Chapter Three:
I woke up and repeated my daily morning routine. When I returned to my bedroom to get dressed, I decided to look nice today. I slipped into my school uniform and then sat in front of my vanity. I did my basic retro cat eye and then moved on to my hair. I decided to put it into a poofed ponytail and let my bangs hang down on the side. When I was satisfied, I went downstairs and left for school.
I was dreading going to Anatomy. I knew I had hurt Harry by completely ignoring him. I entered the classroom and was a little relieved that he wasn't there. I sat down in my seat and started to look into my anatomy textbook. Chapter seven: The Nervous System, I read. I took my notebook out and started taking notes throughout the chapter.
As I tried to focus on taking notes, I couldn't help but think about last night. My thoughts always ran back to his face when I left him. The look of confusion and hurt on his face made my stomach twist with guilt. I knew exactly how he felt, and I did it to him. With that thought, my mind went back to the night things went wrong. Stop it, B. Just accepted it happened and move on.
Three minutes before the bell rang, it was time to face him. Harry walked in and sat down next to me. He didn't even look at me. I stared into my book feeling like the biggest bitch alive. Thankfully Professor Jergins started his lecture. I hoped it would distract me from Harry just a little bit, but it didn't.
Ten minutes into the lecture is when I finally gave in. I flipped to a blank sheet and started to write him a note.
I'm sorry about last night.
He looked at the paper with a reluctant sigh and then scribbled something back.
You could have at least texted me back or something.
I looked at him and saw he was being dead serious. He didn't smile or do anything like he did yesterday or last night. He just pointed at the paper, indicating he wanted me to write back. I thought about what I was going to say. I could have told him a white lie, saying that I didn't get it until this morning, or tell him the truth, that I wasn't interested in him that way.
I know, and I should've. It wasn't anything you did Harry, it was me. I'm not interested in getting in a relationship or anything like that right now. Plus, I still don't know you that well. I've only known you for two days.
He read the paper over and over again and then took a while to write out what he was thinking. I watched him write with such grace, in fact everything about him was graceful. He passed the paper back to me while looking at me in the eye, staring me down. When I took the paper, he looked back at Professor Jergins to listen to the essay.
You could have just said that. You didn't need to practically disappear afterwards. I would understand. I'm not like other guys Bethany. I actually respect women and their feelings. All you had to say was "I think we should just be friends."
I looked at him, he was still concentrating on the lecture. I tapped his ankle with my foot to get his attention. He looked at me and I mouthed "I'm sorry". The stare that he gave me was only seconds, but felt like a lifetime. For a second I saw the Harry that had glared at me two days ago. For a second, I was afraid. I was afraid of losing the friend I had gained for good.
Finally he mouthed back two words:
It's okay.
As I sat in Art class, I thought about what I should draw for my homework. We were assigned to draw something that symbolized something. I had no clue what to draw. I decided to play some music to see if I could channel something. I listened to Mary Elise gab with another girl across the table as I put my iPhone on shuffle. I took out my sketchbook and graphite pencils and listened to the lyrics.
Dead stars shine, Light up the sky, I'm all out of breath, My walls are closing in.
I started to draw a girl in sitting on the ground with her face in her hands. I added bruises all along her legs and arms and then shaded around her arms. I then drew wings curved around her body, as if to protect herself. I made her hair cling to her shoulders like it was raining and then made her wings look like they were damp.
When I finished the picture, I looked good and long at it. I had drawn a fallen angel in the rain. I knew exactly what I had symbolized.
"That looks really good, Bethany!" Mary Elise said looking over. "I never knew you drew, let alone were this talented."
I smiled, replied with a "Thank you", and then showed the picture to my professor. She gave me an A for the picture and then I started to review my Literature.
When I got home I texted Harry. I asked him if he wanted to come over and do homework together.
Sure, when?
I texted him back saying he could be over right now if he wanted. He replied with a "On my way". I spent the next half hour cleaning the living room and making sure my room was cleaned too, in case my dad kicked us out.
I was setting my homework folder on the coffee table when I heard a knock on the door. I looked through the bay windows into the driveway and saw Harry's Hyundai in my driveway. I made my way over to the front door and straightened myself up while I was at it. My hair and face still looked decent.
I opened the door and said hello. I couldn't help but think about how sexy he looked. His dark curly hair was perfectly messy, like he had combed his hand through it. His eyes looked like a beautiful, calm ocean. They looked at me with happiness and dismay, obviously he was still hurt. He looked incredibly sexy and pale in his dark, snow covered trench coat, like a model almost. I invited him into my house and took his snowy coat for him. He thanked me and then walked with me into the living room.
We sat down on the floor together and started to work on our Anatomy assignment, which was to do all the section review questions. It wouldn't take too long, but I needed help in other classes too, like Calculus. Hopefully Harry was good at math.
It took a good two hours to get Anatomy done because we kept talking. I found out more about him, like he was into weightlifting and probably loved music more than I did. He liked to write his own songs occasionally. I kind of felt bad that he was so open with himself towards me and then there's me: hardly talking about myself because of the walls I put up. Oh well, it's not like this is going to go any further than being friends anytime soon.
"Finally," he sighed when we finished all the section review. He leaned against the tan suede couch and smiled. He had a smile that could light up this whole world. I couldn't help but draw my attention to his sharp teeth again. I had never seen someone with teeth that sharp before.
Harry Styles, even his name was intriguing. He wasn't what I had expected in a person. When I first met him, I thought that he was just going to be a jerk to me and then hurt me in the end. Turns out that he wasn't like that. Even though I had only met him two days ago, I felt like I had known him forever. Like he was the one friend I was looking for, someone I could trust. I'm not sure what made Lydia, Mary Elise, and Charlene think he was a backstabber. He hadn't shown any signs of that to me at least not yet.
