a/n pit stop everyone. take a second to mentally center yourself before you read this.
63.
HARRY'S POV
I am a complete and utter-fucking dumbass.
I can't look her in the eye without feeling like the entire world is crashing down around me. Because it is. With every agonizing second of my existence, the atmosphere becomes more and more catastrophic. I feel the walls closing in, only to crumble at my fingertips. Each breath leaves my lungs slightly smaller. Each glance in her direction leaves my heart slightly more desperate.
She has no idea. As of now, I'm holding everything together by a flimsy thread. It's the calm before the storm, a hurricane raging inside my own bones already. She's obliviously blissful, twirling around the park. Her orange coat hugs her body. Her golden hair is squished against her cheeks by a bright pink, wooly hat. Quinn loves snow, especially the kind piled on the ground we're walking on. It's soft and fluffy, and it leaves white pillowy banks along the sidewalk.
I can't keep this secret much longer. I know she can already sense that something's wrong. She's always had the ability to read me like a book. Sometimes she knows I'm having a bad day before I know myself. But she's respecting my privacy. She's respecting my need to pretend that everything's okay, because she's had to pull that card herself.
This is different than me giving her space after Hibbing though. I don't deserve her patience like she deserved mine. This time, I'm a fucking dumbass.
And she doesn't want to fuck until I admit what's wrong. Which is smart. She's always been smart, but now I feel stuck at a crossroads. My first instinct was to pretend that everything is okay. But now she knows that's not true, and she won't let us go back to normal until we confide in each other.
What she doesn't know is that we will never go back to normal. Not after I tell her why I'm so upset.
"Hey," she reaches for my hand and intertwines our bare, freezing fingers. I lean down to kiss her temple, my head still spinning and spiralling with thoughts.
"You look like a little sunrise with your hat and coat," I murmur in her ear. She blushes and leans her head against my shoulder.
Someone needs to kick me in the balls. I am such an asshole.
How can I say stuff like that to her? After what I did?
I've always been good at faking it. For five years, whether I was in a good mood or not, I would plaster on a smile and perform. I barely ever faltered. Back then it was something I was really proud of. Now, I'm disgusted with myself. I hate that I can say sweet things in her ear, like I did nothing wrong.
I did something very wrong.
Track after track. Song after song. It was his voice. I hadn't heard his voice in so long.
I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. My heart was pounding, pushing out of my chest, trying to reach him through the music. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, more than I ever had before. I wanted to hold him, to press his ear to my chest so he could hear just how fast he was making my heart race.
Wes said something to me on that fire escape. He told me that I've never been running towards Quinn. I've always been running away from Louis.
As soon as that damn album started playing, I stopped running. I froze in my tracks, part of me secretly relieved my feet weren't moving anymore. My breath was ragged, my head throbbing.
He finally caught up to me.
"I think I want to get a tattoo," she hums pleasantly, swinging our hands back and forth.
"Whatever you want."
It's a weird request. The last time I went with her to get a tattoo was in LA, and when she got back to New York she said it overwhelmed her. But it's not too difficult to find a parlour. She waltzes through the doorway, me in tow. We have to wait fifteen minutes for a slot to open up, which is fine. We have nothing but time to kill. Nothing but time for me to keep spiralling.
The tattoo artist comes out, wiping his hand on his pants and grinning at us. He speaks clunky English, weaving in and out of Japanese. I try to translate where the gears get sticky. He introduces himself as Fumihito. He takes us back to the room, holding his hands out for a pattern, a piece of paper to reference. Quinn moves to the leather chair in the middle of the room and shrugs.
"Um, I'm actually not sure," she sheepishly shrugs, peeling back her coat and unzipping her jeans. She leaves both in the pile on the floor and jumps into the chair, her right thigh exposed and littered with ink. Fumihito looks over it and laughs, saying something about how he's surprised she can fit so many there. Quinn directs her attention to me. I feel like shrinking, crawling into a hole. Everytime she looks at me, I wonder if she can read my thoughts, if she knows. "What do you think I should do?"
