Songs:
Broken-Hearted Girl: Beyonce
Heaven: Beyonce
Goodnight: Cher Lloyd
Under The Bridge: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Coldest Winter: Kanye West
Chasing Cars: Snow Patrol
How To Save A Life: The Fray
The Story: Sara Ramirez
A.J.'s POV
Monday morning. It had been about a week since the last time I had seen Harry, or talked to him. He eventually answered my text with one of his own that said "I'm sorry", but nothing after that. I didn't try to contact him either, I figured, either he was busy, promoting his new album with the guys, or he simply, didn't want to talk to me. Whatever it was, I didn't want to think too much about it. I wanted answers, but I wasn't ready for them. If I allowed myself, I'd just drive myself insane, going though the endless possibilities. This whole relationship thing was a headache. Or maybe it was just Harry.
"Why are you being all mopey and blah," my sister interrupted me as I stared at a picture of me with Harry at the zoo, which seemed so long ago rather than a few days.
I turned off my phone before dumping it on my bed, "I'm not "mopey and blah", I was just up late painting and I'm not ready to get out of bed yet," I said, patting the spot next to me.
I had already woken up hours before, but since everyone had been sleeping still and it was too cold to go out on a run; well, I still would have gone, but I didn't want to. She was right, I was being "mopey and blah".
She jumped on the bed, throwing herself face first. "Good, I thought you were regretting having mom and daddy over for the holiday week," she seemed to accept my excuse.
I shook my head. I wasn't regretting it per say, but I still didn't want to have to deal with them, or Olivia and Nina. "Of course not, what's the point of Thanksgiving if you don't have your family with you," I said with a genuine smile, referring to her, specifically.
"You know, I'm not a little girl anymore, our family coming over may not be what's bothering you, but something is," she said, taking the cross pendent from my chest in her fingers. "I don't know what happened between you two, but you should try to fix it."
I watched her as she examined the cross. "Everything is fine," I lied.
"Yeah, and we have the same dad," she joked. "I'm serious, you're my sister, my entire life you wanted me to be all that I could be, to love and not to live with hate in my heart, to express myself and by who I truly am. When are you going to lead by example? You obviously feel strongly about him, if you didn't, you wouldn't be in bed staring at pictures of him and getting sad."
"Wait, how did you know?"
"I have a super genius sister who taught me how to hack anything before I was able to ride a bike, so, I know things."
I watched her for a moment, she wasn't such a little girl anymore. She was starting to grow up and as much as I tried, I couldn't keep everything from her. As much as I wanted for her to stay a baby forever, I knew eventually she was going to grow up, I just wasn't sure if I was ready for it. What I really should have been concerned about was the fact that she had "hacked" my phone, but, I did teach her a thing or two while she was growing up, so it was my own damn fault, I couldn't complain. Actually I was sort of proud.
Before I knew what she was doing, my phone was in her hands dialing a number. I tried to take it back, but she jumped out of the bed, putting the phone on speaker.
"Hello," a deep, raspy voice came through the speaker.
"Are you busy?" Odie asked.
"No," he answered back.
"Great, Kit wants you to come over, you have thirty minutes, bye," she hung up before he could respond.
"Why did you do that for?" I asked, catching the phone as she threw it at me.
"How about "gee, thank you, sister"? Oh, you're welcome, you know me, just saving love lives one couple at a time," she winked at me flirtatiously before walking out of my room.
It hadn't even been thirty minutes before there was a knock on the door. Odie rushed to the door before I even thought about moving, so I stayed put. I heard her cheerful little voice greet Harry, I tried to take a peek, but I couldn't see anything from where I was sitting. Seconds later she appeared, pulling Harry behind her, an amused smile on his face. Well at least he was in a good mood, for once.
When he looked up, his gaze meeting mine, the smile disappeared. So much for his good mood.
"Well that was awkward," Odie raised her eyebrows, pushing Harry to sit down on the seat across from mine. "Sammy and Chris are taking me out shopping, so you two have fun."
"How come I wasn't invited?" I asked, avoiding making any eye contact with Harry. I suddenly felt the urge to shop.
"'Cause I still haven't gotten you a birthday present yet. And we need a cake and what not so we can celebrate with Harold," she moved her hands erratically in front of her.
"Wait, it's your birthday?" harry asked, finally speaking to me.
"Yes it is," Odie answered for me. "Wait, you didn't even tell your own boyfriend it was your birthday? What kind of relationship is this? Honestly, I can't do all the work here."
