C R A C K // H.S AU

Chapter Three

CREDIT TO: @kinkistyles FOR THIS AMAZING COVER, I'm actually still choosing but it's so amazing I'm actually speechless.

HARRY.

The walls around me breathed in and out in time with painful rise and fall of my chest. It was almost as if they were capable of feeling the pain that I was feeling. Part of me knew that the thought of objects feeling pain, let alone my specific pain, was ridiculous. If it were true, all the walls and buildings around me would've crumbled at my very touch, and with my crumbling touch would come more death and more casualties than what I had already expected. I was a ticking time bomb, simply waiting for the best opportunity to explode. Who knew that the thought of having structures around you could be so comforting yet so distracting at the same time?

The curtains in my bedroom remained closed, preventing any form of light, or any kind of life from getting in. I continued to stir restlessly as an overwhelming feeling took over my body, my lungs struggling to rotate air and my eyes felt as if they wanted to snap shut; locked together like a magnet.

For hours I had been trying to get some sleep, any sleep, but the combination of guilt, regret and sorrow flooding my mind had kept me awake for what, in reality, felt like days. I knew deep down when the familiar feeling of butterflies filled my stomach that I was afraid. I was afraid of what was going to happen, what my mum was going to think of me, what was going to happen to Clementine, but what scared me the most was the idea of falling out of love; being left alone without a partner in the world. What if Clementine never moved on? What if she shut down and never found happiness again? What if my stupid mistakes costed her a lifetime of love and happiness? What if I broke her and there was no way of fixing her? I knew it was all my fault. It was my fault that I wasn't able to support her in one of my darkest moments, it was my fault that I wasn't able to give her the love and commitment that she craved. If only I hadn't dwelled on my step dads passing. If only I hadn't hallucinated things. If only I was capable of focusing on her, on love; on us.

If only I could've been better.

I was selfish and that wasn't the worst part. Yes, I'll admit that I knew I was being selfish and no matter how many time Clementine screamed it in my face; I just didn't listen. I was broken, I was cracked, and I needed to stitch myself back together so that I could lover her. She was my world. And just maybe, she still would be.

What the f.uck was I thinking? I gave her everything, I sacrificed so many life changing opportunities to be with her, to make her happy but it was never good enough. My step-dads death was her excuse to leave, because what? Because he came to visit me? Because there was a chance that me seeing him wasn't made up? No. I knew he was there, he was trying to talk to me, trying to teach me, trying to help me. Why was I so afraid? Why was I so stupid?

But then again, maybe I was just too involved in his passing, I was too stupid to realise that she was slipping away from beneath the palms of my hands and come to think of it... could I have really stopped her? There were no words that I could've screamed, no pleads that I could've whispered and no 'I love you's' that I could have cried to stop her; her mind was made up. But mine wasn't.

Maybe she wanted to leave? Maybe she didn't love me anymore? Maybe she had found someone new? No. I refused to believe that after everything we had been through, everything we had done together, that she would just stop loving me like that... Clem wasn't like that; she wasn't capable of breaking someone's heart. Even though she just did.