Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

38ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                        38ᵀᴴ CHAPTER 

    "There are things you do sometimes, actions that you take by obeying sudden impulses, without stopping for even a fraction of a second to think, and then you spend the rest of your life either lamenting it or thanking yourself for it. They are rare, unique, and perfect moments"

Harry wakes up to something landing painfully hard on his chest and a breathy giggle from the doorstep.

He opens his eyes to find Gemma laughing quietly at him as he stretches his arms out and tries to sit up on the bed, sheets spread out all over the place, except his body. When he does manage to sit up, there’s the sound of something hitting the wooden floor and Gemma growls at him, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t break my phone, you idiot,” she scolds, walking in and grabbing the phone herself, only to hand it back to Harry.

He looks puzzled, taking the phone but still looking at his sister as if she’s lost some brain cells. “What’s this for?” he wonders, still half asleep, and the question seems to spur something satisfied within her.

“Got a message from an unknown number, and awkwardly enough, it’s for you,” she says smugly, then quirks an eyebrow at him. “Went to check my outbox and guess what? You sent a rather embarrassingly sweet message to this same number.”

Harry falls back down on the bed and pulls a pillow over his face. Fuck, he didn’t delete the message.

“Fuck off, Gemma,” he growls into the softness of what’s pressed into his face and waits for the moment she’ll leave him to be.

It doesn’t happen.

“So. Is it a new girlfriend? You didn’t tell us about her.”

Harry so wants to dig a hole and hide there possibly until his death. “Fuck. Off!” he yells then, digging his fingernails into the pillow. “It was a joke.”

Gemma laughs soundly, pulling the pillow out of his face and eyeing him down half-murderously. “I am going to head downstairs for breakfast and leave you with my phone for about ten minutes. If I get it back and find naked pictures of either of you you’re going to buy me a new one and pay for my psychological consults.”

When Harry throws the pillow at her he misses it completely, his sister having run off the room already. “I’m not fucking sixteen, Gem!” he screams at the already empty room and listens to another round of laughter seeming to come from the stairs.

“As if you’ve changed much since then!” she yells back, and then the conversation is over. Next time he hears her voice, she’s saying something like “Did you know Harry’s got another girlfriend” and he possibly wants to kill her, because as much as he prays so, she probably isn’t talking to herself.

How old are they? Six? Gemma should just keep her mouth shut, sometimes.

Harry stares at the phone in his hand and fights himself internally not to open Elisha’s reply to his message. Somehow, it would be losing to his sister, whatever the challenge she’s put up, but it’s useless.

With a sigh, he opens the already opened message and stares blankly at the words on the screen.

‘Shouldn’t I have? Oops. Haha. Happy New Year, Haz :) x”

And.

She’s joking, too, right?

He throws the phone to somewhere near his feet and hopes it won’t simply flip from the mattress to the ground. (He doesn’t hear any suspicious sounds so that must be a good sign).