I woke the next morning to the sound of rain dripping from the gutter onto the sill of my bedroom window. The curtains were drawn but I could see grey light peaking through the edges.
I press my face into my pillow, my head thick and heavy, my eyes dry and prickly. I let myself breath deeply, listening to the dismal weather outside, until my ears pick up other sounds. A whirring from downstairs. From my years living in this old Victorian terrace, you grow accustomed to every sound that penetrates the thin walls. I instantly recognise it as my washing machine on a spin cycle.
I pull my face away from my cotton pillow case, peaking out from the security of my duvet and strain my hearing.
The low hum of music. Soft footsteps that sound as though they're walking from one end of the kitchen and back again.
With a lurch of sickness both from the emptiness of my alcohol tainted stomach, and the sort of nausea that comes from humiliation, the events of last night quickly roll into me.
Harry peeling me from my living room floor. Harry squashing us both into my shower to rinse the vomit from my hair; I can smell the watermelon fragranced shampoo all around me. Harry tucking me into bed and climbing in next to me.
I was drunk enough to pass out into a pool of misery on a cold hard floor but unfortunately not enough to have erased the events that followed from my memory.
I listen to his gentle sounds echoing through my house, knowing it's him down there, and like the coward that I am I keep myself tucked away in my dark room for as long as possible.
That is, until I suddenly realise what day it is and I whip my head around to my alarm clock.
10.14am. Shit.
My heart quickens, panic flooding me as I throw the blanket from me and stumble out of my room.
My head is swimming with the repercussion of drinking so much yesterday, but I fumble myself clumsily down the stairs, the stark light flooding in the thorough the mottled glass of my front door searing my blurry eyes.
When I push open my kitchen door, my suspicions are confirmed when I see Harry washing pots in my kitchen sink.
He's wearing a grey checked pair of my pyjama bottoms and his Elton John T-shirt that I'd found in the bottom of that box of records. When he turns to me upon me entering the room, he quickly wipes his sudsy hands off on a tea towel and pauses the music that he had playing through his phone on the work top.
"Hi."
I stare at him, then glance around at the state of my kitchen. There's a pile of laundry that I'd let pile up on my kitchen table now neatly folded in a wash basket, another load tumbling around in the washing machine. A cardboard box is on the ground next to my back door, full of empty glass bottles; the two bottles of vodka I'd sank back last night glaring at me. There's a faint smell of cleaning product emitting from all around us and I wonder where else he's scrubbed clean.
I swallow, my mouth dry and acidic, then turn to look back at him.
"We're late for work."
Harry leans against the counter, absentmindedly folding the tea towel he'd just dried his hands on.
"Riley-"
The panic that had jolted me from bed upstairs quickly consumes me again as I interrupt him in a flurry.
"I-I haven't baked anything. I'm two hours late, and I haven't even got anything to sell. What am I going to do?"
He pauses, eyes glancing over my frantic expression. He doesn't reflect my riddled state at all, just watches me, his eyes slightly narrowing before he sighs.
"I think it's best you took the day off, don't you?"
I stare back at him in bemusement.
"I can't just take the day off, Harry. I have bills, a business loan, the rent for the stall. I'm already behind, if I don't go in it'll just get worse and...and..."
During my rambling he paces across the kitchen to me, and places his hands on my shoulders.
"Hey. It'll be fine. We'll figure all of that out, okay? But you need to look after yourself first. You said it yourself, you haven't even baked anything to sell, so there's no point in going in today."
He peers down at me, eyebrows raised as he waits for a response. My thoughts are a scrambled mess, and I'm finding it hard to have him stare at me as flashes from the night before flit in and out of my memory like a light bulb bursting.
To distract myself, I glance around my immaculate kitchen again.
"You cleaned," I mutter.
Realising I would no longer argue about going into the market, Harry's shoulders relax.
He lets go of my shoulders and peers back at the room and the work he's done.
"I had to wash our clothes from last night. Couldn't stop once I got started," he says easily.
I feel my face warm at the fact I'd emptied my stomach likely over the both of us, then try to think up some sort of explanation for the way he'd found me.
