Chapter 31
On a normal day, people tend to drive me absolutely insane.
Today, Gemma and Bella were driving me to the brink of nearly wanting to throw myself off of a bridge.
I had definitely agreed to show Gemma around the city before I had even really thought twice about what I was getting myself into.
First of all, I happened to have been raging drunk at the time and my mind tunnelled with the thought of one thing and one thing only: Harry. Secondly, I didn't even know Gemma. Usually, when I went out with someone in any respect, I had a pretty good idea of who they were and how to act around them. Today, I was going in blind. And thirdly, I hadn't exactly known that Bella was going to be tagging along.
It seemed that the minute I had come to terms with the jealously and feelings that I had for Harry; her presence seemed to heighten all of those emotions. But the worst part was that, if it hadn't been her, it would have just as easily been someone else.
It would have been the girl at the breakfast place that we stopped at unable to take her eyes off of him or chat him up whenever she passed our table, the girls that stopped him on the side of the street in a fit of giggles to ask him some stupid question about his outfit or his accent, the girls intentionally bumping into him wherever we went in order to get him to speak to them – basically just any fucking girl on the planet with eyes at this point.
And I let all of it piss me off. I personally wanted to throttle every single one of them.
Who was I?
At least it happened to be something that Bella and I could actually bond over considering none of the aforementioned events seemed to pass by her without an eye roll or a scoff either.
"You know you don't have to stop every time, right?" she asked Harry nearing our fourth hour of the day wandering the streets and playing tourist, obviously fed up with all of the attention that he was getting. Attention that wasn't coming from her.
"What are you going on about now, Bella?" Harry groaned, falling in step beside me. Our hands brushed against one another and I shoved mine into my pocket, causing him to clear his throat and stand up a little straighter.
Despite how upset the other girls might have been making me, it wasn't enough to force me into playing 'couple' on the streets with Harry. I said that we could figure things out between us, but that definitely didn't include holding hands while we spent the day with his sister and his ex.
Plus, he had definitely gotten enough of me this morning already anyway.
"The girls," Bella waved a hand in front of her as she spoke. Her blonde hair was tossed over her shoulder as she turned to look at us. "You don't have to stop for every single one of them that fawns over you."
"She was asking me how to get to Starbucks. I don't see how offering directions is her fawning over me."
"Mm," she hummed in response with another roll of her eyes. "And did she just ask for directions?"
Harry glanced down at me, bristling slightly. "Well... I mean... she did also ask me to walk her there and offered to buy me a coffee – " I looked away from him and down toward the sidewalk. "But – but I said no. Obviously, because–"
"Because why?" Bella asked coyly, with a small smirk on her face. The four of us had stopped in front of the mall and she cocked her head to the side, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Because of May?" She shrugged before continuing, "My bad. I haven't heard you say that you two are official are anything. I mean, what are you to each other–"
"For God's sake, Bella," Gemma huffed. She had slowly been pushed to her wits end by the girl throughout the duration of the day as well. "Just shut up. Stop making things awkward."
"I'm not making anything awkward," she seethed. "I just want Harry to clarify for me what exactly his relationship status is. Or at least let a friend advise what's best for him."
"And you think that's you?" he asked with a dry laugh. His hands had closed into fists at his sides and I could tell that he was trying to remain composed. "You aren't a friend, Bella. I wouldn't let you advise anything about my life."
"I think that I know you better than you think. And you seemed pretty willing to do just about anything with me yesterday until–"
Without warning, Gemma grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me toward her. "Enough." She snapped. "Both of you. This is bullshit. I'm not having the two of you at each other's throats."
"I'm not doing anything–"
Gemma held up her free hand, silencing Harry. "I don't care. You two are figuring this out. And you aren't dragging May or I into it."
"And you think he's going to listen to me?" Bella scoffed.
"He's going to have to," Gemma said with a shrug, "Because May and I are going into the mall without the two of you. And whether Harry and May are dating or not, he seems to go batshit crazy when she isn't around," She shot him a glare. "And if he wants to see her again today, he will talk things out with you until we come back. Don't be children."
