Broken Things

It was eleven-thirty when I entered the code into Harry’s keypad and trudged my way up the driveway. I wrangled with my keyring, trying to find the right ones to match the locks before I finally managed to push open the front door.

All the lights in the house were off, save for the tv in the living room. Harry was sprawled out there, a bowl of popcorn balanced on his stomach as he mindlessly chomped down on it, lids heavy. Disturbia played on FX and he seemed pretty immersed in it until he caught movement from the corner of his eye and his irises flicked over to me.

“Hey,” he mumbled sleepily.

I had half a mind to pull out my phone and snap a pic to post online. Not that I bothered with Twitter or Instagram, but it would have been easy to send this to Dec who could leak it and cause an uproar. His hair falling in his eyes and the popcorn sitting where it was, it truly was a sight to behold.

“Hi,” I answered as I unzipped my ankle boots and slid them off by the front doorway, leaving them beside his much larger pair. I let my bag fall to the ground and padded over to the couch. He started to move, but I pushed him back down and instead reached for a handful of popcorn as I plopped down on the arm of the sofa.

“How was your date?” he asked disinterestedly.

“Why are you asking if you don’t care?” I retorted.

“Being polite,” he mumbled.

I made no comment as I shoved the kernels into my mouth. Instead, I reveled in the small piece of heaven I’d found in the butter and salt of the snack. My eyelids may have fluttered in ecstasy.

“Good?” he smirked.

“Fantastic,” I acquiesced.

He handed me the bowl, which I took with a raised brow. He scooted over on the cushions and patted the space beside him. With a shrug, I moved into the spot and accepted a portion of the blanket he’d warmed up. With the bowl between us, each of us chomping away, we watched the rest of the movie without much comment.

It was as Shia LaBeouf crossed his front yard in the last two minutes of the movie that I finally broke the silence that had previously shrouded us.

“Were you waiting up for me?”

I wasn’t sure if he’d even heard me. He made no immediate reply, not even blinking to give any signal I’d spoken the words aloud in the first place. After a few moments of silence, he looked over to me and shrugged.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I told him earnestly.

“Wanted to,” he answered, eyes returning to the screen as the credits started to roll. “Make sure you got home safe and what not.”

I bit down on my lip, furrowing my brows as I looked on at him. He was undoubtedly exhausted if the dark circles under his eyes were any indication. He should have been asleep hours ago, I knew he had an early event with the boys the next day. Still, he’d chosen to wait up for me anyway. Harry must have felt my gaze or sensed my thoughts, because he cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“So really, how did it go?”

“It was all right,” I answered. “Just dinner and a movie.”

“Just?”

I shrugged noncomittally and reached for another handful of popcorn, feeling crushing disappointment when my hand came up empty. Harry moved the bowl out of my way.

“He was nice. We ate, we talked. It was normal.”

“Then why do you sound so disappointed?”

I side-eyed him, unimpressed with where the conversation was going. His green eyes were bleary and red, but he showed no signs of relenting. I wasn’t sure how to answer him, so I chose to reach for the remote and turn off the TV.

“Okaaaay,” he drawled. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool, too...”

I was standing and stretching, trying to work out a kink in my neck. More than anything I wanted to wipe all the make-up from my face and crawl into bed, even though it was only 12:13. I sensed Harry had more he wanted to say, so I turned to look at him where he was rubbing a finger at his eye tiredly.

“I just...,” he began, and then sighed. “Is this weird?”

“Is what weird?” I asked, confused.

“Sometimes I just look at you and I think about how I’ve seen you naked...”

At the look of horror on my face his eyes widened in realization of what he’d just said.

“Not in a pervy way,” he rushed to correct. “I only mean... Fuck. I don’t know why I just said that.”

“What are you trying to say?” I pushed on, hoping my foundation was hiding the bright blush in my cheeks. I was ready for that comment to be dead and buried.

“I only mean that with you being here, it’s harder to pretend there isn’t a history here. And I try not to bring it up because I know it makes you uncomfortable, but I don’t regret anything that happened between us. I regret how it ended, but I don’t regret any aspect of that relationship.”

