Nowhere In Particular // H.S.

Twenty-Eight: Bus Station Woes

"Hmm," Harry hums as he swipes his finger across his phone, leaning his shoulder in closer to mine. I move my head rest my chin on top, breathing out quietly as I focus my eyes on his phone screen. "Yeah... this is my mom."

I blink slowly as I look at the picture on the screen. His thumb continues to rest on top, but he leaves the majority of the picture uncovered for me to look at it. It's him, looking a little younger than he does now, standing next to a woman with dark hair and an arm around his waist hugging him with a smile that shows the crinkles by her eyes.

It's obvious to me that this is his mother. Even if he didn't just tell me this it would have been easy to figure out. The only thing that would have kept this thought away is that she looks so young, despite the crinkles by her eyes. But she looks beautiful and happy and proud, and so does Harry.

Seeing this picture makes it difficult to imagine his mom in the way he's made her out to be. I know he's said that they get along better than him and his dad, and that she's only a bit passive in the situation. But when I look at this picture with the two of them appearing full of life I wouldn't expect anything but love between them.

"She's really pretty," I tell Harry, smiling at the happy looking picture of them.

"Yeah," he nods. "It's a wonder my dad managed to capture her attention."

I laugh quietly, leaning my head down to rest over his t-shirt and he starts to swipe over his phone again. I watch as it goes from pictures of plants, to a picture of the boat he says he worked on, to a sunset over the ocean, to a funny selfie of Harry sticking his tongue out that he swear he thought he deleted.

He doesn't say much as we go through the photo album on his phone, stuck in the corner of a bus station where we've hidden ourselves away from other people. He'll explain a picture every once in a while, telling me the story behind it or the place he took it but we're mostly quiet. It feels good because these parts of Harry's life feel so distant to me and it's nice that he doesn't try to hide any of it away.

When he reaches a picture of him standing next to two other men he stops, pausing and staring at the screen below him. I ask who they are even though I already have a pretty good feeling about it and he answers after another moment of staring.

"That's Jackson," he moves his thumb over the boy's face, naming the younger looking one. He doesn't look much like Harry to be honest, even broader and with lighter hair, but his eyes are the same and something about his smile makes it so clear that they are brothers. "And that's good ol' pop," he points to the man on the other side of Jackson, saying the words filled with sarcasm.

It's dark in the picture and it looks like it was taken after one of Jackson's football games, considering he's in a uniform and pads with sweaty hair. He's smiling with a dazed look and their dad has a stern face as he poses for the picture. Harry's facial expression feels like it goes straight to my heart. He isn't smiling, he isn't laughing, and he doesn't even look like he has much interest in being there at all. And his eyes have this sense of worry in them but he still wraps his arm around Jackson's shoulder like he's proud of him.

"Jackson's tall," is the first thing that comes out of my mouth, pointing out the obvious after observing the photo.

He isn't that much taller than Harry and it looks like the photo isn't exactly recent so Harry could have easily grown in that time. But for whatever reason this is the thing my brain decides to bring up.

"Yeah," Harry's voice is quiet. "Yeah, he is."

I expect Harry to swipe his finger across the screen again, changing it to a different picture... but he doesn't. He hasn't kept his attention on one this long since we started this reminiscing quest, but it doesn't surprise me that this is the one to break his cycle.