Better for You

After my emotional outing with Abby, we had spent the rest of the day and Sunday just chilling in the dorm room with each other. Letting out all of the emotions that I had been keeping in for the past year had removed a massive weight off of my shoulders but the anger that I had expressed towards my father had also summoned older memories that hurt to remember. I was emotionally exhausted from feeling all the hurt that I had been repressing for the previous year and then to top that all off, I was missing my dad more than ever now that I had just relived the pain of him leaving me.

Today was Monday and it was a full-on day. I had gotten little sleep last night because of my overthinking about today, I had class in the morning and all that I could think of was seeing Harry again; how was I supposed to act? Should I be friendly, should I ignore Harry – I was uncertain on what terms our relationship was left on.

It was 6 am when I woke up from my crappy night’s sleep and I for the first time in a while I applied concealer to mask the signs of my exhausted state as well as applying some mascara and a little bronzer to bring some warmth to my pale complexion. Then, once I finally looked more like myself I then changed into a black, warm off the shoulder jumper with some mom jeans paired with some black converse.

The weather was slightly warmer today and so I didn’t both bringing a coat with me, however I regretted it as goose bumps still raised on the area of exposed skin on my shoulders as soon as I was greeted by the mildly cold January air. I quickly walked towards my car, feeling very grateful that Abby was able to drive it back from the beach to the dorms while I was at the hospital.

I drove to the Starbucks that Andy and I always met up at before our class and saw Andy pulling into a space while I waited outside of my car, wrapping my arms around my body as I waited patiently for Andy to park, which took her a while as she really wasn’t a fan of parking; even straight forward bay parking.

“Hey, nice parking.” I teased Andy as she got out of her car, to greet me with a glare before reluctantly accepting the hug that I offered her.

After a couple of short seconds, I pulled away and smiled at Andy before she sheepishly turned to look at her car that was parked at an angle in the bay, the bonnet of her car in the right corner of the space and the back left wheel of the car kissing the line on the left side of the spot. “The steering of the car makes parking really hard.” Andy muttered and I chuckled at her excuse to which Andy glared at me, causing me to the disguise my laughing as me coughing instead.

“So how was your weekend?” I asked Andy as we both entered Starbucks, feeling the inviting warm air blanketing my cold body and making me feel much more comfortable.

Andy looked over the Starbucks menu, for no apparent reason as she then ordered her usual vanilla latte and a blueberry muffin. I then ordered my usual Americano before turning to face Andy as she fiddled with the rings on her fingers before she faced me. “So I spent the weekend at Zayn’s.” Andy revealed to me and my mouth dropped in shock of Andy’s revelation. “But you can’t tell anyone because,” Andy sighed as her eyes scanned the café before she looked at me again, “no-one knows that we’re, like, seeing each other in that way.” Andy explained and I frowned at her response, not really sure of what she was implying or if I wanted to understand what she was implying.

“So what way do the others think that you’re seeing each other?” I questioned as our orders were placed in front of us and we collected our coffees before walking to the empty sofa towards the back of the café.

“They think that we’re just being friends, and to be fair we were kind of in the beginning but, I mean you’ve seen the guy, like it’s very hard to stay just friends with someone who is that damn attractive.” Andy justified and I nodded, I felt similar things with Harry – I knew that certain people *cough* Abby *cough* wouldn’t approve of us becoming an item but Harry was just so swoon worthy and the connection that we had made it just impossible to just stay friends.

“So what are you and Zayn then? Are you together together or just seeing how things go or what?” I asked to which Andy shrugged and shyly sipped on her latte.

“We’re not official or anything but we’re seeing how things go.” Andy revealed and I nodded my head, feeling slightly worried for her. I knew that Andy wasn’t stupid and that she could certainly stand up for herself but I wasn’t entirely sure if Zayn was worthy of her trust just yet and I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t hurt her again.

“Are you exclusive?” I checked and Andy nodded her head immediately as she chewed on some of her muffin.

“Oh definitely, I wouldn’t go through all of that again – trust me. Zayn’s reassured me that he wouldn’t repeat his mistakes and he’s actually been so respectful of everything, he’s just been amazing.” Andy told me with a wide grin on her face which I eventually mirrored, happy for my best friend’s happiness.

