Darling (Harry Styles)

chap 20

ANNABELLE WILCOX
The House Away From Home

Another night with hardly any sleep and I was seriously wondering how I was still alive. Maybe the lack of sleep is why my emotions are so oddly placed and I can hardly remember what day it is anymore. Each one fades into the next so easily.

It's honestly become tiring, yet still won't keep me asleep at night. Just my luck, right?

The patio is so calming and silent but I miss the old one still. The memories that come from it. Meeting the boys for the first time. Confiding in Harry so many times — how foolish of a decision that truly was for me.

When they came home today from whatever business venture they had, Harry had a look of hatred mixed with yearning when he looked at me. Talk about the worst fucking combination to decipher honestly.

He didn't say a single word to any of us as we gathered in the kitchen and went straight upstairs to the room claimed as his own. The whole thing completely baffles me because if anyone here should be angry, it should be me.

And I really am.

It's not that I feel as though my heart was broken because I honestly didn't feel much for him, a simple schoolgirl crush from an electric kiss, and now all I can feel is anger. Every time I see him, it's just red.

I never should've pushed aside his blunt "she's going to die" comment so easily, but I never expected it to end with him having said he would be the one to kill me. Preferably, I hope no one kills me but apparently that's not an equation in his book of life. I forgot he was the all-knowing.

Maybe that's why he's always been different towards me — because he truly hates me. He truly hates me so much that he can't even act the same way as he does towards everyone else. It's fucking insane.

The whole situation makes me want to scream out profanities into the sky.

What have I done to make half the people who meet me to want me dead? And to offer to be the ones to do it? Jacob, Derek, Harry... who knows who else?

It hurts to even put Harry in that category.

But right now, the cool breeze is helping me with the distant smell of past fire Louis had started. Cooper insisted he wanted to do it, but then got far too scared to even place the firewood in correctly. It gave me a good laugh though.

My hair is down with rare appearance of my glasses helping me see out towards the tree line. The lanky forest brings peace through my body and I feel back home.

I feel what camping trips with my family felt like. I feel like old scavenger hunts with my school friends in the woods. I feel like that day in the woods with Harry. I feel at peace when I'm in the forest which is why I truly love that Louis continues to live inside of it.

A knock sounds on the back door behind me that at first doesn't register, then makes me jump once I realize it actually happened in real life. I turn around quickly, feeling a sense of relief at the familiar face as they open the door fully.

"Hi," he enters the cold air and closes the screen door behind him, heading to take a seat next to me, "didn't want to scare ya, teacup. Can't sleep?"