Empire of Deception (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter 23

I hurt more than usual.

I can't explain it nor can I tell where it's coming from, but all I know is that the pain is a little more noticeable today.

Despite this distinct sensation, I am okay. I got out of bed without much hinderance, and I even ate breakfast at a coffee shop on the way to Bolton this morning.

And that's the funny thing about pain and hopelessness. It distracts you and destroys you yet you're able to still cope with the feeling and still go on with your miserable life.

This airy feeling comes and goes but I know that eventually I'll get tired and break down into the nothingness that I feel every evening before I take my first sip of whiskey.

Questions of why and how do I stop this feeling parade my cranium and demand answers but I am fucking sick of lying so I simply tell myself that I don't know.

The morning dew still sits comfortable on the leaves, simply waiting for the possibility of rays that just might be strong enough to break the the thick and fluffy layer of cumulous clouds that blanket the dusky sky. The familiar rumbling of car engines and soft murmurs of conversations are almost calming as I walk towards the Bolton building.

People who work in similar structures travel and proceed around me, energy slowly building within their tired and groggy bodies with every sip of their morning coffee or tea. I am one of them.

I am okay with this.

I recognize a group of youths around my age chatting and laughing, eyes bright and excitement at the prospect of their much coveted internships within Bolton.

Soon I am not alone anymore. He is dressed like me. He has a certain smugness about him that sticks out to me in a way that makes me a little bit uncomfortable, but I ignore it. His smile is too real and too bright and I don't mind it when the lad says hi to me. He isn't much older than I am—perhaps two or three years—and comments on the pigeons that peck at the ground, hungry for crumbs that they pray will fall.

"Damned little things, aren't they?" he converses, giving a polite nod towards me. "I heard that the man that usually comes here and feeds them died just yesterday." His voice sounds distant but very much with me. There is so much pitch variance within his sentences and it almost feels familiar to me in the way that I am just barely detecting a hint of a pattern, but it is far too early to be trying to figure out random strangers. "Supposedly they are setting a memorial bench to honor the ol' chap."

Why is he talking to me?

"Anyway," the man continues, dirty blond hair blowing in the crisp morning breeze. The trees rustle as the wind disrupts their sleep, and some of them can't seem to handle it because a few of the older leaves fall to the ground. For some reason I feel sad for them because I know exactly what it feels like to be walked and trampled on.

I curse under my breath for sympathizing for fucking trees. They don't feel. They merely be.

"So, which personal hell are you heading to today?" he asks. His coffee is strong and I recognize that he definitely has more than one shot of expresso in that cup.

"Bolton. You?"

"No kidding. What floor? I work on floor 18 with George Grayson."

"What? No way," I say in disbelief at the irony of us working in the same building. I turn to get a better look at the stranger beside me. He is tall with broad shoulders and the appearance of soft and nimble hands. He fits the looks of your traditional office worker. His smile is easygoing and full with an optimism and sense of defiance and personality that rubs off as strange to me. His personality differs from the people I have met before and falls into some sort of category I can't seem to classify just now... A category you don't really find in the Bolton workplace. "I work on floor 14," I say to him, bypassing the mention of my position. I wonder if he'll figure out who I am.