It's You [H.S.]

11.4 | You're it

Pulling up the British Airways app on his phone, Harry checks the flight times, before realising she could have caught any number of airlines.

"Could she have been in LA for the hearing?", Mitch asks. At Harry's shrug and puzzled frown in response, he adds, "But that's like the same flight time over the Pacific anyway, so it wouldn't make much difference".

"Could you call her Dad?", Jeff suggests. "To get her flight details and a heads-up on how she took it all?".

"I think I might be better off not knowing...". Harry pulls nervously at his lower lip, brow furrowed as he stares out the wall of windows at the bright lights of Tokyo spread out before them.

Checking the timestamp on the voicemail and her missed calls, the best he can figure is that she should arrive before tomorrow night.

And then he'll know, either way.

Fuck.

>
>

7th February 2019 (earlier that day, in London)

Eloise is playing her least favourite new game again; puzzling pictures out of the shadows dancing across her wardrobe doors, despite the near darkness of her bedroom.

The sinewy silver birch trees outside her window diffuse light from either side of the front porch below.

She'd begged her dad to switch the damn floodlights off at night, but he'd been insistent; another security measure.

Her curtains are a touch too narrow to block all the light out, but she still hasn't done anything about them just yet.

So, here she is: yet another game of shadow play, in the early hours.

She'd tossed and turned for a bit after heading up to bed early - keen to get away from all the antsy vibes brewing downstairs - but now hasn't slept a wink since midnight, eagerly awaiting news from the hearing in LA, which had been scheduled for a 4pm start. Time difference be damned.

An over-abundance of racing thoughts and the early hours are rarely kind. She'd know.

Despite him having never been far from her thoughts, it's in the early hours that her mind seems to want to really torment her.

As usual, her swirling thoughts flit through snatches of feelings and memories of the last four months.

The longest four of her life, without a shadow of a doubt.

She mulls it all over; again.

>

That morning of their anniversary, her initial excitement, at what Harry might have been planning, soon melted into worry and then concern.

Then, when her phone finally rang later that morning, after all those unanswered calls and texts to him, her initial sense of relief turned dramatically, drastically, to confusion and anger.

But not at him; not then.

Just more hurtful rumours, surely?

Until she'd seen the photos and headlines for herself.

Then shock and pain. What possible explanation? And where the fuck was he?

More unanswered calls; and a million questions brewing.

When she'd tried Ben, Jeff, and Mitch too, they either didn't know anything, or wouldn't tell her anything.

Actively fielding everyone but him, she frantically tried to defuse her brewing hurt and anger, willing herself to give him the benefit of the doubt. He'd never given her a reason to doubt him before; so she figured she owed him that much - the chance of explanation, at least.