A week had gone by since our encounter with Nicholas and we were now standing in my studio, as we did every Tuesday.
Harry was in front of me, in the most complete silence, as I took some pictures, pausing every once in a while to decide what to do next, but just ending up taking more pictures I didn't need instead of daring to talk to him.
I wasn't used to him being so quiet all of a sudden. I'd really hoped we were over that, but it'd turned out that we weren't, at all, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was my fault.
Maybe, if I'd made it clearer to Harry that the words Nicholas had told him meant nothing, we wouldn't have been in that situation. Or maybe, if I'd managed to stop him before he could go away and talk it out with him, instead of letting time and distance settle that argument in his mind, things would've been different. And even though I knew that thinking that way wouldn't have helped me in the slightest, I didn't know how to stop.
I'd known Harry was sensitive and that it wouldn't have taken much to make him run away since the start. Why hadn't I done anything to prevent it from happening? Had I actually hoped things would've been different this time, or had I just given up since the start? I didn't want to think that was it.
All I knew, though, was that Harry had barely said a word to me all week, and I hadn't done anything to try to talk to him and get him to tell me what was going on. I didn't really know why. I figured that, even though I did want answers, there was a part of me that thought he was just waiting for me to say something to leave me once again.
I couldn't go on like that, though, and I knew that. I had to talk to him, no matter what doing so would've brought. If I'd waited for him to come to me, I would've been waiting my whole life.
I took a deep breath, turning around and putting the camera down on my desk, looking down at it for some seconds before finally turning to face Harry. "Are you okay?" I asked him gently, feeling a wave of nervousness wash over me in the second I asked the question.
I couldn't shake away the feeling that asking that question would've been the start of the end, but I knew I couldn't have possibly gone on like that for more days. It hurt me whenever Harry pushed me away like that.
He gave me a little indecipherable look. "I guess" he said, but he himself didn't even seem to believe his words.
I sighed, hating the way his silence made me feel. "Harry" I called him by his name, hoping that it would have some kind of effect on him, and maybe made him realise that I wasn't against him. "What's going on?"
He didn't reply, preferring to say nothing instead, as if there truly was nothing to say.
"I'm not going to stand here and pretend this is normal, because it isn't. And you know that" I told him, speaking honestly to him, "so, please, talk to me."
"He's right" he said suddenly, and I widened my eyes. I hadn't expected him to say something like that, at all. I'd expected Nicholas's words to make him panic, not make him believe that what he was saying was absolutely true.
"What?"
He shook his head, looking straight ahead at the wall behind my head. "I don't want to make the same mistakes I made years ago."
I frowned, his words immediately ringing a danger bell in my mind. "What are you saying?" I asked, slowly and carefully, hoping that I'd just understood him wrong and he didn't actually mean what I thought he meant.
Harry went quiet for some seconds, pressing his lips together and furrowing his eyebrows as he looked down, seeming to be trying to find the best way to explain what he meant. "I left because I knew I would've hurt you" he then said, speaking slowly and attentively, as if he wanted to make sure that each word was right as soon as he let it out. "I wasn't at my best, I knew it would've happened" he continued, "I still have things to work through."
"What?" I just asked. I perfectly understood what he was saying, what he was implying, however, was a completely different issue. Was he trying to find a nice way to tell me exactly what I thought he would've told me?
"It's like I'm... suspended. I'm not living, I'm surviving. I leave when things get hard, without looking back. I left a mess behind myself." The frown didn't leave his face after he spoke, leaving me to wonder if he too was confused by what he was saying, and was desperately trying to make sense of it as he went on.
"I don't understand..." I said carefully, having an idea of what that could've possibly meant, but not liking it in the slightest. I wasn't ready for everything between us to end again, not so soon, at least.
"I called Maura."
"Wait what?" I replied, taken aback by his words. I definitely hadn't expected him to say that. "What did she say?" I asked hesitantly.
He bit his lower lip in a nervous motion, seeming to be debating whether to tell me or not for some seconds. "She wants me to visit" he then said.
"To go back to our town?" I asked, sounding even more confused than before. Why did she suddenly want him to go back there, after all those years? Was it simply because she missed him, or was there something more to it? "What did you say?"
"I still haven't given her an answer" Harry replied, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at my desk in an attempt not to meet my gaze.
I nodded, observing him. He was standing some feet away from me, his position too rigid for him to be actually relaxed. He didn't seem to be happy with what he was telling me, which made me think that he wasn't looking forward that encounter in the slightest - understandably so. Considering the way he'd reacted when Maura had called him, it was shocking to know he'd even gone as far as calling her back.
