Boysdon'tcrydocx

Boys Don't Cry by oxygenstyles
Summary:
Although she wouldn’t like to admit it, Isabel Allen can be selfish, argumentative, and more than
a little insecure.
When she and the moody, tattooed and positively infuriating Harry Styles are forced to work
together at a bowling alley
three days a week, Isabel thinks she’s living in her own personal hell.
But time changes more than just the seasons, and one year is a long time to work out not only
each other, but yourself, too.
A story about messy hair, heavy drinking, marathons, film trivia and being okay.
Banner by: xoxoluvylex99
Categories: Het Stories (Boy/Girl), Alternate
Universe, Drama, Humor, Romance, Suspense Characters: - OCF, Harry Styles
Genres: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, Humor, Romance
Tags: None
Warnings: Language, Sexual Content
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 38 Completed: Yes Word
count: 245031 Read: 893076 Published: 02/06/2014 Updated: 09/18/2014
Story Notes:
Drama filled Uni!AU ~ hope you enjoy!
warning: drug abuse plays a small but significant part in this story, please be aware before you
read!
all story extras from tumblr are now on 1DFF in 'BDC extras' found on my profile :)
1. Chapter 1 by oxygenstyles

38. Epilogue by oxygenstyles

Chapter 1 by oxygenstyles
Author's Notes:
girls just like you
January
“Late again,” Harry chided. Isabel scowled, swiping her card through the machine to indicate
she’d started her shift.
He was lounging across the sofa, already in his red polo shirt and phone in hand as always,
smiling up at her with wide, mischievous eyes. Isabel glared at him and marched over to her
locker, already irritated.
“I’m not even late,” she retorted, pointing proudly to the wall clock to show him that she had in
fact arrived with about thirty seconds to spare before her shift started. “Not my fault you’re
always so fucking early.”
Harry grinned widely, watching as she paused in the act of putting her bag and coat away to lean
against the metal door of the locker and shut her eyes, hit with a sudden, threatening tidal wave
of nausea.
“That’s a first. You really should swap this shift you know,” he continued, and when Isabel
opened her eyes she saw he was smirking but looking down at his phone, already losing interest.
She gritted her teeth. “I can’t swap this shift, this is one of the few days I don’t have a lecture,”
she snapped at him, and her tone only widened his smirk.
“Just saying,” he replied brightly, not bothering to look up at her. She slammed her locker shut,
wincing at the sound, and stormed off to the employee bathroom to put on her polo shirt.
For Isabel, Wednesday mornings were absolutely the worst days to work, least of all
because Digital, the club favoured by her circle of friends, held a student night on Tuesday
evenings which meant she was, without fail, horribly hungover. Tuesday also happened to be her
busiest day at uni, which meant she always had a mountain of work to do seeing as she’d gone
out the night before. But mostly, nobody in their right mind went bowling on a Wednesday
morning, which meant that she was left alone with Harry Styles in the shoe booth for six hours.
Isabel’s dislike for him wasn’t rampant enough that it often crossed her mind once she left work
– she didn’t care that much – but it wasn’t her fault that he made it his mission to exasperate her,
and the worst part was that he always succeeded. Always.
She’d met too many guys like him – most of her boyfriend’s mates were the same – that
arrogant, self-assured smirk plastered to his face, that underlying air of smugness that meant he
blatantly thought he could get any girl he laid eyes on. He teased Isabel constantly, always
grinning as if he knew something she didn’t, and it wasn’t even as though his teasing was in an
effort to flirt with her, or form some sort of friendship; most of the time he did it out of boredom,
looking down at his phone or with one headphone in. And if being an arrogant prick wasn’t
enough, Harry was also a kiss-ass prick, the boss’ absolute favourite employee, always arriving
five minutes early, working harder than everyone else put together, and exuding enthusiasm that
should have been criminal for someone working in a bowling alley.
When Isabel emerged from the bathroom, she decided Harry must have headed to the shoe booth
already as the only people left in the room were Chris, the lanky redheaded boy who was
responsible for patrolling the alleys, and a small mousy girl who worked in another part of the
complex, probably in the burger joint judging by the look of absolute despair etched on her face.
Isabel went back over to her locker to get out her book and headphones, and promptly tripped
over someone's bag, flailing with a yelp and nearly falling headfirst into the bin.
“Bloody fucking shit,” she panted, stumbling to her feet with burning cheeks, sneaking an
embarrassed glance over at Chris only to catch him coughing into his hand in poorly disguised
laughter.
Safe to say she wasn’t in a good mood by the time she got to the shoe booth.
Harry was leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixated on the phone in one hand with a mug of tea
in the other. He glanced up at Isabel as she came into the booth and started beaming just from
one look at her expression.
