Artwork [h.s]

sixty-three

I looked up when I heard the doorbell ring and I got up from the couch, closing the laptop in the way before walking towards the front door and opening it, leaving it open for Harry to walk in.

He did, the strap of his gym bag on his shoulder, his hair slightly damp and resting across his forehead messily, closing it behind himself. He put the bag down next to the door momentarily as he took off his coat and hung it next to mine before taking his shoes off and grabbing the bag and walking upstairs wordlessly to leave it in my room.

I rolled my eyes when I noticed that sometime after leaving the house he'd removed the bandage from his left hand, and quickly understanding what had happened I walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer, grabbing the first pack of something I saw - which turned out to be peas - and wrapping a paper tissue around it.

Harry came back downstairs as I was walking to the living room, and he shot me a confused look, his eyebrows slightly furrowed when he saw what I was holding. "Peas?" He asked quietly, sizing the pack up with a frown on his face.

"I know you went boxing" I replied, "even with your hand." I handed it to him and he took it while sitting on the couch, carefully putting it over his knuckles, inhaling sharply when it slipped from his hand a bit and landed a bit more roughly than it should've.

I took the laptop and put it on the floor before sitting down next to him, putting my feet up on the cushion as I eyed him carefully. He was looking down at his hand, but glanced up when he felt my stare on him, our closeness being enough for me to spot the few faint freckles scattered across his nose.

I looked away quickly, nonchalantly shifting to the side and putting a little distance between us, knowing that I wouldn't have managed to keep my sanity if I'd stayed that close to him for too long. "Your hair is wet" I commented giving it a little glance. It was dry enough not to drip water down his neck, but it seemed somewhat matted, and I was pretty sure that if I'd touched I would've found it damp. It certainly wasn't the kind of hair someone should've had while being outside in a cold evening of mid-January.

"I showered at the gym" he replied softly, his gaze not leaving mine as he spoke. He cleared his throat quietly, pushing his hair back and glancing down again as he slowly lifted the pack of peas to check what his hand looked like.

"How's your hand?" I asked him gently, watching him and resuming my previous position a bit closer to him. The conversation seemed somewhat tense, as if we were both purposely trying to avoid a burning topic - which, in a way, we were. Or at least, I was.

He shrugged, covering it with the peas again. "It hurts" he simply said, acting as if it wasn't that much of a big deal at all.

I nodded slowly at his words. "You shouldn't have gone boxing today" I told him, even though the comment felt more circumstantial than anything else.

"I know" he said quietly, leaning back against the corner of the couch and closing his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand.

"Dinner?" I asked, a hopeful look in my eyes, wanting to have something to do to ease the tenseness of the moment.

He sighed, but didn't move from his position. "Maybe later, I'm feeling a bit nauseous at the moment" he shared quietly, covering his eyes with his hand, and I nodded slowly.

I stood up quietly and made my way into the kitchen, taking a glass out of the cupboard and filling it with water halfway through before grabbing a lemon from the basket next to the fridge and cutting it in half, putting a half aside and squeezing the other into the glass, making sure that no seeds would've ended up in the water. I took it and walked back to the living room, putting the glass down on the little table in front of the couch.