invasato [h.s]

36

Elaina Basset

Rose. His mother's name was Rose.

Never in a million lifetimes would I have expected an admittance like that to leave the lips of Harry Styles. I was stunned.

His mom, she was murdered.

Looking at him now, he seems sort of put off. I don't think he expected to tell me this either, and now he's unsure of what to do because he can't read my reaction.

"Do you know who killed her?" I ask.

His eyes shift away, a hand running through his hair as he just shakes his head in no.

"I'm gonna find out one day, though." he says. "I have to."

I just look at him. He had this glint of hope in his voice when he said that, and in that moment I knew that this was something that's been eating at him—not knowing his mother's killer.

And in a way, I can relate to him...because I don't know who attacked my family that fateful night. They had masks on, and I never found out what became of them.

"I hope you do." my voice beckons out of honesty, making his eyes fall back into mine.

Green irises in my direction, he knows that telling me this information meant that he was being vulnerable, even just for a moment.

And he did it because I was vulnerable too.

I don't think he realizes how much it helped. Or maybe he does. Because maybe he's hurting just as much from an unresolved past.

Maybe...maybe we aren't so different, Dreamboat.

"You...you said you write to your mother..." he says, "did you start doing that after she died?"

I look down as an instinctive reaction to the question, biting my cheek.

"You don't have to answer. Sorry." he then reiterates, noticing how I didn't answer straight away. He thinks he's gone too far.

He said sorry.

I shake my head. "No, it's okay." I look forward out the windshield.

Everyone outside this car is just going about their day. They don't know anything about me and I know nothing about them. Hundreds of pairs of feet and eyes, strangers and friends. None of us truly know one another. Really, it's sort of poetic.

"I started writing to her about a month ago." I admit. "I've...I've had a lot of complicated feelings and she was always the one I'd go to when I needed to...just...breathe, I guess."

As I look forward and speak, I feel his eyes on me.

My fingers begin to fiddle with the necklace my mother gave me.

"So when I lost her...I started writing notes to her as my own little way of staying connected to her." I swallow. "She's still with me in my head, in some ways."

"The necklace too." he says quietly, softly and I nod.

He knows. He understands. At least he makes me feel like he does.

"My mom had a necklace." he tells me, and I shift my gaze to him. When our eyes meet, he looks away, trading gazes with me as he looks forward now. "A diamond necklace. It was really special to her."

"Do you have it now?"

His jaw clenches for a moment as he looks ahead. "No." I watch as he swallows. "I did. I had it put in a safe place...but it was stolen."