Skinny Love

Chapter 28

Hattie's POV

*click* *click*

A familiar sound breaks me out of my sleep but disappears quickly, allowing me to drift away again. However, suddenly I become aware of a weight surrounding my waist and a heat coming from behind me. My eyes open and search for what the weight is... an arm.

Whose arm is this?

My eyes sweep the room and recognise the environment as Cole's bedroom. The events of the previous night start coming back to me... the carrots, the movie and then falling asleep, Cole's hands holding mine. A smile spreads on my face at the image of his warm hands surrounding mine but I quickly get snapped out of my thoughts at the sound of a mischievous giggle I recognise as Lola's. I turn my head towards the foot of the bed and see her and Harry standing there with my camera pointed at us.

"What are you doing?" I whisper shout at them, trying not to wake Cole up, even though I'm stuck in an awkward position with him.

"Oh, just making this little memory permanent for you both..." Lola answers, looking at Harry and giggling some more.

"You're both so fucking annoying." Cole says from behind me, his voice clearly showing that he has just woken up. Instantly, I hear the bedroom door open and shut, signalling Harry and Lola's departure.

I expect him to remove his hands from my waist immediately after waking up but he doesn't. Instead he tightens his grip and moves his head to snuzzle further into the crook of my neck. Enjoying the feeling, I don't complain but I'm shocked he wants to keep holding me around my massive stomach, it can't be comfortable for him...

"Stop overthinking it." Cole softly whispers into my ear, breaking me out of my thoughts. I turn underneath his grip to face him.

"W-what do you mean?" I ask, genuinely curious as to how he knows what I'm thinking.

"Don't overthink the fact that you woke up in my arms... it's where you belong anyway."

Wait, what?

"Wait, what?"

Cole laughs quietly in my ear before leaning on his arm, closer to my face.

"I" He kisses my left cheek and I immediately feel my cheek heat up.

"Like" Now the other cheek.

"You" My forehead.

"Hattie" My nose

"Johnson." After this, he looks slightly more hesitant, almost scared to see my reaction.

I don't fully take in what Cole has said, or even what I'm doing, before I do what I do next.. I lift my head towards Cole and kiss him, lightly at first but then Cole deepens it further, clearly happy by my response.

When I'm kissing Cole my head clears, the thoughts of Harry and Lola taking pictures of us vanish and any traces of hatred towards myself because of eating disappears. All I can think about is Cole; the way his lips feel against mine, the sound of his words when he said he likes me and mainly the way he is making me feel whenever I'm around him. I've never felt like this before but I like it... I like him.

*****

"I'm going out! Don't expect me back any time soon!" my father shouts from downstairs.

"Good, don't bother coming back at all!" my mother replies just before I hear the front door slam shut.

I could hear the shouting from half way down the road when I was walking back. For people so concerned by their appearances, they have no trouble making their arguments known to the world. As far as I could tell, this one was about mum's spending habits and dad's suspiciously long work hours. The same argument that's been going on as long as I can remember.

Luckily, I managed to sneak upstairs and secure myself in my room before I awkwardly interrupted their fight. I felt weird on the inside. I'd had such a terrible day and majority of the night yesterday but that small portion of the night and this morning spent with Cole somehow made all of that vanish, so much so that sat here in my bedroom, even with my parents arguing below, I couldn't keep the smile off of my face, Cole's words replaying in my head over and over.

"Hattie Johnson, you better be in your room when I come up there or there will be serious consequences!" My mother screams as I hear her heels click up the stairs.

She throws the door to my room open with such force that, for a second, I think it has come off its hinges.

"There you are. Where the hell have you been all night?" she questions me, like I didn't tell her where I was going.

I swallow the lump of fear in my throat before I reply, I hate it when she's in this mood.

"I-I was r-round a friend's... I thought I t-told you." I manage to stutter out.

"You never told me that! And, honestly, Hattie, you don't have friends so tell me where you really were, for goodness sake!" her words feel like a slap around the face.

"I swear, I do have friends... I-I was around L-Lola's. Do you rem-remember her? Lola Parker?" I try to jog my mother's memory while holding in the tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

"Oh, her... of course she's your only friend. The bastard child and the ugly one... makes sense if you think about it." With that my mother leaves.

The bastard child and the ugly one?

Tears spill from my eyes, causing a stream to run down my cheeks and falling onto my legs, staining my light blue jeans. Not only did she insult me... but she also insulted Lola, the kindest person I know and the child of someone she claims to be friends with.

I stand up shakily and walk towards my chest of drawers, picking up the only picture I have of my family. Hannah must've been around 3 and I was 4. We all look happy, even my mum. In the picture, she's bigger than she is now, not as perfect looking and I look fairly skinny. My mum looks at me with love in her eyes as she holds me up and I remember how nice she was when I was young. It all changed so quickly... her words went from encouragement and support to criticism and hatred. I don't know what happened, but God, I miss the old her.

Looking up, I catch a glance of myself in the mirror. My mascara is smudged all down my face, being carried from my eyes alongside the tears like rocks captured in a river. Mostly, my face just looks hollow... empty. I don't want to be like this anymore, I want the version of myself I see in this picture back; happy, carefree and loved. The question is, how do I get her back?