Lionesses- Harry Hampton

I should've known

That afternoon Harry explained to Hannah everything that had been going on. He told her what was happening in his head, why he self-harmed and where it all began.

The whole time he spoke Hannah tried desperately to not burst into tears. Crying wouldn't help anybody.

In the evening they went to dinner like usual and afterwards the girls all agreed that Harry could pick what was on TV. This was a high privilege and it did make him feel slightly better.

As they watched Bad Education, Harry lay in Hannah's arms. She wanted nothing more than to keep him there forever, never letting him out to get hurt.

The episode finished and Harry was absolutely done for. After the day he'd just had, he felt like he could sleep for a week.

He fell asleep, Hannah's hand grasped in his.

With him safely sleeping, Hannah went back down to the girls.

"Is he okay?" Leah asked.

"Yeah. I think I'm going to stay in there tonight though. Just to make sure he's okay. I've taken anything sharp out so he can't cut himself again," Hannah replied, sighing at the whole situation.

"Are you okay?" Leah asked, her face full of concern. Hannah stopped and thought about it. Her dad was dead, her mum was forgetting she even had children and her little brother had just been caught self-harming. She could've been doing better.

"No," she replied, sadly, finally allowing the tears to come.

"Oh come here," Leah sighed, patting the space next to her. She had purposefully left it for Hannah to sit in.

Hannah sat down and Leah pulled her into her arms. She began stroking her hair gently in an attempt to comfort her.

"Why didn't I realise? He's my little brother. I should've known. I've fucked up so badly. My Dad told me to look after him and my Mum when he died and I've failed so badly. Harry and Mum don't speak. He's struggling so badly with his mental health he's messed up his whole arm and I was none the wiser this whole time. You know he's been doing it for two years? Two whole years and I never realised. How much of terrible sister am I?" Hannah said tearfully, letting it all out as Leah hugged her tightly.

"He was very good at covering it up. None of us knew," Leah tried to comfort her.

"Yeah but I should've. None of this would ever have happened if my Dad was still here," she said, crying so hard now it was difficult to understand what she was saying.

"Shush, shush. I've got ya."

They stayed like that for a while. Hannah letting it all out whilst Leah let her lie in her arms.

"I promise you it's all going to be okay."

***

The next day Hannah got called into a meeting with Sarina. She couldn't tell by her facial expressions whether it was going to be good news or not.

"I'm sorry about yesterday. I understand if you don't want him on camp," Hannah said. Sarina just looked at her.

"Don't be an idiot. I want him here. Now more than ever it seems. What I brought you in here for was to check if you're okay or not? And don't lie. You can speak to me honestly," Sarina replied. Hannah smiled.

Harry was sat eating breakfast on his own. Georgia went and sat next to him.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" she said.

"Yeah I do," he replied, smiling gratefully at her.

G was still really worried about him but instead of showing it she was determined to cheer him up.

It worked and within minutes it was like the previous day had never happened. Except it had and Harry was going to have to live with that.

Usually he'd have a severe episode like that every couple of months so he was praying that if he had one again it wouldn't be for a while. He remembered the first time it happened. The total feeling of utter shit and loneliness was something you could never quite forget.

"Want to do something interesting this afternoon?" Ella asked as her and Alessia came and sat down on their table.

"As long as it's not listening to you sing again then I'm up for it," Harry replied. Last time Ella had asked a question like that, he had spent the afternoon listening to her and Georgia have an extremely loud sing song that made his head hurt.

"Cool. Meet you two in the foyer at half three," Less said and her and Ella walked off to grab themselves some food.

"Wait? The foyer?" Georgia called after them.

"Does that mean we're going somewhere?" Harry asked but the two just carried on, either not hearing or just deciding to ignore the questions.

***