When I reach my apartment and start to unlock the door, dreed seeps into my bones at the thought of being here alone again. This place was anything but homey anymore, it was eerie and quieter than normal.
Explaining why I nearly jump out of my skin when my phone dings with a notification.
Harley: I'm going to pick you up at seven.
A lazy grin made its way onto my face, and I did my best to wash it away. I wasn't ready to feel these kinds of things yet. I needed to work on myself first before I could let someone else in. My heart and body were betraying what was best for me. At least my mind had enough sense to keep everything under wraps.
Me: I can drive.
It was a tactic to keep him as far away from helping me hurt myself any further.
Harley: I'm going to come over now.
I pushed him away and he pushed further in, typical Harley. Think of this as a friendship, nothing more or less. It was nice having someone to rely on sometimes but there was a fine line I was riding here, and I needed to be careful not to waver onto either side.
"Oh, my goodness!" He's coming over now. I rush around the house and clean everything. Wipe everything down, shove everything into my bedroom, and shut the door. I haven't had time to clean in between my job and school, but there was no way I was letting him see this place looking like it did.
Just as I set the last clean dish onto the drying rack there was a knock on the door and my hands grew a little bit more jittered. I opened the door to let him in, but it wasn't Harley. It's a woman dressed in professional attire like she just left her job. Her black hair is tied neatly behind her back and her makeup looks flawless. "Miss Hansel?" She questions with sorrow lacing her words.
My shaking hands start to twist into knots at the end of my shirt anticipating what she was going to say. My subconscious already knew what was about to come out of her mouth.
"Y- Yes ma'am." I already didn't like meeting strangers, but she was at my door apparently about to deliver unwelcome news from the looks of it. Making my panic swell uncontrollably, causing my lungs to grow tight.
"I'm here to inform you that Vicker's Oliver has been rewarded parole on good behavior." I freeze up and don't know what to say to the woman. All I can do is stare off into oblivion as voices repeatedly fly through my brain.
You're getting your justice.
Wasn't it worth it?
He's going away for a long time.
You won't ever have to see him again.
All of it was lies. "Okay." I simply say and avoid her eye contact because I didn't want her to see the empty void her news had just created.
"I'm sorry." She walked away nearly bumping into Harley as he gave her a funny look probably wondering what she was doing leaving my apartment doorway.
I turn around and make my way inside leaving the door open for him to follow me in.
He was talking but I didn't hear anything he was saying, all I could hear was his laughter. My steps waver and I stumble while throwing my hands over my ears trying to block out the awful hideous laugh. It didn't silence it, it only made it worse. "Shut up!" I whisper and shake my head quickly losing my footing and heading straight for the ground arms wrapped around me before I could feel the impact.
My whole body was nearly convulsing with shivers, I was hyperventilating I could feel my lips growing numb.
His laughter became more invasive up until it began to be replaced with the soft humming of someone. A chest vibrated against my ear with a soft tone. The tone of my favorite song. Slowly my breath begins to come out more even and I slump against Harley as the panic attack ends leaving me feeling drained emotionally and physically.
A few minutes go by of me just trying to catch my breath. I try to force myself to sit up on the shaky arms I have but Harley pulls me closer and strokes my hair soothingly. Almost like he needed a hug just as much as I did.
"Shh." He cooed. I nuzzled my nose into the crook of his armpit wishing I could hide here forever. Vickers wouldn't dare mess with me when Harley was here, at least not on his own. Harley was strong enough to kill someone, and if he knew what Vickers was, he wouldn't have a problem doing just that.
He smelled like heaven, absolute heaven. I inhale deeply. He chuckles at my antics, and I do the same.
"Sorry, you smell amazing," I admit, suddenly feeling a little braver, the shame not even an afterthought anymore, he just held me through my panic attack. I think we were past the awkwardness.
"You do too." Harley picks up a strand of my hair and pulls it to his nose inhaling it as deeply as I had him. Once it had grown quiet again, he had questions. "I've never seen you have a panic attack. I heard Finnic talk about them when we were younger but that's the first time, I have seen one happen. I'm not going to lie, scared the shit out of me." He chuckles and pushes my hair behind my ear as he looks down at me curled up in his arms.
"Sorry." It wasn't his place to be taking care of me, he owed me nothing. He was already forced to go to the movies with me, he didn't deserve to get shoved with all my problems.
"Don't apologize. It's what I'm here for." We stared at each other lost in what the other was thinking, tension built, and it was this amazing agonizing feeling because I knew we had to stop it before it grew. His eyes stole me away from the real world for just a moment, a moment that I wish could last a lifetime. Harley coughed awkwardly and I stood up and then offered my hand to help him up off the floor. He took it and we both stood there awkwardly waiting for the other to talk first.