"About last night," I begin, shutting my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose. "Look, I just-"
"We'll talk about it in a minute. Let me make us a cuppa and we'll sit down. Yeah?"
He's already filling my kettle, and I watch him move around the space as if it were his own. Harry carries himself as if he never has a second thought of what his next move will be; it's something I'd become extremely aware of since us reuniting all these years. He'd never been exactly awkward as a teenager, but he held so much confidence now that at times I found it intimidating.
How he opens my cupboards and instantly finds the tea bags and sugar, or how he pulls out my favourite mug; like he already knows. He leans down to grab the milk from the under counter fridge as if it were habitual. As if Harry Styles making me tea on a Wednesday morning was entirely normal.
"Go sit down," he tells me, peaking up at me from where he plops two sugars into my mug. "I'll bring these through."
Silently, I shuffle toward my living room where the scent of citrus cleaner becomes heavier. It's then that I see the rug that usually resides under my coffee table hung over the top of my clothes horse and I assume that he's scrubbed the vomit from it. I mutter a curse through sheer embarrassment.
Aside from my out of place rug, there's no evidence of anything out of the ordinary happening in this room last night. The cushions are stacked neatly in the corners of my sofa, the blinds drawn to reveal the downpour outside. He's even lit a candle on the mantle piece above the fire.
I flop myself down onto the worn and softened side of sofa, the side where a dip has moulded with the memory of me.
I pull the blanket from the behind me and lay it over myself, my legs tucked under my body then throw my head back to stare at the ceiling.
"You're a fucking idiot." I whisper to myself as I hear the sound of the kettle clicking off as it finishes boiling.
A moment later Harry comes into the room with two mugs. He passes me one, placing his own neatly onto a coaster before he's nipping out of the room again before I can even thank him. He returns shortly with two plates of what I come to see is buttery toast.
"There you go," he says lowly, sitting himself on the other end of the sofa. The side that is hard and unaccustomed to the weight of a body.
"Thank you," I mutter weakly, biting into the edge of my toast. I quickly realise how hungry I am, my mouth salivating as the salty butter hits my taste buds.
We eat quietly, the vibrations of the washing machine from the kitchen and patter of rain from outside filling the silence.
I steal glances at him, how he holds the cream porcelain plate that I've owned since I was a student in his hand. How he eats the crusts first. I realise he's removed his rings; perhaps they're nestled on the windowsill above my sink so that the water from washing up didn't tarnish them.
The first time Harry came to my house the day we agreed to be friends again, it had been slightly uncomfortable to see him in my usually empty home. But to have him sat next to me here, knowing he's slept in my bad, that he's wearing my pyjamas, eating toast in my living room is absolutely surreal.
I can hardly help myself from gawking at the strangeness of having him here. The feeling was similar to when you'd bump into a teacher at the supermarket as a child, totally abstract and blurring the separate facets of your life into one for the first time.
When we've finished the breakfast Harry has made for us, he takes my plate and stacks it on top of his own, placing them on the coffee table before taking a sip of his tea.
He leans over and pulls an edge of the blanket covering my lap and draws it over his crossed knees so that the fluffy material is draped over the both of us.
Nursing my warm mug between my hands, I stare down at it as I await what it is he has to say.
"So. Are you just going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to pry it out of you?" He says, his eyes heavy on me.
My stomach tightens, despite knowing that this conversation was inevitable. I have to close my eyes, shut everything out for a moment as I let out a shaky breath.
"I just drank a bit much," I say, but when I glance up at Harry after he doesn't respond, I know he won't be bullshitted. He watches me expectantly, no mischievous glint in sight. I can't lie to him; there's no lying to someone who's crawled around in the dirt and seen every filthy part of you.
I turn away, my mind rehashing everything that lead up to me spiralling so badly.
Mine and Harry's day in Brighton. I don't recall that last time I'd felt so weightless. So happy. In my drunken state yesterday I'd questioned if it had been real or one of my dreams, because days like that didn't happen to me.
But it had been real, because everything that happened with Kyle afterwards seared painfully into my reality.
I knew I had to tell Harry. But it was difficult to find the words or the strength. Something about it all felt too similar, like history repeating itself and I was ashamed to admit that I was embarrassed to tell him.
