Labels || H.S. [#Wattys2020]

SIXTEEN

In the past what would usually happen was that Reagan would return from her first run with her mother, and would promptly decide that she was done, for good. She would be sore, and there would be in ache in her chest and sides, and her legs would hurt so much she would complain the entire day about it. But not today. Today, Reagan got in after her run, took a shower, and put on some presentable clothing. There were no complaints, no aches, no pains. Okay, yeah, there were a lot of pains, but she found they were worth it this time.

Her mother was downstairs when she had finished getting ready, making breakfast, and looking as if the run had been nothing but a mere walk.

"You did a good job for it being your first day, Rae." Her mother said, placing before her an egg white omelet and an assortment of fruits, "I'm impressed."

Reagan picked at her food, slowly calculating how many calories she was about to eat. See, the thing was that Reagan actually was very conscious about what she put in her body. She had spent years calorie counting and dieting and running and sprinting, but nothing seemed to work. Or rather, she would give up before it actually did. But calorie counting she always did, it may have just been fueling the voices inside of her head, but it wasn't something she could turn off easily.

"You have to eat all of it Reagan, no repeats of last time you tried this." Her mother said leaning against the counter.

"Yeah, yeah."

She had her good days and she had her bad days, just like everyone did. Some days she could eat something without beating herself up about it, some days she could only eat enough to starve herself. But the worst days were the darkest days, and she wasn't sure she wanted to ever think about those again. She knew she couldn't take this that far, so she ate five bites, stomached a bit of juice, and got up to get her bag.

"Thanks, mom."

"Have a nice day." Her mother replied, eyeing the plate but letting Reagan go anyway.

As she went out the door and faced another ridiculously sunny day, Reagan couldn't help but smile. As shitty as everything may have been, Harry Styles still had been her first kiss, and that had to count for something, didn't it?

—✴—

It was as if nothing had changed. Reagan walked into the studio, fifteen minutes before they were supposed to meet, opened her laptop and started checking the boys' social media accounts. She hummed to herself as she felt Harry's stare upon her, but didn't dare move an inch, she knew that any sudden movements would call attention to herself. So she simply scrolled and typed, focusing on her screen and making sure that nothing out of the ordinary was happening in the twittersphere.

Harry had of course now gotten in the habit of arriving twenty minutes earlier, just so he could pretend he was busy doing something when Reagan arrived. And there she had arrived, as if nothing had changed between them. She simply nodded a 'hello' and sat in her usual spot doing her usual job. He took it as a hint to leave it alone. That the natural order of things shouldn't be shifted just yet. So he did, he left it alone. It took all of his willpower not to go over to her and hug her from behind, push back her hair from her eyes, or kiss her just as he had that day on the beach. It took all of his fucking self restraint to not do so, and he hoped that in the near future she would appreciate it.

"How was your morning?" Harry asked, trying to break the silence in the room.

Reagan didn't look up, "Fine."

"You have breakfast?"

She nodded.

"I'm on a juice cleanse." He said, lifting up a bottle he had brought along with him.