Between the Pages

eighteen

Playlist- "hold my hand,love" by radixl

(A)

Yelling, screaming, shouting, are all bearable expressions of anger. I can tolerate passion-fueled screams, echoing around a room. No matter how loud they are you can drown them out. You can turn it into background noise, a distant buzzing sound completely distant from you. Silence on the other hand, can't be avoided. It consumes the space it occupies, making its presence known. Silence is the loudest form of anger.

Harry doesn't speak. Neither do I. His eyes stay cast upon the forest. Maybe he's thinking about escaping into the green cluster of trees, into fresh air free of the tension surrounding us. I've never been skilled in expressing my emotions, emotions and weakness were synonyms as far as I was concerned. Right now I wish I could. I wish I could put my guilt into words and that Harry would understand. He would stutter a reassurance and give me the faintest of smiles. Everything would be okay. I take a deep breath, the apologies stuck in my throat making it unusually hard to inhale, and turn away from Harry. My feet begin walking the familiar trail and I leave Harry and the silence behind. Maybe for the last time. He doesn't try to stop me.

I think I hear him sigh in relief.

~

The next morning the sun doesn't rise. Or the next. Or the next. Literally, the weather channel predicts overcast until Monday, which is fitting. Mother Nature must be in as bad a mood as I am. The week passed without me really being aware of it, a blur of lessons and lectures. None of the classes were capable of teaching me how to solve any problems that actually mattered. One thing I distinctly remember was Harry not speaking a single word to me. He didn't even look at me.

I laid on my bed, having absolutely no intention of moving at all today. I'd wallow in self pity and drown my sorrows in Netflix. The light from my laptop was the only thing from keeping my room completely dark. My curtains were pulled and were staying that way until the sky stopped reflecting my mood. Looking at the dreary gray of the clouds only made me more upset. Over the course of the week I hadn't seen my mother once. Not that she was company I wanted to keep but at least she was a distraction. Speaking of distractions, I turned my attention back to the movie I was watching. My eyes slowly flutter shut after a while, and the noise from my computer fades away.

I wake up to someone pounding on t door. Dragging myself downstairs, I peek out the window and see none other than my lovely boyfriend. I immediately turn around to go back upstairs.

"Andy I can see you," His voice was muffled but the irritation was clear. He pounds on my door again. "Andy I swear,"

Realizing he won't leave until I answer, I swing the door open. "What?"

"We're going out,"

"No," I attempt to shut the door on him but he stops it with his foot.

"Yes. Go get dressed you have fifteen minutes,"

"Zayn, fück off," His face tenses, he's clearly struggling to keep his calm.

"Remember when we made our deal? Time to hold up your side. Now be a good little girlfriend and hurry up,"

“Fine,” I slam the door shut, ignoring his protests from the other side. He can wait in the cold. My thoughts wander back to Harry while I mindlessly ready myself. I wonder if he'll be there. It seemed likely. Harry had been hanging out with new people, girls mostly, and seemed determined to erase his old image. He'd been skipping classes, or if he decided to attend he was late. I mean it wasn't a complete one-eighty. His hands would still scribble an excessive amount of notes during lectures. He would mumble the answers before anyone else in class, even though he stopped raising his hand. Subtle changes but changes nonetheless.