try to fix you // h.s.

sixteen: conflicted

chapter sixteen. 

// sutton \\ 

It's been 3 days since I spoke with Harry over the phone, though it hadn't ceased the array of text messages I was receiving from him. He had stopped calling me; I didn't know if I was happy or sad about it or not. 

Still, I couldn't bring myself to respond to his messages.

On the dot, he texted me as I finished pinning my hair up for work. 

Harry: good morning pretty girl. i hope you have a wonderful day. i really wish you would talk to me. 

Letting out a sigh as a smile crept on my face, I typed out a response multiple times before forcing myself to erase all of them. 

I don't deserve him. We were supposed to say goodbye. 

As soon as my phone made contact with my back pocket for me to walk out of my hotel room and start my commute to work, it vibrated meticulously in my hands, signaling a phone call.

For the first time in three days, Harry's name glazed across the screen as a caller. 

The next thing I knew, I was holding the phone to my ear as I closed the door of my hotel room behind me, unconsciously answering his call. 

"Good morning beautiful," Harry's voice made me weak in the knees simply through the phone, "I'm surprised you picked up. Been trying to give you some space...well, I know I text you every day. I just want you to know I'm here for you but I didn't want to overwhelm you." 

"You don't need to worry about me, Harry," I responded as coolly as possible, trying to hide the shakiness of my voice, "I'm alright."

"I'm not." 

"Harry...." 

"No, Sutton," Harry said sternly, though not with malice and without raising his voice. "You left without telling me goodbye." 

I bit my lip as I crossed the road, gripping my phone in my hand, holding it so tight to my ear I could make out every layer of static through the phone. 

"It was better this way," I responded lowly. 

"For who? You or me? I can't wrap my head around you disappearing a day early being beneficial to me." 

"For you, Harry. You have no idea who I really am," I said as I took a break from walking, leaning against the window of the storefront.

"You never even gave me the chance, Sutton," he said, "please let me see you so we can talk about this." 

"I can't, I'm sorry." 

"Sutton, please. I am driving myself crazy worrying about you," he said through the phone. 

"Then stop worrying about me." I pushed myself from the surface of the window, taking strides again towards work. I could now see it in the distance as I picked up my pace so I wouldn't be late.

"Don't you understand?" he asked rhetorically; I could tell he was getting flustered but he never changed his tone of voice. "I can't. Every waking moment I spend thinking of you. If I'm not spending the day worrying about you, I'm missing you." He paused. "I just...I just need to see you. I am begging you."

Just like that, my other hand was wrapped around the door of the restaurant, saving me from this confrontation any longer.  

"I have to go, Harry." Before I heard another note of his voice, I hung up to the phone, once again submitting to my inner self reminding me I wasn't good enough for him.