April
Harry's hands were everywhere at once.
They were in her hair, running along her waist, stroking her face, gripping her hips, squeezing her breasts, grasping the back of her neck, trailing over her bum. His kiss was searing hot, his tongue urgent and his lips rough, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip so hard it hurt. She was desperate to touch his bare chest, to run her fingers across his hard stomach and skim her nails across his back, but she was so overwhelmed all she could do was grip his hair tightly between her fists and kiss him back as if they didn't have an entire night.
He moaned hotly when she yanked on his damp hair, pulling away from her with swollen, wet lips and a frantic expression in his eyes. "I want you, Is," he mumbled, his voice so low and raspy that she felt light-headed.
She swallowed and trailed her thumb across his jaw, looking at the way his eyes flickered from her eyes to her lips, his own lower lip. "Yeah," was all she said, but it was enough for Harry. He hooked his arm around her leg with a low growl, dipping his head to reconnect their lips and wrapping her thighs around his waist. He pushed their bodies back against the wall roughly, his hips grinding against hers so that she could feel him through their layers of clothing, and she whimpered into his mouth.
He was kissing her so fiercely, so hard and rough, making her breath come out in uneven pants as she clawed at his face and hair. When he rolled his hips forward again, though, she couldn't stop herself from imagining how many times he'd done this to a girl, how many times he'd ripped all power and self-restraint from their grasp until they were a hot, burning, incoherent wreck in his capable hands.
He let her go suddenly, backing away as she threw out an arm to cling to the wall and stop herself from melting into the floor. He stared at her warily, panting almost violently, like she was some sort of wild animal and he was the prey.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, his voice a little breathless, sounding utterly afraid of what the answer would be.
She stared straight back, trying to figure out her answer. Truthfully, she couldn't remember ever wanting anyone this badly before, and more than anything she wanted to see if she could make him feel even a fraction as good as she felt when he touched her.
Beneath that though was a small flicker of anxiety, diminished in size since the other times she'd been with him this way, but still there nonetheless. Speaking purely from objective past observation, Isabel knew Harry was not one to make a massive effort with girls after he fucked them, and everything would be different between them tomorrow if they did this. Plus, Harry was more than adequately experienced and she was scared of him, of his intense stare and his big hands and rough lips, of what they would make of her flawed and comparatively inexperienced body, of what state he would leave her in after he'd taken what he wanted.
"Isabel," he prompted lowly, coughing into his hand awkwardly to conceal the urgent whine to his voice and shifting forward onto his toes, like he was physically restraining himself from moving towards her.
That little whine made her mind up.
She nodded, reaching for the hem of her top and pulling it over her head, dropping it to the ground and trying to avoid squirming under his gaze as his eyes raked over her.
She stepped towards him as confidently as she could, gripping the back of his neck and pulling his head towards her for another open mouthed kiss, swiping her tongue across his hot lips as his arms circled her bare waist and tugged her towards him, tightly pressing their bodies together. She had to lean forward on her tiptoes slightly in order to reach him, gripping his bum and pulling his waist closer to hers, making his fingers press harder into her sides and his teeth graze her bottom lip.
He backed her towards the bed and lay down on top of her, supporting himself with one hand and looking down at her with eyes a dark mixture of lust and excitement. She could feel his warm breath landing on her skin so lightly it felt like wisps of smoke, like the cloudiness on a car windscreen when you get in on a cold morning. He trailed a trembling finger along her collarbones, down the crevice between her breasts and across her stomach, his touch leaving a shaky, burning path.
"Why are you so nervous, Harry?" she asked him with a poorly concealed smile, though the softness of his fingers made it feel like he'd aimed a kick at her chest and she was struggling to breathe properly. He glared at her, his cheeks flushing.
"I'm not," he lied, bowing his head to avoid her eyes and biting down on her neck so hard she jolted and hissed loudly. He laughed before soothing the skin with a hot lick, kissing his way down past her collarbones to her bra. He reached behind her back and unclasped it with his shaking fingers, pulling it off her arms and throwing it to the floor as he took her breast in his palm and laid his open mouth on it, swiping her nipple with his tongue as she arched her back and her eyes fluttered shut. He swirled his tongue again, smiling when she gripped his hair in her fists and whined.
Keeping his mouth on her he stroked a hand down to her jeans and tried to undo the button with one hand, fumbling around and failing miserably. He pulled away from her chest with a frown, his lips glistening wet.
"How the fuck do you undo these fucking things?" he snapped, his fingers groping around trying to yank her jeans off.