I stare at the gentle willow branch along the outside of her leg. It grows effortlessly up from her knee, the leaves spreading along her skin. "I don't know," I mumble. My eyes land on the little sailboat. They float over the moon, the watermelon slice, the words our friends all pass away, the daffodil, a tiger creeping towards her knee with its tail flicking her inner thigh. I can picture the little raspberry pinched between her hip bone and the top of her leg. I love her tattoos.
She frowns at that response. It hits me that she might have come in here to cheer me up, because she knows how much I love tattoos, and she knows how much I would love giving her another piece. She's trying to scar me into herself, like she did with Wes. She's trying to show me that she's a safe space.
I was staring at the phone I had thrown onto my mattress.
The screen was dark, a void, a black hole I could tumble into while I waited.
What did I just do? What was I doing?
I leaned down and pressed my hands deep into the bed. I stared at the black rectangle. It was as black as the sky outside. A black night.
What did I just do?
But I felt so much better. I felt like I wasn't overflowing anymore. I dumped my cup out and I was empty. There was peace. There was calm inside me. I wasn't shaking anymore. My heart wasn't thrashing, and I took that as a sign.
He'd be here soon.
It takes her a few minutes to decide, but she gets a little word in Japanese. I watch Fumihito bring the gun back and forth. The buzzing is thick in my ears, and I feel a pleasant dizziness thinking about the pain, the needle. I wish I was the one sitting in the chair. I lean back against the wall and fold my arms over my chest.
When it's done, Fumihito steps back so we can both look over the tattoo.
あなた
I squint down at the finished project. She twists her leg back and forth to showcase the writing. "What does it mean?"
"Well there's no exact translation," she bites her lip. "But it's supposed to mean baby."
I shut my eyes and swallow. And then sharply pull away. "It's pretty."
Fumihito covers the picture with a white bandage. It took all of ten minutes. We pay, and she dances out the front door, refreshed. She has that post-tattoo high. Her eyes are glazed over. A happy daze fogs them. She lifts her hand and plays with the curls on the back of my head. I manage a smile, but I think it probably looks more like a grimace. She frowns and pulls her hand back.
"Harry," the softest whisper. The word fades into the freezing air. The steam from her breath carries up into the sky. I don't know what to say. I'm going to hurt her, and she'll be upset that she held so much concern for me in this moment.
"Anna," I hum back.
We're back in the park. She stops walking. The top of her hat brushes against a dead, gray, tree branch.
"We've been here for a while now."
"We have." Two or three weeks I think. I lost count. The days have blurred together ever since what happened. Ever since that black night in LA. Two or three weeks of floating through Japan, pretending, laughing hollowly, of holding myself together as best I can, of sleeping next to each other, of hungry hands held back by our secrets. My secret.
She starts chewing on her lip. I can tell she's making a difficult decision. She begins tugging me through the park again. The branch snags at her hat and pulls a tuft of yarn out of the neatly knitted texture.
"I have something I want to show you," she stares ahead at the sidewalk, her face set.
"Why now? Why this?" he was breathing so close, and I felt it on my face. I shrugged and looked at the threshold between our feet. He was standing out on my sidewalk. I was standing on the hardwood floor of my house. There was nothing but a front door separating us.
One step, and I could feel the sweet release.
"I don't know."
"Yes you do," he frowned, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He looked like he was about to turn around and walk back to his car. He looked like he was realizing that he might have made a mistake coming here. I felt a similar anxiety creeping up my skin, but I pushed it away.
I thought about how scared Quinn looked in that hotel room in Duluth.
In a demented, twisted way, I knew I needed to feel worse about what happened. I needed to push her away. I was a bad thing. I was bad for her. I needed to prove it.
And I'm so fucking dependent on that woman. As soon as she drove away to help Emma, I felt an emptiness in my chest. I just needed it to go away. I was so worn down. I was so tired. I didn't want to feel homesick anymore. Fuck.
