Oakland's POV
I woke up to the smell of my mother cooking breakfast.
I let out a soft sigh at the relief that washes over me from knowing that I made it through the night without having another nightmare. It's become a nightly thing for some reason, and I think that the stress from them occurring is causing it to happen more.
I rolled over to check the clock, groggy and still only half open, my eyes read 9am.
Still too damn early.
I sighed and laid back down, not ready to face the day yet. I've felt this feeling plenty of times to know that my mental health is quickly declining. Every second of the day is filled with the want to just go back to bed. Even thinking about having to act like I am able to handle the easiest of tasks sounds exhausting, and I know when I get up officially, I won't be able to simply fulfill my want until the night comes, and that will come slower than needed.
My mind flooded with random thoughts, good and bad from this vacation.
Only 6 more days until I relax from what was supposed to be a break.
I finally sat up, after having the mental battle in my head over whether I should get up or not, and I reached for my phone that has been plugged in for the past three days. I have spent all of this time either by myself or with my family, so it has been pretty peaceful to not have any distractions. With my back pressed against the headboard, I pulled my phone from the charger, and clicked it on to see the flood of notifications. Plenty of the regular texts and whatnot from my friends back home, and my heart aches to be back with them. I scroll down to view the other things on the screen and I see numerous texts and calls.
Harry: 12 texts and 5 missed calls
I furrow my brows, confused as to why there are so many. I would understand one or two, maybe even three, but 12 texts?
I put my phone down, not bothering to read them yet. As I said, the simplest tasks always seem the hardest when all you want is to disappear. I feel a bit of remorse from ignoring him, but I remind myself that I won't even see him after this, so what is the point?
I quickly lean forward and throw my face into my hands, sighing at that exact thought. I'm beginning to feel useless, no need for anything in my life anymore. The fact that I find no point in even responding to Harry's clear worry through texts and calls shows that I am starting to isolate myself from everything as a coping mechanism. I know it isn't healthy but I don't know any other way than to react to my pain.
I know that I am overreacting to my nightmare from a few days ago, but the fact that it hasn't left me alone makes me feel uncomfortable. I can forget the fact that Harry is the man that haunts my dreams, but after seeing the notifications roll in on my phone, I slightly feel smothered, even though I shouldn't. I just need a breather before talking to him.
Oakland, he is probably just worried about you. You acted all weird and then basically ghosted him. Get over it and respond damn it.
I brush my hair back with my palms, hoping that they will push the thought out of my head while running my fingers through my blonde hair. I know I need to respond to him, it's been three days already, but I skip over the thought and go into the bathroom. I put on some music, choosing a somber playlist today, as I turn on the water for a shower. It's Not The Same Anymore by Rex Orange County playing as background music to my morning routine really paints a picture for how I am feeling.
I should be happy, of course,
But things just got much harder,
Now it's just hard to ignore,
It's not the same anymore,
I moved through everything: showering, brushing my teeth and hair, and moved back into my room. My hair pinned up in a towel, I throw on some comfy clothes, not thinking about today's activities that my parents have in store. I went into the kitchen to be greeted by my family eating breakfast, and I sat down at the island, not really hungry enough to eat anything as of right now.
"Good morning" my mother says while walking past me, stopping to kiss me on top of my head before taking her plate to the sink.
"Morning," I say back with a scruffy voice. "What are we doing today?"
"Well, your father and I were planning on just going to the beach, but we assumed that you would want to see Harry at some point since you haven't the past few days." my mom responds. She walks back over to me with her eyebrows furrowed, "are you okay? You sound sick." she says while pressing her hand to my forehead.
I shrug at her words, not wanting to discuss seeing him or how I'm feeling right now. I fiddled with my thumbs, not knowing what I should do today, since she will probably want me to stay home today.
My parents head into their room to get ready for the day, and my sister slides into the seat next to me. I turned my head to meet her gaze, and she has a huge smirk written across her face. This will be good.