"They're a bit tight, sorry," Isabel mumbled, reaching between them to undo them gently. Harry pushed her hands away as soon as she was done, wanting to pull them down himself, and she lay back and closed her eyes, swallowing loudly and feeling her heart thump in her mouth. The moment had been interrupted, and suddenly she was nervous again, her palms sweating as they lay limply by her sides.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked her gently when he pulled her jeans off, rubbing his hands up and down her bare thighs.
"I'm just... I don't know, a bit scared," she said quietly, not wanting to kill the mood but so terrified all of a sudden that her chest felt tight.
"You're ridiculous," was all Harry said after a beat of silence, and Isabel kept her eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to look at him.
Harry was still for a moment, before bending down and kissing the skin on the inside of her thigh, his nose nudging against the skin. "You don't need to worry, you're good," he told her sincerely, giving her hips a gentle squeeze. "Promise."
He crawled up her body when she didn't reply and loomed over her, his hair grazing her forehead as it flopped down in front of his face. "Who's nervous now?" he asked, gently teasing her, and she placed her palm flat across his face and pushed it, scowling playfully.
He laughed and bit down on her fingers, not lightly either, so that she squealed and wrapped her legs around his waist. He dropped his hips down so that her laugh turned into a low gasp, and he kissed her again, but this time it was messy and hopelessly urgent, his hand wasting no time in dipping beneath her knickers and trailing a finger over her.
He dropped his head to her neck and dragged his lips across the skin there as he circled his thumb. Her eyes blinked shut, her breath catching in the back of her throat. "Tell me what you want and I'll do it," he whispered into her neck, his heavy breath pooling into the dip of her collarbone as her teeth bit down so hard into her lip they nearly broke the skin.
He slid a finger inside her, and then another, and she bit back a moan, the combination of his thumb and his fingers stripping away any ability she had to respond. She tried to remember how to breathe, because she wasn't just thinking about the fact that he was touching her, it was that he was touching her. It was her and Harry, and Harry wanted this, and she couldn't hear much over the pounding in her ears but she could hear that he was panting into her neck, and it was the best thing she'd ever heard.
She clasped his wrist to get him to stop and he pulled away, frowning in concern.
Isabel pushed on his shoulder until he lay on his back next to her, and she climbed onto his lap, leaning across his chest and zoning in on the spot between his neck and his shoulder that she knew he liked. He let her take over, gripping her hips tightly and letting out a quiet moan as she nipped and sucked on his skin, trailing searing wet kisses down past his collarbones and chest to his stomach.
"What are you doing?" he asked huskily, leaning up on one arm and staring at her. She smirked at the frenzied apprehension in his face, hooking her fingers around the waistband of his sweatpants and sitting up so that she could pull them down beneath her. He breathed heavily, his flushed chest rising and falling as he watched her examine the bulge in his boxers.
She surveyed his face curiously as she trailed her fingers along him through the fabric, watching his eyes roll back very slightly and his teeth clench. She pulled the material back and exposed him, listening to his frantic breathing and forcing herself to ignore that her heart was battering a jagged rhythm in her chest, hard enough that she could feel it in her throat. She had the upper hand for once, and she was going to watch him lose it first. If Harry liked games, she was going to win one.
She gently took him in her hand, her eyes trained on his as she watch him stare at the movement of her wrist and bite down on his lip. His breathing instantly went shallow, coming out in quick, loud blasts through his nose, and after a few strokes one of his hands left her waist and gripped the sheets by his hip tightly.
"Is this good, Harry?"
"Yeah," he grunted, licking his lips as his eyes glazed over. It was all the confirmation she needed, and before he would have time to even anticipate what she was about to do, she dipped her head down and took him in her mouth.
"Fuck," he said loudly as his eyes fell shut and the knuckles on his balled up fist turned white. She licked up the side of him, watching his expression as she took him further than before so that he tickled the back of her throat, and he groaned, falling back onto the bed and grabbing her hair tightly with his free hand.
She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, taking him deeper each time until she felt him twitch inside her mouth. She pulled away quickly, seeing a vein press against the skin of his neck as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly and clenched his jaw. She wanted to test him, to see whether now, now that he was like this, he would open up and be honest for once like she had been.
"You sure you want this, Harry?" she asked quietly, and he wrenched his eyes open to meet her gaze.
"Jesus Christ." He removed his firm grip from her hair to wipe under her bottom lip gently instead of answering, disconnecting a silver string of spit that attached her to him, and the action was so strangely intimate that Isabel's chest actually hurt. "So fucking badly," he muttered hoarsely, utterly sincere. "It's been driving me insane."
