The day that followed, the news cycle remained eerily silent. Part of me had almost expected to wake up and my entire life would be over - it felt like it could've been that way, with how unsettled Harry had been last night.
I stirred to find him sitting at the end of the bed, his chin in his hand. He was looking toward the balcony, thoughtfully, and my eyes landed on the bare skin of his shoulders as they flexed to enable him to lean forward. I almost didn't want to tell him I was awake, yet; there was a sense of peace in just seeing him like this. The moments after I woke up sometimes felt like the best ones, where everything I was harbouring hadn't quite sunk in yet - for a moment, everything was fine - I wasn't trapped in my own head, torturing myself; I wasn't battling a million and one things. And then it hit.
"Hi, you," he turned to look at me, over his shoulder, a soft smile beginning to tug on his lips as he saw me. I saw, then, that his phone was resting in his lap again. I wasn't sure how long he'd been up, or if he'd heard any news, but I could see a faint solemnity in his expression. I pulled my head from the pillow and watched him as he stood up from the bed, setting his phone down on the end of it before ruffling a hand through his hair.
He took a step over towards where I was, and the bed dipped as he pressed his knee to it, letting him lean over towards me. He brought his body on top of mine, and I laid back to bring him closer in an embrace. His face buried into my neck, and my fingers found the damp curls of his hair framing the back of his head, his skin feeling fresh beneath my touch. I supposed he'd been up long enough to have showered, as the scent of the soap he'd used on his skin greeted me.
"You smell good," I murmured, tiredly nuzzling into his neck as my hands drew slowly over his back, his body still pressed on top of mine as he hugged me. He kissed below my ear, his arms winding around me. His body was warm as I felt it against my own, a comforting silence filling the room that was only broken by the faint whir of a moped engine passing the slightly open window. "Are you okay?" I asked him.
"Mhm," he hummed against my neck, as my fingers moved to push gently back through his hair again, stroking through it. He was quiet for another second, before he spoke again. "My security's coming."
I didn't reply for a moment, gently kissing his temple and feeling his shoulders drop a little bit of their tension. He stayed leaning on me, exhaling softly against my neck, whilst my fingers continued raking through his hair. His breath was warm and familiar against my skin, and I was tempted to close my eyes to relish solely in that feeling; to block out any and everything else, but I knew that I couldn't. I wish we could've stayed like this - without any sort of reality breaking in to ruin it - his, or mine.
He leaned back a little, to look at me, dropping his gaze to my lips for a moment - but instead of kissing me, he brought his thumb over my lower lip, as if lost in thought. I lightly kissed the pad of his thumb, watching a small, dazed smile pull on his lips, but it still held a faint sadness behind it that made my heart ache. It felt like there was more behind it than just what had happened yesterday, but I didn't dare ask, for fear I'd be forced to confront something.
"I talked to Stella this morning," he said, his thumb moving to trace briefly over my chin before he moved to lay his hand beside my head. "She said she couldn't find anything to intercept... any articles, any releases..." he trailed off, bringing his lip between his teeth. "She only found some minor rumours floating around... on social media, mostly, that I was here. Nothing about you."
"Just that you were in Italy?" I asked, tilting my head.
"Mhm. I don't know, it's weird," he said, his eyes locking back onto mine. "She thinks as long as we aren't photographed anymore, whatever yesterday was, will blow over. So we have to stick with the security, and the driver..." he trailed off, closing his eyes for a second in a brief, frustrated sigh.
"That's okay," I said, softly, stroking my hand over the side of his face. "It's fine... it doesn't matter. We can stay holed up in here today, if we have to. I don't mind," I said, honestly, and I meant it - it didn't matter, really, as long as I was with him.
"There's more places I wanted to show you..." he responded, the soft mumble falling from his lips almost making him sound like a pouty child, in the most adorable way.
He went to say something else, but he stopped, as a loud horn sounded outside - louder than the increasingly familiar beeps of the moped horns - this sounded like a proper car horn, surrounded by some faint chatter. His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes darting back and forth as if he'd already decided that he knew exactly what it was.