“What happened back there?!” he asked in mock horror.
“Some idiot left all their stupid shit lying all over the floor again!” she replied, equally as
dramatic but without Harry’s underlying condescension.
Harry smiled from ear to ear, his dimple deepening in his cheek as he filled in the gaps of
Isabel’s story. “So you tripped over again?”
She chose not to reply, pointedly opening her book and staring fixedly at the margin.
“Wow,” he laughed, “and people tell me I’m clumsy…”
“I’m not clumsy!” she barked, and he laughed again. It was no use arguing with him; he knew
exactly how to wind her up and wouldn't stop until he did.
Isabel went back to her book, and after a few minutes of rereading the same line over and over
again - On March 6th 1522, Luther surreptitiously returned to Wittenberg - she glanced at Harry.
He’d put his headphones in and was hunched over the table, his vastly tattooed left arm blocking
her from being able to see what he was doing. This wasn’t a new habit, and Isabel rolled her eyes
at his childishness, half-hoping he might see her exasperation out of the corner of his eye and
start an argument. Anything was better than Martin Luther, Isabel had to begrudgingly admit to
herself. Even Harry Styles.
In the three hours that followed, though, only silence ensued. An excruciating total of four
people came to the counter, and each time they’d just asked for directions to another part of the
complex, but Harry had leapt to his feet like an overexcited dog, bounding over to help them
before Isabel could even consider moving.
As he sat down after dismissing the fourth confused person, he looked over at her, biting down
on his lip.
“Are you okay?” he asked carefully. “You look a bit grey.”
“I’m absolutely fine,” Isabel answered, plastering on a smile, just as her stomach let out an
enormous rumble.
“Ah,” Harry said, smiling slowly.
“Ah,” she repeated, and she couldn’t help but grin back. “I didn’t realise I was hungry.”
“I’ll go and get us some lunch,” Harry said, springing to his feet quickly and shoving whatever
he had been looking at under the table.
“No, it’s fine,” Isabel demanded, forcing herself to stand up. “You’ve done everything today, I
feel bad. I’ll go.”
They stood facing each other stonily, like a cowboy showdown in the movies, and Isabel half
expected Harry to whip a gun from his belt before he raised his eyebrows and snorted.
“You don’t have to be such a martyr,” he countered, sounding completely exasperated. “I’m fine,
I’ll go.”
“No really, I’m ready to go now. A walk will do me good,” she said through gritted teeth, and he
held up his hands in defeat, shaking his head in annoyance as he got her money out of the till.
Isabel shuffled through the complex feeling like she was about to die, instantly regretting being
so stubborn with Harry. She bought them two chicken burger meals from the burger joint and
smiled with sympathy at the mousy girl from the employee common room who looked just about
ready to chuck herself under a bus at any given moment.
As she got back to the shoe booth with her hands full, she peered over the counter, about to tell
Harry to open the door for her when she paused. Under the impression no one was watching, he
was no longer hunching over the table and she could see what he had been guarding with his
arm. With a pencil grasped between his fingers, Harry was sketching carefully in a leather bound
black book, his tongue slightly between his teeth in concentration and his brows furrowed.
Isabel tried to make out what he was drawing just as he looked up suddenly, quickly slamming
the book shut and ripping his headphones off. He stared straight at her, opening his mouth to say
something, his lower lip glistening a little, but promptly decided against it and shut it.
“Um,” Isabel started, and he raised his eyebrows hesitantly, looking almost – almost scared.
“May you open the door for me?”
“Oh, sure!” he said quickly, jumping up and tripping over the table legs as he went round to open
the door.
She handed him his meal and they sat down in silence. He chewed slowly, looking everywhere
but at her as she stared at his flushed cheeks in half amusement, half confusion. She could have
easily called him out on whatever he'd been doing, but she felt strangely guilty for having caught
him given his embarrassment, and she was in the midst of debating whether or not to apologise,
her palms sweating a bit nervously, when he spoke.
“Sooooo,” he said, his gaze fixed on his lap. “How was your Christmas?”
“You asked me that last week, Harry. It’s 16th January,” Isabel pointed out, and when he finally
looked up at her his eyes were sparkling.
“To be fair, you never answered the question,” he replied.
“I did!”
“No you didn’t. You said it was ‘fine’.”
“It was fine!”
“Liar. Nobody ever means it when they say ‘fine’.”
For a moment Isabel just blinked at him as he smiled, just the corners of his mouth pulling up,
and when he didn’t say anything else she felt the need to continue.
“It was okay. We went to my granny’s house and the beginning of the day really was fine, apart
from my step-dad falling asleep at church and being hit over the head with a handbag by the old
woman behind,” Isabel recalled and he laughed.
“What happened next?”
