So Close

Chapter 16

“Skye?” I asked as a young voice answered Skye’s phone.

“Ummm, no. This is Freja.” She answered and I sighed. Freja was Skye’s sister.

She was really nice and drop dead gorgeous, and that was the problem. Liam, Louis and Zayn didn’t realise that they were flirting with her without thinking. Of course, with Freja being the innocent girl that she was, she didn’t realise that they were hitting on her until Skye told them off for it.

“Hey Freja, did Skye leave her phone at home when she went to netball practice?” I asked as I continued walking to Harry’s. My mind was on everything but the conversation I was currently having.

“Yeah, can I take a message love?” She offered and I smiled at her general sweetness.

“Could you let her know that I wont be able to make it tonight? Something has come up and I have to… uhh… watch Nell.” I responded and she replied with a simple “Ok, bye” before the line went dead. I didn’t have the effort to keep up the appearance that I was happy in front of Skye tonight.

“Clare? I didn’t know you were coming over!” Harry said through his door as he peered out of the peep hole. It was clear that he couldn’t have seen the state I was in, if he had seen it then he wouldn’t have sounded so nonchalant about the whole thing.

My red blotchy cheeks were in stark contrast with the rest of my pale face. My hair was knotty because I had been running my hands through it repetitively on the way over and my nose was enflamed due to wiping it constantly.

His usual greeting of a warm smile quickly faded as he opened the door and shot me a worried look as he pulled me into a hug.

This was probably my favourite of all of Harry’s attributes, the way he was so willing to care for someone without knowing the root of the problem. It is really difficult, as a person, to be so open and willing to help people. He was able to stand being a short term comfort, there until the person needed a longer term solution.

“Want to talk about it?” He offered, pulling back and stroking my matted hair off my damp face as I shook my head. He simply nodded as pecked my forehead, stroking my hair as he hugged me again.

All thoughts of the remorse and hopelessness that I felt about Niall were slowly dissipating as he hugged me. The soothing, motherly actions that Harry was talking were tricking my mind into being relaxed.

“Ok, my little princess.” Harry joked, pulling my arm inside as I bit back a laugh. “Lets go inside and we can play some x-box and order Chinese food.” I sniffed and nodded as we walked into his house.

After I began to lose to Harry in Fifa, he looked at me sadly. If it wasn’t already obvious by my demeanour, playing X-box badly was an obvious sign that my happiness was non-existent.

Let’s do a bit of role play shall we? Just put yourself in my shoes for a moment: