Lost in The City // H.S.

Chapter 33

I have come to find that I have always enjoyed my solitude, but the thing with solitude is that it sometimes brings about loneliness. And every once in a while a batch of loneliness would hit me so hard it would leave me crying on my bathroom floor wondering if my life would ever move past this stage of semihappiness, or if I was doomed to live a life of dull feeling. But then my mind would overpower the empty hole in my chest and I would convince myself it wasn't there. After that I would pick myself up and enjoy my solitude again.

But Harry has filled that empty hole by simply being him. And now my mind no longer has to work in order to pretend the empty hole doesn't exist, and I realize I never truly enjoyed the solitude. I just preferred it over people who didn't understand me. I preferred to be alone rather than not being able to say what I thought, because no one really understood what I meant. I do not prefer solitude but I hate not belonging.

But with Harry I do not feel misunderstood and I do not feel dull. I feel alive. I laugh more than I breathe and I enjoy listening to him as much as talking to him. The way that his eyes scan my face whenever I talk about a new photographers work. I know that he doesn't understand everything I rave about sometimes but the faint smile on his lips and his bright eyes always tell me he is listening all the same.

I grew up reading romance novels and watching every romantic movie I could get my hands on. I have believed in great love for as long as I can remember, but sometime in college I started to believe that maybe it wasn't something I was ever destined for. That maybe all those fictional stories were fictional for a reason, and an all consuming love didn't really exist in real life. And maybe that kind of connection was only one in a million.

But when he throws his head back and laughs wholeheartedly at my stupid jokes I know that a piece of me wasn't alive until I met him. I know that no one will ever be able to stir in me the breath of life that he has.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket pulling me from my thoughts. I laugh as my eyes scan Harrys text asking what time I get off work. I was worried he would get annoyed with me because all I want to do is be around him all the time but it turns out he is even more clingy than I am. We have spent everyday together this past week. Most nights we spend at my place.

I have been finding random pieces of his clothing around my apartment for the past week and I am starting to think he is leaving them on purpose. I can't say that I mind because that means I get to wear them.

I am happy, so ridiculously happy that I can't help the smile that covers my face ninety percent of the day. I understand all the nauseatingly happy couples now, you don't even get a choice in the matter. Every time I think about him my whole body warms and I know I am a goner.

Classes have started back up and I am around Piper nearly everyday again. It has been hard to not tell her about Harry and I. But I am enjoying having him to myself. It's strange every time Piper brings him up because she still thinks we are barely talking when in reality I see him every second I have free. And we have shared more whispered I love you's in the past week than is probably necessary but I don't care. I never get tired of hearing his deep voice say the words.

"Okay so dinner and movies at my place tonight. Are you in?" Piper asks me from across the store as soon as the customer she was helping walks out.

I'm supposed to be meeting up with Harry as soon as I get off but I can't tell her that. Since classes just started back up I don't have any homework or projects to do so that excuse is also out the window.

I do want to spend time with Piper. We haven't had much time to hang out beside class since New Years Eve and I miss her. I just wish I could tell her about Harry, about the way he makes me feel and everything that has happened in the last two weeks, but I can't yet. I really do need to talk to Harry about telling everyone because it is starting to drive me insane to keep it quiet.