Got the sunshine on my shoulders - by: hattalove

chapter eight

The first note arrives a few days later, as Harry's helping mum clean up after lunch.
His phone starts buzzing in his pocket just as he pulls a pair of rubber gloves on. He leaves it, hoping whoever it is will call later, but the call stops and starts again in a few seconds. This happens a few more times, until mum grabs him by the shoulders and physically shoves him out of the door.

When he looks at the screen, what feels like a ball of lead suddenly falls into his stomach.

It's Niall, and this is the ninth time he's calling.

"What's wrong?" he almost yells as he picks up.

"Jesus Christ!" Niall screams from the other end. "Are you okay? Are you alive?"

"What's wrong?" Harry repeats, more urgently this time. He walks outside for a bit of privacy, but he can't get himself calm enough to sit down. "I'm fine, but what—"

"There's a note," Niall pants. He's breathing so hard it only makes Harry worry more. "I got a note delivered to the office, and it's—" he pauses, probably to inhale. "It's bad, Harry."

Harry shivers. "Niall," he says, trying to keep himself from crying out of sheer stress. "Tell me what happened."

"A note, like I told you," Niall replies, impatient. "I'll just text you a picture, hold on."

A second later, Harry's phone buzzes. He pulls it away from his ear and navigates to his messages with shaky fingers. When he pulls up the photo, his blood runs cold in his veins.

It's a plain piece of paper, with a crease in the centre where it was folded in half. I know what he did, it says, and next to it is a picture of Harry from the fashion show he went to last month. His eyes have been furiously crossed out with black marker.

Harry immediately feels unsafe, exposed in the back garden of his mum's house despite the fence that separates him from the rest of the world.

They just thought—they thought it was someone playing a tired prank. The police said not to worry, that things like this rarely escalate.

That Harry has nothing to worry about.

"Niall," he says, teary, when he puts the phone back to his ear. "Niall, what do we do?"

"Listen," Niall says. He sounds better now, calm, composed. In charge, like he's supposed to be. "I don't want you to lose sleep over this, okay?"

Harry thinks that's a little hypocritical, considering the fact that Niall just almost gave him a heart attack.

"Where are you staying?"

"My mum's," Harry replies. "Am I—is it not safe? Am I putting my family in danger?"

"No, no, that's good," says Niall. "That's great, actually. Stay where you are."

"Did you call the police?"

"Of course I did," he replies. "They're on the way now. They told me on the phone that they might need to interview you, but I told them you're laying low and wouldn't know anything about a stalker anyway. You wouldn't, right?"

Harry shakes his head. "No, of course not. They don't even—they've only called me a couple of times, it's usually you."

"You're right," Niall says. "They said they'll monitor the situation, and look over the note for evidence, but—I don't know. I don't know what they could possibly find."

Harry wraps his free arm around himself. He spots mum peeking out of the kitchen window, a worried look on her face, and he forces himself to give her a smile and a thumbs up.