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Harry doesn't want to let go. He hasn't been this close to you since what feels like a lifetime ago. After a grueling year of separation, considerate greeting hugs and instinctual touches that respected boundaries can't hold a candle to this moment.
He can feel your heartbeat. The organ that once beat fiercely for him is now pounding against his own, its unsteady pulse fueling him with love.
Who is he kidding? He has always loved you. Even when you screamed at him on the other line, poisonous words creeping into every crack of his heart, he still couldn't bear the thought of never having a place in your life again. Even if that place wasn't beside you anymore.
You told him you were proud of him a mere minute ago. It was a simple statement but also a diminutive glance into your mind. What do you think about when you're pressed against him, aware of his hands on your back and the kisses left on your head? What feelings do they ignite? All Harry wants is to spread you open and lay your cards on the table, both the good and the bad ones, and just talk to you. He only sees you a handful of times a month, so the questions that have been piling in his throat beg to spill out.
He fears his patchwork heart would also spill out onto the floor, and you'd see how miserably he's been coping. Mentally draining months were spent mending the broken relationship. Yet, the last and largest shard that couldn't piece it together again was the one that was simply the dying relationship itself.
A year should be enough time to get over someone, but when that someone is his ex-wife and the mother of his beautiful child, he reminds himself that time never stops in moments of hurt. His personal life and career had to chug along even when the train constantly veered off the tracks.
The regret he feels for not putting his family first kills him inside every time he opens your door to take his daughter for half the week. It's never enough time, and to see you for much less weighs heavily on his soul. The haunting supposition of being unable to notice every tiny detail about you one day is the nail in his coffin. He remembers opening the door a few months ago to find you with shorter hair. It shouldn't have affected him the way it did, and he couldn't help but think that you probably would've asked for his opinion on it if you were still together.
He also hasn't kissed you or had sex with you in over a year. There have been no romantic dates or nights cuddled in bed, limbs tangled like the wilting vines of your love. He has not held your hand or watched you be a mother except for fleeting moments. He doesn't want those things with anyone else, so why can't you forgive him? Why can't you revive your love for him?
Harry knows asking for a revival of love is irrational.
"When do you need to be on stage?" Your voice reaches him, warm like melted honey and gentle like a balm that heals his wounds.
"Doesn't matter," he says, fixing the twisted strap of your dress. "I can be a little late."
You step away from the hug, and he feels an ache in his chest due to the loss of physical contact. "No, you can't."