"What?" I say, somewhat annoyed in my tone because I always know she is the crazier sister.
"Oh nothing, I just know that if we stay here then we will have the whole house to ourselves." she hints to something that I can't quite pick up on.
"Um... okay?" I say, still confused.
"Invite Harry and his friends over and we can have like a day party or something." she offers.
I ponder the idea, still thinking about how I haven't spoken to him in a few days. I feel bad, considering I just completely left him hanging after that morning. Does that make me a bad person for wanting some distance? I guess it is my coping mechanism from everything that has happened. I know I shouldn't be that worked up about a stupid dream, but the fact that it wasn't a dream, it really happened and my mind likes to take me back to it just to bring me down really messes with my mental health. The easiest way to deflect what had happened was to just cut out anything that could trigger or remind me of it out of my life. It isn't the healthiest way to handle things, but it was how I always could control what played out in the future.
"Soooo..." Byerly lead on, clearly wondering if the plan was a go.
"I'll think about it." I say back, getting out of my seat to go back into my room. If I do invite them over, then that means I should at least respond to Harry's multiple texts first. It's the least I can do to try and solve this. I mean, I don't feel like I did anything wrong, since it is all in my head, but if anything that I did hurt his feelings then I will feel really guilty.
I picked up my phone, deciding to respond to Harry even if I decide not to ask him to come over, and I opened our messages. I sat down on the edge of my bed once I saw how many there were.
"Is everything okay?"
"I'm here if you want to talk."
"Reaching out again."
"Oakland? What's up? I'm kind of worried."
"Did I do something wrong?"
They all roll in, and I am instantly fidgeting by tapping my fingers on the back of my phone, and bouncing my knee while tapping my foot on the ground. Good thing I sat down, because I would have probably gotten light headed from stress. There are more along those lines, and the anxiety begins to build in my chest. My breathing picks up, and I sit my phone down next to me as I lay down, covering my face in my hands. I can feel the tears prickling in the corners of my eyes as I think about how I could have caused stress on another person. They don't deserve that and the fact that I caused it makes me feel guilt and stress all over my body. I am a naturally anxious person, so this is like adding gas to a fire. I wipe under my eyes before any tears begin to spill out, stopping the remorse before it gets bad. I pick my phone back up, ready to construct a text to explain everything without fully explaining it.
"Hey, I'm so sorry for how I've been for the past few days. I was just going through some personal things and was in a bit of a dark place so I needed to take a step back and take some time to myself."
I look at my phone as if the answer was right in front of me, before deleting the whole thing.
"Hey Harry, I am sorry that I've MIA, want to come over later with your friends? My sister and I have the house to ourselves."
I opt to just invite him over, hoping that he won't question how I was ghosting him for the past few days. I left my phone in my room, deciding to instantly ignore it so I don't have to see Harry's response quite yet. I know that he usually responds quickly, so I need to mentally prepare for whatever he says.
I walked across the hall, going into my sister's room to see her laying in bed on her phone.
"Okay, I asked Harry and his friends to come over later." I said as a greeting. She looked up from her screen and smiled widely.
"OOO yay! I love Sarah and I really want to see her today." she says, getting out from under the covers.
"He hasn't responded yet, so I don't even know if they will even come." I warn. I could have caused the bubble to pop between Harry and I, so I don't want to jump to conclusions about whether he will even want to come or not. "I mean, he probably will have to work on his album."
"oh c'mon Oakland, he loves seeing you." she says, not fully understanding since she doesn't know that I haven't been talking to him for the past three days. She told me the morning that I woke up from the first nightmare, that I should take a break from anything that could cause a breakdown, but she doesn't know that it meant that I would end up not communicating at all with the boy that was living in my daydreams for the past week. I nodded, moving past the thought of him not wanting to see me, so that I won't go into a full blown spiral downfall.
