The Way We Feel

Chapter 17

The hallway was just as quiet as it always had been. The guy living at the other end of it was young, kept to himself, and lived alone as far as I could tell, generally staying out of sight. I dragged my suitcase behind me towards the door, clutching my purse to my shoulder. Harry had tried to take both when we'd gotten out of the car downstairs. I'd said no. In a weird way it felt... good to have something to hold onto.

Our door looked the same, pretty "Welcome!" sign and all. Mom had gotten it for us when we moved in—one of her many housewarming gifts. I didn't have the heart to tell her that no one beyond family or friends would likely see it. Not even the mailman. Because my husband was Harry Styles, and it was imperative that no one we didn't know would make it this far.

Harry stopped when he reached it, let his suitcase stand beside him, and the keys sounded the same sliding into the lock—a loud, jangling sound, a click, and then the twist of the door handle as Harry pushed it open, reaching for his suitcase and rolling it through behind him.

I followed.

The house looked the same. Harry placed the keys in the same bowl on the front table, walked down the same hallway, the same carpet muffling the sounds. The air was still, and the sun was streaming in through the window at the far end of the hall—the window in our bedroom.

Harry kicked off his shoes and headed straight for it, wheeling his suitcase behind him. And it was so familiar a sight—watching him move about the house—that I knew I should've been comforted.

Because everything was the same as it always had been.

But nothing was the same either.

I stood in the hallway a little longer, looking from Harry moving around in our bedroom, to the table beside me where we'd left some unopened mail, then back again. I didn't know what to do with myself. For the past three days, I couldn't figure out what to do with myself. How to—live again. As if that was so easy.

Because nothing was the same, even though everything surrounding me hadn't changed.

Everything except Harry.

He'd changed. Just like I had. And at the same time, not at all like I had.

We'd fallen asleep in each other's arms the other night in his mother's house, after I'd showered and held him while he cried. Without a word exchanged between us, he curled up against me, his head on my chest, his arms wrapped around my waist—my stomach. Where our baby no longer existed. It hadn't taken him long to fall asleep once he'd cried himself out. But I'd lain there, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the rise and fall of his breath against me, and I prayed.

Prayed like I'd never prayed before. To a higher power I wasn't sure even existed—because if there was something or someone up there, I couldn't understand why they'd want to take so much from me. Why my dad had to go, or my first baby, or now my—

Still, I'd prayed with everything I had. For the babies I'd lost, for the man I loved in my arms, and for myself. Because I didn't know how I'd get through this, but I knew I'd done it once before. And things had been better on the other end.

It was getting to that other end that would be the tricky part. That had been the tricky part.

So, even though my world had shattered and spun out into pieces, like glass falling to the floor to become shards sharp enough to draw blood, I prayed for the future. Our future. I prayed that one day soon, we'd be able to pick up those pieces, even if it hurt to do it. I prayed that Harry's pain would one day soon lose its edge. That he would heal. I knew that it would never go away completely—for either of us—but I prayed his sadness would lessen day by day, that at some point, he'd be able to think of this baby and feel that sadness, and not let it weigh him down for long. That he'd be able to look at whatever children we might have in the future and remember this first one with love in his heart.