He gently drew his body away from mine, standing up from the bed and moving over to the balcony door, where he'd left it ajar. I sat up as he walked away, watching him hover at the door, before he moved to the large window beside it, gently wrapping his fingers around the curtain to draw it back, slightly.
I stood up to follow him, leaning to peer through the gap in the curtain he'd created, to lay my eyes on the street beneath us. Four or five men were there, arranging themselves in a line across the street, just in front of the canal that had brought so much tranquillity in the previous days. Several locals were starting to stop in their tracks, upon encountering the the men, who each held a camera - and then their gazes would be directed towards the very building that we were in. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as Harry drew the curtain shut, having the very same realisation that I had; it was clear why they were there.
Harry moved to draw the balcony doors shut with a slight huff, raking an exasperated hand through his hair. He closed his eyes for a second, blowing out a breath as if trying to compose himself away from his frustration. My eyes flickered back to the window. How was this happening? It had seemed like the coast was somewhat clear - this didn't make sense.
"You said you wouldn't mind being holed up in here," he said, then, gently tilting his head at me. He'd fought for his composure, and a soft, rather sad attempt at a smile was pulling on his lips. Neither of us had to say a word about the crowd outside - the soft furrow of his eyebrows told me enough, as did everything he'd said up until now. He couldn't make sense of this, just as I couldn't - I didn't want to push. He wanted to make the most of where we were, and I did, too. We could do that. We needed to do that.
I reached for him, and his arms wound around my waist in an instant, pulling my body to his.
"That was when I had a choice," I made an attempt at teasing him, lightly, watching his eyes draw over my face as a much more real smile broke out on his expression. His smile wasn't without faint disappointment, but it felt like he held the same outlook that I did; that just being together, alone, was enough.
He pecked at my cheek, once, pinching his fingers lightly at my hip as he looked at me, murmuring a gentle, "You look pretty."
My face heated at the thoughtful look in his eyes as I reached up to kiss him, once, and then again. Harry was the only person I'd ever known to shower me with as many compliments as he did - but especially, to do so when I'd barely been awake for five minutes, and I most certainly looked far from good.
Not to mention how the nicer he was; the more guilty I felt.
I kissed his jaw, once, feeling his fingers stroke briefly at my hair before I eventually pulled away from him to move towards the bathroom and get into the shower. He didn't make an effort to follow me, and I wasn't sure I minded. Discomfort was setting in, and I needed a minute - or ten.
I stepped under the water, my eyes closing as I let it run over my skin. I needed to snap out of this. Why couldn't I just be here? Why couldn't I just be present? Why did it feel like one thing after another - constant, endless problems, whenever I found myself getting close to being happy?
If it wasn't me, it was this new issue with the paparazzi. Harry couldn't make sense of it, and that made it even worse - I had a bad feeling about it; all of it, yet I couldn't even give it the attention it deserved, because I was already wrapped up in so much else I'd yet to tell him.
I knew I wasn't helping myself. I knew I wasn't doing myself any favours, but it didn't feel like I had any other option - there was confiding in him; there was offloading some of this weight on my shoulders - but then what? What if confiding in him wasn't actually some magical cure? What if it meant that things got worse? What if trusting - actually trusting - somebody more than I'd ever trusted anybody, was as dangerous as I feared it was?
My life had been spent avoiding, dodging, and desperately trying to convince myself that I wasn't as wrapped up in everything that had happened to me, as I truly was. I'd made a habit of it, and it was safe, because I'd never met somebody who tested that boundary for good. I'd never met somebody who made me feel like he did, and I feared that sharing every part of myself with him could drive him away, just like keeping those parts locked up could, too. It felt like either way, I was screwed - but I couldn't bite the bullet. I didn't have it in me.
I stayed still under the water for a minute, my eyes shut, before I snapped back into the room. I washed my body, trying to force some life back into my demeanour. I was being pathetic. I was always, always so pathetic.
I cleared my throat, stepping out of the shower. I couldn't even let myself break down when I was alone - still, I held it together. If I cracked now, I wouldn't be able to pull it together.
We were fine. It was fine. I could keep this up. Harry would be too wrapped up in this ordeal with the media to even remember how he'd started to notice cracks in my demeanour over the previous days - it was fine. I could keep going.
