Sweet Tooth [HS]

FORTY THREE

Later.

Max was pacing.

Like, really pacing.

Like, genuinly-might-wear-a-hole-in-the-floor pacing.

The situation was bad.

Harry hadn't replied to a single one of her texts, and she'd sent about a billion. Plus, she'd tried to call him at least five fucking times and it went straight to fucking voicemail.

To say Max was frustrated would be an understatement. She wanted to rip her hair out - was already planning her lecture for when she finally did get in contact with him.

Because all this was, was a stupid fucking misunderstanding. Bad timing. Harry had just so happened to walk in when she was half-naked and her tits were in Finn's fuck off face.

It just looked bad. And she understood that.

But what she couldn't deal with - what she couldn't wrap her head around, was why Harry wasn't talking to her.

She didn't understand how he wasn't letting her explain, especially after their argument a few days ago.

And she didn't understand how he could even be angry - because if he was angry, that meant he must think she'd still be sleeping with Finn. It meant Harry believed she wasn't in love with him.

And how?

How could he not see how utterly obsessed with him she was? How she had magnets inside of her body, another skin inside of her own, that pulled her towards him night and day.

How could he not see that she breathed for him?

How could he not see that she'd bled for him, for six fucking years?

It sort of hurt Max to think that Harry could think so low of her, of them. I mean she hadn't spelled out the words I love you, but how could he not see it? How could he not feel it in the way she looked at him?

And now this radio silence, this nothingness - it sort of terrified her, too. Because who knows where he could be.

It was nine p.m now, so he could be on a flight back to LA. Could be fucking some supermodel on a yacht somewhere hot and exotic. Could be shovelling cocaine and who knows what else up his nose with fucking hyena Camille - UGH!

Max knew she was thinking the worst, but how could she not?

Harry could do anything he wanted to. Could go anywhere, could see anyone. The options were literally endless, infinite.

And so Max was pacing.

Pacing.

Pacing.

Pacing.

Until finally, her phone buzzed.

Immediately Max rushed over to it, ready to yell at Harry for being so fucking annoying and to just come here right fucking now - but oh. It was Lexie.

She deflated like a balloon.

"Lexie?"

"Have you still not heard from him?"

Max's ears pricked up. She recognised that tone. Knew that it was loaded with something more than just innocent questioning.

"What, Lex. What do you know?"

"Um," her best friend paused and that's when Max knew it was bad.

"Tell me what right now."

"I'll send you the article, hang on."

Max's heart was pounding in her chest as she put Lexie on speaker and stared at her screen.

Her hands were shaking.

Her eyes were wide.

She was biting her lip so hard it bled.

"I sent it." Lexie said as a link appeared on Max's screen.

Her mind went white and her stomach flipped as she clicked the link. Stopped breathing altogether as she took in what she was seeing.

It was Harry. He looked drunk, looked actually delicious, with an opened white shirt and messy tousled hair, and he was smoking, and he was smirking, and he was smiling.

Down.

Yes, down. At a girl.

Max blinked, blinked, blinked again.

Yes.

His arm, the arm that belonged around her, was around a girl.

And she was gorgeous, beautiful, actually. All long hair and tanned skin and perfect smile, with these long bambi legs stretching out for miles under a tiny little mini skirt.

And she was holding onto Harry. Had her head bent on his shoulder and was smiling up at him. Smiling in full beam. And oh yes, there he was. Smiling back.

The article title read:

HARRY STYLES STEPS OUT OF HIDING WITH INDIA RICHARDSON FOR PRIVATE MEMBERS CLUB PARTY

"Max?" Came Lexie's voice on the other end of the line. But Max wasn't talking.

Had flipped onto Google search and typed in Harry's name.

She saw the same paparazzi pictures. And she read article headings like:

HARRY STYLES RESURFACES FOR A-LIST PARTY WITH STUNNING MODEL

ARE HARRY STYLES AND INDIA RICHARDSON DATING? TRUTH ABOUT RUMORED ROMANCE BETWEEN DUO

And then it was too much.

Max's mind stopped working as she slid to the floor and her heart smashed into two. As Lexie's voice and everything around her melted away, as everything else just stopped working.

As she stopped working too.

It was like she sort of dissolved into herself, into this strange blurry darkness right there on the kitchen floor. All she could hear was her blood thumping through her veins. All she could see was those pictures, Harry's smile, her smile. Her hands clutching onto his waist. His arm looped around her shoulders. The words ROMANCE. STUNNING MODEL. INDIA fucking RICHARDSON.

Max bowed her head. Tried to concentrate on her chest going up and down, but how could she when it felt like her body was tearing in two. How could she when she felt herself breaking?

She knew that she was in control of everything except this.

She couldn't stop how painful this was.

Couldn't stop the melting feeling. Her head into her shoulders, shoulders into kneecaps, kneecaps into ankles and then everything pooling in her shoes. Her entire body gone.

And just brokenness.

Yes. Max felt broken.

And it hurt.

Brokenness hurt.

And so Max stayed laying on the floor, there in her kitchen. After a while, she cradled her chest like a mother might do a child, as if that might fix it. The pain. The pieces of herself she could feel ripping apart beneath her skin.

But it did not work.

And that night, Max fell asleep in agony.