"Niall? What are you doing here?" I asked.
A small little cough brought my attention to the small brunet hanging on his arm. "I was just going for a walk with Kayla." he nodded toward the girl.
I crossed my arms, "I never took you for a flower garden kind of guy." I said a bit accusingly.
"I'm not. I'm a seclusion kind of guy and that kind of seclusion just happens to be in a flower garden. Could you give us some privacy?" he asked as he nodded at the bench.
"No, I was here first and I'm sure as hell not leaving."
"Really? Harry is going to be here soon? Weren't you avoiding him since the bet was cancelled. You wouldn't want want to see him with someone else now would you?" he smirked.
"What the fuck do I care? He means nothing to me."
"Yeah about as much as sex means to me." he scoffed.
"You're a pig! How can you even live with yourself?" I turned around and stormed off in a huff.
I hadn't wanted Niall to win at his little game but I knew if I had stayed there one more second I probably would have choked him, or Kayla. As I walked out of the garden I walked right into someone.
All too familiar arms wrapped around me, keeping me vertical. "Harry let me go!" I insisted.
"No, I believe that we need to talk." he said with a kind of finality in his voice that could only know that he knew I would be leaving the garden.
"You set me up!" I screamed as I struggled in his grip.
"That's really not the point of this, now is it?" he said while throwing me over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
"Harry, put me down! Where do you think that you're taking me?"
"Somewhere you'll talk to me."
"You are never going to find somewhere that I'll speak with you. I'm sick of lying assholes who trick people and lie to get what they want."
My feet touched the ground and I began beating on his chest. "Kendall, stop it. I never lied to you and I never tricked you."
"Oh, I see, and getting me out of the garden was just an accident? How did you even know that I was in there?"
"Okay, that wasn't an accident, but come on Kendall. We do need to talk. I tried earlier today but you pushed me away and wouldn't listen. Why do you always push people out of your life?"
I felt my face fall. Was that all I did was push those who were closest to me away? "I'll give you ten minutes." I said with a groan.
"You really are absolutely unreasonable aren't you?"
"Excuse me? I gave you time to talk to me about what you needed to. I did not agree to stand here while you belittle me!"
"That wasn't belittling, it was... Telling the truth. How can I possibly say what I need to in simply ten minutes. We rally need to talk Kendall and I mean a proper talk."
I paced a bit, "I don't see what we need to talk about. Its not like we truly have anything to say to one another."
"You've got to be kidding me! I have plenty to say to you Kendall. Like why you've been playing with me? How can you call me the player when this whole time you've just been dragging me along like a pup on a leash. I can't do anything anymore without thinking about you! I want to know what you've done and what right you have to judge others for what you do as well." He threw his arms in the air.
I froze mid step, "How am I playing with you? You're the one who can't seem to stick to one girl!"
I was going to continue but he cut me off, "I can't because I don't know how! I've felt love once and then it was ripped away from me. Anyone who has ever been through that experience would never want to go through it again. It is a terrible thing to go through and it leaves scars." He turned to back to me, "You really don't care though. What am I but a nuisance that you've simply put up with so you can get rid of me."
"You aren't a nuisance Harry." I whispered, "How could you ever think that of yourself?"
"It's all I've ever been told, except for one person. I lost her though, many years ago." he sighed.
"Did she move? Maybe just went to another school. You could find her and get her back." I suggested.
He just shook his head, "It's not possible. I didn't mean that she left, well she did but it wasn't anything temporary." He turned back to me with tears in his eyes probably blurring his vision, "She died and you can't retrieve the dead."
"Harry I..." What was I going to say though? That I was sorry, or maybe that I could make it better? I couldn't though. There was nothing I could do to help him. Standing before me now was not the teenage Harry that slept around but I looked at the face of a child who was still heartbroken of lost love, love he could never reclaim.