It was draining. But I couldn't find it in myself to do anything else.
I still felt slightly uneasy as I stepped out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel as I went back into the bedroom. Harry was sitting there, in one of the armchairs on the opposite side of the room. He had a book in his lap, and he didn't look up as I walked in.
I didn't think much of it, as I walked over to get redressed. I did so, with the room completely quiet as I pulled on my clothes, clipping my hair back so that I didn't have to deal with it.
I went over to where Harry was sitting, in his chair, as he brought a coffee cup to his lips. I glanced down at the table between the two armchairs, noticing another cup sitting there, steaming with fresh coffee that he'd clearly just made.
"Thank you," I murmured as I approached him, causing him to glance up from his book. He lightly stroked his hand over the side of my thigh, just under my skirt, in a silent acknowledgement, sending a comforting chill through my body before I moved to sit down. I sat in the chair next to him as he turned back to his book, and I reached for my coffee, taking a sip, before I set it back down. He'd made it exactly how I liked it, as he always did.
"Your phone kept ringing," he said, then, without looking at me, as he sipped on his cup of coffee. "Whilst you were in there. I think it was three times."
"Oh," I said, feeling my heart plummet to the pit of my stomach. Anxiety overtook my senses in an instant, and I could already feel those minimal ounces of composure that I'd convinced myself I'd regained in the shower, beginning to slip away. I looked down at the coffee table where I'd left my phone the night before.
Please, please don't be her. I'd done my best to convince myself of an accidental misdial from my mother, before, but it didn't stop me tensing up, now. Maybe Grace had called. Three times? My eyes flickered to him, but he wasn't looking back at me.
I didn't reach for my phone. Perhaps that was the wrong thing to do - I wasn't sure. I didn't want to look and have my worst suspicions confirmed; equally, I didn't want to have to play anything else off in front of Harry, for I knew I was getting worse and worse at it. I didn't trust myself to look at it, but I knew it was equally weird for me not to check. I blew out a nervous breath, as he still didn't look at me, glancing at the phone on the table out of the corner of my eye.
This was a mess. I hated this - I hated it. This wasn't how we were supposed to feel, or how this was supposed to be - but I genuinely, genuinely couldn't bring myself to do anything different. Harry was the one person I felt beyond content and safe with, yet this felt like a step I couldn't take, even though I knew I was hurting us.
As if on cue, my phone began to vibrate again against the table, and my eyes immediately shifted to it. The way it was laying; the screen pointed upwards, I could see the number flashing on the screen instantly, and it took less than a second for me to realise that it wasn't Grace, at all. It was the same number I'd been desperate to erase from my memory for weeks, now, that I'd convinced myself I wouldn't have to see again.
I lurched forward to reach for the phone, only for my shaking hand to knock my coffee cup clean off the table, shattering it against the floor. I flinched at the impact, watching the dark liquid splash up against the chairs, spilling over the wooden floor and beginning to trickle towards the rug.
"Shit," I cursed, as the vibrations of my phone stopped, and I looked around at the mess I'd created, in silence. My hands were shaking, my mouth turning dry. "Fuck... fuck- I'm sorry," I started, quickly standing up with a frantic expression, feeling my chest turn tight as I winced at the sight beneath me.
"Iz, be careful," Harry spoke, then, standing up next to me to stop me from moving. "Careful of your feet," he said, instinctively reaching for my arm to steady me and direct me away from the shards of ceramic that coated his perfect floor beneath us.
I'd made a mess. I was ruining his beautiful floor; his beautiful rug, and furniture, in his beautiful, tranquil holiday home, all because I'd been so stupid.
I pulled away from his hand, somehow managing not to step on the sharp pieces of the cup that coated the floor, as I moved in search of something to clean it up. I didn't even know where to start; the missed phone call had startled me, and dropping the cup had sent me over the edge. Surely he'd be fuming with the mess I'd made, so carelessly and recklessly. I brought my hand over my mouth, my eyes frantically shifting back and forth over the mess on the floor, not daring to look at Harry as I wracked my brain for where to find the things I needed, in the apartment, to clean this up.
