DEVOTION

chapter fourteen -

A/N: Well look who's back from the dead :D

Would you believe me if I said I have spent the entire past month struggling with this chapter... I wish I was joking. 

This is the first time I've written anything of length in third person. This is also an extremely difficult chapter emotionally to write. It's started to feel like patch work, so I'm hoping you can all find it easy to read because I do not. 

Let's all say thank you to both Lina and Dariana for co-writing this with me. I would've given up. 

ALSO just a pre-face from here on out because I saw a few things that bothered me a bit in the comments. Eden is nineteen, close to twenty. Harry at this point is close to 22 if I'm mathing correctly. And alsooo, anytime I mention a "past relationship" in devotion, I am not writing about anyone Harry has been rumored to be with. Basically, please just be respectful. I don't really need to say that for this chapter, but it is important in general. 

This chapter was a bit difficult to write from an emotional place. A reminder: no one, not even fictional characters, are perfect. We all make mistakes. 

Alright... Apologizing in advance. Lets gooooo.

What is it I always say...

Buckle. The. Fuck. Up. 

NO PERSPECTIVE -

Closing the door of the cream white, vintage Mercedes, Harry sits in the driver's seat, the keys sitting in his lap. It's cold tonight, colder than it was a few days ago when he noticed it. Except then, Eden was in his bed and the feeling she gave him warmed his chest. Now, it's become more of a burn... More like he wishes for just a moment, he could think about something else.

Before he gets any more wound up, he pushes the keys into the ignition, the car humming as it kicks on. The stereo immediately blasts through the speakers, still loud from last night. We Never Change by Coldplay... It reminds him of the night they met. Eden played Gravity and for a moment, they both felt known. Harry had thought about that moment that entire night. About the drive to her place, how he stood at the door frame for a minute. He thinks about the feelings she gave him - the ones that have yet to change.

He blames it on the wonder you feel when you meet someone for the first time. Or maybe how much time they've spent together in truly a very short span. The second time they hung out, she stayed over. Then a week later, they left for California. He found himself completely comfortable with hardly knowing her. Her presence itself felt safe to him, a feeling he didn't feel often, especially in his career. He felt drawn to her, and he didn't know that she did too. She was captivated too, falling just as hard.

He knows some things... He knows that her mom passed away about five years ago, and of course he knows some about her relationship with Aaron but even he knows that she speaks less than she thinks she does. She overcalculates, overprocesses and then she convinces herself it's not that bad. Harry kicks on the heat, putting the car in drive, and pulls away from the house. The song changes to Only Ones Who Know by Arctic Monkeys and Harry lets out a heavy sigh, pulling off onto the same backroad he took last night.

Maybe it seems soon, like he's falling for someone he hasn't quite gotten to know, but to Harry it all feels slow. She's imprinted herself into his dreams and his thoughts. She has an easy grasp on his heart and the way it pounds in remembrance of her or burns at the same concept, interests with which they've molded around her, his mind and the way it wraps around everything she says, his thoughts, his cares and worries... and dreams.