Broken Things

I somehow managed a Harry-free week.

I should have been proud, happy even, but mostly I felt wrapped in tendrils of anxiety. Our last encounter had left me speechless, and his disappearance made it all the more more terrifying.

But isn’t that what I had wanted all along? A clean slate, free from the past? Declan and I against the world, Harry included?

Maybe not anymore, but that wasn’t something I was about to admit to myself, let alone Declan or Ashley.

As my flatmate ventured deeper into the waters of an actual relationship, I tried to make myself sparse, somewhat bitter. It was impossible not to run into one or the other in the apartment, and I felt trapped in the prison of my room with the two of them as my guards, despite the fact that they’d often invite me out with them.

Mostly, their attempts with me made me feel more pathetic and angry. Was I really to a point where my best mate and his girlfriend wanted to invite me to third-wheel it? Had I really just allowed the same boy to enter my life for a fraction of a second only to wreck it again?

I refused to be that person. Harry be damned, I would make it just fine on my own.

That’s how I’d found myself at another shitty Hollywood club, this time of my own accord. It’s how I’d ended up attatched to the lips of a twenty-something aspiring actor with a Hitler mustache and suspenders.

With his tongue in my mouth and the taste of liquor on my breath, I tried to lose myself in the act of kissing him. It was a truly daunting task in the cramped hallway leading to the bathrooms, passers by occasionally nudging us as they tried to scoot past.

His hands slid down my waist, kissing me with a drunken vigor I’d never been met with before. He was anything but gentle as he pushed his body against mine, and I knew making out with me wasn’t all he had in mind.

Gasping for breath, I disentangled myself from him with the excuse of needing to use the loo. His brows furrowed at the sudden loss of contact, but there was nothing that told me he’d even understood the words I’d spoken to him. I didn’t bother with the pretense of going to the bathroom, instead weaving my way by drunken bystanders toward the exit.

I sighed as I tried to make my way through the crowded dance floor, a shitty EDM remix of a Beyoncé song pumping through the speakers. I’d been attempting to lose myself, go out and be more social, but it had completely backfired and I was angry as ever for yet again giving Harry some sort of invisible control over my life. Infuriated with myself, I stumbled to a cab and gave the driver the address to my apartment.

A bead of sweat ran down the back of my neck, sending a chill up my spine. Leaning my head against the cool glass as the cab exited onto the 101, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I felt sick, but not from the alcohol.

I’d always had this bad habit of spiraling. One misstep led to another, and then I was wallowing in a pit of self-imposed misery before I could realize what was happening. In much the same way, I’d done my best to push Harry away, secretly enjoying how he’d always try to worm his way back in. It was a bittersweet torture I’d put myself through, and how I loved the game. The idea that in some form I was still desirable to Harry, worth the pain he’d feel at my inevitable rejection.

How stupid of me to think it was a game I’d ever win. Harry wasn’t a fifteen-year-old idiot with his hands taped to a desk in secondary school anymore. He was Harry Styles, pop star and sex symbol.

I was a charity case; a wrongdoing he was trying desperately to right so he could go on living guilt-free and shagging every model that crossed his path. I was a task that wasn’t worth the struggle anymore, so he’d gotten bored and abandoned it, and yet again, I was trying to clean myself up.

Fucker.

I couldn’t decide if I was angrier at myself or him. It didn’t take long for me to choose as the cab pulled up to a curb a couple hundred feet from my apartment building and I saw his Range Rover parked across the street.

Seething, I paid the cabbie and climbed out of the back, slamming the door behind me. My heels were in my hand, a sure sign that I was drunk, but I was ready to march into that apartment and demand to know just what the bloody hell he was doing there.

“Sawyer!”

My head whipped around at the sound of my name, trying desperately to find the source. I knew the voice as Declan’s, but there were more people on the street than usual, and an odd smell in the air. The wind was whipping hair in my face, and when I finally fought it back, I realized there were dozens of trucks and cars with red and white lights flashing, closing off the section of the street directly in front of our building.

I stared in awe for a moment, dumbstruck, before I felt a warm hand land on my shoulder. I turned to see Declan frowning down at me, apparently at the state he’d found me in. Ashley stood by his side with Harry further back, a photo album I immediately recognized in his hands.

“What are you doing with that?” I demanded, but Declan grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the others before I could properly begin to yell.

“Sawyer, don’t do this,” he told me lowly, his eyes fierce with anger.

“Do what? He has my stuff!” I practically yelled in response.