Because once again it was Harry coming to my rescue. Harry picking up the pieces.
As a twenty seven year old woman, who was I if I couldn't stand up for myself. If I couldn't fight my own battles, couldn't pick myself up off the ground when life got difficult.
Logically, I knew what Kyle did wasn't my fault. But trauma had a funny way of making you doubt yourself, and after what Jason did I couldn't help but tell myself that perhaps Kyle forcing a kiss on to me was my fault. Or that I was overreacting.
Was I?
It was just a kiss after all.
We'd slept together countless times. Maybe I'd blown this whole thing out of proportion. Which only made my reaction to it all the more embarrassing.
My inner turmoil wasn't making words come to me any easier, yet Harry waited patiently at my side. I could feel his eyes on me, and the longer I remained without explanation, the hotter they burned.
I gaze down at my mug, swallow again.
"Kyle," I croak, my voice hoarse. I swear I see Harry tense up out of the corner of my eye. I clear my throat, keeping my eyes trained down. "He...he must have seen you when you dropped me off on Monday."
He's silent beside me, waiting me to carry on. I daren't look up, instead focus my sites of my nails against the mug. I take a deep breath.
"He got angry. He...he thought we were sleeping together, and then he grabbed me."
I hear Harry take a sharp inhalation of breath beside me, and I look up to see him rubbing a hand down his face.
"I knew I shouldn't have left you with him," he says solemnly, shaking his head as he looks blankly out of the window. His jaw sharpens before he looks at me. "What did he do?"
A lump rises in my throat, and I dart my watering eyes back down to my lap.
"He kissed me," My voice comes out small, feeling entirely pathetic. As the words leave my mouth I'm sure then that I've overreacted, feeling as if I have to assure him that I know I've blown this all up. "It was just a kiss, I know it's stupid."
I see Harry's hand curl around my wrist, forcing me to look up at him again. His face is taught, brows pinched together.
"It's not stupid. Not if you didn't want him to kiss you," he says sternly. "Just because you've slept with him, doesn't give him the right to do that to you. Consent isn't a one time thing."
I feel my chin begin to quiver, my eyes pooling with fresh tears. I see Harry's face soften, and quickly he's placing our mugs on the coffee table and scooting over to me to pull me into his chest.
He wraps his arms around me, his chin resting on top of my head, hugging me for the second time.
I try to hold it in, but knowing that he believes me, that someone is taking me seriously and that maybe I haven't made this into something it isn't washes a sense of relief over me that quickly has me sobbing into his T-shirt.
He lets me cry into him, choked whimpers, as he cocoons me into his body. One hand cradles my head against him as the other strokes up and down my back. We stay that way for a long while, until my cries turn into sniffles.
"Did he do anything else to you?" He asks, a tension in his voice.
I shake my head against his chest, feeling him let out an exhale that blows hot on my scalp.
"No," I reaffirm out loud. I wrap my own arms around him, knowing that I have to tell him what else happened. "But h-he said if he sees us t-together again, that he...that he'd kill you."
Harry's silent above me, his body paused before he pulls me in tighter.
"Kyle Hughes, the estate agent, is going to kill me?" He asks dubiously.
There's a brief pause before I feel a chuckle escape me. Because in the harsh light of day, the reality of it is a little absurd.
Harry pulls back, his arms still cradling me but allowing enough space so that he can look down at me. A weary smile tugs the corners of his mouth as he brings a hand up to brush a tear from my cheek.
"I don't think I have too much to worry about," he says softly, but then his smile drops as he looks back and forth between my eyes. "But I think you should report him. He doesn't exactly sound stable."
I pull myself up to sit with my back against the sofa, Harry letting his arm stay around my shoulders.
"I just don't see how the police could do anything," I shake my head. "When Jason-"
"You were failed massively when everything happened with Jason," he says firmly. "And you didn't have anyone to support you then. But you do now, okay?"
I look at him, puzzled.
He shakes his head at my confusion. "You have me. You have Lucy and her mum. And Sarah and Mitch. Everyone at work. We all care about you. I...I know your parents let you down. But we're your family now. We'll help you through this."
I feel hot tears drip down my cheeks again.