And he wrote so many fucking songs about me.
"What is this, Harry," he snapped.
The hotel door chimes as she opens it. She sits me at the foot of the bed and takes my coat from my hands. I watch her gently set our jackets on the chair in the corner, and then she joins me on the bed.
"In high school," she begins quietly. She reaches for her phone and scrolls the device looking for something. "I kissed a boy."
"No way," I chuckle. She elbows me.
"Anyway, he um, he wrote a song about me." She glances up from her phone, her thumb hovering over the screen. "I'm going to play it for you now."
Her eyes scan across my expression.
She still thinks this is about the album.
She thinks if she can relate to me, I'll open up about it. We'll bond over songs written about us and overcome the anxiety and sadness and exhaustion and guilt that I'm burdened by.
I try to clam up, leave my face as blank as I can. "Okay."
She hesitates, her gaze faltering. "Okay," she whispers back and presses play.
A gentle guitar rings out from the device. The plucking is warm and gentle, like a meadow. Her mouth twitches back and forth, and she looks away at the wall. I can see a redness creeping into her cheeks.
The guitar is met with a smooth, gentle, deep voice.
I want you to stay the way I pictured you.
But I want you to stay against me too.
The song is sweet and soft, but it still feels like it's splitting open a wound. I'm voyeuristic for listening to the words. My eyes dart to Quinn when I feel a chorus coming.
Would you kiss me if the glass shatters?
If the photo melts away, and you see the scars I've painted over.
Her mouth twitches to the words, the syllables barely gracing across her bottom lip. She's pretending not to know the lyrics, but it's clear that this song is imprinted into her. It means something to her.
"Did you mean it?" I finally whispered. He frowned.
"What?"
My hand flew up, gesturing to an abstract thought. "All of it." He thought about it for a second, and then met my eyes.
"Every word."
"A habit you can't break." I murmured. He nodded quickly.
"Yes."
I wanted to melt into him and feel the songs for myself.
I grabbed the collar of his coat and pulled him towards me. And our lips crashed together.
The song ends.
"An old lover's hippie music," I look down at her phone. She turns it off and lays it on the bed next to us.
"Yes."
"It's really beautiful."
She softly exhales in agreement. And then she reaches out and squeezes my hand. "I've been where you are now. Not to the same extreme, but I understand the emotions. I understand the pain, the embarrassment. When someone writes about you, you can feel exposed. You feel guilty. You feel nostalgic. It brings out weird memories."
My body freezes. My hand gets sweaty in her grasp. I nod, which she takes as permission to continue.
"I want to be here for you," she chooses her words with care. "I get that you're sad, but you don't have to hide that from me. You don't have to be sad alone."
"I know," I grumble more than I intended. Her patience and care is suddenly frustrating. She doesn't know what she's asking for. It will crush her. I don't want to tell her. I'm scared.
She leans in and presses our foreheads together. Her hair falls down, drawing a curtain to the rest of the world. It's just us, the warmth of our skin feeding each other. The window light breaks between the strands and strikes her cheeks in slivers of sunshine. Her fingers find mine, intertwining us further. Her nose brushes against me. My eyes flutter shut and I breathe her in, as much as I can. Until she fills my lungs to the brim and I'm breathing her out too. I want to be filled with her. I want to be filled until I forget him and that black night and all the guilt that came with it.
"Tell me, Harry," her voice tickles my skin. "What's eating you alive? Tell me, so I can make it better--"
"Would you kiss me, please?" My voice is so desperate. It's low, rasping, reaching out for her. My eyes blink open.
Her tongue lapses over her bottom lip. And then she folds in and presses her mouth against mine.
He pulled me up the stairs. He knew where he was going. I didn't stop him. I didn't want to stop him.
We crossed another threshold.
And I felt the bed hit the back of my legs.
