*MARNIE'S POV*
I scrolled through my text messages from the last 24 hours with a deep scowl etched across my face:
Marnie I am so so sorry. I am such a tool. Please let me at least try and explain what happened. I really want to speak to Nola. H
Please talk to me, Marnie. Just answer my calls so I can apologise. H
I know you're mad, Marnie, and you have every right to be, but please just answer your phone or reply to my messages. I am freaking out here. I just want to know that you and Nola are ok? H
Please, I'm begging you. H
Manrie. i haveb to speak to you ans nolqs. pleasw dont;e do this.
srop ignforing me i jnow yoi want answwrs.
As the messages trailed off into drunken jumbles of words I felt my anger growing. He was unbelieveable. How did he honestly think that getting drunk again was going to make this situation any better? Of course I hadn't replied to any of messages or answered any of his calls. Why would I have? He'd disappointed me beyond belief and quite honestly I wasn't sure if there was any coming back from it. It wasn't even just how he'd made me feel that was the problem. It was Nola. He'd screamed in both our faces and terrified her. His own daughter.
The minute we'd stepped through our front door Elenore had flat out told me not to bother with any of them ever again. I knew the majority of her bitterness came as the result of Niall's lack of interest in her rather than Harry's intoxicated antics, but never the less, I'd never seen her more demanding about something in our entire friendship. She'd told me to cut him off and forget all about him, because that's what she was going to do to Niall, but only hours later I'd found her curled up on her bed watching videos of him YouTube with a block of chocolate and a tub of icecream. Unfortunately it wasn't going to be as easy as she'd made out.
Harry's entrance to the party had left me considering Elenore's suggestion, but I wasn't sure I could tell Nola that her daddy wasn't going to be around any more. Not when she'd become so invested in him. We both had. I didn't think she was going to understand why she wouldn't be seeing him anymore either, which made the whole situation harder. The whole thing was a mess. It had always been a mess really, but recently it had started to become normal and smooth running. Now it just looked like a huge catastrophe. Allowing Harry to be involved in Nola's life has been an accident waiting to happen. A ticking time bomb. And I'd been stupid enough to allow Harry to set it off.
A knock at the door interrupted me from my sulking and I put my phone aside, hoping it wasn't anyone that was intending on having a conversation with me because I really wasn't in the mood. Nola looked up at me from her spot on the floor and smiled. She was happy, that was the main thing. I stepped into the hall and closed the door to lounge behind me, not wanting the crisp air to cut through her like it undoubtedly would me when I opened up the entrance. Our building was ridiculously cold, especially now in the Winter. Before my hand had even touched the handle, the silhouette on the other side of the frosted glass told me not to bother. It was him. Of course it was him.
The outline of the wild array of curls made it strikingly obvious that the person on the other side of my door was the person I really didn't want to see. He was here to grovel, no doubt. I retracted my hand and stared at the door instead, waiting for him to notice that his request of entry had been denied. I didn't want him in here, not unless he took a breath test first. He took a step forward suddenly and pressed his face against the glass.
"Marnie, I can see you. Please open the door. I've come to apologise." Of he had, but I didn't care.
"Go home, Harry." I replied, crossing my arms. "You're wasting your time here." He pressed both his hands up against the glass and sighed.
"No, I'm not going anywhere until you've let me explain." His voice was stubborn now.
"I don't want you here, Harry." I warned him. "Go or I'll call the Police."
"Oh, c'mon. Don't be stupid." He groaned. I could tell he was getting frustrated now. "I deserve a chance to explain what happened at the party."
"Oh do you now?" My voice went up an octave or so. The cheek of it.
"Please." He whined. "Just give me a chance to explain and if you still hate me afterwards, I'll leave you alone."
"I suppose that's a fair deal." I sighed eventually and opened the door. The Harry on the other side wasn't what I had been expecting. He was pale with dark bags under his eyes that resembled deep purple bruises. The eyes themself were flat and empty, not bright and twinkling as they usually were. I shook the guilty feeling out of my head blamed it on the alcohol instead.
"You're sober right?" I asked him as he wiped his feet on the mat. He looked up at and his mouth fell open.
"Seriously?" He sounded hurt.
"Yes. Seriously." I glared at him with my jaw set. He clearly didn't realise the lengths I would go to when it came to ensuring my daughter's safety.
"Of course I'm sober. And if it's any consolation, I had one hell of a hangover after I stumbled in on you all."
"No Harry, that's not really any consolation at all." I turned on my heel and opened the door to the lounge where Nola looked up at us excitedly.