"You will?"
He nods, nothing but sincerity looking back at me.
"Every step of the way."
He pulls me into his side again, pressing his lips to my hair and can't help but sigh into him, resting my head against his shoulder.
How different things could have been if I'd had this support after Jason assaulted me. At the time when I needed family the most I never felt more alone.
I try not to let my thoughts delve too deep into what could or should have happened then, because it's pointless. I can't change the past. But knowing I had Harry and everyone else he claimed to care for me on my side, maybe I wouldn't feel so alone this time.
I started to think about what I should do; how would I go about getting a restraining order? Could Kyle be charged for what he did?
I'm mentally sifting through what I'd need to do when Harry talks again.
"Riley. I still think we need to talk about what happened last night."
I pull back to look at him, and suddenly he looks uncomfortable.
"I told you what happened..."
He sighs, brushing his wayward hair back.
"You explained why. But...I found a lot of empty bottles in your kitchen. Do you drink like that often?"
I blink at him, my brows furrowing. I shake my head, not entirely following what it is he's insinuating.
"I told you. Sometimes I have a drink to help me sleep."
He shuts his eyes, I see his throat dip and suddenly I feel nervous. Annoyed even.
"Ry...I found you in a pool of your own sick on the floor last night. I thought- " he stops to look off to the side with his fist pressed to his mouth, as if he's struggling to think about it. "No one could get a hold of you. Me and Lucy, we kept calling but your phone was off and I just had this awful feeling after I left you with Kyle. I came over and I heard music blasting from outside. I knocked and knocked but you didn't answer. I was going to break your door down but I found a spare key under a plant pot. When I first found you I thought something horrible had happened."
He lets out a shaky breath, his eyes full of despair feeling like an icy gust of air hitting me.
"I was so scared," he says just over a whisper. "Then I saw all of the bottles."
I hadn't realised how hard I was breathing. My chest was raising up and down erratically, but I couldn't seem to speak.
"I think you need help."
I focus on my breathing. In and out. He's looking at me in that way again, the way that feels as if he can see right into me. As if he already knows about every night that I've blacked out alone in my house. Woken up and ran to work in the same clothes as the night before. How I'd end the day with shaking hands because I'd needed a drink so badly that my body screamed out for it.
"I'm not an alcoholic," I hear myself snip in defence. That's all I can seem to think. That I don't want him to think that of me.
"I didn't say that," he shakes his head. "But when you said you had a drink to fall asleep, I thought it was a glass of wine or two. There were two entire empty bottles of vodka last night, Riley."
I flick my eyes between his, waiting for him to just sigh and let it go. To move past this. I didn't want to talk about it.
"I know it seems like a lot, but I'm fine. Really."
"You don't seem fine to me. You've been through a lot, you-"
All of a sudden I stand up, feeling suffocated by him. By his voice, his scent, his unwavering stare that burns through me, the way he's taking up space in my house that I'd longed to be filled but now felt cramped.
"Stop it," I snap, folding my arms across myself. "Don't tell me that I'm not okay. I don't need you to tell me that I'm broken, or weak or fucked up. I don't need you to fix me or swoop in to rescue me all of the time. I've gotten through the last ten years by myself, I didn't need you then and I don't need you now!"
I'm practically panting when I'm done, trying to ignore the wave of sweat that's breaking out over me or the churning in my stomach.
Harry pulls a thread at the edge of the blanket that still covers him, his face flush, hair hanging over his eyes.
"I know you don't need me. But you don't need to do this by yourself anymore." He peers up at me. "You shouldn't have to. I'm not trying to fix you. I just want to help. You're not alone anymore Riley, whether you want to be or not."
"Well maybe I do want to be!" I hear myself getting louder, stressed, my head hot. "Maybe I don't want you here! Just leave!"
Harry doesn't rise to my level, instead remaining calm. Slowly, he pulls the blanket off of himself and gets up. We stand in stale mate, watching one another as my chest heaves up and down, my hands trembling.
I want him to blow up. Want him to shout at me, to storm out.
I don't want him to be right about me.
I hear the chiming melody that signals my washing machine finishing, and Harry peers back at the noise.
