Gone (h.s.)

Chapter 6

"Cause you wanted to know my life story, so here it goes."

"Okay." He sits back.

"Well, my birthday is July 20th. I was pretty popular in elementary school... up until I did something terrible. I didn't mean to do it. I-" I pause, taking a shaky breath. "I pushed my best friend off the stairs at school, and she spent the next sixteen weeks in the hospital in a coma, with a broken leg, a broken arm, and she woke up with amnesia. She didn't get her memory back until 4 weeks after. I did all that because she liked the same guy that I had liked for over a year. When I pushed her, I meant it as a little shove but it was harder than I meant it." I start to cry.

Harry wraps his arms around me. "You don't have to continue, if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine. I'll continue." I wipe away my tears and continue.

"After all of that happened, no one would talk to me at school, in class, no one would partner up with me, they hated me." I shiver. Harry takes off his leather jacket and puts it around my shoulders. I smile weakly. "The year after that in seventh grade, my parents got divorced and my mother got custody of me. Everything was fine for the first 2 months. Then my mom was out every night, drinking and getting high. Every night she would bring home a different guy. Ninth grade came around. Her phase- or whatever- ended and she got angry. She started to hit me, calling me all these mean things. She started dating a guy, her current boyfriend, Alex. He hits me when my mother isn't in the room. He pushes me when I'm doing something. Every time I try to tell her about him, she would just... slap me. Beginning of last year, I had enough of her bullshit, her hitting me, abusing me." I stop. I can feel Harry's green eyes on me as I watch out to the river.

"I- I, um, I tried to kill myself. I went to a drug dealer, I got all of these pills, I had almost an entire bottle of them. It wouldn't kill me. I just passed out. I woke up the next day, and I was still alive. I wished I would have done something- anything else. I wanted to go and drown myself. Or jump in front of a car. I just wanted to die, and in a painful way." I stop talking when Harry steps up to say something.

"If you would have killed yourself, you would have given up on a chance to get better. You're almost eighteen. You can go to a college out of town, you can start fresh now." He stops to let me talk again.

"I didn't leave my room for a week. I didn't shower, I didn't eat, I didn't do anything. I just laid down in bed, miserable about my life. That's when I decided to get up out of bed. I went to Walmart, I bought some razors and I came home. I sat about two hours staring at the box. I don't know why. I grabbed it, I ripped it open and I pulled out one of the razors and put the others in my night stand under my things. I pulled up my sweaters sleeves, and I started to cut. It was a relief, it felt right. I cut both my arms and I sat there just looking at my pale, bloody arms." I stop and look at my arms. "I had not a single regret. Even today, not a regret about cutting." I raise my sleeves to reveal all of my cuts and scars.

Harry looks like he is about to cry. He opens his mouth. "Natalie," he's speechless.

"I'm not finished yet. This next year is super fun." I explain sarcastically. "There came these three months, sophomore year, where I had a good self-esteem. But that's when mister Zayn Malik comes along and ruins it all for me. He starts to torture me by saying stuff like 'you're fat' and 'go die'. Then it got a little physical, he would push me and slap me at times. Sometimes his friends Louis and Liam would help him tease me. Then you, thank God, told him to stop and for the last week and a half, he hasn't been bugging me as much. And in the last two-ish years, nothing happened besides the abuse and self-harm and torture. The other day when you told him to stop, he kind of did stop. He hasn't been bugging me as much as he did before. And that's basically it. That's my life."

"Wow... you're a really strong person. And that's something that is amazing about you. You've been through all this tough shit and you're still here. But you're still going through it." He smiles at me.

"Can we sit in the car? It's getting really cold." I shiver. I'm only wearing a thin sweater in the middle of spring in Denver, Colorado.

"Sure." We get up off the rock and we walk to his black Mustang. I get in the passenger side and he turns on the car. I reach over to turn on the heat.

We drive in silence until he turns into a McDonald's parking lot. He reaches to the back and pulls out a big leather jacket and hands it to me. He then opens the door and walks out, gesturing for me to follow him.

Once we get inside the McDonald's, he lines up. "You're not a vegetarian, right?" He laughs.

"No, I couldn't live without my meats." We both start to laugh.

He orders two Big Mac combos. He pays and then we wait on the side for our food.

When our food is ready, I take my tray and walk to the soda machine to fill my cup with coke. Harry fills his with sprite. We walk to a table. I sit down and Harry sits in front of me.

This feels nice, being out with a friend. I haven't done this in years. "What are you thinking about?" I ask Harry.

"Nothing, just how beautiful you are."

Oh my god. Did he just call me beautiful? Why am I screaming in my mind? He's just a guy.

"Aw, thank you so much. But trust me, I'm far from beautiful."

"You're past beautiful."

"Are we really going to argue about me being beautiful?"

"Yes, or at least until you believe that you are very beautiful." He opens up his Big Mac and takes a bite.

I do the same. I open my burger up and put fries in my sandwich because that's how I roll.

We sit in silence for a couple minutes until I start a conversation. "So tell me about your past."

"Well, I have a pretty normal life. It's not perfect and not horrible. I have an older sister, Gemma, and a younger brother, Mike. We all get along. My parents aren't together anymore and I'm a little popular in school. That's basically it. Nothing special." he rolls his wrapper into a ball and places it back onto the tray.

"That sounds, great. I wish my life was simple like that." I state. Harry smiles and I realize that he has a dimple.

"Cute dimple."

Harry starts to laugh, I do too and we're just sitting in the booth laughing. After we calm down, we get up and throw our trash away and walk back to his car.

We get in and he drives me back home. I give him a hug then get out of the car. but before I close the door, I realize that I'm still wearing his leather jacket. I start to take it off but he tells me to give it to him tomorrow at school.

I say thank you and goodbye then I walk to the door. I open it up with my keys and no one is awake, or I assume so cause all the lights are off. I take off my shoes then I slowly, quietly walk up the stairs. But as I pass the kitchen, "Where were you?" My mother asks, angry. Shit!

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Hello my beautiful readers! I made this one extra long, just for you! I hope you're enjoying my story. I've been working hard on making it good and I have something big that's going to happen within the next couple chapters I hope. Thank you so much for read, voting, and commenting. If you really like it please share it with your friends. ilysm!

-Noura<3