Collide (Impact Book 2) | h.s. | complete

18. Revelation

~Harry~

I sat on my bed, staring at my phone for a while before I dropped it and ran my hands over my face, exhaling until my lungs felt completely empty. Allegra was right, she really had lost everything and that was nothing I could do now, but so much I could have done before. There was so much I could have done to protect Victoria before it got this far. Before she ran away from her entire family and away from me. I swung my legs out and over the side of the bed. As I crossed my room I lifted my phone, momentarily considering ringing Kendall, but I dropped it again when I saw that my top drawer was cracked open slightly. I pulled at the knob and stared down at a photo of Tori and I in Paris that I had stuffed it there months ago. With shaking hands, I reached down and lifted it slightly before dropping it and covering it with t-shirts. I slammed the drawer closed and straightened, then walked out of the room. Zayn was walking down the hall as I cracked open my door, headed for Tori’s room and he eyed me suspiciously.

“Where are you off to, then?” He asked, leaning against the door frame of his room.

 "Oh, I was going to grab something from the spare room.”

“And what exactly is that?” He asked crossing him arms.

“There’s this soap in the bathroom that I really like, soft as a baby’s bottom when you wash with it.” I said, walking past him and cracking the door open. My heart dropped and I felt nauseas as I took in the room around me. Nothing had changed, the bed was still made exactly to Tori’s liking, the pictures still hung carefully and perfectly spaced on the wall and her favorite Diptyque candle still sat beside her bed. Our bed.

“You alright, mate?” Zayn asked from behind me and I swallowed hard, nodding. 

“Yea, of course.” I said, taking another step and closing the door behind me. I walked to the beside table and slid the drawer open and pulled out her notebook. As I sat on the bed, I cracked it open, feeling as if there were something that I was missing. I flipped through the pages for close to an hour, reading every word one every page, coming up with nothing. I tossed it across the room and it hit the wall across from me, lying open to the last page. Breathing slowly I walked to it, picking it up once more. I pulled at the last page, and then ran my fingers slowly over the one before it noticing the difference between the weigh and the thickness. Carefully, I tugged at the pages and they slowly came apart revealing neat, blue inked, cursive letters. Tori’s writing.

9717 Des Tanneurs

Bathroom sink, left side.

 

I looked up, glancing at the bathroom door skeptically, and then I felt my feet take me towards it, heavy as lead. When I reached the sink, I turned on the tap to drown out the noise of whatever I was about to do. I crouched, leaving the notebook on the counter and opened the left hand door. Taped to the inside of the cupboard was a large white envelope and if I hadn’t been looking for it, I would never have found it. I tugged at it until it came loose from the lines of tape keeping it in place and sat on the floor, opening it carefully. Two sets of passports, driver’s licenses and birth certificates and a smaller white envelope tumbled out onto the cool tile floor. Staring up at me from the shiny cards with vacant eyes, were Tanner and Tori. I picked up the second envelope and pulled out a stack of papers, photocopies of new documents. Tanner and Tori’s pictures looked relatively the same, probably newer, but the same blank stares crossed their face. Tori’s name read Claire Montgomery and Tanner’s was changed to Jake Freeman.  I dropped everything onto the floor and closed my eyes, my eyebrows knit together in concentration. With a wave of realization it dawned on me that Tori had never left me. Tori would have given all of this a fair fight if she thought there was one to be had, she would have fought until the end of time to make things right for Allegra and Audra, and for Zayn, Louis, Liam, Niall and I after what had happened. Tori hadn’t run away, she was hiding and she really didn’t want to be found.

“Harry, man, what are you doing in there?” Zayn’s voice startled me with a knock on the door and I leapt to my feet, scrambling to stuff the papers back in the cupboard. I had just closed it when Zayn appeared in the doorway and I rushed to grab the notebook but my hand knocked it into the sink under that running water, which cascaded over the page I was on.

“Fuck.” I screamed, grabbing it, pushing it under a hand towel and wiping desperately.

“What is that?” Niall asked from behind Zayn.

“Is that the notebook?” Zayn asked stepping towards me. I opened the book and felt a slow sweat prickle up my spine as I looked at the now completely smudged pen that once read an address that would lead me to Tori.

“Fuck.” I repeated, throwing it at the wall.

“We have all of the songs written down.” Niall said, watching Zayn cross the room and pick it up, inspecting it carefully.

“The address, the fucking address.” I rambled, sinking to the floor.

“What address?” Zayn asked, handing Niall the notebook.

“There was an address in it. I thought maybe…”

“For god’s sake, it’s over Harry. I wont say it again.” Zayn said, leaving the room. Niall watched me for a while before crouching, putting the book on the ground, the stood and left me on the floor of the bathroom.

A/N: Totally unedited which I'm so sorry about. I'm going through some weird personal stuff and it's kind of effecting my writing. I promise to go back and edit when things are clearer but i wanted to update today.