Bloom

January

The time still hadn’t come by the weekend, or after Matt and I went on our non-date at the pub he swore up and down was the best one in all of London. It wasn’t however, as good as the best pub in Manchester, which he promised to take me to at some point. I’d been to a few pubs since arriving in London and liked the atmosphere much better than the clubs that Nick forced us all to go to whenever he had a DJ gig.

The non-date, as I’d taken to calling it in my head, was a lot better than I expected it to be. We got a little drunk, talked, laughed, and picked up kebabs on the way home. The subject of dating didn’t come up once; both of us forgot that it had ever been a problem until we got to Astor.

I could hear his voice clearly in my head when I’d asked if he’d noticed the girl making eyes at him the entire night. “Of course I noticed,” he’d said. “But I’m not the sort of wanker who leaves the person he’s hanging out with to flirt with some girl.”

“Does that mean you would’ve gone and flirted with her if you were alone?” I’d asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know if I want to get over you just yet.”

“Even though you know nothing’s going to happen between us?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of weird that you know, though, and we’ve come to this point where we can hang out like this and it’s fine. But it’s good. I’d rather us be like this than not talking to each other at all.”

And then we hugged and he went back to his apartment while I headed inside. The conversation lingered in my brain for all of Sunday morning, while I stayed holed up in my room, drinking coffee and doing calculus. I usually slept in until at least noon on the weekend, but since I’d taken away from revision time last night to go out with Matt, I had to set my alarm to a disastrously early nine am.

It was just after eleven-thirty when somebody knocked at my door. I went over, pulling at the hem of my black t-shirt so it covered more of my thighs, and cracked open the door. It was Jillian, clad in very chic clothes, her hair wrangled into a tastefully messy bun atop her head. Her eyeliner was perfect, which I was very envious of.

“Good, you’re awake,” she said, pushing past me into the room. Jillian immediately started to dig through my dresser, discarding random articles of clothing onto the bed. “Have you got anything without holes in it?”

“Why?” I asked, walking over to her with my arms folded over my chest. My clothes seemed more prone to holes, since most of them were worn through by whoever had owned them last, but that sort of thing was fashionable, because it made you look like you didn’t care, and nobody wants to seem like they’re trying too hard. Fucking fashion. I love it, really, but sometimes I hate it too.

“Because Harry’s gone and invited everyone over to his.”

Brows furrowed, I checked my phone for any missed texts.

Nick said I have to invite you because it would be rude to invite everyone else and not you

If you don’t show up I won’t be mad

Well, that’s a lie

I’m already mad

Because you don’t get to just leave and not say anything to me for days

…

Everyone’s coming around 12

The little crescent moon symbol was at the top of the screen, which was the reason my phone hadn’t chimed for any of Harry’s messages. I stared at them for almost two minutes until Jillian snapped her fingers in my face, looking impatient.

“Get dressed, will you? I’ll wait outside.”

I took a cue from Jillian and put on some of my nicer clothes, even opting for a skirt instead of jeans. There was a tiny hole in the cuff of my sweater, but it was hardly noticeable, and I didn’t think it would cause Jillian <i>too</i> much of a headache. While tugging an elastic around the end of the braid I’d fashioned, I slipped my feet into a pair of Oxfords and grabbed a few rings from my jewellery box, sliding them onto my fingers.

“What’s even happening at Harry’s?” I asked Jillian, once she’d come back into my room. “Is there a soccer game or something?”

Jillian wrinkled her nose at my use of the word ‘soccer.’ “I think he’s ordered food from that brunch place — August something, was it?” she said, leaning against the doorframe and examining her nails. “That’s what Nick said, at least. For all we know, he’s the one who’s ordered it under Harry’s name, since the prat hardly ever leaves his house nowadays. He’ll probably answer the door in his pyjamas.”

I knew that Harry didn’t wear pyjamas, preferring to sleep in his boxer briefs, but I didn’t tell Jillian that.

