Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

42ᴺᴰ CHAPTER

                                        42ᴺᴰ CHAPTER 

             "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come" 

He walks into the café next to Dorothy this time, carrying the groceries and staring away completely unfocused. The night is calm as usual. A few stars are visible, the sounds of the city nearly muted, almost as if it’s miles away from this hidden road.

Dora is talking about something he doesn’t hear as the door swings open, the bell ringing over it and sounding almost too loud in the desert shop. He walks through the tables and into the empty kitchen, placing the bags over the table and leaning over it slightly to watch as the old lady follows him in.

She’s got her white hair tied up in a short ponytail hanging behind her head, a long scarf wrapped up around her neck, thick enough to cover her chin and part of her mouth, whenever she tilts her head slightly down to shield from the cold.

As she talks, voice sort of muffled, Harry simply sighs.

“Where’s Leesh?”

Dorothea goes silent at that, stopping by the door with a hand on the handle and the other still holding a paper bag. She keeps looking at him, head tilted to the side and eyes blinking blankly. She was surely not expecting that, Harry can tell, but he’s been looking for her all day as well as trying to escape Zayn’s trials to drag him out for the night.

He’s so not on the mood for partying. Way past that age, anyway.

“I have no idea my dear. She took the day off actually; said she was thinking of going back to Leeds for a couple of days,” she reasons, shrugging like it’s nothing much and stepping in fully, opening the fridge and starting to unpack groceries.

Harry takes a few steps closer to the woman, removes the eggs from the bag and offers her, in silence.

Leeds, though? Elisha hasn’t said anything to him, no mentions of travelling back home or anything alike. Sure, it’s been a topic of conversation sometimes, how much she misses her hometown and stupid family things, like simply hanging around in the living room for the sake of it, but he doesn’t think she’d go back on impulse.

Harry goes for cabinet stuff then, being patient as Dora grabs a chair for herself and complains about back pain and, oh, aging is terrible my dear.

“Did something happen?” he questions, looking at her worriedly and she laughs delightedly.

“Oh, no, my dear. I’m fine, this is dull. Used to it,” she replies with the same smile that doesn’t seem to leave her face, and Harry feels himself flushing in embarrassment.

Not what he meant.

“I’m- uhm, glad. What about Elisha? Did something happen to her?”

Dorothea laughs out loud at that, waving a hand dismissively in the air. The chair slides on the floor only enough to mess with the old woman’s balance, and as she bends down quickly to hold on to the back of the chair, Harry holds her up by the hip at the same time as he puts a feet up on the seat to keep it from falling.

As if it would help much.

“Thank you. And no, not that I know of. Though she’s been distant for a while now, like she’s lost in her own thoughts, you know?” she slowly straightens again and this time Harry not only hands her the cans, but also does he keeps a hand on the chair, for good measure. She then seems to remind something and turns back to look down at him. “Do you know of something?”