“Well we went home and had lunch and everything – we’d already opened presents the day
before, because my mum’s Swedish – and just as we’re settling down to watch the telly my
brother announced that he and his girlfriend are engaged.”
Harry laughed again, albeit a little confusedly, a frown puckering between his eyebrows.
“What’s so bad about that?”
Isabel chewed and swallowed, leaving Harry to wait patiently as she licked a bit of mayonnaise
from the side of her mouth. “Well it turns out my parents have to pay for everything, seeing as
neither my brother nor his girlfriend have a job and they live with her parents. And then – well,
it’s complicated, but basically, her parents are saying they can’t afford to contribute as they’re
already putting a roof over my brother’s head. It all turned into a bit of a scene.”
“I see,” Harry replied seriously, nodding with solemn sarcasm. “Quite the drama.”
“How was yours?” she asked, realising with a little pull in the pit of her stomach that she’d never
really asked Harry any questions about himself. “Your Christmas, I mean?”
“Fine.”
“Liar,” she said with a grin.
He smirked at her and shook his head, but didn’t offer a response. Isabel's smile of
encouragement melted into a challenging sort of glare, but he just looked away, staring at the
floor as though it was suddenly engrossing and leaving her to sit there like an idiot waiting for
his answer.
A wave of annoyance rolled in then, watching as Harry turned away from her slightly. Clearly,
he only indulged in conversation if he was the one leading it. He only liked to speak to her if he
was teasing, or if he was asking questions, or if he got the last word, and Isabel frowned, starting
to think that Harry was the type of boy that always had to win. It didn’t surprise her as much as it
should have.
“Why do you always wear that stupid headband?” she asked him, hoping to rile him up. He
couldn’t just drop her mid-conversation when he got bored, not if she had anything to do with it,
and she raised her eyebrows challengingly. He looked up at her and laughed at her scowl,
bringing his hand up to touch the green scarf wrapped around his hair as though he’d forgotten it
was there.
“Why do you always wear that stupid expression?” he replied with an arrogant grin, his voice
high and mocking.
“What expression?”
“The one you’re wearing now. Like you hate everything.”
“Maybe I do hate everything here,” Isabel retorted childishly, and he rolled his eyes. She wasn’t
usually very good at arguing, and she knew she sounded a bit stupid but she pretended not to
notice Harry rolling his eyes, a little wave of self-consciousness flushing her cheeks pink.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Well, you’re a prick!”
“You’re gonna have to watch that mouth if you ever do a weekend shift,” he teased, wagging his
finger at her. “Can’t swear in front of the kids.”
“What makes you think I’d ever sign up for any more shifts with you?”
“Because you love me so much, clearly.”
“Shut up, I’ve got a hangover,” she snapped, closing her eyes because she was running out of
things to say and Harry was in his absolute element, happier than she’d ever seen him.
“Grow up, I work on a hangover all the time.”
"Shut up."
"What was that? Did you actually just tell me to shut up?" He clasped his heart like he was
offended. "That struck me deep Isabel, it really did.
She ignored him, her eyes still shut, but he kept going.
"You really shouldn't drink if you can't handle it the next day. Like I know you're probably a
lightweight, but I can tell already you're the most fucking annoying drunk.” He paused, clearly
waiting for a reaction, but she had none. “Maybe save your friends the aggravation and go back
to looking in the mirror or whatever it is girls like you do for fun."
She could hear the grin in his voice, but still she ignored him, biting on the inside of her cheek.
"Maybe," he continued after realising she wasn't going to reply, “you're just not cut out for
that crazy lifestyle you're living, yeah Isabel? Maybe you’re not quite cut out to hang with the
cool kids? Cos I manage to go out all the time and come to work the next day just -"
“Ooh, get you," she snapped quickly, more than a little stung. "Do you turn up to all the student
bars and pretend you’re a student as well? Find a little blonde first year to drag home for the
night?”
“If you’d ever bothered to find out, I’m a student as well.”
She opened her eyes in surprise to find him looking at his phone, not even fully engaged in the
conversation.
“No you’re not.”
“I am, but don’t believe me if you don’t want to. I’m not actually bothered what you think, in
case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve never seen you on campus before,” she said with suspicion and he rolled his eyes again, his
boredom almost tangible.
“First of all, I’m not taking any little blonde first year’s home cos I’ve got a girlfriend,” he said,
his voice completely monotone, and Isabel snorted, as though this revelation was entirely
unlikely. “Secondly, you don’t know everyone on campus. You’re not as cool as you think you
are.”
She gaped at him, completely taken aback. “I do not think I’m cool!”
“Okay,” he shrugged, leaning across the table to get his headphones, but she pushed his hand
away. He looked at her with eyes wide in surprise, and he cracked a full-blown grin again.
