Broken Things

When I woke, it was to violent shaking. I threw my arm over my head, my mouth feeling as if it were full of cotton. In my mind, a ringing sound was all I could hear, and I cringed.

“Up,” Harry demanded, and I peeked one eye out to look at him.

He was dressed in a plain white tee shirt and a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. His hair was peeking out from beneath a brown wide-brimmed hat. I blinked at him. He had to be joking.

“You have a flight to catch,” he reminded me, and I glanced over at my clock. 6:30 a.m.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I won’t be on it,” I mumbled in response.

“Like hell you won’t,” Harry replied. “Get up.”

When I proceeded to ignore him, he rolled his eyes and threw something heavy on top of my body. I heard a zipping noise and groaned. Why was he continuing to torture me in this way?

I forced my eyes open and watched as he bent over my dresser, grabbing various items and tossing them into the unfamiliar duffle bag lying atop the comforter. I remembered I’d lost mine at the apartment, which was why he was lending me one of his. Through narrowed eyes, I looked on as he continued to toss toiletries and pajamas in my bed. When he started in for the underwear drawer was when I threw the blankets back and knocked him out of the way.

“Tosser,” I mumbled to his satisfied grin.

“I picked you up at 2 a.m. drunk on your arse. The least you can do is be a big girl and get on that flight.”

I was still drunk, I think, because I knocked over a bottle of perfume. Before it could hit the ground, Harry’s large hand caught it and placed it back where it was before. I continued in my duty of ignoring him as I finished throwing random clothing into the bag and zipping it up.

“You’re wearing that to LAX?” he asked, gesturing to the tee shirt that was obviously his and my lack of sleep shorts.

Huh.

Unwilling to let him feel triumphant for very long, I rummaged about until I found a pair of running shorts and pulled them on. I reached around him for a tie for my hair and wrangled it into a bun. Harry didn’t move from his spot leaning against the dresser, arms crossed over his chest while he watched me move. There were deep circles under his eyes, and if I’d only slept for four and a half hours while piss drunk, I wondered if he’d slept at all. Doubtful from the way he kept sleepily rubbing at his eyes.

“Done,” I declared flatly.

Harry sent me a cheeky grin. “Great.”

With that, he turned and stalked out the door. I rolled my eyes and threw the bag over my shoulder before following after him. A neutral pair of flip flops were laying by the door and I slipped into them before we headed to his car through the garage. Harry started the car while I managed to wrestle the bag into the back seat. When I was done, I hiked up into the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt before slumping into the leather and letting my eyes fall shut.

Harry didn’t speak as he backed out of the driveway, through the gate and onto the street. A radio talk show was on quietly in the background, but I couldn’t focus on it. I was too busy trying to remember what had happened the night before. Obviously I’d made it home somehow, but I wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. Harry had commented on picking me up, which meant something awful must have happened if I’d been desperate enough to call him.

Who had I been out with? Andrew. Okay, so I wasn’t Andrew’s biggest fan. But I’d consented to going out with him, and drank past my limit. Had he drugged me? I didn’t think so. He was too stupid for something like that, and anyway while he might not have been my most favorite person in the world to make out with, he wasn’t a date rapist.

Oh. Making out. He’d made out with some rando at a club. I remembered that part, and something about bathrooms. And lights. Lots of lights, like strobe lights but outside. Paparazzi.

Oh.

If I’d already been in trouble with my dad for being seen at Santa Monica pier with Harry, he was going to have a field day with whatever photos they’d managed to snap of us this time. And now that he was on alert for it, I’m sure he’d already seen.

But there was something else that felt weird about this entire situation. I tried to think back to getting back to the house. Had I thrown up in Harry’s car? It still smelled fresh, so I didn’t think so. But my eyes burned, so that meant I’d either cried or thrown up last night. Possibly both. Okay, probably both, but probably more crying than throwing up. Aside from the humiliation of Andrew ditching me and being forced to have Harry pick me up, what could I have been crying over?

I glanced over at Harry, as if that would give me some sort of clue. He had one hand on the wheel and the other was pulling at his lip, like he was just as lost in thought as I was. I watched absently as his pointer finger and thumb pinched at his mouth, white where they made contact.

Oh shit.

Oh holy mother of God, I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have.

But I did.

