Fear of Flying

He wasn’t coming.

I told myself that every time I looked at the clock as it got later and later.

I was running out of things to occupy my attention. I’d already had dinner, and cleaned the kitchen. I took a long bath, with a bath bomb included. I tried to watch something on the tellie, but nothing could keep me from reaching for my phone to check the time and see if maybe Harry had texted me.

He hadn’t.

It was almost 1 in the morning. I knew that when creative juices got flowing, the lads could stay in the studio well into the wee hours of the morning.

But it wasn’t a group session, it was just Liam and Harry working on a few things. Plus, Harry promised he’d come see me. He knew I was waiting for him.

When the clock hit 1:14am, I decided to just admit defeat and go to sleep.

I knew trying to sleep would be pointless. I’d just lay in the dark thinking of everything I’ve done wrong with Harry since the start. Thinking of things I could have done differently and coming up with passive aggressive things to text him, which I’d just regret as soon as I sent them.

Right as I fell onto my bed in a very dramatic show, I heard a key in my door. My heart rate instantly picked up because only Harry would come over this late without any warning text.

I heard the door open and close and I just sat frozen on my bed. He was here. He didn’t blow me off, he was actually here.

I watched his shadow come into the doorway and I leaned over and turned on my bedside light. I sat in the middle of my bed and stared at him.

He stood, leaned against the doorframe with his hands shoved into the pockets of his tight black jeans. He was wearing a loose grey shirt with his necklaces peeking out. His hair was in a tight bun and he had his bottom lip between his teeth. His eyes looked everywhere but me.

“I, um,” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t think you were gonna come.”

He shrugged and finally let his gaze finally lifted to my face, “I didn’t think I was either.”

My heart dropped. “Oh.”

“it’s not,” he let out a deep sigh. “It’s not because I don’t want to see you,” he murmured. “It’s just, it just hurts Ken. I hate fighting with you, and it’s like that’s all we do now.”

“I know, but I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“We always say that.”

I nodded, “I know. Things need to change, I know that-”

“Yeah, they do,” he cut me off. “We’re toxic to each other, we should have never tried to be more than friends, and I know that now,” his voice was so broken and tired when he said this. “I know it’s my fault this happened. I pushed you into it and I’m sorry for that. I ruined everything because I was selfish with my feelings.”

I thought Harry and our situation couldn’t break my heart anymore than it already had, but god was I wrong.

I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat, “Harry you weren’t selfish. It’s always been you okay? I’ve told you that.” I avoided looking at him by picking at a string on my blanket. “I wasn’t ready before, but I am now. I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to make excuses for things. I just want to be with you- really with you. I’m tired of fighting it.”

He let my words hang between us for a long moment. “I don’t think it’s that easy Kennedy.”

“I know,” I sighed. “But it could be, if you just let it.”

“I don’t know how!” He finally let his frustration ring through.

I shrugged, still keeping my voice calm. “We can start over from here. Everything we’ve done up until this point doesn’t count.”

“Life doesn’t work like that.”

This time I couldn’t help but growl frustrated. I glared up at him, “I know it doesn’t okay? But I love you and I want to make this work. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, I just want to be with you.”

His face went blank at my words and his shoulder slumped. “What’s changed.”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Me I guess. I just don’t wanna wake up one day and regret never properly letting us try. And I know it won’t be easy; you’re inanely famous and everyone wants to know your ever move. Plus we both like to fight, that much is obvious. But I’m so fucking, stupidly in love with you, and I don’t want to lose that Harry, I don’t.”

He slowly made his way towards me and sat next to me on the bed. He stared down at my hands pulling at the string before he pushed my hands away, “Stop, you’ll ruin your bedding.”

I laughed pathetically, “I’m pouring my heart out to you, trying to fix this, and all you’re worried about is my bedding?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m trying to process this too Ken. The last real conversation we had face to face didn’t end very well and we both fled the bloody country.”

“I know.” I stared at his fingers that were now back by his knee. I so badly wanted them back in my grasp. “We really need to work on our communication skills.”

“That and not just blowing up on each other.”

“I know,” I said softly.

We were both quiet for a long moment. It wasn’t an awkward silence, just heavy. “You know I love you. So much that is physically hurts sometimes,” he sighed. “And I want to be with you, it’s just, this whole idea is making me anxious. Because we haven’t been very good for each other lately.”