Matt and Silas met us at the Tube station, where we hopped on the Northern line up to Hampstead. I was sandwiched between Jillian and Matt, hands tucked between my knees, listening to Jillian and Silas argue about where or not Nick had planned this whole thing to get Harry to stop being so antisocial. Apparently, the popstar had hardly spoken to anyone since we got back from Holmes Chapel. He still went out, but always alone. Except for when I saw him on Wednesday, the only other person who’d been in his company in over a week was Darcy fucking Collins.

I didn’t hate her, because how could you hate somebody that you hardly knew? But there was no denying the fact that her existence annoyed the hell out of me. She was the one that Harry kept going back to, for whatever reason, and now whenever I thought of him, Darcy’s face popped into my head. She’d crept into my brain, lurking in the shadows until my mind drifted to Harry, which it always did, to remind me that he and I were two very different people.

Although Nick appeared to have given Silas the code to the gate — I hadn’t even known they were talking again, which just went to show how little attention I’d been paying to everything else going on — he didn’t leave the door unlocked. Based solely on a feeling that Harry didn’t want mine to be the first face he saw when he opened his front door, I hung back behind the much taller figures of Silas and Jillian, arms folded and eyes cast toward the ground.

It was Nick who threw open the door, a toothy smile already etched onto his face. “Hello!” he greeted loudly, hugging each of us in turn, which surprised Silas most of all.

“Is he on something, do you think?” Silas asked me in the foyer, while we hung up our coats.

“Probably,” I replied, and looped my arm with his. “But he could just be happy that we’re all hanging out again. We haven’t done this since New Year’s.”

“I think you and I are to blame for that,” Silas said. “What with you dragging Matt and Harry along and me ignoring Nick for being a twat and hooking up with that fucking leprechaun.”

I chose not to comment on the ‘dragging along’ part, and bumped my hip against Silas’s. “Still mad about that?”

“I’ve decided to take the high road. The constant calls were starting to get a bit tedious.”

This time, the radio silence between Harry and I was my fault. Despite not being able to bring myself to call or text him, I still missed his constant slew of pictures and messages. There were a few, at first, but they got angrier and angrier and then stopped altogether.

We found ourselves in the living room, where several people were sat on the couches and armchairs, chatting and eating a variety of delicious looking breakfast foods. My eyes went to Harry immediately, and I revelled in the few seconds when he didn’t notice I was there. He was sat with Alexa, a plate piled high with banana waffles balanced on his knees, dressed very plainly in a white t-shirt and black jeans, listening to the story she was telling with a content smile on his face.

In very un-Nick Grimshaw like fashion, he didn’t announce our presence in the room, but quietly directed us to the kitchen where all the food was. Harry still hadn’t seen me, so I took my exit quickly, followed closely by the others.

While Jillian and Silas started loading food onto their plates, Matt came up next to me at the fancy espresso machine. All I wanted was a plain cup of coffee, and I wasn’t even sure that the shiny contraption did that. “All right? You’re looking paler than usual.”

“I’m not very hungry,” I told him, opening a part of the espresso machine that looked like it should contain the grounds, but was just a series of piping that I didn’t understand. “How the fuck does this thing work? I just want some damn coffee.”

“There’s coffee from the cafe on the counter over there,” Matt said patiently. I looked over, just about ready to smash the (probably expensive) mug in my hands on the pristine floor.

“Of course there is,” I sighed, and filled up my cup. It was my favourite roast of theirs, too, but I doubted that Nick — or Harry, whoever had ordered all this food — had known that.

Matt had followed me over, placing his palm flat against the counter behind me and leaning in until his shirtfront brushed against my elbow. I folded my arms, holding the hot cup of coffee close to my chest. “You’re very bad at hiding your feelings,” he said. “They’re written all over your face.”

I tilted my chin toward him, raising my eyebrows. “Oh yeah? So, Mr. I-Know-How-Imogen’s-Feeling, tell me what’s going on inside my head.”