I had to stifle a groan. I’d kissed him. What had posessed me to do that? I couldn’t say for certain, but I knew I couldn’t let it happen again. Especially with the knowledge of his lingering feelings for me. I’d taken advantage of that, and that was the worst thing I could have possibly done.

I was suddenly overwhlemed with the need to apologize, but this wasn’t the time. Besides, why do today what you can put off for tomorrow? Or eight days from now, when I returned from Chicago. And on top of my natural tendency to procrastinate anything that had to do with emotional trauma, I felt incapable of putting into words how I felt on the entire ordeal. I’d only just remembered it, let alone knew how to accurately respond to the entire situation aloud.

With my eyes closed and my head turned away from Harry, I bit down hard on my lip. What I’d done was unforgivable, but I knew he’d forgive me anyway. And still I was incapable of cutting him the same slack for a mistake he’d made years earlier.

But this wasn’t a fluke kiss in a drunken stupor. This was watching my mother’s life drain away before my eyes and having the one person you could turn to ignore all your calls.

I was crying again. Fantastic.

Harry made for the exit toward LAX. The traffic was still fairly light in the early hours, especially for a week day. My eyes flickered unwittingly ahead, to the palm trees and hills. I thought Harry inclined his head in my direction, but I didn’t care to check. If I did, he’d see the tears.

To anyone else, Chicago would have been a perfect excuse to get my act together. A week without him, space for thousands of miles, and I could screw my head on straight and return to L.A. refreshed and anew. But this wasn’t a vacation; if anything it was hell and worse than the predicament I’d found myself in here.

Harry pulled up to the drop off bay near my terminal. I unclicked my seatbelt and made to get out of the car, but Harry’s hand stopped me.

“I know this isn’t easy for you, but you can do this,” he told me, eyes steady. I was still trying to avoid his gaze, but it was so much harder to do when it was just us in the car, his attention not focused on the road or whatever crap was playing on the radio. He was only looking to me.

“Yeah,” I agreed quietly.

“I can’t get out, or I’d walk with you,” he assured me, eyes darting beyond me to where paparazzi regularly hung out in the hopes of stumbling across a celebrity in transit. His assurance of kindness only made me feel guiltier for what I’d done to him.

“It’s fine,” I answered, reaching for the handle again. His voice cut through the space to me before I was successful and I found myself pausing again.

“Will you text me when your dad picks you up? So I know you’re okay?” he requested.

The response, “Yes, dad” was sitting at the tip of my tongue, acidic and sharp, but I wouldn’t let it pass my mouth. I’d been acting childish lately, and I’d forced him into that role. Now I’d live with the consequences quietly.

“Sure,” I answered.

“And just...” he trailed off, and I found my eyes flickering to him with curiousity. “Just call me once or twice. I know everything sucks with your dad, so I want to know you’re doing okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated with a soft smile. I returned it hesitantly.

Then, in a movement that surprised both of us, he leaned across the console and pressed his lips softly to my temple. It was brief and reassuring, but it still brought bile to my throat. I couldn’t imagine a human more deplorable than me.

“Have a safe flight,” he said.

I was out the door and on the pavement before he’d finished his sentence.

-

The thing about my dad was that I’d loved him once. There were times I could remember from my childhood when I’d been genuinely happy in his presence. I recalled trips to the beach with him and my mum, shared sandwiches and sunburns while we laughed and rolled around in the sand. I remembered trips to London after we’d moved to England, where he’d take me on an obligatory double decker bus tour and we’d rode the London Eye. He used to barbecue on weekends in the summer and take me to the zoo.

But then he’d met Helen and everything fell apart. It started with distance, and then weekends snuck away. And I think mum knew, but she never said. She pulled away when he was home, and it was all silent dinners and awkward goodnight kisses. And then one day dad had packed his bags, kissed my forehead, and promised to see me soon.

It was seven months later the next time I saw him. He came with a new wife, a step-daughter, and a familiar zip code. Chicago had never seemed so small.

Understandably, returning to the place I’d grown up until my teenage years no longer held any interest to me. It had transformed into a painful reminder of what my father had given up, and what had been taken away from me.

I meandered my way through the Chicago O’Hare airport, slowly making my way toward the arrivals bay where I knew he’d be waiting. I wondered if Stephanie would be with him, or worse yet Helen. I had a distaste for either one of them, and though Stephanie wasn’t quite as bad, it was easy to tell she was her mother’s daughter.

