Deception || harry styles

Chapter 16

Harry's POV.

My feet are tripping over themselves trying to escape the memories that Cassie's questions have provoked. My hands grip the brick exterior of the bookstore as the flashbacks begin to take over my vision.

It's just her and I again, mom won't do a thing. She isn't even here, why won't she help me?

A random by passer stops me, gripping my shoulder. "Are you alright man?" the face that I don't bother to examine asks.

My knees begin to give out, but I'm only one more block from home, I need to get there before I find myself in deeper trouble than I already am in.

I open the door and close it behind me, just in time before the black spots cloud my vision.

-

Cassie's POV.

He'll come back in here and give me an explanation for all this now, won't he? I sit back down and begin to read the book I'm about to buy. I may as well read a few pages while I wait for him to come back. I open the book and begin to drink in the pages of Christian Grey.

"Miss, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we are closing." An old Mexican lady takes me out of my reading trance with her words and a tap of the shoulder.

"Oh, I'm, I'm so sorry." I'm still incoherent from my trance and I stand up too fast causing the room to spin.

"Did you just sit here and read that entire book?"

I peer down to see I was reading the author's note at the end of the book. I tuck my hair behind my ear and clear my throat before responding. "Yes, I'm so sorry I didn't even realize it. Is the cash register still open? I will pay for it right now I'm so sorry!"

I can't believe I did this, this is so embarrassing and disrespectful. The lady winks at me and with her hand still fastened around the broom ushers me out with the book still held in my hand. "Keep it, I saw you were waiting, I saw the scene with you and that man. I know it isn't my business, but it seemed there was something deeper going on, he was almost fainting out on the street! And he for sure was not drunk. Take advice from an old lady, he was here hours before you freaking out about what to say and how to make thing right."

"Was he talking to you?" I ask.

"No, to himself."

I soak in what the lady told me, and thank her profusely before exiting the bookstore.

Harry seems to have many different sides. First he's kind, sweet, charming even and then he's cut off from the world, distant from the situation at hand and focused on something else.

I need to figure out how to get the charming Harry to me more often that the distant Harry. I also need to figure out why he's distant in the first place. He's hiding something I know it, but I'm not going to push that like I did tonight. Obviously blatantly asking him was a dumb idea.

I come to the conclusion that I'll have to have stepping stones. First, we talk, then I get to see more charming side of him, (this is a maybe) become more than whatever we are right now, and then figure out what's caused his pain.

I know I'm in deep when I realize that I want the "more than whatever we are right now" to happen soon. I don't know what it is, but I'm drawn to Harry, even after the dinner incident and many other things he's done to me.

***

"Cassie, I did it."

"What exactly is it that you've done, Abby?"

"I, I moved out."

"What? That's amazing! How do you have the money though? It's only been a few weeks."