This Thing Upon Me [Order The eBook] [Harry Styles]

Chapter 48

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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Can I stay, here with you, 'til the morning?

I am so far from home, and I feel a little stoned

Can I stay, here with you, 'til the morning?

There's nothing I want more, than to wake up on your floor

Ray Lamontagne | Can I Stay

January 2013

At the beginning of the year, on our New Year's trip to the Virgin Islands, something got into Taylor and she confronted me about my feelings for her. There in the middle of everything, she sat me down in our hotel and unloaded. This was supposed to be romantic getaway after being separated over the holidays, but at some point, it had become tense and melodramatic.

Unsure of how to respond without exacerbating the situation or making her believe I was unfeeling, I decided I had no choice but to come clean. I didn't have it in me to lie to her anymore, since apparently I had come off as preoccupied and bored lately. She thought my texts were perfunctory. She thought my kisses were soulless and dry. She thought when I looked into her eyes mine were vacant.

Even now there was no way I could look into her eyes and tell her otherwise. She sensed something—some thing that I was incapable of hiding as well as I thought, but this proved to be my only way out of an ordeal that had degenerated since our ski trip to Utah. There, she and I had ended up in the hospital, my chin absorbing the brunt of the damage from the snowmobile crash. I hadn't flown through the air like that since I was a kid, and landing on my face had gifted me with a scar that would probably be there for the rest of my life.

The entire experience had been jarring, seeming to knock some sense into me about how I was feeling whenever I was around her. Empty. And convincing her I wanted to be with her for appearances sake wasn't worth breaking my face over. The crash was the only time I felt any true adrenaline since the first time she and I slept together. After that, things had just gotten monotonous (pure and simple.) I couldn't muster up even an inkling of excitement about the thing she was trying to make us into. All I could think of or feel was how much I missed Z. I hadn't seen him in a few weeks since our holiday break began.

Taylor sat now in the center of our hotel bed in Gorda, trying not to sob as she explained how cold I'd been at dinner. Glacial, was the word she had used, to be exact. That was a bit harsh in my opinion, since I didn't have an icy bone in my body. She later clarified and said I was only cold towards her. It must've been unconsciously done, since I'd never been glacial toward anyone in my life. But maybe it only seemed that way to her based on the way other guys fell all over themselves, eager to do her bidding.