She nodded, savouring the moment of softness between them and the honesty in his eyes, before dipping her head and wrapping her lips around him abruptly. The sudden warmth of her tongue made him moan and jolt his hips up involuntarily, hitting the back of her throat hard.
"Fuck, sorry," Harry apologised breathlessly as she pulled away with a splutter, his head falling back onto the bed and his eyes squeezing shut again. With a blind fumble he grabbed her head and pushed her back down onto him as gently as possible, making an obvious effort from then to restrain himself from bucking his hips up, but it was making him grip her hair tighter and squirm around restlessly beneath her.
"Your mouth," he breathed, choking on a moan and then letting out a shaky, slightly hysterical laugh, shuddering and holding her hair so tightly it hurt. "God, I...fuck."
He was losing it: his lips parted, his chest heaving, a red flush creeping up from his chest over his neck. It took all of Isabel's effort not to pull away and grin smugly at him.
"Isabel, stop," he croaked suddenly, although his request seemed half-hearted when he made no attempt to move himself. She didn't stop, and he groaned involuntarily as her tongue swiped over him. "I ... oh."
She did smile then, feeling his grip loosen on her hair and she waited for him to come, knowing it would happen any second, if she just kept –
"Isabel, you have to stop," he snapped hoarsely, yanking her head back so hard that her eyes stung. She blinked, stunned for a second, before Harry flipped her over, and she quickly realised he was absolutely insatiable. He kissed her wildly, his breath scorching hot in her mouth and his hands leaving burning, frantic trails across her bare skin.
"Is it embarrassing to say that I've thought about that happening so much?" he mumbled with a laugh as his head dipped, his lips pulling over the skin of her heart and she tried not to let that confession get to her too much, scared he would be able to feel how terrifyingly hard her heart was beating for him. He kissed over the pulse of it in her chest, bringing his head up and letting out another small, trembling laugh over her lips. "So good. Knew it."
He yanked her knickers down as quickly as he could, his lips never leaving hers, and when he at last pulled away his eyes were glistening with pure desire.
"Tell me what you want," he demanded again.
"You," she whispered, gripping his hair tightly and pulling him back to her, but he resisted.
"Say it properly, please," he said, and although it was an order there was a hint of desperation behind it that made Isabel feel weak, because Harry always wanted to know if he was wanted.
"I want you, Harry," she said, and he let out a small smile as he leaned down to kiss her one more time, his lips barely brushing hers he was suddenly so gentle. That's what scared her – how gentle he could be, more than she'd have ever been able to imagine even if she sat for hours trying to reconstruct it. It was terrifying how much she wanted it, how much she would love to curl into him and be engulfed by the fragility of his touch, how it made her wanted not in the bad, feeble kind of way, but in the powerful kind of way, like she was the most important person in the world.
He urged her thighs apart with his knees, brushing his lips across her jaw before taking a shaky breath and pushing himself into her. She hadn't had sex in over a month, and although that wasn't a long period of abstinence she felt a burn of discomfort as Harry drove forward inside her with a little sigh. She pressed her hand into his back, taking a deep breath through her nose and breathing in the citrus smell of the freshly washed hair that was tickling the skin of her neck, relaxing her.
He grabbed her leg and hitched it around his waist when he pulled back, getting a better angle for when he pushed himself back in, grunting as he did so and sponging kisses into her neck. Isabel's eyes fluttered shut as he pulled back, going faster and harder so that she exhaled loudly with every collision of their hips and held tightly onto Harry's back.
Harry mumbled something into her neck, his lips brushing the skin as he slapped a hand to the headboard to support himself, his other hand digging into her thigh roughly, but she couldn't hear him.
There was a familiar wave of heat starting in her groin and spreading slowly through her, then, but it felt different to normal. Everything was a hazy mess of limbs and teeth and Harry's breath on her skin and she could barely breathe.
"Are you okay?" Harry choked out to her, and she nodded because she was so scared he would stop if she said no but she wasn't okay at all. She could feel her bones throbbing and there was a lump in her throat and her toes were curling and she'd never felt like this before and it was completely alarming, but if he stopped she thought she'd die.
"'Salright, baby," he reassured her, biting down into her collarbone and brushing his nose against her jaw.
She whined her response as he struck her so deep she felt it in every part of her body, felt it so strongly that she thought she might pass out. He did it again, whispering things to her that she couldn't hear as she made a strangled sort of whimper and came, feeling like she was bursting from the inside out.
