Burn

The canvas sitting in front of Rae stretched out on its easel, the girl sitting in front of it on a simple stool. The sleeves of her crimson sweater were rolled up to her elbows, her hands and arms stained with charcoal and drawing materials. It was still early in the morning, the sun shining through the window of her drawing room, but she paid no mind, her eyes focused on the world in front of her.

Rae had been woken up by the sudden urge to draw that morning, which was extremely unusual. It had been a while since she had sat down and actually drawn; drawing usually came to her in moments of sadness, though today she was feeling quite happy.

The girl sucked her lip between her teeth, nibbling on the flesh slightly as she looked at the drawing in front of her. She wasn’t sure why she decided to sketch a mermaid, but she liked it, the way the mermaid’s hair flowed in the imaginary wind, and the way that she was poised.

Rae noticed how good of postures she always gave her drawings. Knowing she herself had bad posture, she straightened slightly, trying to mimic the straight spine and lovely grace with which the mermaid sat.

“Why are you sitting like your ass is on fire?” a voice asked behind her, startling the girl off of the stool. She hit the floor, on her but, staring in surprise to see Harry standing in the doorway, eyes raised. “And now you’re sitting on the ground. Lovely.”

Scowling, Rae pushed herself up from the ground, grabbing a rag and whipping the black smudges from her hands, staining the rag. “I wasn’t sitting like that,” she argued, tossing the rag on a table. Harry had walked into the room now, a smirk tugging at his perfect lips. “I was simply trying to finish a drawing, which you’ve now interrupted.”

Harry finally stood next to Rae, examining the drawing. He tilted his head to the side, his beautiful green eyes fixating on the images that had left the girls fingers. She shifted nervously, feeling anxious to have him examining something so personal. She took drawing to heart, and she didn’t like when others stared at it so intently.

“She has really straight posture,” he observed, glancing at Rae out of the corner of his eye. A smile lit his face. “Unlike you.”

Rae scowled again and huffed at him, plucking the paper off of the easel and putting it on the table. She would finish it later; when prying eyes were judging her work and making her cheeks go pink. “I didn’t know you had such a good examination of art. Really.”

He laughed. “Have I offended you? Wasn’t my intention.”

“I’m sure.”

Rae began cleaning the area she had been working at, putting everything back in its proper place. Harry watched her for a few moments, his interest in her winning over anything else. “Go to breakfast with me,” he said suddenly, making her pause. She turned to stare at him, dumbfounded.

“Well aren’t you cocky,” she commented, resuming her actions to hide the fact that he had just made her heart speed up ten fold. “Why do you want to take me to breakfast?”

“Because you’re interesting.”

Rae turned to face him, an exhausted expression on her face. She could only deal with him for so long. “Sharks are interesting, it doesn’t mean you ask them on a date.”

He pointed at her. “It was to breakfast, not a date. Who's cocky now?”

Rae stopped what she was doing again, turning to face Harry. That infuriatingly beautiful smirk was etched across his face- she was sure she could draw it by now- and his arms were shoved in his pocket, eyes focused on her. There was no sign of his intoxication the night before, but Rae wondered if it had done permanent damage.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she sighed. “Why do you find me interesting? I’m really not that great.”

He chuckled slightly, shaking his curls with a moment of his head. “That’s why. Because you think you’re not interesting, unlike most of the girls I meet.” She stared at him, unconvinced. “Just breakfast, Rae. I’m not asking you to shag me- though if that’s an option…” he gestured to himself, laughing.

Rae raised her eyebrows, rubbing her temple with her index finger. She was trying to sort out the thoughts and feelings running through her mind, but she couldn’t quite sort out what her brain was thinking. A big part of her was so annoyed with the boy already that she was ready to slap him across his smug face.

The other half? Well the other half wanted to figure out why he was so intriguing to her, and she wanted to understand him. She didn’t like not understanding things, and that included him. He was also attractive to her in a way that she didn’t understand; she felt pulled to him in the most peculiar way.

“She’s got her thinking face on,” Harry teased, drawing Rae from her thoughts. She rose her eyes to him, biting her lip slightly as she tried to make a last minute decision. “What’s the verdict?”

“I’ll go,” she said hesitantly, looking him up and down. “but if you piss me off or even so much as begin to act like you have been the past few days, I’m leaving.”

Harry smiled triumphantly as Rae whisked past him, moving out of the room and away from him. She didn’t want him to see how nervous he had been making her the past few hours. “I’m sure it’ll be a short morning, then,” he joked, following her out.