“I couldn’t even begin to tell you that,” he replied easily, cracking a smile. “I don’t even think you could.”

I couldn’t help the scoff that left my lips, and I took a sip of coffee to hide my grin. “You’re probably right.”

“Oh, sorry, um. I’ll just come back.”

We both looked in the direction of the strained voice, but Harry had already turned around and gone back to the living room. I sighed, leaning my head back to stare helplessly at the ceiling. When it didn’t give me any answers on how to deal with a certain bandana wearing singer, I took a step away from Matt and gripped my cup even tighter.

“Did you say something to him?” Matt asked. I looked over and shook my head, confused. “It’s just…I got a weird text from him at half past three in the bloody morning and I have no idea what it means.”

“What did it say?” I asked, my heart rate increasing.

Matt pulled out his phone and handed it to me.

You deserve someone who's not thinking about somebody else

“Usually I’d say he was just drunk, but I dunno, this is different,” Matt said with a shrug. “I tried Googling it, but it’s not a lyric or a line in a poem. What do you think?”

When I handed Matt’s phone back and met his gaze, he saw in my eyes that I knew exactly what Harry’s text meant.

“It’s about me,” I said quietly, doing my best to keep eye contact with Matt. “Harry and I—“

“I knew it,” Matt interrupted, malice clear in his voice. “I fucking knew he was lying to me when I asked him if anything else had happened on New Year’s. ‘Best mates don’t lie to each other.’ What a load of shite. And even though you knew—you both knew that I fancied you, you went and fucked each other anyway.”

“We didn’t,” I insisted, taking a step toward him. “It never—“

“I’m leaving,” Matt said. I set down my coffee in a rush, managing to curl my fingers around his wrist. “Let go of me, Imogen. I know I said I was fine with us, but I can’t even look at you right now, and I need some time. Can you just give me that, at least?”

My fingers fell away from his wrist. I raked my hands through my hair, pulling until my braid was barely distinguishable. The door slammed and I flinched, then heard the rise of voices in the other room at the sound. I stumbled back and braced one hand against the counter, the other pressed to my stomach as I tried to calm my breathing. Just when everything seemed to be going in the right direction with Matt, like we’d finally come to a good place, it had to go and crumble apart with one little text and a decision to tell the truth.

“Jesus, what happened?” Pixie was stood in the doorway, eyes wide. “Are you okay, babe?”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I was fine, even though it was a lie, because telling the truth just wasn’t working for me today. But the only noise that came out was a shaky sob, and tears clouded my vision, making me flinch when Pixie’s arms went around my shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” she said softly. “It’s gonna be all right.”

I liked to think of myself as a brave person. Around other people, at least. I was usually good at hiding my tears until I was alone and I could cry and cry until there was nothing left and I was gasping for breath. But it’s harder to do that when you don’t see the thing coming until it slams into you like a train, overwhelming your senses with utter hopelessness, and you know that there’s nothing you can do to fix whatever’s gone wrong. When it’s your fault, and even though you never meant to do anyone any harm, there’s always going to be somebody caught in the crossfire.

“Was that Matt that just left?”

“Pixie, what—“

“Imogen—“

“Piss off, all of you,” Pixie said to Nick, Aimee, and Silas who’d wandered into the kitchen after her. She was stood with her back to the doorway, shielding me from their curious eyes, and I was grateful for it. “But tell Jillian to get in here. I think she should take Imogen home.”

When they were gone, Pixie pulled away but kept one arm around my shoulders. “D’you want some tea to calm your nerves? Or maybe one of those chocolate cupcakes, yeah? They’re brilliant.”

It took a few shuddering breaths before I could speak properly. “Coffee.”

She smiled. “Right, you’re American. Of course you want coffee.”

