The Other One {Harry Styles AU}

38. Now

I am lucky. Ha! What a fucking laugh. I actually think I'm lucky as I climb into a cab just a block from the party. Lucky. I tell the guy my address and ask him to hurry. I need to get home before Ha-- fuck. I weep. The driver slows to look at me in the rear view mirror.

"Miss, are you okay?"

"Please just fucking hurry. I don't mean to be rude, but I really need to get home. Please," the word turns into a wail. He accelerates, and I nod my thanks. My phone is buzzing in my small purse. I don't even open the bag to see who it is. I know who it is. Except I don't know who he is at all.

This driver fucking rocks. He gets me home in ten minutes, taking the curving streets just a bit too fast for safety's taste. I swipe my card in the reader and give him a hundred dollar tip. I unlock my front door, step inside, and lock all the privacy bolts. Yes, all. I have a lot of locks on my door that have never been used. My hands are shaking as I move from room to room. I lock the door from the garage, put a broomstick in the sliding glass door to the back patio, and bolt the bedroom's French doors into the ceiling and floor. He could break a window. But he's not getting in through a door. I close the curtains to the backyard and sit down on the floor of my living room, shaking. Sobbing. It's all a fucking lie. It has all been a fucking lie. Every I love you. Every kiss. Every fuck. Fucking fuck. I throw up my dinner on the dark hardwood floor beneath my piano.

I dig my phone out of my bag, still looped around my wrist. I have so many messages on my lock screen, but I just ignore them and dial Kline's emergency number. It rings and rings. Fuck. Fuck. "Fuck!" I bellow.

There is a thudding from the front hall. "Maddie, please open the door." Harry's voice has that desperate quality that was so lacking earlier. "Please, baby." Fuck you. I'm not your baby. I'm not your anything. Apparently, I was your meal ticket. But no more. I log in to my youtube and pull the fucking video down. "Maddie!" He rings the bell over and over, banging on the door, like thunder. Rainbow Thundercloud. I laugh hysterically. I thought that fucking horse was so apropos because of the rainbow. Fucking face rainbows. Fuck. I sob. It's the thunder, the pounding, that is relevant to my life. Always has been. "Please let me explain." I can hear more voices now. He pounds on the door again. "I didn't mean it, Maddie. I love you. Please." He sounds like he is crying. Good. His voice fades, but I can still hear him. "You said you would never cut me from your life." Fuck.

Fuck this hurts. I am being torn open. Shredded.

I hear Scott, my neighbor, "Hey, man, you gotta go." Harry's response is muffled. "I hear you, man. But she obviously doesn't want you in there right now. You gotta go. I don't want to call the cops, but I will if you don't stop." Bless you, Scott.

"Maddie," Harry taps, lightly once more. "I've left your car keys in the postbox."

Silence. Silence equals emptiness. Emptiness equals loneliness.

I miss the pounding. It stopped two fucking minutes ago. But I miss it. I miss him begging at my door. Fuck. I miss him. Except I don't know who he is.

I search moving companies. I dial one. It's past midnight, but I don't care. The guy actually answers. "I have an emergency situation. I need to move out first thing in the morning. Like at sunrise." He says he could do it, depending on how much stuff it is. I take mental stock. Two suitcases. A bass guitar. A couple of boxes. "Hardly anything. A few boxes. I'll pay double. It's really an urgent situation." He agrees to be there at five am. I busy myself with packing his stuff. He has most of his clothes still packed in the suitcase from our trip to England. But they're dirty. I wash them, and repack the case, adding everything else of his from my closet and dresser. I carry all of it to the front door and leave it there. Then I sit on the floor and cry.