“Isabel Allen, where are your manners!”
“We’re not finished yet, Harry!”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not! What did you just say to me?”
“You heard. It’s a fact, Isabel. You’re not as cool as you think you are.”
She snarled in indignation. “Well you’re not as hot as you think you are!”
He snorted. “Whatever. You’re an awful liar.”
“Er, I’m sorry to break it to you, mate,” Isabel said with a disgusted look on her face, “but you’re
not as fucking perfect as you think you are.”
She thought he would laugh at that one, but he stopped smiling and frowned slightly, his nostrils
flaring.
“What?”
Isabel blinked, a little taken aback, but explained, “Nobody needs to say it, it’s obvious. I know
so many guys like you.”
“I don’t think I’m perfect, Isabel,” he said flatly, standing up and scrunching up the burger
wrappers. Isabel thought for a moment his hands might be shaking, but put it down to a trick of
the light, looking back at his tight-lipped, frowning face instead.
“Oh, so you’re some sensitive, self-conscious guy are you?” she replied, resisting the urge to
elbow him. He was taking this very seriously all of a sudden.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Whatever Harry,” she said breezily. “You can try and make yourself into some mysterious,
delicate enigma if you want to but don’t think people don’t see through you.”
He threw the wrappers into the bin and shook his head at her, his jaw clenched. “You know
nothing about me, and you’ve never even tried to.”
“I just did, didn’t I? I just asked about your Christmas and you didn’t reply!” she replied
indignantly. He laughed without humour, sitting down again.
“Again, you’re ridiculous.” He swallowed and ran a hand through his hair, looking away from
her, and Isabel gulped. She wasn’t sure where this had all suddenly gone wrong, but she wasn’t
sure how to backtrack now, so she kept going.
“Well,” she said, a little startled, keeping her voice light and teasing, “I’m sorry if I don’t come
into work all sunshine and enthusiasm like you, Harry, and I’m sorry if I didn’t ask you to brief
me on your family history the first day I met you –”
“You know what?” he interrupted. “It costs nothing to be nice, Isabel. You never bothered to
even try and be friends with me, even though you knew we’d be working together twice a week
–”
“Oh,” Isabel said in feigned realisation, “all that making fun of me was just a front so I would
be friends with you!”
“It’s hard to be friends with someone who’s so rude,” he said slowly, and for some reason these
words hit her like he’d slapped her in the face. “I know you think you’re above all this, you and
your cool history textbooks that you never fucking read, and your cool shitty expression, and
your cool friends who know everyone on campus, and your pretty fucking cool boyfriend, but
you shouldn’t have let that get to your head.”
Isabel blinked at him in astonishment, anything she had to say back frozen at the base of her
throat, lodged there in surprise. He stared straight back at her coolly, and there was something in
his eyes, anger and irritation but something else, something she wasn’t sure of, that made her
heart shudder.
“You think you’ve got me all figured out? Well I know lots of girls just like you too. Don’t think
I haven’t tried to forget that.”
~~~~
Isabel stomped out of work as quickly as she could when her shift ended, pushing her fringe out
of her face continually as it blew into her eyes in the cold January air.
She hated Harry Styles. She fucking hated him.
People at the bus stop shifted away from her nervously as she growled even at the thought of
him. She’d only started working at the bowling alley in December, just before she’d broken up
for Christmas at uni, amounting in about five six hour shifts together in total. Maybe it was
unreasonable to hate someone after thirty hours of knowing them, but at this point she wasn’t
thinking reasonably.
The bowling alley job was easy. Sure, she had to sit in a shoe booth all day with the smell of
sweaty feet clinging to her clothes and hair – and Isabel knew from experience that even a
shower was sometimes unable to irrigate the odour – and true, it certainly wasn’t the most
glamorous, exciting job. But she got paid £7.23 an hour to mostly lounge about on a plastic
chair, eat burgers and catch up on her uni work, with the occasional operation of the till here and
there. She was all right at maths, and she was good at eating chicken. Best of both worlds.
It was unfortunate, really, that an irritating, curly-headed, smirking little shit like Harry had to
come and ruin the easiest money she’d make for the rest of her lifetime.
She was so distracted by her anger that when she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket she didn’t
even move to answer it until the last ring.
“Yes?” she snapped.
“Woah, fucking hell, Isabel” said the voice at the end of the line, and Isabel straightened up as
though he could see her, her mouth going dry. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, no, sorry Lou,” she squeaked. Not for the first time, she berated herself at the way she acted
when she heard his voice, like a pathetic little schoolgirl, not the independent, intelligent and
capable woman – like Hilary Swank in Millionaire Dollar Baby, though without the sports, or
Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, though without the law suit – that she very much was. Biting
her lip, she continued: “I just had a really bad day at work.”