I flicked off my emotions for the past few days, not wanting to deal with a single feeling, but seeing those texts and how he was worried about me turned them right back on, and my overthinking is beginning to set in again.
What if I ruined everything? Even though this is just a fun summer vacation fling, what if I ruined things for him? What if brushed him off, and it caused him to mess up all of his songs? I know that he said that I inspired him, so what if all of that has gone to shit?
I stepped out of Byerly's room, going straight back into mine, as I started to get hot. Stress was taking over again and it felt like I couldn't get away from it all morning.
I clicked on my phone, somewhat hoping that he hasn't responded yet, so that I could have a little more time to plan out what to say to either response. He will either come over, or blow me off, which I deserve. The phone screen lit up, and I saw his name displayed across it.
"Sure, what time?"
That's all he said?
I mean, I'm glad that he isn't going to ask me about anything, but I just kind of expected something other than that.
I quickly went into Byerly's room, looking down at my phone in hand.
"What time should they come?" I asked in a hushed tone, just in case our parents haven't left yet. She jumps up from out of her bed in excitement, causing me to jump a little from startledness.
"Um..." she says, running over to her door to peek out towards our parent's room. "Well, it's 10:30 now, so... let's say 12?" I nodded, looking back down to my phone to respond.
"12?" was all I sent, not knowing where his mind is at as of right now.
After sending it, I threw my phone down on B's bed, plopping down next to it. I let out a sigh, as she moved over to where her clothes are.
"What should I wear?" she asked, even though she barely ever takes my advice on clothes.
"Jean shorts?" I said as a question, saying a basic idea that she would most likely choose. I stayed looking at the ceiling, thinking about how seeing Harry will be. I take some deep breaths, trying not to get worked up anymore than I already have. "How is this?" she asked, grabbing my hand to sit me up.
She was wearing jean shorts with a white blouse that has little palm trees embroidered on it.
"Cute, do you have anything I can wear? I'm tired of my clothes." I ask. She moves from standing in front of me, back over to her clothes, shuffling through them until she comes to stand, throwing a blue dress with white flowers all over at me, hitting me straight in the face. I flinched, and said "Thanks." in a sarcastic tone. I held it up, shrugging and taking it back into my room.
I took off my comfy clothes, looking back at the dress before turning it away, and tossing my hair up into a messy bun. Thinking that we could all swim later, I put on a pink bathing suit, before deciding on a similar outfit to my sisters. I slid on some jean shorts, and the shirt that I bought a few days ago, with the cute saying written on the pocket. I nodded to myself in the full body mirror, before moving towards my phone once again.
"Sounds good." Harry responded.
Relief washed over me as I realised that he won't ask me about how I was acting earlier this week. I'm pretty bad with confrontation, so the less I have to talk about myself, the better. I sit down on my bed, picking up my book, waiting for the time to tick away, wanting to get this interaction over with, so that I don't have to worry anymore about what he is thinking about me. I try not to fret on what others think about me, but since knowing that I caused Harry to dwell on what is going on with me, it became easier for me to get worked up over his perception.
After reading a chapter or so in Call Me By Your Name, I checked the time, seeing that it was 11:15am. I got up, setting my book down after dogearring the corner, and moved into the main living area of the house. I saw my mom in the kitchen and my father walking out of their room. My mom was packing some food up, maybe for a picnic of some sort, and my father was grabbing a pair of beach towels.
"Hi sweetheart." my mom greets me. "I love the shirt." she sends a wink my way. I smile at her words, walking up to give her a side hug.
"Hey mom, are y'all going to the beach?" I asked, hoping to know they will be out of the house soon.
"Yes, I'm just packing some snacks before we head out." she says. "Are you feeling better?" she asks, referring to how she thought I wasn't feeling well earlier. I know that I was fine, just in my head, but I couldn't tell her that.
Gotta keep everything in.
"Yea, I think I just didn't sleep well last night." I say back, brushing it off as if it was nothing.
