Aquarelle [h.s]

forty-one

I woke up to a rhythmic typing sound coming from a keyboard.

I turned to lie on my back, staring at the ceiling for some seconds as I tried to come to terms with my existence before finally sitting up and glancing at Harry, that was sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, typing on his laptop.

"What time is it?" I asked him, blinking a couple of times, and he glanced at me, seeming to realise only in that second that I was awake.

"Half past eleven" he simply replied nonchalantly, as if he wasn't telling me that I'd basically slept until midday.

I widened my eyes at his reply. "Are you serious?" I said, grabbing my phone just to discover that he indeed was, as he let out a hum in replying, going back to typing something on his laptop. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

He gave me a shrug. "I didn't want to bother."

"Alright" I replied, letting out a sigh before disappearing into the bathroom to do my business and get changed into the clothes for the day.

When I was done I went back into the room, discovering that Harry was exactly where I'd left him, typing on his laptop in the corner of the room.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked him, observing him to try to determine if he'd slept enough during the past night, sitting at the bottom of the bed.

"A couple of hours" he just said.

I sighed. "You should've woken me up" I told him. I couldn't believe that he'd waited for hours for me to wake up instead of getting me to do it himself.

He shrugged a little. "I had to catch up with work anyway."

"Did you have breakfast?" I asked, even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to that question.

"I didn't" he replied, "I was waiting for you."

"You really should've woken me up" I said again. I didn't like to think he still hadn't had breakfast because he was waiting for me. It should've been cute, but considering what had happened the day before, it was more worrying than anything else.

"I don't mind waiting" Harry said, "I'm not particularly hungry anyway."

"Harry..." I told him, tilting my head, and he finally looked up at me from over his laptop, waiting for me to say something else. I just sighed, deciding to change the subject instead. "How do you feel about yesterday?"

He finally closed the laptop, looking down. "I think..." he started to say, but went silent right after.

"You can tell me" I said, "if you want to. I'm not going to judge you or anything."

A little silence followed my words, and for a few seconds I was sure he wouldn't have replied at all, but then he did. "I think" he started again, furrowing his eyebrows as he seemed to be trying to find the right words, "I really thought it would've been different this time. And it just, wasn't."

I frowned at his reply. "It's not your fault" I reminded him. He had no fault in what had happened, and the way Niall's father had been treating him couldn't have been justified by any of his behaviours - differently from what I was sure he'd been trying to make him believe for years.

"I know" he replied quietly, still looking down.

I cleared my throat, suddenly standing up, deciding to make his second day in that city much better than the first. "We should go have breakfast... lunch" I said, "I saw that the bakery at the start of the street had some great cinnamon rolls yesterday."

He let out a little chuckle at my excitement. "Alright" he said, standing up as well and putting his laptop back in his bag.

We went out and had lunch, and then decided to just walk around the city centre for a few hours as we waited for the time to go to my mother's house to come around, taking advantage of the sunny day.