I was putting my books in my bag when all of sudden I heard a knock on the wooden door of my bedroom. I turned around fast, discovering that my mum was standing in the doorway, a somewhat sweet look in her eyes.
"There's someone waiting for you outside" she said, making me furrow my eyebrows. I always went to school on my own, so it didn't make sense for anyone to be outside, especially so early in the morning.
I shoved the last book inside, checking fast if I had everything I needed before closing it. "Who is it?" I asked, even though a sudden realisation was starting to settle in my stomach. I didn't know many people, so I didn't have many options, and I was quite sure that neither Ella nor Aiden would've had any reason to be in front of my house at that time.
"I don't know his name, you never told me. But I think it's your friend or something like that I met a couple of months ago" she replied. "Looks like he finally made it as friend, considering he's outside." She turned around and left, leaving me to stare at the opposite wall through the door.
I stayed still for a couple of seconds, trying to take in what she'd actually said, before rushing to the bathroom and combing my hair, giving myself a fast glance in the mirror to make sure I was alright, before going back into my bedroom and grabbing my bag, making my way down the stairs fast, putting on my shoes and coat. I stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath, not wanting him to know I'd tried to get myself ready faster than I usually would've, before slowly opening the front door, discovering that Harry was definitely waiting for me outside.
I took a second to observe him, my hand still on the doorknob. He was leaning against the window on the driver's side of his car, his phone in his hand, seemingly reading something. His hair was as wild as always, proving that he'd probably already messed it up with his hand a few times since waking up, and his eyes held a concentrated look as they gazed at the screen of the device in his hands. He was wearing black jeans, as almost always anyway, and a pair of black boots, similar to the ones he often wore, but that I could somehow tell weren't quite the same. He had a black coat on, but it was open and revealed the white of the shirt he was wearing underneath. It was an overall pretty basic look, but he still managed to make it work for himself perfectly.
He looked up, and a faint blush stained my cheeks when I realised he'd caught me staring. I walked out of the door and walked towards him, not daring to meet his gaze as I approached him, observing the way he slipped the phone into the pocket of his coat.
"Why are you here?" I asked him when I reached him, trying my best to act nonchalantly and ignore the embarrassment that was still twinkling at the back of my mind.
He shrugged. "Why not?" He replied, thankfully deciding to ignore at as well. "Get in, if we arrive late Niall will be pissed."
I rounded the car as he got in, discovering that Niall was sitting in the back only when I saw him through the window. I opened the door on the passenger side and sat in the seat quietly, putting my bag between my legs. I glanced up, meeting Niall's gaze in the rear view mirror just before he glared at Harry.
"I can't believe our parents bought you a car, and not me" the blue-eyed mumbled as Harry started the car.
Harry tapped his fingers on the wheel, his rings hitting the plastic and making a slight ticking sound. "That's because you failed your driving test twice" he deadpanned, not even bothering to look at him through the mirror, shocking me with the way he chose to expose him in front of me.
Niall crossed his arms over his chest, turning his head to send a little glare out of the window. "Still, it's unfair."
"Not really. I'm pretty sure that if you were the one with the car instead of me, I'd be dead too."
Both our heads snapped in Harry's direction as soon as he spoke. Despite the nonchalantness in which he'd spoken, I could sense a sourness in his words, and I knew Niall could too.
A sudden silence fell over us after he talked, and I turned to look out of the window to at least pretend I was doing something instead of overthinking what he'd just said.
Thankfully, we arrived at school not too long after, putting an end to the new awkwardness that had just been created.
I exited the car as soon as he parked, soon being followed by Harry. He waited for Niall to get out as well before locking it and walking around it to reach me, putting his hand on my lower back when he did.
"Let's go inside, I'm over this bullshit" he murmured into my ear, starting to walk towards the stairs that brought to the main entrance of the building.
I frowned at his words, but decided to go along with it anyway, following him quickly. It wasn't like I had anything better to do, anyway. It was only when I looked up that I realised what he was talking about.
Somehow, the arrival of Harry's car had caught the attention of most of the people waiting around outside, that were now looking at us. I lowered my gaze, all of sudden feeling way more observed than I would've liked, wondering if that was what Harry went through every day he came into the building. It was weird to think that I too had been one of them - still was probably, but I hoped Harry wouldn't have minded me looking at him, considering... everything.
I closed the distance between us fast, starting to walk next to him, feeling as if his presence could've shielded me from the unwanted glances, even though I knew it was the exact opposite. I looked at him, he was walking with his head held up high as he always did, seeming completely unbothered by the way people were looking at him - even though I knew, from his words, that he was very much aware of it, and didn't like it at all.
