Trendsetter (book 2) - H.S

Chapter 20: Moving Mountains.

A/N: El, and Kate and their outfits for New Years!!!!! Told you I'd fix it!

HARRY'S POV:

I left her alone. I walked out despite the voice in my head that was yelling at me, telling me to stay, and to fight because it was obvious. It was obvious to me that she had enough of life, she had enough of what she was dealing with, and what the world was handing her, and I was just the cherry on top. I was the last push to send her over the edge. I know she didn't mean a word she said. I know she said what she did out of anger, out of hurt, but hurt from what? I wanted to call Anthony, to ask him, but I knew it would be wrong, I knew it wouldn't have been right to hear it from him, and not her. I believe her though. I think everything that she's dealt with, her family coming, her relationship with them, and then me, adding my own family into the mix, and all the work I piled on her shoulders. She's never been one to handle stress or change well, and I should have known.
It's been two days. I've let her have her space, and for some reason I feel like right now we're back to square one. We're right back where we started, me pushing too hard, and her blowing up, then us not talking for days on end. I hate it like this, I hate not talking to her, not being around her, not sleeping next to her. She meant it when she said we were the fine line.. We really are the fine line. She works too hard, she works too hard physically, and mentally but for all the wrong reasons. I was waiting for her to reach out to me, that way I knew she was ready, so I knew that she wanted to actually talk, and not yell or scream. That way neither of us had a chance to say things that we didn't mean. Then I realized that it's El, it's my El, the girl who won't reach out because of fear. She's afraid that I'm mad, that I'm angry, and hurt by her, and that I don't want to speak to her. She thinks she'll be rejected, and that's the last thing I would do. So I decided I would go see her today, knowing she's probably been tied to her desk, letting her mind go crazy, and her fears run wild. My phone buzzes as I pull my shoes on my feet, and her name travels across my screen.
"Hello?" I ask softly.
"Hi." She peeps out, obviously nervous to be making this call.
"What's wr- Nevermind... I- El, I'm sorry I didn't call I wanted to give you your space. Time to cool off, and call if you needed to." I tell her, and she gets quiet.
"I wanted to call the night you left but I was afraid you'd decline so I just... I didn't." She tells me my exact thoughts, and I look down at my feet.
"I'd never reject you El... Not now, not ever, you should know that..." I mumble, feeling like I've said these words a hundred times over. "I was actually about to come over... To come check on you." I tell her truthfully, hoping it will relieve some of her stress, and worry.
"I'm... I'm actually outside your house. I drove here without thinking, and I.. I can go home, I just, I wanted to talk, and I didn't know how to ask you, and-" Her voice is shaking a bit, and she acts as if I don't know every part of her sometimes. She acts as if I haven't slept by her side, and sat by her when she was sick, and crying. She acts as if I haven't devoted an entire part of my life to her.
"What are you doing out there? Come in.." I mumble, and hang up the phone. I walk to the door, and open it up, looking out to see her walking up the sidewalk and through the gate. She looks beautiful as always. She wears soft grey joggers, and a tight white long sleeve shirt. The shoes I bought her on her feet, and her hair down her back, swaying as she walks up to me. She has her arms crossed over her chest, she's protecting herself from me, closing herself off this way, as she makes her way to me. "Get over here." I mumble, and pull her into me. Her arms stay crossed as I hold her head to my chest but after a few moments she melts, her arms moving down, and around me.
"I missed you." She tells me, and I feel the corners of my lips curling up.
"You finally pulled yourself away from that desk I see?" I laugh, but she tenses. "Sorry, sorry, no jokes..." I pull back.
"I came so we could talk..." She tells me, and for some reason my heart sinks a bit. Is this where she tells me we should work together but separately, that we shouldn't be together because it's obviously not working out? I let go of her, and we walk inside my house together. We move to the couch, having done this before, sat here, and talked things out when it was all bad. She is looking straight at her hands, and she looks sad. I've seen her upset, and I've seen her mad. I've seen her feel so many things but sad, truly sad was never something I liked at all, not even something I could even tolerate.
"I'm-" I start but she already stops me, starting her own words.
"Don't... Don't apologize, because I know the only reason you are going to is because you feel like I'm mad at you and I'm not... I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I should be sorry. Because I messed up, and I said hurtful things. I said hurtful things I didn't mean, and I pushed you and got mad at you when all you were doing was being kind. All you were doing was being a good person, a good boyfriend to me, and you always are, even when I don't deserve it. I'm sorry." She tells me, and I shake my head.
"I'm not mad, I'm not upset, I know why you said what you did. I see now that I wasn't thinking of you in all of this, the past week or so I didn't think, and I put a lot on your shoulders, and I'm sorry, and don't tell me not to apologize." I tell her, and she just shakes her head, still not looking at me. She cowers when she's nervous, when we have talks like this she always looks away because no matter how far she's come, vulnerability scares the hell out of her and I think it always will. "I just wish you had said something before, said something to me before it got that bad, before you felt like the only option you had was avoiding me, and blowing up the way you did." I admit to her, and she once again sighs, but this time her breath is shaky, and I see her walls fall a bit farther.
