Waves {h.s.}

twenty-four - pancakes *

AS IT TURNED out, hanging out with Ryan wasn't that bad. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't bad. I did suspect that it was because both Ryan and Harry were on their best behavior because I was there. The fact Ryan and I didn't really interact, probably helped a lot too.

We didn't do much either. Harry and Ryan played a game on the Xbox and I watched in silence, not caring much when Ryan played, but completely invested when Harry was. I just loved watching him focusing on something, even if it was a video game that I didn't understand half the storyline of. I had the chance to see many sides of Harry and while some of them weren't pleasant to witness, most of them fascinated me and made me fall deeper in love with him. He was complex, hard to understand and sometimes hard to love. You had to be lucky and see his good side, something I had had the occasion to witness many times lately.

Something in Harry had changed, he didn't have his destructive behavior anymore. He didn't knock on my door at three in the morning anymore, he didn't get high out of his mind as often as he did before and his motivations to do so didn't seem to matter anymore. He was fighting for something better now. And I liked to think that I had something to do with it.

The only thing that remained from his darker times was his friendship with Ryan and that worried me. No matter how nice of an evening we had, I couldn't shake the unease I had about him.

"That wasn't so bad, wasn't it?" Harry asked as he cut fruits in slices; the only thing I let him do after he begged me to help.

I didn't look up from my phone and kept reading the pancake recipe. "What wasn't so bad?"

"Being with Ryan," he clarified. This time, I did look up, surprised that he was questioning me about this. "Oh, come on. It's clear that you don't like him."

"I'm sorry," I replied, although I wasn't quite sure why I was apologizing.

His eyes met mine and he smiled. "Don't be. I don't blame you at all, it's not like your first encounter with him had been good," he said apologetically. He remembered it the same way that I did. "But he's my friend and it means a lot that you tried the second time around."

"I still don't like him, Harry," I admitted, looking back at my phone so that he couldn't read my face. Or maybe I didn't want to see the disappointment on his.

There was a long silence before Harry and I spoke again. I pretended to be concentrated on the recipe, even if it really wasn't that complicated to do. I pulled out everything I needed to do the pancakes and put it on the counter.

"He's a good friend," Harry finally replied.

"I know."

"He was there for me when I needed him."

I sighed. I knew that too, although I believed it wasn't the best thing that he was. "I know."

"I can't just stop being friends with him," he continued.

I finally looked at him again. "I know that too."