Burn

A distance pounding noise made Rae roll over in bed. Breathing in deeply, she tried to fall back into the deep sleep she had been, pulling away from the close proximity of awareness. As she began to slide back into slumber, the noise resounded in her ears again, waking her up further than the last time.

Sitting up in the bed, Rae struggled to read the clock next to her bed that read 6:30. Crawling from the bed, she yawned, walking to her bedroom dorm and down the stairs, wondering who in the hell was pounding on the door. Jess may have locked herself out again, since she should be coming home from her shift soon.

Opening the door, Rae fought the urge to smack her head. Harry was standing at her door, dressing in jeans and a blazer, a knowing look etched across his face. She hadn’t really thought he was going to take her out on a date, and to be honest she did not want to go in the slightest. Well maybe she did a little bit.

“I knew you didn’t believe me,” he said, shaking his head and pointing behind her. “Go up those stairs and get dressed. We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

“Harry I really-“

“I’m serious,” he cut off, giving her a look. A chill crept up her spine, weather it was because his tone scared her, or turned her on, she wasn’t sure. She simply gave him a defiant look. “Rae.”

“Fine,” she bit out, turning around, not bothering to invite him in. She flung the door as if to close it on him, but he caught it, letting himself in and chuckling to himself. She was starting to get the feeling he enjoyed her stubbornness. “But I can’t promise I’ll be quick about it.”

And she wasn’t. Rae took every single minute of the thirty minutes she was given to change into clothes, moving absolutely as slow as she could. Harry being Harry, had also only given her exactly thirty minutes, waltzing into her room thirty minutes later on the dot as she slid her shoe on.

They both stared one another down, clearly annoyed that they had both used the exact time given. In a way, it was amusing to Rae that they had both done the same thing. It also showed that they were having a power struggle going on, and that neither of them were winning.

“Shall we?” Harry finally asked, flashing her a smile and gesturing for her to exit the room. She did without comment, flicking her hair at him as she went by. “Feisty. I like it.”

Rae was surprised to find that Harry drove a very sleek, very nice black Range Rover. It surprised her even more when he opened the door for her, and impressed her. But her praise went away the moment she saw him checking out her ass, making her roll her eyes and snatch the door from him, shutting it on his laughter.

When he got into the drivers side, she could see the smirk on his face as he started the car. “At least your bum is proper perfect.”

“Oh good,” she said sarcastically. “I was really hoping you thought so. If you didn’t my entire life probably would have fallen to shambles.”

“Touchy.”

“Pervert.”

“Every guy in the world is a pervert, Rae.” Harry looked at her as he drove, quite wildly in her opinion. She put her seatbelt on, but if he noticed, he said nothing. “I just choose to live by it honestly, unlike others. It’s the silent ones you’ve got to watch out for.”

“I hardly think men who check out and get away with it is worse.”

“Yeah? What do you think stalkers do?”

Rae was silent for a moment, thinking about it. She crossed her arms and slouched in her seat like a child. “Point taken.”

He chortled, deep and raspy. She liked his laugh. “Maybe if you listen to me more often, you wouldn’t be drugged and hit on by complete loonies at clubs, yeah?”

“If I listened to you,” she said, glancing at him. “I’d probably be like every other slag that falls pray to your pretty words and imagined wit.”

He raised his brows, though he was focused on the road. “Point taken.”

Rae tried to bypass the fact that he was mimicking her. the girl couldn’t figure out whether she enjoyed the banter that they shared, or if she was right annoyed by it. Sometimes the words exchanged between them was too good, like the sort of words exchanged in movies.

Everything about Harry and Rae’s interaction confused her. It was like one half of her brain felt positive about it, and the other half was sent reeling. The boy made her wage a war against herself, and it was making her thought process extremely difficult as of late. The hardest battles to overcome where always those within, and Rae was struggling to find out which side was winning.