*

Sun was warming the two people sitting outside of a small diner, staring at one another from across the table as the waitress left them to wait for the food that they had ordered. Rae was still unsure about her decision, but she tried not to concentrate on it.

The girl’s fingers busied itself by tracing the top of her glass, the rim of the cup moist with the condensation from the soda inside. It was warm outside, though not uncomfortably so, which she was thankful for. The last thing she needed was to have uncomfortable weather during this uncomfortable breakfast.

It seemed that Harry was antagonizing her slightly, by saying nothing and watching her every movement. She suddenly felt like a specimen under the microscope of a scientist, and it was beginning to make her feel nervous.

Typically, Rae wasn’t nervous around boys. She was quite confident, because no matter how hard hey tried, they couldn’t usually match her wit, and they absolutely failed at holding her attention. It wasn’t because she was a snob; it was just because she was careful.

But something about they way Harry looked at her made her feel nervous; and not just because he was a serious bad boy who could get her into loads of trouble. It was the fact that he was different, and she couldn’t pinpoint it.

“Are you going to say something?” she asked finally, sighing and leaning back into her chair. “Or are you going to stare at me like I’m a science project?”

He made a face. “Science was not my strongest subject.”

“Something tells me school wasn’t your strongest subject.”

Harry made a face and put his hands up in defeat. “Well okay then. Maybe I wasn’t good at school all together, but I was quite good in English.”

“Oh yeah?” Rae asked with mock interest. He noticed her tone and gave her a look, hinting that Rae was touching the edge of his nerves. She backed off, leaning backwards. “You did say you read Siddhartha. Do you like to read?”

He shrugged his shoulders, giving her that smirk again. Examining the curve of it, Rae decided that it would be something really interesting to draw with charcoals and pencils. The shading would be splendid. “I guess. I read when I’ve got nothing better to do, which isn’t often.”

“You’re just so popular, aren’t you?” she asked, not able to stop the sarcasm from dripping into her light voice.

Harry startled the girl by leaning forward then, his eyes boring into her blue ones and silencing her. “Why don’t we stop being judgmental, for an hour? You pretend that you don’t think I’m some washed-up drunk, and I’ll pretend I don’t think you’re a stuck up rich girl.”

Rae’s mouth snapped shut at his words, partly embarrassed and partly offended. She hadn’t meant to make it so obvious what she thought of him, but she also hadn’t realized he saw her how he did. She didn’t want him to think she was some stuck up rich girl, but Rae realized why he had been seeing her that way- she was treating him like he was lower.

Though she wasn’t the happiest about it, she mumbled, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle you, or anything. One just hears things… and sometimes they can be a bit worrisome.”

He smiled, leaning away from her once more, resuming his previous position. He seemed so relaxed and at ease. His posture slowly wore off on Rae, and she relaxed into her seat a little, hoping that he saw she was getting better about it. “Oh you didn’t offend me.”

Rae fought the furrow in her brow, knowing it was a lie. She had obviously struck a nerve of his, but to avoid hitting another, she changed the subject, wanting to get away from the stereotyping they had both been doing. “Did you sleep alright, last night?”

“Like a baby,” he confirmed, nodding his curls. It was another thing Rae wanted to draw about him. “You’re beds are quite nice. Reminds me of the one that I used to have.”

“Why don’t you have it anymore?” she questioned, going with the flow of conversation, though they had to pause as the waitress set down their food. “If you like it so much?”

“Because,” he said shortly after a mouthful of toast. “I don’t live with my parents anymore.”

Rae’s blue eyes stayed focused on her food. She got the feeling that Harry hadn’t moved out because he was growing up and it was time to move out; she was almost positive it had to do with differences between his parents and himself. “Well I surely hope so,” she said lightly, trying to tread carefully around the topic. “You’re too old to be living at home.”

If he noticed that she was purposefully giving him an excuse, he didn’t make a show of it. He simply nodded, his eyes glinting with a bit of curiosity. “Exactly what my mindset was. How did you come to live with Trystan?”

Their conversation, much to Rae’s surprise, came to a flowing ease, like a river trickling slowly in a shallow bend. Though Harry did made sarcastic comments and innuendos, he did it with a smile and not the same malice as he had before, which relieved Rae.

Despite all her previous worries about him, she found that she wasn’t completely hating breakfast with him, and that he could be nice- in his own, Harry sort of way. It wasn’t that he was mean, he just knew how to say all the right things to embarrass her, which frustrated her.