But before she could make a move to fill me a new cup, Harry, followed closely by Jillian, materialized in front of us. He crossed the room in less than a second, taking my face in his hands and smoothing his thumbs over my cheeks to brush away the stray tears.

“I’m fine,” I said, pushing his hands away.

“You aren’t,” he disagreed, bottom lip caught between his thumb and forefinger. He glanced at Pixie and Jillian. “Would you give us a minute?”

Pixie left right away, but Jillian waited for me to nod that it was okay before she went too. I reached up to run my fingers through my hair and realized that it was still in a state of disarray from my pulling earlier, quickly going about yanking the elastic from the end of the practically non-existent braid and twisting the tangled strands into a bun atop my head. Harry watched as I did this, playing with his lip and frowning, his eyes not leaving my face for a second.

“What happened?” he asked, when I was finished.

“Matt’s mad at me. You’re mad at me. Charlotte from Mechanics is mad at me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore, because lying, leaving, and telling the truth all haven’t worked.”

“Who’s Charlotte? Nevermind, I don’t care. What happened with Matt? Because when I walked in five minutes ago you were smiling and I thought that maybe last night went well.”

There was an edge to his voice, like he was bitter about it.

“It did. I thought that we were finally getting back to normal, but then he showed me the text you sent him last night.” I didn’t want to come off as annoyed, because I wasn’t really, this wasn’t all Harry’s fault. It was mine too, for telling Matt what the text meant.

“Text? I didn’t—“ Harry paused, and his eyes fell shut. “I didn’t mean to send it. I was just so frustrated with you and I’d been sitting around drinking all night and—I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s my fault he’s angry,” I said softly, wanting to smooth the crease between Harry’s eyebrows and see him smile like he had before he saw me. “I told him, or tried to tell him what happened on New Year’s. But he left before I could explain.”

“So if I go ‘round to talk to him, he’ll slam the door in my face,” Harry concluded. Our eyes met, and his were alive and green and didn’t match his mood at all. “I’m not mad at you anymore. I was. I was mad at you for not talking to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to call you because I knew the second I heard your voice I wouldn’t be angry anymore. I finished two bottles of whiskey in four days, saw other girls, but nothing changed. You didn’t say ‘hi’ when you got here. I didn’t even think you’d come until I walked in here and saw you and Matt talking. I stopped being mad at you then.”

“Why?”

He smiled, eyes flicking down to his feet before coming back up to mine. “Because I saw you standing there smiling into your coffee cup and I thought you looked beautiful, and it’s impossible to be angry at somebody who looks like that.”

“You can’t say that stuff to me, Harry.”

Harry’s smile twisted into a frown. “Why not?”

I made a choice, because one had to be made, and I knew that Harry wasn’t going to do it. Dr. Gustavson was right, staying in this grey area wasn’t good for either of us.

“Because it’s not the sort of thing you say to your friend.”

“And we’re just friends,” he said. “Like we said we were.”

“Yeah,” I replied, already feeling the next bout of tears building up. It wasn’t the conversation in particular that made me want to cry, but just that the last hour had been entirely too overwhelming for my system, and I needed to be anywhere but here. “No more ‘but we’re not,’ okay? Because it’s messing with my head.”

Harry nodded. “Mine too.”

“Okay,” I sighed, attempting a weak smile. “I’m gonna go.”

He didn’t argue. I told Jillian she was welcome to stay while I went back to Astor, because I just wanted to lie in bed and be alone anyway. I received hugs that I didn’t want and sympathetic expressions that felt empty, and when I got to the door and saw Harry standing there holding my coat I knew that I’d be crying on the way home.

Once my coat was on, he wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his hands keeping my body pressed up against his. I held on just as tightly, if not tighter, because it didn’t matter about the conversation we’d just had. There are hugs that make you feel stiff and ones that make you feel like you’re home, and this was one of those.

Harry pressed a kiss to my forehead and offered up a dimpled smile that didn’t reach his eyes, staying in the doorway until I’d shut the gate behind me.