May
Isabel had been twenty for a week and she had hated every single second of it.
In between revising, covering shifts at work to make up for the ones she'd missed, and crying hysterically about failing all her exams, all she thought about was Harry. Which really, wasn't so good.
Not at all.
Far too soon for her liking, she found herself in the exam hall and she considered it achievement enough that she didn't run out of there crying. She wasn't happy, and she really had no one else to blame other than herself, and annoyingly, one of her first thoughts was that if she'd listened to Harry's advice from the start and put some effort in a long time ago, she would have saved herself both the stress and the disappointment.
And as if failing her exams wasn't enough of a problem, she had Harry to deal with as well. Because Harry was just everywhere, and she wasn't sure what to do to get him to go away.
It wasn't just that she had to see him at work, sit there for a couple of hours with him in the shoe booth and make occasional conversation over their respective textbooks before they parted ways.
It was that he insisted on driving her home each time, and that they texted every day, and that when he hadn't spoken to her in a couple of hours she got anxious, like he'd suddenly realised she wasn't worth the fuss and had given up, finally. Not that she would have blamed him.
Isabel didn't like to be unnecessarily self-pitying, but the whole thing was just unfair. It wasn't fair to her, it wasn't fair to Caitlin, and it wasn't fair to Harry, and the whole situation was so horribly fucking unfair that she actually got angry.
Today was one of those days.
There were technically two weeks left until term broke for the summer, but she was already packing up to go, pulling clothes out of her wardrobe and flinging them across the room roughly, letting out little grunts of anger as she did so. The others had gone out a little while ago, probably to another party that she wasn't invited to, and so she'd put on the angriest CD she could find and screamed along whenever she knew which part of the song they were at and vaguely recollected the words, which wasn't very often.
In the midst of all this, she had also been made to sign the contract to extend the lease on the house for next year. It had occurred to her for a brief minute when the pen was shoved into her hand that she might not want to live with them anymore, but she wasn't really given a choice in the matter and so she signed the contract without complaint.
If she was in the mood to look for silver linings, she would have recognised that she didn't need to pack up all her things and take them home since the house was theirs over summer as well. But she was so angry that she didn't care, and after she was done with gutting the wardrobe she went over to her chest of drawers and tipped each of the drawers out onto the floor, and then stood in the mess she'd
made, thick jumpers and balled up socks and flimsy tights gathering around her feet like she was standing in water, and wondered when on earth she'd become so pathetic.
It was then that she saw her bag from London sitting in the corner, untouched since her birthday. She'd flung it in the corner when Harry had dropped her home on Sunday night and only opened it briefly to fish out her toothbrush. Now she went over to it, yanking the zip open with clammy hands because she'd just remembered that Harry's birthday card was inside. She was wearing Harry's grey jumper, the one he'd worn to the zoo the first time they'd been to London together, the one she'd worn the day of his marathon, and it made sense to wear it because if she didn't she might accidentally pack it, and that would be awkward when he asked for it back. Except, if she really thought about it, it had been a few weeks now and he hadn't asked for it back yet. He hadn't even mentioned it.
She dug her hand into the bag, picking up the little white card with shaking fingers and turning off the music before backing up to sit on her bed. She waited for a moment with the card downturned in her hands, wanting to preserve the last few moments of ignorance, perhaps the last few moments of sanity, before she looked at it. Considering how angry she'd been a moment ago, everything seemed very, very still, and she just stared at the whiteness of the card until it swam in front of her eyes and she flipped it over before she could change her mind.
It was a detailed, perfectly drawn map of the world, nestled between "Happy" written across the top and "Birthday!" along the bottom. The outlines of each continent, each country, were neat and precise, and Isabel knew without cross-referencing that each tiny squiggle, each little jut of the border was a deliberate, careful replica of the real thing.
The part that made her feel faint, though, was what lay inside the boundaries. Because each country wasn't just lightly shaded or a blur of vein-like borders, snaking through each big landmass like spider webs. Instead, they were filled with things.
For a moment she didn't really recognise anything, and she had to blink for a while because it all just blurred into one indistinguishable clump of pencil lines and watercolour. But then she took a deep breath and forced her brain to engage and saw, finally, little drawings of flapjacks and movies and grumpy Harrys and bleeding palms and zoo animals and messy-haired Isabels and CDs and bowling pins and running shoes. Each one was meticulously coloured and shaded, bright and exuberant and perfect. She couldn't even imagine Harry drawing this if she tried. She couldn't imagine that something so inexplicably happy had come from him, the boy who frowned at everything she said and snapped and overanalysed and pushed people away. Harry, who tried so hard to cover everything up that he'd become a patchwork quilt of himself, a botched together, fragmenting caricature of the person he wanted to be, had made this. For her.
