Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - 414 miles
The next morning, I woke up to the sound of Harry singing The Cure.
It was almost like he wanted me to fall in love with him, for Christ's sake.
Also, for the record, I was nowhere even close to falling in love with him, because, after Alec, I had promised myself that I would stay away from love for a very, very long time. This was just a stupid crush, and the minute that we parted ways, I wouldn't think about him anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. (Or, at least that's what I told myself. But, once again, I'm getting ahead of myself here.)
I groaned loudly and lifted my head up from my pillow, only to be faced with the sight of Harry shirtless. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Also, fuck. Before he could notice me ogling at him, though, which I was sure he would never let me forget if he did, I quickly redirected my gaze back to the floor–which, I noted, was probably infested with ants or something equally as disgusting–and snapped at him, "Sing any louder, would you?"
After the events of last night, I had come to the conclusion that I couldn't allow myself to open up to him anymore since he clearly didn't feel the same way as I did. Sarcasm and cynicism would, once again, become my most utilized mechanism. It was almost all that I knew how to use, anyways.
Harry glanced up from the screen of his phone and although he had stopped singing, I could still hear him humming under his breath. I bet that he was doing that just to piss me off now. "Lex, hey. I didn't notice that you had woken up."
"Maybe because I just did a couple of minutes ago," I informed him dryly. "More importantly, how the hell are you not hungover?"
He shrugged. "I was a little bit before, but I don't usually get that bad of headaches the next morning."
How was it that some people just got everything? Looks, no hangovers, personality... "That's...that's great for you," I finished awkwardly, unsure of what else to say. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between the two of us for a moment before I finally broke it and asked him, "So, you listen to The Cure?"
Harry glanced at me with interest and then, to my surprise, he came over and sat down on the bed, even though I was still lying down. My cheeks burning, I quickly propped my body up, but he didn't seem to notice–or care, for that matter–as he nodded his head and said, "Yeah. They're my favorite band." He stared at me for a couple of seconds and then added, "Do you like them?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really listen to them. To be honest, I only know a couple of their songs."
He groaned loudly. "Oh my God. Let me guess–Friday I'm In Love?"
I ducked my head sheepishly and then admitted, "Well, yeah. Everyone knows that song. And hey, at least I don't pretend to be a fake fan or something equally ridiculous like that."
"The Cure is the most iconic band in the history of rock music," he informed me seriously as if we were discussing an important crisis. "How can you not be a fan?"
I rolled my eyes at him. "I don't know why I never pegged you to be pretentious, 'I'm better than you' music type before this, but now I'm wondering why I never did. What's next, you listen to Bruce Springsteen while you reminisce for the good old days?"
Harry stuck his tongue out at me, but a minute later, he nodded his head and gave in. "I do, actually, from time to time. What's wrong with that?"
Everything, you dumbass. "Nothing," I sang sweetly. "Nothing at all."
He raised an eyebrow at me and muttered under his breath in a way that I knew was meant for me to hear, "To be honest, I'm surprised that you even know who he is."
"Of course I do!" I huffed. Then: "Because my dad listens to him." I paused. "Harry, you are essentially a forty-six-year-old man. Tell me, how do you feel about that?"
"A bit of a creep, to be honest, because I'm sitting here in bed with you," he smirked at me.
I leaned forward and shoved him in the arm, hard. "Shut up. And quit looking at me like that."
Harry's grin widened and he wiggled his eyebrows at me suggestively. "Like what?"
I rolled my eyes again, which proceeded to him poking his finger in my ribs, and I squealed loudly and jumped away from him. "I'm done with this conversation," I informed him after I had moved to the other side of the bed, far away from where he could reach me. "Ask me something else."
"That was a little bit self-contradictory, don't you think?" he teased me.
"And you're a little bit of a douche bag, don't you think?"
"More than a little bit," he told me. "But fine. What music do you listen to, then? Wait, no, let me guess. Justin Bieber? Katy Perry?" When he noticed my unamused expression, he tried one last time. "I've got it–Hannah Montana."
"Fuck you," I said. "And no, I don't like any of those people, although there's nothing wrong with that. As I said, you're pretentious."
"And you're a closet Justin Bieber fan. I bet you have posters of him in your room, and you touch them every night before you go to bed as some good luck charm. You're weird like that."
Why did I like him again? "Once again, fuck you," I told him. "I like Taylor Swift, and Daughter, and Adele, because everyone and their dads like Adele, but Amy Winehouse is my favorite singer of all time. And Coldplay–they're my favorite band."
Harry's eyes widened in disbelief as he registered everything that I had just revealed to him. "You're kidding."
