Alleviate // H.S

III

Honk. Honk.

I look over to the window, seeing Harry's car pulling up in the driveway. I furrow my eyebrows, looking over to the clock, which reads 7:35.

He's here early.

After fetching an apple from the fruit bowl and collecting my bag, I'm out the door.

"Sorry for coming early," is the first thing he says when I get in the car.

"No worries, did you need to do something after?" I ask.

"No, no," He says as he smoothly backs out of the driveway. "I just thought we could go get a tea or something before I take you to school."

"Tea, meaning coffee for you?" I smugly smile.

"That's it, sweet girl."

"Are you going to be looking at any new flats today?" I ask. He's intended on moving out of his childhood house ever since he graduated, and after all the hard work he's been putting in at work, he says he can afford to rent one now.

"Yeah, there's a few I need to check today." He sighs, eyebrows furrowing.

"I really hope you find one, you've been looking for ages."

"All the ones I've already had a look at are too far away," He states, concentrating on the road with his usual serious expression.

"Too far away from what? Work?" I ask in confusion.

"Work is very lenient. So no."

"Oh - well that's good. What don't you want to be far away from?" I ask, confusion lacing my tone.

"You."

I look over at his blank stare at the road, noticing that his feature have softened a little.
I don't know how to feel about this. A part of me feels a selfish sense of relief, but the last thing I want is to be holding him back. Friends don't hold each other back, they encourage one another to reach their potential.

"Harry, don't you want to pursue your own ambitions? I'm sure if you stopped worrying about me so much, you'd be on top of the world by now," I tell him. I try not to come across ungrateful, because that is the complete opposite of what I am.

"I don't have any ambitions, I just don't want to be the drop-kick who still lives in his Mum's house," he answers. Hardly anyone moves out of their parents home at the age of eighteen anyway, which is why I suspect that there's a bigger reason behind his choice.

"Anne doesn't mind, I actually think she resents the idea of you moving away so quickly, if I'm being honest. And you're not a drop-kick, you're so intelligent, you could literally do anything you want with a mind like yours," I rant.

It's true, he's done nothing but help me with school, advice and just being a life long guardian in general. Whereas I still don't even know where he works because he refuses to tell me.

"Like I said, other than work and driving you around, I don't have any plans right now," he states whilst pulling into a random coffee shop's car park.

"But it doesn't need to be like that. You can make plans whilst I walk and or take the bus around town, for once," I say. It wouldn't be the end of the world to just find my own form of transportation. The only loss I would be enduring is temporary separation from Harry. Even though that's not ideal on my behalf, sometimes we have to make those sacrifices, unfortunately. I feel like a little bit of a nuisance to him sometimes.

"It's too far to go on your own," he says, looking down at my exasperated expression.

His excuse is silly and unreasonable. I'm perfectly capable of independence. Especially considering that some people around the world have to travel a lot further than I do, within much more dangerous conditions, just to get to places such as school.