Introspective Strangers [h.s.]

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Here's the thing about Harry: he is relentless.

Storming out of a shopping mall without giving him so much as a reason why was not the smartest thing that I could have done yesterday. Especially knowing the type of person that he was. I should have expected that it was only a matter of time before he was hounding me to talk to him.

That is unfortunately where Harry and I tend to differ. When the going gets tough, he bears down and tries to figure out a solution. Personally, I tend to flee. And normally it has worked out, there was usually nobody to come looking for me.

Today, that wasn't the case.

My phone buzzed in my lap for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past hour and I hastily shoved it under my leg. I didn't have to check it to know who it was, nor did I really want to.

The bus station swelled with people who bustled around the bench that I was sat on and I leaned my head back against the wall, watching them all go by. It was a Sunday morning. Most of the people that I was observing were returning to the city for classes and work, not leaving it as I so happened to be doing.

Taking a glance at the large screen hung from the ceiling across from me, I heaved a sigh and adjusted myself on the hard metal beneath me. My bus didn't leave for another two hours yet here I was waiting.

I hadn't exactly known what I was going to do or where I was going to go when I took a cab out here this morning and had assumed that there would be at least one bus headed to my hometown coming fairly soon, only to find out from the nauseatingly perfumed attendant at the desk that they only came every four hours on Sunday's.

"Perfect," I had groaned, reaching a hand into my pocket to silence my phone.

"You gonna get that?" The girl had asked with a raised brow, gesturing to my pocket, which had rung three times during the course of our conversation.

I had shrugged. "It's no one important."

She had only shaken her head and grumbled something about another dramatic girl running away from her problems before printing me out a ticket and jerking her chin to the waiting area across the room. I had wanted to laugh and tell her that she wasn't entirely wrong but instead kept my mouth fixed into a hard line as I grabbed the slip of paper from her and slinked over to sit myself down.

Maybe I was being a little dramatic.

This was new territory for me. I had told Harry that I wanted to be around him and see how things went but were very clear that I wasn't ready for a relationship. My talk with Gemma had only confirmed my fears that he seemed to be much more involved in this "thing" between us than I was.

And it didn't sit right with me. In fact, the notion sat like a brick at the bottom of my stomach occasionally turning itself over to make me feel nauseous and dizzy. Especially after the new revelation that his past relationship had ended in flames due to some cheating bitch, causing him to go a little haywire and his heart to break.

I really did want to talk to Harry. I wanted to ask him all about Bella and how he felt afterwards, what helped him to get past it all and how he was now able to just casually see her whenever Gemma visited but I knew that it wasn't my place. I knew that the minute I started asking about prior relationships, it made whatever was going on between us a lot more real.

Harry deserved someone who could commit to him. He deserved someone who wasn't afraid to communicate and didn't flee to bus stations whenever his sister happened to say one thing that probably wasn't the least bit frightening to anyone else but was terrifying to me.