She had no idea why he'd drawn a map but it didn't matter, and she didn't even read the message inside, just stared and stared until she thought she'd memorised it, and when the doorbell rang she questioned for a moment whether it was real, like when you're watching the television and the doorbell rings and you flinch in your seat, the lines so blurred that for a moment you're not quite sure whether or not it was on the screen or in real life.
She stumbled down the stairs and flung the door open, so distracted that she just stared blankly at the person on the threshold until she registered with quite alarming force that it was Harry, involuntarily choking on her own spit.
"You okay?" Harry asked worriedly, rubbing her back as he stepped into the hallway. "Should I get some water?"
"I'm fine," she spluttered, wishing she'd done something about her hair before she'd been so stupid as to fling the door open. He nodded, his lips in a tight line as he surveyed her outfit, instantly recognising his jumper. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but she really didn't have anything to say that could make her seem less stupid, and so she just waited for him to tell her why he was there.
"You need to go put something nice on," he said huskily, before clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. "You've been requested by our friends who miss you very much and want to take you out for your birthday."
"I'm actually just packing," she replied dumbly, most of her coherent thoughts evaporating as she zoned in on the deep, dark lines under his eyes and he frowned. There it was.
"You've got two weeks to go, Isabel," he said, exasperated. "You're ridiculous. Just go and make yourself presentable."
When she came downstairs half an hour later, Harry was doing absolutely nothing, sitting on the sofa staring at the floor absently, the fingers of one hand playing with his lip. This surprised her, but she forgot that she wanted to ask why he hadn't turned the TV on when he looked up at her and smiled. She gulped, trying to pull her skirt further down her thighs and raised her eyebrows as if to say: "Well?"
"You'll do," said Harry with a grin, but she noticed his eyes were so strangely nervous that she now doubted his smile was genuine, "just about."
~~~
Isabel bleated in shock and nearly jumped a foot in the air when she was met with the deafening roar of forty people crowded into Harry, Zayn and Niall's main room shouting "surprise!" simultaneously when she and Harry walked in.
Most of the people she expected were there for the free party as they only knew her vaguely, but at least a large handful were genuinely happy to see her, one of those people being Niall Horan who leaped on her before she had even managed to complete a preliminary scan of the room.
"ISAAAAAABEL!" he bellowed, wrapping his arms around her like a monkey. She had a strange sense of déjà vu; the first time she'd met Niall, he was wearing almost exactly the same outfit of a tank top and shorts with a spliff in his hand, although this time he'd added a snapback and almost certainly an extra tonne of aftershave. "Trust you to be late to your own party! Hey, this is like when we first met, isn't it? I threw Harry a party here, and now he's throwing you one!"
Harry laughed nervously. "It's a joint surprise party. It's not just mine."
"Yeah, fucking hell Niall, don't let Harry take all the credit," Liv said with a grin, kissing Isabel on the cheek. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
"Thank you," Isabel replied, hugging Zayn too before being shoved some sort of alcoholic concoction by Caitlin.
"Drink at your own peril," Caitlin warned. "Zayn and Niall made it, I think it's got about four different spirits in there."
Isabel downed it, just to get into the spirit of things and because she got the impression that if she didn't the boys would pour it down her throat, and she nearly threw up right there on Niall's precious carpet.
"What the fuck is in here?" she spluttered, wincing.
"Don't ask," Zayn said with a shake of his head. "Just drink."
Isabel grimaced, shuffling away before Niall, whose hand was edging back towards the jug dangerously, could pour her some more and in doing so, spotted a bunch of familiar faces in the corner.
"Millie!" she shouted in surprise, worming her way past Liv and over to her best friend. They were standing in a tight circle by the door to the garden – Millie, Scarlett, Liam and Lydia, that is – sipping their drinks shyly and avoiding eye contact with the strange art people they didn't know.
Isabel wanted to remind them that they'd been more than happy to come to Harry's birthday party back in February, before they'd categorically decided that he was weird and not to be trusted, but she bit her tongue. "Hey! What are you all doing here?"