“I’m sorry to hear that babe,” Louis said sympathetically, and Isabel felt some of the tension
drain out of her body, to be replaced by a crippling sort of tiredness that made her head feel like
it was about to explode. “I thought you liked it? Like despite it being boring and all.”
“I never said I liked it,” she replied, closing her eyes and leaning against the cold stainless steel
of the bus stop. “I don’t know, it’s just the guy I work with…”
Isabel trailed off as she thought about Harry. The tattoos, the dark circles under his eyes, the
black jeans and boots, the way he’d snapped at her. Maybe she was stereotyping, but he
seemed exactly the sort of guy her boyfriend would know.
In fact – he did know Louis. He’d looked her straight in the eyes told her he knew exactly who
her “pretty fucking cool boyfriend” he’d was.
“The guy you work with what?” Louis asked, confused.
“Do you know a guy called Harry?”
“Harry who? Miller?”
“No, Styles. Harry Styles.”

“Um, maybe,” Louis replied, sounding like he was getting bored although humouring her all the
same. “What does he look like?”
“He’s tall, brown hair, tattoos. He’s a bit…” she searched for the words, none quite summing
him up. “Weird. He’s a bit weird. I think you’d remember him if you met him.”
“Can’t say I have then,” concluded Louis. “Why do you ask?”
“I just… I just thought he may know you, that’s all.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. Just as she thought she may have worked Harry out, she was
left clueless yet again.
“Are you hungover?” she asked Louis, eager to change the subject.
“Fucking hanging like no tomorrow,” he replied, and she was glad to hear she wasn’t alone in
her nightmare. “Was meant to go to my lecture this morning so I set my alarm for 8 and slept
right through it. Danny had to come and switch it off cos it woke him up, but not me though. I
was dead to the world.”
Isabel laughed for what felt like the first time in years and hugged her coat tighter to herself.
“Are you coming over tonight?” she asked him.
They’d only been together for six months, after she’d spent nearly a year relentlessly and quietly
admiring him in their first year of uni, but when she wasn’t around him she missed him, missed
the way he could make her laugh even when he wasn’t saying anything funny and the way his
eyelids thinned when he smiled. She loved him – she knew she did, because missing the way he
looked when he smiled was definitely love – but they hadn’t said it. Not yet.
He coughed at the other end of the line. “Ugh, I can’t babe, I’m sorry. I need to go pick up.”
“Oh, okay.” The tension Isabel had felt before was back. She heard him sighing into the phone, a
little exapserated.
“I’ll be quick, okay? I’ve only got a few rounds to do, and then I’ll come over this evening.
Promise.”
“Really?” she couldn’t stop herself smiling like an idiot into the phone.
“Of course. I’ll see you this evening okay?”
“Yeah. Can’t wait.”
“Make sure you’re not still grumpy otherwise I’ll turn right back around again.”
“Nobody’s grumpy here!”
“All right. See ya later babe,” he said, and hung up before she could reply.
Isabel slipped the phone into her pocket with numb fingers as her heart swelled at the thought of
Louis cheering her up that evening. She even picked up pizza for her housemates, paying for it
with her wages, and spent a good hour consoling her friend Millie over a stupid one night stand
she’d had with a guy from the art school the night before. The way Harry had made her feel at
work made the prospect of seeing Louis seem like the best thing that could ever happen to
anyone.
And then he didn’t show up. Again.

End Notes:
Hello! I started the story off with a bit of a bang, and I really, really hope you stick with it and
enjoy!
I update every Thursday and Sunday , so until then let me know what you thought – of Harry?
of Louis? of Isabel? – and ask any questions at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com :-) xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
teenage angst I only know
January
Saturday night, Isabel and her housemates had decided to have a girls’ night in rather than go out
– a rarity, and one that Isabel had to cherish because she was normally made to go out both
nights of the weekend. They ordered in a takeaway, got The Notebook up on her laptop and all
squeezed into Scarlett’s bed in their pyjamas. Of course, rather paradoxically, a girls’ night
nowadays included Liam, Lydia’s boyfriend.
Officially, Millie, Scarlett, Lydia and Isabel rented the house, but since September Liam had
been staying over every night, and after Christmas he had officially Moved In, bringing the
remaining ten belongings that hadn’t already surreptitiously snuck their way into Lydia’s room
round in one measly cardboard box.
Normally, girls find it annoying when their friends are always around their boyfriends, and
although the rest of them often moaned about Liam, they secretly loved having him around. He
did most of the washing up around the house, and most of the tidying too (the domestic goddess
that he was) and he never complained when they all made decisions about food or nights out
without him. Isabel suspected this had something to do with the fact that he didn’t pay any rent
and felt bad, but she liked him all the same.