I wrap my hands around her back, bringing her closer until she has to sit on top of me. Her leg swings over mine so she straddles my lap. Her fingers dig into my scalp, twisting around the roots of my hair. Once she has a firm grip, she pulls us apart and stares daggers into my eyes.
"You always deflect to this," she hums disapprovingly. My mouth parts at the harshness of her grip. I try to stifle the moan rising in my throat. She hears it anyway and smirks. "Oh, that feels good?"
"Yes," I pinch my eyes shut.
She lets go.
Before I can look at her in protest, she presses her palms against my shoulders and pushes me flat onto the mattress.
"I'm mad at you," she purrs and traces her finger along my collarbone. I lift my face off the bed to stare at her.
"You are?"
"You aren't answering my questions," she pouts out her lip.
"I know."
"Because you're scared. My theory is that you're scared of my reaction to the truth."
I swallow and look away, up at the bare ceiling.
He pulled back, sharp eyes taking in my face. My eyebrows folded together.
"What?"
"Are you sure this is what you want?" He asked, his finger tracing over my collarbone.
At that moment? Yes. I wanted him more than anything. I had forgotten how good he felt. Part of me suddenly understood an aspect of Quinn that I had always disregarded. I didn't think future Harry would be happy about my decisions, but present Harry wanted this more than anything. Who was I to deny myself? Her logic, system of beliefs, everything, finally made complete sense. It was selfish, but it made complete sense.
"Because I'm sure," he finished his thought.
I heavily nodded, feeling the blankets rub beneath me. "I'm sure."
I think if we fucked, I could shake the guilt. I think I could put him and what happened behind me. I've wanted to fuck since we got to Japan for that reason. I grab her hips and flip us around. Her yellow hair fans out under her. She laughs, a real laugh.
"Quinn," I mumble and force it to sound the same. If I say her name enough, I'll forget what he felt like. I'll forget that I enjoyed it. "My Anna."
She blinks up at me, big hazel eyes waiting for more.
"I love you. I love only you." My finger wanders along her jawline.
"You're saying that a lot," she whispers, terrified.
I've been trying to convince myself that I'm a good person. I think maybe if I say those words enough, I'll be reminded that they're true. And she'll be reminded too. I need her to know, remember. I want those words engraved in her heart.
Maybe if I tell her enough, when I confess what I did, it will hurt her less.
I nod. "I know."
The laughter I heard seconds ago has disappeared. The flame in her eyes has flickered out. She sits up a little. "Harry."
My heart shrivels at the tone of her voice. I push myself off her.
"I have something I need to tell you."
I sit back onto the bed. Once I'm fully off, she shoots up and jumps from the mattress. Her feet take her to the corner of the room, and her fingers begin to play with the upholstery of the chair.
"I should have told you sooner. I shouldn't have kept this from you. I was just so scared, because I knew you wouldn't want to hear it."
It sounds like she's about to admit to me what I did to her.
I turn around on the mattress, leaning back on my palm, eyeing her nervously and waiting for her to continue. She seems like she wants an interjection from me. She wants me to give her permission to continue, to tell her that it's okay, to say what she has to say. She stares at me desperately, completely consumed by her thoughts.
I'm not going to say anything. Now my heart is pounding. What if she already knows.
"I--uh." She swallows dryly, her eyes never leaving mine. "When I went home to New York," her voice cracks and diminishes to a whisper. Her face strains to read an ounce of expression on mine before she continues. Her cheeks are paper white, drained of color in fear.
I brace myself for her next words.
"I kissed Emma."
The bedroom door creaked open, but we didn't hear it.
We were sleeping. I had him wrapped in my arms. The sun was rising, slowly illuminating the room in pink and orange.
Mitch didn't say anything at first. I think he probably just stood there in shock. I think maybe his heart froze. I wonder if he knew it was Louis right away, or if he saw the second body in my bed and for a brief moment thought it was Quinn.
He yanked my pillow out from under my head, and that's what woke me. I shot up and looked wildly around, met with his enraged expression.
