Therapy (Harry Styles)

Chapter 1- Harry

It had been going on for as long as he could remember. His father night after night, would drink bottle after bottle, of practically anything he could find. He wasn't the kind of drunk that was happy go lucky, proud to be with his family, and happy to be living either. He got mean. It was almost as though he turned into an animal right before their eyes. Ever night Harry Styles lays awake playing back these memories in his head. From when he was five, (the first time he'd ever truly had a memory of seeing his father drunk), the way his mother had screamed for his sister who was only nine at the time to take him upstairs, and she would be up to read them a story in a bit and to not come out of their room until then. The crying, the screaming, the bruises that marked up his mother, this happened every night from then on.

To when Harry was 12 he can remember his mother sitting him at the table.

"Drink this." She had told him with worrisome eyes. It was the tea she only gave him when he was sick. "You have a doctors appointment in an hour."

He looked at the tea then her, he simply didn't understand, "But, I'm not sick..." He protested, refusing to drink the tea.

She simply shook her head. "Trust me, love, you are. It's different."

The doctors put him on a medication, it made him feel different than normal. That's when he started to notice he was sick, but not with a flu or a cough. His mother was right, he was a different kind of sick. Slowly he was changing, it started with the counting. He would start, and it was almost as though he couldn't stop. And, if he finally got his mind off of it long enough to stop, he couldn't endure the fact of stopping on an odd number. It had to be even.

Then, came the washing his hands. He would scrub and scrub until his skin was cracked, and his fingers raw.

Shortly after followed the cleaning, every night after everyone went to bed he crept down stairs and cleaned the house top to bottom. Harry picked up the bits and pieces of broken plates from his parents fights, and collected his father's beer bottles.

Whenever he would walk home from school, he would have to walk in a certain pattern. If it wasn't right, he'd start over. It once took him 18 tries to make it home, he was an hour late.

Three years after all this began, Harry was 15. He just wanted to be normal. He wanted to be able to talk to the kids at school without having to repeat the word "Hi" three times when approaching them, four to make it even. He couldn't bare it anymore. All he could think during these times is, 'Why couldn't he be like anyone else?' 'Why couldn't he be normal?' None of it was fair to him, and it didn't take long for the depression to start. And, so did more medication. None of it worked, and slowly as time moved on, he became worse.

Now, Harry is 20. Scanning through a magazine, as he waits at the therapist's office. He came every Thursday afternoon. Not that they ever helped him any. The same people that always came filled the office, the woman going through a divorce, the man who's daughter died in a car crash, and the lawyer whose just had too much on his plate this week. Then he saw her, she walked in and she seemed new to him. She had pin straight, shoulder length, light dirty blonde hair and big brown eyes. She was dressed neat. A plain blue shirt and a light pink scarf with wrinkle free jeans and a pair of flats. It was no one he'd ever seen at this office before, and there was something different about her. It was something that he couldn't exactly place into his mind, so he attempted to shake the thought off.

"Harry?" His therapist stepped into the waiting room, helping him shake off the idea of the girl.

He nodded and stood up, wiping off any wrinkles from his jeans and followed his therapist into the back. "It's good to see you...How are you doing?" The short plump man asked, leading him into their regular room. Harry shrugged and sat on the edge of the outstretched chair, (he always refused to lay in it).

"N-Nothing changed. It never does." Harry explained quickly whispering his response three more times after.

His therapist nodded, "Well of course it won't , with that attitude." He offered a polite chuckle and layed a hand on Harry's shoulder. Only to be denied. He knows Harry doesn't like to be touched.

The therapist cleared his throat and withdrew his hand, "What about your family? Have you talked to them?"

Harry simply shook his head. He didn't want to talk. He never did, perhaps this is why his problems never got better.

His therapist nodded again accompying it with a sigh, "Alright Harry, well....I guess we'll try again next week?"

Harry nodded and stood up, he denied the therapist's ourstretched hand, and he made his way towards the door. He didn't want to be rude, he just didn't know what kind of germs people would carry and would rather not attract them himself.

"Goodbye Dr. Ellison." He repeated twice before pulling a tissue out of his pocket, spreading it across his hand and opening the door to exit the office.