Our Little Secret - Harry Lewis, Wroetoshaw

Chapter 17

A/N - TW??? at the very end paragraph for subtle SH. I hope this doesn't offend anyone as this is something I too personally struggle with, I just felt that it represents the state Olivia is in.

April 2020

Olivia screwed her eyes up and cracked her neck. Harry was screaming in the other room whilst streaming and she didn't want to disturb him. She sent a quick email to her boss, asking for some assistance on a piece she was editing and closed her laptop, getting up from her seated position and stretching out the almost statue-like position she hadn't moved from in hours. Due to the pandemic, Olivia and Harry had been living together, at first in Harry's home and now back in his flat in Guernsey. Everything was going well, aside from the few meetings Olivia had been in where her co-workers had mentioned they could hear Harry yelling through the walls. One even asked if she could tell her little brother to be quiet, Olivia felt very embarrassed at this and scolded Harry once he finished recording.

Moving back to Guernsey, for the time being, had been a wonderful idea to Olivia. She could see her family and go on distanced walks with them, she could also see Jess from the end of the garden who was now starting to show. It also made everything seem a lot less pressured and scary. In London, she was terrified of the big crowds and refused to leave the house for any reason. In Guernsey, she could happily get the shopping as long as everyone kept their distance from her. She had suffered from panic attacks in the last few months worrying about the state of the world. When she asked about it, her friends just said it was normal to experience things like this.

In the kitchen, Olivia danced around, debating on making herself some toast when she heard Harry call her from the other room. She decided against the toast and went to see what he wanted, he was still on stream and Olivia hid her bare face. Her work from home attire consisted of a pair of leggings, a t-shirt stained with hair bleach from the time she and Jess had attempted to put blonde streaks in their hair when they were 17 that turned out disastrous and a chunky knitted cardigan. Her hair was growing longer now and was pulled back into a low ponytail.

"Harry I told you to stop bringing me on camera when I look this bad!" she groaned

He had called her in to prove to some viewers that they were still together and were in fact quarantining together. After Olivia answered a few questions that got put into the chat and noticed some hate comments she waved goodbye and messed up Harry's hair before returning to her work. She had been given a story to edit for the publication and the writer had made so many typos she felt herself getting angrier and angrier with each line, she couldn't tell if she was just irritable or the comments she had seen on Harry's computer had ruined her mood.

"Why don't people proofread their work" she mumbled to herself

On top of her job, Olivia had begun writing short stories and sending them to some work friends who were shocked to see that she had never had anything published before.

"I just write in my free time. It's nothing serious" she shrugged on the phone with her friend Eilidh

"I'd love to publish one of these Olivia. Would that be okay?" Eilidh asked

"Absolutely not. Those are just silly things. Let me write something properly and I'll think about it" Olivia thought aloud

When Harry entered the room and asked what the phone call was about she simply smiled and said work, she wasn't exactly lying but she wasn't exactly telling the truth either. She didn't want Harry to read her work as most of it was loosely based on their relationship. Stories about two shy teenagers that were too scared to admit their feelings to each other which led to years of confusion and a slight bitterness and resentment toward one another in their adulthood. The stories never usually ended happily and that's why Olivia didn't want Harry to read them, because perhaps in her mind she believed this is how it would end between them, up in smoke just like in the stories. Perhaps there was some part in her mind that wanted this to be the end so she could live freely and not worry about comments on videos of the two of them or her Twitter mentions being full of horrible things about her appearance.

Writing gave Olivia a space to vent through her fictional characters. After the argument, she and Harry had after the party at Simon and JJ's she wrote a story about a girl named 'Ellie' who was so tragically insecure in herself she went around and seduced other girls boyfriends. Olivia deleted this story before she even got to finish knowing that it wasn't very feminist of her to bash the women in the situation when Harry was just as much to blame. She then wrote about a girl who cheated on her boyfriend to get back at him, as if she was living vicariously through this figment of imagination. This was soon deleted too.

Harry poured himself a cup of tea and shouted over to Olivia "Coffee?"

"No thanks. If I drink any more I think I'll be running about the house like Sonic. My leg keeps bouncing" she laughed

"You work so hard, couldn't be me" he smirked

"You do work hard. When Josh makes you" she ribbed

Harry planted himself down on the couch beside her and before Olivia could click exit Harry noticed that on her screen was a story she had worked on recently she was re-reading.

"What's that?" he asked

"What's what?" Olivia pretended she didn't know what he was talking about

"This" Harry said pulling the laptop over to him and reopening the document

"It's just something I worked on a while back," Olivia said placing a hand to the back of her neck

Harry skimmed the screen, his eyes darting back and forth on the screen. This particular story took place in an apartment where a couple argued about what to watch on Netflix and by the end had discovered that they hated everything about each other, starting with the indecisiveness of the woman, ending with the sheer arrogance of the man. Olivia held her breath as Harry knotted his eyebrows together, reading the final sentence. Waiting painfully for him to realise this was based on an argument they had had recently over why Harry refused to watch anything with Olivia.

"This is really good Liv. I didn't know you had been writing" he smiled

"Just now and then. Nothing serious" she said

"Imagine being in a relationship like that" Harry grimaced widening his eyes

Olivia gave a weak smile and forced a laugh, although their relationship wasn't nearly as bad as the one she had depicted in the story she couldn't help but feel terribly guilty for writing about these problems that Harry was so unaware of that he didn't even recognise even though he was reading them.

Taking her laptop and shutting it off, Olivia announced she was going to go for a bath. When she shut the door she sat down on the cool tile, resting her head on the side of the bath while it ran. She placed her hand under the running tap and retracted it quickly due to the temperature. Instead of turning the temperature down, she put her hand back under and let the hot tap run over her fingers, turning them a salmon pink colour. Olivia did not wince, she just sat there. Holding her hand under the tap until she no longer could.