It was weird that there really was difference between sex and good sex, because now every single part of her was consumed by Harry, feeling him with every inch of skin and every heartbeat as he pumped through her veins and filled her lungs and swept every other thought out of her mind, so close that he was entirely overwhelming her, and she'd never ever thought this is the way it could feel.
When she finally blinked her eyes open, her chest heaving and her heart racing, she smiled lazily up at Harry, who was grunting with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth hanging open slightly, still rolling his hips into hers messily.
"Harry," she muttered, patting his hair vaguely and giving him a final bit of encouragement. His head flopped down into her neck, mumbling incoherently into her as his body jolted and his teeth caught against her skin.
He collapsed on top of her for a while, breathing heavily into her neck and blinking slowly, his eyelashes tickling her skin. She traced the ship tattoo on his left arm gently until he finally heaved himself up onto one arm and pulled out of her, smirking happily.
"Hi," he said, his voice laced with satisfaction and slightly hoarse. He flopped down next to her and took her hand away from his arm, lacing his fingers through hers.
"Hi," she repeated, mirroring his smile. "You look so smug."
"I just got fucked," he replied arrogantly, grinning at her as she laughed.
"You're such a boy," she said, raking her free hand through his messy hair to push it out of his eyes.
"You weren't complaining a minute ago," he reminded her with a smirk, and she blushed slightly.
"Yeah, well," she mumbled, hiding behind her hair. "You can be very persuasive."
"It's a useful talent," he agreed, bringing their entwined hands to his lips and kissing her fingers gently.
"We shouldn't have done that, you have a marathon to run tomorrow," Isabel told him with a yawn, and his eyes widened as he backed away from her slightly, dropping her hand.
"What?! How could I forget?" he slapped a hand to his forehead in mock horror. "I can't believe you had sex with me a night before I have to run twenty-six miles. You took advantage of me."
"Shut up," Isabel grumbled, poking him in the side. "You forget I know you, Styles. I've seen you fuck a girl and act like it never happened five seconds later. I doubt your stamina will be much affected."
Harry grinned, biting down on his lip as he cocked his head to the side curiously. "I don't like it when you compare yourself to other people."
"Sorry," she said automatically, then after a moment's deliberation shrugged unapologetically. "That's what girls do. You can't say you've never compared me to another girl, either."
"True," he nodded with a smile, "but the comparison's worked in your favour so far." She blinked, trying to understand what he meant, before he gulped and added quickly: "You've passed the test of not being a psycho bitch, I mean."
She shook her head, failing to withhold a smile and closing her eyes. "Go to sleep, Harry."
He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her towards him, making her rest her head against his chest and intertwine their legs. He ran his thumb up and down her side lightly, tracing a pattern into her skin while he buried his face into her hair.
"I mean it though," he mumbled into her hair sleepily after a moment of silence. "I had fun."
Isabel smiled into his chest. "Me too."
She felt him smirking before he said: "We should do it again sometime."
"If you're lucky," she retorted, and he chuckled lightly.
She lay there for a while, listening to his heartbeat beneath her ear go from frantic to steady and his breathing deepen, his hand on her waist coming to a gentle stop and resting against her hip.
As carefully as she could, she extracted herself from him and padded to the bathroom, quickly peeing and washing her face. As she turned the tap off, grabbing the toothpaste and getting ready to use his toothbrush to save her from searching through the bags for her own, she noticed with a jolt in her chest that he had already got it out for her.
It was sitting in the cup alongside his, a quiet little reminder that he had thought of her when he got in tonight, thought of a way he could save a bit of her time and make her day just the tiniest bit easier. That little yellow toothbrush told Isabel that while she spent her whole night with her mind on him, if even for just a second, he had been thinking of her too.
~~~
When Isabel woke up to a loud, shrill alarm, her first thought was that she was so wonderfully warm she would never be able to move again. Harry was just about on top of her, his torso slung across her chest and his head buried her neck, one of his legs resting between hers.
He pushed himself up onto one hand with a groan, leaving Isabel hopelessly cold as he switched off the alarm and got out of bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin and rolled to her side, sighing and falling back to sleep instantly.
"Isabel," she heard him say some time later, prodding her in the arm. She moaned and ignored him, clutching the duvet tighter in case he ripped it back. "You need to get up," he continued flatly, and his tone made her open her eyes.
He was towering above her, already in sweatpants and a jumper, phone in hand and his hair pulled back by a bandana.
"What time's it?" she asked groggily.
"7:03," he replied. "You need to get up and shower, we're meeting everyone downstairs for breakfast soon."