“I know,” I said again. “I’m not trying to say we haven’t been bloody awful to each other, me more than you. But what I’m saying is; I want to start from scratch. Leave the bad in the past and just continue forward with the good.” I turned a bit to really look at him, “Harry, when we’re good, we’re so good. I think if we slow things down, and start communicating more, we could really have something epic.”

A ghost of a smile graced his face, “Epic, huh?” He let out a big sigh before lying back against my pillows. I turned to look at him over my shoulder, “I don’t wanna fight with you anymore. I never want to fight with you.” He surprised me and pulled on my arm so I was lying next to him.

“Me either.”

“And if we can really just start over like you say, then I wanna do that.” He sighed, “It’s not gonna be easy though,” he said with warning in his voice.

I shrugged awkwardly from how I was laying. “I don’t expect it to be. I know we’re still gonna bicker and get on each other’s nerves, because we’ve been like that since we’ve met. Plus it’s hard to change how we are so quickly.”

“We should probably have some ground rules.”

I made a face, “Really?”

“Don’t you think? I mean if we’re trying to start over.”

I reached for his hand and he let me take it, “I guess.” He brought our entwined fingers up to his lips slowly and kissed my knuckles. It made my heart skip. “Like what?” I breathed.

He hummed with my fingers still against his lips, “Maybe no sleepovers.”

“Well that’s no fun,” I tried not to scoff.

He smiled at me, “I’m just saying, maybe we shouldn’t be having sex until we get to a better place.”

“Okay, I can agree with you there,” Well, sort of. Lying next to him made me wanna rip his clothes off if we’re being honest here. “But no sleepovers at all?”

He gave me a look that said I was testing his patients. “Just laying next to you right now, after all the shit we’ve just been through, is a temptation.”

Well at least I knew we were on the same page.

My face warmed with a blush, “Thanks for the ego boost.”

He pinched my side, “I’m serious. I 100% want you all the time, you never have to worry about that.”

I buried my face in his chest, trying to hide my embarrassment. “Okay, fine. No sex for a while. But I feel like having no sleepovers period is dumb. We’ve been having them since the start of our friendship. And my flat feels so empty without your stupid boots and scarves all over the place.”

“Hey! They aren’t stupid,” he argued. His fingers ghosted down my side sending chills all over me. “But okay, I guess we can leave sleepovers on the table.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “So what other rules?”

“We really need to work on communicating more.”

I sighed, “I know. It’s just really hard.”

“It is. And we’re both used to keeping things bottled up, but if we’re going to make this work, we can’t keep doing that.”

“Okay.” He brought his hand up and brushed some hair out of my face. “Anything else?” He was quiet for a moment and tried to hide a wince as he thought of something. “What?”

“I think I really need to work on not being jealous of you with other guys. Like Alfie and Zayn.”

“Har-”

“And I trust you,” he rushed out. “I’m not jealous because I think you’re doing something you’re not telling me. That’s not it. I just I don’t know, I get jealous cause I know they’ve been with you or something.”

“I feel the same way when I see you with someone you’ve been with, or even linked with. It’s something we can work on together.”

He nodded, “When the media writes some bullshit story, I need you to come to me before you believe it. You’ve been good about that, but just know, come to me first.”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll work on talking to you about my feelings. I know you and Zayn and Alfie are just friends now, but I’m human, so I get jealous.”

“You have nothing to worry about though.”

“I know. Which is why I know my mind is being ridiculous.”

“I think it’s something every couple deals with, if it makes you feel better.”

He chuckled, “Sort of.”

“You know what else we should work on?”

“Hmm?”

“Defining our relationship.”

His hand started making swirls on my back as I said it. “Yeah, but we can fix that easily.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “From this moment right now, if we’re going to try and work this out, I want you to be my girlfriend. I want to be your boyfriend officially. I mean, we don’t have to announce it to the world, but to our friends and family; they know we’re together.” He reached for my hand and laced our fingers together once again. “No more of this in-between shit. We’re official, or we aren’t doing this.”

I smiled at him, “I think I’d like that.”

He returned my smile, “So I’m your boyfriend then?”

“If you wanna be, yeah.”

“I do.”

“Then I think it’s official.”

His smile got so wide at my statement. “Do you think I can kiss my girlfriend then?”

I angled my face up so my lips were ghosting over his, “I think you better.”