i'm dead | harry styles

chapter seven

"You know this is very comfortable." I lie down, clothes neatly changed. Harry is walking over, also changed and hair already dry.

"Comfortable enough to sleep?"

"We're sleeping here?"

"It's more peaceful here." I notice the shape of his nostrils, the not so evident facial hair growing under his chin and his long eyelashes. "But you're sleeping. I'm not."

A register what he says a moment later since all I'm thinking about is a man so beautiful being so careless by the way he looks. He just soaked himself in clean lake water and changed clothes, how come he still looks like he hasn't showered in 5 years?

"But... you're tired. Lie down," I pat the space next to me. "You can't deny how comfortable these white comforters look. You're lying if you don't want to lie down."

"If you insist a bit more I'm going to think you want me to sleep with you." He says and before I could say something, he's already lying beside me. The space is little, but there's no closure.

"I've never been on the road before." I scratch the palm of my hand and he looks at me sideways. "This is all new to me. I wanted to go back when we were ten minutes away from home and now that I'm hours from it, I think I don't want to go back."

The sun is hitting right on his face, making his eyes look so clear and his cheekbones starting to get red. That will pain him tomorrow if he doesn't apply sunscreen anytime soon.

"I've been a slave to my parents ever since I was born. I got my first job application when I was one month old. No kidding. My parents had my life planned. Even when I moved out, I was still a product of their appearance."

I steal a glance of him. His eyes are closed, lips parted and white.

"Every single day they control me, and I just don't want to disappoint them. Because no matter what, you love your parents even if they're a pain in the ass," A green leaf falls from a tree and ends up on his forehead, but he doesn't seem to feel it at first. "They just live for the appearance, for the 'ooh's' and 'whoa's' of the people."

He picks up the leaf and stares down at it, I'm not even sure if he's listening to me.

"You know my parents think I'm studying politics while I'm actually studying literature. They'd flip if they find out, you know? All my life they've wanted me to become like them or be a little bit like Matty - smart and clever, running his parents' business. But if I do run the family business, then I'm not doing what I want to do."

Another leaf falls and I catch it, rubbing my thumb against it.

"But now being so far away from them makes me feel like I'm free."

"But you are free," he looks up from the leaf. "It's the first thing you have in your hands once you're born."

"You're so right," I sit up and decide to yell, throwing my hands in the air. Surrounded by nature's beauty and silence. "I'm bloody free!"

His laugh catches me off guard and I freeze by the sound. He reveals his perfect teeth and when he notices me staring, he becomes serious. Clearing his throat. As if laughing is something disgraceful in the life of his.

"I like that."

"You like what?"

"Your laugh. You never laugh." On those straight lips a smile had been there and it'd been replaced with nothing. "You hide yourself behind this emotionless mask. I-I don't know whether you're happy or sad, calm or mad."

"That's the thing. I don't let people know me deeper than a face. Sometimes emotions can be your biggest weakness."

"That is a load of..."