He turned away from her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and flicking on the television. He pinched his lower lip nervously as he watched the first coverage of the marathon begin, the organisers running around in high vis jackets and shouting at each other, unaware they were being broadcast to the nation.
Isabel stumbled out of bed, staring at him for a moment and rubbing her eyes before moving towards him and stroking his shoulder softly. "Are you okay, Harry?"
"Yes," he said stiffly, not looking at her and shrugging so her hand would fall away. She took the hint and hurried into the bathroom, closing the door hurriedly and locking it shut.
She knew he was nervous so she shouldn't reasonably be getting upset, but she had hoped he wouldn't be like this with her after last night. The water brushed past the new bruises on her collarbones and neck, her hips darkened too by finger shaped marks from the strong grip he'd held her in, and she knew then what a stupid mistake it had been, and how sad it was that the mistake should be realised so soon after the event, that she wasn't even allowed to pretend it had been a good idea for a day.
When she came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped tightly around her, Harry was rooting through his running bag, his lips moving silently as he recounted his checklist for what looked like the hundredth time. He looked up at her when he saw her coming into the room, his eyes emotionless as he nodded a hello before returning his gaze to the bag.
"No need to pack up everything now," he told her as she backed into a corner to get dressed. "We'll come back up here before we leave and then we'll check out."
She nodded even though he still wouldn't look at her, and she distractedly slipped on a pair of leggings and the first jumper she found, not even realising it was Harry's until the sleeves fell past her wrists and his scent wrapped around her. It was the one he'd worn the day before, grey and soft, and she prayed he'd be too distracted to notice as she pulled her shoes on.
He looked over at her impatiently, doing a double take as his gaze scanned over her, his eyes widening.
"Sorry," she spluttered immediately, struggling to work out how this had become so awkward so quickly. "I'll take it off, I just picked up the first –"
"It's fine," Harry interrupted bluntly, heading to the door without another glance.
"Harry, could you – could you just wait a sec?" she asked him nervously, and his jaw clenched. He ran a hand across his face tiredly.
"What?"
"I just wanted to make sure you're okay before we go downstairs."
"I'm fine. Let's go."
"But I –" she shuffled on the spot, unsure of how she should go about explaining herself. "I'd just feel better if I knew you were alright."
"I said I'm fine."
"You're not though, and I just – it'd make me feel better."
"Why does it matter," he questioned flatly. "This isn't about you, believe it or not."
She flinched as though she'd been slapped. "Yeah, it's all about you, as usual," she muttered, and although she'd meant to offend him her delivery was too wounded to make any impression. She pushed past him, heading out the door and walking down the corridor without checking to see if he was following.
Breakfast was a mostly silent affair. Harry's friends and family couldn't all sit on one table so he chose to sit with his family in a nearby booth, leaving Isabel to attempt conversation with the other four, all of them horrendously hungover. Niall spent most of the time with his head buried in his arms, while Liv wolfed down a full English and Caitlin and Zayn chewed in complete silence.
Isabel played with her food, sneaking glances at Harry who was nodding at things his parents were saying and eating slowly. He looked so pale it was bordering on sickly, a curl twisting around his neck and brushing against the pallid skin of his jaw.
She watched as he looked up from his bowl, his gaze travelling across the room to find Isabel, before he met her eyes and his eyebrows puckered into a frown. He looked at her for a moment, his eyes void of any emotion, and then turned back to his mother. Isabel felt a lump build in her throat as her cheeks burned, and she stared down at the swirls and knots of wood in the table as she asked herself the age-old question that, despite its regularity, still burned all the same: what have I done?
~~~
"Do you have your inhaler?" Jane asked for the eighth time, chewing on her nails as she gazed at her son nervously.
"Yes," Harry sighed, glaring at Niall who let out a snort at the apparently still hilarious revelation that Harry had asthma.
"You look good, H," Caitlin said, brushing a stray strand of hair from his face and surveying him with pursed lips. It was true – he did look good. He seemed taller than ever, clad in fluorescent running shoes and white shirts, his hair swept back from his face and void of the bandana. A black top hung from his shoulders, emblazoned with the words ADDICTION TRUST, his running number pinned underneath.
"Cheers," Harry said with a small smile. "Glad you've got that on the top of your priority list."
"Let me and Caitlin get a quick photo, Harry," Liv ordered, and he groaned loudly enough for the nearby group to look over curiously. His parents had been allowed one picture of him with Callum and Phoebe, surrounded by other runners and their families in the middle of Greenwich Park with Harry's arms slung over their little shoulders, but as soon as it was taken Harry had gone back to standing quietly and staring at the floor.