"Dada!" She squealed, hauling herself to her feet and wobbling over to him. He opened his arms and she fell into them with ease. I hated how natural it had become while I had to stand there and steam over his irresponsible behaviour.
"At least she's forgiven me. I hated that I'd scared her." He mumbled into her hair.
"She doesn't understand." I snapped at him. "And I hated that you'd scared her too."
Harry turned his sad eyes to look at me while he held Nola against his chest. "Please say you'll forgive me too, Marnie?"
"I'm still waiting on this explanation." I said bitterly and perched myself on the arm of the sofa while he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room with Nola pulling on his hair.
"I just felt so overwhelmed." He shook his head as he spoke. "It's pathetic really, but I was throwing Nola a first birthday and it just hit me that I've had a daughter for over a year. I'm seriously a dad." He took a breath before he continued. "I went out to get some fresh air and to pull myself together before you arrived. Louis was treating the preparations like some sort of military operation and I was ridiculously nervous because I wanted it to be perfect, so I just needed to get out for five minutes."
"You didn't come back after five minutes though." I reminded him in a small voice. Annoyingly my annoyance with him was beginning to rub off and wear thin.
"I know but I can assure you that I'd had every intention to." He pressed his lips against Nola's forehead. "Basically I just completely freaked out. I ended up in a bar having a drink to calm my nerves, but I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I was going to raise a child for the next seventeen years. So then one drink turned into five and then of course the Dutch courage told me that it was time to make an appearance. Oh how wrong I was."
"I'll say." I grumbled at him. "So are you saying that you're not up to raising Nola now?"
Harry shook his head frantically. "No I'm not saying that at all! I just had a moment of panic. If anything that whole experience showed me just how much I do want to raise Nola. I don't want to ever disappoint you guys again. I really am so sorry."
I wanted his excuse to be so poor that I'd have to throw him out and never look at him again. I hated the fact that his excuse was annoyingly valid and somewhat heartbreaking at the same time.
"You're forgiven." I waved my hand as if it was nothing. "But you will never be intoxicated in front of my daughter again, ok?"
"Our daughter." He smirked.
"What?" I snapped.
"She's our daughter. Not just yours."
My jaw fell open. "Whatever." I heard him chuckling as he knealt to the ground with Nola and began waving her toys in front of her face. He was annoying. So annoying. I buried my head in hands and mentally kicked myself for being so hopeless at standing my ground.
Elenore came bursting through the door then, panting and bright red. She was waving a newspaper around in the air, but came to a halt when she saw Harry on our living room floor. "What is he doing here!?" She screeched. I looked frantically between the two of them.
"We've resolved the issue. He apologised, it won't happen again, bla bla bla." I rolled my eyes and pointed at the paper in her hand. "What's that?"
Elenore blinked at me for a minute before speaking. "I'm afraid there's something on the front of this paper that might make you change your mind about forgiving him."
Oh god.
Harry hauled himself to his feet and looked at Elenore, his eyes wide. "What are you talking about? I haven't done anything else."
"Elenore what's going on?" My heart thudded in my chest. Elenore sighed and held up the paper. My heart sank.
Right there on the front cover was a blown up photo of both Harry and Nola. It was the photo I had taken on his iPhone when he'd first come to visit. They were wearing their bandanas. The headline read:
"HARRY'S SECRET CHILD?"
"Fuck." Harry breathed.
"It basically goes on and on about how Nola is Harry's illegitimate daughter." Elenore bit her lip. "They obviously don't mention her by name, but still. I'm sorry Marnie."
"How did this happen?" I screamed at him. "That is one of your photos! It's on your phone!" Nola stopped playing and turned to stare at us.
Harry ran his hands through his hair and paled. "I have no idea! I didn't sell them to the paper if that's what you're asking! Someone must have gotten hold of my phone while I was drunk!"
"How could you be so stupid!" I cried, bursting into tears. "This was the one thing I never wanted to happen!" Nola's face looked so innocent on the page that I cried harder. I swept her up off the ground and buried my face in her hair.
"God, I am so sorry, Marnie." Harry's voice was barely a whisper. He took a step towards us but I waved him away, shaking my head until he stayed where he was.
"Get out." I told him through my tears. "I'm not going to live like this. I can't deal with it."
"Please don't say that." Harry's voice wobbled and he took another step forward but Elenore caught his arm.
"Dude, just leave." She told him. "Before this gets any worse." He stared at us for a moment before hesitantly turning and leaving the flat, slamming the door behind him. There was a long silence before either of us spoke.
"Get rid of it." I told her.
Elenore took one look at the paper in her hands and ripped it into millions of pieces until it was just a shredded mess, scattered across our floor.