Fairytale Gone Bad √

Chapter 21

HARRY'S POV

That's the thing about trust: once it's broken, it can't be restored. Not completely, at least.

My mum had once told me that trust is like a broken piece of china or a crumpled sheet of paper. Once you fold or crumple the paper, it can never go back to its original state. You can try and straighten it out as much as you want; it's pointless. The same happens with a broken piece of china. Once someone or something breaks it, whether by accident or not, it can never be whole again. As much as you try to glue the bits back together, the cracks will still remain. With trust is the same: you can try to fix things, apologize, explain; but the cracks and creases will still remain, like scars - even if you end up being forgiven.

I can definitely forgive, but I can't forget. The memory of the hurt and betrayal will remain, no matter how much I want to forget, no matter how much I try to push it away. I'd been hurt too much, too many times before. I was tired of putting my heart on the line, of trusting, when I knew that sooner or later I would end up getting hurt. Over and over again. I had given up trusting, I had given up handing over my heart only to see it being stepped on and crushed in front of me. God knows how long it took me to let the boys in when I met them. It took me four years to be completely comfortable around them; they were the exception to my no trusting rule. It was one thing to be friendly, but to trust... that was a whole different level. I might be friendly with everyone - even too friendly sometimes -, but Zayn, Louis, Niall and Liam were the only people I could trust besides my family.
I'd been trying so hard to be safe. It had been pointless to do so, because here I was, going through the same heartbreak and hurt.

Again.

And it was my fault. I had trusted her, I had fallen in love with her, I had let her in. Only to be stabbed in the back.

Beth left us the day we moved out of Wembley to out next stop. I didn't saw her or talked to her before we left; not even once. I didn't say goodbye.

I didn't care.

Except I did care, and that only made everything worse. I did care. I wanted her to stay, I wanted to pretend none of it was true, I wanted to be with her. I wished it was that easy for me to forgive, because it wasn't. I couldn't just move on. I didn't trust her anymore.

I still acted as the same Harry as always. I sang, I danced, I talked to fans, I gave autographs, I took pictures, I joked around with my mates. Almost as nothing had happened. And as the time gone by, I started to learn to ignore the hole in my heart, the emptiness that threatened to swallow me whole. I still did the same things, acted the same way, but I was everything but fine or normal.

But I pretended anyways, because that's what I was supposed to do.

I lost track of time, honestly, as it usually happens when we're on tour. It's what we do; we sing, we smile, we joke around, we give autographs, take pictures, have fun, and then we disappear. City after city, country after country, we barely see anything besides our fans and the stadiums where we have our concerts.

Just as it always had been.

Two months or so after Beth had told us the truth, Matt or whatever-his-name-was came by with some other guy I had never seen in my life. Greg had been fired the day after we had found about everything. He was long gone, thank God. Helena, a nice woman who was second in charge, was filling up his place until this tour was over.

So I was pretty surprised when she summoned the five of us for a meeting with the two men. We were in Philadelphia; we had barely started off our third and last leg of the tour.

And now here we were, all sat down waiting for someone to start talking.

"Well, we better get this started, then." Helena said, smiling faintly. "Boys, you do recall what happened a while ago, right?"