Through the Lens

Two Days

Harry's POV

Two days.

That's all I had left. I had two days until the most perfect summer of my life officially ended. Two days before I had to say goodbye to Lily Ridge and return to my old life. In 48 hours I would be on a plane carrying me back to LA, and I had yet to come to any kind of conclusion about how I could leave, the only thing I knew being that every time I thought about it I felt an unbearable ache in my chest.

For the past week, I'd felt a sense of panic every time I looked at Hailey, the idea of being away from her almost too much to even process. Thinking about being back in my old world without having her there to ground me, to keep me focused on the important things and pushing me to do things the way I wanted, was terrifying. I knew that I'd gone from being in the band and having the boys there to support me and tried to branch out on my own, and there was a good chance I was just substituting that need onto Hailey's presence in my life, but whatever it was I just didn't wanna do it without her.

I'd never been someone who became wrapped up in relationships, needing a constant connection to someone in order to function, and I was well aware that Hailey had her own life to live. I knew that if we'd come to some sort of understanding as to where we stood, if we just knew what we needed from each other, then I could go back to LA and make it work. I knew that I could stand being away from her if I knew that things weren't over between us, if we would still see each other at some point and still talk. It was the idea that I might leave and never see her again, the uncertainty of where we stood that was eating at me.

I'd thought a lot about that question Finn asked me that day on the golf course, about what my life would look like in a perfect world. I'd been so caught up in the emotion of not wanting to leave that it had taken me a week to sort it out in my head. In my perfect world, Hailey and I would be together in a solid and committed relationship. We would both chase our dreams and support each other along the way, doing whatever it took to keep our relationship strong and not let the world tear us apart. When we were both satisfied and in a good place, maybe we'd settle down and raise a family, grow old together laughing and living the way we always did. That's what I wanted. I wanted it all, with Hails by my side.

Of course, as usual, the knot in my stomach was caused by my lack of knowledge as to whether she wanted the same thing. I knew she cared about me, I knew she valued our friendship as much as I did, but I really had no clue what she wanted for the future. I didn't know if she even saw one for us at all. I was worried about risking our friendship, complicating something that was already complicated, but that was the exact reason I knew I had to be honest. The first time I'd tried to protect our friendship and shove down my feelings for her it hadn't worked out well for either of us, and I knew this time I just had to lay it all out. It was finding the right time that had been difficult.

As the days went on I noticed the tension between us building, our usual carefree ways seeming far away and distant as we bickered about stupid things. We always bickered, but it wasn't in the playful way we usually did, it was suddenly weighed down with the heaviness of our unspoken feelings, that both of us were angry about the situation. Of course, that didn't mean that either of us even attempted to discuss it, knowing that we'd probably end up brushing it off like we always did to avoid really talking about our feelings for each other.

It's what we did. We'd always preferred the light over the heavy, the laughter over the uncomfortable, the simple over the complicated. Hailey and I liked to live in our own world, the one where nothing bothered us, where it was just me and her and the connection we felt to each other. It appeared that maybe that was our problem, that we'd gone so long without talking about it that it had now become the elephant in the room, the one thing that neither of us knew how to approach.