"I mean, do you want to go there?" I asked him gently, even though I already knew the answer.
"I don't" Harry said with a sigh, "but I have to."
I frowned as soon as he said that, not understanding it. Why was he pushing himself into a situation he didn't want to be in? It seemed to be more risky than anything else. "Why?"
He gave me a shrug, still not daring to look at me in the eyes as he spoke. "I left too many things... situations... open. If I don't sort them out they'll take over my life" he explained quietly. "I need to do this."
I gave him another nod, even though I wasn't sure I'd actually understood what he was talking about. "That's okay" I said, trying my best not to sound as unsure as I felt. The only person that could decide if it was a good idea, after all, was him.
I pressed my lips together, thinking about what he'd just told me. Did it mean that we were safe and that he'd only been distant because he'd been distracted by other things, or was it his twisted way to introduce the topic of a break up? If so it could be called, anyway. We would've had to actually be together in order to break up.
I hadn't thought l would've had to worry about losing him even before getting him, at the start. Thinking about it now, though, I should've definitely considered it an option and I felt stupid for not having realised it sooner.
"So... is that why you've been so silent lately?" I asked, my heart beating faster in my chest as soon as the question left my lips.
"I've had some things to work through" he said apologetically, finally looking up at me. "I'm sorry."
"So... are we okay?" I asked again, needing to make sure that everything between us really was as good as before, and that Nicholas's arrogance hadn't jeopardised our new intimacy.
"I don't want to make the same mistakes I made in the past" Harry replied, his voice quiet. "I'm not as... stable, as I should be."
I felt my heart drop in the second I heard those words, because they sounded way too similar to what I'd heard coming from him all those years before. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He took a deep breath, a little frown taking over his features as he looked away from me, apparently thinking about something. "I need you to promise me something" he said in the end, sounding as if it'd caused him pain to say that.
"What is it?" I asked, his reaction to his own words scaring me more than I would've liked to admit.
"Promise me that you'll put an end to this if you're ever unhappy with me."
"What?" I asked faintly, quickly convincing myself that I'd heard him wrong. I couldn't believe he'd said something like that.
He looked at me straight in the eyes, a severe look in his mint green irises. "If you're ever unhappy with me, I want you to leave me" he repeated, his voice dropping towards the end. "Promise you will."
"I... uh" I said, not really knowing what to say. I didn't want to think about what would've hypothetically happened in the future - I didn't want to think about leaving him or him leaving me, and I surely didn't want to promise him I would've left him. That seemed such a cruel thing to promise someone.
But he just stood there, not saying a word, waiting for me to make one of the harshest promises I'd ever been asked to make, the look on his face making it clear that it was as important to him as it was terrible to me, and I knew that I didn't have much of a choice.
"I promise" I said quietly, a deep silence following my words, and I could almost hear them sink in the depth of the quietude in the room in that very moment.
"Okay" Harry then replied, his voice sounding a bit fainter but not lighter in the slightest.
I nodded slowly, the stress from our conversation still very present inside of me. "So... we're good, right?" I asked, needing to make sure that everything was indeed alright, not trusting my own judgement.
"Of course" he replied, and the tension in the room was immediately shattered as soon as he spoke. "I'm sorry for making you worry."
I smiled, detaching myself from the desk and moving closer to him. "It's okay" I said, "I just wish you knew you don't have to distance yourself from me when you feel like you need to work through some things."
He hummed, smiling a bit when I put my hands on his chest. "I've been alone for years" he replied, "it'll take some time to get used to this."
"You don't have to deal with everything on your own" I reminded him, standing on my tiptoes to leave a kiss on his lips. "It really scared me." I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaning my head on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry" he muttered, turning his head to press his lips against mine in a longer-lasting kiss.
I intertwined my fingers with the little hairs at the nape of his neck when he deepened kiss, eliciting a low hum from him. He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around my waist, and for a second I almost believed I could hear his heart beat just as fast as mine. Finally being in his arms again after a week spent apart felt like coming home.
"I'd missed kissing you" he shared in a whisper after we broke apart, and I let out a little chuckle.
"So, now that we've sorted this out, I think it'd be nice if you took off your shirt" I told him, trying my best to sound as nonchalant as professional as possible to balance out the intensity of the request.
"Oh really?" Harry asked, a hint of suggestiveness in his voice, and I sighed, realising that I'd miserably failed.
"Don't" I said quickly, "I have an idea for an artwork."
"What is it?" He asked, sounding a bit curious, and I paused, thinking of the best way to explain it.
"Surrounded with flowers" I then replied, "you'd be lying down, wearing nothing. Very intimate."
Harry hummed, giving me a little look. "You've always had a thing for me and roses."
