stand here with me || h.s

9.

Nine : Harry

I had called her four times since the Viper Room. Four times. She hadn't answered one single call. Not even a text message was sent. It had been three days and I needed to see her. I'd gone so long without seeing her that the moment I did, I immediately craved more. I touched her on that dance floor and I could feel the pulse our bodies ignited in one another. She was a drug pumping through my veins and I'd been sober for so long-too long-and now my world, everything was crumbling down, entirely out of my control.
"Hey, you've reached Hallie. Can't talk so leave a cool message or something! Bye!"
"Hey...s'me...again. Um, just...I just wanted to..." I trailed off. "I don't know what I want...I don't know what happened the other night, but I was hopin' we could maybe talk about it? I'm confused, Hallie. Really fucking confused. Just...give me a ring when you get this, yeah? Hope you're alright. Okay, bye." I hung up and rubbed my face roughly just as a text message came in.

Hallie: Really busy. Mom is in labor and I just have a lot going on, so I'm sorry, I can't talk right now. Maybe soon though.

Harry: Do you need me to come by? I can be there whenever?

Hallie: Don't worry about it.

I wasn't going to push her anymore. I could tell she wasn't going to budge.

Harry: Okay. You know that I'm here. Just a phone call away.

She never responded to that one. I waited all day and all night. I wanted to be there for her. I knew her mom giving birth to another child from another man was going to be difficult and I wanted to be her rock but I knew her. Hallie Mantegna was not an easily forgiving person. She wasn't going to just open up her arms and let me back in. If I had any shot, I knew I'd have to work for it.

***

"Is my baby brother..are you actually calling me right now? Is this real?!" I chuckled.
"Hi Gemmy."
"You feeling alright then?"
"Am I not allowed to call?"
"No, no, you are...just makes me worry a bit."
"M'fine-no, no...m'not. Not at all, Gem, I don't know what to do."
"Uh oh. Shall I open up a bottle'a Pinot? Is it virtual drinking time?"
"Gem..."
"Fine, fine. But I'm opening up one for myself regardless." There was a bit of noise on her end, the popping of a cork and then I heard her gulp down. "Alright, ready. Talk to me, what's happened?" I started with the restaurant run in and spilled everything from there. When I was finished telling her about Hallie's most recent text messages from yesterday, she took yet another loud gulp and sighed. "You do realize that you're the one who fucked up, yes?"
"Yes, Gemma."
"And you do realize that she's not some pitiful young girl." I nodded, though she couldn't see me. "She's a little spitfire, bub. She's not going to put up with your shit and she's not going to let you in as easily as you keep hoping for."
"How do I fix this then? Tell me what to do."
"Harry, I honestly don't know. I can't tell you what to do because I've never been in this situation. I really like Hallie, like I love that girl. I love her for you, I love her as a part of our family...I love her in general, she's a wonderful girl, but I have absolutely no clue how you can fix this."
"I need to know, Gem. I need to figure it out."
"I'm going to be honest with you right now, yeah?"
"Yeah, okay, yeah. Please do."
"I wouldn't forgive you. I don't think I could. I don't think I'd be able to look at you. I mean, she obviously has and there's been that burn for each other so maybe she'll be different. Certainly not easy, but hopefully not impossible. I just can't tell you what to do, because in my opinion, nothing would be enough, ya know?" That made me sick to my stomach.
"There has to be a way."
"I'm sure there is. It's just...it's not the kind of thing that's going to happen overnight. This is going to be a massive, massive struggle."
"But you think I can do it? I should keep fighting for her, right?"
"I think so, yeah. If she's the girl you want to spend the rest of your life with, then I don't think you have a choice."