We went up the stairs, Harry in front of me, Niall behind me, and I dared to shoot a look up again as we walked towards the main entrance. My eyes accidentally met Ella's cold gaze and they widened before being lowered again, the awkwardness of having kind of dropped her settling in my chest. I took a step closer to Harry, sliding through the door after him once he opened it.
Thankfully there were less people inside, given the majority of them preferred to wait for the classes to start outside of the building so, even if we couldn't manage to escape a couple of glances sent our way, it surely wasn't as bad as it'd been before.
Harry slowed down as well, allowing me to walk next to him instead of rushing behind him, and he started to walk in the direction of our first class. When we entered it about half of the people were already there, chatting quietly as they waited for time to pass.
Out of habit I made my way towards my usual desk, putting my bag down and taking off my coat, putting it on the back of the chair before sitting down, looking down to notice that Harry had done the exact same, and was now sitting next to me. I turned my head, discovering that Niall had instead opted for sitting at his usual place, on the other side of the class. I gave Harry an obvious glance, but he completely ignored it, choosing to check his phone instead.
The bell rang and more people started entering the class, speaking loudly to each other. I lowered my gaze, not wanting to meet Ella's again as before.
I took my books out, putting them in the middle of the desk. "Thank you for the ride" I whispered to Harry, hoping to start some kind of conversation, but my hopes were shattered when he glanced up, acknowledging my words, but didn't reply.
I shook my head, looking at the front of the class and finding out that the teacher had already come in. He dramatically sipped his coffee, leaning against his desk and glaring at us, before he slowly stood up with a somewhat calculated move, dropping the paper cup in the bin before clearing his throat, catching everyone's attention.
The class started, and I quickly silenced myself, knowing he hated me enough to start picking on me for every little thing I did in his class, feeling like I'd already got way more attention than I needed for a single day.
When we reached the last twenty minutes of the class, I was surprised that everything had went by completely smoothly. I had just looked up from the notes I'd taken to glance at the whiteboard, when with the corner of my eye I noticed Harry was writing something. I turned my head in his direction, not being able to read what it was, but seeing right away that it certainly wasn't maths. I quickly debated If to ask him about it or not, deciding to do it in the end. It wasn't an inappropriate question, considering we were kind of friends or whatever, was it?
"What are you doing?" I whispered to him curiously, not thinking much of it.
He seemed to realise that I was glancing at him only when I spoke, and his head snapped up, his hands working to fold up the sheet equally as fast. "Nothing" he muttered, opening his book at a random page and slipping it inside.
I glanced at him for a while longer, wondering what he was doing and why he was so secretive about it, before turning my head again, my heart suddenly dropping when I realised that someone was standing in front of me.
"Miss Regan, how about to stop staring into Mr Styles's eyes and pay attention instead?" The teacher said, a look of devilish satisfaction into his eyes, before walking back to the front of the class.
I couldn't help but glance around, feeling a wave of embarrassment wash through me when I realised that everyone was looking at me again. I looked down, trying my best to ignore their stares, but with no success. Feeling the sudden need to leave, I raised my hand.
"Yeah, Miss Regan?" The teacher said, the smug look he gave me not being enough to mask the surprised look in his eyes.
"May I go to the loo?" I asked fast, hoping that he would've let me go. I gave a quick glance to the side, suddenly feeling Harry's eyes on me.
"If you manage not to get lost, sure" he replied.
I ignored the sarcastic tone in his voice and stood up, making my way out of the room and walking fast towards the loo, hoping that it would've been empty so that I could have some peace.
As soon as I opened the door though, I realised that it wasn't my lucky day, spotting a couple of girls chatting inside. I internally sighed, trying my best to ignore them and washing my hands just to pretend I actually had something to do in there, hoping they would've just left at some point. Despite my attempts to make myself as invisible as possible, they shut up as soon as they saw me, glancing at me for a couple of seconds before approaching me.
"You're so lucky" one of them said, making me look up fast to meet her blue-green gaze.
"What?" I asked, not knowing who she was and why she was talking to me in the first place.
The other one walked on my other side. "Aren't you the girl who's been around Harry Styles lately?"
I looked up at her words, meeting my gaze in the mirror and closing the tap, the sound of the running water being replaced by the one of the few drops of water hitting the ceramic of the sink. "Uh, yeah" I replied, even more confused than I was before.
The first one nodded. "Exactly. You're so lucky. I bet he looks wonderful naked."
"Legit. He looks like the kind of man that knows how to please a girl, if you get what I mean?" The other chimed in, a small laugh following her words.