“Are you coherent enough to even notice what’s going on?” he practically spat, and I hated the condescending and angry tone he was using. “Look around you!”

I glared at him before turning to inspect the scene behind me. There was yellow caution tape surrounding the perimeter of the building, and various police officers and firefighters milling about in uniform.

“What happened?” I finally asked, whipping back around to face Declan, my arms crossed over my chest.

“Building caught fire. Whatever wasn’t burned has water damage. Harry and Ashley were over, Harry grabbed your album so nothing would happen to it.”

I frowned at the news, thankful my album had been saved but unhappy with the hero of this story. I was too drunk to deal with any of this, but stumped as to what I could do.

“Sober up, buttercup,” he continued. “You’re going home with him.”

“What?!” I sputtered.

“You have no where else to go,” he told me, exhasperated.

“Where are you going?”

“Ashley has room.”

“This is so unfair,” I practically whined.

“For him, mostly,” Declan muttered.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You smell like the liquor aisle at Ralph’s and your hair and lipstick is a mess. It’s not a huge mystery what you’ve been up to tonight, and I’m angry. Thank God you’re his problem now.”

With that he turned and stormed off. Ashley and Harry had both been watching the exchange from a distance, and I knew they’d both heard at least the end of our conversation.

Ashley stood there for a moment, aghast at what had just taken place. Harry shifted his weight uncomfortably as he moved the photo album to rest under his armpit, pulling out his phone to check some texts in a lame attempt to look busy.

The look in Ashley’s deep brown eyes spoke volumes of the apologies she wish she had the time to say. I could only stand there and look stupid with my heels in my hands as she sighed and took off after Declan, calling for him to slow down.

Harry locked his phone, pushing it back into the pocket of his tight jeans as he bit down on his lip, watching after Declan. He turned back to me a moment later, holding my album out to me as I tore it from his grasp. If he was surprised, he didn’t let it show.

Furious, I turned on my heel and stomped in the direction of his car. Harry followed silently behind, a few feet back, easily keeping pace with his long legs. His headlights flashed when he unlocked the door and I jerked it open, practically flinging myself in.

With my photo album clutched to my chest, I buckled my seatbelt and tried to calm myself with deep breaths. Harry slid in behind the driver’s seat, hesitating a moment before he decided to start the car.

There was no way in hell I was going to spare him any sort of glance or exhange pleasantries. As he pulled out into the street and began to make his way toward Beverly Hills, I bit down on my lip to stifle a sob. It was an action that didn’t go unnoticed by Harry, who reached over to open the glove box and offer me a travel pack of tissues. I was beyond livid with him, but I snatched them from his hands anyway, ripping one out and trying desperately to fix my running mascara.

“He didn’t mean it, Sawyer. He’s just worried about you,” he told me quietly a moment later.

I scoffed, rolling my eyes as I shifted in my seat to face away from him. The quick moving landscape only made me dizzier, and I felt ready to vomit. My eyes fell shut and I breathed in deeply.

“Really. You know you’re Declan’s favorite person in the world,” he continued, an attempt to soothe me.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish here,” I snapped.

In the dim glow from the dashboard, I could see his reflection in the tinted glass of the window. His eyes flickered over to me, brows furrowed as if he couldn’t possibly fathom why I’d be upset with him.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you still fucking with me? Was the first time not enough? You have to jump in and out of my life whenever it’s convenient for you?”

“Sawyer, I... What?”

He was at a complete loss, but I wasn’t finished yet. I turned to him, doing my best to try to hold it together, to put on the tough girl façade I desperately needed to cling to.

“You don’t just get to bring up the past to me like you did, and then cut contact with me completely. And what, are you going around behind my back and showing up at the apartment when you know I’m out?”

Despite the fact that he was driving, he took a moment to shut his eyes and shake his head before opening them a few seconds later, wide with disbelief.

“This isn’t some conspiracy, Sawyer. You’re just drunk.”

“Don’t,” I spat through clenched teeth.

“Don’t what?” he responded immediately.

“Don’t act like I’m crazy. Just answer the damn question.”

Harry was shaking his head again, lifting a hand to run through his mess of long curls. Wetting his lips, he opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it again. His tongue poked the side of his cheek, and I knew he was restraining himself.

“You just don’t get it, and I can’t explain it to you when you’re like this,” he finally said.

“What don’t I get, Harry? Please tell me, because I’m driving myself mad trying to fathom what your intentions could possibly be.”