His face was inches from mine. His eyes were full of fire, erupting. He shoved the pillow back into my arms.
"I'm here to pick you up for studio time." He growled and stormed out of the room.
I don't know how to react.
My body is relieved. Tension that I didn't realize I was holding, has melted away.
I thought somehow she found out before I had the chance to tell her.
I push myself to the end of the bed and plant my feet on the floor. My fingers fold together, and I hold them loosely in my lap.
I can tell her now. She'll understand.
"I'm sorry," she takes my silence as anger. I run my tongue over the front of my teeth and stare at the hotel room floor, my shoulders slouching. "She was so upset, and I realized how much it affected me. I realized how much I loved her. I love her, Harry. And I thought it might be something more than just a friendship. For a split second, I forgot about us and you, and I thought she was everything so I kissed her." She sniffs, and my eyes fly up to stare at her. She's going to cry.
Oh god, Quinn. Please don't cry. I can't do this if you cry.
"But as soon as it happened, I realized I was wrong. There's nothing there. I promise. Harry--," her voice breaks, her throat giving way to her emotions. "Baby, please say something."
I open my mouth, ready to let everything unravel. But then I press my lips tightly together and feel my head slightly shake. My eyes are brimming with tears. I need to say it now. This is when I tell her. But a fear is still burning warm and bright in the pit of my stomach. It holds me back.
My silence breaks her. She crumples to the ground and lets out a little sob which rips my heart in half. I jump off the bed and fall to her side, wrapping my arms around her trembling frame. She rocks back and forth, holding her head in her hands.
"I'm sorry," she manages between heavy breaths. "I'm so sorry. I fucked it up. I ruined everything. I always do this. I always fuck it up."
"I'm sorry too." I rub small circles into her back, and slowly she regains her breath.
She shakes her head, her face recovering from her emotions. "It didn't mean anything. I swear," she croaks out.
"I know it didn't." I reassure her. Of course it didn't. I know Quinn, and I know Emma. I can imagine how it happened. She was trying to comfort her friend. She was doing what her heart told her to do. I know as soon as their lips parted, the forbidden spark kindling the desire had burnt out. I can see it in Quinn's eyes now. It meant nothing. It means nothing.
But now she's going to understand. I can ease her guilt, and she will ease mine.
Her eyes glossy, her nose cherry red, she sniffs and pulls away. She's bewildered, a peaceful innocence lacing her expression. "Why aren't you upset?" She wonders.
"It's okay," I mumble.
"No it's not. I know how you feel about this sort of thing. It's not okay. I cheated on you." She speaks in firm, tight phrases. Her nails dig into my skin underneath my shirt. I run my tongue over the back of my teeth. "Harry," she warns, her eyebrow perking up. She's inches from my face. Her eyes have entrapped mine.
"I fucked up too. I fucked up really bad," I sigh softly, brushing my fingers along the side of her cheek.
Her body stays completely still except the gentle rise and fall of her breathing.
"When I said we should, well, okay," I sit back and run my hand up through my hair, pulling at the roots on top of my head. I take a deep breath. "I fucked up. I really, I just... I was confused and—"
"Just say it, Harry."
Her voice is so much colder, sharper than I expected. Like a rubberband, she's stretching between extremes. First she's embarrassed by the song, then she's laughing at me, she's sitting on the floor crying, she's numb and empty. She's being extra Quinn-like, feeling her emotions to their fullest extent. I don't like that she sounds cold suddenly. I don't like how I feel the air changing in the room, like she isn't on my side anymore. I squint at her.
"Say it." Her voice is dead. I dryly swallow.
"I slept with someone."
Everything about her petrifies. Except her jaw. Her jaw goes slack.
"It wasn't something I intended though, it was an accident! I was confused and... well, I am confused. And I feel bad about it and I can't believe it happened. I don't know how it happened. You have to believe me."
Silence devours my insides. My skin prickles. My throat is bone dry.