He stood alone, rolling his car keys on his pointer finger as his eyes scanned the crowd for me. In a blue button up and a pair of casual jeans, he looked handsome. I didn’t miss the wandering gazes of a few women in his vicinity. With his peppered hair and thick beard, a thin face with a prominent jawline and full lips, he’d always been a hit with all the other mom’s at daycare. At the time, I had never worried about how he felt about my mom, but it was a blind faith that had proven false in later years.

His blue eyes finally fell on me, and the left side of his face lifted into a smile. He reached out for a hug, but I handed him the heavy strap of my duffle bag instead. He only looked shocked for half a moment before he remembered I hated him.

“This doesn’t look like yours,” he commented at the bag, an intentional dig at Harry.

“Yeah, it isn’t. Lost mine in a fire.”

“The dramatics already, Sawyer?” my dad rolled his eyes as he led us out the double doors toward a parking garage.

“No dramatics here. A legitimate fire struck my apartment and what didn’t burn had water damage,” I responded, scowling at the ground.

“Where are you staying then?” my dad asked, concern in his voice but all ulterior motives. I had to give the man credit; he didn’t mess about.

“With a friend,” I answered vaguely.

“With Harry Styles.”

“If you know, then why did you ask?”

He glared at me from the corner of his eye, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of even glancing in his direction. I was more interested in playing the guessing game of which car was his. It tended to change every six to eight months, and I’d heard through the grapevine dad had just recieved a promotion within the advertising company he worked for. It was a chrome Lexus this week, it seemed. He popped the trunk and slid my bag into the back. I hoised myself up into the passenger seat and sunk into the new leather. It still smelled like he’d driven it off the lot a few days ago.

Helen was all for a three-story house in the suburbs, but dad had persueded her into an apartment near the Chicago river. It cost him my college tuition, I’m sure, so it was in his favor that I had no interest in going. Unfortunately for him, Stephanie had a penchant for art, and there was no telling how much that little diddy would cost him in the long run. There was no way Helen would allow her to skip out on the college experience like I had so easily done.

The drive into the city proper took far too long in the stuffy vehicle. Neither of us made an attempt to speak, and he had always hated the sound of the radio. When mom tried to turn it on while I was little, he’d argue that if he wanted to listen to music he’d put in a CD of things he actually enjoyed listening to.

What a prick.

When I left Chicago, I was only twelve. I hadn’t had the opportunity to learn how to drive in the states, and while I’d gotten my license in England, I would give a hard pass to driving in Chicago. The streets were too small, too filled with pedestrians and delivery trucks pulled over on the side with their hazards on. The traffic was awful, and it tacked on an additional twenty minutes of wait time before we reached the apartment building at all, a high rise where the Chicago River met Lake Michigan. At night, you could watch the fireworks over Navy Pier from the balcony.

I’d only been there twice before, both times without my mother. The first time was when dad had insisted on me coming down to meet everyone and it had been a disaster. I’d felt uncomfortable and Helen had been less than friendly. Mostly I walked loops around Millenium park or otherwise holed away in the guest bedroom. The second time was a year or two later when dad’s mom had died. I’d come down for the funeral and stayed for three days. Things had been tense and silent and I tended to block the whole ordeal from my memory.

I was desperate for a distraction as dad sat stoically beside me, glaring ahead at the line of traffic that led into the heart of the city. My phone was heavy in my pocket and I remembered a promise I’d made to Harry to text him when my dad picked me up. I unlocked the screen and shot him a quick message before otherwise engaging myself in a conversation with Ashley. Apparently some drama was going down at Madres and she needed to vent, which I was more than happy to allow her to do.

It was while she was in the middle of describing a horrendous encounter with a drunken customer that Harry’s response came through, a simple, “See you soon x” that I ignored for lack of response. I knew he’d understand.

The minutes in the car passed by slowly, but eventually my father found the exit for Wacker drive and manuevered his way over there through the traffic. His own phone had been ringing for a while now, but he hadn’t taken the time to answer it. I glared over at him, distracted now from whatever Ashley was talking about, and he looked over at me like he suddenly realized he owned a phone in the first place.

“Helen,” he explained. “She and Stephanie were out for the day with her cousins. It’s probably an invitation for dinner.”

