in time // h.s.

xxxv. janet

Twenty-six years old...

It's quite impossible to move forward and tell yourself that you're doing the right thing when everything seems to be making you question it. Weddings make you think for a start (and I'd been to two that year), as do love songs on the radio, romantic films or crazy dreams full of wacky scenarios and flashbacks. Highly unhelpful. I thought of Harry a lot in the lead-up to my wedding. More than I should have.

It upset me that he kept springing into my thoughts. I couldn't understand why, when I was so happy, his face kept coming into focus to contest that.

And I was happy. I was completely happy with my life with Matthew. That's something I can't stress enough. He was my best friend, he made me laugh every day, he challenged me physically and mentally, he was my ultimate pillar of support, always there, always loving, always giving. There was no reason for me to look elsewhere or consider the possibility that we weren't right together. We were, I knew we were, had done since day one.

But what did Harry taking over my thoughts mean? That's what I kept asking myself. Was it the Universe's way of telling me to think wisely before getting married? Was it suggesting I was meant to choose Harry? Or was he simply on my mind because I'd put him there.

A couple of months before my wedding, after driving myself slightly loopy, I decided to write an email to Harry, to get all my thoughts out in the hope that he'd be able to shed some light on the matter. I'm not entirely sure what I expected from him, but it helped to sit down and just blast out all my feelings. It helped me to organize them and see things more clearly.

That email sat unsent in my drafts folder for weeks. I thought about sending it time and time again. I'd look at it and reword bits, making sure it made sense, and that it truly reflected how I felt. It did, but something stopped me from typing his name in the address bar and pressing the send button. I let it sit there for as long as I could.

The night before my wedding I was in my old bedroom trying to sleep, but wasn't having much luck. I had too much nervous energy bubbling away inside me. It didn't help that my gorgeous wedding gown was hanging from the door of my wardrobe, demanding my attention, doing its best to tempt me out of bed and squeeze into it ahead of schedule.

Lying in the bed from my childhood, I thought about everything that could possibly go wrong the following day (the normal bride worries) but I also thought about me and Matty, about how far we'd come since our first smile at nine years old, to our wedding day. Thinking of our future, I knew we'd have a lifetime of happiness together. I knew, for absolute certain, that it was what I wanted.

Suddenly I decided I'd waited long enough.

I needed Harry to know how I felt.

I picked up my laptop from the floor and went into the draft folder of my emails.

I clicked print.

***

That night, I stood outside of Harry's childhood house, catching some fresh air in a trance-like daydream.

I'd been there for a while when I finally got the courage to knock on his front door. My breath caught in my throat as I heard footsteps coming towards the door a minute later.

The door swung open and there he was.

Harry.

"Janet? You okay?" he asked, his voice low and raspy. I must've woken him up.

The speech I had prepared on the walk from my house to his was completely forgotten as I stood there staring at him. It was the first time since he came back from his travels that we were properly stood face-to-face. I had been so busy with the wedding and making sure everything was perfect and that the wedding planner knew about every single detail that I hadn't been able to actually really talk to him or welcome him back. I felt extremely shitty then, but mostly awe struck.

He had cut his hair for the wedding. Last time I saw him, which was at the rehearsal dinner, his hair reached just a bit past his shoulders, framing his face with long tendrils of soft curls. Now, his hair was disheveled due to sleep and drastically shorter. He completely cut down the back and left a bit of a fringe in the front, presumably for a quiff.

It was incredible how younger he looked with his shortened hair. He looked just like he did when we were in uni five years ago, except five times more darker due to his travels.

The green of his irises twinkled like emeralds under his porch light, and I found myself admiring his features like I haven't in a long time. The shape of his heart-shaped lips, so smooth, plump and the most delicious shade of rose pink. The adorable furrow between his brows he always did whenever he thought or concentrated too hard. The length of his eyelashes as they fluttered across his cheekbones whenever he blinked. And the way his hair always looked feather-like and soft, practically begging to have my fingers drag through its tendrils.

I snapped out of my thoughts once he repeated my name again.

"Huh?"

"I asked if you were okay," he said, eyebrows furrowed in worry.

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine," I assured him with the best smile I could muster.

"Alright... what are you doing here then?"

"Erm, I came to give you this," I held up the folded letter in my hand. "But, on second thought, I changed my mind. I'll see you tomorrow."

I hurried off his mother's porch but was stopped when a hand gently gripped my upper arm.

"Janet, whats wrong?"

Suddenly, all the bubbled anger and feelings I've suppressed for him since that night we spent together in uni rose to the surface, practically making me explode with rage.

"You're what's wrong!" I yelled as I whirled around and shoved him in the chest. He stumbled a few steps back out of shock, his jade eyes widening. "You brought out all these feelings I didn't know I had for you one night and then you went and screwed me over the next, then after a few years you come back and do the same shit!"

"What? I-I didn't mean to. Why does that even matter right now?"

"It matters because no matter how hard I try to forget how you made me feel, how your touch left my skin feeling as if it were on fire, how your kisses made my heart flutter, how a simple smile from you made me feel like I was the only one that mattered... I just never can. I was so ready to wait for 'the right time' with you, why weren't you?" My voice lost volume as the weight of all my emotions and guilt settled down on my heart.

Harry's face softened, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

"Janet, I was more than ready to wait for 'the right time' with you, but you and I both knew that would've been a waste of time. There was never going to be a right time for me and you, you're meant to be with Matty and nothing was ever going to change that."

"That's not true..."

"Yes, it is and you know it. It sucks but the truth of the matter is, we had the right love at the wrong time. There's nothing that can change that now."

I jumped slightly when his hand wiped away a tear I hadn't even noticed I shed.

"You are and always will be my only one, Janet Breuer. And even though I could never be your only, I'll always be grateful for at least being one."

Without saying anything more, he took the letter out of my left hand and took my right hand in his and I instantly knew what was coming. The infamous squeeze, the longed-for three little unvoiced words, in the way he'd told me since he was just eleven years old.

A bolt surged through me and my lip wobbled as he interlaced our fingers.

Then he squeezed my hand, just like he did hundreds of times before, and my tears started to fall freely.

"I always will," he leaned in and whispered, before slowly releasing my hand, turning around and walking back into his mom's house.