TOSSING AND TURNING. I just kept tossing and turning, desperately trying to find sleep, desperately trying to find peace. Sadly, I wasn't so lucky. Instead, I moved around in the bed, sometimes half of my body laid on top of Harry's, sometimes I wrapped my arms only around one of his arms and sometimes I laid with my back to him. Every time, Harry adapted his position to mine, his arms circling my body as I laid on him or he moved to his side and spoon me from behind. Either way, it was clear that Harry was having trouble sleeping just like me.
"Are you still mad at me?" I gathered the courage to ask after moving around in the bed.
Harry sighed loudly, before taking in a deep breath and tightening his arms around my body. I couldn't see his face as my back was pressed against his front. Yet, I could tell exactly what he was thinking by the way his body tensed.
"I'm not mad at you," he replied through a whisper before kissing my temple.
I scoffed and turned around to see just how truthful he was being. The weird thing was that once I turned around, I saw that I had been wrong. He seemed troubled, but he actually wasn't mad at me. It was in the way he looked at me, in the way his hand rested on my hips, there wasn't anger behind any of these gestures. Just love. He wasn't mad at me at all. He was hanging on to me, trying to find reassurance in me. That was why he followed my movements in the bed, he needed to engulf me in his arms, he needed me to be close.
As I faced him, I rested my hands against his chest and kissed his chin, hoping that this small gesture would bring him some of the reassurance he needed. I wanted him to know that I was there for him.
I was so proud of him for reacting so calmly. Only a few weeks ago he would've run and I wouldn't have heard about him until a few days later as he would knock at my door, high. But he was still here and instead of running away from me, he held on to me. It just showed how much he had grown, or just how much he cared about me.
"What's on your mind, then?"
He sighed and held me tighter. "A lot," he replied vaguely and I hid my face in his neck.
"Will you ever talk about it?" I asked with a low voice, my apprehension in asking that question coming through.
There was a long silence and I didn't dare to move. Harry was probably trying to figure out a way to turn me down nicely, without starting a fight.
His fingers played along my spine as a heavy silence fell between the two of us. I knew that Harry hadn't fallen asleep from the way he breathed and the way he held onto me. So I waited, knowing that eventually he would speak and explain to me how he wasn't ready to talk about it. I didn't want to rush him. I had learned from countless experience that it would lead us nowhere.
"Can I ask you something?" he mumbled as he turned his head and kiss the top of my head.
"Of course, anything, always," I replied turning my head ever so slightly so that my lips could reach just under his jaw. I felt him swallow against my lips and hung on to him a little tighter.
"Do you feel like-" he took in a deep breath, as to clear his thoughts. "-like love makes us both weak and strong?"
Although I didn't understand why he was asking this now, I knew exactly what he meant when he said that love made us both weak and strong.
I remember how weak I felt a few weeks ago when he had hurt me more than I thought I could handle. Harry had complete control over me, no matter how hard I tried to resist him, I ended up forgiving him, I ended up pulling him up to my apartment after kissing in the rain even when I could hear voices yelling "no!" loud and clear, I just loved him so much that I was too weak to quit and move on.
But today, things were different, my love for Harry made me feel strong, like I could overcome anything as long as I knew that Harry was by my side. His love made me strong, my love for him made me strong, he made me strong.
I loved him the same at both times, although the intensity of that feeling had grown with time, and yet the strength and weakness that came with it were so hard to understand, especially when they were mixed together. But that was the beauty of love.
I nodded. "I do. The way love you, Harry, you make me feel both weak and strong."
He moved beside me so that he wasn't holding me with his head resting on the top of mine. Instead, he lowered his body so that our eyes would be level. One of his hand came to caress my cheek lovingly as his eyes starred into mine.
"I love you Em, I love you so much it hurts," he whispered before leaning in and pressing his lips against mine softly, taking his time before pulling away. "But the thing is that... part of me wants to share everything with you, but another part of me is so scared to try. You make me feel strong, but telling you everything, it'd be like making myself vulnerable. You're the only one that can hurt me, you did a couple times before and the way I felt then, I don't ever want to feel like that again."
I frowned. "When did I hurt you?"
He smiled sadly. "When you didn't to open the door, although it was all my fault, it hurt me. When you left a message on my phone that you were giving up. It just made my whole world shatter, and I don't ever want to feel like that again. I feel like telling you everything would just give you everything you'd ever need to hurt me for good. That's what I mean when I say that love makes me weak. I trust you, I want to share everything with you, but I just... I'm scared, Em."
"You don't have to be scared with me, Harry. I'd never hurt you intentionally, I love you too much for that," I said before kissing him back. "The only thing that I want is for you to be happy. I just want to help."
The sad smile on his lips faded softly as his eyes stared at me lovingly. "I know you do," he admitted before turning his head to the side and intensifying the kiss. He rolled us over so that he was on top of me and lowered his body to kiss me down my neck and along my shoulders.
Clearly he was trying to distract me so that we could move on from that subject, but I just couldn't let him, I had to be strong. We had to stop putting that issue aside and I was done. We had to face it, so I came up with an idea.
"I have a deal for you," I said, my breathing uneven as his lips still trailed along my skin. His movement slowed and he lifted his head to look at me, curious to see what I was about to suggest. "You give me tonight, we talk about it and then if you don't want to talk about it ever again, I'll accept that."
