The Accident

Chapter Five

  “What the hell are you doing Harry?” Gemma asked as she entered her bedroom to see Harry sitting on the floor, furiously taping up boxes that sat in front of him. He didn’t answer her; he just kept taping boxes sealed. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” His head snapped up and he met eyes with Gemma, who looked at him as though he were a puppy sitting there on her floor. He couldn’t help it when the corners of his mouth tugged down into a frown, and Gemma took a seat on the floor next to him. He leaned into his sister’s arms, and she gave him a tight hug. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, really. I’m fine,” Harry mumbled. He couldn’t seem to be able to even convince himself. “I’ll be fine.”

  Gemma looked at him condescendingly, but before she had time to answer any questions Niall stepped through the door and all but tackled Harry to the floor behind him. The two keeled over in a fit, and even Gemma was laughing at the two idiots. She rose from the floor and left the room, visibly still worrying about Harry, who in turn was worried about worrying her. His fingers found their way to his hair, and he tossed it around, finally fixing the edge of his fringe before meeting eyes with Niall.

  “So buddy, wanna explain your angry text messages now?” Niall asked with a bit of a chuckle. He’d always found that when you face a serious situation with a light and carefree attitude it seemed to have less of an impact on you. As well as Harry knew that, he could never do it. He could never fully take the one piece of advice that his best friend always offered him.

  “Well there’s this guy, who I guess you could say I’ve been seeing,” Harry mumbled softly. He didn’t want to understate their relationship so far because let’s be honest, they weren’t just friends by this point. However he also didn’t want to overstep anything, so he figured that would be the best way to describe the two of them at this point in time. Or well, yesterday’s point in time, because today was a whole new ballgame, apparently.

  Harry continued on to tell him the story of hitting the car, in consequence also failing math, his sister moving out, and he’s terrified of being alone, and now that he’s started to get close to someone they end up fucking him over emotionally, etcetera.

  “The only thing I can say here Haz is go talk to him,” Niall began. “You don’t know what was really going on unless you go to the source, right? If he knew how you felt about him and if he felt that way too then I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding.”

  “That’s the thing though, I don’t know if I can just talk to him. It hurt to see him with someone else, okay? And I just don’t want to go through seeing it again.”

  “Well it’s up to you, mate. But like I said…” Niall trailed off.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see. Thanks for listening anyway,” Harry said, extending his arms out to meet his best friend. The embrace was warm and reassuring, as Niall patted his back.

  “Anytime, really. Now how about we go get some food?”

~

  “You’re phone is ringing,” Gemma called from the living room of her new apartment. It was Thursday night now, and Harry had been ignoring Louis’ text messages all day long.

  “Who is it?” He asked, stepping out of the kitchen with a few plates that were wrapped in newspaper in his hands.

  “It’s Louis, here, answer it,” Gemma said tossing the phone to him. He shrugged and declined the call, set his phone on the cluttered table and got back to unwrapping the dishes.

  “Is that what you were so upset about last night?” Gemma asked, raising an eyebrow in concern.  He strode across the room and set a hand on his shoulder.