Of the four girls, Lydia and Isabel were the only two with boyfriends. Scarlett had just come out
of a long-term relationship and Millie was, as Louis called her, the ultimate definition of a mess.
Every other week she had her heart broken, and that meant every other week, as her best friend,
Isabel had to pick up the hysterical, over-dramatic pieces.
“Why can’t I have a relationship like this?” Millie cried dramatically, tears swelling in her eyes
as she watched Noah and Ally kiss on the screen.
“Soppy bitch,” Scarlett laughed, poking Millie in the side lightly.
“This film is so overrated anyway,” was Isabel’s only comment, and like usual when she spoke
about films, everyone ignored her.
“Relationships aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,” Lydia interjected wisely, and Liam, who was
quietly pouring over his mathematics textbook with his head in her lap, nodded in agreement.
Millie threw a pillow at them with a wail of indignation, and she and Scarlett launched into an
emotional lament about the woes of single life. Isabel only half listened, chewing on her nail
absently
It was true that relationships weren’t all they were cracked up to be, but it seemed that impending
marriage was even worse. She had just got off the phone with her teary mother, who’d explained
to her amidst an abundance of apologies that Isabel’s brother James’ engagement was really
taking its toll on her bank balance. Worried that she and her step-dad would have to cut into their
lifelong savings for their retirement, they’d asked Isabel if she could work a few extra shifts so
they could cut her allowance.
Her mother’s request wasn’t unreasonable, having tried her to best to financially support three
kids through uni, and Isabel would much rather work more than have her parents worse off
money wise. The problem was not the working – it was who she was working with.
She’d called in sick on Friday afternoon, the thought of seeing Harry again leaving her a little
sweaty and nervous, but faced with her mother crying down the phone, Isabel had to swallow her
fear of the awkwardness and ring her boss, asking for another shift to bring her total up to three a
week. He’d given her the Sunday evening slot, adding brightly that Harry worked that shift too.
“I know you two get along so well,” Dan had added as Isabel resisted the urge to burst into tears
on the other end of the line. “Harry was asking after you when you were sick.”
“Really?” she mumbled miserably.
“Yes, he was wondering whether you had quit. He seemed to think you would.”
Of course he did.
~~~
On Sunday evening at 6pm Isabel marched into the shoe booth with carefully composed
confidence, albeit ten minutes late. She expected Harry to be hunched over the table secretively
again and completely ignore her, but instead he was lying across the table with his head buried in
his arms. When he heard her come in he jerked up in surprise.
“Oh,” he said blearily. “Why are you here?”
Isabel didn’t reply, choosing to scan his face instead. The dark circles under his eyes were even
more prominent today as his skin was deathly pale, even his lips much paler than their usual deep
pink, and his hair – devoid of the headband – was knotted and unwashed. He looked like shit, to
be frank.
“I needed money,” she replied shortly, sitting down. He glared at her, swiping his tongue over
his cadaverous lips before closing his eyes and swallowing. “I can’t help it you work every
bloody shift,” Isabel added automatically, but he pretended he didn’t hear her.
Sunday evenings turned out to be much busier than she had expected. She was absolutely certain
Harry was hungover, but if he was, nobody else noticed. They got a little production line going –
Isabel on the till, and after they had paid her Harry would sort out the shoes, taking them from
the customers and getting them their correct size of red and white striped bowling shoes.
When a little girl with long blonde hair and a pink party dress shyly lisped up to Harry that she
needed a size 8 children’s shoe, handing him her silver sparkly ballet pumps, Harry took them
from her with wide eyes, exclaiming how pretty they were and how bad the ugly bowling shoes
would look in comparison. She beamed up at him as he jogged around the counter to personally
put the new bowling shoes onto her feet, commenting that she looked like a princess in her
beautiful frock, while the little girl’s mother looked down at him equally enraptured. Isabel
stared at him dumbly, pausing in an effort of getting a customer’s change from the till. Quite
sweet, really.
The little shit.
At around 9.30, the stream of customers dried up and Harry and Isabel were able to get back to
their usual activity of sitting in silence. Isabel put her headphones on and started on making some
notes about the Spanish Civil War, while Harry did nothing but stare into space. After about half
an hour, he nudged her softly with his foot. She paused, her pen poised over the paper, but
without looking decided it was a mistake and ignored him.
“What?” Isabel snapped when he nudged her again, ripping her headphones off her ears.
“Your music is really loud, Isabel,” he croaked, and she raised her eyebrows as if to say ‘and?’
He swallowed and tapped his temples with two fingers. “I’ve got a headache.”
She felt like a stronger, more defiant girl, like Millie or Scarlett, would tell him to fuck off after
all the teasing she’d got for being hungover last week, but she felt sorry for him, and with a little
nod she turned the music down.
