"Harry, are you alright? You are being quiet," I tell my husband who hasn't made much conversation since last night. From the lack of explanation I had received, I couldn't help but feel like something was going on with Harry.
I had never heard him sound so scared, when I had picked him up he looked like a little boy afraid of his own shadow. He was tight-lipped the entire drive despite my efforts to ask and comfort him, he was closed off. He kept his wild green eyes on the road ahead of us, not straying from the one concentrated spot.
"I'm fine just a little bit tired, work was long today," Harry tells me forking his dinner I had made before he got home. I could see the tiredness he was referring to under his eyes displayed in dark circles.
"You were up all night last night," I point out and see Harry's jade green eyes meet mine as if he is caught off guard by my statement.
Harry had barely slept a wink last night, I can still see the light coming through the crack of the door.
"Harry?" I whisper in the moonlight soaked room that was empty of his presence, I turn over and lose my voice to the grogginess. Harry's side of the bed is cold and absent without him there, I furrow my brow and turn back around to see the bathroom door cracked open.
The slightest slice of light makes a sliver of visibility inside the bathroom. My eye catches the light and blinks a few times trying to adjust to the harsh and sudden light change. With limited visibility, I search for Harry who is leaned up against the mirror. His muscles are tense while his hair falls down in front of his face, his arms leaning on the white marble countertops.
He is breathing heavily as if he had just passed the finish line of a marathon. I refrain from intruding on him but this only escalates my worry for him. It felt like these four walls were closing in on me, my cheeks burned a rosy red color while butterflies flocked in hoards in my stomach.
"Did I wake you?" He furrows his brow and a shake my head dismissing his assumption.
"No, I'm just worried about you Harry. I don't really know what is going on with you lately but you know you can tell me. I don't know how to help you if you don't tell me what is wrong," I say and see him recoil slightly. He stays silent for a few seconds before coming up with a response to satisfy the conversation.
"Everything is fine, there is nothing going on and I am sorry if I have lead you to believe anything different," He tells me but I shake my head and scoff at him frustrated and worried swirling together like a soft served ice cream cone.
"Yeah your right everything is perfectly fine, it's not like you didn't have some metal break yesterday or even that we haven't had sex in three months!" I push my chair out from under the table and stand up feeling the surge of frustration and anger. I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks, the room is more suffocating now and I can't manage to bring down my boiling blood.
"Is it because you don't love me anymore? Or that you don't find me attractive? Or maybe its because you don't trust me-"
"Of course I love you! I love you more than I can even begin to explain, you are beautiful and the fact that you are all mine overwhelms me," Harry stands up and walks to my side of the table. He hands clasps around my folded arms as I release them in defeat.
"Then what is it, Harry?" Sadness soaks into my muscles and tissues while also seeping into the anger. A dangerous combination.
I can see the hesitation in his eyes, in his body language that I read like an unwritten book. I take a deep sigh and shrug off his touch knowing that these issues were still going to remain unresolved. Harry wasn't one to deal with conflict, he avoided it like the plague and with that meant problems were swept under the rug until they just piled up.
Harry remains silent with his eyes cast down to the floor, avoiding eye contact with me. He had walls and barriers built up around him and those walls were made of steel. They were impenetrable which made everything that much more difficult to understand.
"Yeah, ha, that's what I thought," I scoff and walk up the stairs watching him while he runs his hands over his golden disheveled curls. I can see something in him was different but it was impossible to know what that thing was when he was so reluctant to open up.
My eye is trained on Harry as he rubs his face and switches the facet on to splash water against his face. He pulls down the skin of his face and cups his hands over his eyes to shield him from the reflection that was crystal clear in the mirror. Dragging his hands down his emerald eyes lazily focus on the mirror but widen at the image he was staring back at.
His expression was frozen, his muscles were stiff to the point of looking as though he were paralyzed with fear. He pants heavily causing fog to form against the glass mirror, he pulls at his hair and waterfalls from his face.
He shakes his head and whispers to himself, the words barely audible.
"No,"
"Go away,"
I strain my eyes to see what he could possibliy be talking to but I find nothing but his reflection. I am torn on whether I should intervine on Harry's stress episode. A sickness stirs and boils in the stomach watching him fear that as physically and mentally engulfed him. From an outsiders perspective, it looks as though Harry is becoming completely unhinged.
