Tasha pulls away from Harry's kiss again and leans her weight on both hands against his kitchen counter.
"We need to talk about this," she says again, the only rational thought peeking out of the herd of memories stampeding through her mind.
"I know, fuck, I know," he exhales as he runs his hands over his face in despair. He has been over this situation in his mind a million or more times over the years, what he would say if he ever got the chance to speak to her again, how he would be able to convince her how sorry he was, what on earth he could do to prove to her how much that horrible mistake changed him. But as she stands in front of him with her eyes full of regret and fear, he has the strongest urge to tell her to leave, that she deserves better, that he doesn't deserve her.
"I was so shocked to see you at the bar with Jamie and Alice, I thought stupidly in that moment that maybe, just maybe, we could start fresh, pretend like we just met, act like nothing had happened between us, but... but, I can't forget, Harry," she strains, her words trembling as she balances awkwardly on the edge of tears.
He wanted this too. The last time they saw each other they were kids and now they were practically strangers. He didn't know about her travel after high school or what she did for a living and she had no idea about the bar or what city Harry was even living in. But the truth is the ghosts of their past were always going to haunt them no matter how many times fate pulled them together and begged them to forget.
Her beautiful face awash with the pain he created is bringing back a mountain of memories he had safely repressed for his own sanity. He watches lip tremble as she stands in his kitchen by some miracle, after seven years apart, and he can't ignore how improbable and unimaginable that is.
"Natasha," he runs a hand through his hair and tugs at the roots, trying to punish himself for contemplating letting her walk out the door for even a moment.
She's watching him lose all composure, his eyes welling with tears and his hands in his hair. She takes an involuntarily step back away from him and his breath catches at the sight.
Tash squeezes her eyes shut and contemplates whether or not to open this excruciatingly painful door any further. She had moved on, gotten her life back on track after a few awful years. She made peace with what had happened but his lips touching hers were like a dam breaking and the onslaught of water rushing around her was now threatening to drown her.
She meant what she said in the Chinese restaurant, that type of guilt will kill him if he doesn't let it go but that doesn't mean that their relationship is fixable or that she has to go down with him.
She comes to the same realisation as Harry, that meeting again like this, in another time, in what feels like it could be another life, just doesn't happen very often and she owes it to the universe to find out why.
Her eyes peel open and a single tear escapes down her cheek, Harry moves to close the distance between them but stops dead in his tracks when her voice cuts through the silence.
"Why did you do it, Harry?" She croaks the question that has been plaguing her for the best part of decade. The image of that stranger on top of him, naked with him inside her, flashes through her mind and she feels like she is going to be sick.
His lips part as he hisses in a lungful of air, the weight of the question hitting him like a moving car.
She wants to continue, her mouth filling with a truck load of questions she had safely stored in the back of her mind but she's frozen by the intensity in his green eyes just a couple of feet away.
Harry knew this was coming, he knew that if he ever was lucky enough to see her again this would be the first thing she asked and he was just fortunate enough that she had given him a couple of days of ignorant bliss before the reality of their situation came creeping up to suffocate them.
The worst part was he didn't have a good enough answer to the one fucking question he had been asking himself every moment of every day for the past seven years.
Tash takes another step away from him as his silence becomes overwhelming, the only thing cracking through the air is the tiny sob that breaks from the back of Harry's throat.
"I have to go," Tash whispers, seemingly to convince herself more than anything and the realisation that his one chance is slipping swiftly from his reach has Harry's mind spiralling out of control.
"I have no reason, I have no fucking reason!" He yells, causing Tash to jolt upright in surprise.
"I was young and a fucking idiot and I made the worst mistake I've ever made in my whole fucking life because I was scared." He shouts in frustration at himself and if he wasn't so terrified she was going to walk out the door at any second he would be pacing around the room.
"Was it me? Was it something I did?" she's yelling through her tears now, seven years of pent up emotion tumbling from their mouths, "I didn't want to ever pressure you into being with me Harry, if you didn't want to you could have had the decency to break up with me," the memories far too much to handle and she feels like she could just sit down on this floor and cry for days.
Things ended so quickly back then, graduation and exams flew by in a blur and the moment Tash had the money in her hand she boarded a flight and didn't look back. Harry had tried to apologise between the party and graduation, he cried and banged on her door until her parents called his mum and she never heard from him again. There was no closure, no answers, no goodbyes.
Harry's brow creases in confusion and he takes a step towards her, "What? No! Nat, no you did nothing wrong." He wants to touch her, to hold her to him and never let go but he can't so instead he runs a hand through his hair again before licking his lips to continue.
"I made a mistake! A really big, life altering mistake, it wasn't anything you did or said or could have changed," she's shaking her head in disbelief at his words, she wants to believe him, but the vision of that night keeps playing on repeat.
"I loved you Harry, I loved you so much and you betrayed that in the worst way possible. I was so humiliated," she sobs, her hands flying up to cover her face and she slips down to the floor as the memories become too vivid to, both literally and metaphorically, stand.
His breathing is picking up pace as he remembers her devastating scream when her eyes met his as he fucked someone else who meant less than nothing to him.
He had only ever been with Nat until that moment, sex was something sacred between them, having experienced everything for the first time together... until that moment.
He doesn't know how to fix this or if it is even possible but he has spent an agonising amount of time regretting that moment and he needs to try. He sits down on the floor opposite the only girl he has ever loved and whose heart he single handedly shattered and continues to talk.
"I was a kid who did something terrible to the person I loved the most but I'm not that person, that is not me, I just made a horrible, horrible decision that I have regretted every moment of every day. It's not who I am or how I felt about you!" He takes in a deep breath and corrects himself, cautiously. "Feel about you."
"I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, hell, I don't even deserve to be having this conversation with you! But I'm begging you to give me another chance." Harry whispers the last bit, too scared to speak any louder.
Tash presses her palms into her eyes harder and tries to block out the reality of the situation. She dreamt about this moment for years, countless days and hours and minutes had gone by where she lived in hope he would find her and beg for her forgiveness. When it didn't come she picked herself up and rebuilt and forgave and moved on. But your first love, first heartbreak and first betrayal is something you can never forget.
He's battling internally with what he should do if, and probably when, she rejects his pleas. He wants to fight for her, show her how much she means to him and that he would do anything for her, but there's a part of him that just wants her to be happy, to find someone who would never do this to her, even as a reckless mistake.
He shuffles to sit next to her and leans his head back against the kitchen cupboards, their staggered and worn breathing the only noise in the quiet house. She wipes her eyes and he closes his, not sure if he can deal with watching her walk out his door.
"You broke my heart, Harry, you had the whole thing in your hand and you threw it away," her tired voice is barely audible as she confesses what he already knows and he hangs his head in the shame of the truth.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry." His bottom lip quivers as he finally says the words she needs to hear.
He hears her take in a deep breath and he peels his eyes open to see her sweet face all red and splotchy from crying and his stomach flips at the still bewildering comprehension that she is sitting next to him, no matter the circumstances.
"I'll never hurt you again, I promise you... I swear... on the stars and the moon," he breathes and she closes her eyes as his sentimental words hit her like a freight train.
"I don't know if I can do this, Harry," she chokes and stands abruptly and before he has a chance to catch his stolen breath she is running out the door.
A/N:
*Sobs*
What do we all think?
Poor tash has a tough decision to make..
I know it's hard not to love Harry but would you give him another chance ?
VOTE VOTE VOTE my loves!
Love Ruby
x