[harry's pov]
A smile spread on my lips at her short rapid response, as I had just stepped off the bus and read her text. I would get a chance to read her thoughts? She would actually let me? Was she starting to trust me then? My heart felt awfully warm, though it was minus degrees. The wind tore wildly in my hair and I could already feel the stinging in my cheeks. Even my lips hurt when smiling because of that damn coldness as if it was a Siberian winter. But I couldn't stop beaming widely and feel like laughing every damn second.
Insanity. That was what this was.
The street was dark and only the street lamps illuminated the one thousand crystals, which glittered in the frost on the pavement. It was like a beauty beyond reach - untouchable - and I knew from experience, that trying to pick up the beautiful frost crystals was impossible. How many times as a little kid had I not been disappointed to see how the beauty died at my warm curious touch?
But right now I was just appreciating the beauty - as I had done too as a kid. I was in awe and couldn't stop comparing them to her, though she didn't disappear under my touch. On the other hand her cheeks would burn, her eyes, those green blue eyes would grow so alive if I let my warm fingers run over her soft warm skin. It was amazing to see the reaction a simply touch could withdraw from her.
I quickened my pace with my hand fisted tightly around the phone, which was now like a key to her thoughts.
While others hurried through the streets hiding away in their nests of scarves and warm clothing - only occasionally with narrowed eyes skimming out at the road before them, I walked with that stupid smile plastered on my lips. Out in the open with flushed cheeks and wild impossible hair and my every thought with her.
What had she written in the journal? In my journal?
[amber's pov]
With my eyes on the bottom of the coffee cup, while wondering when Harry would turn up, I sat very still listening to the sounds in the coffee shop. How the coffee machine softly hummed once in awhile, how light chatter was heard in the other corner from three young people. How I could hear my co-worker put away some glasses.
And then that sound came which I had waited for; the door opening. With an ocean of cold air streaming in over the coffee shop and me too - sitting here in a navy striped shirt and blue jeans. My head snapped up at the sound. The last time the door had opened I had been so sure it had been him - but it had been some stressed woman coming in to get a late take away latte.
With new hope in my heart I held my breath and let my gaze flicker to that very spot at the door.
And just as I had imagined his hair was wild from the wind, his cheeks glowing, his eyes piercing green while searching the small room. He had a hectic red color on his neck too and I could see his one hand on the door handle was slightly red from the cold even. My heart stopped for a second, as he stood there looking over the room.
As his eyes finally settled on me after the almost wild, frantical search of the place - his pink lips parted and showed off the perfect row of white teeth, which formed into an unbeatable smile. So warm and sudden it matched the color of his cheeks, which witnessed of how the blood was rushing through his system.
To my surprise he was wearing a scarf today, though it wasn't really tied very tightly - merely casually flung around his neck a couple of times. As he started crossing over to me he started taking it off like some damn runway model.
I slowly came to life strangely stunned with his sudden appearance and the following beauty. He seemed so alive with those still burning red cheeks and wide grin. Eyes pearly green.
As he stopped behind the chair on the opposite side of my table I sent him a wide grin - expecting him to pull out the chair or maybe take of the jacket. Instead he just reach across the table and focused on a strand of my hair - putting it behind my ear softly to my surprise. I held my breath while letting him do what he did. His eyes moved to mine, as he let his icy cold fingers run down the side of my face casually. Just as if to make sure I was really there. Though the icy touch left a trail of hot flames behind.
"Hey there red cheeks," I watched how he grinned wider at my greeting, while he threw the scarf over the back of the chair.
"It's quite beautiful though - bloody cold and windy but beautiful!" He started to open his jacket and I noticed he was wearing a blue flannel, which hung open to reveal a white t-shirt underneath. He let a hand through his chaotic most perfectly messy hair.
"You want something warm to drink? Hot chocolate maybe?" I flashed him a crooked smile at the memory of his choice at Dunkin' Donuts. How he had used the exactly right name for it - instead of just saying 'hot choco' or something more causual. He narrowed his eyes at me in amusement, while hanging the jacket over the back of the chair aswell.
Tilting his head a little he looked down at me while rolling up the sleeves to his elbows; showing off his strong tanned arms with the small seeming randomly placed tattoos. "Hot chocolate is not to be underestimated. Do you want a refill?" He motioned to the empty cup in my hands. I nodded and started to get out of my seat, while saying, "so what - you don't like coffee or?"
Before I had gotten up he snatched the mug from me, "I can get it - it's fine! Ehm and well I mean I don't really prefer coffee as a standard drink for pleasurement. But I do drink it occasionally for the coffein. Or well at least because I believe it'll help me wake up - it's probably more of a psychological factor doing the trick really."
His big hands held around the mug - compared to my tiny hands his could almost cover the entire cup just standing with it like that. His voice did strange things to me - and the worry and guilt was practically forgotten - deleted and sent to an entirely other part of the planet, as I watched his kind eyes.
Shortly after he was settled beside me on the couch - to my secret joy he had chosen that seat instead of the chair. With the sweet hot choco already half empty and the cookie he had bought long gone. I held around my mug letting the warm liquid heat my still cold fingers through the porcelain, but I barely noticed as I watched him with a smile - listening intensely to his telling. I was even forgetting to drink my damn coffee - and I usually never did that.
