About (Harry Styles)

Chapter LXXXVIII

Elaine's POV

The thought of meeting Harry's parents after so long and telling them that I purposely hid their grandchild from them, simply terrified me. I wasn't quite jumping at the opportunity. I had to mentally prepare myself on how to break this shocking news and only a few weeks to do so as we got Charlotte's passport expedited.

Harry and I both decided not to tell them about Charlotte, not yet. At least, not over the phone. Though I hated surprises, over the past few years, I grew more comfortable with them, whether they were the good ones, the bad ones, or the ugly ones. After the surprise of Charlotte, I could only pray she was a good one for her grandparents as well.

Every time she has a question about the airplanes, Harry, to his best knowledge, tries his best to answer. And surprisingly, he knows a lot about planes.  Probably because he has travelled around so much.

I was extremely nervous about how Harry's parents  would take this.  They've always been nice people to me, but people can change... What if they don't accept me after what happened?

Or worse, what if they don't accept Charlotte?

"How much did this plane cost Daddy?" Charlotte asks from the seat across from me. The chair is so big, it looks like it's swallowing her.

"It cost me an arm and a leg," Harry jokes as he sits next to her. Charlotte doesn't seem to understand and I'm already rolling my eyes at his awful dad jokes. "I don't know how much. But it was a lot of money."

"Mommy says we can't spend a lot of money. If we do, then we might live out on the streets."

"Well, now that I'm here, you don't have to worry about that, okay? I won't ever let that happen," Harry assures her and she nods, fully trusting him.

We had just arrived in the UK, and we were walking through the turbulent crowd of paparazzi. I held Charlotte close to me in one arm covering her face with my jacket from the persistent cameras.  Harry holds and squeezes my other hand, trying to comfort me just like how he did before.

Naturally, Charlotte asks us who those people were and what they wanted.  She noted that they said some nice things and some not so nice things.  She shouldn't be exposed to such things at such a young, innocent age.

Was this a mistake...

"Are you nervous?" Harry asks, taking the aisle seat.

"Why would I be nervous?" I smile meekly.

"Don't be," he says softly. "They'll understand.  I know they will."

Harry's hand reaches over the arm rest and laces our fingers together, resting our hands onto his knee. My heart flutters the way it flutters when going around the Ferris wheel the first time. I never want this feeling to go away.

"I'm right here with you," he says before lifting our locked hands to his lips, leaving a delicate kiss on the back of my hand.

"I love you," I whisper to him, the words coming out on their own accord.

I was always the kind of person who thought saying these words should only be reserved for extra-special moments, who thought that saying these words too much would depreciate its meaning.

But I was wrong.

Saying "I love you" to someone, whether it be once or a hundred times a day, doesn't lessen the meaning. As long as it's true. As long as it feels right. The meaning of "I love you" in that fragile, evanescent moment meant everything.