My gaze in the reflection of the mirror suddenly became even more shocked than before.
"Well, gotta go" the blue eyed one said all of sudden, probably sensing the awkwardness of the whole situation, dragging her friend out of the door.
I turned in its direction as it was shut loudly.
What the fuck.
I leaned against the sink, taking the phone out of my pocket and checking the time. The class would've ended in a bit more than seven minutes, and I suddenly felt like spending them all inside the restroom. I quickly opted for that option, hoping that nobody else would've walked in. I scrolled through my chats, but I became bored of it very fast, considering the only people that had texted me in the past week were Harry and my mother. I sighed and locked the screen, accepting the fact that I would've had nothing to do for some minutes and staring at the opposite wall, starting to wonder if Harry would've been fine with coming to mine that day as well. I didn't need him there, but part of me hoped that he wouldn't have minded helping me with the latest artwork - given that that was literally what he was supposed to do, considering what my art teacher had asked us to do.
It felt like ages had passed when the bell suddenly rang, signalling the end of the class. I waited for a couple of minutes longer before exiting the restroom, hoping that my teacher would've left the class so that I could've taken my belongings.
I opened the door, stopping in my tracks when I met Harry's gaze. He was leaning against the opposite wall, seemingly waiting holding something up that I recognised as... my coat.
I walked towards him fast, trying not to crash into anybody. "Thank you" I said, taking my brown coat from his hands and lifting my bag from the floor at his feet, putting the strap over my shoulder.
He shrugged. "It's nothing" he replied, nonchalantly trying to diminish the value of his actions with his words. "We should go."
As we walked in the direction of the cafeteria his hand found its way on my back, not leaving it not even when we walked inside the large room. To my surprise, he directed us towards a table someone was already sitting at.
I watched as Harry pulled out a chair and sat down, tapping on the empty chair next to his right after to show me I was to do the same. I sat down as well, giving a little glance to the boy that was sitting in front of us, that was seemingly busy with his phone.
"Sorry for accidentally almost killing you" Zayn said all of sudden, barely looking up from his phone.
"It's alright" Harry replied quietly with a little shrug, his answer seeming somewhat inappropriate considering what the other boy had just said. But to be honest, Zayn's way of approaching the matter had seemed just as inappropriate.
Finally, the raven-haired boy finished whatever he was doing, and slipped his phone back into his pocket, glancing up at us. "Oh hey, mysterious girl" he said, noticing that I was there as well.
"Sierra, this is Zayn. Zayn, Sierra" he quickly presented us, and Zayn sent a small nod in my way.
"Yeah, we had a chat once" he said calmly, an eloquent look in his amber eyes, to which I responded with a little nod.
If everything else hadn't already made clear that that would've been one hell of a day, that surely did.
• • •
I left my bag in the entrance of my house, knowing I would've had to pick it up later, and took off my coat, putting it on the hanger next to the door. I smiled to myself as a black coat joined mine on the hanger right after.
I walked up the stairs, hearing the sound of Harry's boots on the wooden floor behind me, and made my way to the studio. I unlocked the door, opening it and walking inside and towards my desk. I put the blanket that was always on it on the floor, and slowly pulled it to the middle of the room.
I walked to the dresser on the other side of the room and took a hard paper sheet, way bigger than the ones I normally used, putting it on the table before opening one of the drawers and taking out some paint, of four different colours accordingly with what I had finally decided to draw. I took a pencil, giving a glance behind me to discover that Harry had left his place next to the door, and was walking towards me.
I took the pencil and sketched fast what I wanted to draw. In the end, Harry had actually managed to help me find inspiration the day before, and, funnily enough, my inspiration were leaves. I could've been overthinking it, but I felt like the fallen leaves would've represented perfectly the conversation we'd had, in some ways. If the fallen leaves were Harry's cat, I wanted him to know that nothing truly ever was black and white. In the end, just as the fallen leaves often helped build something new, also Harry's cat wouldn't have been the end of it as he seemed to think, but just the start.
After I was done with the sketch, I got a plastic plate and carefully squirted the paint on it, a colour on each side, before taking a plastic cup and making a fast trip to the bathroom to fill it with water. I came back and put it on the table, getting two brushes and putting one of the table. I handed the other to Harry, a careful look in my eyes as I took in his reaction.
He furrowed his eyebrows, a confused look on his face. "What?" He asked, his gaze on the brush, but not moving to take it.
"Will you help me?" I asked him quietly, finding myself hoping he'd say yes.
He pushed it away. "I suck at it" he replied, the look in his eyes showing how deeply untrue it was, but also showing some kind of fear I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"That's a lie" I said, not wanting to give up on it. I felt like it would've been a good opportunity for him to relax and have fun, which didn't seem something that happened often.
