18 - h.s

thirty six

Sophia Elliot

"Harry?" I speak up after a little while of silence as we both sat in his room. I kept my gaze on the floor while I heard him shuffle around on his bed, leaning down towards me and placing his chin on my shoulder while he leaned over me from his bed as I sat on the floor below him. 

"Hm?" he hummed in question as I pulled my eyes from the floor and turned to look at him. He pulled his head from my shoulder and leaned on his elbows with his arms crossed, making eye contact with me as he was now laying on his stomach while I stayed in the same position as before.

I sat in thought for a few seconds, gearing myself up to say something, although I wasn't sure why I was so nervous to tell him. 

At my lack of an answer, he knitted his eyebrows together and gave me a concerned expression while leaning closer to me which was not helping my nervousness. Harry tilted his head and his expression softened as he asked me what was wrong. 

I immediately shook my head to let him know there was nothing wrong and cleared my throat to talk to him and finally get out what I had been trying to for the past few minutes.

"They know."

His features tensed up again and he nodded his head slowly as he seemed to mentally take note of what  I was saying. He pulled back and I immediately slammed my eyes shut and sighed, knowing I had fucked up and mentally thrashing myself for it. 

I heard the rustling of his sheets behind me and I opened my eyes back up to see him now swiveled around on his bed and sitting on the edge of it, his elbows on his knees while he looked at me. He removed his elbows from his knees and placed his hands on either side of him and pushed his body forward, slowly lowering himself down to sit on the floor beside me. 

"They know what?" he questioned, his voice sounding hoarse due to not speaking for a little while, almost like a morning voice. He pushed his knees up, making his legs bent, and placed his elbows on the top of his knees, clasping his hands together as they rested there. He kept his gaze on me, his eyes flicking quickly in between mine and then all over my face as he tried to read my expression to get an answer from me despite it not being a verbal one. I swallowed at his eye contact and ran my tongue across my lips as my mouth suddenly began to feel incredibly dry. "Do they know it's me?"

I shook my head and he raised his eyebrows, making me clear my throat again and give him an audible answer instead. "No."

"So what have you told them?" he asked with a confused expression on his face as he tried to piece together what the fuck I was even going on about. 

"Just that I had a boyfriend but I didn't tell them it was you or anything." as I spoke, he nodded his head at my words and made sense of them in his head. 

"What was their reaction? Were they mad or anything?" Harry smirked, wanting to know if the whole pissing them off thing went to plan. I just shrugged and sighed before shaking my head. His smirk disappeared and he had a glum expression on his face. 

"They were quite happy actually." I turned my eyes away and averted my gaze back down to the floor in front of me. "I honestly don't think I've ever seen my mother that happy. And my dad, well. My dad wouldn't stop smiling the entire time." My monotone voice contrasted the happiness of the situation I was talking about as Harry simply sat and listened. "That's probably the longest he's gone without yelling at me in a while."

"He yells a lot?" Harry chose his words carefully and spoke them with a cautious tone, almost walking on eggshells around me. I said nothing and just nodded my head, making him place a hand on my shoulder gently, enough to know he was there but not holding on too firmly. "I'm sorry," He spoke with pity which made me want to scream, I don't deserve to be pitied, there's nothing wrong with my home life. So many other people have it so much worse. He just yells a lot. No big deal. All dads yell. 

I furrowed my eyebrows at his apology while turning to look at him. "Why? It's fine." I decided I should definitely keep my mouth shut about the whole run-in with Josh and the fact he ended up stopping dad from hitting me. Again. He opened his mouth to object but I cut him off by changing the subject. "Anyway, they want to meet you." 

To those words, he pushed himself up from the floor using the bed behind him and rose to his feet, grabbing his packet of cigarettes from his bedside table and walking over to the window that was open. The room fell silent apart from the sound of him flicking his lighter open and lighting his cigarette before turning to face out of the window. He took a drag and blew the smoke out of the window which was counterintuitive because it blew right back in from the wind and the smell of the cigarette mixed with the scent of Harry's room; consisting of his cologne, cigarettes, and now my perfume. 

"When?" Harry's question cut through the silence in the room before he took another drag.

"Tomorrow." 

Harry turned around at my answer and looked taken aback. With his eyes wide he took another drag and blew it right into the room this time although not in my direction. "Tomorrow?" his brows raised whilst his lit cigarette was being held between his index and middle finger as it burned down further. "As in Monday, school tomorrow, tomorrow?" he clarifies with a worrisome expression and I felt terrible to have to tell him yes because he looked so scared for some reason. 

I nodded and he turned away to take another drag and blew it out the window. I stayed still and looked back down at the floor, worrying already about the fact I may have fucked up already. 

"Want the last bit?" he spoke back up, making me snap my head round to look at him as he held out the half-smoked cigarette to me as he leaned against the windowsill. I nodded and pushed myself up off the floor and dragged my feet over to him as if I were a small child that had just been yelled at by a teacher. I muttered a thank you and took it, him saying nothing.

I closed my eyes and wrapped my lips around it before taking a deep inhale, the nicotine filling my lungs and immediately calming me down. After my deep inhale, I blew the smoke out of the window as I opened my eyes to see, in my peripheral vision, Harry watching me intently as I smoked. 

We avoided eye contact with each other but I knew he was staring at me. I turned back around to look out of the window and took the last drag before stubbing it out as Harry told me to just throw it out of the window which I complied with to avoid any more conflict, I'd already had my fair share of it for the day. 

"What if they don't like me?" Harry spoke up with a wavering voice, making me tilt my head at his question. Our eyes connected as he looked with a scared expression, his eyes looking tired, seemingly feeling beaten down whilst I noticed him playing with the ring that sat on his middle finger, which I noticed was the one he played with the most. It was a spinner ring, he spun the outer part of the ring around on his finger, almost as if it were his purpose to do so.

"They will, Harry." I moved closer to him and stood directly in front of him although he didn't break eye contact with his ring as he continued to spin it. I reached out and grabbed his hand to stop him from playing with it and held his hands in mine as he looked up at me. I was almost taken back for a moment, I wasn't sure I'd seen him quite this vulnerable. "You have nothing to worry about."

Apart from Josh.

You might have to worry about him.

He cleared his throat and pulled back from me, making my grip on his hands loosen as he stood up straight and ran his hand back through his hair to move it from covering his face slightly. He was suddenly a completely different person, sudden confidence to contrast from a second ago. 

He leaned back from me and went to close the window, slamming it shut a little more abruptly than I had anticipated him to. 

"I mean, it doesn't matter if they don't like me." My eyebrows furrowed at his words before he continued, back still to me. "This isn't real anyway."