I couldn't remember how we had ended at the topic we were at now, as the conversation was just floating so naturally. Twisting in different ways and through new interesting topics, as if we were exploring new terrain of some beautiful lonely island.
The journal was still on the seat - though laying in between my leg and the wall. I was still sitting cross legged facing Harry, while he had to turn his head in order to look at me, because of the way he sat. His legs were far too long for him to seat in the same way as me. Though we still sat close enough for my knee to touch him lightly - the connection seemed to be of unspoken importance.
"So actually koalas are practically high all their lives because of the leaves they eat!" His eyes glittered with amusement, as he lifted the cup to his lips and took another sip ending his little speech. He was an amazing teller.
"Seriously? Oh man. They always look so damn calm too don't they? - one should be a koala. Holy shit just imagine! High your entire life - and vegetarian! No wonder they're so chill looking," I managed to say in between chuckles, as I watched Harry imitate a cross eyed koala eating leaves - and smoking too apparently.
"Okay but on the more serious topic - have you ever... you know?" I tried sounding serious but it was far from impossible, when Harry kept pretending to chew eucalyptus leaves like a cute hipster koala.
"Ever tried what? Being a vegetarian? Not really no. I'm more of a meat person - though I really do like fruit and vegetables. And hot chocolate." Harry teased me making me roll my eyes at him. A chuckle escaped his lips as he lifted the cup to drink the last of his 'hot chocolate'.
"Have I mentioned you're crazy?"
"Only a few hundred times babe," Harry beamed back at me with a light tone. The word 'babe' had my stomach and heart doing flick flacks and flip flops, which would outshine those pro olympic springboard divers.
"But we're all a little crazy here," he smiled more softly at me and continued, "but every tried being high you mean? Well ehm - once actually yes. To be brutally honest."
I almost choked on my hot coffee, which I had finally remembered had to be finished at some point.
"Seriously!? You?" I could not imagine Harry 'Harvard-dropout' Styles with his wide knowledge and those dimples ever having tried being high. I had sure as hell never tried - and didn't want to either! A guy in my high school got one of those side effect seizures only after his second try. He had been away from school half a year to recover.
"Yeah," Harry lowered his gaze to his hands, "not my proudest moment for sure."
"It's okay. We all got those moments in our lives," I waited giving him space to tell more if he wanted to. I watched as he took a deep inhale and sent me a crooked smile with a hint of the sadness from the past.
"It was in Manhattan. The time I met Jenny actually! I was 17 I think? Anyway my dad had brought me along to this big event for his work. It was kind of a family included big deal - this fancy weekend with like different happenings and this major dinner at the hotel, which everyone was staying at. Anyway of course I hadn't really wanted to go at that point. I had gotten seriously tired of just being his puppet all the damn time. So when he told me I had no choice but to come with him - and his new blonde model girlfriend acting like my fucking mother - I promised myself to make him pay. And yeah well that ended pretty badly. It's a long story. Anyway I ended up being escorted out off the Plaza hotel by two bodyguards after having trashed two out of ten dinner tables like half an hour before that big dinner event was supposed to start serving welcome drinks. My plan was to arrive at middle of the event - but it's very hard keeping track of time when you're high actually." Harry kept studying his hands, as he kept his voice leveled and calm, though trying to add some humour and lightness to it with his last note.
On the other hand I sat there and had completely and utterly forgotten about my coffee as I just stared at the boy in front of me - jaw dropped to somewhere near the floor. And my heart in my throat.
"Luckily for my father only very few of the important guests saw my 'rebellious act of craziness'. But I think half of the hotel still heard what I was screaming and yelling about," he started spinning the ring on his finger. He stopped for a moment and his eyes moved to mine, "my father didn't speak to me for two months after that. He just pretended as if nothing had happened. Like he didn't even send me on some damn course for teen addicts or something - not that I am, hell it was my first and only time - but like he didn't know that. He seriously believed I had an addiction. Prick. But you know why he didn't send me off to something like that? Why he didn't at least offer me help, while thinking I needed it?"
Harry's eyes suddenly on fire. The red color which had slowly fainted from his cheeks were blushing again. This time ignited by anger of the memory. I was breathless and speechless over the intensity of his words.
"He didn't do it because he feared the press might catch sense of it - he couldn't have his reputation smothered like that. 'Son in treatment for drug abuse' that wouldn't really be the most pleasing headline right? So he just dimmed the event. Pretended it hadn't happened. That I had been been delirious or some fucking spinned crap like that."
With each word he spoke from his perfect lips - with each word a little piece of my heart was broken off for the boy with the green and sorrowful eyes. Suddenly I saw him as I had seen him in the bus - and in his room. With a dark cloud of troubles and parental betrayal hanging over him. And the only thing I could think of was - how he had been the one, who had managed to built up a new beautiful world all on his own. And how there was still so much I didn't know about him.
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a/n:
1. sidebar; harryyyyy.
2. 950+ votes on last chapter - i can't really understand it fully. just. thank you from the bottom of my heart, which by far has drowned in tears of gratefulness???! AH
3. midnight memories music video >> sidebar = *cry cry cry*
4. imma start posting some more harry gifs with this story. fact.