I'm Broken {Harry Styles}

Chapter 18

| Lacey's POV |

"What shall we do while we wait?" I asked.

"Want to play twenty questions?" He replied.

"Sure, okay I'll think of something first," I playfully tapped my chin while I thought of something for him to guess. "Oh! I got it!" It was a shoelace (I saw a pair of old boots with knotted laces).

"Okay..." He hesitated. "Are you going to ask me?"

I looked at him puzzled. "What would I ask you? I thought of the object?" I am genuinely confused.

"What object? We are-" he interrupted himself. "Ohh, I get it. Your thinking of the twenty questions where one person thinks of something and the other has twenty tries to guess it, right?" He asked.

"Well, duh. What other game is there?"

"The one where we each ask twenty questions about each other and we have to reply truthfully," he explained.

"I have never heard of this but okay."

"What? How? This is a really popular game to get to know people," he sounded exasperated at my knowledge, or lack thereof.

"Well I haven't had the most social lifestyle, what with no mother and having to school myself. I didn't get the chance to meet very many new people."

"Ugh whatever, let's just play," he seemed off-put by my description and tried to change the topic. "I'll go first. Okay, um... I'll start with an easy one: favourite colour?"

"Green. Favourite food?"

"Tricky question, probably my mums chocolate cake. It's like heaven on a platter," this was the first time he has ever said anything about his family to me. Even though it was something small and stupid, it's nice. "What's your middle name?"

"Marie, what's your favourite animal?"

"Cats." He said without hesitation. "Do you like music, if so, what type?"

"Of course I love music! I listen to Greenday, Blink 182, Panic! At the Disco, The 1975, Nirvana, All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, and so much more I don't even know I listen to it all the time," I listed a bunch of artists that I was a huge fan of. He probably thought I was weird for listening to this punk, rock music.

"No way! I love every band you just named!" Harry exclaimed. He got really excited.

"Really?" Now I was getting excited. From the few people I know, all of them think I'm weird for listening to this music.

"Hell yes!"

"Oh okay right, right, I've got to ask you a question. Um... Have you ever had, like, a serious girlfriend?" I asked curiously. I really did want to know. I'm assuming that floosey girl from last night wasn't an irregular occurrence.

He seemed to be taken aback by my question. He gave a little cough and said, "Um, well yeah. I uh, had one, yes," he avoided my eye contact.

"What was her name?" I asked.

"Um, Meghan," I could tell he didn't want to talk about it so I just let it go.

"That's a pretty name. Okay, Your turn."

He seemed appreciative of the change-of-topic. "Right, how do you do it?" He began. "How are you sitting here, smiling and laughing when not even twenty four hours ago, your boyfriend was trying to rape you?"

This was not at all what I was expecting to be asked. "I, uh, well. I'm used to it, I guess. I have to go in to work every day and not let people know there's something wrong. I just push it out of my head and try to move on. Obviously there are moments when I just can't do that so I have to plaster on a fake smile and nobody can tell." I let my shoulders sink down.

"You are the strongest person I have ever met, Lacey Marie Johnson." I almost laughed in his face. Me? Strong?

"Yeah right. I'm probably the weakest person out there," I gave a little chuckle to try and lighten the mood a tad.

"No, Lacey. I'm serious. You have gone through more horrible shit in your, what, seventeen years? than anybody should have to go through in their lifetime. You should be in a mental institution right now but you have a full time job, you take college courses, and you maintain a social life. You're brilliant," for the entire time he was speaking he made intense eye contact with me.

"Sometimes it feels like I'm going insane," I mutter back, "Like I should be in that mental hospital."

"Hey, hey," Harry said to get me out of my mind and back to reality. "Don't go there. We all have those days."

"Yeah but mine are every day, all the time," I mumbled.

"That's not true. Not even five minutes ago we were laughing and having a a good time."

"Yeah and I ruined it."

"Lacey, you did not ruin it. I'm the one that asked the question I knew it was sensitive and I shouldn't have brought it up," he apologized.

I sighed. "I ruin everything. That's why people try to do bad stuff to me."

"You don't ruin anything and I don't know why people do these God awful things to you. It's cruel."

"Everyone gets what they deserve."

"And what did you do to deserve abuse from your own father and almost getting raped by your boyfriend?"

"I killed my mother." My voice cracked in the middle of my sentence and my eyes welled up with tears.

"Wait, what? How did you kill your mother?" He sounded extremely confused.

"She went to get my cake and never came back. We had cake mix at home but I wanted an ice cream cake," the tears broke free and streamed down my face.

"So how did you kill her?"

"She died while on her way to get my fucking ice cream cake," I was beginning to get angry at my younger self. Why wouldn't I have just had the cake we could have made from home? Then my life would be completely different. I might even be normal.

"That wasn't your fault, she wanted to get you the cake and the driver that hit her was being reckless. It had nothing to do with you."

I scoffed at his response. "Nothing to do with me? She went out to get my birthday cake for my birthday party."

"You can't help that it was your birthday. It's not like people choose the day they're born," he tried to be reasonable but I wouldn't hear it. It's my fault that my life is like this. He-or anyone else for that matter-can't do anything about it.

~

Sorry for the short chapter and that i didnt update last week i was just really tired and had practice and a lot of homework and stuff so here it is.

QOTC: favourite candy?

mines sour gummy worms theyre made by angels omf

are you from China because im china get away from you

peace out