"Harry invited us," explained Scarlett, and Isabel glanced over at the boy in question. He was drinking Niall and Zayn's deadly mixture like it was water, downing a glass in seconds with his head tilted back and his eyes shut before filling up another one, the bump of his Adam's apple shifting under the tight skin of his throat as he swallowed. He was being lectured by Liv and Zayn, though clearly not listening, and he caught her gaze as he swiped the back of his hand across his glistening mouth, his eyes still perplexingly anxious. "He's been quite sweet about the whole thing, really."
"Oh really?" Isabel said, dragging her eyes away from Harry to raise an eyebrow at Scarlett. "You think maybe you guys misjudged him, now?"
Millie and Scarlett both mumbled something incoherent about drugs and tattoos and fucking girls in toilets, and Isabel ignored them.
She stood making conversation with them for a while, ten tedious minutes spent laughing at the fact the estate agent had had lipstick on her teeth, a conversation they'd all had about eight times since they signed the contract earlier that week. When she next looked over at the others in slight desperation, Zayn was beckoning her with a smirk, and she squeezed Lydia's arm before hurrying towards them obediently, her relief lost on nobody. Niall instantly poured her a top-up of the mixture while Liv bounced on her heels excitedly.
"It's time for your present!" Liv sang before Isabel had a chance to refuse Niall's horrendous beverage.
"It's kinda not the most – well, you'll see why," Caitiln added disjointedly, smiling at her.
"Let's just tell the poor girl," Niall said with a roll of his eyes. "Go on, Livvy." He gestured for Isabel to drink, and she did so with a scowl. Harry must have been on his eighth or ninth cup now, and he went for the tenth with almost criminal enthusiasm, filling the plastic cup to the brim so that it sloshed around over his fingers slightly before pouring it into his mouth.
"Okay weeeeeeell," Liv started, pausing for dramatic effect as Isabel yanked her attention away from Harry. "We got you a summer job!"
Isabel frowned, confused, and let out a laugh. "What?"
Zayn smirked as Liv clapped her hands together, Caitlin smiling widely and looking up at Harry to gage his reaction. "We're all working at Liv's uncle's campsite in Devon for a week," Niall explained. "We never wanted to mention it because we felt bad that you weren't coming too, but it was Harry's idea you should come. Now we'd all get to see you in the summer!"
Harry mumbled something nobody heard, his lips not moving from the edge of his drink as he tipped it down his throat.
"It's not gonna be like, work work," Liv continued as Isabel still looked confused. "It has a lake and stuff, we can just get pissed in the evening as well."
"Like a festival, just without the music," Zayn clarified. "And the hot girls."
"But we get paid," added Caitlin with a frown. "Sorry we're not a good enough selection for you, Zayn."
"It's not like an actual present," Zayn went on, ignoring her. "But £500 is more than what we would get you anyway, right?"
Isabel struggled to get in a word edgeways, but when she did, she was gushing her thank-yous left right and centre, repeating "£500 for real? Are you serious?" multiple times and babbling excitedly, and it wasn't after what might have been an hour of excited chattering about getting pissed by the lake and skinny dipping in the dark that she realised Harry was absent.
She found him sitting alone on the sofa, his previous mission of downing the entirety of Zayn and Niall's concoction forgotten as he was drinking something of the cheap liquor variety straight from the bottle and staring down at his lap.
"Hey," she said, sliding down next to him and poking his side. He turned to smile at her, his eyes glassy and wide and his cheeks flushed, his smile all tongue and teeth as he gazed at her. She immediately concluded she'd never seen him so drunk, and she was torn between finding it hilarious and alarming.
"Isabel!" he slurred happily, swiping his tongue across his lips. "'s good to see you."
"Yeah, you too," she replied, suppressing a laugh. "Why you sitting on your own, Styles?"
He blinked at her slowly, evidently taking a while to understand what she'd said. "I'm thinking," he answered eventually.
"What about? The universe? The meaning of life?"
"Nooooo," he shook his head, frowning and pouting his lips, taking a swig from the bottle to avoid answering and screwing up his face, gagging slightly.
"That's enough of that," she said firmly, trying to pry the bottle from his grip but he tugged it away.
"'s mine!" he snapped childishly, holding it away from her. The bottle waved precariously in his hand that was held high above their heads, and he scowled at her, his eyelids drooping.
"You're so drunk, the party's barely been going for a couple of hours!"
He shrugged with his entire upper body. "'Kay," he said, accepting defeat. "Drunk is good. Makes you brave."
She felt a little wave of anxiety at that, but before she could think about how to respond he was leaning into her shoulder, his face buried into her neck and his arm slung across her waist.
"Room's spinning," he mumbled, his lips brushing against her neck and his breath fanning across her collarbone. She felt his fingers stroking the skin in the gap between her skirt and her top, his hair tickling her neck, and she swallowed hard, trying to ignore her erratic heartbeat. "'M scared, Is'bel."
"What are you scared of, Harry?" she asked him gently, pushing his shoulder back a bit so she could look at his face. His eyes were screwed up tightly, one hand clutching the bottle of the drink so hard she thought it would break in his grip. He licked his lips again and smiled slowly, lazily, the dimple flexing in his cheek.
"You and I aren't friends anymore," Harry mumbled out of nowhere. "We don't even hang out."
She swallowed. "That doesn't mean we're not friends."
"Yeah, it does."
She looked down at her lap. "I'm so sorry, Harry. I'm gonna fix it tonight. I won't fuck you around anymore."
He paused for a long time and then shrugged, his entire body moving as he did so, his lips glistening and his eyes glazed. "Whatever," he muttered. "I'll get over it."
I'll get over it.
She wasn't sure how those four words managed to hurt so much, five syllables punching into her with an almost physical force, her breath catching in her throat like he'd shot her right in the chest with each word. Harry shuffled closer to her, completely oblivious to her horror. "'M drunk," he told her. "Keep it a secret."
"I don't think it's much of a secret," she mumbled, looking around the room to see who had noticed the state he was in, and her eyes landed on a figure so horribly, unexpectedly familiar that she audibly gasped.
"I have a proper secret though," Harry was saying, but Isabel wasn't listening. She was staring at Louis, and he was staring right back at her, smirking at her knowingly, and for a moment, perhaps the first time all week, she forgot all about Harry, all about his slurred words and his droopy eyes and his 'I'll get over it'.
"Harry, I need to –"
"No! Wait," he grabbed her hand with a surprising amount of force and held her there. "Lemme tell you something –"
"Okay, in a minute, just give me a second –"
"Isabel, where're you going? Don't –"
But she was standing up and leaving Harry before he could protest anymore, walking towards Louis with her eyes locked on his.
"What are you doing here?" she hissed at him, pulling him away from the crowd he was with as he laughed.
"Couldn't miss my favourite girl's birthday party, could I?" he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. She let him, her face blank and impassive. "Even if your new boyfriend forgot to invite me."
"He's not my boyfriend," she snapped.
"That's not what Millie's been telling me," Louis said with raised eyebrows. "And I've heard he's a bit of a slut, so you're a good match then."
"Fuck off," Isabel said, rolling her eyes in distaste. Not long ago Louis' words would have made her feel like she'd been drenched in freezing cold water, but now she felt nothing but exasperation. "I don't have time for you. Have fun, yeah? Just don't deal to any of my friends."
"Wouldn't dream of it, love," he replied, grinning at her. "Plus, I hear your boyfriend goes for the hard stuff. Never thought you were into that sort of thing."
"To be honest, Lou, I'm into anyone who isn't a complete fucking wanker like you," she retorted sharply, watching the grin slide from his face. He'd never really expected her to be so snappy, she supposed, and his surprise was enough to bolster her confidence. "Thanks for that, by the way; you taught me exactly how a boy shouldn't treat a girl. I'm learning to be grateful for it."
She walked away before Louis could say anything else, leaving him completely dumbstruck alone in the centre of the room. She hurried to the counter and poured a glass of Niall and Zayn's mixture with shaking hands, and then another, sticking out her tongue when the drink slipped like acid down her throat.
There was a weird surge of adrenaline pumping through her, and she sort of wanted to punch something, or scream, or both, but she wasn't angry. She felt almost triumphant, and if the surprise of the party wasn't enough, the look on Louis' face had cemented that this was the best night she'd had in a long time.
"Isabel!" someone shrieked, pulling her sharply from her mental satisfaction, and she turned to find a distraught Caitlin, near tears, hurrying towards her. "I can't do it anymore!"
"Do what?" she asked, setting her drink down to take Caitlin's hand. "What's happened?"
"I just - I can't stand and watch it anymore, it's killing me."
"What do you mean?" Isabel asked, her heart sinking, because she knew from Caitlin's face exactly what it was. She knew.
"He - he just got with someone else! Oh fuck, fuck. What the fuck do I do, Is?"
Isabel wanted to scan the room for Harry but she didn't, she couldn't, because if Caitlin was this upset there's no doubt she would be too. Her heart plummeted even further and she looked at the floor, her opportunity to tell Caitlin right in front of her now but all she could hear was I'll get over it.
She swallowed, trying her best to say something but no words were coming out. Her mouth felt dry, empty, her throat like it was suddenly made out of cotton, but there wasn't much to say anyway other than the truth, which was that she liked Harry. It was horrible, the pressure of her confession, because she was pretty certain that Caitlin would hate her and then everyone would have to get over it whether they wanted to or not.
"This is horrible," Caitlin said for her, her voice trembling.
"Caitlin, I need to tell you something," Isabel spat out, but her own voice sounded alien, like it was a million miles away. "I really like him. I mean I really, really like him, and I don't think I can make it go away. I'm so sorry."
"Oh," Caitlin said, swallowing hard. "Okay. I mean, I guess you could go for it."
Isabel shook her head. "I wouldn't. Not when you like him so much, I can't."
Caitlin looked at her feet. "It's okay. It's just, I don't think – I'm not sure he would go for you, anyway."
"Yeah," Isabel replied sadly, her face falling.
"It's not because of you, it's because of Harry. He wouldn't cos of Harry." Isabel stared at her blankly. She's expected Caitlin to shout, or to at least call her a bitch, but she hadn't expected her to be so calm and so utterly, entirely defeated. And she hadn't expected her to say that. "What?"
"I guess we all thought that you felt the same way," Caitlin frowned. "But if you don't, that's okay, just I don't think that –"
"What are you talking about?"
"Harry's mad about you," Caitlin explained slowly. "He's so fucking obvious about it. I thought – I don't know, I guess I thought –"
"But you like Harry," Isabel choked out.
Caitlin spluttered out a laugh. "Of course I don't like Harry! I - I like Zayn."
If Isabel's heart didn't already feel like it was breaking, she felt it shatter into a million pieces at that moment, the slithers of string holding her together slicing open right there in Niall's kitchen and the contents of her heart splattering onto the linoleum. She'd wasted nearly a month of her life avoiding Harry at every single cost to her own sanity for no reason. It had all been for nothing.
"Oh, Issy," Caitlin sighed sympathetically, rubbing her arm. "You know, we all knew you were hooking up. And we know that you stopped because he's been so bloody miserable. We just assumed he'd done something to fuck it up but it's - it was for me, wasn't it?"
Isabel nodded, digging the heel of her palm into her eye to stop herself from crying. "God, what have I done?"
"I'm so sorry."
"It's fine, it's not your fault." Isabel nearly cried then, and she bit down hard on her lip, her heart pumping so hard that she could actually feel the blood racing through her, and she felt so horribly aware of her insides, of her heart and her blood and her lungs all fit to burst, that she really did feel sick then. "I should have just spoken to you about it when you told me. Fuck, I should have just -"
"You were just trying to do the right thing." Caitlin said soothingly. "If you like him, you need to tell him, Is. He told Zayn back in April that he wanted things to happen with you two. He's just scared, he isn't good at things like this."
"But I did tell him," Isabel said quietly, her voice quivering. "He didn't say it back."
"Oh," was all Caitlin said, and when Isabel looked up at her she thought that for a girl so tall she seemed so little, her face painted with sadness as she glanced over at Zayn, who Isabel now realised was in the corner with a girl Isabel would never catch the name of.
"We're a mess, aren't we?" laughed Caitlin sadly, and Isabel couldn't even bring herself to smile back.
"You should tell Zayn," Isabel said to her. "It hurts when you say it, but at least you'll know where you stand."
Her voice was already trembling when she started speaking, but it broke at the end as she realised with a thud of finality that she knew where she stood with Harry. Nowhere.
Despite what Caitlin said, he'd never said he liked her back. He'd get over it.
She excused herself from Caitlin because she was sure she had seconds before she started to cry, and she ran out of the room and up the stairs without one look towards the sofa where she'd seen Harry last. In blind panic she scampered through the first door on the corridor, and it was like she was in a badly produced horror film as she slammed it shut behind her and flung herself across the room in complete darkness. She barely registered that this was Zayn's room, the only bedroom she hadn't been in, before she burst into tears, collapsing down on the edge of the bed and pulling her knees up to her chest, and she wondered how, for someone trying to do the right thing, she'd managed to fuck up everything and nobody was any happier for her efforts.
