Remembering Love

Chapter 7

Harry's POV

-Flashback to before concert-

They were right. She doesn't remember me.

I can see it in her eyes as she looks at me, right now. They aren't warm and welcoming like how they used to be when she would look at me. They're guarded and distant. But when she laughs, it still lights up the room.

It has taken everything in me to try and be normal and act like I haven't met her before. I'm used to always being able to hold her hand, or look at her the way I used to, only over a year ago. Watching her right now, as she laughs at Niall's stupid jokes, it hurts me.

Annie wanted me to keep my distance, and let this take time.

I can't. I absolutely can't.

I've spent every second of every day worrying about Madelyn since the accident last summer, I can't control myself. I need to be with her. I need her to remember.

Last summer when she came to England with Annie during the summer, Madelyn and I hit it off pretty well and something just clicked with us.

One day when we all decided to go on a trip somewhere to the countryside with everyone, I was driving Madelyn but we took the longer back road, unlike the others. I wasn't paying attention to the road as much as I should've been. She was singing along to the radio, and I didn't realized that I swerved to the other side of the highway, and ended up flipping the car off of a cliff.

I remember hanging upside down from my seatbelt and looking to my left for Madelyn. She was out cold on the dash board. Her side of the window was blown out and I started to panic. I found my way out of the car, and true to get Madelyn out. I eventually got her seatbelt undone, but there was a gouge on the side of her head where her blood was pouring out like a fountain. I called for an ambulance and tried to tell them directions. I started screaming out her name, trying to wake her. I looked at her cut up, bloody arms and legs, and saw how helpless and lifeless she looked. I thought for sure I killed her. I held her, crying, until the paramedics came and took her in a separate vehicle to go straight to the hospital.

I ended up being just fine. I had a minor concussion and scratches on my face but I wasn't nearly as bad as Madelyn. I called Annie and the others when I was getting taken to the hospital and told them what had happened.

Once as I was released to leave after a day, I found Annie and the guys in the waiting room and we all went to visit Madelyn. The way she looked, laying on the white hospital bed, with the slow metronome like beeping sounds from her heartbeat, and the IV in her arms, was bone chilling.

She had no color in her cheeks like how she always did before. She was laying there lifeless. I didn't leave her bedside from then on. For 10 days, I held her small, cold white hand until the nurses peeled me away from her. She was in a coma for 15 days. I never left her side.

The doctors told me that she wouldn't be able to remember any of us after the accident since it did so much damage to her brain.

Surprisingly enough, we ended up keeping everything with Madelyn away from the social media. Word never got out about her at all. And the news about the car accident involving me was easy to be kept a secret since it only involved my car.

I remember going to the hospital once a day after that. I would watch her from the window of her door. Talking to Annie. It was the only way I could hear her voice and make sure she was okay.

"Wait, so why am I here?" She asked Annie.

"Well what is the last thing you remember?" Annie asked.

"I don't remember anything." She replied.

"Well, we were walking down the sidewalk after going to the cafe, and you tripped on a bike rack and you hit the ground pretty hard and now, here you are." Annie replied.

"Well that sounds like me," she laughed a little and for that small second, I felt my heart jump up in joy at the sound of her laugh.

Annie took Madelyn back home, to America. And that was the last time I would see her until now. She has no clue that we were together only a year and a half ago.

I'm going to tell her about it tomorrow. Annie doesn't want me to bring it up fully just yet but I don't care. I need Madelyn to come back to me now. She needs to remember. I know she will.

I look at Madelyn as she throws her head back in laughter once again and admire the way she looks. I've waited too long to see her smile and her big amber eyes.

I'm not sure how long I've been staring at her, but her eyes meet mine and she looks down immediately at her intertwined hands in her lap, and I watch as a light blush moves from her neck to her cheeks and I feel a sense of happiness that after all this time, I still affect her the same way as before. But she doesn't remember.

Great. Now she probably thinks I'm a freak because I have no idea what to say to her, I never got to tell her that I was sorry about the accident.

When I saw Madelyn with Annie when she first got here, the air was nearly knocked out of my lungs. I had no idea what to say.

What was I supposed to say to the only girl I've ever loved, but doesn't remember anything about us? Or me?

To her, I'm only Harry Styles. The heartthrob of One Direction. But to me, she's the Madelyn Shields that I had for a summer, and the girl that I still love.

I will do everything I can for her to remember. For her to start remembering our love. And nothing can prevent me from doing so. Only she can.