"Please just go away," he begs quietly sinking down to the floor as if he can no longer carry his own weight. I shy away from the light and lay my back against the bathroom door lightly. My fingertips claw through my hair as I look up and close my eyes trying to comprehend everything that is unfolding in front of me.
I am scared.
I can see Harry is under some sort of emotional distress but he refuses to open up about it. It's hard to know what to fix when you aren't given any knowledge as to what is broken, to begin with.
I pace around to release some of my built up tension, the moonlight pulls me to the window seat of the guest bedroom. A room what was eventually supposed to be for our baby. I didn't come in here often, I rather liked to keep the door closed because it was too distressing to think about.
This was supposed to be a nursery at some point but here we are three years into our marriage and just as I predicted, the room remained the same, much like our problems.
All this room was, was an empty reminder of an empty promise.
Harry had told me that we would start trying for a baby when the time felt right. I wasn't one hundred percent confident on what that meant but I trusted that at some point it would happen. We both wanted to be parents, at least that's what Harry had told me at the beginning, whether that was true or not I'm not sure anymore.
I'm not sure of much anymore.
I sit perched on the window seat, my knees tucked into my chest while I watch the snow liter the ground gently. Snowflakes scatter across the large canvas of the earth while I watch with aimless eyes.
My stream of thoughts is interrupted by the ringing of my phone. I let it ring for a second or two before I dig it out of my pocket to check the ID.
"Hello?" I answer erasing any previous emotion from my voice.
"Oh good, you answered!" The voice of my manager answered.
"Liam when do I not answer you? I can't even count the amount of calls I've gotten from your drunk ass on my fingers because I wouldn't have enough fingers," I crack a smile and wait for him to protest against my statement.
"It hasn't been that many times! That is an over exaggeration times ten!" Liam like I had thought before protested to my truth.
"Sure Jan," I nod rolling my eyes playfully hoping that he would get to his point of why he called me in the first place.
"Anyways, onto the reason I really called you, I just wanted to remind you how great of a manager I am. Scooter Braun has nothing on me," Liam gloats comparing himself to one of the worlds biggest managers.
"And why is that?" I follow up giggling slightly at his own over exaggerated statement.
"I just landed you an audition for a Sundance film! The exposure will be amazing if you land the part which I'm sure you nail!" Liam tells me as I get a little more excited. This was my biggest opportunity yet, if I could manage to land a part in this Sundance film maybe my career would take off.
"When is the audition?" I question Liam feeling my heart beat pick up from its once slow and melancholy beat.
"Tomorrow afternoon at two fifteen, be there or be square," Liam warns me as I lean my back against the wall of the window seat for back support. I wiggle my toes that are getting cold from touching the frosted window. "I'll text you the address and details tomorrow,"
"Alright, I will see you tomorrow right?" I ask Liam seeing as he comes to all my auditions. I didn't think tomorrow would be any different.
"You betcha!" Liam imitates a Minnesota accent that he fails at. Although I would be lying if I told you I didn't love Liam's botched accents.
"Goodnight Liam," I laugh and hear him bid me a goodnight in return. I hang up and slouch against the wall wrap my arms around myself when goosebumps trickle up my skin. Watching the snow tumble down from the sky distilled a cold feeling that required warmth.
I press my toes against the carpet and pad my feet to the bed where I bury myself in the covers. Switching off the lamp on the bedside table I roll over to the side closest to the window so I can watch the snow until I fell into a gentle and soft sleep.
I needed to sleep off all of this stuff. I needed to shift my focus to work, maybe that would take my mind off the impending issues with Harry. Then again if Harry was sick or had something going on it was my place to help him, after all, I am his wife and he was my best friend.
I didn't want anything bad to happen to him, and if he was in some sort of pain I wanted to do everything I could to relieve it. The question was, how? If he wasn't going to open up and tell me the only thing I could resort to was trial and error.
He was leaving me to my own guesswork.
If Harry wouldn't tell me what was going on eventually I would find out even though it hurt that he didn't trust me with whatever emotions he harbored.
N: hey friends! I'm not going to lie I'm really excited about this story! Not to mention I have a bomb ass playlist to go with it. If you want that maybe I'll share the wealth;) what do you guys think? Let me know!