The Choreographer

29: You'll Leave

"Love," Harry calls me. I've let him start calling me that. I really couldn't handle it before.

"Hmm?" I ask.

"Turn around." He tells me.

I turn to face him. He's smiling. "What?" I ask.

He kisses me quickly. "Remember that time you told me that these bandanas remind you of a fourteen year old girl who wants to be a hipster?"

He remembered that word for word. "Yeah?"

"I got you one." He grins, all cheeky.

"I can't except a gift that extravagant." I deny.

"The pleasure is mine." He insists.

"I love your thought but really, Harry, it's just too much for a simple girl like me." I tell him putting my hands on his chest to back him away from me.

"Please?" He says then buries his face in the space between my shoulder and neck.

"What color?" I ask.

"Red." He says.

I look down, I'm wearing blue, and my shorts are white. "God bless America." I say as he puts the bandana on me.

"I don't get it." He says.

"I look like an American flag." I tell him.

"Britain uses the same colors." He informs me.

"Red white and blue are more commonly associated with America." I say.

"So is obesity." Harry points out.

"And freedom." I dig.

"Yes, all this freedom, so many choices, which McDonalds to go to...?" He looks up like he's actually pondering.

"You say McDonalds weird." I say, just to have a come back.

Harry laughs, catching my falter. "Admit I'm right..." He says.

"You aren't." I say.

"Really?" He asks.

"Do you hear that?" I asks, pausing.

"No?" Harry looks confused.

"Oh wait, it's just my freedom ringing." I smirk.

Harry laughs and wraps his arms around me. He smells like Old Spice. I smile into his shoulder.

"I've missed you." He says.

"We've spent an entire summer together." I counter.

"Yes, but we weren't really...together." He says pulling us apart.

"No, we weren't." I agree.

"So I was thinking, maybe we could be more together if..." He pauses trying to find the right words. "...if you moved in with me?"

I'm pretty sure I've compared this boy to atomic warfare before and nothing has changed. He's rocking it like it's 1945 and I'm the Enola Gay. I stare at him in silence for a moment.

"What?" I ask.

"I mean, it's almost been a year and I was just thinking that..." He trails off then looks at me.

"No." I say.

"No?" He asks, sounding surprised as I walk into the closet putting clothes away.

I don't answer his question, because I already did two seconds ago. I put away my clothes and push back my hair. It's still blonde. I won't take it back to my roots until I no longer need a reminder to change. However me moving in with Harry will not make me a better person. So I can say no to this and not be shutting him out. I think.

"Really?" He asks, sounding incredulous.

I turn to face him. "Really."

He sighs and looks away. I have upset him.

"Harry." I say.

"What?" He asks, turning to face me.

"Come here." I say reaching out my arms.

He looks at me like I might be a trap. And I am. I will get him to give in and let me not move into his house without him being angry.

"Stay with me." He says.

"I'm not going anywhere." I reply.

"That's the problem. You will stay here." He frowns. "You will not come with me."

"What if we break up? Am I just supposed to not have a house?" I ask. I realize almost immediately that this was not a good question to ask. Or at least not out loud.

"What?" He asks.

Foot in mouth.

"Nothing." I lie. We have been getting on each other's nerves lately. Over the summer it was due to stress, and now it's due to having an entire summer of being annoyed with each other and not talking.

"Why would you ask that?" Harry says. "That is insane. You think I would just kick you out? On the street?"

"If we break up I'm not going to stay at your house." I tell him.

"What will it take for you to believe me?" He asks. "Beg?" He asks getting on his knees in front of me. "I love you, I want no one but you."

"Not begging." I pull him off his feet. That's another thing. Harry has been trying to move us to the next level. More than just a teenage relationship. When I turned twenty in August he bought me a set if Ruby things. Earrings, a necklace and bracelet a ring, everything. It was ridiculous, but also a mature gift. It was symbolic. We can no longer have a teenage relationship. It's like he wants to make this forever and ever. Like we both don't have time or something.

My eggs must be dying.

"Then what?" He asks.

"A ring." I say without thinking and point to my left ring finger. Again, I regret this choice.

"Would you even say yes?" He asks, hurt in his voice.

"What-?" I begin but Harry cuts me off.

"You won't even move in with me, how could you even handle that commitment?" He half states half asks.

I stare at him, my jaw slightly open. I had no idea this bothered him so much.

"Why does this all have to be now?" I ask, confused.

"Because I love you now." He says like this should answer everything.

"You won't love me later?" I bite back, now I'm the angry one.

"That's not what I meant." He says.

"Enlighten me." I tell him crossing my arms.

"Do you not feel the same way as I do?" He asks.

"How do you feel?" I asks.

"I want you, all the time, now, later, tomorrow, forever, at two in the morning if I wake up I want you to be there. Do you not want that?" He asks.

"I don't want us to get ahead of ourselves." I tell him. "We are twenty."

"So?" He says.

"So why now?" I ask.

"Why not?" He asks.

"Why rush?!" I ask more forcefully.

We both just stand there and look at each other. My brown eyes challenging his green ones. We say no words. We know we won't get anywhere.

Harry looks away, or down, more specifically.

"I am afraid you will leave." He says so quietly I almost don't hear him.

This stops me dead in my tracks. All of my anger, all of my annoyance, gone. Because Harry told me my fears, except they were his. He looks up at me, and I have no words, only actions.

I walk over to him and hold his face in my hands. I shake my head and run my thumbs over his cheeks. We stand silently with our foreheads pressed together. Harry puts his hands on my hips and I keep mine on his cheeks.

I never thought that Harry could be insecure.