Wandering

7|

I'm waiting by Harry's front door behind my mom, picking at my fingernails nervously. I can't wait to get home. I hear the door creak open and I look up to see Harry smirking at me.
"Good to see you Ms. Barran. Chiara." He smiles at my mom and nods at me.
"Harry how are you?" My mom asks in... excitement.
"I'm good. How are you?" He acts so kind.
"Great, thank you Harry." She gives him a smile.

Tom, Harry's dad, comes up behind him.
"Jess. Chiara. Come in!" He says, kindly.
"How have you been Chiara." Tom asks.
"Ok." I shrug, not wanting to speak.
"She's not much of a speaker." My Mom fills him in.
"Oh right." He nods.

Harry takes my moms coat and hangs it up whilst we take our shoes off. I follow my mom awkwardly and she sits at a stool in the kitchen. I take another stool and look around. Their house is huge. LED lights strip the inside of the cabinets giving the kitchen a cool feel. I swing non-nonchalantly in my stool whilst listening to the small talk between the people around me.

"Harry why don't you hang around with Chiara whilst we talk through some things." Tom looks between me and Harry.
"Sure Dad. Bye Jess." Since when are Harry and my mom on a first name basis.

I scoot out the stool and follow Harry. He leads up to the stairs and outside a door. He opens the door and he instantly flops on his bed. I stand awkwardly in the door frame, not really knowing what to do.
"Are you coming in or not?" Harry asks with a smug face.
"I guess." I close the door behind me.
"Why'd you close the door?" His smirk reappears.
"Why do you keep your door open?" I reply sarcastically.

I take a seat on the chair in the corner of the room and look around, as long as I'm not looking at him. Harry texts on his phone, not acknowledging me so I don't really know what to do. I get up and look out the window. I sit on the floor, watching the wind blow the trees a little. I close my eyes to think for a second. Once I get bored, I get back up and look at a shelf on Harry's wall.

There's pictures of him and Zach as young kids along with the rest of the group. They seemed like such sweet and innocent kids but if you knew the people I grew up with in high school, you would know different.

"What are you doing?" I jump as Harry said into my ear, behind me.
"Uh... looking around? I'm bored." I shrug.
"Yeah? Well stop snooping." He snaps.
"Maybe if I wasn't forced to be here I wouldn't be snooping." I snap back.
"Get used to it. Our parents are together a lot." He rolls his eyes.
"I know. I heard."

I probably shouldn't have said that. Now he's going to ask how I know and I can't say Chris and Ben told me because he'll go after them.
"Who told you?" He's oddly calm.
"No one really. I just assumed." I shrug.
"Right." He looks directly at me and I feel so uncomfortable.

I go back to sit on the chair in the corner of the room. I lay my head in my hands and let out a deep sigh. I feel tears in my eyes but I don't let them fall. I wipe my eyes to get wipe away the feelings. It wasn't sadness, I guess I was just tired and I don't know what to do.

"Chiara..." Harry's voice is soft.
"What?" I snap.
"I'm... sorry." He seems genuine.

I scoff. He's sorry. The Harry Hunt is sorry. Yeah this is got to be some joke.
"Harry you're not sorry. You did all of that shit for a reason. If you were truly sorry you would have never done anything to me in high school. You were part of the reason I went to Italy." I rant.
"Chiara I am sorry. I swear. I- I was just jealous." He stutters over his words.
"What's there to be jealous of? Did you not see me crying at school everyday. Did you not see me practically begging for help. You're clueless." I scoff again.
"Jealous because at first you were happy. I wanted that." He says below a whisper.
"Harry... I was never happy." I feel the tears coming. "Until this Summer and I was gone." I smile at the memories of summer.

He looks me in my eyes and I see something in his eyes.
"You were never happy?" His voice is still low.
"No." I shake my head.
"This was my fault." He runs his hands through his hair.
"Yeah. It pretty much is." I don't even bother reassuring him. He knows what he did was wrong.

Tom shouts up that dinner was ready and the both of us get up. I go first and I hear Harry a little behind me. I stand in the kitchen, not knowing where we were sitting. Harry walks into a room behind me and I see food plated on the table.

"Go sit next to Harry." Mom urges me.

I walk over to him but he doesn't make eye contact. I take a seat beside him and pull my hair behind my face. Tom and my Mom take a seat opposite us and begin serving themselves with the food in the food in the centre of the table. I take some and lay my plate down.

Once we finish eating, my mom cleared her throat and each of us looked at each other.
"Chiara, I should probably tell you this." I raised an eyebrow as my mom began to speak.
"Me and Tom are together." She finally lets it out.
"I know." I show no emotion.
"How?" My mom has a tone of rudeness laced in her voice.
"I told her." Harry sticks up for me.

I'm so confused. He has never been nice to me. He tells me he's sorry and now he's defending me?
"Oh right." My mom nods, I can tell she's trying not to lash out on Harry.

We finish up dinner with short conversations here and there but Harry hasn't said a word since he spoke to my mother. I'm so confused.