I scowled at him, eyes hooded, and he sighed as he fished for his mobile. Lifting it to his ear, he greeted his new wife on the phone politely. A moment later, he spoke aloud, “No, I don’t think that will work.”

Helen was still talking on the other end of the line, but my dad was frowning deeply as he signaled a turn for a private drive, which led to a hidden garage on lower Wacker. The sunlight disappeared as he drove onward beneath the upper streets, the walls down here lit with yellowing lamps. In dark corners, dirty blankets and heaps of clothing were laying in piles beside one another, sometimes with people beside or under them. Despite the seventy degree weather and the breeze from the lake, these people were perpetually cold and malnourished. My dad entered a private code for his parking garage beneath his million-dollar apartment building, and they disappeared behind us like smoke, as if they had never been there.

“That might be best, yes,” my father continued on the line, then, “I’m in the garage, I’m cutting out. Just call me this evening.”

He hung up without much more ceremony than that. Since my phone clearly read to me I had no service anymore, I didn’t bother with trying to type a response to Ashley. Instead I crossed my arms over my chest and pointedly ignored whatever look it was that my father was sending me.

“They’re staying with her family in the suburbs tonight. Helen is going out and Stephanie seems to be having a good time with the kids.”

He used the term ‘kids’ loosely. Stephanie was in high school, a sophomore. I remembered the things I’d gotten up to during that period in my life, most of it involving Harry, and shivered. No telling what she was doing in Chicago when I had been able to find enough to entertain myself in Holmes Chapel.

I didn’t bother to make a response. It was both a blessing and a curse that I wouldn’t have to be around his new family for my first evening here. The blessing lay within the fact that I wasn’t overly fond of the new ladies in my father’s life and the longer I put off having to pretend to be polite to them, the better off I was. The curse was that my father was relentless in his interrogations of me, his desperate need to get me to fall into place with this new family. If he had his way, I would have already been living under his roof, attending Columbia and having dinner at the Ritz every third Thursday of the month with the president of his company while they schmoozed and I blankly stared ahead with a smile on my face. I wasn’t cut out for this, and yet I was stuck here for another seven days.

My dad had barely put the Lexus in park before I was out the door. Harry’s bag was slung over my shoulder and I adjusted the strap on my shoulder when my father reached for it, adamant about not letting him near it. He surpressed his eye-roll, at least long enough for him to turn around and guide me into the building through an entrance near the stairwell. It led to an elevator that took us down to the lobby where I had to sign into the guest log to be let in by a doorman.

“We can order a pizza tonight,” my dad offered as we stepped into the elevator and he hit the button for the twelfth floor. “Or we can go to M Burger.”

It was a low blow, calling my favorite burger joint into question, and my arms crossed over my chest only tightened. Damn I could go for a double patty at M Burger and some cheese fries....

“I’m not hungry,” I told him blandly.

“When did you eat last?” he asked, raising a brow.

“On the plane,” I answered. What he didn’t need to know was that it was a granola bar and a banana. My stomach churned inaudibly at the idea of M Burger, but my pigheadedness wouldn’t relent.

“You have to eat at some point.”

“I probably will,” I snapped back as the elevator arrived at the correct floor. Disoriented from my gap in memory of where to go, my father led the way left, then right down a hallway. It was the first door, and he lodged a key into the lock before it clicked into place and he pushed into the apartment. I pushed past him and speed walked down the hall, taking the first left into the guest room. It was barely large enough to be considered a closet, and I was sure Harry’s bathroom was larger in L.A., but a queen sized bed fit with enough room on the sides to put your legs. A squat bookshelf at the end of the room left empty on top would doubtlessly have various toiletries littered about it before much longer.

My dad sighed, running a hand through his hair as he watched me get to work unpacking my bag into two separate piles on the comforter. When I dirtied them up, I’d fold them back into the bag to be transported to L.A. again.

“I’ll be in the living room,” he told me. “When you’re hungry, come find me.”

I grunted a response, which I considered generous but he seemed unamused by. Without further comment, he disappeared and I was left alone to my own devices. It wasn’t a good thing to be left alone with.

-

I’d learned the art of being stubborn from my father, which was unfortunate under the circumstances. He didn’t turn off the TV and give up until well after midnight, and I thought I might have died of starvation before then. I tried to pass the time by surfing the internet, but every time I did, I couldn’t help but come across articles abuout ‘Harry Styles’ Night On The Town With Ex-Girlfriend Sawyer Powell’ and I wasn’t in an emotionally stable enough place to go there quite yet. Instead I chose a book from the bookshelf and immersed myself in Neil Gaiman’s narrative. I’d never been much of a fan of fantasy, but Stardust at least took my mind away from the pain of my stomach eating itself.