“Why are you saying this?” I whispered.

Harry bit down on his lip, running a hand through his hair. His eyes were darting around the room, looking anywhere and everywhere but directly at me. My heart pounded unevenly in my chest.

“I just think it’s something you should know,” he finally answered. Then, a moment later, a mumbled, “Goodnight.”

I stood frozen in place, watching as he brushed by me before bounding up the stairs. I could hear the floor creaking beneath his weight before the sound of his bedroom door shutting softly.

For some reason I felt like crying, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.

So instead, I took the bowl of popcorn to the kitchen and emptied the kernels into the trash before putting it in the dishwasher and starting it. Then I took a rag and wiped down every surface of the kitchen. And when I realized I was wiping down the windows at 1:30 a.m. the morning before Harry’s cleaning lady came, I figured it was time to call it quits and attempt to get some sleep, though the outlook seemed bleak.

I sighed and flicked off the lights in the kitchen and living room before padding up the stairs. In Harry’s room as I passed, I could hear the TV on. It seemed neither of us would be getting any sleep.

In my room, a candle was still burning from when I’d lit it earlier in the day. I mentally cursed myself for forgetting to blow it out, but it at least saved me from having to turn on the light and blind myself. In the small flickers of light, I stripped myself of my clothes and slid on a comfier pair of running shorts and an oversized tee-shirt of Declan’s I’d stolen after the fire. It was comfier than the tank tops I’d been wearing that hugged my body so tight that in the morning I always had to re-adjust its position before leaving the bedroom.

My phone had been on silent all evening and I pulled it out of my pocket to check any missed calls. I had a few texts from Declan and one from my dad that I promptly ignored. An unknown number with a California area code had called and left a voicemail, so I lifted the phone to my ear and gave it a listen. When I was finished, I deleted the voicemail and resolved to call back in the morning when I woke. It was too late to do anything now.

Above all else, my mind kept returning to walking through that door and seeing Harry on the couch waiting for me. The gesture alone was sweet, but matched with his words it was downright disconcerting. At 2 a.m., my mind ran in circles trying to figure out something that made absolutely no sense. Sometime just as the light outside my window faded to a lighter blue, I fell into an uneasy sleep and dreamt of simpler days when I was fifteen.

–

In the morning, I called to have Declan pick me up on his way to work. He was exhausted, which seemed to be a state common among our friend group, so instead of chatting he turned the radio all the way up and let Paul McCartney fill the silence between us. It was lucky that the carnival company’s warehouse was also located in Silver Lake, convenient to hitch a ride when they’d called and asked me in for an interview.

In the meantime, Dec pulled up to the curb outside Madres, the restaurant where Ashley was working the morning shift. At 10:22 on a Monday morning, it was safe to say the Puerto Rican restaurant was deserted. I quietly thanked Declan and hopped out onto the pavement, slamming the door shut behind me. A moment later, he pulled away.

More than anything in the world, I needed a good girl talk. I could only be forced around so much testosterone before I reached my limit, and talking it through with Ashley would promise to be a stressful, yet somewhat relieving way to start the day. Plus it killed time before I was supposed to be in for my interview, so it was a win-win.

The host looked up at me with reservation when I pushed open the front door, bells jangling against the glass at the motion. He’d been texting under the podium and looked disgruntled at being interrupted, but I held a hand up before he could say a word.

“I’m looking for Ashley,” I explained.

He relaxed visibly, slumping back against the wall he’d been previously leaning against. With a nod of his head, he gestured generally to his right where my best friend’s girlfriend was wiping down a few tables and mumbling Spanish along with whatever song was playing. She was working on a row of booths situated against the window, a dining room of empty tables and chairs spread out behind her before coming to a stop at a bar where a young-looking guy was stocking liquor. In the kitchen, I could hear utensils being scraped against each other and the sound of rapid Spanish being exchanged between cooks.

I approached her where she was bent wiping vinyl, her long dark hair pulled up in a pony tail. The restaurant could use revamping on their uniforms, the black slacks and red polos with the Madres logo weren’t doing her body any favors, but then again how much did she need to work a uniform when she had Declan so easily wrapped around her finger. When she stood, it took her a moment to register my presence and she jumped in surprise.

