Chapter 42
Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is war; love is growing up.
As I hear Harry turn around and walk down the driveway back to his car, I rest my back on the white door. I can't keep myself up and my legs give out, making me slide to the floor. My glee overrides the ache though, and I bite my lips to try and contain my childish grin.
Of course I'm disappointed that Harry had to leave so abruptly when he got a call from Lucas. However, he did give me a fair warning that within the next few days it's plausible he'd have to go at anytime. I just wish he could've stayed with me, just this once.
I'm soon joined in the foyer by my father who heard me come in. His dark, sleepy eyes find me on the floor and he looks at me questioningly.
"Shay," he tests the waters. "Did you just get in?"
His enquiry makes the image of a very hot and sweaty Harry above my wriggling frame come to mind. I wonder if Dad can make out the red hot blush on my cheeks, or the glow that I noticed in the mirror of the dance steaming dance room before we left. I'm suddenly very glad I kept my hair down to hide the marks and bruises Harry had left on me.
"Um, yeah," I tell him. "I did." I, swiftly as possible, rise to my feet, enduring the shaking of my legs.
Dad frowns at me. "Are you alright? You seem a bit off today."
Just to confirm his suspicion even further, I falter as I walk towards him. It enough to make me grab the table but I play it off as well as I can by leaning down and untying my trainers. I say with a forced smile, "Yeah, just...it's been a long night."
He hums, still not taking the bate and scanning over my body. "You were with Harry, I assume." I furrow my brows at his oddly correct assumption until I realise I still have Harry jacket around my figure.
I stiffly nod, gauging his reaction, which really was no big change; his eyes remained questioning. "I know what that glow is, Shay," he informs. "So, you and Harry. Yeah?"
I'm render speechless from the softness of his tone. Surely he'd be more like any other stereotypical father would be like. He'd want to rip Harry to pieces because he "ruined" his little girl. He would leave right now and go find him. But he's not. My dad is completely stagnating, like a still body of water.
I find it tricky and awkward to look at him as I hardly nod and shrug. Callous hands are placed on my shoulders and I'm gently tugged into my father's comforting chest. I take his offer and bury my head into his broad shoulder, smelling his cologne that would calm me down when I was younger. It was the kind Mum liked on him.
He lightly kissed the crown of my head. "Were you safe?"
I groan, wanting to pull away, and then chuckle, "Of course, Dad. Harry and I aren't that careless."
"You'd be astonished at the number of cases I hear of teenage pregnancies in a week's time." Dad holds me at arm's length, making sure to stare me in the eyes. "I should probably tell you something."
I glance over his contemplating features. "What is it?"
He swallows hard. "I know now...that Harry, he's not the boy I thought he was. I was wrong about him, and I'm sorry for falsely accusing him." Shit, I think. This is about what he found in the folder. "Tell him I'm sorry. And I apologize for not believing you when you said he was a fine lad. He's a good guy, Shay."
All I can do is nod, afraid that if I open my mouth some odd, choking cat noise might escape.
"The way he walked down those steps not long ago, with the look in his eyes...it was the way I looked at your mother," Dad voices.
Just the way he talks about Mum makes my bottom lip quiver and I throw my arms around his neck even tighter and squeeze him close. "I love you, Dad," I whisper in his ear.
"I love you, baby girl."
It means everything to me that Dad has finally accepted Harry and I's relationship. I'm glad we have finally buried everything in the past, and we can start moving on. Maybe we can go back to the way we were.
***
I'm anxious. I have been since Harry dropped me off at my home, but it really began to sink in as I tried to call him and I realised that his phone was in his jacket, and I had his jacket. He would've contacted me by now either by coming over to my house to retrieve his mobile, or used someone else's to call me.
I shouldn't fret though, I know he'll be fine, he always is. But I can't help it. I worry about him. I worried about Mum when she had her disease; I worry for father every day. Now Jess is added to the list that seems to never stop. But this is a different kind of worry. This is a different kind of love.
During the night at the studio I came to accept it, to fully understand my feelings. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but the pain was excruciating and, well, painful. The words were lost and replaced with odd, foreign butterflies. Why they were there, I don't know, but they wouldn't leave. Every time I move even the slightest, they're back.
I'm sore, terribly sore. Even more so than when I dance and stretch. And I thought it was bad earlier, I was wrong. It's fully set in now, and it'll stay for a while longer.
Harry understood this, he didn't like to see me in pain, and I wouldn't let him stop though he offered. I wanted it, I wanted him.
I just wish I had said those damn words.
Now it's after midday, and I fixed myself lunch as Dad was deeply asleep in his room, getting rested before his shift tonight. I left without being noticed, taking the bus over walking. I don't think my legs would be able to handle it.
I make sure the bus is gone and no one's around before I search for the spare key anywhere around the door. I know Harry or Lucas changes its location every few weeks or so, so there was no chance for anybody to find it. There was once a time where I came over and I couldn't find a key at all. I had to repeatedly bang on the wood until someone─ Lucas ─answered. The moral of the day was to always keep my phone charged.