"Iz," Harry said, a little firmer, clearly catching on to the rush of my breathing. I closed my eyes for a second as I sensed him move closer, his hands reaching for my arms. "Baby, stop. Stop," he said, holding me to the spot I was in. I met his eyes to find a soft, puzzled look in them. His hand reached for my face, gently holding the sides of it.
"It's coffee, baby," was all he said, slowly, somehow gentle yet firm. His sentence was so simple. The words were simple to him. The mess I'd made didn't matter to him.
"Just let me clean it up," I said, drawing away to find some cleaning supplies. It had to matter. My heart was racing as I walked away from him, and I felt almost light-headed. It felt like it was becoming too much - for the first time in my entire life, I felt like I'd reached a breaking point with my secrets. The lying; the half-truths - the suppression of every real feeling for fear of how they'd look, sound, or be perceived. It was exhausting, and it felt like he was growing exhausted from it, too.
When I returned, with some dampened paper towels in my hand, I saw Harry collecting the shards of the mug in his hand - diligently picking them up to lay them in his palm so I could start soaking up the coffee.
"Be careful, please," he mumbled, sounding slightly defeated, and I could feel his eyes on me as I bent down to lay down the towels. "I didn't get all of it."
I kneeled down to lay some of the paper towels down, as Harry stood still above me. He was hovering - he was hesitant, as I peered down at the floor; watching as the white paper towels stained brown with the coffee. I could see a couple of specks against the fabric of the armchairs, but I'd managed to stop the spillage from reaching the rug.
"Did any of it get on you?" he asked, then, and it was only then I noticed that the hot coffee had caught my shin, as I got back to my feet. My skin was red, but I couldn't even feel it. My heart was thumping. He had to be angry. Why wasn't he angry?
"I'm sorry," I said, ignoring his question. I was frantic. "I'll get it off the chair, I'm sorry, I-"
"Stop apologising," he cut in, his voice gentle. I could tell he didn't understand why I was in such a state over this, and I wasn't sure if that was making it worse or not. I felt sick, and I didn't know why. I was emotionally exhausted, and I was acting pathetic. I needed to get ahold of myself, but I couldn't stop.
Once, I'd spilled a drink on my father's carpet, and never did it happen again. I remembered looking up to meet his eyes, the second after it had happened; the way the room fell silent as he rose from his chair, enraged, towards me. And after I'd been met with the consequences, I became a child with the most careful hands you'd ever seen; I never spilt a drop, or made a mess, or left so much as a trace of my presence, anywhere - in any part of that house. It was like I'd never been there, and that was how he liked it.
I could be clumsy when I was nervous, but this was a new low. I went to open my mouth again, before I realised the only words about to come out of it were yet another apology. I dared to meet his eyes, to find him looking at me with the gentlest expression I'd ever seen; his eyebrows so softly furrowed, and his eyes just full of a mixture of confusion and upset. He wasn't angry. He was worried, and he didn't understand.
"Did it burn you?" he asked again, and I only shook my head, getting back down to pick up the towels after they'd soaked up the liquid from the floor. I needed something to sanitise it with - I knew, from being a clumsy child, that soaking up the mess was most certainly not enough; it needed to be sparkling clean, looking even better than it had before.
I heard Harry sigh from above me, standing with the shards of glass in his hand, before he left the room for a moment, I supposed, to discard them. He came back when I was standing back up, the paper towels screwed up in my hands.
"Can I help, at least? Please?" he asked, and I drew my lip between my teeth, already trying to figure out how to get those wretched stains off the armchair. They were barely noticeable - two, tiny splashes - but I could see them, and that was enough.
"It's my mess. It's not your responsibility," I mumbled, not wanting to dump my stupid behaviour onto him. I blew out another anxious breath as I eyed the floor, and I was surprised to hear him respond after a mere second.
"Is that how this is?" he said, then, catching me by surprise. I looked up to meet his eyes, watching how the line between his eyebrows had deepened. "Really?"
His question was blunt, and cutting, but his tone was nothing of the sort. It was genuine. It was tired. I knew, then, that he was no longer talking about the coffee.
When I didn't reply, he looked away, and a slow exhale fell from his lips. He blinked, pressing his lips together, and I was frozen.