“Well so long as you stay this happy then I guess I have no reason to need to have words with Zayn.” I joked light-heartedly but there was definitely a hint of seriousness in my words – I was protective of my best friend’s happiness, sue me.

“I know that you probably don’t want to talk about her, but I need to ask,” I began, pausing to take a sip of my Americano before continuing, “how is Lucy?” I asked and I noticed Andy’s posture immediately stiffen, flooding my body with worry. “What? How bad is it?”

“Um,” Andy began, uncertain of how to phrase her sentence, “well she’s been spreading some not very nice rumours.” Andy answered honestly, as my blood turned to ice in my veins and anxiety flooded my body.

“Like what?” I asked tentatively my fingers fiddling with my wrist as I tried to calm myself down.

“She was trying to spread a rumour that Harry left you for her and that you, well, reacted badly and that was why you were in hospital.” Andy told me and I felt my body stiffen as my nails continued making patterns on my wrist until Andy’s eyes flickered to my wrist and her eyes widened.

Immediately Andy’s arm snapped out to grab my hand and remove it from my wrist, “Izzy, whoa.” Andy cried as I tilted my head to the side and furrowed my eyebrows at Andy’s reaction before diverting my attention wrist and my eyes widened as I saw hundreds of red scratch marks on my wrist with blood seeping through them and it was only then that I felt the throbbing pain of my actions on my wrist as I winced and quickly hurried to the toilets to clean my wrist of the blood.

My hands were shaking as I splashed the water over my wrist, hissing slightly as the cold water made contact with my inflamed wrist. “Izzy –” Andy began, but I quickly cut her off as I dried my wrist off with a paper towel before covering the marks with my jumper sleeve.

“We need to go to class.” I interrupted as I walked out of the toilets, towards the exit of Starbucks and in the direction of the lecture theatre.

“Izzy, you are not seriously going to pretend that that didn’t happen.” Andy hollered as she increased her walking pace so that she was walking alongside me.

“I don’t know what that was Andy, but I really don’t want to talk about it right now.” I pleaded to Andy, today was a big enough day today as it was and I didn’t need to try to understand why I had created a calming technique of tearing the skin on my wrists.

“Ok, we’ll talk about it later, but don’t think that you’re getting away with it because that’s not ok.” Andy told me and I nodded my head, showing that I agreed to Andy’s condition before entering the lecture theatre where my breath was stolen from me as I saw a dark figure hunched over his usual seat and desk.

I didn’t need to see the person’s face, I could recognise that silhouette anywhere and then the chocolate curls were the convicting feature. I slowly managed to get my breathing to return to its normal pattern and I then walked in the direction of my desk.

Timidly, I pulled out my chair and Harry’s head immediately jolted to look up at me, his tired looking green eyes searching my face, inspecting every single feature as if they told him everything that had happened for the previous two weeks that we had spent apart. I quickly looked over Harry's features, noticing the dark circles around his eyes and his pasty complexion, yet he still managed to look so beautiful that he broke and healed my heart at the same damn time.

“Hi,” I muttered quietly, raising my head to awkwardly wave at Harry as a small smile covered my face. Harry didn’t say anything in response as he continued gawking at me. I took a seat in my chair and turned to face the front of the classroom, still feeling Harry’s lingering gaze on me, making me feel incredibly uncomfortable – could he just stop with the staring?!

I sighed as I eventually grew sick of Harry’s unrelenting stare. “Is there something on my face?” I asked, flicking my face to face Harry who blinked a couple of times before sheepishly averting his attention to his table.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare, I just haven’t –” Harry began before pausing as he scratched the nape of his neck, “how have you been?” Harry asked me, finally raising his eyes to meet my own.

“I’ve been alright, slowly getting better; how about you?” I replied, my voice coming out unintentionally monotonous.

“I miss you.” Harry blurted, making both of our eyes widen in shock of what he had so openly admitted. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad or uncomfortable. I’ve missed you though, more than I thought possible. I get that you need space and stuff-” Harry began until he was cut off by Mr Richards as he entered the lecture theatre and commanded the attention of everyone.

I did notice Harry cutting me glances throughout the lecture but I chose to ignore them and instead focused ahead of me at Mr Richards as he proceed to lecture us on the foundation of family.