"Relax, we're not gonna put it online," Caitlin said with a roll of her eyes, getting out her phone. "Just personal memories. Guys, jump in," she said to the others.
She hesitated before looking at Isabel and adding: "You too, Issy."
Isabel fought the urge to drop her jaw in surprise before shuffling into the picture, tripping over nothing and ignoring Niall's cackle of laughter before slipping under Zayn's outstretched arm.
"Here, let me," Jane offered kindly, taking the phone from Caitlin so she could be in the photo. She ran into the shot, jumping on Niall's back and laughing as the six of them grinned for the photo. Liv threw her arms around Harry's neck at the last second so that he genuinely laughed in surprise, the corners of his eyes crinkling up for the first time that day.
Everyone crowded round the phone after it was taken to see the picture, but Phoebe was distracted.
"Harry?" she said to him quietly, clinging on to his arm and staring with wide eyes into the vast crowd of excited spectators around them.
"Yeah, love?" Harry replied.
"That lady that's coming over, she was pointing at you," Phoebe told him, and they all turned their heads to follow her anxious gaze.
A lady was indeed marching towards them – a lady with a cameraman.
Harry's eyes widened and he shook his head at his father desperately, but before they could make an escape she was upon them, all white shining teeth and primped hair.
"Good afternoon!" she shouted. "I'm from Sky News, would you mind being interviewed live on television in about thirty seconds?"
"Uh –" was all Harry managed to reply before she interrupted him.
"What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Harry," he choked.
She raised her eyebrows and smiled at him condescendingly. "Harry what?"
"Styles," he said hurriedly, coughing into his hand and shifting nervously on the spot. "Look, I'm not really sure I want to –"
"How old are you, Harry? You're a student?"
"Yeah, I'm nineteen," Harry said automatically, eyes widening when Niall snorted. "I mean, twenty, I'm twenty, but hold on I –"
"If you all could just get out of the shot," she said sweetly to the rest of them, looking directly at Phoebe who was clinging onto his arm for dear life.
Harry glared at them as they all shuffled behind the camera compliantly, mouthing 'traitor' to Caitlin who stuck her middle finger up at him.
"Hi, Alan!" the reporter shouted suddenly, presumably responding to someone in the studio. Harry jumped, his hands beginning to shake. "I'm here with student Harry Styles who's getting ready to run today. Is this your first marathon, Harry?"
"Yeah," Harry replied nervously, his wide eyes shifting from the reporter to the camera. Niall shook his head and held a hand to his face in despair, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
"And a lovely day for it too, you lucky boy! What inspired you to run this year?"
"I um –" he looked over to his father for support, before continuing anxiously: "I'm running for charity."
"Wow, amazing," she replied. "Any particular reason why you chose – what is it – Addiction Trust?"
Harry swallowed, swiping his tongue over his lips. "It's my dad's charity," he mumbled.
Isabel blinked dumbly and looked over to the others in surprise, but they were all equally confused. None of them, it seemed, knew that Harry's dad ran a charity.
"Is your father here supporting you today?" she nudged, and Harry nodded, pointing off camera childishly. "Come out here!" she beckoned with a smile, and Ted scuffled out obediently to join them.
"Are you proud of your son today, Mr Styles?"
"So proud," Ted said, slapping Harry on the back, though Harry was so pale he looked like he was about to pass out and he flinched at the gesture. "He's raised over £3000 for the charity, and he's been so determined to do this."
"And obviously because the charity's so close to your hearts, it means the race is extra special for you today, doesn't it Harry?"
Harry nodded again, taking a deep breath before reciting: "Addiction Trust is a charity aimed to help teenagers and young adults combat not only their drug abuse problem, but also the underlying mental health issues that may have led them to turn to narcotics in the first place. It's something I feel very strongly about."
Isabel glanced over at the others again, gnawing on her nails and wondering how none of them had known this, none of them had known that Harry's disdain for drug abuse extended so far. Caitlin was on her phone, frowning down at the screen before tapping Liv and passing it to her.
"Oh, and we've just heard the calls to the start line, so we'll have to let you go Harry!" the reporter chimed cheerily. "Any last words of encouragement from Dad?"
Ted looked at his son, who stood a few inches taller than him, his expression a steady mix of pride and sadness. "We're so proud of you, and we know Adam would be too."
Harry swallowed again and nodded, looking down at his feet.
Isabel's heart plummeted so fast she actually stopped breathing. 'Adam would be...'