"I'm really asking, Iz," he said, turning back to look into my eyes, but I couldn't bring myself to meet his. Our gazes were locked onto one another, and it felt like my fight or flight was begging for me to disconnect the stare, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything. He repeated his question, "Is that how this is? There's me, and then there's you - everything is separate? You don't touch my problems, and I don't touch yours?"
It sounded wrong when he said it like that. I knew he was quite literally describing the dynamic that I had put into place, but I didn't like hearing it like that. I drew my lip between my teeth, watching his face in search of some kind of out - some way to move past this, without having to do everything I'd been so desperate to avoid.
"Why don't you trust me?"
The question was quiet as it broke through the silence of the room - it was pleading. It caused a jolt in my chest. I knew he was fed up, and though he had the patience of a saint with me - it could still only stretch so thin. He'd waited, and offered, and stood by, for what felt like forever. He'd let me keep getting away with it, but I was running out of road; I was running out of lies, and half-truths.
The room fell silent again. I knew it was my turn to speak - it had been my turn a long, long time ago, but my head felt empty. My mouth was dry.
Maybe I could still salvage this.
"I do," I swallowed, not sure if I even meant it. I felt like I trusted him - but my actions and my subconscious contradicted that very idea. Neither of us had even stated what we were arguing about, but it felt like we didn't need to. We both knew.
"Iz," he said, gently, pleadingly, and just the sound of my name falling from his lips made me want to break. "I want to understand. I want to get it, and I want to help you. But I'm a human being. I can't pretend it doesn't hurt me every time you push me away."
My face fell. God. This was bad. This was happening. It felt like he'd been holding this in for a while, and it was the very last thing I'd ever wanted to happen, but now it was. He was confronting me, at last. This was a confrontation.
I didn't want to hurt him. I'd never, ever wanted to hurt him. I'd told him that, once. I told him it was the last thing I'd ever want to do, and he'd told me that I wouldn't; that I couldn't. Yet, here I was - doing just that.
This was so bad.
I'd never actually known what this was like. To be standing in front of somebody that you felt so, so deeply for, and have them tell you they were upset because of your actions - not that you were stupid, or disappointing; or hurling insults at you for merely existing. But rather to stand there, genuinely, and talk - to be honest, without aggression or abuse. It felt unnatural, and somehow even worse.
"Please tell me what's going on," he said, his voice soft as ever as it broke through the silence again. I looked down at the floor.
"Harry, it's just," I paused, biting my lip, before asking, weakly, "Can't that just be a boundary? Please?"
"Don't make it that. You know it's not that," he replied, shaking his head and furrowing his eyebrows. "You know that if you'd set a boundary, then I'd never cross it - but you haven't set anything, because you haven't said anything." His tone grew a little more firm towards the end of his sentence, and I knew he'd reached a breaking point. There was no going back, now.
He continued, "Do you think I haven't noticed? The way you flinch every time your phone rings, lately? The way you always shut down if I ask you something bordering personal... the way you go all quiet... a-and-" he stopped, biting his lip. A real sadness overtook his eyes, and it made my heart sink.
"It's like you only ever tell me what you think you have to," he said, quietly. "Like it's some sort of obligation... like you think you ought to tell me things, so you do; or you half-tell me... but you don't really want to..."
I realised, then, that he knew far more than he'd been letting on - sure, he didn't know all the fine details, but he'd noticed far more than I'd wanted to accept, all this time. He knew that I'd been lying about the aftermath of my mother reaching out, and how I'd plucked up the courage to tell him that she'd called - only to never mention it again, and to insist nothing else had come from it. He'd described the whole thing perfectly; exactly as it had been. I'd tried to fabricate an ability to confide in him, only to shy away from doing so when things got real - I'd half told him, and then never said any more.
He wasn't stupid, or naïve to my half-truths; he'd just been patient in giving me a chance to rectify them. Chance, after chance - inconsistencies, and avoidances, and he'd never once pulled me up on them. Even now, he was doing it so, so delicately.
But it felt like his diligence scared me even more; his perceptiveness, in how he appeared to have picked up on everything I'd been so sure that I'd been masking, when in reality, I'd been doing it so terribly. I felt so out of depth in that moment; so far from my comfort zone, that everything just felt wrong. I felt sick.
