Witness

Things between Harry and me were like that for a while, blissful and happy. While I waited patiently to receive news on Amelia, I spent all my free time with him, trying to keep myself as busy and distracted as possible. And God was Harry a sweet distraction. When he wasn’t busy running around London with his band mates, he was literally running around Holmes Chapel with me, ending long days with long nights on our couches, lips tangled together for hours on end.

It was by no means constant and it was certainly confusing, endlessly so, in fact. What were we doing? Doing romantic things like going on fucking picnics in the British countryside only to turn around days later to lead entirely separate lives. I didn’t know what Harry really did when he went to London. And he didn’t know that every time he left, I returned to my near catatonic state, worrying hopelessly about my best friend. But again, Harry loved the mystery. And I couldn’t exactly give him anything else – I was stuck in a lie that just kept on going.

After a week and a half, he left for London again, sending me texts every few hours of funny pictures at the studio and sights around London. We planned a list back and forth of a trip we would someday take there when I didn’t have such a crazy work schedule, when Nick could find it in his heart to give me a day off, which could take a while we decided. But it gave me something to look forward to until he came back.

But the day he was due to arrive, I reached my breaking point. I was worried for my best friend. I was worried about her safety, about her whereabouts, about the progress. And the O.E.O. was keeping me in the dark. So I called to give him a piece of my mind.

“What do you mean you can’t tell me, Hudson?”

I was in the middle of a stage five meltdown and I couldn’t even deny it.

After one week, I knew exactly where I was going, it just took a little while to process all the name-change-paperwork-bullshit, get me discreetly on a plane, and actually convince me to leave. I figured that Amelia would take a little more convincing – she may have been demure but holy hell was she headstrong when she wanted to be.

“I mean that I can’t tell you, Miss George,” Agent Hudson repeated firmly, refusing to budge. Didn’t he understand what it was like to be in my position, waiting on every breath to hear back from him on the status of my best friend? Goddamn brainwashed, heartless, bureaucrat.

That was a little unforgiving for a man that protected my life and was now working to protect Amelia’s, but still.

“You know where you’re sending her by now, right?” I pushed, insisting on knowing something more. “You’re just not telling me? She has her new name picked out and she’s staying at someone’s place for safekeeping? You’re taking care of her, right?”

“I can assure you that we’re doing all we can to make this go as smoothly and quickly as possible,” Hudson stated flatly, not a hint of tone changing in his voice. I could practically picture him leaning up against his desk with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance with me.

I sighed, pulling myself together. “Fine,” I muttered. “Can you at least tell me she’s okay?”

There was a long pause on the line. “She’s fine, Lilia,” Agent Hudson said softly, or as softly as he could speak, anyway. “She’s going to be just fine, the same way you’re going to be just fine. We’re doing everything we can to take care of her the same way we took care of you. Okay?”

I paused too, thinking about Amelia sitting alone in an agent’s house, fearful of looking out the window should Damien somehow be watching her. “Agent Hudson, can I ask you a question?”

“One last question,” he grumbled. “I have a job to do, you know.”

“I know,” I replied, running a hand through my hair and pausing again for a minute, thinking of how I would phrase the question. “How did you get my phone number, the day that the O.E.O. took Amelia into custody?”

It was Agent Hudson’s turn to pause, the sound of another office phone ringing in the distance. “There are lots of things I’m not allowed to tell you, Miss George, and that is one of them.”

I let out a low growl and prepared to give Hudson a real piece of my mind. He didn’t even know the start of who he was dealing with. But luckily for him, my doorbell rang just as I was opening my mouth. Harry was finally here.

“You got off easy this time, Hudson,” I taunted. “But just know I’m going to call back every single day until you answer my questions.”

I could feel the steam coming off him from across the Atlantic, sensing him roll his eyes from so far away. “Goodbye, Lilia.”

And the line went dead. I threw my phone hard into the pit of my couch, screaming furiously into my hands. It wasn’t fair of them to keep secrets from me that directly dealt with my own goddamn life. It wasn’t fair of anyone to keep secrets at all.

Except for me. I had to keep secrets. And I tried to tell myself that over and over as I went to answer the door.

It was raining, as it had been doing a lot recently with winter approaching. Harry stood in my doorway with the hood up on his old Holmes Chapel Comprehensive sweater, the fabric graying at the ends of the sleeves from wear and tear. Still shaken, I leaned forward to kiss him right on the mouth, grounding myself once more with his lips.

Kissing Harry was fun. That was certainly the honest truth.

“Hey,” he greeted, his voice sounding a little off. “Can I come in now? It’s freezing out here.”

“And you act like you’re so tough,” I teased, stepping out of the doorway so he could enter. He kicked his shoes off in the doorway, heading up the stairs without so much as a comeback.

“My socks are soaked,” he complained, seamlessly stepping out of them and discarding them on the carpet as he went. I mentally thanked him for that with a roll of my eyes and followed him upstairs.

I watched him with careful eyes as he landed on the couch, immediately picking up a copy some shitty British magazine I picked up in Manchester on an afternoon out with Mary. He feigned genuine interest as he flipped through the pages, his eyes going anywhere but me.

“Are you okay?” I asked gingerly, going to sit next to him. He’d been in London overnight to do some work on the new album and I worried that maybe it hadn’t gone well. Or maybe he was just exhausted and I was over thinking it.

