January
Saturday night, Isabel and her housemates had decided to have a girls' night in rather than go out – a rarity, and one that Isabel had to cherish because she was normally made to go out both nights of the weekend.
They ordered in a takeaway, got The Notebook up on her laptop and all squeezed into Scarlett's bed in their pyjamas. Of course, rather paradoxically, a girls' night nowadays included Liam, Lydia's boyfriend.
Officially, Millie, Scarlett, Lydia and Isabel rented the house, but since September Liam had been staying over every night, and after Christmas he had officially Moved In, bringing the remaining ten belongings that hadn't already surreptitiously snuck their way into Lydia's room round in one measly cardboard box.
Normally, girls find it annoying when their friends are always around their boyfriends, and although the rest of them often moaned about Liam, they secretly loved having him around. He did most of the washing up around the house, and most of the tidying too (the domestic goddess that he was) and he never complained when they all made decisions about food or nights out without him.
Isabel suspected this had something to do with the fact that he didn't pay any rent and felt bad, but she liked him all the same. Of the four girls, Lydia and Isabel were the only two with boyfriends. Scarlett had just come out of a long-term relationship and Millie was, as Louis called her, the ultimate definition of a mess. Every other week she had her heart broken, and that meant every other week, as her best friend, Isabel had to pick up the hysterical, over-dramatic pieces.
"Why can't I have a relationship like this?" Millie cried dramatically, tears swelling in her eyes as she watched Noah and Ally kiss on the screen.
"Soppy bitch," Scarlett laughed, poking Millie in the side lightly.
"This film is so overrated anyway," was Isabel's only comment, and like usual when she spoke about films, everyone ignored her.
"Relationships aren't all they're cracked up to be," Lydia interjected wisely, and Liam, who was quietly pouring over his mathematics textbook with his head in her lap, nodded in agreement.
Millie threw a pillow at them with a wail of indignation, and she and Scarlett launched into an emotional lament about the woes of single life. Isabel only half listened, chewing on her nail absently It was true that relationships weren't all they were cracked up to be, but it seemed that impending marriage was even worse. She had just got off the phone with her teary mother, who'd explained to her amidst an abundance of apologies that Isabel's brother James' engagement was really taking its toll on her bank balance.
Worried that she and her step-dad would have to cut into their lifelong savings for their retirement, they'd asked Isabel if she could work a few extra shifts so they could cut her allowance. Her mother's request wasn't unreasonable, having tried her to best to financially support three kids through uni, and Isabel would much rather work more than have her parents worse off money wise. The problem was not the working – it was who she was working with.
She'd called in sick on Friday afternoon, the thought of seeing Harry again leaving her a little sweaty and nervous, but faced with her mother crying down the phone, Isabel had to swallow her fear of the awkwardness and ring her boss, asking for another shift to bring her total up to three a week. He'd given her the Sunday evening slot, adding brightly that Harry worked that shift too.
"I know you two get along so well," Dan had added as Isabel resisted the urge to burst into tears on the other end of the line.
"Harry was asking after you when you were sick."
"Really?" she mumbled miserably.
"Yes, he was wondering whether you had quit. He seemed to think you would."
Of course he did.
~~~
On Sunday evening at 6pm Isabel marched into the shoe booth with carefully composed confidence, albeit ten minutes late. She expected Harry to be hunched over the table secretively again and completely ignore her, but instead he was lying across the table with his head buried in his arms. When he heard her come in he jerked up in surprise.
"Oh," he said blearily.
"Why are you here?" Isabel didn't reply, choosing to scan his face instead. The dark circles under his eyes were even more prominent today as his skin was deathly pale, even his lips much paler than their usual deep pink, and his hair – devoid of the headband – was knotted and unwashed. He looked like shit, to be frank.
"I needed money," she replied shortly, sitting down. He glared at her, swiping his tongue over his cadaverous lips before closing his eyes and swallowing.
"I can't help it you work every bloody shift," Isabel added automatically, but he pretended he didn't hear her.
Sunday evenings turned out to be much busier than she had expected. She was absolutely certain Harry was hungover, but if he was, nobody else noticed. They got a little production line going – Isabel on the till, and after they had paid her Harry would sort out the shoes, taking them from the customers and getting them their correct size of red and white striped bowling shoes.