Outside of the window, Rae watched the scenery pass by. Harry turned on the radio, the sound of Pink Floyd filling the car. She cast her eyes at him to see his fingers drumming to the beat on the steering wheel. So he had a good taste in music too, just another surprise in the long list that she was making for one Mr. Harry Styles.

After a while of driving with nothing but music, Rae saw them pull into somewhere. She focused her eyes, surprised to find that she had zoned out so much she hadn’t notice them pulling up to a very bright, very lit up carnival.

The image in front of her nearly took her breath away. Getting out of the car slowly, she cast her eyes up, watching all of the lights and colors, the sound of laughter and joy filling her ears. A Ferris wheel glittered in the dark sky, and a rollercoaster zoomed down a slope, the echoes of distance screams reaching them.

Excitement and approval filled Rae as she moved foreword, her eyes on the scene the whole time. She hadn’t been to a carnival since she was a child, and she remembered how amazing it had been, how all of the greasy food had tasted amazing, how the rides had made her stomach spin.

“I’m impressed,” she admitted to Harry, casting a glance up at him. He gave her a smirk, as if he had known she would be impressed. She got the feeling that he knew exactly how to impress her, and it bothered her that she didn’t know how to do the same in return. “I didn’t pink you as a carnival kind of person.”

“I’m not,” he admitted, gesturing for them to walk. “They ruin my image of having a tough exterior and give me a bad rep.”

She laughed lightly at his joke. “Then why a carnival?”

“Because a fancy dinner would do you no good. You have all the money in the world, show of flashy, expensive things aren’t going to impress you.”

“So you’re trying to impress me?”

“It seems to be working.”

Following him, they waited in line to buy tickets, and argued over paying for them. Harry one in the end, because the argument had breached a serious tone and Rae backed down when she saw the flash of anger in his eyes. She would not forget the day he had pinned her wrist for taking his alcohol.

The memory also struck her curiosity, realizing he hadn’t seemed drunk the past few times she had seen him. The thought struck her as odd, but she wasn’t going to ask him about it. She didn’t want to make him angry, because though she got the feeling they were somewhat friends, his temper would not be spared for her.

The first thing that the two did was head over to bumper cars. Rae was finding it extremely hard to pay attention with all of the beauty around her, but she managed to pay attention long enough to ram into his car over and over, shouting insults and laughing her ass off with their antics.

After bumper cars, they placed bets on who could eat the most horrible food and go on the spinning dragons without vomiting. So of course, they both shoved funnel cakes and cotton candy down their mouth, devouring absolutely anything that had sugar in it before running over to the spinning ride, eagerly getting on the contraption.

A few minutes into the ride, they were both groaning, leaning back in their seat and clutching their stomachs. Hardly a minute after they stumbled off the ride, they emptied the contents of their stomachs, calling it a tie. It was completely idiotic of them, but they laughed about it the rest of the night.

Rae couldn’t recall the last time she had so much fun acting like a kid. She was also confounded at how easy going Harry was being. It was a side of him she had never, ever seen. He was laughing and she would have never in a million years guessed that he had inner demons in him, that there was something about him that was dangerous. His dangerous side was hiding tonight, and it both worried and elated her.

“Ferris wheel!” she yelled, pointing at the large wheel that was raising buckets of people. Harry laughed at her, nodding his head as he gestured for her to lead the way, and she did so happily.

They waited in line for a few minutes before they were finally let into their own bucket, sitting next to one another. The slow ride started to make its way to the top, making Rae ecstatic. She wanted to see the carnival grounds from high up, knowing that it would be beautiful.

Rae’s fingers drummed on her legs, their short length absolutely itching to draw the things that she saw in front of her. there were so many colors that she could use to depict what she saw, so many bright pastels that she had never used before. She bit her lip, trying to remember every inch of the things she saw.

Sensing her thoughts, Harry laughed. “You’re absolutely dying to draw this, aren’t you?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“When did you start drawing?”

“When I was little. My mom used to draw to, but she always insisted I was better than she was.”