I laughed, she looked so cute when she was flustered. We said our goodbyes, the three of them leaving me alone with Harry. We were silent for a few minutes, before he finally spoke.
"Why didn't you tell me it was your birthday?" He asked.
I shrugged, "we really haven't talked much and I don't do birthdays," I answered honestly. "Plus it was on Friday, so there's that."
"Friday? And you didn't tell me?" He questioned me, again. He got up from his chair before walking over to me, sitting next to me. "But, Odette gets to throw you a party?"
I shrugged again. "She's my sister, I can't say no to her," I moved slightly away from him, still avoiding his eye contact as I played with the cross pendant that rested on my chest, a habit that I had quickly formed. My fingers grazed my locket before I also took it in my fingers. "I missed you," I admitted, trying to change the subject.
"Why didn't you call?" He asked, his voice accusing.
"Since you took forever to responded to my text and you didn't bother calling, I figured; either you were really busy, with the boys, promoting your new album," I looked up at him for the first time, his green eyes staring at me, as beautiful as ever. I literally felt my heart skip a beat. "Or you just didn't want to talk to me."
"Of course I wanted to talk to you, I just, I didn't know what to say," he spoke softly, the backs of his fingers rubbing against my cheek. I couldn't stop my eyes from fluttering the moment his skin was on mine.
I shut my eyes tight, I hated that I missed him and needed him this much. "You promised, Harry," I let out with a shaky breath. "You promised not to hurt me and to not stop fighting even when you hated me," I repeated his promise to me.
"I know," he let out in a breath. I opened my eyes, meeting his green orbs. "Just don't let me go, I'm trying."
I nodded, I didn't quite understand why he acted the way her did and I was sure he probably thought the same about me. But I still needed some answers, "I need to know why you hate Stephen so much," I spoke, leaning away from him, needing some distance to concentrate.
He sat there, watching me for a long time, debating with himself, before finally coming to a conclusion. "He used to date my sister, Gemma." His words came out slow, as if he were calculating each one, carefully. "I don't know exactly what happened between them, but she would always cry over him, they would always fight. One day, when she finally broke up with him, I found her in her room, crying hysterically. I went to her, to try to comfort her. She was covered in bruises, she never told me what happened, but she didn't have to. All the signs were there, I knew in my gut that it was Stephen who had done that to her. I wanted to go, confront him, but, Gemma begged me not to. I stayed with her for a few days, until she had healed. She didn't want to talk about it after that, so we didn't, but every time I see him out, I get angered all over again," I watched as his expression went from anger to hurt, then back to anger as he spoke of Stephen.
I couldn't believe that Stephen could be capable of anything so drastic. Or that Gemma, happy, sweet and kind, Gemma could have gone through that. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach as I imagined those blue, piercing eyes hurting someone in that way. But, it sort of made sense. He had those eyes that pulled you in, a cunning smile that could easily be masked by his kind gestures. Just like Harry.
"That night at the club," he continued. "I told him to back off, that's all I was going to do because you were there, but then he mentioned something that I'd rather not repeat and it set me off. Then the night of the party, after I had talked to Chris and John, he came in and said something similar and I don't know why I just, I believed him," his eyes avoided mine now.
I cupped his face, turning his head to force him to look at me. "I'm sorry that happened to, Gemma and that you couldn't do anything to help her," I said as I rubbed my thumbs over his cheeks. "Stephen, isn't someone you ever have to worry about where I am concerned. Even if you hadn't told me all of this, I still wouldn't have fallen for him, ever. Especially not when I have someone like you, even if you are crazy and have temper tantrums and﹘"
"Act like a "brat"?" he finished for me, with a small chuckle. At least he was admitting to it.
"Precisely," I smiled at him.
"Since we're divulging secrets, it's my turn to ask something," his hands cupped mine, kissing my palms before holding them in his lap. "Why don't you like birthday's?" He asked, the last thing I had expect to come out of his mouth.
"I just don't," I lied.
"You made a promise too, Katarina."
He was right, I had promise, not to lie to him. I couldn't hold him to all of his promised when I couldn't keep mine. I took my hands from him and took my locket off before opening it, revealing pictures of my brother and dad. "When my parents asked me what I wanted to do for my tenth birthday, I told them I wanted to go to this stupid science fair that they were going to have and it was on the way to our family's cabin, which we were headed to anyway for Thanksgiving. That's the one thing I like about, Victor, he and my dad had come to an understanding that during holiday's, my dad had every right to be as present as he pleased," I trailed off. "Anyway, we had left later than what my mom had planned, so we stopped at this small diner to have dinner since it was still a long drive to the cabin and we were all starving." I ran my fingers over the two pictures in my locket. "My mom and I had just gotten me in trouble for fighting with Theo. I had a tendency to punch him around a bit when he pissed me off," I smiled slightly at the thought. I hated Theo for so many reasons, the only true joy my step brother ever brought me, were the moment I was punching him.