Well surely that meant –
Niall tapped her on the shoulder, passing her Caitlin's phone with a dumbstruck look on his face. The whole line of them were looking at Isabel with similar expressions, waiting for her to read whatever was on there. She looked down at the screen with trepidation, her hands shaking as she read the words on the webpage.
ADDICTION TRUST is a charity aimed to help teenagers and young adults combat not only their drug abuse problem, but also the underlying mental health issues that may have led them to turn to narcotics in the first place.
The charity was founded by Edward Styles in March 2011 inspired by his son Adam Joseph Styles, who, following a heroin overdose, has been comatose since 2010.
~~~
Callum was gripping Harry's hand excitedly, babbling up at him about the race but Harry was barely listening. He was staring at his feet, taking deep breaths as he tried to compose himself and everyone stared at him, before eventually announcing with a shaky voice that he needed a walk.
"But Harry mate, you need to go and get in position," Zayn reminded him, but Harry kept on walking in the opposite direction.
"Harry, don't!" Phoebe shouted after him, but he ignored her too.
Harry's mother put her hand to her mouth, turning to Ted with wide, watery eyes.
"Just give him a minute to calm down," Harry's father said with a gulp, his voice entirely lacking hope as he stared at his son's back doubtfully.
"What should we do?" Niall asked worriedly. Caitlin, on the verge of tears, slipped her hand through Zayn's, and Liv bounced on the spot wildly as Isabel waited for somebody to run after him, but no one did.
"I'm gonna go and see if he's okay," Isabel said to nobody in particular. She wasn't sure why she thought this was in any way an appropriate idea, seeing as she was Harry's least favourite person there, but when Harry's dad gave her a forlorn nod of permission she knew what he was thinking. It didn't matter who she was; nothing and nobody would be enough.
She took off after him, pushing her way past members of the public, her heart beating hard in her throat. She hated how happy and excited everyone around them was when Harry was on the verge of breakdown. She wanted the entire world, every person around them and every person rushing to work or home or to catch their film in the cinema and every person about to sleep, get up, laugh, fuck, cry, to stop because he was like this, because his world had fallen apart while everyone else's kept on going.
"Harry!" she called, grasping his arm but he shook her off roughly.
"Fuck off," he growled, keeping his back to her. She grabbed his arm again.
"Listen, Harry –"
"Did you hear what I said?" he bellowed, turning around and looming over her, his face furious. "Fuck off and leave me alone, Isabel!"
"I don't want to," she persisted. "You need to go and do that race."
"Just because I fucked you doesn't mean I want you with me," he snapped, yanking his arm out of her grip again. "Just leave me the fuck alone!"
"No, listen," she continued, laying a hand flat on his chest even though she was close to tears and her cheeks were flushing. The sharp sting of his rejection hurt, but she knew Harry was hurting a hundred times more. "You need to do this, okay? You need to get on that starting line and warm up before you run –"
"I'm not going to fucking run!" he barked, pulling away from her. His eyes were full of pure, undiluted panic, and when he ran a hand through his hair she saw that familiar terrified tremble in his fingers. "I can't do this. I can't."
"Harry –"
"I wish none of you had come!" he said so loudly a man in a nearby group turned to look at them curiously. He turned on his heel and started marching away from her, his back hunched over and his fists clenched at his sides. "I wish nobody had fucking come and I could have done this on my own!"
Isabel started to stumble after him. "But you shouldn't have to do this on your own."
"Why not?" he snapped. "I'm fine on my own."
"Harry," she said as firmly as she could, lunging forward to cling onto his hand. He stopped so abruptly that she nearly crashed into his back. "You're making yourself panic, you need to stop it."
"No Isabel, you're not listening. I can't do this," he said again, letting go of her hand and running his shaking fingers through his hair again. "I can't do this."
"Yes you can. You've ran so far before, you're so –"
"No, I don't mean like that," he choked. "I'm not ready to – I can't – I'm just, fuck!"
He was so worked up, looking around wildly at anything but at her concerned face. Eventually, he spat out: "I'm just thinking about the reason why I'm doing it and I can't do it. I'm not ready."
"It's okay not to be ready," Isabel said softly, placing her hand over his and trying to prise his fingers open. She had no idea how to deal with him. She'd never known anyone go through what Harry was going through; she didn't know what to tell him to make him feel better. Clutching at straws, she spluttered: "Do you remember what you said to me, ages ago, when I told you that I just wanted to scrape a pass on my degree?"
He frowned, failing to see the relevance, and she knew immediately that she'd made a mistake. She gulped nervously, desperately trying to think of something else to say, and Harry met her eyes in his curiosity. "No?"
