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Fifty Nine

Harry Styles

The past few days have been a bit of an adventure so far.

It's been about three days since Aubrey moved in with me. Everything is finally unpacked. The guest room has been turned into her storage space at this point because of how much she has. Her clothes that don't fit in my closet are there along with her books, family photos, spare paintings, and other little pieces of memorabilia that Jade and Zayn have been bringing over here in waves. Elora's t-shirt, one of Charlie's collars, and many more small things all sit tucked away in drawers or on top of the bed.

Her car is in the parking garage, two of her paintings are hung above my desk, and her clothes are in my closet. Her shampoo is in my shower, she has her own sink in my bathroom, her strawberries are in my fridge, her candy in my pantry, and we've started to develop a sort of morning routine.

I've never lived with someone other than Ruby before, so this entire process feels so foreign to me. It doesn't help that she still feels extremely guilty for staying here. She thinks she's a burden to me in every way possible, but she couldn't be more wrong.

I enjoy her company more than I have the confidence to tell her.

We've already done a lot today. Since it's Tuesday, meaning she has therapy, we were both nervously awaiting the clock to tick down and force us to leave our safe little bubble we've created in the loft. Our job also can't be put on hold over this whole stalker situation, meaning we needed to get papped at some time this week. We thought it would be best to knock out two birds with one stone.

Everything started off normal with our shower, brushing our teeth, me changing her bandages, us eating breakfast together, and both of us getting ready to go out. It was all great until I told her I wanted to bring my gun with me solely for the purpose of her protection.

She obviously didn't like the idea in the slightest, which resulted in a slight disagreement between the two of us. I explained my side of the matter and how if someone was willing to shoot at her in the middle of a crowded club, I wasn't taking our chances with that happening a second time. Sure, we may have only been going to the grocery store to get papped, but I still wasn't willing to risk it.

After a while of calming her nerves, she said it would be fine as long as she didn't see the thing. So far, she hasn't, and I really hope it stays that way. The only situation in which she'd see it would be one where she was put into some sort of danger.

I'm sitting in the car waiting for her to come out from her appointment. We went to the store and got everything she needed, the trip being short and a bit odd since I never wouldn't pictured myself going out buying groceries with Aubrey Hart.

We even had a tech guy check out her phone at a store nearby in hopes of finding some sort of evidence, but the man said the messages have no trace of even existing. They weren't just deleted from the phone, the job had to have been done with a computer or some other device. That only made both of us worry more, so we told the guy to forget it and left before he had time to question our reasoning for wanting the texts back. We dropped everything back at the loft before coming here so none of the cold food would be ruined with the wait.

The weapon has remained tucked into my waistband for hours now, and I'm left alone at the moment to sit and think over these past few days without any sort of distraction from my own mind.

She's been as okay as she can be with everything going on. I'm just trying to help her in any way I can. I can't help but feel like this is somehow all my fault. As stupid as it may sound, I have this annoying gut feeling.

I try to push that to the very back of my mind, but all that does is fill the forefront with the fact that I'm truly torn up about the loss of a cat. I know we don't have clear evidence that he's dead or anything, but there's no way for us to find him if he isn't. No texts to trace back, fingerprints to use to identify, or ideas as to who this could be tormenting Aubrey.