"I'm not leaving," he says when he turns back. "Real friends can't be pushed away when you get scared, Ry. Im not going to just disappear when things get hard. So stop trying to scare me away, it's not going to work."
He leaves the room toward the kitchen, and all I can do is watch the space where he was. I was uncomfortable from head to toe, inside-out.
I felt exposed, naked with him here. There was no playing pretend with Harry, no ability to wear a mask or hide a frown with a fake smile. He had a key to everything I'd tried so hard to lock away, and I hated it.
My chest felt hot with a bubbling mix of shame and resentment, that he wouldn't just fuck off like everyone else did.
I wasn't accustomed to this sort of friendship, where boundaries didn't stop at the end of the work day. Even Lucy, who I loved and trusted with my entire heart wouldn't speak to me like this, wouldn't invade my head and my home the way Harry seemed to.
It was like he'd fixed himself to the foundations of my life already, and somehow I'd let him. Let it creep up on me because I'd let myself be selfish with him again.
Let myself covet his bunny-toothed smiles, let myself snatch up every glance, every brush of fingers, every shared moment that felt like it was only ever us.
I'd gotten in too deep, and quickly Harry had settled his roots once more. Like he said, I couldn't push him away. He wouldn't let me.
"You going to help me or what?" I hear him shout, breaking my thoughts. In an instant he's back in the living room with a plastic basket of laundry held between his hands, an expectant look in his eye as if I hadn't just shouted at him to leave.
"Riley?" He sings to me, his brow quirked at my frozen state. "Give me a hand hanging these up?"
All I do is nod, and together we hung our clothes over the airer, working silently until eventually Harry plays another song through the speakers of his phone.
He sings along straight away, his voice soft just carrying over the speakers.
"All through the night, I'll be awake and I'll be with you..."
I'm watching him from the other side of the clothes horse, watching his pink lips mouthing the words of one of his favourites; Cyndi Lauper.
"All through the night, this precious time when time is new."
His eyes snap to mine when he hears me singing along and he pauses only for a moment before a grin transforms his face.
Because this is Harry's favourite song. I don't know if he ever stated it outright to me, but I've heard him play it enough times, heard his voice belt the chorus enough to know.
I smile back, despite the heaviness that lingers inside me, the darkness that's clinging onto me from yesterday just like my hangover.
Harry abandons the basket of washing and rounds the clothes horse where he takes my hand. Slowly, he raises above us and he spins me under his arm and back again.
His grin sores into his full, sunshiny smile when I laugh at his clumsy attempt to get me to dance. He grabs my other hand and spins the both of us, his movements sure, mine less so.
I let him pull me around the living room, until in a half attempt to join in with him until I clock the rug that's drying and glance once more at my pyjamas that he's wearing and give up feeling too embarrassed to dance with him. He's seen my worst, and unfortunately my dance moves aren't even close to the worst.
"We have no past! We won't reach back! Keep with me forward all through the night!"
He pulls me close, arms wrapped around my shoulders until I snake mine around his waist and let him rock me gently and spin me around my living room. I breathe him in, my eyes settling shut.
I stop singing so that I focus on his voice, feel the vibrations of it against my head, letting him sing this silly song to me.
I remember the times we belted it in the van. I remember the feeling of being so utterly free with him, how I could breathe when it was just the two of us. And I resolve within myself that maybe friendship, real friendship, isn't always comfortable.
Maybe sometimes it's picking someone of the ground, or letting them pick you up. Maybe it's letting them hold you when you feel at your worst, letting them see you when you don't want to be seen.
I hold onto Harry and I kick myself for ever wanting to let go.
I can't help but think maybe this is how it always could have been if Harry and I had never gone our separate ways. Maybe we'd have danced in the living room of our student houses. Maybe we'd have held hands on a beach years earlier. Maybe this wouldn't be one out of only a handful of times he'd held me.
I tighten my hold on him, and I try not to think to omuch about nuzzling up into his neck. He doesn't remark about the way my forehead is pressed tightly under his ear or the way I know he can feel my breath against his neck. He just keeps me close, scrunching a hand into my hair before pressing a kiss to my scalp.
"You'll be okay," he mutters into my hair. "You'll be fine."