I eventually find it in the crack between the top of the white door frame and the brick facing of the building. I hurry to unlock the knob.
It's useless to even try to see if Harry's home so I go straight to Lucas' flat and hope that Regina isn't out.
I knock three times and patiently─ as patient as possible ─for someone, anyone, to answer. It only takes a few seconds, though, until the door is hauled open and Regina with her ginger hair is standing before me.
"Hello," she says politely, but a little baffled to see me.
"Hey, do you know where Harry is?" I ask her right off the bat.
I can tell she's thrown off by my question and her lips part. "He didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Oh, shit," she stresses. "Here, come inside." Regina ushers me through the door, walking beside me and calls out, "Jess!"
I'm confused when she does this because Jess is supposed to be at university right now. She decided she needed to go back a few days ago. Naturally, everyone was apprehensive about it with not being able to know the threats of her on her own. Steven stepped up and offered to follow behind her as she went to a from the school, close enough but not to cause suspicion to anyone, and he'd be accompanying her to classes as a "new" student, when really the dean of the school knows he's not. Lucas said he had connections all over London, to which I wasn't surprised to hear.
So if Jess is here, is Steven too, or is he with Harry?
Sure enough, Jess yells from the kitchen that she's on her way, and soon comes out with a glass of water held in her hand; her limp is no longer obvious. She's not very shocked to see me, probably because she heard me come in.
"Hey, Babe!" She greets, giving me an one arm hug.
"Hi," I reply. "I thought you were supposed to be in Uni?" I say as more of a question.
"Oh, I was, but my lit class ended early and it's my lunch right now. I don't have to go back for another hour," she says. She must've noticed my frantic, probing eyes because she asks, "What are you doing here, Shay?"
"I don't know where Harry is, or why he hasn't called me. He should be back by now unless─ okay, what's going on?" I ask sharply as Jess and Regina look back and forth between each other. "Did something happen?"
"Listen," Regina speaks, "I just found out this morning, and I only told Jess because she showed up here. I was going to call, I really was, but you came here and knew nothing. I would've thought Harry had told you already, but apparently not," she shrugs apologetically.
"Harry didn't know what he was going in for this morning. Lucas just said it was urgent."
Jess sits down on the couch, patting the spot next to her in offering and I gratefully take it, my legs are still weak. "That's very likely."
"So what happened?"
Regina opened her mouth but was interrupted by the front door slamming shut. "They're up north."
We all face Steven as he then looks up from his phone. I still, unable to process what he said. But it only took seconds for me to gather the pieces in my mind with help from Steven's look and the girls glare at him.
I have to hold back a choke. "Sorry? Did I hear you right?" I imagine my eyes are as wide as soup bowls right now. "Who's up north?"
They don't answer, though. They don't need to.
So that's why Harry had to leave so early. Lucas called him because they found Evan and his crew and they needed to depart as soon as possible. Harry didn't know, and when he was told, he didn't have his phone so he was unable to call me.
I'm slightly relieved, but only to add even more apprehensiveness to everything. Maybe all this will end, and Evan will go down once and for all. But who will go down with him?
Life is a tricky game, and in the line of work Harry is in makes it even harder to play. Everything can change within a few seconds and I'm not ready to accept that. I just gave myself to him, and he's done the same for me. Our story is just starting and now it's able to end just as quick.
Our worlds have collided with no chance of separating ever again.
And as the sun bleeds through the gloomy cloud and the thin curtains of the room, I think, oh, what I'd give to hear his beating heart under my palm again.
"Shay?" Jess hugs my shoulders. I realise I haven't been responsive the past minute or so. She quietly asks if we can have a few moments alone, and Steven nods, leading Regina into the hallway and into a different room. "What's wrong?"
"Everything," I dryly sob. My walls and buriers come crashing down as I rest my head into the crook of Jess' neck. "I-I can't...lose him, Jess. I love him."
I said it. Finally I said it out loud and the person it's directed towards is nowhere close.
"Oh, Shay," she cooed, cuddling me closer.
"And now there's a chance he'll never come back," I croak. "I," I snivel, "I gave myself to him, and there's a chance of him not coming back."
Harry's become such a huge part of me and my life; I'd be nothing without him now.
"Hey!" Jess sits up straighter, bring me along with her. She makes me look at her, grip my arms and shakes me lightly. "You know that's not true. It's great that you love him and I'm so happy for you, but now you need to have faith in Harry. He'll come back, he always does."
I want to believe her words, I really do, and if it were any other situation I probably would. But right now, I can't. I nod anyways.
Please, God, bring him home, bring him to me, safe.
+++++
So I lied when I said I'd update tomorrow, APRIL FOOLS! (lol I didn't plan this, don't mind me)
But I got hella sad writing this. And no Harry......... :((((((((
PLEASE vote and comment if you didn't expect this update :) ANY PREDICTIONS?
AND GUYS THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ANYONE WHO VOTED FOR TOXIC! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH :D I actually won Judges Choice Best Dark! I'm so happy
-A xxx