"I'm sorry, what did you want me to say?" I snarled at him. "Indie bands that no one has ever heard of with weird ass names, like Elephant Support Group or The Electric Blue Pumpkins?"
He stared at me strangely. "Okay, first of all, what the fuck? It's The Smashing Pumpkins. Why would pumpkins be electric blue?"
"Why would you name your band 'The Smashing Pumpkins' in the first place?" I cried. And, oh my God, were we seriously arguing about this right now?
"Don't talk to me about weird bands, when you like Coldplay."
This time it was my turn to look at him like he was crazy. "What the hell is wrong with Coldplay, huh?" I snapped. "Oh, right–nothing." I was in shock over how anyone could ever find anything wrong with Coldplay. They were just about the greatest band in the world, far better than The Cure–suck it, Harold.
"You must be really confident with yourself if you can admit that you like Coldplay out loud," he sighed. He turned to look at me and then finished, "Coldplay is shit now, Alexa. No one likes them."
My mouth dropped open. "What? Everyone likes them."
Harry shook his head slowly. "You are literally the first person who's told me that they like Coldplay ever since, like, 2007."
I refused to believe that this is true. "You're full of shit. Coldplay is the best band in the world, and then The Beatles are a close second."
He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. "Lexi, you cannot possibly rank fucking Coldplay higher than The Beatles. You just can't."
I shrugged. "Well, I just did. They're both amazing, but Chris Martin does things to me, Harry."
He rolled his eyes at me. "You're ridiculous." Before I could shoot something back at him, he asked me, "Who's your favorite?"
"My favorite Beatle?" The minute that the question came out of my mouth, I knew that it was a stupid one.
"No, your favorite Coldplay member," he said dryly. "Because everyone knows more than just Chris Martin. They're like Maroon 5, in the sense that you only know Adam Levine." He paused. "Actually, no, that's not a good analogy, because people actually like Maroon 5."
"What the hell do you have against Coldplay?" I muttered under my breath. "And my favorite Beatle...well, it'd definitely have to be Ringo."
Harry almost choked (on what, though, I wasn't sure). I was pretty sure that if his dark green eyes got any wider than that, then they would surely pop out. "You're kidding me."
I frowned. "Why would I be kidding you?" For Christ's sake, who lied about their favorite Beatle member? I did have hobbies, after all.
"Because no one's favorite Beatle is fucking Ringo," he scoffed loudly.
I glared at him, very much offended by his false proclamation. "Well, mine is!"
"Why?" He was still looking at me like I had gone crazy when really, there was nothing bad about liking Ringo. "Why would you like Ringo, when there was Paul, John, and even fucking George to choose from as your favorite? For Christ's sake, who even names their kid Ringo?"
"His real name is Richard," I snapped at him. "And he was the best Beatle."
"He was literally the worst," Harry moaned dramatically, as per usual. "No one liked him."
"I think that was part of what makes me like him so much," I commented thoughtfully.
"So you're basically admitting that you like the rejects?" he demanded. "The outcasts, the wannabes, the losers–"
"Well, I like you, don't I?" I asked him. In my head, it had seemed like a good comeback. It wasn't until I said it out loud, though, that I realized how stupid of a thing it had been to say.
Harry paused and glanced up at me, the ghost of a smirk toying at the corners of his lips. "You...you what?"
I froze and gulped nervously, my throat feeling extremely dry all of a sudden. Fuck. Why the hell had I just said that? Now how was I supposed to dig myself out of this one? I only had a couple of seconds to deliberate over possible answers, because Harry was sitting on the other side of the bed, staring at me as I had just confessed that I was pregnant with his child or something.
After I had vetoed just about every option I had come up with in my head, I finally decided on a whim to say slowly, "Uh, yeah...as a friend?"
I had assumed that Harry would tease me about it, or bug me about how he thought that I must have meant more with my words, but to my surprise, he didn't do any of that. Instead, he blinked a couple of times and then nodded his head. "Oh. Yeah, okay. Obviously. That, uh, that makes sense." He was stuttering. Why was he stuttering? Not once had I ever seen Harry stutter over his words before.
For some reason, I didn't allow the conversation to end there, which was yet another stupid decision I had made–for fuck's sake, it wasn't even ten o'clock yet, and I was already regretting things. I couldn't say that I was surprised by that, though. "Why?" I asked him, willing my voice not to shake. "What did you think that I meant?"
For a second, I actually thought that he might say something different, something that might give me even the merest glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, he might feel the same way as I did. That everything he had said last night about not being in the right mindset could've been a lie, some sort of ploy to mask how he really felt.