"So..." I said, gently tugging at his shirt to encourage him to take it off.
He let out a low chuckle at my behaviour, but he took a step away from me anyway, taking off his white shirt and remaining in only the light brown trousers he was wearing. "Wearing nothing?" He asked, not waiting for my reply before unzipping his trousers and pulling them off his long legs, stopping when he was in nothing but his black underwear and walking to past me to put his clothes down on my chair.
He then came back, sitting down on the floor abruptly and crossing his legs, leaning back against his hands and looking at me as if he was daring me to come near.
I stepped closer and kneeled down next to him, gently brushing the gentle design of the two birds under his collarbones before moving on to the butterfly on his torso, smiling a bit when he tightened the muscles of his abdomen in reaction to the touch of my cold hand.
"I like your tattoos" I commented quietly, "they're very dainty. You have a lot of new ones, too." I didn't dare to graze the two ferns at the height of his hipbones and I just took his left arm instead to observe the way the old and new works mixed together on his skin.
He extended his arm between us as soon as I grazed it, and I twisted it gently to look at his shoulder area before gradually going down towards his elbow. Many of his tattoos seemed really soft and gentle, but others were darker and offered a bigger contrast. Overall, the total of Harry's tattoos offered a really pretty image, one that I was sure would've looked amazing in a more natural setting.
I let my gaze go down his forearm, stopping instantly in the second my eyes grazed a specific tattoo I hadn't thought about in months. "Uh" I was only able to comment, turning his arm a bit so that he could see I was looking at the rose he'd had inked on his arm.
Silence washed over us in the second I did, and for some instants I was sure even Harry himself breathed lightly, not to disrupt it. "When I had this done, I was still quite heartbroken" he then shared quietly, surprising me.
"You were?" I couldn't help but ask. The idea of Harry having been heartbroken as well after breaking up with him wasn't one I'd ever explored until then, for obvious reasons. It was weird to hear him say that, a little confirmation that he hadn't broken up with me because he didn't like me anymore, but because of another reason entirely.
He let out a low hum, turning his arm so that we both could have a better look at the rose. "We'd just finished our last year, I was about to move to Manchester. It killed me to think I would've never seen you again" he said lowly, "so I had this done."
I nodded at his explanation. "Who would've thought" I commented, lowering his arm so that I could kiss him.
"Who would've thought" he murmured back, the corners of his lips turning up in a little smile.
I smiled as well, Harry's happiness being too pretty and compelling for me not to join in, and glanced down at the rest of his body, furrowing my eyebrows when I noticed a pretty big one on his thigh, that poked out slightly from the leg of his underwear.
I pulled it up without giving it much thought, raising my eyebrows when I saw what it was. "And what about the tiger?" I asked, curious to know how that specific one had found its way onto his body.
"Uh, I'm not sure. I was very drunk" he just said, and I let out a little surprised laugh, soon followed by Harry's as well.
"Getting tattoos while drunk" I said, "that's a side of you I didn't know."
He hummed. "Are there more things you want to know?" He asked gently.
I looked down as I thought about it, suddenly remembering what I'd thought about some days before. Harry and I were close, and yet I barely seemed to know anything about him. What he liked and didn't like, what little things annoyed him, what made him genuinely happy, they were all things he'd never opened up about before - I didn't even know why, as they seemed to be extremely random.
"What's your favourite food?" I asked him.
He let out a chuckle, seeming to be a bit confused by the question. "What?"
"Your favourite food" I repeated, "I'm just curious."
He pursed his lips and looked down, seeming to be taking my question more seriously than I would've expected him to. "Cream" he said after a while.
I frowned at the oddness of his reply. I could've expected him to say many things, but that surely wasn't one of them. "Cream?"
"Homemade cream" he specified. "My mum always used to make it in winter. It was that one thing I looked forward to during my walk home from school" he smiled a bit, glancing down. "I always waited until it cooled down a little, so that it formed that little layer on top." He let out a sigh. "It's a bit stupid, thinking about it now."
"It really isn't" I replied, "thank you for telling me."
He looked at me again, and he was about to say something when there was a sudden knock on the door of my studio, so sudden that I almost jumped in my spot on the floor.
Harry seemed to be equally surprised by it, turning his head towards the door as if he expected it to magically open and show us who was on the other side. "If it's Nicholas..." he said, letting his sentence drift away, the hint of a threat a bit too evident behind his words.
I let out a chuckle at it. "I'll go check" I said, standing up. "Maybe put something on while I do."
Sorry for the delay! I'm in my exam period right now, so I'm quite busy. I hope you liked this chapter x
Miki