This time, it was my turn to pipe up. "I don't know if–"
Gemma was already dragging me into the mall before I got a chance to finish. I glanced back at Harry over my shoulder, whose chest was heaving. When he met my gaze, I swear one of his eyes twitched.
It was funny, in a way, to see how he listened to his sister. I knew that, had it been anyone else who told him to stay rooted to the spot and not follow me, he would have told them to go to hell and dragged us both away from them. Yet I watched as we got further and further away from him that he didn't move and only kept his eyes on us until we disappeared from view.
"Fuckin' hell," Harry's sister groaned as soon as we stepped into the entrance of the building. She held out a hand, stopping us. With her eyes squeezed shut, she reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm actually going to kill them both."
I bit my lip, surveying her expression, before taking another glance back at the door. "Should we just leave them out there?"
"They weren't annoying you?" she asked with a small laugh.
"No, they were. They definitely were," I replied. "I just..."
My words trailed off and I felt a lump form in my throat.
I just don't want Harry to suddenly fall back in love with his ex and leave.
When I looked back at Gemma, she was staring at me with her head angled to the side. "You're worried because they dated right?"
"What? I – no," I cleared my throat, trying to look anywhere other than her face. "I just don't want them to bite each other's heads off out there."
"Right..." she said with a small smile. "Well... whether you are worried or not – don't be. What happened between them ended a long time ago."
I nodded, staring at my shoes and walking forward into the mall hoping that she would follow.
Her words made my ears ring. As much as I wanted to believe what she said and leave the topic alone, those same nagging words in the back of my head were screaming and begging for me to pry.
There was no part of me that wouldn't be worried. Especially when Isabella looked the way she did, and I had already seen Harry nearly on top of her at a club.
"Okay," I said after a few seconds. The word sounded almost defeated coming out of my mouth.
"May," Gemma's voice was gentle as she came up beside me. It was the same tone that Harry had used multiple times and I had to resist the urge to cringe. "I can promise you that." She linked her arm in mine, pulling me to look at her. "Look... don't tell my brother I'm going to tell you this, okay?"
I straightened. "Gemma, no. It's okay, I don't need to–"
"Stop. I want to tell you," she interrupted with a shrug. The words made me stomach flip. The thought of her disclosing something private about him to me felt wrong. Especially when I could barely be the person that he wanted me to be.
She heaved a sigh and pulled me along to walk with her, arm in arm. The people in the mall filed along beside us, barely even giving a second glance. "They were together for around 2 and a half years. He started seeing her when he was 20. They met through me... she was my best friend. I don't really know how it happened. I didn't ask. All I know is that they never really got along, but Harry tried really hard."
I didn't look at her as she spoke, but rather ahead of us trying to picture it in my head. A 20-year old Harry with pretty Bella on his arm. I held back a shudder.
It shouldn't affect me. We're friends. It's fine.
"He's like that," Gemma continued. "Harry doesn't normally let a lot of people into his life, but when he does, he'll give them anything and everything. I believe that he loved Bella at one point or another, but I think he dated her mainly because it was convenient. She had been in his life for so long and he didn't have to try and open himself up to anyone else."
"He doesn't like to open himself up to people?" I asked, hesitantly.
That seemed like a completely different Harry than I knew.
"Depends on the person," she said with a knowing smile, giving my arm a squeeze. "Anyway, Bella cheated on him."
I came to a staggering halt. "What? She cheated on him?"
When I looked at Gemma, she wouldn't meet my gaze. She shrugged, almost embarrassed. "Yeah. And I think that it really fucked him up for a while. He had been trying so hard only for her to kind of just throw it away."
I pulled my arm out of Gemma's, not even bothering to hide my disgust anymore. "And now you have them out there? Together? And you want them to work something out that wasn't even his fault?"
A few people stared as I spoke to Gemma, my voice rising slightly. She glanced around us, shifting awkwardly on her feet.
