Broken Things

I woke up angry, which is really to be expected after crying myself to sleep the night before. It was still semi-early when I rolled over, the alarm clock on Declan’s bedside table reading 9:20 AM. I was surprised I’d managed to sleep even that long, but the exhaustion must have been heavier than even I had realized.

For a few moments, I lay there with my arm thrown over my eyes, replaying the night’s events in my mind. I couldn’t believe the words that had left Harry’s mouth in his drunken stupor, yet they were all I could remember ringing through my mind. Something told me he had meant it, the way his voice had cracked slightly as he spoke and the soft hue of his eyes when I’d turned to look back at him.

A part of me ached for what had transpired, but the larger part of me was becoming more and more upset by the moment. Who was he to waltz in through the front door after four years and drop something like that on me? How could he put me through that sort of hell only to try to win me back in a desperate drunken plea?

I needed to move.

Pulling the blankets from around me, my feet found the floor and I softly opened the door to the hallway. In the living room, Declan was still asleep under the duvet. I quietly passed him, walking into the kitchen and filling a cup with water with the intention of digging through one of my drawers for a couple of Tylenol to dull the migrane that was beginning to build.

I clutched the cup tightly as I made my way back toward my bedroom. A sudden burst of adrenaline was flooding my veins and my anger surged at the sight of Harry tucked tightly beneath my sheets. Sometime in the night, he’d lost his layers of clothes. I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream or cry, so I settled for throwing the glass of water on him.

His body jolted upright, a string of curses leaving his mouth as he looked down at his soaked body, then up to me.

“Wake up, asshole,” I told him, tossing the glass at him. He ducked, but I still managed to hit him on the shoulder with it, the plastic cup rebounding and falling to the floor.

His fingers raked through his hair as he took in his surroundings, frowning at what he found. “Is this your room?” he asked. “What am I doing in your room?”

I chose not to answer him, crossing my arms over my chest as I narrowed my eyes. He was stilll preoccupied with the fact that he’d passed out drunk in my bed, but when his eyes met mine, I gritted my teeth.

“We need to talk.”

A look of realization crossed over his features and he fell backward into my pillows, rubbing a hand over his face in shame.

“I told you, didn’t I? I was shitfaced and I told you.”

“Get up. Now.”

He was too busy lecturing himself to hear me.

“Of course I told you while I was drunk,” he muttered. “Because nothing in my life is ever simple, especially when it comes to you.”

The words were spoken beneath his breath, but loud enough for me to still hear him in the near silent house. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because he was still laying there, rubbing his face like he was trying to wake himself from some bad dream.

“Get out of my bed,” I ordered, jaw clenched.

Finally, Harry rolled over, his feet hitting the floor. I averted my eyes when I realized he was in nothing but a pair of cotton boxer briefs. Also noticing this, he slid his jeans on first before searching the floor for his shirt. When he’d finished, he looked over to me hesitantly.

“Outside,” I ordered, pointing my finger in the general direction of our front door. He winced but began in that direction with the full knowledge that going outside probably meant yelling. Looking less than up to it in his hungover state, I argued with myself internally as he pulled open the door and stepped out into the sunlight, eyes narrowing at the brightness.

When he looked over to me, I held up a finger to indicate I’d be out in a moment and he nodded grimly, lips pressed into a firm line as he pulled the door shut after him. I sighed, cursing myself for being weak, but nonetheless refilled my glass of water. Throwing back a few Tylenol, I sucked in a deep breath and stepped out into the early morning California heat.

Harry was sitting on the last step of the staircase that led to our upstairs apartment. His head was in his hands, elbows propped up on his knees as he groaned incoherently. I kicked him softly in the back with my foot and he jumped, turning to glare at me. His eyes softened when I handed him the bottle of Tylenol.

“Not going to throw this one at me are you?” he asked, eyeing the full glass of water in my hands. It was a lame attempt at a joke in the face of danger, and my unimpressed expression must have been enough for him to realize I was having none of it. Instead, he took it from me with a quiet thank you and washed down two of the pills.

