Long Time Gone

It takes the entire summer, but they manage. Harry and Louise pick every strawberry in his daddy’s field before they rot. And so, they decide they must celebrate. They sit on the front porch with a bottle of red wine and Pepper at their feet. They are sore and filthy and exhausted.

“I can’t believe we did it,” she mumbles as she passes the bottle back to Harry and stretches her legs out a bit more, trying to loosen the muscles in her calves.

Harry snorts, running a hand through his dusty hair, “I can’t believe we didn’t kill each other.”

Louise giggles, “Yeah, that too.”

She can’t help but think about what comes next as the breeze runs over her skin. The thought scares her. She’s saved up a decent amount of money but surely she’ll need another job soon if she ever wants to move out again. Will her parents be okay with that, despite accepting her apologies with tears in their eyes? Will anyone but Harry be able to look her in the eye long enough to hire her? Will her and Harry go back to being enemies?

“Lo,” the nicknames startles her so much she nearly jumps out of her skin.

She turns her head to him as he hands her the bottle again, it’s already half gone.

“Hm?”

He stands up, dusts off his jeans, “Stay here. I’ve got something for you.”

She nods. She suspects it’s her last check and she wonders if she should even take it, if she should even be taking her ex boyfriend's money in the first place. She wonders how her life got so screwed up, even when she was trying to untangle it all and tie it back together.

She hears the screen door creak open but she doesn’t bother looking, too wrapped up in her own thoughts, until Harry’s standing in front of her. Holding her guitar.

“H-Harry-” she scrambles to her feet, she must be dreaming, “W-what did you-”

He holds it out for her, shaking his head, “As a thank you. Niall helped me track it down.”

Her eyes well as she takes it from him, the smooth wood still fits her hands like they were made for each other. He must have interrogated every pawn shop in Nashville. He must have spent months trying to hunt it down and she had been completely oblivious.

“O-oh my god,” she shakes her head, “H-Harry thank you, you have no idea-”

He shakes his own head and cuts her off, “No, Lo. Thank you.”

She doesn’t register anything but his arms wrapping around her for the first time in years. She knows whatever comes next, will be better than what she’s been through.

*

Six months later, even though it’s just The Bullet, Louise can’t help but be wracked with nerves. It’s the first time she’s played anything for anyone that isn’t Harry in almost a year. It’s the first time she’s put her face out there so publicly in their tiny town since she left all those years ago. But now, she has Harry by her side.

All the nerves disappear when she steps onto the little stage with Harry by her side and a shot of whiskey in her veins. She never in a million years thought she’d be singing with him again, let alone in public, and she’s certain half the town didn’t either. But just a year ago she never in a million years would have thought she’d rebuild so many bridges.

She never thought her parents would be able to look her in the eye again if she ever returned, let alone be smiling when she walked in the door every evening for dinner. She never thought her sister would be able to stand being in the same room as her, let alone become her biggest supporter again. Most of all, she never thought Harry Styles could or would ever forgive her, but three years is a long time gone.

They play a small set, a few songs they’ve written together and a few well known covers. Their voices sound even better carrying out through the small bar than they did in Harry’s living room sat at his piano. When she hears that, when she feels it in her chest, she forgets all about the eyes of everyone around her and what they’re thinking. She lets herself feel, she lets herself love music again.

When they finish, she feels like she’s in a dream. She swears Niall’s cheers from behind the bar are the loudest as Harry wraps an arm around her waist and leads her offstage. Her heart is beating in her ears, adrenaline running through her veins. She hasn’t felt so good in years.

Harry leads her to the bar and orders her a Jack and Coke. Niall beams proudly and tells them it’s all on the house. They drink until their hearts are beating regularly again and then they dance. They dance to every song they know and every one they don’t. They dance as if the past three years haven’t happened, as if they’re just kids in love again. They dance until Louise’s feet ache and she needs fresh air.

Harry stumbles out the back after her. She doesn’t remember when their hands had intertwined but she doesn’t particularly mind even if she should. She leans against the building, trying to catch her breath as the cool night air wraps around them.

“This is the best night I’ve had in forever,” she breathes, feeling his warm, steady body next to hers.

“Lo,” his voice is low and gravelly and makes her eyes pop open. He’s closer than she imagined. So close that she can see every freckle and pore on his cheeks. So close she can count the shades of green in his eyes like she used to when they were kids.

“Hm?” she blinks up at him through her eyelashes, wishing for the millionth time in the past few months that she could read his mind. She wishes she knew him like she used to, what he wants or what he’s going to do. She thinks she’s getting better at it though.

He shakes his head, smiling softly as if he’s in on a joke she’s never heard before. She waits, head spinning with a million things he could say, before he’s tilting his head down to press his lips to hers as if nothing had ever changed. As if he still loves her, even after all of it.

*

They wind up tangled beneath his cotton sheets, a mess of long limbs and sticky skin, cool night air flowing through the open window. She’s a little bit proud of herself for lasting six months back home before ending up in bed with him. And even now, she doesn’t regret it. It’s better than she’d remembered.

“Stay,” his arms wind around her waist, his hands finding her hips to pull her back to him, “Please.”


The words take her back to the night she left, to the screaming and crying and slamming of the screen door. To words unsaid and ones she never meant. To fear and regret and the itch for something more, something she’d thought was better.

But she’d been wrong. She didn’t need more. She didn’t need bigger or brighter, money or fame. Chasing that had never made her happy like this. Like him. Like the songs they’d written together. Like their love.

She rolls over in his arms to face him, to take in his expression. It’s nearly identical to the one she left behind. The one begging her not to leave, not like that, in the middle of the night without a word to anyone else with a suitcase stuffed full. She doesn’t regret giving up, not when she’s gained a hell of a lot more.

She nods, her chest swelling with something bigger, more important, more fulfilling, “Always.”