“I’m just tired,” he said softly, tossing the magazine back onto the table. “Long hours last night. You know the drill.”

Phew.

“Well I don’t exactly know the drill,” I countered, leaning into him teasingly. “But I’d like to though. Go to London, meet your band mates, listen to you make music. The whole bit.”

Harry shrugged. “It’s not all that exciting,” he muttered. “But I could probably get you into the studio someday. They’re pretty strict on no visitors but I guess it is my band’s album after all.”

His face was turned into a funny look, lips pressed thin and eyes still anywhere but on me. I sighed, rubbing my hands against my kneecaps. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Harry’s foul mood after dealing with Agent Hudson and all his racket. I didn’t do anything to deserve Harry taking his exhaustion out on me.

“I got new running shoes when I went to Manchester with Mary,” I chimed, trying to distract him. “They’re Newtons. We can maybe break them in tomorrow if it’s nice out?”

“Lilia, I need to talk to you.”

The words came out of nowhere, catching me off guard. His tone was serious, eyes finally meeting mine with a narrow crease between his brows. He looked concerned, maybe confused at best.

“Okay,” I hummed in the lightest tone I could manage. “What’s up?”

“I guess I just need to tell you something, but I need you to promise you won’t get mad.”

“I can’t promise,” I breathed, softer now than before. “What’s up?”

What could he have possibly gotten himself into?

“It’s just,” he muttered, his voice trailing off at first. “Shit, you’re gonna be mad. But after we talked about your parents… I Googled your name.”

I felt the blood rush from my face. “You what?”

“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled, gaze turning away from me again. “But you have to understand, sometimes I can hardly tell what’s real and what’s not real, especially when you admit to lying to me. So I thought I would do a little research on you.”

I felt like my stomach was hollow, like Harry had taken a spoon and carved out everything on the inside of me, leaving me ajar. “And what did you discover, exactly?”

I knew his answer before he even spoke. “Nothing,” he replied. “A few online profiles of people who aren’t you, pictures of people who aren’t you. Nothing about you.”

I tried my hardest not to scream. “And what were you thinking you were going to find?”

Harry shrugged again. “I don’t know, I guess,” he muttered. “It was a stupid idea. And I felt bad for doing it afterward. I just hoped that I would get some sort of proof that everything you have told me isn’t a lie, you know?”

I bit my lip to keep every thought in my brain from spilling out in the space between us on the couch. He had a right to feel like he’d been lied to. He had been lied to. I did lie to him about moving to London, and about my parents, and about being from Richmond. But because I had to. I wasn’t allowed to be myself anymore. He had no right not to trust me when I was doing everything I could do be as much of me possible.

“It’s just… who are you?”

I was silent. How dare he.

“You’re just too good to be true, you know?” he continued sheepishly, floundering desperately to make it sound better than it really was. “You just show up here out of no where and completely turn my life upside down. All I ever want to do is spend time figuring you out. You’re a fantastic mystery, Lilia. And I just thought I would do some sleuthing myself.”

It took me a moment to absorb everything he said, my anger only growing as I thought more and more on the subject. “So you’re telling me you would trust what you find on Google more than you trust what I’ve told you myself?”

“Lilia, that’s not what I said…”

“Well no, that is basically what you said,” I intoned flatly, trying to hold back tears. “You basically just told me that you didn’t believe everything I told you, so you did some of your own research on my past.”
“Well at least I came and apologized for it,” he countered, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No,” I replied shortly. “You came over here and told me so you could see my reaction and get anything more out of me. I know how you operate, Harry. You’re not nearly as sneaky as you think you are.”
It was his turn to have the blood rush from his face.

“And no, you won’t find much of me online,” I stated flatly. “I don’t use social media and I’m not listed in the yellow pages because I’m a foster kid. I don’t have parents who I can be listed under. And not to mention foster kids don’t exactly have opportunities to get written up in the local newspaper because we could hardly afford pencils and notebooks, much less materials for science projects or tutors or any of that nonsense.”

I only knew all of that because if he were to Google Mara Hitchcock, he wouldn’t find much on me either having been a foster kid, especially not anymore. I was all but erased from the system. Then it was Harry’s turn to be silent.

“And I’m not your Manic Pixie Dream Girl Harry Styles!” I added, the tears choking in my throat. Harry looked like he wanted to reach out and touch my forearm to comfort me, but instead recoiled.

“My what?”

“I’m not your Holly Golightly, or your Summer Finn, or your Marla Singer or Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot,” I answered, my voice rising with the tension. “Okay? I’m not some puzzle for you to figure out! I’m a human being with thoughts and feelings. I wasn’t placed here to make you feel fucking alive, okay?”

He struggled to respond, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he decided on maintaining his silence.

“I have a fucked up past,” I spat lowly, wiping at my lash line to keep the tears at bay. “And no, you can’t find that in the records. I thought that maybe who I am now would be enough for you. But maybe that’s not true I lied to you, and I’ll admit to that. Because I felt like I didn’t have any other choice. And when I finally did come clean to you, you do this. And how is that supposed to make me feel, Harry?”

“Lilia, I’m – ”

“Just don’t, Harry,” I responded with a heavy exhale, trying to keep my composure. “You should leave. And don’t come back until you feel like I’m more than some stupid mystery for you to solve.”

And I couldn’t help but break out into tears as I watched him walk out the door. What did I do to deserve all of this?