The silence that engulfed us then could only be described as uncomfortable. I watched his hands as he fiddled with the bottle, rolling it if only to hear the sound the pills made when it moved. I took a deep breath, running a hand through my hair.

“What the fuck, Harry?”

It came out more defeated than I had intended it to. In my mind, it had sounded a lot meaner, more angry and sharp. Instead, it rolled off my tongue sort of like a sigh. He took his lip between his teeth at the sound of my question, his head dropping lower as he focused on the bottle he was still holding.

“This isn’t really how I imagined this going, in my defense,” he answered, peeking over at me.

“And how exactly was that?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, blowing out a breath slowly, his cheeks puffed out as he tried to buy time. “Sober. When you were ready.”

Another stretch of awkward silence.

“I guess I hoped we could maybe...”

He trailed off.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he repeated his earlier statement. “Start to rebuild? Not back to where we were, but just, like, friendship would be cool.”

Behind us, a door opened. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see Declan, but was met with a distracted man with a child in his arms from the apartment across from us. He paused upon seeing Harry and I on the steps, but we each stood to flatten ourselves against the wall. He smiled a thanks as he hiked the girl higher up in his arms and maneuvered around us, out into the courtyard and toward the private pool.

“You told me you still loved me. What does that mean?” I asked as we settled down again, side by side on the same step. He ran a hand through his hair as he contemplated how to answer this.

“It means I made a difficult decision during a complicated time in my life,” he answered a moment later.

“So you didn’t actually want to break up,” I clarified.

“No,” he allowed reluctantly. “But that doesn’t mean we didn’t need to.”

“And what does that mean?”

I was beginning to get angry again. He was being vague, but I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or if he was just unsure of what it was he wanted to convey to me.

“It means I didn’t know what was about to happen to me after the X Factor, but I knew whatever it was meant you’d be in Cheshire waiting on me and that’s not something I wanted for you.”

“That sounds like a bullshit excuse for you to sleep around in all your boy banded glory, to me,” I snapped.

“I was a kid, Sawyer,” he replied, voice low as his temper flared. “I didn’t deal with it like I should have. I was trying to get over you.”

“So you just made that decision for me? You just completely left me out of it?”

“I knew you’d talk me out of it,” he defended. “One of us had to do it and I knew it wouldn’t be you.”

I stood suddenly, infuriated. Surprised by my movement, he followed, watching skeptically as I stepped off the step and into the courtyard, needing desperately to look at something other than his face.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” I finally told him, turning again to face him. He looked confused.

“I’m not trying to do anything, Sawyer! I’m trying to tell you what happened, despite what you think happened.”

“What I know happened was that you were there one moment, and then you weren’t. And whatever, we broke up. I’m not petty enough to be upset about that. But you were my best friend and you left without looking back and that was not okay.”

Harry’s eyes hardened as he shoved his hands into his pockets, something I knew he was doing to avoid clenching them at his sides.

“It wasn’t easy for me. I couldn’t see you, because I knew if I did I’d want you back.”

“So it was totally fine for me to spend nights alone in hospital rooms while I scrolled through Facebook to see photos of you with all our friends? It was okay to let me call you incessantly and never pick up the phone or return my voicemails? The last four years of my life have been hell, sticking by my mom’s side through chemo and surgeries and doctors appointments. You weren’t there and I needed you.”

“I didn’t know, Sawyer.”

The words fell from his lips like an apology, his expression softened.

“You couldn’t be fucked to care,” I spat.

“Of course I cared.”

“No. Because if you care about someone, you don’t ignore their existence through the toughtest four years of their life.”

I was crying again, but I knew there was nothing that could be done to stop the free flow once it began. Harry’s hand reached forward like he wanted to touch me, but he stopped himself, choosing instead to rub the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry.”

The words sounded lame, though I could hear the earnestness in his voice. There was too much running through my mind to continue, so instead I pushed past him in the direction of the stairwell.

“Sawyer, you can’t imagine –“

“Go,” I told him. “Please just go.”

I didn’t stick around to hear his retreating steps. Instead, I took the stairs two at a time, twisting the knob and pushing my way through the front door into the living room. Once I made it there, I locked it behind me and leaned against it, sliding to the floor as I let my head fall in my hands.