"I don't want to be stuck. I don't want to get stuck in this place where everything I do is just okay. I want everything I do to be amazing, I want it to be something that not only I'm proud of but the people I love are proud of too. I thought I was at a place where I didn't need to fear that but I'm not. I just, I want more, and more from myself, but I'm not giving it, I can't give it. I want to show the world what I can do, and it's harder when I'm working for you because your fans, they look forward to seeing what you're going to wear, they live for it, and I see their judgment, I hear it, I take every bit of it in... I just work so hard for my happiness but it's not my happiness it's the people around me, I want them to be happy because when they're happy I feel like I can finally be happy but there's no room for my own happiness because there's always someone else I'm adding to the list... If they love me, I can love me. If you love my work, I can love my work.." She speaks, and with every word her voice grows weaker until it finally cracks under the pressure of her words.
"El... darling look at me..." I speak forward to her, and she doesn't listen, she cries to herself, and I reach for her but she backs away.
"No... I don't want to look at you, I don't want to be weak, I don't want to feel weak around you because you're strong, and you're confident, and I feel like I'm... I'm turning into someone who the old me would have hated." She tells me, and I reach forward anyway, lifting her chin up. She looks at me, her eyes red, and wet, but she moves away again, and wipes her eyes. "I hate this." She mumbles, and she's finally opening up to me.
"El, I don't care if you think you look weak, or that you feel like you are. Vulnerability is strength, this is strength... El, for once in your life let every ambition, and every notion go, and just live. Don't work so hard to move people, let them move you. Don't work so hard to please others, please yourself, and everything else will come along with it.... You don't need to look for my approval, or my acceptance. You don't need to wonder if I'm proud because I am, I always am, and I always have been, even when tour first started, even when I hardly knew your name. You can worry over everyone else, even though there is no reason to, but you should never worry about me and how I look at you because I can promise I look at you with so much love, and so much appreciation for everything you do for me...." I tell her, and she is looking to the side, still looking away. "Please look at me." I plead with her, and her face turns again, her eyes closing tights as tears escape.
"I don't want to disappoint you." She whispers the words, and it shocks me that this is hurting her this much, that she is so worried about this that it's tearing her up to the point of tears.
"You're not going to disappoint me.. You're brilliant darling. I just, I didn't know you were so worried about all of this, I wish I had known sooner El..." I tell her truthfully, and she shakes her head again, putting the heels of her hands on her eyes, sighing out again.
"How do you know? How do you know that one day I'm not going to do something, and you're going to hate it, and it'll be the last straw... Enough will be enough, and you'll get tired of it, this, me, us... You'll be done, and this will be over, and, and I-" She starts rambling, and I lift her face, holding her face between my hands so she has to look at me.
"Stop... There's not a single point in thinking of things like that, and filling your head with ideas like that because they're not going to happen. Do you hear me? It's not going to happen El... I love you, no matter what you tell me, no matter what you say, or what you do, I am always going to love you. What don't you understand?" I ask, pushing my words so she can hear them, so she can really hear them. She pulls her face away, and wipes her eyes again, but this time she looks to me.
"I need to be completely transparent with you... Everything I said, it's all true, it's been going through my head, but there's something else. There's something else that I can't tell you right now because it's, it's just not something I can say. Not until we finish with what's going on, not until I'm ready." She tells me, and her words sink in. They hit my chest, and I hear them but I don't understand them. Why? Why can't she tell me, what in the world is going on that's this important, this scary to make her act this way?
"Whatever this is, whatever is going on, I don't want you to carry it on your own El, it's obvious that it's eating you up, and tearing you apart, and-" I start, but she interrupts again.
"I need this... It's something I need. If you want me to be open, and to be honest, you need to let me do it on my own time... I promise, I swear that I will tell you everything, I just. I need time, I need to figure this out, please.... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm asking you this, I'm sorry I'm forcing you to do this, I just... I need this." She tells me, and there's desperation in her voice, a pleading that I've never heard from her, and I see her turn away again. She needs this, as much as I hate the not knowing, as much as I hate the fact that she is keeping something from me, she says she needs it, and I cannot deny her.
"Okay..." I tell her, and she doesn't look at me again, keeping her eyes down. "El...darling..." I call her, but she keeps her eyes from me."Love..." I call out to her again but receive nothing, she's beating herself up for this. "Eleanor..." I call again, and she sniffles, but I see a smile crack on her lips.
"That's not my name." She tells me, as she always does.
"Eileen." I correct myself, and she looks up to me.
"I'm sorry..." She mutters the words once again.
"None of that..." I tell her, and close the space, bringing her to me. "El, whatever it is, whatever is happening... It's going to be okay, I promise it's going to be fine." I promise her, but all she does is cling tighter, she moves closer to me.
"I don't know if that's true this time." She mumbles, and I'm not sure if she wanted me to hear that, but I did, and it scares the hell out of me.