But I guess that what they (and when I say 'they', I meant Spencer from Pretty Little Liars) said about hope was true–it only breeds eternal misery.
"I dunno," Harry mumbled absentmindedly. "Nothing. I didn't think that you meant anything, Lexi."
I nodded my head stiffly in agreement because I wasn't sure of what else I could say, let alone do. And, just like that, our conversation had come to an end.
* * * * *
"So where are we going again? IHOP?"
I glanced up at Travis and nodded my head blankly, my mind still elsewhere. After my conversation with Harry had taken an uncomfortable turn, I had gotten out of bed, taken a shower, and now it was almost eleven o'clock and none of us had eaten yet. Niall was still hungover and in bed, and Nyla was also fast asleep, so we had left the two of them at the motel, while Travis, Harry, and I had decided to set off for pancakes.
"Who wants to drive?" Travis asked. He was looking back and forth at Harry and me as if he knew that something was up–I wasn't sure how he was always able to read us so clearly like this. It was both frightening and assuring at the same time.
"I can," Harry and I both said at the same time.
He turned to stare at me, and the minute that his eyes locked on mine, I could feel my stomach turning inside out. I was pretty sure that if he took one step closer to me, my heart would leak out of my chest and fall into his hands. "You shouldn't be driving, Lexi," he told me slowly. "You're tired."
I scowled at him, not really sure why I was doing it, but for some reason, I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to see his face fall the same way mine had last night, and earlier this morning as well. "I think I know whether or not I can drive," I told him. "My road trip, my rules." It came out sounding a lot bitchier than I had wanted it to, but I tried to tell myself that I didn't care. Before I could see either of their reactions, I turned away and made my way to the driver's seat.
After the way that I had just snapped at him, I had expected Harry to sit in the back, while Travis took the passenger's seat beside me, but to my surprise, it turned out to be the complete opposite. Once again, I tried my hardest to avoid eye contact with him as I swallowed thickly and began to pull out of the parking lot and move onto the main road, but for some reason, Harry seemed even more persistent than usual.
"Is your seatbelt on?" he asked me quietly, his voice low so that Travis wouldn't be able to hear him, even though it wasn't a particularly interesting or secretive question.
I didn't even look at him. "Yes, Dad," I snapped sarcastically. I honestly had no idea why I was being such a bitch to him, and I was sure that he didn't either, but now that I had started, it wasn't as if I could just stop.
What I wanted to know was how things had managed to change so quickly between us. How one minute we had been jokingly arguing over whether or not Coldplay was a shitty band (which, for the record, it wasn't), and the next, I couldn't even look him in the eye. All because he wasn't looking at me, or speaking to me the way that I wanted him to. I had to learn how to accept the fact that Harry didn't like me, and I couldn't let that get in the way of our friendship anymore. He was clearly confused by my constantly modifying moods now, but sooner or later, he would come to his senses and realize what all of this was about, and I wouldn't be able to deal with that kind of humiliation. It would hurt too much to have somebody like Harry reject me.
He leaned in a little bit closer to me and placed a cautious hand on my bare knee, but I quickly shifted away before I could stop myself, even though all I wanted was to feel any part of him touching me. "Are you okay?" he tried again. (See? Like I said–persistent.) "You're acting strange."
"I'm fine," I said stiffly. "I guess you were right, I am a little bit tired."
He looked worried now, and just the mere sight of it made my chest ache. "Do you want to pull over? I can drive for a while."
I shook my head. "It's fine. I'm fine," I repeated, but it sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than I was him.
Harry didn't say anything for a while after that, but as I continued to maneuver down the seemingly empty road, all I could think about was what was on his mind at the moment. Did it bother him how cold and distant I was being with him right now, or did he simply not care? Had he ever thought about me in a different way, one where he didn't only see me as a friend or was I just being completely ridiculous?
But even if he didn't like me, and even after he had claimed that I wasn't his type, why had he told me that he couldn't stop thinking about me? Was that supposed to mean something? Because it had been tearing away at me until I felt like I was stripped raw, ever since I had woken up this morning, and I hated it. Things had just been so much easier when I had only seen him as some irritating, pretentious, arrogant stranger who I had somehow allowed to travel to Boston with me. Why had I allowed my feelings to get in the way of that and ruin everything?
And that's when I saw it. The enormous gray truck speeding toward us, so fast that I could barely even comprehend how close it was coming to our car. I could hear Harry and Travis yelling my name loudly, but for some reason, I sat there frozen to the spot. Then, when the truck was mere seconds away from crashing into us, I slammed on the brakes so hard that I felt my body hurtling towards the front of the car. I could feel my head careen into the dashboard, hard, barely missing the glass windshield.