"Why do you hate him so much?" Harry asked.
I looked up to meet his gaze, he seemed genuinely interested, but I couldn't tell him. "I just so, step sibling rivalry, I guess," I lied again. He knew it, but decided not to call me out on it. "Besides, you only answered one question, so I'm only answering one question," I tried to lighten the conversation, slightly.
"Fair enough," he reasoned. "Continue."
Flashback
"Kit, what's wrong?" My brother Robbie asked as he got down to my level. He was about eight years older than me, so there was a major height difference. Not to mention he took up after our dad in the height department and I took up after my mother. "Was it, Theo, again?" He questioned me again. I hadn't told him, about what Theo had done, but he had guessed right the night before.
I held my new locket that my dad had given me and the ring my brother had given me for my birthday. I debated with myself for a second, if I told him the truth, he would do something bad to Theo and he would get in trouble. I didn't want Robbie to get in trouble. Mom already tried to keep us about, this would only make things worse. But, if I didn't, Theo would just keep going and getting worse.
I nodded slightly, bowing my head, not wanting to look up at my brother. He grew angry, I didn't have to see him to know that. "I'm going to kill that little bastard!" He punched the wall of the outside of the diner we had just come out of.
"What's going on here?" My dad asked as he exited the diner. He had stayed behind to pay our bill. My mom had already left with the rest of her family, getting a head start since my little sister had been cranky and needed to sleep, which my mother had no problem blaming that on me. Like I had control over the sleeping patterns of a four year old.
My brother and dad exchanged knowing looks, both of them growing frustrated, or angry, I couldn't tell which. My dad rushed us into the car, taking off in a hurry, something he never did. He was a careful driver, it was something my mom criticized him about. All I could hear from the backseat was the two of them yelling bad words at each other, which was also wrong, my brother always said them when our parents weren't around, but my dad hated them. I was shocked that those words were coming out of his mouth, I didn't understand it.
"Papa, it's not true," I lied from the backseat, trying to get him to stop this weird behavior. "I lied, it's not true," I yelled.
"You don't have to lie, Kit," Robbie said from the passenger seat.
I took off my seat belt, sitting up closer to them, I needed to get them to stop, I was getting scared. Just as I was about to speak, my dad too a sharp turn, causing me to fly across the backseat, hitting my head on the door handle.
"Kit, are you okay?" My dad asked. "Something isn't right," he spoke to my brother. "The breaks aren't working."
"I'm, okay," I answered my dad's earlier question, wiping the blood that was now running down the side of my forehead.
"Damn it, Kit, put your fucking seat belt on," my brother yelled at me. He never yelled at me, not even when he was mad at me.
I sat back in my seat, trying to get my seat belt back on, but before I could get it over my shoulder, I felt my body fly.
When I woke up, I was on the cold, icy ground. I looked around, trying to find my dad or brother. Until I finally spotted them. My dad's car was wrapped around a large tree.
I tried to get up, but my body hurt too much, what hurt the most was the pain that was coming from my right side. When I checked; there was a very large piece of glass sticking out of my body. I yelled, it hurt so bad.
"KATARINA?" I heard my brother yell.
Robbie. Robbie was okay. I stood up, ignoring the pain in my body. My knee, my ankle, my shoulder, it all hurt, but the glass sticking out of my side hurt the worst, I couldn't move without it making the pain feel worse. I took off my beanie that was pinned down to my hair, using it to wrap it around the giant piece of glass. I took a deep breath before pulling out the glass, causing me to scream out from the pain.
"KATARINA!" Robbie yelled again with a groan.
I dropped the glass to the ground, pressing the beanie to my side to try to stop the blood before walking over to my brother on the passenger side. My body was throbbing from all the pain, but I knew I needed to get to him, he could help me.
"Kit," I heard again as I approached the car, Robbie's face was full of blood and smaller pieces of glass all over him, I couldn't tell if they were stuck inside his skin or they were just sticking to the blood. "I need you to help me get out so I can help papa," his words frightened me, he hardly ever called our dad, papa anymore.
I pulled the car door open, helping him get out. I felt most of his body weight on me as I practically carried him to the other side of the car, to the driver's seat. He left the support of my body frame, trying to pull open the car door, which wouldn't budge. After a few more attempts, we finally got it open enough to slip my dad out, the three of us falling to the ground.
