hiraeth ; harry lewis

xxii. that's a coping mechanism

Standing on Katie's doorstep, hands stuffed into his pockets and shoulders slightly hunched, Harry couldn't help but feel...out of place. He and Katie had stopped being he and Katie months ago, and with their breakup, he'd accepted that he would no longer have a place in her home. Even though he was coming as a friend now, it felt strange.

"Harry!" The door swung open to reveal her smiling frame. It was a lazy morning, but she looked as pretty as ever, bright-cheeked and bare-faced, brown hair curling loosely at the ends and spilling past her shoulders, wearing a mint blouse and grey slacks. "You're early! Come on in."

"Sorry about that," he coughed as he walked inside. "Just woke up early, is all."

"It's no problem," she said, pushing the door shut behind him. Harry dawdled in the entranceway for a moment, unsure of what to do - Katie had been his first and only proper girlfriend, so the experience was novel to him, and he didn't exactly have many social skills he could put to work - but she made the decision for him, heading into her living room and reclining on a dark grey armchair. He followed her, lowering himself onto a two-seater couch and fiddling with the cloth of his t-shirt. "So, you wanna tell me what this is all about?"

A nervous laugh slipped out of his mouth as her gaze bored into him. "You have so little faith in me," he said, shifting his feet. "I mean, accusing me straight off the bat? Cold."

"Cold, but accurate," she said, arching her brows and laying her hands on top of each other, folded over her crossed knees. "You sounded way too serious in your text to be normal. What's up?" Her brown eyes softened. "Need to talk about anything?"

He scratched his shoulder, carefully keeping his gaze averted and darting around the room. The bulk of their relationship had been long distance, and on the rare occasion they'd both been on Guernsey, he'd always stayed over at his family home, so despite their extensive history together, Harry still wasn't overly familiar with Katie's house. It was small and quaint, with ample natural light flooding in through the checkered glass, bunched white drapes tugged to the side. She had a blooming backyard, teeming with life and colour. Some of the plants had even found their way into the house, dangling from baskets fixed to the ceiling and confined to pots lining the windowsill.

Suddenly, he wasn't sitting in Katie's house in Guernsey anymore. He was back in his room, sitting across from Val at the desk and watching her as she talked. "Flo started adopting plants in her third year of uni," she was saying, "and she told me it was practice for being a teacher, cause if she could take care of a plant, she could take care of some kids. Her first was called Geoffrey, and he died, like, two weeks after she bought him, and she was so cut up about it. Bounced back pretty quickly, though, and now she's practically a plant expert, which is good, because I'm probably the least green-thumbed person on the planet, so all the plants in our flat would die if she didn't take care of them. We've got a Geoffrey now, actually. Unrelated, of course, but Flo likes to have a Geoffrey in her plant family at all times, to honour the memory of her first son." Her brown eyes sparkled as she spoke, glinting with fondness, and it made her whole face light up like the sun.

He blinked away the fog of memory and flashed a close-lipped smile. "I, uh," he began, ready to throw in the towel and go back to his family with his tail between his legs.

She cleared her throat. "Before you try and bullshit your way out of this," she interrupted, "Rosie texted me in advance telling me it was about Val. Maybe that's a good starting point?"

Harry groaned, thumping a palm to his forehead. "Fuck's sake," he mumbled. "Does she have no faith?"

"Considering the fact you were about to back out," Katie said, "the lack of faith was pretty warranted."