liking, and his legs weren't improving at nearly the same rate.

"Well, he still has therapy with Aiden once a week so we'll stop in and say hi."

"She will," Harry corrected.

Vanessa glared at him. "Don't make me stick you, mister."

Harry scoffed. "Yeh've seen every one of my tattoos and yeh think needles scare me? Find a new threat."

Vanessa smiled begrudgingly. She leaned in to kiss Melody on the cheek and then backed down the corridor. "I'll see you soon, then."

"Ready?" Melody asked Harry when Vanessa had rounded the corner. He handed her phone over and nodded. She dropped the lighter of the two bags into his lap and pushed him toward the elevator.

***

The ride to Melody's apartment passed in near silence. She could see that Harry's mind was working, questions churning up and over in his thoughts. His eyes were unmoving as he stared out the window at the passing city, ruddy leaves littering the sidewalks and Halloween lights already glowing orange inside the window displays of shops. She didn't interrupt his reflection, even as they passed by the art store where he'd bought the paintbrushes for her birthday gift the year before. They only spoke when the taxi pulled up to the curb outside her complex.

When the driver popped the trunk of the car, Melody pulled out the wheelchair the hospital had loaned them. "Bea is gonna come down and help us," she said as she positioned the seat beside Harry's open back door.

"What?"

"We're on the third floor, Harry, and there's no elevator. I don't think I can get you up on my own."

He helped her slide his body into the chair and then waited as she paid for their ride, but he was nearly shaking when the car pulled away. He had almost forgotten that Bea even existed, and he certainly wasn't ready for her to have to support him up a few flights of stairs, let alone live in a flat with her. "Yeh're fuckin' joking, right?"