I sat back down in the chair, trying to steady my shaking hands and legs. I hadn't realised they were trembling until I actually looked down and saw it. He was reading me like a book, and it was absolutely petrifying.
I brought my hands over my mouth, leaning forward. I didn't know what to say; I felt like I couldn't breathe. I wanted this conversation to be over. At this moment, I didn't even have it in me to want to fix it, or fight it - I couldn't deal with confrontation like this. My only instinct was just to stay quiet until he was done talking, and then hope he'd be over it - but I knew that wasn't what this was, and that wasn't who we were. Harry was real, and he was emotionally intelligent, and he wouldn't let us be like that. He'd let it go for too long.
"I don't know what to tell you," was all I could muster the strength to say, and I could predict the flash of disappointment on his face before I'd even looked up to see it. I didn't know, truly. Even now, I wasn't thinking about telling him the truth, because that just didn't feel like something I was capable of - all I was thinking about was how to run from this conversation, and I loathed myself for it.
"Something," he replied, exasperation in his tone. He was getting frustrated, and I understood it - but I didn't relent. "Anything... t-this... we can't do this. We can't be like this. I don't want us to be like this," he said, a little firmer, but his voice was full of so many emotions that I wasn't sure I was capable of comprehending even half of them.
It was all coming out - weeks of pent-up secrets, and subtle avoidance; he'd reached a breaking point, and I didn't know how to console him away from it. I wasn't emotionally equipped to.
"I don't know how to be anything else," I cut in, finally, and the room was silent again. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears, louder than I'd ever heard it race. It was a plethora of things; it was the confrontation, causing everything to resurface that I'd always so desperately tried to suppress; it was the fear of losing him, now, just as much as it was the fear of giving in. This was everything I'd been afraid of, from the moment I'd booked the job on tour; from the moment I'd seen his face again and known, deep down, that this could never just be a one-time fling.
I was fucking everything up.
"Just talk to me," he said, taking a step towards where I was sitting. "We can start with the phone calls-"
"I can't," I almost whimpered. It felt like the walls were closing in. Every wound felt fresh again, and I hadn't even said anything, yet.
"I can't," I repeated, a little firmer as I stood up from the chair and moved a few feet away from him into the empty space in the centre of the room. Even then, I still felt like I was being crammed into the tiniest of spaces; like I couldn't breathe, or think, or function properly.
Harry watched me in silence as I backed away towards the bedroom door, my legs moving of their own volition. Everything felt like it was crumbling - this was bad, and I didn't know if I had it in me to make it good again.
"Don't leave, Iz," he said, from across the room, but I wasn't even meeting his eyes. I couldn't do this. I didn't know how. "I-I don't want to upset you, baby, but nothing gets fixed if you walk away. Don't you want things to be better?"
I watched as his face fell, then, and I realised that I'd shaken my head in response to his question. I'd shaken my head 'no', when he'd asked if I wanted things to be better; if I'd wanted us to be better. And maybe, deep down, that was it - maybe I didn't want things to be better, or good, like I was so certain that I did. Maybe I'd keep sabotaging, and destroying every good part of this, until it crumbled and dissipated like just about any other good thing I'd ever known. Maybe I was so certain, deep down, that I couldn't have this, and so I'd never stop pushing him away, until he eventually gave up on me.
I'd said 'no' without even meaning to; maybe that was it. Maybe that was what I really, really wanted, because I knew I wasn't worthy of anything better. My instinct was to run, rather than to stay here and work with him. He wasn't working against me, but now, that was the only way it felt. I was being cornered - albeit gently - but that was enough to make me want to run away. And so I did.
"I can't. I'm sorry," I repeated, feeling my heart race as I finally walked out of the bedroom. My knees felt like they could've given out, walking away from him, but I couldn't turn back. I couldn't face him, because if I did, I'd have to face everything.
He didn't call my name again as I walked through the apartment. I didn't know where I was going, but I felt like I was suffocating in here. I remembered to take my key with me, but that was it - I left him alone in the apartment, without anything else; not even another word, and I took off out of sight.