It was all getting to be too emotionally taxing.

At some point during our outdoor discussion, Declan had woken up and abandoned his post on the couch. My vision was blurry and I was trying hard to stifle sobs as I scanned the apartment for something to do. Coming up empty, I slowly stood and crept over to Declan’s room to check on him.

His head poked up from his bed at the creaking sound the door made as I pushed it open. His brows were furrowed as he studied my silhouette, but at the sound of my sniffle, he became alert.

Wordlessly, he scooted over in his bed, pulling back the sheets. I smiled half-heartedly at him as I shut the door behind me before crawling beneath the comforter. Burying my face in his chest, I didn’t hold back my tears as he ran his fingers through my hair.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly.

“Can’t,” I managed to choke out in response. He nodded, pulling me closer as I cried, vowing to myself it would be the last time Harry Styles coaxed a tear from my eyes.

–

I’d fallen asleep again, though that hadn’t been my intention. I tended to do that a lot when under stress; fall asleep instead of facing whatever emotional turmoil I was going through.

I let out a sigh as I reached forward to find Declan again, but the bed was empty. Slowly, I opened one eye, then the other, and took in the furled bedsheets beside me. They were no longer warm, which meant Declan must have gotten up a while ago.

Somehow, I gathered the strength to push myself up. Directly across from the bed was a dresser with a small mirror nailed to the wall above it, so I had a prime view to the god-awful state I was in. I could only be thankful that in my lazy state from the day before, I hadn’t been wearing any make-up. My hair was a tangled mess and dark circles were prominent beneath my eyes. My complexion was spotty, to say the least, and I tended to get stress break outs. Frowning, I narrowed my eyes at the pimples beginning to form.

The house was quiet. When I pushed open the door and stepped tentatively out into the hallway, I couldn’t hear anything but the low hum of the air conditioner. The TV was on, but muted, and a steaming cup of tea was set on the table beside the couch. When the floor beneath me squeaked under my weight, Declan popped his head up and offered me a hesitant smile.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Even on the small word, my voice cracked. Declan frowned, pushing himself up from his reclining position and setting down the newspaper he’d had in his hands. Before I could register what was happening, he was crossing the room and throwing his arms around me in a tight, but comforting hug. After a few moments of stunned stillness, I found it in me to return it.

We stood there for a lot longer than necessary, neither one of us being the first to pull away. It was nice to know that Declan would hold me as long as I needed, despite the fact that he refused to take sides on whatever fued was happening between Harry and myself.

It was then that I realized maybe Harry wasn’t the only person I needed to have a discussion with concerning what had happened four years ago, and the aftermath that ruined me.

I slowly leaned back and Declan’s arms loosened to allow me to do so, but his hands stayed firmly planted on my person. His eyes scanned me to make sure I was truly okay before nodding almost imperceptibly to himself and taking a step back.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I told him after a moment of awkwardly standing before him.

“It’ll make you feel better,” he agreed immediately.

I turned to walk away, but paused in the doorframe between the living room and hallway leading to the bathroom. I turned, hand on the wall, and looked back at him. As expected, he was still there, watching me.

“Can we do something today? Distract me a little bit until I find the courage to talk to you about it?”

Declan smiled as he lifted his hand to run through his shaggy blonde locks. “Of course,” came his reply.

With that, I padded down the hall to my own room, eyes carefully avoiding the mess in my bed leftover from Harry the night before. In a flurry, I located a fresh pair of clothes to change into and headed into the bathroom, closing and locking the door after me.

Along with sleep, showers had become somewhat of a comfort to me when things got a little difficult. I knew I wasn’t the only one in the world to discover the secret, powerful magic of a shower, but it felt great nonetheless. Standing there, massaged by the falling drops of water and surrounded by steam, it was nice to imagine my problems falling away from me like whatever dirt had settled on me since I’d showered last. The smell of my shampoo was like a safe haven, and I basked in it.