"Don't pity me Kendall, it does nothing to help. It can only be a hindrance, especially after all these years. You think you know me, but the truth is that you know only what I want you to know. I put of a façade to keep people away, to make sure nobody gets too close. You see it as me simply sleeping around because I want to when the truth is that I'm simply protecting myself." He shook his head in self disgust.
It was truly terrible seeing him like this, with every wall he ever erected crumbling down to lay little less than dust at my feet. He was finally opening up and showing me what truly lies beneath the lies. With every defense down I was finally seeing who he really was... and I liked what I saw.
"Come on, we'll go back to my dorm and talk." I said to him.
His facial expression hardened as the wall went back up in half a second, "What about Angeline? I don't need everyone on campus knowing my business, only the people that need to."
"I will text her and tell her to stay away for a good two hours. Will that suffice?" I asked, adding a bit if a dramatic flare to my words.
He nodded and began walking toward my dorm leaving me to follow.
"So who was this lost love of yours?" I asked once we were nearly to the room.
"Can't you wait until nobody can hear us? I already said I don't want the entire campus knowing my business. There are things I don't need leaked out to the world." he hissed.
"Are you afraid someone will blackmail you with the information?" I laughed.
"Something like that. Now hurry and open your door. We don't have all day, now do we?"
"Someone is being rather pushy today," I muttered as I unlocked the door.
Once it was open Harry and I walked in and he leaned against it to make sure the handle latched. His facial features were pulled taut out of anxiety and I could see the muscles in his arms tensed up as well. Ot looked as if he was afraid to tell me about himself.
"Don't look so scared, it's not like I'm going to tell the world." I rolled my eyes as I plopped myself in a chair and looked up at him.
"I can't be sure about that but for some reason I trust you. Now what was that first question of yours? I'm an open book."
I let out a short, humorless laugh, "You are definitely anything but. So tell me, who is this girl you say you lost? this lost love of yours?" I asked.
"I didn't love her, well not in that sense. She was family, my mother really. When I was merely six she passed away from Tuberculosis. She wasn't even allowed to have someone by her bedside as she slowly died. Just before she died her eyes met mine and I knew that the moment she died I would never trust myself to love again.
"My father wasn't a vet compassionate man, not even to my mother. My sister says that the only reason she had us was because she fought to. He didn't want kids, not really. He thought that we were too much work. My sister left the next year, just before I turned seven. I haven't heard from her since. My dad takes care of me because he has to. Its not a very happy house but I don't see how it can be when you aren't wanted."
Harry ran his fingers through his hair and looked at me, "Nobody ever loved me except for my mum and my capability for feeling love died with her. I never wanted to be hurt like that again, but then you came to the school. Something changed when I saw you it I didn't understand it, which scared me. I don't admit fear easily Kendall and what I felt around you scared me. It scared me to death. I up the amount of girls I slept with to get you it of my mind, but you were always there waiting in the back. You were just perched and ready to swoop in the moment I had a free thought.
"What was I to do but get you out if my system? I had to forget you and that meant going out with you. I knew that the moment I felt things would get serious would be the moment everything would click back into place, but it didn't. We went out as friends and I just never got tired of you. It soon became obvious that my feelings for you were not mutual and I broke the bet. Then you come to my door yelling and screaming about the girl I was with just like I wanted you to. I thought I had you then but then you began dating that tool, Blake."
He groaned and began pacing, "I was crushed, I was. Just when I was beginning to believe that I might have a chance at gaining back some feeling of love, what do you do? You turn your back on me and go after someone else. I don't know what to do anymore Kendall because I can feel again and it's killing me."
I stood up from my chair feeling disbelief. Could every word he was saying be true? How could someone who vowed to cast out love begin to feel it again? "I don't understand Harry. How am I important? You could have picked any girl on campus and they would have been thrilled, tickled pink even to believe that you liked them."
"I didn't fall for them though Kendall. I fell for you and only you. The trouble is, I'm still falling but I'm enjoying every minute of it."
Okay so there is only one more chapter left in this book. I hope you all have enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.