The Collection- Harry Styles

{Et In Ius} ii: sunday = sinday

His name is Harry. He's a demon.

That's all the information he's given her. Oh, and he's going to help her. How, he refuses to say, but she's wary of his method all the same. Y/N doesn't fully trust him (how can she, he's a demon) but she does know that she feels more at ease with him than she ever has with Jonah.

It's been five days since Harry made his way from her dream into the real world. She doesn't know where he stays or goes when he isn't around, but she does know that she feels hollow when he's gone.

"So, Jonah." Harry swirls his spoon in the bowl of ice cream. "He's a dick, yeah?"

They're in an ice cream shop in the next town over. She would die if anyone spotted her with such a...man. The last thing she needs is someone telling her husband she's hanging around with a deviant.

"Harry." Heat roses her cheeks as she pulls her cardigan over her chest. "He's still my husband."

At the mention of her matrimony, his face pinches together in distaste. He pushes his ice cream away. "He's a dick, Y/N. Smacks ya around and forces himself on you."

Mind-reading has to be some kind of demon power because she's never told him that. He knows a lot of things she's never said. He's either a stalker demon or a psychic one and she isn't sure which is worse.

"He's my husband." She repeats. "It's the will of-."

"Don't fuckin' say it." He hisses from across the small table. "Newsflash, ducky, God is dead. Or in hiding. No one's seen the fucker in a few millennia. Besides, I don't think the old man was one to support wife-beaters or rapists."

Rape? Was that...? No. It wasn't rape if he was her husband, right? He wasn't raping her. Was he?

"It's rape." Harry says duly. She draws her focus back to him. "Doesn't matter if you're wearing those ugly as fuck rings. He's forcin' himself on you. That's called rape. At least, sexual assault. Satan's fuckin' balls, Y/N, what do you know?"

She's never really been angry before- peeved off plenty- but never enraged. Not enough to lose her senses and become physically aggressive. She's never even raised her voice in outrage before. But she knows enough to recognize the coil of white-hot that's bubbling in her stomach is from anger. She's just not quite sure what- or who she's angry at.

Harry for popping into her life and forcing her to question beliefs she's always so solidly held foundation to; beliefs that had been the brick and mortar for her entire life. Maybe she's mad at Jonah for being possibly the worst husband- and preacher- to ever exist. For every shove and blistering smack of his palm against her cheek; every night he crawled into her bed and plied his clammy skin against hers and forced his way into her. Or maybe she's angry with her father, for the switch scars that decorate her back like tiger's stripes, the days spent copying the Bible word for word, verse for verse, until her hand bled from cracked callouses; for pushing her into a marriage she never wanted. She could be angry at her mother (but it's supposed to be wrong to be discontent with the deceased, or so she's heard) for abandoning her to a life akin to burning in Hell; taking the easy way out by leaping off a bridge instead of taking her daughter and running without looking back.

Or maybe, just maybe, she's mad at herself. An entire life's worth of mistakes: not fighting for herself and what she wants- and wanted- not standing up for herself when her father called her a dumb little girl and good for nothing. Angry at herself for never shoving Jonah out of her bed, out of her life. Or into oncoming traffic.

She realizes she's been staring at him dead-on for too long when he snaps his fingers in front of her face three times and wiggles his fingers. "Yoo-hoo, pretty little duckling, have you heard a word I've said?"