Something Infinite

Chapter 73

Harry's POV

Adrenaline swam through my body, like tiny shocks hitting every tip of my skin, making me jolt and twitch at every burst of energy I was feeling in this moment. I didn't feel like me, but I loved that feeling. That numbing sensation to every emotional trigger waiting to go off. I was free of it, nothing could hurt me.

It wasn't the drug itself I felt myself becoming addicted to, it was the high that came along with it. I knew I could stop at any point, but I didn't want to. Every time I did, I felt myself slipping into a place I didn't enjoy being, but every time felt a little worse. I was a rabbit falling down the rabbit hole, dragging my nails against the walls, clawing my way back up with every hit.

For the first time since I was a teen, being thrown into a world I didn't prepare myself for, I was finally living for myself. No one was here to tell me what I could or couldn't do. I wasn't watching over my shoulder, like a scared school child waiting to get caught. I wasn't pleasing anyone. I wasn't responsible for anyone. I was alone and living for me, while I was away from home.

It's not to say I forgot I had a family back home. I missed them every single day, and thought of them both the minute I woke up, up until I fell asleep. I knew I was responsible for them, and I lived for them. But I was here, away from everything I knew, and this was the first, and probably last time I could close myself off from my real life, and just please myself.

I couldn't have my family here with me, which teared me up a little more each day. The only thing that kept my mind off it, was getting high on whatever Bradley brought around that night. It was a kind of winding down from filming ritual he and I had going on. I told myself it was just one hit, to end my day, and it was perfectly normal. I told myself that enough times to finally believe it.

We'd finished filming in France and Europe, landing us in the final month here in the U.K and then L.A. I spoke to Jen every day, but she didn't suspect anything. During the day I was the man she knew- sober and missing her. During the night, when she slept and I was alone with myself, I was the shell of a man she wouldn't recognise. I barely recognised him.

I stood in my bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. Bradley was in my lounge area of my suite, waiting for me to return to the line he'd prepared for us. Every time I told myself I'd say no, and I didn't need it, and every time I let the devil whisper in my ear just that little bit louder, pulling me further into a world I knew I didn't belong to. I knew I was weak, I wouldn't argue that, Willow was right to stay away, and get her own room since the first night of drama in France.

She didn't really suspect anything was going on. I never used in front of her, or around her. By the morning, when she and I would meet to go to set, I was "normal" again, like the night before hadn't happened. She was oblivious to what I was doing to myself. Or maybe she knew, but tried to ignore it. If she did know, she hadn't told Jen.

I felt like I was doing something wrong, something shady behind my fiancé's back. I knew she would be disappointed in me, and the fear of losing her made me that much more cautious when sneaking around. That sounded completely f*cked up. The fear of losing her should have been what stopped me from being such a f*cking idiot to begin with.

Once I was home, this would all be behind me. I wouldn't crave that high anymore. I wouldn't be weak. I wouldn't do a thing to screw anything up. I told myself this was only temporary, just a way to pass my time and get through the nights, alone. A way to relax after a stressful day. Just something I wouldn't normally do, something reckless.