Through The Dark COMPLETED

Chapter 71

Julie woke up to knocking on the door.  Amanda was still sound asleep on her lap.  Her head was killing her.  Ugh.  Stress and this whole situation.  Lack of sleep.  Life just seemed to go from one fucked up mess to another.  She heard a key in the door.  Must be Harry.  She realized it was really light outside.  She looked at the clock and saw that it was mid-morning.  She gently lifted Amanda's head and got up repositioning Amanda on the couch and started walking towards the door.  She stopped both Harry and Niall as they walked in.  "You could have called."  She said to them.

"Oh, so now I have to call to come?  Since when?"  Harry asked her surprised.

"Since last night, since you knew what's going on here."  She looked at him and then at Niall.
"We're not doing this right now."  She crossed her arms and stood in front of them so they couldn't walk further into the apartment.

"Oh, Jesus Christ.  It's like Paris in reverse."  Niall said as he looked her.  Julie had the same look on her face Amanda did when she was in protective mode.  This was not going to go over well.

"Whatever.  She's sleeping, and she's not ready to talk to you right now."  Julie said.  "So, you should just go until she's ready."

"Julie, let's not do this."  Harry said.

Julie rolled her eyes.  "Yes, let's.  I'm not ready to talk to you either.  I think we both need some time to think about things.  And right now, I just haven't been able to."

"Aren't you the one who said it wasn't even about us?"  Harry asked running his hand through his hair.

"Yes.  But you sure made it about us."  She grabbed Niall's arm when he went to walk around her.  "Not now, Niall."

"Yes, now.  You two need to stop doing this with each other.  We can work it out."  Niall said to her a bit angrily.  Which probably wasn't his smartest move.  He watched her let go of his arm, but he saw her hands clench into fists.  She was fighting back at least some sort of anger.

"There is no one, who wants you to work this out more than I do, Niall.  But she is NOT ready to deal with it.  You have NO idea how this affected her.  You CHOSE not to listen to her.  Her feelings matter.  No matter if you agree with them or not.  And YOU should have respected that.  She was trying to sort through the shock and the realization of what she believed SHE had caused.  And BOTH of you went straight to judging her for having those feelings.  Not for making a decision, but for even momentarily thinking about it.  And right now, NEITHER of you are going to make her feel like her feelings are invalid by starting your, 'you love me so you should just deal with it', shit.  Sorry.  Not going to happen.  Neither one of you can even begin to realize the shock that she went through when this all came to her.  So, you both can go stand on your pedestals elsewhere right now.  The 'I'm too noble to think about anyone else's feelings' is not going to play out right now.   And you need to accept that it was all so new, and it was scary, and that she had a million different scenarios running through her head."  She re-crossed her arms and just stood there.  Neither one of the guys said anything.  They both just looked at the floor like punished little puppies.  She didn't even feel sorry for them at that moment.  Ok, maybe just a little bit.  But she couldn't deal with it all.  "Yeah, I think you both should go."

Harry looked at her and licked over his teeth frustrated.  "I think we should talk about this.  But, apparently this is going to take longer than we have right now.  We have to be in the studio soon."

"Of course, you do.  Don't keep anyone else waiting."  Julie said turning on her heel and walking away.

"Don't do that.  You know I can't help it."  Harry said exasperated.