Matching Rings [h.s]

84

POV: HARRY STYLES

"Are you alright?" I ask Baylin as I drive her home.

"I'm just really," She sighs, I can tell she's holding back tears by the way her exhale shakes, "stressed."

Well I could have told myself that. It was obvious from the strange outburst in the hall about me being a privileged orphan opposed to an... unprivileged orphan? I think. I don't know, she makes no sense sometimes, I could barely ever keep up with her.

On top of that, she barely even batted an eye when I told her about the money from my parents inheritance. She and Louis are the only people to know about that now.

"About Niall?" I don't want her to know I'm assuming her emotions, I know that's one of the things she hated while we were fighting.

"Yeah, Niall." She states as if my questioning was dumb, "Liam's a big part of it too, but right now I'm more worried about Niall. What do you think they're going to do?"

I stay silent for a moment. I've been in enough foster homes to know what happens when the kids living together hook up, though in this case it's quite different than just the casual foster kid hook up.

I don't want to tell her something she doesn't want to hear, that'll only stress her out more. But at the same time I would never want to lie to her about something like this, I don't want to give her false hope.

Because I know for a fact they're going to split them up, I mean that's the obvious solution to the situation. Even if Jim and the social workers decide to not press charges against Niall, they're still going to change the living situation.

I feel bad for them both, I can really see how much they enjoy each other's company. And I hate to admit it, because Niall is Niall and what he did to Baylin is unforgivable, but I like that she had someone like him to go and talk to.

"They're going to kick him out. Aren't they?" She answers her own question so that I don't have to. "They'll kick him out of the system?"

"They might." I inform regretfully.

Baylin's head falls into her pretty hands, she sinks low in the passenger street and physically stresses. She's stressing over Niall, not even herself. I hate how much she cares for him, it still doesn't sit right with me.

I keep stealing glances at her as I drive to her house, she looks worse than she did even just getting into the car. When we get to a stop sign, she looks up at me. I look at her, and I think it's the first time I've really looked at her in a while.

She looks bad, sick even.

Her skin is near pale white, dark circles and lines of worry lay under her eyes. If I hadn't made her breakfast the other day and watched her eat, I'd think she hadn't eaten in days.

This can't be healthy for someone so young, her mental health is just getting worse and worse. And she's good at hiding it, but clearly not good enough because I can see it in her eyes.

I want to tell her everything's going to be fine, I want to give her the promise that this will be over soon and we'll live happily ever after. But I'm starting to believe that this is our never ending story of crime and worry.

Eventually I turn onto her street and pull to the sidewalk next to her gate, while putting the car in park I place my hand on her knee in a way to motivate her.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Her accent sounds shy, "I don't know why I was being so rude."

"It's okay, love." I huff a low chuckle, hoping to lighten the mood since it seemed to have gone dark. "You were just put under a lot of pressure, I get it. I probably would have snapped at the first person to talk to me too."