“You drew a lot when she passed, didn’t you?

Rae locked her teeth. He had crossed into a topic that she didn’t want to talk about. So instead of talking about the paintings and drawings that littered the house, expressing her depression and the dark times that she went through, she asked, “When did you start drinking? Do you do that when you’re sad?”

Rae wasn’t looking at Harry, but she felt as if he grew in size suddenly, his shadow looming over her as he turned to her. When he didn’t answer, she turned to him, but wished she hadn’t.

A storm was brewing in Harry’s eyes as he glared at her, his posture straightening as he turned to her. She fought to keep her face calm, but her heart picked up speed at the anger contorting his handsome face; it was terrifyingly beautiful.

“You don’t get to ask those kinds of questions,” he growled, his voice rumbling with threatening. “And stop thinking you’re high and mighty, with that tone of yours. I’m not some toy that needs fixing.”

“I never said-“

“But you thought it!” he practically shouted at her, making her flinch back. “All you fucking rich girls see something and you want to make it perfect, you want to make it better. I’m fine the way I am, yet you fixate on imagined problems.”

Rae said nothing. Instead, she got up and moved across the seat from him, not wanting to sit anywhere near him. She knew that he felt judged, but he had done the same thing to her, calling her “rich girl” and assuming that she was trying to fix him, when all she was doing was avoiding talking about herself.

“And now you’re going to sit away from me and pout like a brat,” he scoffed, shaking his head. She could tell his anger was roiling inside of him now, his voice taking on a mean quality. “Didn’t mummy teach you to apologize when you’re wrong?”

“No, she didn’t,” I snapped at him, seething. “Because she’s dead, in case you haven’t noticed. Didn’t your parents teach you to respect the dead, or to never scream at girls? No, they didn’t, because you were probably too drunk to hear them.”

Harry leapt across the thing from her, startling Rae to a gasp as he clutched her wrists in his hands, squeezing them and pinning them at her sides, she leaned back as he leered down at her, his gaze holding uncontrollable rage. She knew she had gone to far, but her defense mechanisms had been too quick, too rash.

“Say it again.” His voice was like a million thunder clouds, rumbling in the distance. “Call me a drunk again. Pretend like you know my life one more time, I am truly interested to hear what other false assumptions you have made of me.”

“Let me go,” she answered, turning her face away from him, trying to hide the fear in it. She felt her lip trembling, felt his strong grasp on her wrists. It was starting to ache, and she wiggled in it, only making it tighten. “Harry, let me go.”

“Call me a drunk again.”

“Harry, let me go.”

“Say it ag-“

“Let me go!” She screamed, startling herself, and the boy who was holding her. His grip left instantly as he sat down across from her abruptly, his green orbs blinking in surprise at her outburst.

Rae sat across from him, feeling strong as she rubbed her wrists, unwilling to meet his eyes. She didn’t want to show how scared she had been of him in that moment, but she struggled to convey any other emotion.

For a moment, she realized they were at the very top of the Ferris wheel. Everything below glittered and sparkled, but it no longer held the desired effect on her. instead of being dazzled, all she wanted to do was get to the bottom of the ride and away from the boy across from her that terrified her and thrilled her at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, bring her attention back to him. He was sitting in the corner of the seat, looking at her through his thick lashes, giving her the impression of a child. He did look sorry, the rage from moments earlier wiped clear of his face. “For what I said about your mother.”

Rae sniffed, trying to seem indifferent. A moment that she had wanted to draw so badly, was gone. She never wanted to depict the moment she felt fear of him. “I’m sorry for calling you a drunk.”

Rae was sorry for that, but it didn’t stop the fact that she thought it was true. She also decided that he had a breathing taking rage problem, one that was probably the result of the violent spells she had heard about, and one responsible for his sudden outburst.

“But you know,” she said quietly, studying his quiet demeanor. “For someone who hates being judged, you’re awful judgmental.”