“Jesucristo,” she gasped, a hand flying up to cover her heart. “Sawyer, what the fuck?”

I offered her a slight smile and she frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I shrugged. “I have an interview for that carnival company down the street in an hour and a half, thought I’d stop by in the meantime.”

She eyed me warily, but didn’t comment. Instead, she asked if I’d like a coffee before disappearing into the kitchen to make us some. At a loss as to what to do, I slid into the booth Ashley had just finished cleaning and fiddled with my fingers. She returned a few minutes later with two steaming mugs and a small container of creamer.

“You look like shit,” she told me blankly and I let out a bark of laughter.

“I slept maybe two hours this morning,” I replied, taking a long sip of the dark coffee. The burning of my tongue overpowered the bitter taste of the liquid, but I didn’t even flinch. Ashley watched me with furrowed brows.

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” I responded. When she raised a skeptical brow, I sighed. “Harry’s just being... I dunno. Weird.”

“Pretty sure he came out of the womb that way, babe. Gonna have to be more specific than that.”

I smiled at her dig at him and raised the mug to my lips once more, unsure of how I wanted to proceed. In hindsight, what had transpired between us in the span of those few seconds could have been easily overlooked. In the heat of the moment and the soft flicker of the TV, it would have been easy to mistake the words that he’d passed to me for something more than what it really was. But beyond that, I knew Harry. Really knew him, and if I was feeling uneasy there was probably a reason for it, so I took the plunge.

“He said something to me last night that felt... I dunno. It was just unsettling, I guess.”

“What did he say,” Ashley inquired.

“He told me he didn’t regret our relationship. That he wish it hadn’t ended in the way that it had, but that there wasn’t anything about what happened between us he’d take back. And when I asked him why he said it, he just told me he thought I should know and then disappeared into his room.”

Ashley took a long, calculated drink from her cup. She rolled her lips together as she slowly sat it down on the table top, and then looked up at me.

“Do you think he means anything by it?” I blurted before I could stop myself. “Do you think he’s starting to like me again?”

“Sawyer,” Ashley sighed, reaching up to her ponytail to tuck a few stray strands behind her ear. “Has it ever occurred to you that Harry never stopped caring for you in the first place?”

No I thought immediately. If I knew anything for fact, that couldn’t have been true. Because how do you put someone you love through so much hell?

Unless you didn’t think it would be hell for them to begin with something within me countered, but I swallowed it back before I could spit fire and lose myself in flame.

“No,” I reply evenly. “It hasn’t.”

“Well maybe it should.”

“Why?” I asked, taken aback.

“Because it’s so damn obvious,” Ashley explained, reaching out a hand to grip at my wrist. Softly, her fingers drew circles against my pulse point. I’m sure she could feel how out of control my heartbeat was. “Just the way he looks at you, Sawyer. The first time I met him at that party, even on the arm of that model, it was so abundantly clear. He looks out for you, he did then and he still does now. And more than anything I think he’d like for something to transpire between the two of you but he also knows that’s not what you need right now, so he’s biding his time.”

“Where is all of this coming from?” I barked incredulously, eyes wide as I began to panic. I wanted to pull my wrist from her grip, but she tightened her hold around me.

“Don’t dart out of here like I’ve just told you something you don’t already know,” she scowled, knowing my intentions before even I did.

“I didn’t already know!”

“Yes you did,” she told me evenly. “You may have been in denial about it, but you knew.”

I sat in silence, letting that sink in. I thought about the amount of times Harry had called Declan after storming back into my life so unexpectedly, just to know how I was feeling or if I was okay because I couldn’t look at him to tell him myself. I thought back to how honest he’d been with me the morning after he’d passed out drunk in my bed, and why he’d said those things in the first place. I remembered how he’d followed after me when I left the party when I saw him with Olivia, how confused and hurt I’d felt and how he’d insisted on stopping me to talk. And more recently, I thought back to the look of fury in his eye as he ordered security to escort Olivia out of the party when she’d thrown her drink on me, the way he’d been so gentle with me afterward.