Isabel returned to her book, and after a moment’s silence he blurted out “You’re listening to The
Strokes?”
She looked up at him. He was staring at her with apprehension, as though she might bite.
“Yeah I love them,” Isabel said slowly.
“Same,” he replied, nodding and swallowing again.
They sat in awkward silence for a minute, both staring at each other, until Isabel finally broke it.
“You look like shit,” she said bluntly, but her voice was soft. “Rough night?”
“Well, it was an amazing night,” he said, smiling slightly as he closed his eyes again. “We went
out for my friend Zayn’s birthday, cos he was twenty last week but he had a shift at work on his
actual birthday. And then I –”
He stopped abruptly and opened his eyes, eyeing her with deep suspicion as though she’d
tortured this story out of him. Isabel had to admit, she was surprised – Harry had never disclosed
any information about himself before. He shook his head, as though to shake the mistake out,
and looked away.
Isabel considered prompting him, but then remembered they absolutely weren’t friends and
decided better of it. Looking back down at her book, she couldn’t help but feel that his eyes were
on her, still staring at her with caution, and just as she was about to meet his gaze and maybe ask
what on earth he was looking at, she heard someone call his name.
“Oh shit,” Harry mumbled under his breath, before jumping to his feet. Isabel stood up with him,
intrigued.
A girl was storming towards him, a jumper in hand and an expression like thunder. She had
caramel skin and long dark hair scraped back into a ponytail, and even though she was wearing
all loose-fitting all black clothes and no make-up, and even though her face was lined with a
salty racetrack of dried, hopeless tears, she was so beautiful that Isabel’s eyes widened.
She stopped in front of the shoe booth with clenched fists, glaring at Harry.
“Hey, Caro,” he said coolly, and Isabel was surprised he could even speak so casually when
anyone else, Isabel included, would probably choke and keel over when someone that hot was
looking at them with such contempt. “You okay?”
“No I’m not fucking okay!” she shouted, and Harry glanced towards Dan’s office nervously.
When he looked back at her though, he’d rearranged his expression to that of pure boredom. He
just blinked at her, waiting for her to continue.
“Did you fuck Eliza Green?” she hissed. He sighed and pushed a hand through his messy hair.
“When?”
She drew herself back like an anaconda about to strike, her lip curling up dangerously. “Last
week! Did you fuck her last week?”
“No, I was with you last week,” he explained calmly, with the slightly monotonous, practised
tone that suggested he’d said this many times before. Her bottom lip wobbled at the use of past
tense, but she lifted her chin haughtily.
“Well that’s not what I’ve heard.”
“I don’t cheat,” he said, running a hand over his face tiredly. “I’ve told you this so many times –
”
“How am I meant to believe that,” she interrupted, leaning forward to get closer to his face,
“when you’ve fucked half the girls at uni!”
Isabel blinked in confusion. So he really did go to uni, and he really did have a girlfriend. But
Isabel liked to think she knew a lot of people on campus, and never once had she heard Harry’s
name mentioned; if he really had slept with half the girls, where were they hiding?
“Not when I was with you,” he replied, shrugging off her glare. “But to be honest, Caro, I don’t
really care whether you believe me or not anymore. We’re not together now.”
She flinched as though she’d been slapped, and Isabel’s eyes widened, resisting the urge to gasp.
Caro threw the jumper that was clenched in her hands at him with some force, but he reached out
and caught it before it could hit him, sighing tiredly.
“Fuck you,” she mumbled, turning on her heel and running out of the door.
Harry sat back down in his chair with another sigh, massaging his temple with one hand as he
folded the grey jumper with his other.
“Yeah, so I forgot to mention,” he said tiredly, looking over at Isabel with an embarrassed half-
smirk, not quite convincing given the pucker between his eyebrows. “Last night was so great
because I broke up with my girlfriend.”
Isabel pursed her lips, feeling more than a little uncomfortable having witnessed a stranger being
absolutely battered by Harry’s disinterest.
“Ah. Why?”
“She was… uh, a bit paranoid,” he explained, placing emphasis on ‘a bit’ so that it was clear he
meant ‘extremely’. “Plus I wasn’t ever really that into her.”
“But she’s gorgeous,” she couldn’t help but say, and he raised his eyebrows.
“So?”
“I don’t know. Just… most guys our age wouldn’t let someone like that go.”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes and he seemed almost sad. “There you go then. You
thought you knew loads of boys like me.”
Isabel swallowed and looked away, embarrassed at the mention of their argument.
“Oh, and another thing,” he added, drawing her attention back to him and his stupid smirk. “You
said you thought blonde was my type. Don’t you think that’s a little vain, seeing as you’re
blonde?”
