Stranded [harry styles] ✓

24

Despite being aware of Harry; knelt down and sobbing into the sand - I can't get my feet to move. It's as if my brain has become disconnected from the rest of my body and is refusing to cooperate. All I seem capable of doing is staring at him. Staring at him fall to pieces. 

"It's not fucking fair!" He bellows suddenly and launches a fistful of sand out in front of him. It's breaking my heart to see him so broken but I know that somewhere, deep down behind the shock that's masking my ability to to go to him - I'm broken too. 

The moment Harry pointed out the helicopter, it had been as though a void in my chest had started refill, but the moment it accelerated away - it drained again. It was like I'd almost tasted my mother's home cooking and heard Jules' high pitched laugh. Home had all but been in my grasp and it had been confiscated from me...again. 

But how could that helicopter just leave us like that? It hovered. It saw something.   

"Harry." I attempt but I'm not sure if I've said it out loud or just in my head. Regardless, he's not looking up in recognition of being addressed. "Harry."

He turns his head, not enough to be directly looking at me but enough that I can see his side profile. From here I can see that his eyes are swollen and his lower lip is quivering and suddenly my legs burst into life. I jerk forward as if trying to catch up with my previously failed moves and collapse into the sand.

The grains coat my parted lips as I hit it face first and if it wasn't for the appalling taste - I probably would have remained there out of humiliation. I turn my head to the side; willing myself to hold back my tears of frustration and scowl as the first one rolls over the bridge of my nose. I can't help thinking that the universe is playing a cruel trick on us. Surely...surely after everything that Harry and I have gone through, we couldn't possibly have had our freedom quite literally dangled in front of us? 

...could we? 

There's pressure on the tops of my forearms and I gasp as Harry's long fingers curl around my shoulders. He hauls me out of my crumpled position and into his side before looking down at me with a furrowed brow. At the sight of his bloodshot, watery eyes - I feel my own begin to leak again. 

"Are you ok?" He asks in a tone that I don't think I've heard him use before. It's so flat and void of any emotion that he almost resembles some sort of computer. 

"Are you ok?" I fire back, partially because he's just been taking his frustration out on the sand and also because I don't have a clue how to answer him. Of course I'm not ok and I know full well that he isn't either. I'm almost inclined to believe that what's just happened is worse than us being stranded here in the first place. 

It's callous.

Harry sighs and shakes his head. "What a load of shit." He says before releasing a sort of strangled laugh. "You couldn't make this shit up, I swear." 

I know he's trying to make light of the situation but I can't even bring myself to smile. My ears are ringing with the repetitive whirring of the helicopter's propellors and I have to stop myself from looking up and searching for it.

"Please don't cry. I can't bear it." His voice shatters my depressing thoughts as his right hand lifts up and traps a tear I hadn't even noticed I was shedding. My cheeks heat and I clutch at the neckline of my swimsuit awkwardly. 

"I'm sorry." I mumble and I can feel his gaze burning down on me even hotter than the sun blazing above us. "I just honestly believed we were going home."

Harry pulls me tighter into his side and strokes the side of my face with his fingertips. They're prune-like from his dramatic chase through the sea water and the thought makes my lower lip tremble. I almost want to ask him if he'll let me have some time to myself...time to come to terms with what's happened. But I know we're stronger together and we need each other. 

"I did too." He says sadly. "I was sure of it." 

I remember the day when he told me he admired my faith in the people looking for us and that he was only relying on us now. I'd hated that he'd given up on them when I couldn't bring myself to let go of the comfort in knowing someone was out there trying to find me. But now that we have been found...or the island has been found - my skin is tingling with the bitter sting of disappointment. 

Why were our best efforts not enough? 

"I don't know how we come back from this, Harry." I admit aloud. Every day here; every coconut chunk and staring fish eye, every uncomfortable night on the spine of the palm leaf and every heartbreaking burial of another body - it was all for the moment when someone finally found us. 

What are we working for now? 

What are we surviving for? 

Harry's lips brush my forehead and with him in such close proximity, I know he's struggling to keep it together. His breathing is harsh - almost laboured - and when I look up, his nostrils are flared. He's furious. 

"Please don't say that." He says through gritted teeth and I close my eyes. "We're not giving up yet." 

My mind is drawn to a game Addie and I used to play when we were little. If you closed your eyes for long enough and willed yourself to believe you were anywhere else in the world - when you opened them again, those brief moments of disorientation made the fantasy somewhat real. Addie's destination changed every time but mine was always Kuala Lumpur with Jules. Maybe if I open them now, I'll be in the only place I need to be - home. 

But the harsh sunlight pressing against my eyelids is a devastating reminder that I'm exactly where I was when I closed them. 

"We should have some food and water." Harry's voice is still dull and I can't bring myself to open my eyes and face the reality just yet. I don't want to see the vast, never-ending ocean or the flat colour of the sand. Hell, I don't even want to see Harry's canary shorts anymore. 

I don't want to be here. 

There's a sort of fluttering noise in my mind, almost like wings beating against the sky and I can't decipher if I'm imagining the birds flying over the park in Ilford or the pigeons in London's Leicester Square. Either way, it's almost entirely authentic and I'm proud of my imagination for working over time when I need it most. But as I try to pull my mind away from a world that may never be my own again, the beating becomes louder, almost loud enough that I could be the one flying...

"Sarah, open your eyes now." The urgency in Harry's voice and the fact that his body has slipped away from my own causes my eyes to shoot open. The change in lighting causes me to squint as he races away from me; his arms waving madly in the air like only hours before. I want to tell him to stop. To stop doing something that's only going to break his heart all over again. I want to tell him that he's right about them - that they aren't coming for us, that we shouldn't have faith in them. But he's so animated in his excitement and I haven't a clue why. Meanwhile, the beating is still there - still trying to take me home. 

My feet drift through the sand in Harry's direction but it's almost like the volume of everything around me has been turned down, almost as if everything has become background noise. I feel strangely disconnected from myself again until two large hands come down on my shoulders, so hard that my teeth clash together and rattle. 

"Sarah!" Harry's face invades my vision and the volume rockets up. 

The beating is almost deafening now and it seems to be coming from absolutely everywhere. 

But where are the birds? 

"Sarah! Look!" Harry's grinning so broadly that I'm almost worried his face is hurting him. Confused, I tilt my head upwards and am astonished to find myself staring at a mass of red and white hovering over us. 

Hovering over us...and not leaving. 

author's note: apologies for the delay with this chapter! I've been pretty unwell this last week or so and have only just had the energy to sit in front of my laptop. Looks like Sarah and Harry are going home!