All too soon, my fingers were pruning and I knew I needed to step out. Reluctantly, I turned the handle and shut off the water flow. I blindly felt around for a towel, wrapping it around myself and stepping out into the bathroom. When I reached forward and wiped some of the steam from the mirror to take in my appearance, I looked significantly better, albeit still exhausted.

Sighing, I slid on my clean clothes and and pulled open the door to be met with a cool gust of air. After accepting I’d just have to live with the goosebumps now covering any bare skin I had exposed, I hurried back to my room.

First order of business was to make my bed. The sheets and comforter had already dried, so I made quick work of flattening out the bumps and wrinkles and arranging my pillows in a presentable manner. Stepping back and surveying my work, it was impossible to know Harry had been there at all, save for the lingering smell of his cologne.

I made mental note to buy Febreeze.

I knew I probably should have cared more about my appearance than I did, but I couldn’t find it within myself to put on anything more than a pair of joggers and a pink racerback tank top with a patterened front pocket. Even make-up didn’t fit my current mood, so I instead threw my hair up in a messy bun and flicked the lights off on my way into the hall.

Declan was still on the couch when I re-appeared. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in my appearance before sucking in a breath and letting it out through his nose. I tried not to be offended as I crossed my arms over my chest and raised a brow to indicate I was ready when he was.

I couldn’t be sure what he had in mind as I followed him out of the apartmen and into the parking lot. He unlocked the car with his key fob and I slid into the passenger seat, resolved to whatever it was he had planned to do.

Much to my appreciation, he didn’t force any conversation. Instead, he turned up the volume to his stereo system as he put a playlist on his phone on shuffle. The music was mostly mindless pop, which was infinitely better than any sort of music that would have let me think. It was easy to avoid your problems when you were mouthing along to a Katy Perry song.

After a long 35-minute drive I was positive would have only lasted 20 if not for the mind-numbing traffic, Declan pulled into a parking spot in front of a complex of buildings. Without a word, he turned off the car and stepped out, twirling his key ring on his finger while he waited for me to follow.

“What are we doing?” I asked, shutting the door softly behind me.

“We’re meeting a friend of mine and going to a dog park,” he answered.

“You have friends?” I asked suspiciously.

He lowered his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, eyes narrowed to indicate not to push my luck with him. All I could do was crack a smile to let him know I was only kidding.

“Where are we, exactly?” I asked as I followed him out of the lot and down a sidewalk, throwing a glance in the direction of the car from fear we’d be towed. Free parking was unheard of in Los Angeles.

As if reading my thoughts he answered, “This is where I work. The park is just a couple blocks away.”

I’d never been to Silver Lake before.

It was mostly residential, but the area we were in seemed to be a sort of business district, centrally located for the nearby neighborhoods. I followed blindly as he led me through the area, taking a shortcut through a residential street. Abruptly, he turned and started up a sidewalk leading straight through a lawn to a duplex.

When I hesitated, he rolled his eyes and gestured for me to follow him, which I did reluctantly. I watched him with slight confusion as he bit down on his lip before sucking in a breath and raising his fist to knock. I hadn’t seen Declan nervous many times before in my life, and I was at a loss as to why he would be now, until a short, dark complected girl appeared with a leash in her hand. She swung open the door, greeting us both with a broad smile as she leaned forward and held the white screen open for a happy little Yorkie to bound out of.

“Hey!” she exclaimed brightly as she followed in her puppy’s footsteps. Immediately, she stepped toward Declan, who engulfed her in a brief, but tight hug. I raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder and watched as his cheeks reddened in embarrassment. I didn’t have time to do much else before the girl wheeled to look at me.

“You must be Saywer,” she said, offering me her hand. I accepted, slightly off-put by her friendliness. “I’m Ashley.”

“Nice to meet you,” I returned.

She led the way back down the walkway from which we’d come. I elbowed Declan in the ribs while she was distracted, feeling satisfied when he let out a small grunt of surprise. This girl, while maybe a friend for now, wouldn’t stay one for long. I felt somewhat betrayed at his witholding of information. As we followed behind her and she tried to keep up with her dog, I fought the urge to let him have it. I was seconds away from losing the battle when she turned to look at us, giving the leash a jerk to stop the puppy from bounding out into traffic.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she admitted, tucking a strand of her black hair behind her ear. Though her long hair had been braided to one side over her shoulder, a few pieces had fallen out to frame her face.