When a little girl with long blonde hair and a pink party dress shyly lisped up to Harry that she needed a size 8 children's shoe, handing him her silver sparkly ballet pumps, Harry took them from her with wide eyes, exclaiming how pretty they were and how bad the ugly bowling shoes would look in comparison.
She beamed up at him as he jogged around the counter to personally put the new bowling shoes onto her feet, commenting that she looked like a princess in her beautiful frock, while the little girl's mother looked down at him equally enraptured. Isabel stared at him dumbly, pausing in an effort of getting a customer's change from the till. Quite sweet, really. The little shit.
At around 9.30, the stream of customers dried up and Harry and Isabel were able to get back to their usual activity of sitting in silence. Isabel put her headphones on and started on making some notes about the Spanish Civil War, while Harry did nothing but stare into space. After about half an hour, he nudged her softly with his foot. She paused, her pen poised over the paper, but without looking decided it was a mistake and ignored him.
"What?" Isabel snapped when he nudged her again, ripping her headphones off her ears.
"Your music is really loud, Isabel," he croaked, and she raised her eyebrows as if to say 'and?' He swallowed and tapped his temples with two fingers. "I've got a headache."
She felt like a stronger, more defiant girl, like Millie or Scarlett, would tell him to fuck off after all the teasing she'd got for being hungover last week, but she felt sorry for him, and with a little nod she turned the music down. Isabel returned to her book, and after a moment's silence he blurted out
"You're listening to The Strokes?" She looked up at him. He was staring at her with apprehension, as though she might bite.
"Yeah I love them," Isabel said slowly.
"Same," he replied, nodding and swallowing again. They sat in awkward silence for a mi nute, both staring at each other, until Isabel finally broke it.
"You look like shit," she said bluntly, but her voice was soft. "Rough night?"
"Well, it was an amazing night," he said, smiling slightly as he closed his eyes again.
"We went out for my friends birthday that turned twenty last week but he had a shift at work on his actual birthday. And then I iend Zayn's birthday, cos he " He stopped abruptly and opened his eyes, eyeing her with deep suspicion as though she'd tortured this story out of him.
Isabel admits , she was surprised l had to Harry had never disclosed any information about himself before. He shook his head, as though to shake the mistake out, and looked away. Isabel considered prompting him, but then remembered they absolutely weren't friends and decided better of it. Looking back down at her book, she couldn't help but feel that his eyes were on her, still staring at her with caution, and just as she was about and maybe ask what on earth he was looking at, she heard someone call his name .
"Oh shit," Harry mumbled under his breath, before jumping to his feet. Isabel stood up with him, intrigued. to meet his gaze A girl was storming towards him, a jumper in hand and an expression like thunder.
She had caramel skin and long dark hair scr into a ponytail, and even though she was wearing all loosefitting all black clothes and no makeup, and even though her aped back face was lined with a salty racetrack of dried, hopeless tears, she was so beautiful that Isabel's eyes widened. She stopped in front of the shoe booth with clenched fists, glaring at Harry.
"Hey, Caro," he said coolly, and Isabel was surprised he coul d even speak so casually when anyone else, Isabel included, would probably choke and keel over when someone that hot was looking at them with such contempt.
"You okay?"
"No I'm not fucking okay!" she shouted, and Harry glanced towards Dan's office nervou sly.
When he looked back at her though, he'd rearranged his expression to that of pure boredom. He just blinked at her, waiting for her to continue.
"Did you fuck Eliza Green?" she hissed. He sighed and pushed a hand through his messy hair.
"When?" She drew herself back like an anaconda about to strike, her lip curling up dangerously.
"Last week! Did you fuck her last week?"
"No, I was with you last week," he explained calmly, with the slightly monotonous, practised tone that suggested he'd said this many times before. Her bottom lip wobbled at the use of past tense, but she lifted her chin haughtily.
"Well that's not what I've heard."
"I don't cheat," he said, running a hand over his face tiredly. "I've told you this so many times –"
"How am I meant to believe that," she interrupted, leaning forward to get closer to his face, "when you've fucked half the girls at uni!"
Isabel blinked in confusion. So he really did go to uni, and he really did have a girlfriend. But Isabel liked to think she knew a lot of people on campus, and never once had she heard Harry's name mentioned; if he really had slept with half the girls, where were they hiding?
"Not when I was with you," he replied, shrugging off her glare. "But to be honest, Caro, I don't really care whether you believe me or not anymore. We're not together now."