I tried not to yell, but my dad's weight was on my leg. I groaned silently, whimpering slightly, trying to be brave. My dad's appearance resembled that of my brother's, only worse.
"Kit, I need you to help me get him away from the car," my brother tried to stay calm.
I nodded, pushing my dad off of me until I was free. Robbie struggled to stand on his own, but managed, I followed, each of us grabbing my dad by his arms, pulling as hard as we could. Robbie was struggling more than he should have, when I looked closely, I noticed that his shoulder had been dislocated. I tried to stifle my need to cry. If Robbie could do this while having a dislocated shoulder, I could do it with a cut and an aching body.
We finally managed to drag my dad far enough from the car before, we both gave up. Not long after that, the car started to go up in flames.
"Robbie," my dad's mangled voice resonated through my ears.
"I'm right here, papa," Robbie spoke through tears.
"You need to take care of your sister now, son." His words cut like knives, worse than the piece of glass that I had removed from my body. He held out his hand, which Robbie took and held onto until his knuckles whitened, tears flowing from his eyes like rapid waters. "I love you, so much, both of you." He said, turning to face me than back at Robbie. "I am so proud of you, I hope you know that," he coughed through his words, blood spitting out, landing on my white coat.
Robbie just nodded, holding onto his hand even tighter, even more tears flowing from his eyes.
"Katarina," my dad redirected his attention to me. His hand reached up to cup my face, weakly. "My little, Katarina," he coughed again, more blood coming from his mouth. I shut my eyes tightly, gripping his hand with both of mine. "My little princess, you have to be brave now," he smiled, blood staining his teeth and lips. "You two are the best thing that has ever happened to me. This world is a wonderful place, you just need to see things like no one else will."
My lungs stopped working, tears finally spilling from my eyes, I was unable to hold it together any further. "PAPA," I yelled, holding onto his hand tightly with one hand, nudging him with my other. "Daddy, you can't leave me," I shook my head feverishly, pounding on his chest. "Dad, daddy, please papa, I still need you." I clung to his body, my vision blurred from the tears building up at my eyes.
Through my screams and tears, I hadn't noticed, Robbie had lifted me off of our dad and had cradled me into his arms. "He's gone, baby," he tried to calm me, but it didn't work.
While he still held me in his arms, he covered our dad's still, not moving, lifeless eyes. Closing them for the last time before pressing a kiss to his forehead. He then sat me on the ground before he removed the jacket from my dad's body and ripped a large portion of his pant leg material.
"Stop it, what are you doing?" I complained, trying to stop him from hurting our dad.
"You're losing too much blood, we need to stop it before you bleed out," he explained as bandaged me up with the torn clothing, securing it with a strap he ripped from the bottom of my dress. "There, that should keep you stable enough until they come for us," he said as he draped my dad's jacket around my shoulders before cradling me against him again.
"Robbie, papa is gone, isn't he?" I asked my brother through a trembling lip.
He simply nodded, kissing the top of my head, squeezing me as much as he could. "You are going to be, the most beautiful girl on this entire planet when you get older. You are going to break hearts, and you are going to get your heart broken, too. But, you can't let that consume you, you can't let hate consume you, because hate, hate will weigh you down. Hate can kill you, if you let it. You're a happy, beautiful, kind, intelligent person, no one is worth you losing those qualities. Not even us, and especially not someone like, Theo. You never, ever stop fighting. You need to teach Odie the same, she's a little fighter just like you, you can't let her become like them or like mom. You need to show her to be happy and loving."
"No, Robbie, stop it," I begged. "You're talking like papa, you can't leave me too. You're all I have left. Please," I begged, again.
"I'm never going to leave you, I promise." He kissed my head once more as he wrapped the jacket tighter around me. "You'll never be alone, you'll have us, always," he promised. "Besides, you have loads of people who love you. Grandpa, Max, Odette, Samara, Natalie. Natalie, you need to be good to Natalie, I know she's trying and annoying, but she's your best friend," he trailed off, which confused me a little.
He reached out to touch my new locket, moving it to the side to lift up the ring that was dangling next to it. "You know why I bought this for you?" He asked. I shook my head. "I hate leaving you for so long while I'm away at school, one time you said, you felt like we weren't brother and sister anymore," I remembered the conversation well, it was the first time I had an incident with, Theo and I had felt abandoned by Robbie. "This infinity symbol was to remind you, that even though I am off at school, we will always be brother and sister. Remember that. No matter where we are, I will always be your brother, I will always protect you and I will always love you, for infinity."