"Okay good, just take it easy today. Hang out with your sister." she says. I nod, moving around the counter to grab some of the freshly cut fruit she just prepared. I haven't eaten today, so I know I need something in my system. I walked out and back into the hallway as I heard my mother call out to my father. "Jay! Don't forget your sunscreen today!" I laughed at her words, remembering how he got sunburned on only one of the first days. The same day that he gave me shit for Lucca, Karma.
I went back into my room to find some peace before seeing Harry and everyone soon. I went into the bathroom, deciding to brush my teeth once more after eating, but also to stall some time and to take my mind off of it. I heard a ring, signaling a phone call, so I rushed out of the bathroom to quickly grab my phone, answering before I even checked who it was.
"Hello?" I asked, sounding weird since I left my toothbrush hanging out of my mouth.
"Hey Oakland, I was just wondering if we needed to bring anything?" clearly the british boy said.
I ran back into the bathroom, spitting out the residue and washing my mouth clean before responding.
"Oh hey... uh- sorry, no you don't need to bring anything." I respond quickly, words dripping with awkwardness. I walked back into my room, sitting on the bed.
"Okay, we will leave soon then." Harry said back.
"um- Okay see you soon." I say back, worry beginning to build in my chest.
"Soon." he repeats my last word before ending the call.
That word, a simple four letter word, but it clearly means something between us. He said it to me when I rushed back to my house after ruining our morning hangout. He made sure to say 'soon' instead of goodbye. I guess that could be our goodbye, or whatever it means to him. I caught myself smiling at the little word he said to me, feeling a little better about seeing him, since he didn't seem too hung up or worried about seeing me.
"Oakland! Byerly! We're leaving!" my father yelled out to us before I heard the front door shut. Byerly busted through my bedroom door like clockwork with a big grin on her face.
"Are they on the way?" she asked eagerly.
"Yea, Harry said they would leave soon, and he isn't staying too far away." I respond.
"Awe yay!" she cheered while pulling me from my sitting position on the edge of my bed. "Now let's go raid mom and dad's alc." she said enticingly. I smirked at her words, following her into the kitchen.
She pulled out the silver tequila from the back of the counter before reaching into a cabinet to pull out two shot glasses. I perched myself at the island, as she slid over one of the empty glasses before grabbing a lime and cutting it into small wedges.
"B, it's not even noon yet." I said, kind of worried about drinking this early.
"Oh please, it's vacation! It's fine!" she cheered.
"Fine, pass it over." I said after seeing her fill up her glass. She slid it across the island, and I filled up my shot. I grabbed the salt that was sitting on the counter, licking the back of my hand before lining it up in a straight line.
"Okay, 1..2..3.." Byerly counted down. We both licked the salt off, throwing back the tequila, and sliding a lime wedge into our mouths. The second our glasses hit the counter, we heard a ring from the doorbell. We snapped our heads towards the door, walking over to it since that meant Harry was here. Byerly peaked out the window at the top of the door, before whipping it open.
"The party's here!" Sarah cheered, holding up some form of alcohol and walking in to go straight in for a hug with Byerly. I looked behind Sarah to see Mitch following her with his gaze and a smirk drawn across his lips. He moved in behind Sarah, leaving Harry standing there alone.
He had a soft and sweet smile across his face, already having his eyes on me after I moved on from watching his friends. The corners of my mouth curved up at just the sight of him. I opened the door, holding out my arm behind me, signaling him to walk in. He did a quick nod, before walking in, turning straight to me, pulling me into a hug. I froze for a second, slightly surprised by his action, before hugging him back by wrapping my arms around his waist. He kissed the top of my head, and whispered in my ear.
"Hello beautiful."
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I have a feeling that the next chapter will get spicy, don't quote me on that.... But also quote me on that hehe
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
As always... let me know your thoughts/ideas hehe ;)
Sending all my love <3<3<3