When I did finally hear the tv die in the living room, I had to wait another thirty minutes just to be sure he’d actually gone to bed. The waiting period had been awful, but once I was satisfied, I slipped out of the sheets and poked my head into the hallway. It seemed dead enough and I felt comfortable venturing out down the hall, into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by an island with barstools lining it.

I rummaged about as quietly as possible, searching high and low for a bowl and spoon. When I’d located it, I reached on my tip toes to grasp at a box of cereal above the refrigerator. It was Raisin Bran, probably the worst cereal to have ever been invented, but I didn’t have much choice for anything else. Pouring a bowl, I filled it with milk and silently padded over to the couch, where I picked up the remote and flipped through channels until I landed on a Friends re-run.

It was two in the morning, and I’d only brought my phone out of habit rather than necessity. Declan had been texting me here and there, but I saw through his veiled attempts at weaseling information out of me. Other than half-heartedly letting him know I was leaving for a week, he hadn’t been able to get much detail from me. It was Harry who had been filling him in, much to my dismay. I loved Declan with all my heart, and he was a loyal friend through and through. Unfortunately, his lighthearted attempts at plotting ways to evade my dad for the next seven days straight did little to lighten my dark mood, especially when one considered the impossiblity of constructing a sheet rope from the twelfth floor of a high rise located above the Chicago River. Where the hell could I find that many sheets to begin with? And my sailor’s knotting skills were poor.

When I’d cleaned the first bowl of cereal out completely, I went back to the kitchen for seconds. From the corner of my eye, I thought I’d seen my phone screen light up, but chose to ignore it in favor of pouring milk over the dry cereal. I wondered how long it would take me to pick the raisins out of the bran and if it would have really been that much of an improvement, but decided against it from sheer exhaustion. In L.A. it was only midnight, which made it feel relatively early for me despite the red digits blinking at me from a clock on the microwave.

Back on the couch, I brought the spoon of cereal up to my mouth and chowed down like it was my first bowl. My stomach still felt empty, but even if it didn’t I doubted I would have reacted much differently. I needed a distraction above all else, and when books failed, food filled the void.

I’d seen this episode of Friends one too many times, probably mostly with Harry when he’d binge watch it on the couch while I sat silently beside him doing my homework. My afternoons in secondary school tended to be spent there beside him while his mum cooked dinner and I ignored him in favor of algebra. He’d always made the best of it.

Beside the living room was a set of sliding glass doors that led to a balcony overlooking the city. Squares of light were visible in some of the other high rises nearby and I found myself staring at them blankly, trying to recall the time in my life when this was home. We had lived in a much more affordable neighborhood, nearer the outskirts of the city. Mom had seemed happy here, and I grew up on the train that ran on the veins through the heart of the city. Dad was the one who had worked his way up for a promotion that brought us to England in the first place, and he’d just as easily abandoned us a year and a half later after he’d met Helen.

I was scowling at my bowl of cereal again and decided it was probably time to put it down. On the TV, I hadn’t noticed the program had changed to TMZ, and my heart lept in my chest as footage of Harry and I stumbling out of Rain was broadcasted on the flickering screen. Harry looked murderous as he glared out at the photographers, but he made no comment to the voices screaming at him, asking about his night out with me. If only they knew. The media would paint him as a womanizing party boy for this, and he’d only been helping out a friend.

I was shit.

Not only was he going to pay the repercussions of my mistake publicly, but I’d gone and fucked it up privately when I’d smashed my mouth to his. I couldn’t believe how much I’d ruined things between us in the span of an hour.

Feeling sick, I clicked off the television and took my bowl into the kitchen to set in the dishwasher. I lit up my phone screen to turn on the flashlight for aid to get back to my room when I saw the incoming text I’d missed earlier. I probably should have been surprised to see his name up on my screen again, but I wasn’t.

House feels empty. Hope you’re okay. x

I’d had plans to go to sleep, but it seemed it wasn’t in the cards for me anymore. Instead I fell into bed, pulled the sheets over my face, and counted until the pain subsided.