***
(LISTEN TO THE SONG DARKFALL BY GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT ITS BEAUTIFUL you have to while reading this part)

It was a Sunday when I hit this weird wall. Like, it was a strange feeling, waking up in an empty bed. I'd done so the past nine months and though it never stopped hurting, it became normal. I became used to it. But I woke up and it was raining, the drought in Southern California was over. It was raining and the last time it rained, Hallie was in bed with me. We woke up together and we stayed in bed all day and I loved her so deeply it hurt. Loving her was a constant physical pain that fluctuated between perfection and heartache and right now, it was heartache. A searing, eery heartache that seemed to creep into every crevice and bone and muscle of my body. That was the one hardship of continuing to live in this house. She was everywhere. She was in my veins and she was on the walls and in the blankets and the sheets and furniture...her special cabinet, the one designated only to her favorite bottles of wine. They were all still in there. She was everywhere. The stain on the floor from the bottle of nail polish she spilled. She then tried to rid it by using acetone based nail polish remover. Safe to say there was a very odd discoloration on the hardwood, but it wasn't something I could ever bring myself to fix. The small imperfections, her minuscule mistakes that were just...they made her who she was. I finally gathered up the strength to roll out of bed, only to go and let Jude out. He had become my favorite little companion and I laughed at the irony of it. Just give him a chance. He'll love you. She'd told me so many times and I never listened to her, not until she was packed away and gone. As Jude climbed up on my shoulder I pulled one of his tiny rope toys out of the cage, only to drop it. I reached behind the bureau to grab it when my fingers found something else. Crumpled papers all stuck together. I began pulling them each apart, one by one until I recognized her pretty handwriting. Forgetting about the rope toy, I took Jude and the papers and brought them back to my bed.

I'm sitting here and Jude (the super cute ferret who you refuse to like) is purring-PURRING, HARRY. He's so cute I want to die. You know who else is cute? Me. Haha. I am actually pretty cute, but you're cute. You're so cute. I'm drunk. I'm drunk and I was supposed to work on the screenplay but I started writing this and you're gone in some place that I forget but I love you. Yeah. I love you. Like...meeting you I think was kind of like hearing a really amazing song for the first time and knowing that it's gonna be the best thing, like...I saw you and I didn't know why but I fell for you without even knowing and you made me fall-you made me love you.You've made me so devoted, I'm even sure I sold my soul for you. I would do anything for you, I would. I really would because you're my person and I love you and I don't ever want to know what life is like without my best friend-turned-boyfriend, okay? Like...if you told me tomorrow that we were gonna run away...just the two of us and Penny...I'd say let's fucking do it. Let's go. I'd go anywhere for you, I'll say anything for you, I'll lie for you. I'd die for you cause you're it and i'm drunk, yeah, but you're it and I'm yours and I love you, Harry. I. Love. You. You could literally leave me, like you could send a break up text message right now but no matter what you do. No matter how bad you hurt me (if you ever hurt me, I hope you don't try not to, okay?) but if you hurt me it STILL doesn't matter because I'll come back to you. I'll always come back to you. I will always be yours. I am yours, Harry Edward Styles. I'm so yours it's not even funny anymore. I used to think it was funny how much I love you, but now I'm genuinely concerned that I'll never have my heart back. I mean, totally doesn't matter if you keep it forever, it's yours anyway, but like, you are this perfect stupid frog boy and you have acne sometimes and you smell when you don't shower and your hair gets really greasy sometimes but I love you, I love it all. Everything that is you, I love. I know I'm pretty most of the time, like, yeah, i know that, but i'm not perfect and I have some issues but you still love me and that means a lot. I don't think it's very often that someone can say that a really incredibly amazing person loves them, I really don't think that's too common but you love me and I love you for loving me. I love you like a lot and if you really wanna know how much, I can go on all night, but like, Penny and Jude have to eat, yeah? Yeah. I think you're pretty cool, dude and I can't wait to see you and you're my whole entire world. I'm terribly, breathlessly, grotesquely in love with you, and I always will be, okay? Okay...um, yeah. Peace. Hallie out xo.

I read and reread the scribbles seven times and then I read it once more and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see straight and I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't sure what I could've done. She had believed in me. I was her entire world and I let her down. I hurt her. I broke her. That spirit...that wild, bright-eyed girl who gave me life...breathed air into me-I ruined her. I crushed that spirit and I hurt her and I had to get her back. I had to help her become Hallie Mantegna again, my little monkey. I had to do it because maybe, hopefully, there was still a little part of her that still believed in me. I hoped to god there was, because I wasn't sure where else or what else to do.