"And that's why I thought we should come here and get away. 'Cuz I was trying to escape—I wanted to pretend it never happened. But it did and I am so so sorry, Quinn," my voice drops and disappears.
"With who."
She sounds quiet and tight, defeated. My gaze hardens on the chair behind her.
"Who was it, Harry."
"Louis," I rasp. My eyes waver. They fall to her quivering frame on the floor before me. She takes a shaky breath. "It was a mistake," I rasp, feeling a new wave of tears rising in my eyes, because maybe I was wrong to be relieved a moment ago. "But it's okay now. Now we know everything. We both let the other down. We both learned and regret and we can move on. We can survive this."
She stands up. Her knees lightly knocks against my nose. My head swivels up to watch her, and her face tenses and softens. Like waves against a shore, her emotions roll across her expression and gently fade away, only to wash through once more. "What you did and what I did, they are not the same. We are not the same." She finally whispers.
My heart seizes. "I'm so sorry, please, Quinn." I grab the backs of her calves to steady myself, keep her close. "You have to believe me."
"I knew it," she shakes her head, a weird smile growing on her lips. Her eyes are glossing over again. She sniffs. "This always happens. I thought I would be the—" she cuts herself off and closes her eyes. A heavy sigh, and they blink back open. "This always happens," her voice is so small, so fragile.
My heart is pounding harder than I've ever felt it before. I jump to my feet, reaching to grip her hands in mine. "Anna--"
"Stop it," she seethes and pulls them away. "And don't give me that 'I don't know how it happened' bullshit. You know how it happened. He wrote a fucking album about you and you got nostalgic. I left you to take care of my best friend and you got jealous and lonely. That's how it fucking happened." Hot tears are falling down her face. One lands on my thumb before she steps back and darts around me.
"Quinn," I gasp. I don't think I've ever sounded this pathetic. But she's moving furiously now. Faster than she packed her suitcase in LA after Emma called her. She throws her clothes into the bag and zips it shut. "Where are you going, hey."
"Home," she catches a sob before it falls out. Suddenly I'm angry at how easily she'll abandon the conversation instead of talking through it. She always flies away, that's her motto. When it comes to it, when things get tough, she just leaves and pretends she never cared in the first place. I'm furious over her hypocrisy. And I'm flaring and boiling with jealousy because to her, home is Emma and not me. Home isn't here in this bed with me. I wonder if it ever was. I wonder if she ever felt like I was her home.
"So you're just going to run away instead of talking about this? What happened to how you felt in September? About how you hated belonging to someone? What happened to that person? Suddenly, now that I did it to you, you feel different about everything?" I set a hand on her suitcase to keep her from bolting. She sniffs and tries to yank it from my grasp, but gives up and turns on her heel to face me.
"How I felt in September? You mean before I was healing? You mean back when I was a scared little kid and I didn't want to commit to this? Is that the person you want to be with? Who I was before therapy?"
"No!" I growl and throw the suitcase handle back down. She crosses her arms and puffs a strand of hair out of her face. A tear escapes from the corners of my eyes. "I pay for the fucking therapy, of course I want it. But how can you be upset when--"
"How can I be fucking upset, Harry?" She shouts incredulously. Her eyes widen. "How can you spend over a year tearing down my walls, helping me learn to trust and open up, reassuring me, loving me, only to smack me across the face? How dare you tell me I can't be fucking upset. You had sex with someone else! You had sex with your ex!" She shrieks. "And don't hold that over my head like some fucking power play, that you 'pay for Bea.' You don't want to anymore? Fine, I have money. I'll pay for it my fucking self if it's such a big deal for you."
"How was I supposed to know you'd changed your mind about this sort of thing?" I growl. My hand flies up to pull at the back of my head, tugging the roots of my hair tight against my scalp. I feel rabid, a panicking animal cornered by my own actions. "How was I supposed to know? You believe a different thing about the world every fucking second--"
"You told me you weren't going to talk to him anymore!" Her voice bowls out, deepens to a shrieking roar. "It doesn't matter what I said, you gave me your word."
