Colorblind [h.s]

20

Harry's POV

*flashback*

I walk back to the boys sitting down at our table, feeling extremely disoriented.

"Styles, mate, you okay?" Liam asks. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

I take the glass of whiskey out of his hand and chug it, wincing as the dark liquor slides down my throat.

"Hey, what the hell, dickhead! Get your own!" He yells, slapping me upside the head.

I don't even flinch.

Violet's alive. And she doesn't remember me. She looked at me like she had no idea who I was. I mean I know my hair's longer than it used to be and I look older, but fuck. Am I really that forgettable?

"I know that look," Niall says, turning to Louis. "Five dollars he was just rejected by a dime."

"You're on." Louis says, shaking Niall's hand to consummate the bet.

I don't respond or acknowledge either of them. I'm too immersed in my thoughts to even process what they're saying.

Why didn't she call me after the accident?

We both had each other's phone numbers memorized in case of emergency. Hell, I even listed her as my emergency contact.

Why the fuck would Janet tell me she's dead when she's so clearly not? Does she live here in San Francisco? Why haven't I seen her before? Why hasn't she looked for me after all these years?

There's no way she could've forgotten me. We spent every damn day together. I taught her how to drive when Janet wouldn't let her get her license. I helped her with her mathematics homework when she couldn't figure out how to make the equations equal to each other. I left my friends to sit with her during lunch break before she had made any, and hell, I wasn't even friends with her yet.

She was just my annoying little 12 year old American neighbor who wouldn't leave me alone.

I was the one who helped her get through her dad's death. She was an absolute wreck when I came home to the ambulance outside of her house. I remember it like it was yesterday.

She was hysterically crying, kneeled on the ground, clutching to her mum's legs like a little kid that didn't want to go to school. I still didn't really like her at the time – her friends were little bitches that would always bother the shit out of me whenever they'd hang out at her house. And yet, when I saw her like that, I didn't even think twice about rushing to her side to hold her in my arms.

That was the first time she ever cried in front of me.

Everything changed after that.

I went from teasing her about her stupid little floral dresses to beating up assholes that would tease her about them. She went from my annoying younger neighbor to my best friend in the world. She turned into my everything.

And yet, when I talked to her, she pretended that she didn't know me. Like everything we were, like everything we did together, like I, meant absolutely nothing to her.