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Chapter 64

I want you
I'll colour me blue
Anything it takes to make you stay
Only seeing myself
When I'm looking up at you.

– Troye Sivan, Blue

. . . .

I'm abruptly woken up by the car jerking forward to a sudden stop and a beat-up, rusted truck speeding away in front of us. Glancing over at Harry's ghostly face, his breathing is heavy and out of rhythm.

"Are you girls okay?" He presses on the gas and drives away from the potential accident with uneasy eyes and shaky hands.

"Yeah," Lilly says from the backseat.

"Sorry I woke you up."

"It's not your fault. What happened?"

"I was just driving and this asshole cut me off when there weren't any cars behind me."

"We're fine—that's all that matters."

When we finally get to a large book store, Harry gets out and walks round to our side and opens Lilly's door for her while she gets out of the car. While the three of us walk towards the store, Harry grabs onto my hand—whether that's instinctively or purposefully, I don't know.

The entire way here from the time that I fell asleep to the second I woke up, all I was apprehensive about was the constant glares and curious whispers. I don't like people staring at or judging me. I can't handle it as well as some other people, like Harry. I look up to him for that.

"It'll be okay, Vi." He reads my mind with ease and squeezes my hand, holding open the door for me and several older women behind us. They all swoon over Lilly and her adorable dimpled cheeks, and of course, her handsome father.

After the women tear away from Lilly, she struggles to get down from her father's arms and run off to the kid's section, but it's too crowded and the store's giant. Instead, we walk over and let Lilly sort through the colourful assortment of books.

Still under our supervision, she skims through each and every display and reads the back of a few short stories. Harry, using his hand still leaching onto mine, pulls me into his chest and wraps the other arm around my waist. It must look as if we're about to start slow dancing but we make no movements and the only music that's playing is the smooth jazz filtering through the speakers at the top of the high ceilings.

He kisses my cheek and goes in for my lips, but I pull away. I quickly apologize and say, "I'm sorry about earlier. I know it hurts you when I say those things, and I don't mean to say them as harshly as they come out, you know that. I hate hurting you."

He sighs and scratches the back of his head, "You know I hate it when you say that shit, yet you still proceed to do it anyway."

"I know! And I'm sorry that I do it, but I'm just not ready yet to be public with our relationship with people that we know. I want you to respect that."

"I'm trying to, but I don't care what they think."

"Harry, you told basically your entire family about us. How is that you trying to respect my decision?"

We've now broken apart from our embrace and our arms are crossed in front of our chests or flying around in the air, instead of holding each other. Neither one of us is allowing our anger to show; I'm only exhausted and he's upset that we're allowing the damn age difference to get the best of us.

"I told them about you because I'm not ashamed to be dating you." He drops down into a tiny wooden seat at the brightly painted child tables decorated with books even from my childhood. His expression is pained and dismay is etched into every crease in his forehead. "I'm not going to hide you the way you hide me."