My mind was reeling. The thought of 20-year old Harry, just starting his life and figuring out who he was, getting his heart broken by some girl who probably didn't deserve even a second of his time had me nauseous. I wanted to run back out onto the street and take him right away from her.
Most of all, I wanted to scream at Gemma. I wanted to yell at her for staying friends with someone who clearly had no regard or no love for her brother. I couldn't ever imagine keeping someone in my life who had done that to somebody that I loved.
"I know what you're thinking," Gemma said softly. The confidence that she had held earlier was nowhere to be found.
"I don't think you do actually," I said with a dry laugh. Crossing my arms over my chest, I took a step back from her. She swallowed, glancing down at the distance between us, before closing her eyes.
"I cut her out of my life when I found out," Gemma breathed, and I stiffened. Maybe she did know what I was thinking. When her eyes opened back up, they had glassed over. My breathing hitched in my throat and I instinctively put a handout, ready to reassuringly rest it on her arm, only to pause when thinking about the circumstances. "I know that you don't know me, May, but I would never ever keep someone around who had done that to my brother."
The minute the words were out of her mouth, I let my hand rest on her shoulder. She let out a choked breath, her body sagging beneath me. Glancing briefly around us, I led us to a somewhat secluded bench a few feet away.
"I love Harry," Gemma choked out as soon as we sat down. "So much. And Bella was – she is my best friend. I was devastated when I found out."
I nodded, unsure of what to say or how I could reassure her.
"But Harry didn't tell me until nearly 2 years after they had broken up," she continued, and I sucked in a breath. "He went rogue after they split. He was a dick to everyone, kind of shut people out of his life. When I tried to talk to him about it, he told me to get over it. Said that the breakup was mutual. I just figured he was trying to deal with it... however he could."
My heart dropped in my chest. The thought of Harry dealing with the person he loved cheating on him all by himself made me sick to my stomach and, if Gemma hadn't been in such a state herself, I swear that I would have jumped off the bench to go find him.
"Bella didn't exactly take it well either. She had really loved Harry–"
"She didn't fucking love him if she cheated on him," I snapped. "You don't do that shit to people you love."
Gemma took a staggering breath. "I know. I don't know if it was love so much as it was an obsession. I just know that she had mentioned to me multiple times over the years that they were broken up that she would get back together with him in a heartbeat if he asked."
My heart lurched once more. Did she still feel that? Did he?
"I brought it up to him once. That's when he told me," she sighed. "He still hadn't really fully recovered. I kind of just... told him that she still loved him. That she would be willing to try again if he was. And he snapped. Told me what she had done."
Gemma looked up at me, before continuing. "He said that he had made her promise not to mention anything to me and that he would do the same. He knew that she was my best friend and didn't want to take that away from me."
I ran my hand down her arm, giving it a small squeeze.
"I confronted her about it right away. I told her to go to hell, screamed at her for hours. She just cried saying that she loved him – that she still does love him but that it was a mistake. She told me that she couldn't lose me too."
The thought made me unnerved. I wanted to punch Bella for all of the havoc that she had wreaked on this poor family.
"I felt like shit," Gemma breathed, her voice cracking. "I mean – I had continued to bring this girl to every family function, every holiday, every birthday. I would never have done that if I knew what had gone on or how much pain she had caused him."
"You couldn't have known," I murmured, leaning in closer to her. "He kept it from you for a reason."
A stupid reason. He should have had the bitch exiled.
"I know. I know he did. But I wish he hadn't," she said with a small shrug. "He's always been this way – so selfless and caring. I'm the big sister. I'm supposed to do this shit for him, but he's always been the one looking out for me. He was the one who brought her back a few months later, telling us that he wasn't going to watch a nearly 20-year friendship fall apart over him."
I opened my mouth to retort, wanting to say that it wasn't his fault to begin with and that maybe the friendship ended for a reason, but Gemma spoke again before the words came out. I was grateful because here I was trying to be her shoulder to cry on and I couldn't do that if I was defending Harry in some old years-long feud. It was nothing she hadn't already heard before.