"I can call and tell your brother if you aren't feeling up to it." Harley offered and while the idea seemed tempting, I had promised Liz.
"I'm fine now. I'm about to go get dressed. Feel free to watch the tv." I said as I walked around him to my bedroom.
What on god's green earth was that? I lay down flat on my mattress staring up at my ceiling trying to grasp what I felt back there. It wasn't like anything I have ever experienced before. It was this hunger that ran through my veins telling me that without putting my lips to Harleys I would suffocate. Like I needed him more than I needed to breathe.
Dangerous waters.
Getting a toe-length deeper into that lake of his. Would I even know when I had traveled too deep?
I couldn't do this. He didn't need to have to deal with my feelings. So, I would push them away for as long as they would allow it. I sift through a pile of clean clothes I haven't had time to put up trying to find some movie attire. I settled on a light pink blouse and dark jeans.
Walking out of the bedroom I spotted Harley propped up on my couch like this was as much his home as it was mine and it warmed my heart. I liked to think that he was comfortable enough here to act as if he lived between these walls. The feeling warmed my soul.
"We have a couple of hours to spare. What do you do when I'm not here?" The question was an odd one to ask. I couldn't tell if he was bored or if he was simply curious. It shocked me that he didn't have something better to do than waste time at my house. The loneliness must have a grip on him like it does me, it's the only reliable explanation.
It was something I have thought about often over these past few months. When I was lonely, I often wondered if he was feeling the same way, after all, I had seen the look in his eyes too many times to count. He knew the feeling that haunted me on quiet nights a little too formally.
"Write, read, sing and bake. That is all I do here besides sleep." I left out the part about the crying sessions or the blank stares into oblivion. He didn't need to know about that, he already knew too much as it was.
"You write?" Harley glances at me as I sit down beside him maybe a little closer than I had originally meant to cause our arms to be smashed against each other. I scoot away, trying to create space between us.
"Sorry." I twist my fingers together in nervousness. No one had ever read anything I wrote, and I preferred it that way. "Yeah, it's nothing special and no I don't plan on publishing it."
"What's it about?" I twist my fingers tighter and blush a little. It wasn't anything too awful but imagining Harley reading some of the chapters I've written made me a little embarrassed. That is why they would forever stay on my computer only under my gaze.
"Oh, just romance." I bite my lip and stare blankly at the tv.
"You read. You can write. Bake and sing. Yet, you won't let anyone in on none of it." He analyzes me without judgment, something akin to acknowledgment registers in his eyes. A feeling of recognition settles in my gut making me feel warm inside. No one ever pays enough attention to me to notice this kind of stuff and it made the tingles even worse. Something I have been trying to avoid even since they started. "You are going to fly one day, sweets."
I snap my gaze at him and find him already studying me, but he doesn't try to hind the fact like a normal person would, he doesn't care that I caught him studying me. My phone dinging snaps us out of our moment, couldn't be more thankful and disappointed at the same time. I open the message to see that it was from Liz. It's a video and I grow excited, scooting closer to Harley.
"Look," I announce and he crouches over my shoulder so he can see the video. I couldn't help but shiver when his hot breath caresses my ear. Does he feel this? Does he know that he is driving my body mad? Feelings I have never felt. Feelings he now owned.
I click to play with shaky fingers, it shows Finnic opening a box to the pregnancy test and then him enveloping her into a huge hug. "That's great news," Harley says before scooting back to his spot on the couch, my body feeling empty and cold with the distance, but I knew it was what I needed.
"Don't you have somewhere better to spend your time?" I ask him as he just sits back on the couch watching something I didn't care to pay attention to on the tv. "A girl to go see, maybe," I add when he doesn't look my way and sure enough the statement made him glance at me once more.
"I don't date." He says seriously. "Don't have the time."
"I don't either." He smirked causing the corner of his lips to raise.
"You're telling me you write romance and don't date? Isn't that like depriving yourself of what you enjoy?" I puzzle over what he had said, and it did seem like that would be the case from an outsider's perspective.
"It's not like that." I grin a little excited that I was talking about my work with someone for the first time, ever. "When I write, she doesn't have social anxiety. She doesn't have any issues connecting with people. No deep-rooted family problems, no..." I didn't realize how much my writing freed me until I heard myself talking about it, I was probably boring him to death. "Sorry, I'll quit rambling."
"Don't do that." He demanded.
"What?" Confusion takes hold of me, what had I done wrong?
"Don't shut down. I want to hear what you were going to say." His green orbs stared straight into my soul like there was nowhere else for me to hide.
"She doesn't have any problems that she would burden with her lover."
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