Labels || H.S. [#Wattys2020]

TWENTY-NINE

Reagan stood before her mirror contemplating what she would wear that morning, one hand on her hip, the other busily searching through her closet. The fact that Harry was downstairs did not help her nerves and furthermore the fact that she would most likely now continue to be photographed only put her even more on edge.

Because of Kennedy's love of One Direction, Reagan had been exposed to the many girls that had been involved with each and every boy. She found it terrifying how every girl's personal life was publicly discussed and analyzed on blogs, how there were countless pictures and videos, and worst of all how there were thousands of death threats. Reagan knew better than to believe the empty threats, the harsh words, the ugly banter, but she just couldn't. She knew that this world would bring out the worst in her if she let it.

She finally settled upon a black dress in her closet, putting it on and realizing that she shouldn't have taken the day off from running. Every little bit she did she believed would help her look better, and now that she was constantly going to be in the public eye, that couldn't be a bad thing.

The difficult part she realized would be trying to dress in an outfit that would allow her to be under the radar, but would still make her look good. Those two styles usually didn't mix.

"Rae? Are you ready?"

His voice was far too close for him to still be in the kitchen and quickly Reagan realized he was almost right outside her bedroom door.

She threw on her shoes before opening her door, only to straight into his mossy green eyes.

"Fuck." She muttered, obviously startled.

"It's almost time to go." He said, leaning against her doorframe. He had chosen to wear an obnoxiously patterned shirt, of course about two buttons too low, and his only pair of black skinny jeans.

"Why are you even up here!?" She looked him up and down and lingered on his chest, "And why don't you button your fucking shirt?"

He smirked, "I'm sorry, is it distracting?"

She huffed, "Why are you here?"

"I told you," he took a breath, "I woke up this morning and was rather starved. So I went to go look for a banana and-"

"Enough about the bananas! Why are you here."

"Carpool?"

"Harry!"

"Rae, I'm not staying away, okay? I don't care what Lydia or anyone else says, I'm not going away." He said it in a calm tone, almost as if reassuring her that everything was fine.

All it did though was put her more on edge, "You had no reason to come to my house though!"

Harry simply smiled, disregarding her completely as he usually did when she got on edge, "Are you ready?"

She stomped her foot, "Damn it, Harry. Ignoring me and the world around us isn't going to do anything. You can't just delude yourself into thinking that everything is going to be just fine!"

He stayed quiet for a second before asking, "Have you eaten yet?"

She sighed angrily and grabbed her purse off her dresser and stomped past Harry out the door. She almost knocked an eavesdropping Kennedy down as she went hurriedly down the hallway to the stairs. She shot her younger sister a dirty look to which Kennedy responded with a shrug, "You don't tell me anything and obviously I can't rely on the media to tell me what's going on."

Harry walked up behind her smilingly, leaning against the wall adjacent to him, "Ah, one of the few who knows you can't trust what you read."

Kennedy blushed furiously, scared to even look behind her, "Yeah like the whole thing with Louis..." She cleared her throat, "I doubt he really cheated on Eleanor."