She flinched as though she'd been slapped, and Isabel's eyes widened, resisting the urge to gasp. Caro threw the jumper that was clenched in her hands at him with some force, but he reached out and caught it before it could hit him, sighing tiredly.
"Fuck you," she mumbled, turning on her heel and running out of the door. Harry sat back down in his chair with another sigh, massaging his temple with one hand as he folded the grey jumper with his other.
"Yeah, so I forgot to mention," he said tiredly, looking over at Isabel with an embarrassed half-smirk, not quite convincing given the pucker between his eyebrows. "Last night was so great because I broke up with my girlfriend."
Isabel pursed her lips, feeling more than a little uncomfortable having witnessed a stranger being absolutely battered by Harry's disinterest.
"Ah. Why?"
"She was... uh, a bit paranoid," he explained, placing emphasis on 'a bit' so that it was clear he meant 'extremely'. "Plus I wasn't ever really that into her."
"But she's gorgeous," she couldn't help but say, and he raised his eyebrows.
"So?"
"I don't know. Just... most guys our age wouldn't let someone like that go." He smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes and he seemed almost sad.
"There you go then. You thought you knew loads of boys like me." Isabel swallowed and looked away, embarrassed at the mention of their argument.
"Oh, and another thing," he added, drawing her attention back to him and his stupid smirk. "You said you thought blonde was my type. Don't you think that's a little vain, seeing as you're blonde?" For a moment Isabel floundered, her cheeks heating.
"I meant like... I don't know, like bimbo blonde, not –"
"Not a cool blonde like you?" his grin widened, the dimple in his cheek deepening as she scowled. "Sorry to break it to you, Issy, but you're just not my type."
Isabel didn't expect that to hurt her feelings, but it did. She was only as self-conscious about her appearance as the next girl, but hearing someone who was undoubtedly hot, unabashedly gorgeous, essentially admit that she was unattractive stung quite sharply. At uni there were so many girls that seemed to pop up everywhere just to make the other girls feel inadequate, and although most of the time it was easy to ignore, it was hard not to compare herself sometimes.
And she knew Harry thought she was shallow for it, because of course he did, but Isabel took time with her make-up, over compensated for her sometimes stumbling self-esteem by taking great care with her clothes. It wasn't a bad thing to take pride in her appearance – not everyone could waltz around in gym clothes looking like a catwalk model like Caro. Clearly, those were the only girls Harry had eyes for, though.
"Don't call me Issy," she said, trying to sound angry but her voice wobbled.
Maybe it was stupid to want everyone to think she was pretty, but she couldn't help it. She was pretty sure there wasn't a girl on the planet who wouldn't like that reassurance. "Only my friends call me that."
"Sorry," Harry said softly, but she wasn't entirely sure that was the thing he was apologising for.
~~~~
When the shift was over, Isabel quickly changed, throwing her red polo into her locker and slipping on her normal clothes, pulling a beanie onto her head. She clocked out her hours and hurried outside into the cold January air, wincing as it bit into her cheeks. She strode across the car park to the bus stop hurriedly, pulling her coat around herself to protect her from the wind, when she heard her name being called.
"Isabel!" he called again, and she turned reluctantly to see Harry walking swiftly after her. "Do you want a lift home?" he asked, his breath coming out like smoke in the cold air. She crossed her arms in front of her chest almost defensively.
"No, I'm fine thanks," she said, avoiding his eyes and looking down at what he was wearing.
She'd never seen him out of his uniform before, and her eyes scanned over him quickly - white t-shirt, red check shirt on top and a green coat. She surprised herself by thinking he looked especially attractive when he wore his own clothes, and then told herself to shut up.
"It's like -2 degrees out here," he pointed out, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Plus it's late. How many stops away is your house?"
Isabel coughed and looked away in an attempt at nonchalance. "It's only half an hour away by bus." He scoffed.
"You're ridiculous. It'll take a good fifteen minutes for a bus to come anyway. Get in the car."
"Don't order me about," she snapped automatically, and he rolled his eyes.
"Please will you get in the car, Isabel?" He turned and walked away, knowing she would follow him, and after dithering on the spot for a second, torn, she hurried after him.
Harry stopped abruptly by a battered Toyota and she nearly walked right into him. The car was at least ten years old, and not the sort of thing she would expect him to drive at all. The paint was scratched, the tires old and worn, and he had to manually open the door with his keys. As he opened the door to the death trap he looked up at her, registering the surprised expression on her face and rubbing the back of his neck with embarrassment. "
Yeah, I know it's a shit heap. It was my brother's car." He chewed on his lip and looked away.