“I wish I could say the same,” I replied, turning to glare at Declan who flushed scarlet beneath my gaze.

My intention hadn’t been to offend the girl, but rather send a jab in Dec’s direction. She must have sensed this because she let out a chuckle and leaned down to scoop her dog up in her hands as it wiggled to get free, panting all the time.

“He probably didn’t want to overwhelm you. Moving across a continent can be difficult. I’m sure he wanted to make sure you were comfortably settled first.”

Her explanation in his defense was all I needed to hear. He relaxed at the sound of her words, visibly happy that she understood his intentions without even bothering to ask. I wondered for a moment how close he was to asking her out.

She sent me one last grin before turning and continuing to lead the way down the street, wandering off the sidewalk in the direction of a trail a few minutes later. It was a dirt path that disappeared into the foliage a few meters in. I felt glad I hadn’t bothered to get dolled up before leaving the apartment. I was already sweating beneath the sun, and I knew we were probably about to be in for a bit of physical activity.

“Do you two work together?” I asked, curious as to how they’d met.

Declan opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off before he could get too far.

“Dec works at the contracting firm across the street,” she explained easily. After setting the Yorkie back on the ground to gleefully zoom ahead of us, she added, “I’m a waitress at Madres, across the street. It’s a Puerto Rican restaurant a lot of people frequent on their breaks.”

I nodded as we entered a clearing ahead, a patch of green earth that eventually lead down to the water of the lake for which Silver Lake itself is named. Ashley headed in the direction of a nearby bench and both Declan and I followed. In the distance, her dog leapt and ran around in the open space, mingling with other dogs who were also off their leashes.

I mindlessly followed the dog with my eyes as Declan and Ashley settled into a comfortable conversation about their respective jobs and friends they held in common. I knew vaguely about what Declan did for a living, mostly answering phones and playing secretary to a contracting company, but I found it difficult to focus on in my current state. My eyes still burned from the morning’s events and the lack of sleep it promptly caused.

Instead, I watched the perky little dog zip in and out of groups of other dogs, all of which were noticeably larger than it. He didn’t seem deterred by this, barking and yipping to demand attention. The Golden Retrievers and Huskies barely spared the poor thing a glance, but that didn’t stop him from proudly sniffing at them whenever he got near enough.

Eventually, he got bored of this one-sided interaction and trotted down toward the lake, his head following the movement of a stick in the water. He threw his back end up in the air, tail wagging, as he prepared for an obvious leap. Ashley chose this moment to call out a, “Luis! No!”

The puppy paid her no mind as he sprung forward into the water. Just as she stood to surge at him, Declan was on his feet and on it, rushing in the direction of the dog. I heard Ashley mutter some words in Spanish beneath her breath, and I could tell from the infliction they were curses.

A few seconds later, she turned her head to me and half-smiled. She leaned back against the bench, her focus now completely on me as Declan stood at the shore and tried to coax the swimming dog back to dry ground.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

My brows furrowed in confusion.

“Talk about what?”

She sighed as she shiftted in her seat, almost uncomfortably. Up until this moment, I thought it might be impossible to make this girl feel ill at ease.

“I was surprised when Declan texted me this morning. Said he needed to get his roomate out of the apartment. When I asked why, he just said you were having troubles with a boy, but this looks a little more deep rooted than that.”

I let my gaze drop to my hands as I started picking at my nail polish again. I could at least be thankful that Declan hadn’t completely spilled the beans to her like he so had a tendency to do, especially as of late when Harry was involved. Still, I wasn’t quite ready to tell this complete stranger everything, despite the fact that I was sure she’d be playing an important role in Declan’s life in the near future.

“I don’t know you at all,” Ashley started. “But I can tell you’re not really the type to open up about these things. I can respect that. Just know that if you need a little feminine advice, I’ve got twenty years of good old fashioned Puerto Rican counseling from my family to dish out.”

When I looked over at her again, she was still smiling warmly at me. Surprisingly, I found myself smiling back.