“You don’t understand that I did this for you!” he finally errupted. “That I’m still doing this for you! I’m not playing games, I’m trying to give you space. I’m trying to compromise here, because there’s a part of me that will always be linked to you.”

He took a slight breath before continuing to speak. “I want to rebuild some semblance of a relationship with you, but you’re pushing me away. And I know you, Sawyer. You’ve always been this all or nothing type of person, but it’s not meant to be like that. There’s a balance in there somewhere, and I’m trying to make you see that you can have me in your life somehow without being dependent on me.”

When he finished, the silence stretched on in the car. We were nearing his street, and I had been glaring into the darkness ahead for a while. Harry’s knuckles were white from his grip on the steering wheel, and he didn’t spare me a glance either.

“You think I’m dependent on you?” I finally asked.

Harry ignored me completely, rolling down the window to punch in the code to his security system before the gate pulled open to allow us in. A moment later, he was throwing the car into park and opening the door. His feet hit the pavement with a light thump, and he turned to look at me with fiery eyes as he stood there, arm on the door but not shutting it yet.

“That’s not what I said, and you know it,” he said lowly. I gritted my teeth.

Leaning his head on the hood of the car, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his tone was softer.

“I know you’re hurting right now, and I know I’ve caused a lot of that in the past, but I wish that just once you could refrain from treating me like shit.”

With that, he slammed the car door and disappeared into his home. I stared after him in silence.

My mind was racing, but I couldn’t keep track of any one thing for too long. My thoughts flew away from me in flurries, impossible to catch again once they’d gone and I knew it was no use, as hazed and drunk as I was, to try to regain them.

After a few more moments of sitting in quiet defiance, I gathered my strength and pushed open the passenger side door, lithely stepping onto the pavement. I let the door shut behind me before making my way up the front walkway and pushing my way into the house.

It was tidy, a contrast from the way I’d seen it last, at the party. He’d probably hired someone to clean the mess, but I still pictured him afterward, running to and fro to pick up used red plastic cups with a trash bag in his hands. I’d seen him that way once after a rager he’d thrown at the end of term, trying desperately to hide the damage before his mum came home and found out.

“Up here,” I heard his voice, floating to me from somewhere up the steps immediately before me. I took a deep breath before dragging myself up them, grasping to the railing for support when my feet failed or I stumbled.

There was a long hall laid out before me, two doors on the right and two on the left. From the door closest to me on the right, a small rectangle of light fell on the carpeted floor. Hesitantly, I made my way over to stand in it, peeking into the room.

Harry was busy rummaging through a drawer of his dresser, so I took a moment to glance around it. It was apparent that Harry didn’t spend much time here from the way it was sparsely decorated. A few framed photos littered his bedside table and shelves, but there wasn’t much beside that and a stick of deoderant laying around. Still, I could tell he’d been here recently from the way it resembled his room in Holmes Chapel.

The bedspread was messy and a heap of dirty clothes were haphazardly piling up in his hamper. A few of his dresser drawers were askew, and he had his Macbook plugged into a charger, the chord of which tangled its way across the room.

“Here,” he said, his deep voice breaking through to me. My eyes flashed over to where he stood, offering me a plain white tee shirt and some sweatpants. I took them from him, my eyes downturned in shame.

Time and time again, Harry had shown me kindness, and yet I’d always come to expect the worst from him.

He stood there for a moment and I didn’t need to look at him to know he was fighting some sort of internal battle with himself, trying to decide what to say. In the end, he said nothing. Instead, he moved by me back out into the hallway, being careful not to make contact with my body in the tight quarters he had to work with. A few seconds later, I followed.

“The bathroom’s here, if you want to take a shower. The one in my room has a bath, so if you’d prefer that you’ll have to wait until the morning because I’m going to bed now,” he informed me, all business as he flicked on the light briefly before shutting it off again.

“You can stay in this room,” he told me, gesturing to the one across the hall from the bath. “It’s just extra.”

“Don’t you have a guest house?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable with the proximity to his room.

“It’s being rennovated,” he answered.

“Convenient,” I muttered before I could think better of it.

He snorted, and though I still couldn’t bring myself to look him in the face, I knew he was rolling his eyes.

“Yeah,” he agreed sarcastically. “Sucks for you, though.”

I sighed, stepping into the guest room and switching on the light. With his clothes held tightly in my hands, my photo album held beneath my arm, I willed myself to look at him. He was already turning away.

“Thank you,” I managed, but it was no good. He was already half-way down the hall and shutting the door behind him as he entered his bedroom.