Bet On It | H. Styles

xvii

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Six Years Ago

Wendy hated Harry.

That was the conclusion she got from that day.

The rest of the night she couldn't stop thinking about what went down on her front porch. Couldn't stop thinking of everything he could have said. Couldn't stop thinking of how he, without realizing, ruined her life.

Just when she was feeling happy about her circumstances, and coming to terms with how her life was going to play from there on out, he came and threw a wrench into her plans.

She hated him because he was so close to saying what she hoped she wanted to hear, yet he didn't.

She hated him because she was having seconds thoughts on dating Kenny.

She hated him because he was a coward that even though he found the courage to come to her, he still backed away.

She hated him because she so desperately didn't.

And so she also hated herself.

Wendy was tired of this back and forth in her brain. Because she couldn't really wrap her head around how she truly felt but she just knew that she could never really hate Harry as much as she wanted to.

Right now she even felt a little anger towards Kenny for interrupting the moment they were sharing. But at the same time she was grateful, because she didn't know what she would do or how she would think if Harry actually got his words across.

Wendy visited her therapist, Dr. Hill, hoping she would have some kind of answer for her, but Dr. Hill just said what Wendy expected, "Follow your heart. It holds all of your answers."

Wendy nearly threw up at the cliché of her words. And the truth that was behind them. But Wendy avoided her heart because she was scared of it. Scared of all the emotion it held.

"But, I– I cant. My heart is just putting itself back together, I don't need more damage," Wendy mumbled, picking at her nails.

"Maybe this is what you need then to pull all the pieces right where they started," Dr. Hill assured. "Have you asked your friends their opinions?"

"No, and I'm not so sure I want to. I know what they're going to say."

"And what's that?"

"That I should do it. That I should 'follow my heart,'" Wendy gagged as she put air-quotes around Dr. Hill's words.

"And you don't think you should?"

Wendy sighed, flipping her hair to one side of her head. "I don't know what I think."

"Well, let me ask you, why do you think you shouldn't?"

"Because. . . Harry is no good. He's not a good person to me, and my life is so much better when he's not around. My whole life he's been annoying, always picking on me, always competing with me in every little thing. It's been ever since that first day in first grade. I did not a thing to him except be nice but he just disregarded me, labeling me as this girl that wasn't worthy of his friendship. Not that I needed him to be my friend but he was just nasty for no fucking reason. I can't stand him, so I'd rather him just leave. But last week, I don't know, I just hated seeing him walk away," a tear slipped from her eye. God, she really needed to stop being so emotional.

"And why did you hate that? Is that not what you want?"

"That's exactly why I hate him! Because he makes me so fucking confused. There's this pit in my stomach that I get when I get a bad feeling about something. It's the same feeling I got before I received news about my family," now Wendy stood up, pacing the room.