"At first I refused. I told him that I wouldn't. I couldn't allow someone into our lives who had hurt him like that. But he assured me that he wanted this, and Bella kept saying that she would make it right to the two of us, no matter how long it took." She shuddered as she spoke. "If it ever hurt him to bring her back in our lives – he never showed it. He was generally more angry than anything else. After a while things started to get better between us and she really did apologize every spare second she got. Now they only really see each other when he comes home or when we come up to visit."
Why would you bring her at all? Why did you become friends with her again even after seeing how it affected Harry in the first place? I wanted to ask but understood that Gemma knew them both better than I did. Maybe there were just some things I couldn't understand.
"That's... a lot." I breathed after a few seconds.
Her words hung vividly in the forefront of my mind and as much as I wanted to spew some sort of comfort for her, I found myself coming up short.
How could I comfort the girl who had brought the person back into Harry's life that broke his heart? I was going to need some time to process this. Even if we were just friends.
Gemma suddenly turned to me, taking my hands in her own. "I don't expect you to get it or to understand. I know how it looks; I do." she said sadly. "But I'm glad that Harry has you. I'm glad that he has someone who cares about him."
I recoiled slightly. "Oh, I don't know–"
"Sorry," she interjected with a shake of her head. "I'm not trying to assume anything or make you uncomfortable. I know you aren't even really sure what you want with him right now, but I see how you are with him."
"I do care about him," I admitted after a beat. "But I just – wait... how did you know that? Does Harry talk about me?"
Gemma's eyes widened and she quickly scrambled to recover. "Shit, don't tell Harry I said anything. He doesn't... Well, he doesn't willingly talk about you," I furrowed my brows. "I mean – ugh. That sounds bad. I'm sure he would talk about you if you wanted him to. I just mean that I have to pry it out of him."
"Pry what out of him?"
She looked embarrassed as she shrugged. "You. Anything to do with you."
"How did you know about me in the first place?"
"Harry's gonna kill me," she mumbled under her breath with a shake of her head. "Promise you won't say anything? About any of this conversation? Even the Bella stuff?"
I nodded, feeling that pit in the bottom of my stomach grow. If there was one thing I hated to do, it was lie. But I found my curiosity outweighing my morals as I inched closer to Gemma – ready for what she was about to say.
"I facetimed him after you punched him," she said with a small grin. "Asked what happened. He was honest. I said you sounded like my typa gal," She winked at me. "Anyway, he had said that he had to return some of your stuff but that he wasn't even sure if you'd let him back in your house. He was convinced that you hated him."
I mean... He wasn't that far off.
"I told him I wanted to know what happened when he saw you again. He told me to fuck off," I laughed, and she grinned before continuing, "His mood changed a bit over the next month whenever he called me. Sometimes he was overly frustrated and not in the mood to talk, other times he seemed to be walking on air. I knew the two somehow had to be correlated, so I pushed and pushed until he told me bits and pieces about you."
I swallowed and nodded, not wanting to seem to eager. "Like what?" I asked, cursing as my voice nearly came out a squeak.
"He told me that he had seen you more than once. That you wanted nothing to do with him. He told me he ran into you at your school, that he took you out. He said that he crashed your job interview – which I scolded him for by the way. He said that you had already gotten angry enough at him that he didn't need me being mad too. I hated to be so invested, but you were the first person he'd talked about since Bella," She gushed. "He said that... Oh my God he's going to kill me... He said that you're incredible to be around and that he wants to change your mind on how you feel about him."
Blushing, I looked to our feet. "Right. Okay, thanks for telling me."
"He also told me," she continued, her tone soft. "That I had to let it go and couldn't keep prying. Because he knew you were confused and didn't seem to want him around. He respects that. But he was really cut up about you the night Bella and I came to his place. I can assure you that he wouldn't have touched her unless something was really bothering him."
I nodded once more, unsure how to reply.
"I'm sorry. I know this must make you feel weird, talking to me about it."
"No," I lied. "No, it doesn't. Don't worry."
