Demons

Chapter 44

Being in love had three distinct stages. Falling would be the most fun and the fastest. Hitting the ground from cloud nine would be the absolute worst. And picking yourself back up would be the hardest.

I had gone through every one of these stages with Harry already. And then, I fell back into love with him when I chose to forgive him for messing with my head the first time. Now I was nearing the cold, hard ground once more.

I wasn't prepared for this. I guess I never really was prepared for him. Our whole relationship was based on a spontaneous blurt on Harry's end and my eagerness to give what I thought was love another try. The beginning was fast and I couldn't - nor did I want to - slow down. From the endless and pointless fights about Zayn, my high school status, or his awful friends, we always worked it out.

Three sharp raps on my front door shocked me, even though I had already opened and slammed it 10 seconds ago. Internally battling myself, I realized how stupid I was being and listened to the naïve angel on my right shoulder, opening the door as reluctantly as possible.

"Come on, Lacey. Just open the damn door already!" Harry snapped out of his cautious silence when he saw how slowly I was widening the gap between the door and its frame. He was never one for patience. After all, he didn't even want to wait another day between the first and second date.

As soon as there was enough room for him to squeeze through, Harry was inside my house, walking towards me. I persisted in moving backwards away from my boyfriend, losing hold of the door. He stopped, closed the door behind him, and continued his advance on me.

"Okay, Harry. Stop." I held out my hand, pressing my palm against his abs through his t-shirt. I was now leaning against the refrigerator and could no longer go anywhere else. So I pushed him away. I was always too good at that.

"What happened last night?" He questioned. And at first, there was an unidentifiable pain in my stomach. But its origin was revealed when my brain reminded me of what happened the night before.

"You mean out of what I remember? Okay so, you kissed Caty and Niall made out with me." I cut to the chase casually and grew confused when Harry's face twisted in shock and anger.

"You DID WHAT?!" He completely exploded, resembling Zayn in his anger. Yet, I was more fearful of Harry's temper as I had never seen it before. I knew Zayn would never hurt me, but how did I know that about Harry?

"Wha-" I started dumbfounded. How could he be mad at me? He knew that Niall did that to me. Unless he didn't.

"How could you do that to me?!" Harry screamed in my face.

"I didn't - I tried to-" I couldn't exactly find the words to say to him. I thought he had come here to apologize. But you wouldn't even admit that he did anything wrong.

"No, no, this is why I wanted to keep you away from my friends. I knew you were bound to try and get with one of them! You're so predictable." He was panicking. This wasn't supposed to be news to him. He was supposed to already know from Niall's bruised face.

I remember Ava telling Louis after he punched out Niall that Harry knew where I was. And he was trying to test me to see if I would actually kiss Niall. And I actually did. Remember what Lillian said? You can't blame yourself for that, you were drugged.

"You really thought I would cheat on you with your best friend? I would never come between two friends like that. And I could never cheat on you Harry, no matter who it was with!" I said with true sincerity. If I wouldn't cheat on him with Zayn, I wouldn't cheat on him with his best friend.

"But you did! You knew he had feelings for you, and you used him for that. You must have been trying to get back at me or something!" He looked at me in disgust, as if I were some slutty vermin.