I’d known. I’d just chosen to ignore it.

“What do I do?” I whispered, looking up at her with pleading eyes. When she felt my muscles untense in her hand, she loosened her grip.

“What do you want to do?”

I couldn’t go there. It was too soon and I’d gone through too much to let him back in that easily. Friends was something I could handle on a good day. Anything beyond that was unfathomable to me, the idea that he’d even still want that still so foreign that I had to choke back laughter.

But I couldn’t lose him, either. Because when I was with him, there was something about his presence that put me at ease. There was something about that dimpled grin and the familiar calming touch of his hands that I liked too much to let go. And I realized with startling clarity that he played an intregal piece in my putting my shit back together after he’d played an equally important role in taking it all away in the first place.

He was righting his wrongs, and I couldn’t punish him for that. But I couldn’t let this get any further, either.

“You need to talk to him,” Ashley told me before I’d even said anything in response. “He already knows, but you should still talk to him.”

“I don’t know how,” I admitted.

“Yes you do,” she rolled her eyes. “You could tell him anything and he’d listen and still be there in the end, Sawyer. It’s how love works.”

But it’s not how I wanted it to be. Because I didn’t want to do that to him, even after everything he’d put me through. Everything would have been so much simpler if he hadn’t felt anything for me at all.

I wondered vaguely if this was only cropping up because of my date with Andrew. And if the buzzing of my phone was any indication, the few other dates I’d be going on if only to have something to distract my mind from the boy waiting for me on the couch at home. But it wasn’t fair to Harry to keep doing that to him, either.

“Do what makes you happy, Sawyer,” Ashley told me as if she could sense what was running through my mind. “Because that’s what he wants, too. At the end of the day, he doesn’t care what hell you put him through because he thinks he deserves it. And if he wants to torture himself with it, that’s his business and there’s nothing you can do to stop him from doing it.”

I was truly between a rock and a hard place. Because now that everything was starting to gain perspective, things weren’t simple anymore. Despite what Harry had put me through, I had no desire to hurt him in any capacity. At the same time, there was nothing I could do to stop him for feeling whatever it was that he was feeling for me, and Andrew getting caught in the charade so easily felt like a betrayal.

“I have to go,” I muttered, glancing at a clock placed above the bar. I still needed to seek out the office and go through this interview. After that, I’d call a cab and figure out the best plan of action from there.

Ashley gave my wrist a gentle squeeze before letting me stand, abandoning my coffee cup on a table she’d just wiped down. Quietly, I thanked her before walking out the door and out into the dry Californian heat. When I glanced over my shoulder through the window, she was still watching me with furrowed brows and a slight frown.

I turned and kept on walking.

-

The interview was quick, and I left with a calendar of events and an ugly neon orange tee-shirt with a staff logo on it. Because Declan was still working, I was forced to call a cab and spend the twenty-seven minute ride stewing in tortured silence, wondering just what the hell I was going to do with the situation presented to me.

When the cab pulled to a stop at the curb outside Harry’s house, I paid the driver and heaved a sigh when the gate parted to reveal his Range Rover in the drive, freshly washed and glinting in the sunlight almost tauntingly. I trudged up the walk with my hands in my pockets, bracing for awkwardness when I reached the front door.

As usual, Harry was spralwed out on his couch, phone in hand with the TV on for background noise. He wore a plain black tee shirt and his dark skinny jeans, his socked feet hanging over the arm of the sofa. He flexed his toes absentmindedly as he typed something with one hand into the keyboard and mumbled a distracted hello. In the heat of the day, he’d pulled his hair back into a bun, which only served to show off his fantastic jawline.

How dare he look so good when I had to have the boundary talk with him? Did he wake up this morning and sense it or something?

I didn’t bother to greet him as I slipped off my sandals and sat my bag by the door. He didn’t seem to mind, to immersed in whatever conversation he was having on his phone.

Part of me wanted to sneak away upstairs and hide under the blankets. The other half knew there were lines I needed to draw and things we needed to talk about, but that didn’t mean I was anywhere near eager to do it. Just as I took a step toward the stairway, Harry spoke.

