Duplicity [h.s]

82

I got to the mahogany stairs that overlooked the first floor of the suite. Thinking I was going to be seeing Harry sitting down on the couch watching television, I was mistaken when I saw something else instead.

The room trashed.

My eyes widened in my glasses and bounced around the room I was looking ahead at. In a strike of concern, I start running down the stairs in order to find Harry. My bare feet pad the flooring as I make my way to the bottom and run across the trashed room in direction of the kitchen.

"Harry?" I run right into the kitchen, glimpsing around the room through my glasses.

He was sitting on the floor against the island counter, knees to his chest and a cigarette between his lips. He was calm but I knew he probably just went through hell.

Another panic attack? He just had a bad one yesterday too.

I run over and squat to the floor in front of him, his head down as the cigarette sat smoking and frozen between his lips.

"Harry..." I say in reaction to the pain in my heart, grabbing his cheeks and making him look up at me.

His heavy eyes met mine, they were bloodshot and dark beneath them. He was pale which made me worried, withered of life. He seems like he didn't sleep, I was so concerned.

"You had another panic attack?" I whisper, worried considering it was two in a row.

He just stared into my eyes like he couldn't hear me, not responding. The green in his irises was tainted by the red rims of his tear ducts. I don't know why he wasn't answering me, I started to question if I even asked the question.

His eyes only became more broken as he stared in mine crouched in front of him. There was something he was thinking about when looking at me, I just didn't know what. I was worried about him, he looked so broken. The panic attack had to have been over, now he was at that depressive low.

"What stemmed this, angel?" I whisper, feeling like there some something more that happened he wasn't telling me. "Talk to me..."

After gazing at me so silently, he dropped his head and shut my eyes. The cigarette stayed at the centre of his mouth, withering faint debris into the air between us. All I could smell was ignited tobacco.

"It's always about everyone else...never you." He whispers with his head down.

I furrow my brows, confused right off the bat. His voice was so quiet and drained, barely being audible between the foam filter. I stared at his hair hanging in his face, he looked so beaten down. I don't know what was going through his carnival of a mind.

"Hey..." I place my hands on his arms and start rubbing them up and down.

"No—" He shrugs his arms like he couldn't have me touch them, so I stopped. "I can't let you keep doing this."

I pull my hands back down immediately, a little surprised he was reacting this way to me comforting him. I kept my hands to my sides, still crouched in front of him.

"Do what?"

He runs silent again, shutting his eyes and bringing his palms to them like he was deeply upset and stressed all at once. He wasn't communicating what was going on, I was getting really concerned.

"Harry...just talk to me so I can help y—"

"No." He physically whines in battle while shrugging his shoulders again, bringing his head back out of his hands and quickly getting up like he couldn't sit here any longer.

Something was really bugging him. I've never seen him neglect my help like this.

He got up and walked around me so I was left crouched in front of a blank wall. I turned around and stood back up, looking at him pacing in a five-metre diameter with his hands on the back of his head. This wasn't a panic attack, this was something else. He looked like he was hurting really bad.