Isabel blinked at him, entirely surprised he was humouring her pitiful attempt at calming him down, before continuing: "You said 'you might as well try your hardest now that you're here, right?'" She managed to open up his hand enough to slip her fingers through his, squeezing his hand tightly with both of hers.
He nodded slowly. "I remember," he said quietly.
"You always try so hard with everything, Harry. You never give up on anything."
He swallowed and looked at the ground. "I am trying," he whispered. "I try every day."
It took all she could not to burst into hysterical tears then. She knew why he was like this now, why he was always pushing her away. Why he was so horrible to her for the first few months they'd known each other, why he flipped out so quickly. He didn't like letting people in because he was scared of how much it would hurt when they left him, like Adam had left him, and so he desperately tried to put them off, being rude and snapping at them until they gave up. He was made up of fear, every part of him, a confused, botched cacophony of different kinds of terror and it was no wonder then that he was always on the defensive because she couldn't even imagine what it felt like to feel all of that all at once.
"It's not going to get better if you keep running away from it," she replied, reaching their intertwined hands to push his head up. He closed his eyes, breathing heavily as his lips parted. "You push everyone out Harry. It's not better to be on your own."
"I know," he said eventually, his voice small. He looked into her damp brown eyes with his pained green ones, brushing a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb. He looked like he might say something, his mouth opening and his breath pulling in, but instead he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers hard, and it wasn't even like he was kissing her, just pushing their lips together so that he wouldn't have to say anything else. He pulled away, resting his forehead against hers and let out a tiny breath that somehow managed to sound broken despite the smallness of it. "I'm okay. I'll be okay."
~~~
Isabel imagined that most car rides home from marathons were triumphant, excited, full of laughter and relief, but she genuinely believed that no other car in the country was as proud as Niall Horan's Range Rover that evening when they drove back home, a grinning and exhausted Harry sitting quietly in the cramped backseat as people threw him compliments over and over again.
Whether or not Harry knew his friends were affected by their newfound knowledge of Adam, or because of the near meltdown he'd very publically had minutes before he was meant to be on the start line, was unclear, but he was grateful for their excited chatter all the way home mostly because it meant he barely had to speak at all.
Isabel wasn't sitting next to him – Niall and Caitlin were in the front, and Harry was sandwiched by Zayn and Liv, Isabel sitting on Liv's right hand side – so she wasn't able to check whether his smile was always genuine or not.
But Isabel knew what the others didn't: Harry wasn't happy. He'd finished the marathon with a smile and a time of 4 hours 43 minutes, which wasn't bad by any standard, and he listened happily as everyone told him what a hectic day they'd had, getting on and off the train multiple times in order to travel the twenty-six miles to meet him at the end, making a few stops at the side line in between to cheer him
on. Callum's feet had barely touched the ground all day - Niall and Zayn had constantly been heaving him onto their shoulders or giving him piggy backs - while Phoebe felt very grown up as she conversed with Harry's girl friends about what high school was like and which guy from The Hunger Games was cuter. When Harry had crossed the finish line, Jane had gripped Isabel's hand between both of hers, cheering on her son with tears in her eyes and a dimpled smile on her tired face.
But when Harry had found a moment alone with Isabel while they were loading Niall's car for the journey back, the smile was gone and replaced with that familiar deep frown.
"I'm gonna do another one," he'd told her quietly.
"When? Next year?"
He shook his head. "As soon as possible. Anywhere, I don't care where it is. I fucked it up."
Now it was Isabel's turn to frown. He'd started off well, and everyone had been optimistic. Around the twentieth mile he'd hit the proverbial wall, stopping for so long that everyone thought he'd give up, but he hadn't. He'd pretty much jogged the rest, but he'd done it. "In what way did you fuck it up?"
He took a deep breath, his gaze flickering to the floor. "I can do better, closer to three and a half hours. I shouldn't have done that coke in Easter, it stays in your system. It messed up everything. Hit the fucking wall."
"Harry –"
"I didn't train properly. I ate all the wrong things and I didn't rest properly and I – I fucked it up." He didn't look up from the floor. "I think I did it on purpose. I fucked it up on purpose but I... but I wish hadn't now and I need to do it again."
He paused, licking his lips and searching her face. "You understand why it's important for me to do this properly, don't you?"
She wasn't sure if she did fully, but she knew that everything that happened with Adam was something that hung over Harry's head constantly, a dull, heavy, perpetual weight sitting on his shoulders. And doing the marathon in his name meant admitting that it was there and not just in his head, that it was real. "Of course I do."
He nodded. "Good. Cos now I do too."