The suggestion was risky, especially considering how affected Harry was whenever I simply mentioned his family. Now I was asking him to lay it all out and he didn't like it. His whole body had tensed on top of mine and his head shot up in my direction to look at me directly.
"And if I don't take the deal?" He challenged with a frown up on his eyebrows.
I closed my eyes and looked away. "Then I don't know how long we'll last," I admitted.
I didn't want us to end, I didn't want to hurt him, but this problem just kept coming back and putting a wedge between us. We just couldn't keep going around, we needed to move forward and I knew for a fact that simply talking about it would make a big difference for the both of us. It seemed like such a simple solution, but when it came to Harry, it was never that simple.
"You should trust me, Harry."
He let out a long breath, let his head fall on my chest and wrapped his arms around me. "I do, Em," he whispered, kissing the top of my breast softly.
"Then open up to me," I pleaded.
And I waited. Waited for him to talk. Instead, I was greeted by silence, the only sound that could be hear was our breathing. We moved together, breathing in sync and after a few minutes, I realized that Harry was stuck, unable to tell the story I so badly wanted to know. So I decided to share as well.
"I'll go first," I said and Harry looked up.
I knew I had his attention as he moved next to me and laid on his side. I mirrored his position, ready to tell my part of the story.
"You already know that Gemma told me at my parents' Sunday brunch, but I didn't tell you how it happened. Do you want to know?" He nodded, very subtly, but he nodded. So I took in a deep breath and started my part of the story, deciding to add a little humour to it to ease the tension between us. "Well, it started like a typical morning in my house. You know how my mom and dad are, mom couldn't stop speaking and dad couldn't stop reading his journal, although he's made the move with the tablet."
My technique seemed to work as the stiffness in Harry's shoulder soften and he laughed softly. I knew that he could remember those mornings at my house. Just like I felt when I was at his place, Harry was welcomed with arms wide open by my parents, they adored him, almost as much as I adored him.
"I didn't really know who was coming so I asked, and they said that it was going to be George, Lauren, Tom-"
"Tom?" Harry asked with his eyes wide but a smirk on his lips. "That little s.hit used to give you hell when you were younger," he reminisced with a short laugh.
I smiled and scouted a little closer to Harry. Suddenly the gulf between us didn't seem so deep. He was playing my game. "That's exactly what I told my parents."
"Is he still a little s.hit?" He asked, humour in his voice.
I shook my head and put my hands against his chest. "Don't call him that," I scolded him and he rolled his eyes. He didn't know everything yet.
"Fine. How is he doing?"
"That's where my story was heading," I said my humour dissipating, due to the stress I felt about revealing the next information. "They said that it was going to be George, Lauren, Tom and-and his... fiancé. Which ended up being Gemma."
"Fiancé?" Harry let out all choked up and his eyes slowly watered up.
He gulped down, swallowing his emotions and closing his eyes. He was having the complete opposite reaction than I expected. I thought he'd burst out, simply because whenever we talked about his family that was his natural reaction. But now? He seemed sad and disappointed, as if he regretted missing that part of his sister's life. I knew for a fact that leaving his sister behind was one of his biggest regret in this whole situation.
I bit my lower lip and reached for his face, cradling it between my palms. "Do you want me to stop?" I asked worriedly.
He shook his head and silently pleaded me to keep going, curiosity taking over. So I told him every little detail, told him how nervous she acted, how she kept fiddling with her fingers, everything. Because I felt like this was what Harry wanted to know, he wanted to know about his sister, what she had become, what she was like now.
The story flowed until I reached the point of her telling me about the wedding invitation. I stopped right before that point, taking the time to breathe in deeply before getting right into it.
"So she timidly followed me into the kitchen and I could tell she wanted to tell me something. So I told her to just spit it out and she just... she asked me to invite you to her wedding," I paused and observed Harry's reaction. His eyes widened for a second, surprised by the invitation I guessed, but he still waited for me to finish, so I did. "From that point she started to ramble, saying that she probably shouldn't ask me but I was her only point of contact since you'd learned about the adoption. She just blurted it out, probably thought that you had already told me."
Harry's first reaction was to let out a long sigh, then he rolled onto his back and covered his eyes before grunting in frustration. There had to be a lot going on in his head. Trying to keep his cool, his annoyance with his sister for telling me so openly, his disappointment and sadness for missing such a big part of his sister's life.
"She invited me to her wedding?" He asked with a small voice.
"Yes."
He nodded, although he didn't look at me, and I stayed on my side, watching him, waiting for a reaction. It took him a minute or two before he made any kind of movement. His arms slowly slipped away from his face but his eyes were still closed. And then he took in a deep breath.
"Well, I guess now it's my turn."
He was taking the deal.
.
.
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They are finally talking about it ! Can you believe it ???!!?!?11?6?!!!?
Although it seems like not much happened in this chapter, it does change a lot for the chapters to come :)
I'm sorry it took so long for an update, but I hope you still liked that chapter ! If you did, please don't forget to vote and comment :)
Also ! I have been nominated a few times for in this contest :
https://www.wattpad.com/195498018-the-fanfiction-awards-2016-nominations-are-open (external link)
if you'd be ever so kind to nominate me that would be great <3 just select the categories that you think applies :) THANK YOU
p.s.: Who likes Pillow Talk ? I have to admit that I do.
All the love,
Karry xx.