Spotlight |h.s|

Twenty One

This song ("Tonight" by Suzy Jones) works really well with the dynamic between Aubrey and Harry right now. It also fits the vibe of this chapter, so I added it for anyone who cares. Listen if you want!!

Harry Styles

I don't know what possessed me to do it in the first place, but I've been sitting here hugging Aubrey on her laundry room floor for the past twenty minutes.

This is the first time in my life I've given someone other than Ruby a proper hug outside of work. I don't know why I decided that I would choose to do it to her, or what came over me when it happened.

One second, I'm stopping her from ripping up a reminder of her dead sister, and the next, she's crying in my arms without a care in the world about who I am or what I've done to her.

That wall I noticed being built up on Thursday has completely crashed down, her emotions spilling out of her like water from a collapsed dam. Her tears soak the fabric of my hoodie and my jeans as well, them somehow still going like they have been since I came in.

I was trying to return her ribbon like she asked me to last weekend, and now here we are. I knocked and knocked, seeing her car in the driveway and thinking she was just being petty by not answering. The door was unlocked, so I was going to just let myself in and sit the ribbon on the table by the door.

I didn't expect to open the door and hear loud crying coming from the room at the top of the stairs. Like, painful loud. The type of crying in the most emotional scene of a movie when the main character finally breaks down and lets out all of those feelings they've kept in for god knows how long. I've never heard someone cry like that outside of acting, and that's saying something.

I couldn't just leave. I don't know why, but I couldn't. My feet gained a mind of their own and hurried up the stairs. I dumbly stared at her curled up in a ball on the floor of her laundry room for a while, wondering what in the hell could've happened to make her resort to this.

Yes, she's very dramatic at times and tends to cry a fair amount, but never like this. She looked like she was in agony. Not just a bit of emotional pain, but like every feeling kept buried was spilling out of her in rapid bursts of tears and even anger.

I had no idea what to do when I found her. She could barely breathe. She was even convinced she was dying. Ruby has had smaller versions of those same outbursts, but nothing this extreme. That's the only reason I had the slightest clue as to what to do. I've sat with Ruby and tried to calm her down on multiple occasions. I just did exactly what I would do if it was Ruby sobbing on the tile floor.

We all deal with pain differently, and my way is completely different than hers. I try my best to understand it, but I don't think I ever truly will. It's not something you can really get without going through it yourself. I'll never be able to put myself in her shoes to test how I'd actually react. Maybe I'd be this much of a mess, too.

Fast forward to now, and she's actually starting to calm down slowly. I really think she's just wearing herself out. She needs water. I see the puddle of tears on the floor and feel how wet we both are from them, so I know for a fact she's dehydrated. I don't say anything this whole time, just sitting and letting her do her thing while I hold onto her.

It's not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be once I'm used to it. Her hands clutch at the fabric of my hoodie while mine clasp on the small of her back, her head on my shoulder and my chin on her head. I don't really know if I'm doing this right. I'm always told how to hug when filming a scene. Ruby likes when I put my chin on her like this or hold onto the back of her head, so I'm assuming it's fine.