Unpredictable

Chapter 12

×Harry's POV×

Ella pulled her knees up to her chest, her mouth set in a grim line. She blew out shakily, and closed her eyes. I wanted to help her, to make her feel better in some way, but I didn't know how.

"When... When I was ten..." she began, "My mother was caught in a shooting, not far from my house. She died in hospital a week later. But my father didn't tell me she had died until I was twelve: he told me she had left him. I didn't go to her funeral. I've never even been to her grave. I don't even know if she was buried or cremated." She bit her lip and looked down. "I loved my mother, with all my heart. And I never even got to say goodbye. I was mad at her for leaving us for two years of my life, and all that time she was dead. My father pretended it never happened, completely erased her from my house. He threw out all the pictures or her, got rid of all her clothes. I saved a scarf, I keep it in my bedroom. It still smells of her." She looked down, crying softly. "When I was 13, I started cutting. My mum was dead, my dad didn't give two shits about me. I would do it at night, in my room, places no-one would see: my hips, my upper arms. I stopped eating. I didn't care if I lived or died." I felt tears pricking my eyes. Ella was such a beautiful, kind, incredible person, and to hear what had happened to her was like a blade in my heart. She fiddled with a loose end of her jumper, and continued. "Then I met my friends, Jenni and Hannah, and things got better. I even stopped cutting for a while. But then my dad married this woman called Jessica, who is just... She hates me. I don't know why. But she calls me names, tells me that I'm worthless and stupid." She shrugged. "She's probably right. So I started self-harming again, more than before. But... When I met you.. You make me happy. And that's a lot to me. And I understand if you want to break up, because there's so much-"

I interuptted her by getting up from the sofa and wrapping my arms around her fiercely, pulling her onto the floor, laying down beside me. I couldn't help thinking that if things were different, if her mum hadn't walked down the road she got shot on, if her father had told her, she would turn to cutting and starvation. "You are perfect, and wonderful, and not worthless. I am so, so sorry that so much shit has happened to you. You don't deserve it. You deserve your mother, and a father who doesn't lie to you, and you deserve to be happy. I want you to be happy. I'm not letting you go home to that bitch. I want you to stay with me. If you want." She nodded frantically, face buried in the crook of my neck, tears soaking through my jumper.

"Thank you."

"It's alright." I mumbled into her hair.

"Tell me about you." She whispered.

I shrugged. "I'm not special."

She lifted up the bottom of my jumper, her soft touch sending goosebumps along my waist. Her fingers probed around my hips gently, coming to rest against an old scar that still hurt if I moved too fast.

"I saw it when we were kissing. In your car." She laid her arm against my hip, so our scars lined up. "We match."

"Like some sick, broken jigsaw puzzle." I kissed her fingertips.

"We're not sick, just healing." She stroked my face gently. "Everyone else just healed a little faster."

I felt butterflies in my stomach as her breath tickled me. "I like that. I might heal faster with you beside me."

"Tell me your story?"

I sighed. "I started cutting three years ago. When I was seventeen. I had a girlfriend. Her name was Diana, Diana Meldrew." A tear rolled down my cheek as I remembered her. "She self harmed, but she would never tell me why, and she wouldn't stop. I... I tried everything. I hated to see her hurting. But one day, we got into an argument, the biggest fight we'd ever had. I got so mad at her... She was always so vauge, so secretive. She yelled at me for prying into her buissness, and I... I told her that I didn't want to be with her anymore. The next day, her body was found with a note addressed to me. All it said was, You were my reason to be. That was it. I've never forgotten it, the feeling when I realised I'd killed her." There were more tears rolling down my cheeks and I couldn't stop them. I didn't want to. It hurt to remember Diana, but that was good. Pain was good. I had killed her, so I had to feel what she did.

Ella wrapped her little sparrow body,around me, crying as well. "Harry, don't think it was your fault. If she decided she wanted to go, she would have done it anyway. Don't feel bad about it."

I laid my head on her heart, its steady rythym comforting. She stroke my hair, and I realised I was trembling.

"That's why you were so freaked out in the car when you saw my cuts." It was a statement, not a question. "I reminded you of Diana."

I nodded. "I just don't want to lose you as well."