It had been a week since that first video and true to his word, each day I’d wake up to a new video. The school was absolutely buzzing. If I had thought Harry was popular before, now he was being treated like a god. Girls were throwing themselves at him, hoping he’d sing a song for them. I smile slightly to myself as I hear someone walk by humming the melody to Breakeven by the Script, Harry’s most recent song. I think the whole school was waiting to see what song came next. Harry wasn’t the only one that was getting more attention however. People had been watching me a lot closer, actually talking to me now and then, trying to figure out what about me had Harry so attached. Frankly I was just as curious as they were.
“Hey” I say, sitting down at the table across from Harry. He looks up with a half smile, his eyes scanning mine to see if I’d seen today’s video. I nod slightly, not saying anything and he gives a small nod back before returning to his food. We hadn’t mentioned the videos. He knew I was watching them, and I knew that he knew so there was no need to say anything. At least not until I decided what to do about them. As much as I wanted to forgive him, as easy as it would be, I just couldn’t. He had broken my trust. It was hard for me to trust people to begin with, to forgive them for something like this was nearly impossible.
“Are you going to visit Caellum after school today because I was thinking maybe I’d join you if that’s alright?” Harry asks nervously shaking me from my thoughts.
“Actually Haley invited me over” I say, watching as his face goes from shock to disappointment. I’d fallen into a habit of going to visit Caellum after school for an hour or two, sitting by his bed and watching the videos of Harry singing, praying he’d wake up even though he never did.
“Who’s Haley?” he asks after a moment, glancing up with a look of confusion.
“She’s a girl in one of my classes” I say glancing over my shoulder, searching the cafeteria for her. My eyes settle on her and she looks over and smiles, giving me a wave when she sees me looking at her. I give a half smile, waving back before turning back to Harry. She’s the one who told me about the videos, I add silently to myself.
“What are you two going to do?” he asks. I shrug. I didn’t know. I never really had that many girl friends back in Ireland. Honestly I didn’t really have many friends in general. The few I did have were just as into school as I was so we mainly did homework together.
“I dunno, whatever girls normally do when they hang out?” I say questioningly.
“Well if you have any underwear pillow fights tape it for me ok?” he says jokingly causing me to crack a grin.
“Sure, whatever you say Haz” I say slipping back into his old nickname. His face lights up hearing me call him that and I knew what he was thinking. That things were returning to normal. I freeze, scolding myself for letting down my guard so easily. I couldn’t go back to the way things were. That only led to pain.
“I have to go,” I say standing up and grabbing my tray, seeing hurt flash across his face. I quickly look away, avoiding his eyes as I gather my things. “I have, uh, I have a project, a paper, in erm, in history that is due on Monday that I have to get to work on.” I say mumbling an excuse before hurrying out of the cafeteria, dumping my tray in the garbage on the way out. I sigh and lean against the wall outside the door. That was a close one. I had to be more careful. I glance back through the window, seeing Harry hunched over his tray, holding his head in his hands, looking so vulnerable, so alone. It would be so easy to go back. To sit down at the table and pretend like everything was fine. That nothing ever happened. I shake the thoughts away. I couldn’t. I watch as Luke gets up from his table and walks over, putting an arm around Harry. After a few moments of talking, he convinces Harry to join them at their table. I have to admit, I was surprised when I’d found out that Harry and Luke had made up. Even more surprised to find out that he’d been helping with the videos. And while he hadn’t gone out of his way to be nice, he’d at least made an attempt to be courteous in the halls. For that I was thankful. We’d never be friends but it was nice to know I didn’t have to watch my back now.
“Ready to go?” Haley chirps as I close my locker. I smile at her with a nod. Since she’d told me about the video, she’d started talking to me and I’d discovered she was a really nice girl. “So my mom makes me do homework when I get home but that will only take like half an hour and then I thought we could watch movies or something?” she says. I nod my head, I’d already done most of my homework but I figured I could just go on my laptop and listen to music or something until she finished.