"Are you going to look me in the eye and tell me you haven't fucked Wes since we kissed," I lower my gaze. She freezes, and then she shakes her head in disbelief.
"Do you really think I would do that to you?" She softens. "Do you really think that fucking little of me?" I don't respond. Her lip quivers and she shakes her head. "I can't believe that. I can't believe you would think that."
"You kissed her," the pronoun leaves my mouth bitter. I never registered how jealous I was of Emma until tonight. Now I'm wondering if that was a mistake on my part. My competition was disguised, hidden from me the whole time, undermining everything from within. And now she's going home to her.
"I did," she swallows a sob. "And I'm sorry about it. But I didn't fuck her."
"Well I'm sorry too. I told you that I'm sorry. I told you, this is the fucking guiltiest I have ever been in my entire life. What do you want from me? Quinn, please."
"I don't know! I don't want anything from you right now, I can barely look you in the eye." Her face is blotchy and red. Her hands are shaking. I probably look the same. My body is flooding with panic and adrenaline. My face feels itchy. "What did you think I meant on Halloween in the shower?" She rasps quietly. "When I said I was yours? What did you think I meant on that walk when I called you my boyfriend? Or when I let you take me to Minnesota, what did you think that all meant to me?"
"I don't know! I know what it means to me, but as we've discovered, you think about love a lot differently than I do."
"Your version of love is sleeping with someone else?" She snarls and curls her hands into fists.
"You're being a hypocrite, and now you're going to go home and cry about all of this to her too."
Her eyes widen in sudden realization. "This happened before we came here. You've been lying about this since landed. Everything you said, you..." she looks down at her feet, her mind rapidly replaying the past few weeks.
"So have you!" I gesture wildly at the air.
"I need to go," she whispers, her face paling.
"Please don't leave," my voice breaks with an unexpected sob. I hold my hand out to stop her. She brushes it aside and grabs her suitcase on the bed.
"No. This is bad, Harry. Don't ask me to stay--" she takes a shaky breath to compose herself. Her back is to me, and I can see her muscles twitching, her legs trembling. She pulls the suitcase off of the bed and it lands on the floor with a thunk. "I love you, but this hurts so much," she sounds raw, exhausted. She sounds wounded. I did that to her.
I step closer, breathing against the back of her head. She freezes, and I wrap my arms around her stomach, pulling her body back against mine. I rest my chin on top of her head and close my eyes. Warm rivers of tears are trailing down my cheeks and landing in her hair.
She feels so soft, like a warm summer dusk. She smells like cinnamon.
She lets me hold her for thirty seconds. She burrows her shoulders deeper into my body.
She told me once that I smelled warm. I guessed that it meant I smelled safe, and she was surprised I understood. I was excited I got it right, I was able to translate her language, read her pages, understand the fickle rules of her world. Now I never want to let her go, because I know this might be the last time I get to hold her.
All I can think about is her stupid perfume and how safe it feels.
She yanks herself away. I watch the back of her head as she grabs her suitcase, slips on her shoes, and walks out the door. She never looks back.
For a while I just stand there, pathetic, empty, and broken, watching the door. Then I look away and stare down at our messy bed. I can see the imprint of her body in the sheets from where she was laying an hour ago, a real laugh echoing in the room.
Then I look at the end table next to her side of the bed, and I see a silver camera with a cherry keychain.
a/n HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU GUYS
Don't text, don't call, I'm going to go SOB.
WHAT THE FUCK HARRY. WHAT THE FUCK QUINN.
WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HURT EACH OTHER I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN LOVE I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.
Fucking hell, sorry I just needed to get that out of my system.
We're getting to the chapters I've been so excited to write for a really long time. I finally get to share with you all the shit I've been planning and holding onto for almost a YEAR. Yay :,)
Be nice to both of my characters they are trying their best, they're just really broken inside and insecure >:(
Song: "Sleepless" - Novo Amor