Burgundy || HS

dix-neuf

After clearing the library of their escapades, Harry began to get jumpy. The anxiety was taking over and he didn't know what to do with himself. He'd told her he loved her. Not verbally, but by the cost of a bracelet. 

Was that pathetic or a nice way of saying that he was going to crush their relationship sooner than he wished. He'd basically called her his girlfriend and told her he loved her in one day. Burgundy. Through all the things they'd done that night, he could only think of Burgundy.

Not the beautiful Burgundy that had a special place in his heart (and contact in his phone), but the book that would no longer make her his Burgundy. And the simple thought of her being someone else's Burgundy scared him half to death and closed his throat. Although he didn't want to make it obvious, he expressed to Jane that they needed to go. She was tired, he was hiding a small anxiety attack, and it was all just a mess, really.

"Just give me a minute, get in the car," he told her when they reached the vehicle. He nearly sat on the ground while catching his breath and counting down from twenty on only even numbers (because he hates odd numbers), which was the equivalent of counting down from ten. 

When he collected himself, Jane was freezing in her damp panties while waiting from him to start the car. "I should've given you the keys, sorry."

He started the car and backed out of a parking space. "Is everything okay?" Her hand on his knee slightly startled him and his left hand jerked the steering wheel. "Harry!"

"What? Yeah, everything is fine." Jane knew he was lying because he always got nervous and jumpy when lying to her. He'd lied to the whole world before, yet lying to Jane was the only thing that could scare him.

He drove and they sat in silence. She decided to remove her hand and look out the window at the passing lights. It was past midnight, she was sure, but her nighttime rituals had been put off for so long that they stop being rituals. He stopped in front of her apartment building, but couldn't bring himself to walk her to her door. "I'm gonna go home tonight, I think. Is that okay?"

Jane scrunched her eyebrows, "Of course it's fine, you don't live here. I'll see you soon?"

"Yeah." They linked lips before Jane got out of the car and didn't look back. The drive home increased his built up anger and frustration. He was in love with her. Love. Fucking love! And he was going through all this trouble just to get a book finished? "It's to set her free," he told himself while unlocking the door to his apartment. "She'll leave New York because she won't have anyone else here. She'll be free."

But even while trying to convince himself, he kicked, punched―anything. Chapters of the book laid around and he soon found himself throwing them around his living room, stripping himself of pride and his jacket, he just threw. 

Broke a vase, threw papers, anything to make himself feel less guilty. But it was impossible. He was in love with Jane Bradley, and no amount of breaking and throwing would make her forgive him. Nothing.

He decided he needed to leave. A few days, weeks, however long he could last without looking and drowning in her eyes or touching her body or just loving her. So, he left. The next morning, Jane prepared herself for work on an interesting Monday. 

Hopefully they cleared all evidence of them being there afterhours. Though Jane was to be on alert for anything unusual. She hadn't gotten a goodnight text from Harry, but she decided not to think about it, though he did look fidgety the night before.

Work went on for that day with nothing from Harry. No call, no text, not even an email, a thing he only did when he'd lost his phone once in between his couch cushions. Another day without Harry's calls or visiting passed. It worried Jane. Had their night at the library put him off? Jane sighed, wishing she could ask Emilee for help. Sometimes, she went to the back of the library, in search of the elderly woman, then realizing that she was miles away and six feet under.

Jane was in the process of packing her things. The lease on her own apartment was nearly up and she had yet to tell Harry that she wasn't going to be residing at her old place for long. She hoped he would be content with her decision, though it wasn't his to make. 

Once it was nearing a week without hearing from her lover, Jane couldn't suppress the worry deep inside her gut. That Saturday night, Jane got on the bus and stopped a block away from Harry's apartment.

She pulled the straps of her thin coat apart when she stood in front of Harry's door. The first not did not wake up the drunk behind the door, but the second and loudest knock. 

Harry cleared his throat that was thick with mucus and alcohol and he sniffed, a cold mixing with the alcohol burning the back of his throat. He opened one eye and thought of who could be at his door. He had friends, but none that weren't used to not hearing from him for weeks at a time. But shit, Jane. Jane was not his friend.

Jane was his girlfriend.

Glass from a broken vase still sat on the ground along with a duffle bag that he'd taken up north to take with him when he'd disappeared for days. Chapters of Burgundy were still around and his eyes widened and he tried to quickly but quietly collect all the papers and throw them into his bedroom. 

"Harry!" Jane looked at the plant beside the door, then remembered the note Harry had placed in the second copy of Die With Me from so long ago... a journey into the already discovered in search of something new.

It was a plant. Already proven to be a plant that lived off of water and dirt. Jane sighed and looked at her fingernails that were chipping at the polish and she reached her hand into the dirt. A key. Of fucking course, she thought. Harry was going back and forth to hide the pages and had made the last trip when Jane got in. "How did you―"

"You should stop writing notes that apply to more than one thing," Jane advised. She walked over to him with her eyebrows creased upwards in concern. "Where have you been?"

Harry coughed. "I'm a bit ill, I didn't want to get you sick."

"Bullshit. Where have you―what are those?" Her question was more out of curiosity than anger at this point. She began to walk towards the three sheets of paper in the corner of the room.

"How about I make some dinner, yeah? As an apology?"

"Yeah, you do that, I just wanna read 'em."

"Jane, please, they're unfinished." It was too late. The papers were already being scrutinized by her eyes. "Jane. I can explain."

Jane's eyes were hurting from holding back tears, her nose becoming clogged. "Je ne peux pas vous croire. Je ne peux pas vous croire! Vous avez prévu de―fuck, you don't even know what I'm saying! You planned on telling the fucking world of all the things we've done together?"

"Jane."

"Don't Jane me. Have you not made enough money from your fucking first book? You're a selfish and conniving son of a bitch."

Harry rushed over to his duffle bag and pulled out two plane tickets. "Jane, I disappeared to figure things out, okay? I just―the book was getting to me. But I figured it out. I got us plane tickets to France. You can start talking to your family again or not, it doesn't matter, just go with me. Please." Jane looked at Harry once more. "I love you."

Jane left.

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lol this is so short, and ik you hate me for this... lol