End Flashback
Harry's POV
I held her close against my chest as she told me the story of the terrible car accident she was in that claimed the lives of her dad and brother. She clung to the locket as she spoke, absentmindedly fiddling with the cross pendant I had given her in her other hand.
"I ended up falling asleep after that, more like passing out. I had already bleed out too much to stay conscious. The next time I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, a cast on both legs and arms, with hypothermia, cracked ribs, bumps, scrapes, bruises, basically the whole shebang. They told me, when they found us, I was wedged between my dad and brother. Robbie had tried to keep me warm," she spoke the last words softly.
"What happened to him?" My voice cracked. I hadn't noticed that I was crying. The idea of a small, Katarina in between two dead bodies, barely alive herself, was haunting. I wiped my tears away before crushing her body closer to mine.
"He had major internal damage, so he basically bled out internally."
"I'm sorry," my voice came out, barely a whisper.
She shrugged. "My mom basically blamed me for the whole thing, I lived a long time thinking she was right, if I hadn't been upset with Theo, they wouldn't have gotten so mad and the accident would have never happened."
"You couldn't have prevented that accident," I tried to assure her.
"I know that now, but as a little girl, when your mom tells you it's your fault, you tend to believe it, I think that's what hurt the most. She hated me even more after that, if that were even possible, she wouldn't even look at me except to get me in trouble for fighting with Theo, or trying to get me to stay away from Odie," I noticed a single tear leave her right eye. I wondered if it were because of her mom's behavior, or because she was prevented from being with Odette. I knew well enough that, Odette was the only person she truly loved, she loved Chris and Samara, but, Odette's love was something she clung to, as if it were her lifeline. Now that I was hearing her story, I realized, it was her only, real connection to her family. Odette was basically all she had left, or so she thought.
"You know, oddly enough, Victor was actually kind to me. He took time off of work to take care of me. I was basically cared for by my stepdad and their maid. My mom never even took me to an appointment or to physical therapy. Which I guess, I was honestly okay with, I never really felt like she cared, so it wasn't much of a big deal."
"Does Odie know all of this?" I asked.
"No, she doesn't need to, this would be the second time I've celebrated my birthday since."
"Second? when was the first?"
"When I was seventeen, John and Chris wouldn't take no for an answer, so they had a party. They had tried the year before, but it didn't get passed the idea, I felt suffocated with just the idea of all those people people, so, instead, Chris took my to get my tattoo." Her hand went up to rest over it. "I lost a part of me that night, and I don't know, getting that tattoo kind of reminded me of that."
"What happened with Theo?" I dared to ask.
"Like I said, you only get one question answered." She propped herself up, using my chest. She wasn't crying, but she had watery eyes, which was the most I had actually seen her cry. I wondered if she really didn't cry or if she was the cry yourself to sleep type.
She wiped away the stray tear. "Let's not talk about this anymore."
"So is that a no, on getting you a gift for your birthday?" I asked, changing the subject.
"No, that was the first time that I had ever told anybody about that night, so that can count as your gift to me."
I smiled slightly at how optimistic she was, even after all she had just told me. That only made me love her more than I already did, if that was even possible. I reached my hands up to cup her face, pressing my lips against hers. "Happy birthday, Katarina," I said, almost saying I loved her instead.
"You know what we can do, though?" She asked with some cheer in her voice.
"What's that?"
"I need to go grocery shopping for you know, Thanksgiving."
I eyed her curiously, "so, you want to go grocery shopping on your birthday?" She was so odd, sometimes.
She nodded. "not exactly, I want to spend time with you, since I haven't seen you in over a week and I have to go grocery shopping. Oh, you know what you can get me for my birthday?" She became cheery as she got up.
"What's that, love."
"I want an ice cream cone while we shop and jewelry, girls love flashy jewelry," she said with a large smile. "But, I have to pick it out," she laughed as she slipped on her jacket and purse.
"Jewelry, I can do that."
I actually found it quite odd. Of course I would love to shower her in jewelry and other crazy gifts, but, her flat out asking for it, was not like her at all. Plus, I knew for a fact she hated flashy jewelry. The only jewelry she ever wore was her locket, ring, watch and now my cross. All of them were very simple, they wouldn't easily cause any attention, she only wore them because they had some type of special meaning behind them, which gave me a sting of pride that she was still wearing my necklace. But, if she wanted flashy jewelry, she was going to get flashy jewelry. Now that I think about it, I should have gotten her something when I went shopping for her the other day. That reminded me, I had her gifts in my car.