I took a risky chance with this boy by making this decision.
"Can you keep a secret Harry?" I asked sitting on the couch. He nodded and followed my movement.
"The reason why I didn't kiss you last night is because I was scared that you were going to ignore me afterwards. I don't want to go into all the details about what happened, but something happened and it was someone that I really cared about that did it."
"Well can you tell me a little bit? If not, I understand," he said propping his arm up on the couch cushion. He genuinely looked like he was concerned about what happened.
"I don't want to go entirely into it, but it lead up to me doing the drugs that landed me here. I was with someone that was very important to me and he back stabbed me in the worst way possible," I said softly. I started to get teary eyed at the memories came flooding back. Good god, B. You haven't cried over this in two weeks. Buck up, I thought. I bent down to get my Calc homework so I could wipe away the baby tears without him looking. I felt him place his hand on my back in a reassuring way.
"It's okay to cry you know?" his voice said. I came back up and set my homework in my lap. I smiled at him and started to feel the tears come back.
"I hardly cry, Harry," I replied. He turned to the end table on his side and pulled a tissue out of the tissue box. He handed it to me and I accepted it. I half laughed as I thanked him and dabbed the tears away.
"You've been holding this in for a while haven't you?" he asked sympathetically. I nodded and set the crumpled tissue on the end table next to me. I took a big breath and opened my Calculus folder.
"What's that?" he asked as he slid closer towards me. I felt his body close to mine, but hardly any body heat came off him. I looked at him and told him it was Calculus.
"Can you help me with it? Some of the questions are confusing."
He nodded and drew his attention to the paper in the folder again. He took it out of the folder and began to study the questions. How could someone not give off body heat? My mind kept reeling around that question while he studied my worksheet. After a few moments he asked if he could see my textbook. I nodded and told him it was in my backpack. I bent over again to pull my textbook out. As I lifted the book out, I accidentally took my sketchbook with me.
The sketchbook was still opened to my fallen angel picture that I drew in art. I set my textbook down on my lap and set my sketchbook on the table, angel side down. I opened the textbook to the page that explained what we were doing and let him read.
I got up to get a glass of water as he read and something to snack on. I looked in the fridge and decided to eat a few strawberries. I sat in the kitchen thinking about how I had just opened up to Harry the way I did. Even before the incident happened, I had a tough time opening up to people. Did I make a good decision telling him just even a fraction of what happened? I shook it out of my mind, washed down my strawberries with the water and went back into the living room.
Harry had already returned his attention to the worksheet and was working on finishing one of the questions. He was chewing on the end of his pencil as he concentrated on my homework. His brows knitted together as he reread the question over again. I sat down next to him and asked if he understood it.
He seemed to understand most of the questions, just the one he was staring at he didn't understand. After a few moments, he gave up and helped me finish the other questions. I moved closer to him to look at the textbook on his lap. Again, his almost no projection of body heat freaked me out a bit, but I ignored it.
As I listened to his voice explain how to finish the problems, I thought about how close we were to each other. His arm and my arm were almost touching. I felt the soft cotton of his shirt brush up against my bare arm. Being this close to him, I got a better view of his tattoo. Things I Can was inked into his pale skin. I watched his hand move across the paper as he explained the problems to me. He had numerous tattoos on his left arm. I Can't Change was written on his wrist.
As he helped me finish the last problem, I thought about him again. How unique he was. He wasn't like any other guy I had ever met. He was just different. He wasn't afraid to show some of his sensitive side. He wore his heart on his sleeve and treated a woman with respect. I still don't understand how Lydia, Mary Elise and Charlene could think of him as a backstabber or why he glared at me the first day.
"Harry?" I asked as I wrote on the worksheet.
"Yes?" he responded.
"Why did you glare at me when I walked into class on my first day?"
"What do you mean?" he asked. "No, X is the numerator"
"Ok, and when I walked into class two days ago you were glaring at me."
He didn't say anything as I finished the problem. I set the pencil down on the coffee table along with the folder. His attention was drawn to my fallen angel picture and he started to lean towards it. He picked up the picture and looked at it for a while, examining it. I leaned back into the couch and watched him run his fingers along the angel's wings.
"You drew this?" he asked in awe.
"Yes. Today in art actually," I replied. He told me he couldn't believe that someone had drawn the picture. In his eyes it was the best thing he had ever seen. I thanked him and then took the sketchbook from him. I closed it and placed it back in my backpack.
I leaned back into the couch and used the remote to turn the television on. We switched it to a channel we both liked and watched it together. I sat on the couch with my arms and legs crossed, trying to keep my body to myself as much as possible. Harry was sitting like a guy would on a couch, arms outstretched and relaxed on the back of the couch and his legs crossed comfortably.
"Did the angel symbolize you?" he asked after some time had passed. I looked at him and nodded. I looked at him and thought about what I would say next if he asked anything about what happened that night. He didn't ask anything else. Instead he looked at me with sympathy.
It was a strange feeling, being sympathized. I grew up being the brave one and the tough one in the family. Daddy always made his little girl be tough and their divorce sealed the deal. I remembered when I was six laying in my bed, crying because I felt like their divorce was my fault. That was the second to last time I had cried before today. That night as I laid in bed, I promised myself I wouldn't cry or be weak to anyone. Now, eleven years later, I had shown Harry my vulnerable side.
As Harry looked at me with sympathy, I felt like I should have crawled up next to him and lay my head on his shoulder. I hadn't felt this feeling in a long time. Shit, B. You're falling for him, I thought to myself. The scary thing was, I was almost positive Harry had some kind of feelings for me too. This could be real. He started to lean in again, like he did last night. I thought about it and then made the decision that changed my life forever.
I let him kiss me.