Written

Chapter 48

HAYLEY

I wake up with late morning light shining through the window and intense confusion about the events of the past forty eight hours. I know I've slept much later than I intended to, but truth be told I needed the sleep. I was starting to hallucinate impossible things. I don't even let myself think of what I thought I saw last night. It hurts too much and hoping is foolish.

But my uncertainty doesn't last long when I nearly trip over Harry, laying on the floor next to the couch. Okay. Well...okay. What is he doing here? I had begged Paul to keep the information from Harry as long as possible, knowing that he would fly into action. I expected phone calls, text messages, flowers, but even in my wildest dreams I hadn't imagined that Harry would come here.

Looking at him, sprawled out on the floor and fast asleep, I have literally no idea what to do. Should I wake him? I wouldn't know what to say to him if he woke up right now. The thought is enough to make me cautiously step over him and creep out of the room. Running away from problems (particularly problems in the form of human beings) is never the answer, but I can't think of what else to do. Harry can figure out how to handle this situation, he is the one who inserted himself into it.

I make my way to the kitchen, where my mother is feeding Ryan breakfast via the feeding tube protruding from his stomach. I look away, unable to watch. A heavy blanket rests across Ryan's lap as he sits back in a wheelchair. His eyes light up when I walk in. That is the only part of his body that remains completely normal throughout the process of, well, dying. His eyes.

"Good morning Hales," he says cheerily.

"Morning," I yawn. My mom catches my eye and gives me a little smirk. "What?" I ask defensively. Ryan answers for her.

"Well Hayley, I'm not sure if you noticed, but this morning there was a foreign boy in very tight jeans sleeping on my floor." Ryan's smirk is the same as my mom's. If only they knew how not funny this was.

"I don't really know what to do about that," I whisper. I had told them the gist of it, that Harry and I don't really talk anymore. I had told Ryan everything the minute I had gotten home and he insisted that the conversation not revolve around him.

Ryan is about to answer, but his eyes focus on something over my shoulder and I feel Harry's presence behind me. I turn around quickly and we are facing each other, neither of us knowing what to say. Harry finally breaks the silence that has fallen over the entire kitchen. "Good morning," he says hoarsely.

"Hi," I say, not meeting his eye. Tension in the air thickens until it's almost hard to breathe, until my mom breaks the silence.

"Breakfast?" She asks in a panicky voice, eyes wild. I just nod, and for the next half hour I sit in my childhood kitchen, eating cereal next to my dying brother and the boy who broke my heart.

HARRY

I have no fucking clue what is even going on, and I don't feel like I can comfortably ask. So instead of doing something, saying something, I just sit here eating cheerios while Hayley eats Fruit Loops, and the whole thing is ridiculous because I love the girl who can't even stand to look at me and Ryan is dying and Hayley hates Fruit Loops.

"Do we need to talk?" She asks me in a small voice after breakfast. I just nod my head and let her lead me outside. There is nowhere in the house private enough for the conversation we need to have. She takes me out into the backyard, a large, fenced in field with a few trees in the back. Hayley sits on the grass, and I sit down next to her without being invited. She doesn't speak, so I take it as my cue to ask questions.

"What happened?" I ask. I mean it in regards to Ryan, but I find myself wondering 'what happened' to everything in my life. Since the day I auditioned for the X Factor, it's like I was caught up in a tornado. A tornado that spun me around the globe and landed momentarily in Atlanta all those months ago, sweeping a courageous, beautiful, witty brunette into my storm.