“Mom, I’m home” Haley yells into the house as we walk in the door. “Maedbh is here also” she shouts gesturing for me to follow her up the stairs to her room. We get to her room and she sprawls out on her bed and I sit on the ground at the bottom of the bed and pull out my computer.
“Hello Maedbh” a voice sounds from the door. I look up to see Haley’s mom standing in the doorway.
“Hello” I say with a small smile.
“I’ll leave you girls alone now, I just wanted to see who you were and to make sure you girls were going to do your work first” she says with a smile.
“Bye mom” Haley says with a bored tone and her mom gives one last smile before shutting the door. Twenty minutes later, I’ve finished my report and I quickly sign onto YouTube, going to Harry’s account. I bite the corner of my lip as I look at the different songs he’d done. I won’t give up by Jason Mraz, Here without you by 3 Doors Down, Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, Use somebody by Kings of Leon, I’m yours by Jason Mraz again, Breakeven by the Script, and then my personal favorite, I’ll be by Edwin Mccain. All great songs that seemed to fit perfectly. It made me wonder how long he’d continue this and for how long he’d be able to find songs that fit. I click on I’ll be, putting in my headphones so that Haley could concentrate on her homework without me to distract her as I let his voice sweep over me once again.
“What are you watching?” she asks half an hour later, causing me to jump. I quickly shut my laptop.
“Nothing” I say looking up at her grinning face.
“You were watching those videos Harry sang to you weren’t you?” she asks accusingly. My face turns red, a dead give away.
“You were” she crows excitedly.
“No I wasn’t” I say quickly, trying to grab back my computer as she snatches it out of my hands, opening it up, the YouTube page still open from when I closed the lid.
“You totally were,” she says triumphantly.
“Fine I was,” I admit.
“This has to be the cutest thing a guy has ever done for a girl” she says with a grin scrolling down the list of songs. I nod my head. It was definitely the cutest thing anyone had ever done for me.
“So what’s going on between you two anyways?” she asks shutting the lid handing me back the computer.
“What do you mean?” I ask, taking it and sliding it into my bag.
“You know, are you guys friends? Dating? Going to date?” she presses.
“I have no idea” I admit. She looks at me confused and with a sigh I launch into the whole story, about Luke and the dare and the party and how he was doing the videos to get me to forgive him. She sits there listening, not saying anything while I explain what happened.
“Wow” she says when I trail off at the end.
“Yea” I say with a nod.
“I’d forgive him” she says after a moment. I look up at her startled, seeing her gazing thoughtfully out the window. She glances over at me, seeing my expression. “He’s obviously head over heels for you” she explains. “I mean, what guy would go through the bother of learning and recording a new song every day? Why not move on to the next available girl? Hannah has been throwing herself at him for months; he could easily get another girl if he wanted one. But he doesn’t. He likes you” I look down at my hands, not quite sure what to say. She had a point. Maybe I should forgive him. He was definitely going out of his way to earn it. “C’mon, that’s enough serious talk” she says with a grin. I look up at her glad for the change of topic. “Lets go watch a movie.”
I wake up stiffness in my neck. I rub it, stretching as I sit up, looking around me. I realize I’d fallen asleep at Haley’s house. We’d started a movie marathon of the Harry Potter series. We made it to the third one before I’d fallen asleep. I jump up; knocking over an empty ice cream pint, as I realize a new day meant a new video. I quickly grab my laptop, and go to his page. Sure enough there was a new video. Maybe by Secondhand Serenade. I frown slightly, never having heard that one. I’d heard all the previous ones before so I’d known what to expect. I put in my headphones, glancing over at Haley who was still asleep on the couch, as I press play. As I listen to him sing, I feel the tears coming to my eyes. If I thought the previous songs fit perfectly, they were nothing compared to this. It had everything from the betrayal to the tears and blank expressions I’d given him since then. The song ends and I take a deep breath grabbing my phone.
“Hello?” a tired voice picks up after a few rings.
“Harry?” I ask. “Do you think we could talk?”