He sighed, finally taking the brush I was handing him, his eyes focused on it as he carefully observed it, not making a move.
Realising that he wouldn't have started first, I put the tip of the brush on the red squirt of paint, mixing it with a bit of yellow and brown to obtain a raw umber-orangish shade that seemed fitting for the subject I'd chosen. After I laid the first stroke of paint on the sheet, Harry carefully dipped his brush into the paint, attentively mixing the colours to obtain a deep reddish shade, joining me right after.
We painted the leaves on the bottom half of the paper in small strokes in silence for a while, concentrating on what we were doing. I found myself looking at what Harry was doing multiple times, trying to emulate the way he painted to make sure that there would've only been one style, and that the finished product wouldn't have looked like a hot mess. He was way more skilled than I'd expected him to be, but if it came from first hand experience or seeing someone else paint, I didn't know. It wasn't excessively good, but it also wasn't bad at all - I would've defined it as something a little above average, not too different from mine, considering I rarely painted.
After a while of using the same colour, I extended my arm in front of Harry to reach the water we were cleaning our brushes in, dipping it in fast before retracting my arm to decide what colour I should've done next.
But I was that lost in my thoughts that I forgot to shake the water out of the brush so, when I retracted my arm, a sudden drop fell. I widened my eyes when I saw it land on the white sleeve of Harry's shirt, tinting that part of an orange shade.
"I'm so sorry" I said fast, absolutely mortified by what had just happened, glancing at Harry. He'd stopped painting as soon as his shirt had got dirty, and his gaze was now on me, an unreadable look on his face. "I really am sorry, oh my god" I continued, hoping that if I had said I was sorry enough times he wouldn't have minded it.
What I wasn't expecting, though, was him to pass his finger over his brush fast, making some paint end up on my shirt, a playful look in his eyes.
My mouth fell open at the unexpected action, and it took me a couple of seconds to realise that yes, Harry had indeed just dirtied my shirt with paint on purpose. "Oh no you didn't" I said, right before dipping my brush in the yellow paint, painting a yellow stripe on the back of his hand.
There was a second in which we stared at each other, sizing each other up, and then everything happened.
I took a step back just in time to avoid Harry's orange attack to my hand, squealing and moving away fast. I rounded the table, getting more paint on my brush, a surprised sound leaving my throat when Harry dipped his brush in water and shook it in my direction, successfully getting a few drops of melted colours on my clothes. I neared him again, trying to get my yellow paint on him as a comeback, a little laugh leaving my mouth when I successfully managed to get it on the collar of his shirt. My win was short lived though, because he took advantage of our closeness to draw a line with his brush on my cheek.
I looked up at him at the unexpected feeling on my face, a little smile forming on my face when I discovered that Harry was smiling. It wasn't just a small curve on his lips as before, it was a full smile, catching me completely off guard and allowing me to suddenly make a new discovery. Harry had dimples?
Without thinking twice, I poked one with my brush, suddenly colouring it of yellow.
The smile disappeared as a surprised look made its way on his face. "That, you shouldn't have done" he stated, and I rounded the table again fast, my brush still in my hand.
He dipped his brush in the paint again, giving me an attentive look, a little smile on his face again. I slowly approached him, wiping my brush on his hand just to realise that I needed more paint. I got to the other end of the table and put the tip in the yellow paint again. I was about to turn around when I suddenly felt an arm around my waist. I looked at him, stopping Harry's brush with my own and somehow managing to make his fall on the table. I smiled, knowing that I had him.
I squealed in surprise when Harry suddenly closed the distance between us and his lips met mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling myself turn into putty when he pushed me back into the table, his body pressing on mine. A shiver ran down my spine at the way his soft lips felt against mine, a warm feeling spreading through me like wildfire, and I intertwined my fingers in his hair, trying to bring him even closer to me.
All of sudden his lips left mine and, before I knew it, I felt a wet stripe being drawn on my nose. I opened my eyes fast, giving him a half glare when I realised he'd kissed me just to distract me as he got his brush back, but my glare turned into a cheerful look as soon as I realised he was smiling again. A little laugh left his lips at the surprise on my face, and I suddenly found myself falling a little for him.
But as fast as the little moment had started, it abruptly ended when Harry's smile disappeared from his face, his usual guarded look making its way back in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" I asked, hoping for a reply I didn't get.
He stood there for a couple of seconds, an unsettled look on his face, before turning around and quickly making his way out of the door.
By the time I reached the end of the stairs, he'd already left my house.