When they finished eating, they nearly had an almighty row over the check, Rae demanding that she didn’t need a boy to pay for her, and Harry rolling his eyes and accusing her of trying to shove her big money on him.

Because Rae feared that anger that was somewhere masked inside of him, she made a noise of anger and defeat, tossing the paper at him and leaning in her chair. He chuckled in triumph as he threw bills on the table, the sound of his chair scraping backwards signal for her to rise.

Rae did so grudgingly, still annoyed at his antics. She had no idea why he felt the need to do anything gentlemanly. It wasn’t like she needed to be won over- not only was she not fooled by his charm, but she knew that there was nothing more than pure curiosity on that boys mind.

The pair started the walk back to Rae’s home, where they had walked from. In her particular spot, there was no need to drive everywhere, seeing as most places were within walking distance if the weather was right, such as it had been that morning.

They rounded a corner, walking amiably when Harry stopped dead in his tracks, making her slow her steps and cast a glance back at him. His eyes were narrowed and had gone to a murky green, their playful glint from earlier completely gone.

Unable to figure out the cause of him stopping, Rae came to a stop as well, back tracing and touching his shoulder. She could feel the muscles clenched under the shirt, and she glanced down to see his fists were clamped as well.

When he didn’t budge, she followed his gaze, only able to guess that it was resting on the two men that were standing not far away. Their backs were to them, but it was clear Harry knew who they were, and he did not like them in the slightest.

“Harry?” Rae asked slowly, unable to piece together what was making him so frozen to the spot. She never got his answer, watching as the men turned around and began walking this way.

Halfway on their walk, they saw Harry standing there in the sidewalk with Rae, people walking around them like nothing. Rae watched as they both sneered at him, making her skin crawl slightly.

As they made their way towards them, Harry took a step forward and to the side, blocking Rae from direct contact with either of the men- who weren’t really men at all, but boys their age, she realized when they were close enough.

“Alright mate?” one asked in greeting, though his tone led her to believe he didn’t really care how Harry was doing. He was tall, taller than the other one with blonde hair styled perfectly, his build tall and muscular, like a runners. He had green eyes; but not the same green as Harry’s. No, this green was poisonous and decaying green. “You look a bit tense, lad.”

“I’m fine,” Harry bit out, his words dark, reminding Rae of the tone he had used with her when she took his flask from him. She knew that voice meant anger, and it made her bite the inside of her cheek. “Didn’t expect to see you in these parts, Leon. And you either, Sean.”

Sean, the shorter of the two shrugged. He also had blonde hair and similar features to the taller boy, Leon. They were obviously brothers, but his eyes were dark in color, almost black. “We had some business to do. You know about that, don’t you?”

Rae didn’t have to guess what his words meant; she could practically smell the drugs coming off of the boys, though she tried not to read into their words about Harry knowing what they meant. She had heard it before, but she remained quiet, feeling small with the three taller boys. “You know I don’t.”

Leon gave Harry a smile that seemed to Rae like he didn’t buy it. Then his sickly-green eyes fell on her, running up and down her. She could feel him mentally undressing her and it made her stomach flip. She wanted to take a step closer to Harry, but she refused to show her discomfort. “I’ve been rude,” he purred, stretching out his hand to shake Rae’s. “I’m Leon, and this is my brother Sean. I don’t believe I’ve met you.”

“You haven’t,” Rae said bitingly, reaching for the outstretched hands with the intention of digging her nails into his skin. Harry caught her hand with his, lacing their fingers firmly together and startling her. “I don’t make it a point to make friends with everyone I see.”

“Shame,” he smiled, slowly and malicious. Harry’s grip tightened and he shifted again, blocking her completely. “If you made friends with me, I wouldn’t cut you off from the world like Hazza here seems to be doing.”

“Actually I don’t think it’s a shame at all. I would say thanks for the offer, but I’m not really that thankful.”

Leon got the point, striding past the pair, watching Rae all the while. His interest in her was clear, and it made her skin crawl. She was suddenly thankful that Harry’s tall, menacing presence was blocking the other boys from her. “Don’t be so tense, Harry. I won’t steal her away. Yet.”

Rae watched as the two boys left them, snickering and glancing backwards at them all the while. Harry’s large hand still engulfed her own, and before she could say anything, Harry was walking forward, practically dragging her along. Rae asked no questions, seeing as he was still heading for her house.

She did however, note that their hands fit together perfectly. And she didn’t mind.