"If it's any consolation, I've never seen him look at anyone the way that he looks at you."
"Like what?"
"Like you're the only thing in the entire fucking world."
My breath hitched in my throat and I jumped up off the bench, our hands breaking apart.
Too much.
When I looked down at Gemma, she looked concerned. "May..." she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to–"
"It's fine," I interrupted, shaking my head and taking a few steps away from her. I nearly bumped into a few people walking as I closed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair. "You didn't do anything. Should we go find Harry and Bella?"
"May, wait," Gemma stood up and grabbed my arm. She was more frantic now. "I didn't mean to overstep."
"You didn't," I lied, my voice strained. "It's just... I've only known him 2 months. So... you might be misreading whatever you think you noticed between us."
"Right," Gemma replied, a bit dejected. She hesitated, before continuing, "You're right. I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't see anything."
I gave her a curt nod, wrapping my arms around myself and backing up a few more steps. My back collided with a firm chest the instant I did so, and a familiar set of hands gripped my shoulders.
"Killer," Harry rasped in my ear. I turned on my heel, tripping over my feet in the process, only for him to quickly catch me by the arm. He furrowed his brows as he pulled me back up. "Are you okay? What's going on?"
I shrugged out of his touch, glancing between him and Bella, who looked very much amused. If I had been in the right headspace, I swear I would have punched her then and there. I mean, I already had the practice and knew that I was strong enough to break a nose.
Cheating bitch.
"Nothing," I shook my head, tearing my gaze away from the two of them. "I'm okay. I'm fine."
"You look green," Bella commented, her lip curling up in a sneer.
Like you're the only thing in the entire fucking world.
I didn't dare look back at Gemma as I responded, "I'm just not feeling the greatest. I think I'm going to head out."
"Okay..." Harry said, narrowing his eyes at me, seeing right through my bullshit. "I'm kind of ready to wrap this day up anyway. Let's get the car and I'll take you home–"
"No!" I responded much too quickly and I could've sworn Harry flinched. "I mean... No. It's okay. You stay here and enjoy yourself with your sister," I intentionally excluded Bella's name and heard her huff beside me, "I'm going to take the bus."
Like you're the only thing in the entire fucking world.
"What? You're not taking the fucking bus if you're about to throw up," Harry countered, stepping in front of me.
"I'll be fine. I just... I need to go. I'm sorry," I stepped around him and he turned to look at me, looking both confused and a bit hurt. "I'll text you."
Like you're the only thing in the entire fucking world.
Harry stayed rooted to the spot as I backed up a few steps until he finally gave his head half a shake and then gave me a small nod, his brows furrowed, and his mouth set into a frown. "Okay. Yeah... uh.... Text me when you get back."
I swallowed, nodding once at him, and then spinning on my heel. My heart hammered in my chest as I weaved my way through the crowd of people, trying to focus on my breathing and not the constant thrum of thoughts currently berating my mind. I nearly dropped to my knees the minute I pushed through the doors and stepped outside, the cool air a welcome reprieve from the heat and swell of the overwhelming mall.
Like you're the only thing in the entire fucking world.
In a perfect world, I would have stayed. I would have been honest with Gemma and told her that what she said scared the shit out of me. I wouldn't have run off the minute Harry came and instead remained by his side, especially now knowing his history with Bella and how hard this weekend must have been for him. I would have been there for Harry because that was what he needed and I would have packed away Gemma's comment for another day, when I could deal with it in a healthy manner.
But this wasn't a perfect world. And I didn't do that.
Like you're the only thing in the entire fucking world.
I couldn't be the one to break Harry's heart again.
--
a/n:
hi just fyi i don't proofread or edit my chapters until a few days later (normally when I'm drunk) because i absolutely hate everything that i write and can't stomach rereading it or ill find myself deleting it all and not posting LMAO so if there are a ton of grammar mistakes and disfluencies, that's why !
anyway, love u all so much with my entire heart. i literally cry at every single vote and comment so thank u so so much xo
love val