habits of my heart (h.s.)

fifteen

For some reason, Harry was still in my bed.

I had no idea why. We had already done the deed, as he so aptly put it--twice--and it was too early in the day for either of us to fall asleep. And yet there he was, his body pressed up against mine. We were so close that I wondered if he could feel my heart pounding. The speed of my heart wasn't necessarily because of what we had just engaged in, although I supposed that was part of it, but mainly due to the fact that he probably should have left ten minutes ago.

It felt too weird to ask him why he was still here. It wasn't that I wanted him to leave, per se, but it kind of felt like we were breaking some unspoken rule. I had never been in a friends with benefits type of situation before, but something was telling me that this wasn't exactly how it should be.

"Your hair smells good," Harry said abruptly, breaking the silence. "Like...strawberries, or something."

I laughed awkwardly. "Thanks. My ex hated it." I immediately cursed myself for bringing him up, because I didn't want Harry to think I was associating the two of them in any way.

Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice. "What kind of psychopath hates strawberries?"

"The kind that's allergic to them."

"Ah. Makes sense."

I nodded. I was suddenly very aware of how close his hand was to my hip, but I pretended not to notice. "Yup."

"How long did you guys date?" Harry asked. When he noticed the wary expression on my face, he quickly said, "C'mon. You know all about my old relationship."

"I literally know nothing about it," I reminded him. "All I know is that her name is Anna and she used to be your roommate."

"That's really all there is to know about it," he shrugged. He was a good liar. "Now come on, tell me about yours."

"Nothing much to tell," I sighed. "His name's Ray--"

"What kind of a name is Ray?" Harry immediately cut me off.

"His real name is Raymond," I explained.

"That's even worse."

"Okay, do you want me to tell you about him or not?"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. Continue."

"Well, yeah, so his name is Ray. He was pre med too, so we were in a lot of the same classes. Then he graduated, moved to Boston for med school, and we broke up," I said pragmatically.

"Wait, Boston isn't even that far," Harry said. "Why didn't you do long distance?"

My face immediately twisted into a sour expression. "Ew, we would never. It's not realistic. Even if he stayed in New York, we probably would've stopped seeing each other anyway. Med school is a huge time commitment."

"What's gonna happen when you go to med school?" Harry teased me. "You never gonna speak to us again?"

"Well, I live here, so..." I reminded him.

"Unless you get into Harvard or whatever."

"I'm not getting into Harvard," I scoffed. "I probably won't even get into med school. It gets harder and harder every year."

"You will," Harry declared. "So, you and Ray. You just ended things, just like that?"

"Pretty much," I said. "Things were never really that dramatic between us. It was a mutual thing."

"It's never a mutual thing," Harry said.

"This one was. I don't know. I wouldn't even really say that I was in love with him either, so it didn't take that long to move on. I wasn't, like, devastated or anything."