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Sixty

TW// HEAVY DESCRIPTION OF ABUSE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT

Aubrey Hart

Harry has seemed a bit off for days now.

He's not exactly closed-off, but definitely less talkative than I'm used to. Who used to be a barrel full of questions and nosiness has now become a quiet observer, seeming too in his own head a lot of the time to focus on anything else.

The most I've heard him speak since the night Jade and the guys came over was when Ruby called and asked him what the hell happened at the club. Everyone has heard about it on the news by now, and he told me that she was worried about us. Niall and Liam were, too. After he explained the call to me, he went back to his newfound routine of being quiet and spacing out to think.

We've made it to the one-week mark of me living here, which also means I don't have to wear bandages on my back anymore. The scabs are still there, but they're smaller and have healed enough to not be covered.

Since I've only been living here for a short time, I'm not sure if his silence is just a part of him I never knew about, or if he's actually bothered by something. I could tell he was a bit upset about Charlie, but whatever this is feels like much more.

I would never ask him what's wrong, though. If it was my business, he would say something. It just makes me wonder a bit.

Along with Harry's odd behavior, I've been thinking about the stupid letter tucked away in his desk drawer nonstop. I want to just get over myself and read it like Maggie has been telling me to, but I can never bring myself to actually open up the envelope. When Harry's busy doing his own thing, I sometimes make my way upstairs and get as far as holding the sealed paper in my hands.

Still, I've never opened it and allowed myself to see more of her handwriting. My name scribbled in her soft pencil lettering on the front is enough to rip my heart from my chest entirely.

Things have gotten so much better, yes, but that doesn't make everything easy.

To distract myself from both of our internal issues, I've been reading even more than I normally would. It's always been my escape, after all. Right now, I'm laying my head in Harry's lap with a book in front of my face.

His silence doesn't mean he doesn't hang around me for the majority of the day. He's just a lot quieter than he normally would be. No questions about what I'm reading, no playful teasing, nothing. His hand stays knitted in my long messy hair as my lavender quilt covers the lower half of my body, his lips tightened into a line, and his eyes staring blankly at the wall while I read to myself.

He's in one of my Cigarettes After Sex t-shirts today, and I'm in one of his KISS tees. I'm in a pair of my comfortable yoga pants with it, him in a simple pair of black joggers to go for a very monochromatic look. I like that we trade clothes so often. I like having a piece of him covering my skin. I enjoy the fact that he has a piece of me with him, too.

My eyes run over the white inked pages, my brain absorbing every word of the story in my hands. This book is one of the random ones Gloria suggested one day that I promised I'd read at one point and review for her. I've never even heard of the author, leading me to believe that this person is more of a personal connection to her since she's going as far as recommending their work.

Grace Madden is her name. She wrote this book over a decade ago and apparently hasn't written anything since. Gloria gave me a brief story about her, which is what makes me think they somehow know each other.

It's a good story, though. The main character went through hell before finally finding the love interest. Unlike the majority of the books I read, falling in love isn't the main point. What it took for her to get there is. Some parts at the beginning were extremely hard to get through without crying, but I'm thankfully past that now.