She cried for ages, she wasn't sure how long, until the ends of her hair were matted with tears and her face stung. He'd get over it.
Of course he would.
She'd never been the sort of girl he would want for longer than a little while. He'd never even wanted anyone for longer than a little while. She couldn't think of one good reason why she'd ever let her fantasy take over and believe that he would, that he could like her in the same way. And she'd screwed up what little time she could have had with him and it was so sad and painful and cruel and more than anything it was just so unfair.
"Is?"
She lifted her head up as Harry stumbled into the room, so drunk he could barely walk properly. She sniffed and swiped her face quickly, and her eyes were definitely puffy and red and bloodshot so she looked down at her knees. He ran a hand through his hair and lowered himself down on the bed next to her, his eyebrows puckering together. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said quietly, her voice small and shaky, and he did a visible double take when he realised she was crying. He frowned, blinking hard and licking his lips as he tried to get his slow brain to engage.
"Is, don't cry," he mumbled, shuffling closer to her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she muttered, wiping a hand across her face again and biting down on her trembling lip. "There's n-nothing wrong."
He put his arm around her in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, but he was so unsteady that he leant his entire weight into her and she had to plant her hand onto the bed to stop the pair of them toppling over. "Why are you upset?"
"Because I..."
She didn't even know what to tell him. She was upset because she'd messed everything up by leaving him hanging without explanation, and she was upset that it had all been a massive misunderstanding. And she was upset because she'd always known he would get over it, but she didn't realise it would be so soon. And she was upset at how much it hurt, at how painful it was to think of him with someone else, even the possibility of it, and how scary it was that she felt that way. And she was still upset that she'd told him she liked him and he still, after all this time, hadn't said it back.
"I'm n-not upset."
He gulped drunkenly, saying nothing, and then all of a sudden he grabbed the corner of Zayn's duvet and yanked it right over their heads. "'s a tent," he explained, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. "People don't cry in tents."
"Yeah?" she replied, and even though she was crying she couldn't help but laugh a bit. He smiled lazily, like he wasn't even sure what was going on.
"Me and Phoebe always make crying tents."
His head brushed the top of the duvet, creating an apex so that the rest of it draped around them, and he continued to smile at her, his dimple appearing, hollowed deep in his cheek. Isabel still sat with one arm wrapped around her knees and the other flat on the bed to hold them both up, but she put her head on her kneecaps to look over at him, at his ruddy cheeks and his hair falling into his face.
"Your hair's getting long," was the only thing she thought of to say.
She wasn't sure whether he didn't hear her or whether he ignored her, but either way he didn't respond.
"You need me to shout at Louis?" he slurred instead.
"Huh?" she asked, and she nearly laughed at the thought of him laying into anyone given his current state.
"What did he do?"
"No, no, it was me," she said, looking away from him and taking a deep breath. "I'm - I was just trying to do the right thing, but I - I messed everything up." She pressed a hand to her face. "God, I'm so stupid."
"You're not stupid. You got into uni," Harry said helpfully. He shifted his weight so that he wasn't leaning into her so much, swaying slightly even though he was sat down and he reached up his free hand to tug her fingers away from her face. "Don't say that."
"Sorry."
"Don't say sorry." He smiled at her, squeezing her arm and scanning the tear tracks on her cheeks, his body jerking slightly when he breathed. "You looked so nice wearing my jumper. I wish you'd worn that to the party."
"You told me to change."
"I was being good," he said, shrugging hugely so that the tent trembled around them. "It made me want to kiss you a lot."
She swallowed. "It did?"
He wasn't even listening, his gaze riveted on the puffiness of her eyes.
"Why were you crying?" He looked down at his lap. "Did I do something to upset you again?"
"No, Harry," she said quickly. "It was me. I just - fuck, I just messed everything up. It's why I've been avoiding you -"
"Isabel," he interrupted, his voice quiet. "If we're over cos you don't want me, I want to know. 's fine. Don't have to keep making excuses."
It always came back to this. Harry wanting to be wanted so much that it ate him up, that he became obsessed with it - but they couldn't want him too much, not so much that he had to let them in. He was completely, horrendously frightened of either scenario, but Isabel was in, completely submerged in him whether he wanted it or not, and the fact he didn't know that when she made it so obvious made her want to tear his hair out, or punch him, or collapse at his feet and cry and cry and cry.
