Be Your Everything

It had been a week and Harry was gradually getting used to the little cottage he had been forced to live in. He had come to realize that it wasn't all bad - the window in his bedroom was low enough that the sun (on the days there was sun anyway) wouldn't stream in and hurt his eyes in the morning (there was no curtains, you see), the squishy couch in the lounge room was much more comfortable than it looked, and they were able to get most of the normal television channels. Not that he watched much TV these days; too often he would see his own face on the little screen and be reminded of everything that had happened, everything that had lead to him retreating to the country.
Liam spent most of the time in town or holed up in his room reading or talking on the phone to his girlfriend, Danielle. She was a petite girl with dark, bushy hair and amber eyes. She was really very sweet and almost everyone she came into contact with fell in love with her. Liam was no exception.
"I'm heading to the pub. Coming?" Liam asked without even glancing at his housemate. This had become a sort of routine for the two of them; Liam would ask Harry if he wanted to go out, to which Harry would respond-
"Nah, think I might just stay in," without even looking up from whatever it was he was doing. Twitter, a book, a movie. That was all he seemed to do these days. Sit on his bum and do nothing useful.
What's the point of going on a holiday if you're not going to do anything different? Liam asked himself this almost every day. Really, what was the point?
Nearly an hour after Liam had sauntered out their front door Harry had suddenly had enough and thrown his mobile phone to the other side of the room, where it skidded along the floor and hit the opposite wall with a dull thud. A shame the bloody thing hadn't broken, he thought. Even his friends, the ones he'd had before the fame, were asking what was going on with him. Why couldn't everyone just mind their own damn business?
He needed fresh air. He needed somewhere to think, somewhere that wouldn't remind him of the mistakes he'd made every second of every day. With this in mind he strode down the front path and onto the road. After he had been walking a while he began to listen hard. He could hear the rocks crunching underneath his feet, he could hear the wind whistling softly through the leaves, the screaming match that was being had in the house just down the street. He focused his attention on the latter. Always looking for negativity these days, wasn't he?
It didn't take him long to locate exactly where the elevated voices were coming from. There was a cream coloured house with a dark red roof. The lawn was neat, tidy. It didn't seem like the type of place that would be home to such hostility.
Without even realizing it, he had crouched behind a bush to hide from a slender figure that had emerged from the home. She obviously had had nothing to do with the yelling, and so he did the most logical thing he could think of. He followed her. It's what anyone else would do... right?
He tried to keep track of where they were going so he wouldn't get lost. Left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, until they reached a park. The same park he had been to a week before. That's when it hit him - this was her. This was the girl he had met the last time he had stood in this very spot. He didn't dare approach her yet though. It had been her house that people had been screaming in. Her parents? Siblings? Either way, he could tell she needed space.
She was standing in the same place as last time, though she showed no signs of sitting down. At least it wasn't raining, he reasoned. She was shuffling her feet, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jumper. She looked incredibly unhappy. Should he show himself? Should he run? Those were the two best options, but of course he chose to spy from afar. The most indecent and deceitful of the lot.
If someone had asked him how long he stood there watching her as she shuffled and paced about looking like an aggravated cat he would reply that he hadn't the faintest idea. He would say, however, that, no matter how hard he tried, he could never take his eyes of her. There was something beautiful in the way she moved. He would also say that when he glanced back at her and saw her staring right into his face that his heart had skipped about three beats.
Before he knew it she was storming over, hands on hips and a scowl on her face. "Are you following me?"
He opened and closed his mouth stupidly and vaguely thought how he felt like a fish. He couldn't get a word out.
And then she wasn't scowling anymore. She looked implausibly tired. But that wasn't what scared him; it was her eyes. They looked void of all emotion, as if she'd finally had enough of the world.
"Is there something wrong?" he finally managed to ask. Within a second he knew that he had said something unbelievably insensitive.
She started to cry. Not the petite, polite way most girls cry when something is mildly bothering them, but heaving sobs that shook her whole frame to the core.

Alice knew she shouldn't be crying. How could she let herself break down in front of him? She had promised herself she wouldn't get too close! Well, all of that was out the window now, wasn't it? Once someone sees you cry there's no turning back. And after what she had seen Rick do before she left her home, there was nothing to stop the flow of tears cascading down her face.

She was broken.