“I invited Declan and Ashley over for the evening. Thought it might be nice to grill and hang out by the pool.”

I looked over to where he was watching me, hands locked behind his neck with his phone resting on his abdomen. It was a pose of perfect relaxation, but something still seemed off about him. It was his feet that gave him away, his right ankle shaking back and forth in a nervous habit that only I could pick up after years of knowing him. I frowned, wondering what it was that he was nervous about. Then I wondered if he’d had any forewarning of what was coming, if Ashley had let anything slip to Declan and word had gotten back around.

“Sounds good,” I managed to say just before placing my foot on the bottom step.

“Wait, come here a sec,” he requested, and I had to refrain from cringing. My heart was beating wildly in my chest and I knew I’d have to bring it up somehow, but more than anything I just wanted to disappear into the sheets on my bed upstairs and never leave again. It was with a heavy, but well concelaed sigh that I turned and made my way over to the recliner beside the couch. He sat up so he could face me better, and his leg still moved with anticipation.

“I have something to ask you.”

I froze in panic. It didn’t seem to be going to a place that would make this conversation avoidable, which meant I would have to be an adult about this whole thing. I hated being an adult.

“Listen,” he began, wetting his lips. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees as he clasped his hands, and I knew better than to interrupt him with whatever he was about to say. It was classic Harry form, and whatever words were about to fall from his lips had been on his mind all day. All I could do was wait it out and try not to vomit in the meantime.

“I don’t know how much you keep up with the band or whatever, or if Declan has mentioned it, but Zayn’s getting married in a few months and he’s been on my case about bringing someone with me. I’m not in the party or whatever, but he still thinks it would just be an all around better experience if I had a date, so I was wondering if you’d maybe go?”

I blinked slowly, blindsided. Harry wanted to go to a wedding. With me. He wanted me to accompany him to a wedding. This didn’t bode well.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Harry furrowed his brows, confused. With his hand resting beneath his chin, he gave me a strange look.

“I know you don’t know the lads all that well, but you seem to be getting on with Zayn fairly well... We won’t have to stay long, just through the ceremony and part of the reception...”

He was still listing off reasons as to why I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in the setting when I blurted out, “That’s not why.”

His furrowed brows raised in surprise. He stared at me for a few moments before he finally landed on the word, “Fuck.” It fell from his lips unamusedly, his facial expression hardening to disappointment. He knew.

An awkward silence stretched between us while I tried to figure out just exactly it was I wanted to say. I’d rehearsed it once or twice in my mind throughout the day, but that seemed to have flown all out the window the moment I was sat next to him. But just because he looked so damn good didn’t mean it was anywhere near the right thing for me. I opened my mouth to speak, unsure what words were even going to make it past the tip of my tongue, when he cut me off.

“Whatever you’re about to say, you really don’t need to waste your time saying it. I know where you’re at and I know where I’m at and it’s not something you should worry about.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice coming out small. I think I said it just for lack of anything better to say.

“I mean this is my problem and I’ll deal with it. So don’t get weird about it, it’s not a big deal and you don’t need to make it into a big deal,” he shrugged, leaning back in his couch. I wondered how long he’d had this reserved for, how long he’d been anticipating me finding out and saying anything about it to him.

“It’s not a big deal?” I repeated skeptically.

“It really isn’t,” he responded smoothly.

I really couldn’t argue it further with him. I didn’t really have the energy. The way he’d handled it, the way he spoke so fluidly, I’d lost my will.

“Okay,” I said lamely.

“Okay,” he repeated with a smile. Then he glanced at the clock and heaved himself up.

“I’m going to get the grill ready,” he declared, crossing the room toward the kitchen. “They’ll be here in an hour.”

I nodded, though he wasn’t looking at me. He’d already disappeared into the other room and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Running a hand through my hair, I forced myself up from the chair and bounded upstairs to change into something more suitable for the evening’s activities.

My muscles still felt tense and there was a lump in my throat I couldn’t swallow down, but it was good enough for now.