"It's fine," Isabel reassured him, not wanting him to be embarrassed as she opened the door to the passenger side.
"I just expected you to have some flash Range Rover or something." He didn't reply, instead scooping a bunch of clothes and CDs off the passenger seat and dumping them in the back, which was equally as messy.
"I don't have a radio," he explained as she sat down, not looking at her. "So you can choose a CD. If you want."
He motioned to the glove box which she opened as he turned on the ignition and cranked the heating up to full. Isabel raised her eyebrows at him as a bra and empty condom packet tumbled out of the glove box into her lap.
"Shit, sorry," he mumbled, picking them up and throwing them into the back sheepishly.
He looked at her expectantly, a small sheepish smile pulling on his lips and faint colour in his cheeks, but she didn't have anything to say. She wouldn't have expected anything less from him. She looked through his CDs curiously. There was such an eclectic mix of music that she didn't know what to choose, but when she waved her chosen CD at him he broke into a smile.
"Boys Don't Cry? You like The Cure too, huh?" he said, unguardedly happy with her selection. She grinned back.
"You have a good music taste." His smile broadened. "My house mate – Zayn, the one whose birthday it was – he works at HMV. Gets me discount on all CDs."
"That's a bit cooler than your job," Isabel replied, and he jokingly frowned as though he was insulted.
"I'll have you know I'm very proud of my job thanks, it's right down my alley."
She cringed at his joke while he burst out laughing, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He looked quite nice when he smiled properly, even if it at was his own joke.
"Just drive, Styles," she said, shaking her head as she put the CD in the player.
Isabel told him her address as he pulled out of the car park, driving much too fast for what Isabel imagined this old engine could manage, and then they sat in awkward, sharp silence. She looked out of the window at the black sea front, the cold January wind whipping the waves up into crashing blankets of water onto the pebbly shore. Harry started to sing quietly along to the music, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
"I try to laugh about it, cover it all up with lies. I try and laugh about it, hiding the tears in my eyes, cos boys don't cry."
It was hard to believe, really, that she and Harry were sitting civilly, if not uncomfortably, in his car, driving along and listening to The Cure after the way they had fought a few days before. She'd been pretty certain she was never going to speak to him again, given how strange he'd been. It was clear that both of them thought that we had the other entirely figured out, but Isabel was starting to think that maybe both of them were wrong. She didn't really understand him at all. After a few minutes, she heard him exhale softly.
"So, seeing as you know all about my love life now," he said, smirking as he looked over and caught her eye. "How's the boyfriend?"
He almost sneered on the word boyfriend, and it made her feel sick. As much as she privately felt let down or humiliated by Louis sometimes, she would still defend him to anyone. She loved him, after all.
"He's fine," she lied.
This morning she'd gone over to his with every intention of letting him know it upset her when he let their plans fall through, but he always had a way of stopping her from talking things over. Coerced her with sweetness and compliments and sex until she forgot why she was upset with him. Harry nodded knowingly, biting down on his lip, as if he knew she was lying, and this only served to make her anxious.
"How do you know him?" she asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
"I don't know him," Harry said firmly, and she looked up at him in surprise. "He's just well acquainted with my house mates." He glanced over at her with a frown, raising his eyebrows slightly. She sighed.
"If you don't know him, how would you know that I'm his girlfriend?" Harry laughed softly.
"My house mate was stalking him on Facebook and showed me. I saw you tagged in photos with him." Isabel chewed on her lip and turned to stare out the window again.
It was weird, being in the car with him and not trying to wind each other up, but Isabel was starting to think that that was all a bit unnecessary, really. She wouldn't admit it, but Harry's assessment of her last week had really hit home with her, made her insides swim uncomfortably, made her feel a little queasy. She did know a lot of people, and yeah, maybe she did think she was popular, but that was only because of Louis. Louis was the most popular person she knew, perhaps one of the reasons why she was so drawn to him in the first place.
He was known for going out and getting drunk, meeting new people, thinking up mad schemes. He had organised freshers' week for the new first years in September and it had been a record-breaking success. He was known by almost everyone, and although some people despised him, most were in awe of him. Isabel and Louis lived in the same hall in first year and he took a shine to her for no reason whatsoever, always bringing her out and introducing her to people, forcing her out of her shell.