"Harry," she said harshly, squeezing his hand so hard he had to look over at her. "That's never been what this was about. It's just, I thought - I thought Caitlin liked you."
He frowned, wetting his lips. He was so gone his eyes would barely open now. "What the fuck?"
"I know," she said, giving a little hysterical laugh, and she could have started crying again then. "I just didn't want to upset anyone and I - fuck. And now she's saying you like me, and I -"
"She said what?"
Isabel paused, surprised by how loud he'd spoken all of a sudden, and her eyes flickered across his face as he scowled and his eyes fell shut. "Well, she said that you like me."
Harry swallowed and then inhaled sharply, keeping his eyes shut tightly before edging away from her. "I'm too hot in here."
He started flailing around with the duvet until it was off him, shuffling away from her and scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I dunno why she said that," he muttered. "She doesn't - how would - what does she know?"
"So it's not true?" Isabel replied, and she wished he knew how fragile she felt right now because she was sure one more rejection, one more frown thrown her way amidst hollow silence on his part would be enough to break her.
"I'm so hot," Harry mumbled, not looking at her and pulling on the collar of his t-shirt. "Fuck me, it's so hot."
"Oh," Isabel said flatly, and fresh tears pricked hard in the back of her eyes but she ignored them. Pulling the duvet off her lap, much more gracefully than Harry's effort, she swung her legs out of bed and walked towards the door, her knees wobbling and her bottom lip trembling.
"Wait!" Harry said loudly, throwing himself across the room to grab onto her hand. "Hold on, wait."
"What for?"
Harry stepped closer, and Isabel knew he was so, so drunk that he could barely see, tripping over his own feet with every step and his mouth hanging open heavily. "Look at me."
"Harry, don't."
"Look at me, Isabel."
She did look at him, staring up at him with as much defiance she could muster though her eyes were watering and the lump in her throat actually hurt. Looking at him hurt more, though, especially when he was breathing so heavily she could feel it, hot and desperate on her skin.
"I need to talk to you," he said emphatically. "Please, fuck, please let me talk to you."
"Go on then," she prompted, looking at him like he'd asked, at the way he swallowed harshly and blinked slowly and stumbled around unsteadily despite the fact he was meant to be stationary.
He placed a hand flat on the wall for support and his eyes fell shut. "I - it's just I -"
He gulped loudly, his fist clenching against the wall but he said nothing, just standing there in silence as the unspoken ending hung in the air between them.
"Go on then," she said again, her voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. He growled a little, like the words were lodged in the back of his throat, and Isabel noticed he was actually sweating, tiny beads of moisture forming at his hairline.
"I really - fuck, I just -"
Isabel could have collapsed there and then under the weight of her expectation, so sudden and so strong that she actually felt her heart stop for a second. "It's okay if you want to say it," Isabel said softly.
"What?" he croaked.
She stared at him, at his eyes screwed shut and his mouth hanging open as he took shallow, fast breaths, and maybe she shouldn't have pushed it but she was certain that this is what he'd been trying to say, so certain that her hands were shaking with how much she wanted to hear it. "If you want to say it, don't be scared Harry."
"Say what?" he mumbled, his face paler and paler by the second, and he swayed dangerously on his feet.
"Is this - do you like me?" she questioned, and at that Harry finally wrenched his eyes open, looking so terrified that her breath caught in her throat.
"You think - but you - that's it?" he mumbled unintelligibly, wetting his lips, his heavy eyes darting around the room.
"Harry, it's okay. Don't be scared."
"I -" Harry started for the third time, his eyes falling shut again as she placed a hand on his extended arm and squeezed it encouragingly.
"You know I like you, Harry. So much. You can say it too."
"I - Christ, I -"
She just waited, the seconds dragging out between them as his body jerked when he breathed, and Isabel's heart sank with every passing moment, waiting and waiting and waiting until the seconds started to gnaw away at her, gathering like ants in the pit of her stomach and crawling up inside her slowly, and she dropped her hand from his arm.
"I ..."
All there was a vacuous, heavy pause.
"I can't."
She should have expected it really, but it still hurt so much that she was taken aback, and she nodded and pulled away from him, backing away from him and tripping over her feet before turning towards the door.
"Isabel –" Harry choked out, but she left before he could say anything else, slamming the door shut just as Harry gagged and threw up all over Zayn's floor.