Harry and Travis were yelling louder now, but it was almost like I had managed to step out of my body and watch all of the events unfold, and so I didn't answer them. I just stayed where I was, my head pounding, and I didn't move a muscle or speak a word until I realized that the dark red liquid streaming down the dashboard was my blood.
And then, after that, I started crying.
"I think that I'm going to go and talk to the other guy," I heard Travis say from behind me. Harry must have nodded his head in acknowledgment because, after that, I heard the door open and then shut. And then it was just Harry and me alone in the car.
A moment later, I felt a pair of warm hands wrap around my waist and slowly drag me away from the dashboard and, before I knew it, I was sitting in Harry's lap. I had no idea how he could even lay eyes on me right now, when I was sure that I must have looked like a complete and utter mess, with my hair tangled and blood spilling out of my forehead. But he must not have minded, judging by how carefully he was staring at me right now. He reached his arm up and pushed a lock of light brown hair out of my face, and then pressed a stray napkin, the only thing that he could find, to the cut on my forehead. "It's okay, Lex," he whispered to me, rubbing my arms up and down in an effort to calm me down. "You're okay, I promise."
I hadn't realized that my body was beginning to express familiar symptoms, ones that I hadn't experienced in a long time. I could hear my heart pounding loud and fast, despite his soothing words, and it felt like all of my anxiety was building up inside of me, too quickly for me to catch up with.
Harry's eyes widened a little bit, but he didn't look frightened, leaving me to wonder if he had ever experienced or witnessed something like this before. "Come on, baby," he murmured in a low voice, lacing his fingers through mine. I hadn't even noticed how violently my hands were shaking until he had done this. "Concentrate on your breathing, okay? Count to ten with me."
I was still trembling, and I shook my head fiercely. My heart was still racing, and now, to make matters even worse, my head was pounding as well. I gripped onto his hands tighter; on normal circumstances, I most likely would have been nervous that I was hurting him, but that was the last thing on my mind right now. I heaved loudly over and over again and tried to listen to Harry's calming words, but they still weren't having much of an effect on me.
At one point, things got so bad that I began to push at Harry's chest as the car seemed to spin, and this time, it felt like I couldn't catch my breath at all. I opened my mouth to try to say something to him, but nothing would come out, and seeing the bloodstained napkin perched on top of the dashboard didn't do much to make me feel better.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed until the attack eventually began to subside, but I was guessing it was maybe around fifteen minutes later when I finally began to count to ten with Harry, my breathing beginning to slow down to a normal rate. When we got to one, I took one last deep breath and allowed my body to crumble ever so slightly and fall forward into his.
"I didn't know that you got panic attacks," Harry said softly after a couple of more minutes had passed.
I lifted my head up from his chest and slithered away from his body. Then I glanced up at him with wide eyes and asked, my voice sounding rather hoarse, "Can we talk about this outside? It feels like I'm trapped in here."
"Yeah, of course." He still looked a little bit nervous, like he wasn't quite sure what to do with me yet, but he followed me outside of the car and sat down on the side of the road beside me. I could still see Travis a couple of feet ahead, arguing with the man in the truck, but I didn't want to think about that right now. I didn't want to think about any of that right now, actually.
"So...panic attacks?" Harry repeated his previous question once we had settled down. I didn't like the way that he was looking at me like I was something fragile that needed to be carefully watched over, but after everything that he had just done for me, I pushed that to the side.
"Yeah," I nodded my head slowly. "I mean, I started getting them when I was in high school, but they don't happen that much. The first time I got one, though, was in another car accident, actually." I laughed uneasily, even though nothing about this was amusing, but I just needed something to help relieve all of the tension in the air right now. "But, like, when I do get them, they're pretty bad." I paused. "I dunno. It's not a big deal."
"It is," he protested lowly.
"I don't want to talk about it right now," I told him, my voice shaking a little bit. And it was true, I didn't, although part of me still wanted to figure out how he had managed to know so much about how to react when someone else was having a panic attack."Can...can you guys just take me back to the motel? I want to go back to the motel." I could feel the tears making a reappearance, and I fiercely swiped at my eyes before they could fall.
Harry didn't look like he wanted to stop talking about it, but he nodded his head. "Yeah, okay. Okay." He was about to stand up, but then he paused and slowly beckoned me closer. "C'mere, Lex."
I didn't hesitate when he held his arms open. Instead, I nodded my head heavily and allowed myself to sink into his body, and when he gently pressed his lips to the crown of my head, I didn't allow myself to think about what that could have meant at all. And this time, when I felt the tears burning beneath my eyes, I didn't try to push them away.
No, this time, I let them fall.