She owed a lot of her first year friendships and experiences to him, but also many nights of crying into Millie's shoulder in her shitty little room in hall with the peeling wallpaper and dirty carpet after Louis had told her about the latest girl he had pulled. She was like his little sister – that's what Louis' friends had often called her – that he dragged around with him but never really showed that much interest in. It was only after a drunken night when they ended up sleeping together that Louis and Isabel got together.
She was enraptured by him, she knew it. She thought she was the luckiest girl in the world for having him, for being his. The fact that he would give up single life to be with her, of all people, meant that she became both equally conceited and self-conscious. She'd never been popular in high school, and now she was suddenly so well-known and with, by her standards, the best guy at uni, and that did mean she thought more highly of herself than she had done in the past, it was true.
But Louis had the power to break her heart in two, and they both knew it. He knew how much she adored him, how she would come running whenever he wanted her to, how she would defend him no matter what. Worse than that – she was becoming increasingly aware that she knew very little about him. They'd hardly been friends before they had got together - Isabel was more like his little project than someone he genuinely wanted to hang out with - and she'd only found out certain things about him after they'd been together a while. Some very important things, actually.
"He doesn't actually deal, you know," she said to Harry almost inaudibly, feeling his judgement of Louis as though it was an actual physical entity between them. "He just delivers. He knows everyone and it's easy money." Harry nodded again, pushing his tongue into his cheek in an effort not to retort.
"Are you telling me you never smoke, Harry?" she asked, her tone one of utter disbelief. Clearly, she'd completely misjudged him.
"Nope. Not cigarettes, not weed, nothing." He said it with an air of haughtiness which made her feel uncomfortable. She swallowed nervously as his hands grasped the steering wheel tighter. "And I don't take anything else either. I'm clean." He gulped. "Absolutely clean as a whistle, me." He seemed to be saying this more for himself than for anyone else, as if he was repeating a mantra. She blinked at him.
"How long have you been clean?" she asked him gently, looking at the way his jaw was clenched and his nostrils flared. He stared straight ahead, glaring at the road in front of him, but his head jerked slightly at the question.
"A while," he said sharply. "I wasn't an addict if that's what you're getting at. I'd never let myself become – I'm not –"
He was starting to get agitated, she could see it. He turned sharply around a corner into a street a couple of roads away from her house, and the familiarity of the street was comforting. She couldn't have been more eager to get out of the car.
"You know what!" he barked suddenly over the music, making Isabel jump. "I fucking despise people that get involved in that kind of shit, Isabel. I really fucking do."
"Okay, that's fine," she replied carefully, trying her best not to aggravate him.
"No! No it's not okay. It's not fucking okay at all!" He was working himself up into a state, pushing down hard onto the accelerator as the speedometer crept up to 40 miles-per-hour on this tiny residential street.
"Your boyfriend thinks it's fucking easy money to ruin someone's life? That's NOT okay! How can you think that's okay?"
"I don't think it's okay," Isabel said hastily, starting to get really scared as she gripped her seatbelt with both hands. "It's not okay, it's really not. I've never even touched anything other than weed, I wouldn't want to. I barely ever smoke anyway, I don't like it all that much and I – I don't think Louis does either."
"You don't think?" he laughed a chilling laugh, completely devoid of humour. "Of course he fucking doesn't! He's reaping the rewards of making someone else's life a shit heap. Fuck him!" He turned a corner without braking, and she squeezed her eyes shut in horror, yelping out in fear.
"Harry –"
He slammed on the brakes, and she opened her eyes to find them skidding to a halt in front of her house. Feeling safer now that she had an easy escape, she turned to him in fury.
"You can't say all that stuff when you said yourself your housemates do it!" she shouted. He had the ability to make her furious so quickly, her fists clenching and her face staining red.
"Most people round here do, Harry, so take your head out of your arse and – and Christ, don't offer people lifts and drive like a fucking lunatic!"
"Get out of my car," he said to her darkly.
His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles were white, and when he looked at her - the bright green of his irises now a thin ring around the angry, dilated black – she recoiled.
"I would say thanks for the lift," Isabel snapped, glaring at him as she undid her seatbelt. "But seeing as you nearly killed us both, I'd rather settle with fuck you."
"Get the fuck out of my car!" he yelled, and she did as he said, scurrying out and slamming the door behind her.
He pulled away as soon as she got out, and she stood watching him go, the scratched black paintwork fading into the dark as she was left alone on her doorstep.