For a moment Isabel floundered, her cheeks heating. “I meant like... I don't know, like bimbo
blonde, not –”
“Not a cool blonde like you?” his grin widened, the dimple in his cheek deepening as she
scowled. “Sorry to break it to you, Issy, but you’re just not my type.”
Isabel didn’t expect that to hurt her feelings, but it did. She was only as self-conscious about her
appearance as the next girl, but hearing someone who was undoubtedly hot, unabashedly
gorgeous, essentially admit that she was unattractive stung quite sharply. At uni there were so
many girls that seemed to pop up everywhere just to make the other girls feel inadequate, and
although most of the time it was easy to ignore, it was hard not to compare herself sometimes.
And she knew Harry thought she was shallow for it, because of course he did, but Isabel took
time with her make-up, over compensated for her sometimes stumbling self-esteem by taking
great care with her clothes. It wasn’t a bad thing to take pride in her appearance – not everyone
could waltz around in gym clothes looking like a catwalk model like Caro. Clearly, those were
the only girls Harry had eyes for, though.
“Don’t call me Issy,” she said, trying to sound angry but her voice wobbled. Maybe it was stupid
to want everyone to think she was pretty, but she couldn’t help it. She was pretty sure there
wasn’t a girl on the planet who wouldn’t like that reassurance. “Only my friends call me that.”
“Sorry,” Harry said softly, but she wasn’t entirely sure that was the thing he was apologising for.
~~~~
When the shift was over, Isabel quickly changed, throwing her red polo into her locker and
slipping on her normal clothes, pulling a beanie onto her head. She clocked out her hours and
hurried outside into the cold January air, wincing as it bit into her cheeks. She strode across the
car park to the bus stop hurriedly, pulling her coat around herself to protect her from the wind,
when she heard her name being called.
“Isabel!” he called again, and she turned reluctantly to see Harry walking swiftly after her.
“Do you want a lift home?” he asked, his breath coming out like smoke in the cold air. She
crossed her arms in front of her chest almost defensively.
“No, I’m fine thanks,” she said, avoiding his eyes and looking down at what he was wearing.
She’d never seen him out of his uniform before, and her eyes scanned over him quickly - white t-
shirt, red check shirt on top and a green coat. She surprised herself by thinking he looked
especially attractive when he wore his own clothes, and then told herself to shut up.
“It’s like -2 degrees out here,” he pointed out, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Plus it’s late.
How many stops away is your house?”
Isabel coughed and looked away in an attempt at nonchalance. “It’s only half an hour away by
bus.”
He scoffed. “You’re ridiculous. It’ll take a good fifteen minutes for a bus to come anyway. Get
in the car.”
“Don’t order me about,” she snapped automatically, and he rolled his eyes.
“Please will you get in the car, Isabel?” He turned and walked away, knowing she would follow
him, and after dithering on the spot for a second, torn, she hurried after him.
Harry stopped abruptly by a battered Toyota and she nearly walked right into him. The car was at
least ten years old, and not the sort of thing she would expect him to drive at all. The paint was
scratched, the tires old and worn, and he had to manually open the door with his keys.
As he opened the door to the death trap he looked up at her, registering the surprised expression
on her face and rubbing the back of his neck with embarrassment. “Yeah, I know it’s a shit heap.
It was my brother’s car.” He chewed on his lip and looked away.
“It’s fine,” Isabel reassured him, not wanting him to be embarrassed as she opened the door to
the passenger side. “I just expected you to have some flash Range Rover or something.”
He didn’t reply, instead scooping a bunch of clothes and CDs off the passenger seat and dumping
them in the back, which was equally as messy.
“I don’t have a radio,” he explained as she sat down, not looking at her. “So you can choose a
CD. If you want.”
He motioned to the glove box which she opened as he turned on the ignition and cranked the
heating up to full. Isabel raised her eyebrows at him as a bra and empty condom packet tumbled
out of the glove box into her lap.
“Shit, sorry,” he mumbled, picking them up and throwing them into the back sheepishly. He
looked at her expectantly, a small sheepish smile pulling on his lips and faint colour in his
cheeks, but she didn’t have anything to say. She wouldn’t have expected anything less from
him.
She looked through his CDs curiously. There was such an eclectic mix of music that she didn’t
know what to choose, but when she waved her chosen CD at him he broke into a smile.
“Boys Don’t Cry? You like The Cure too, huh?” he said, unguardedly happy with her selection.
She grinned back. “You have a good music taste.”
His smile broadened. “My house mate – Zayn, the one whose birthday it was – he works at
HMV. Gets me discount on all CDs.”
“That’s a bit cooler than your job,” Isabel replied, and he jokingly frowned as though he was
insulted.
“I’ll have you know I’m very proud of my job thanks, it’s right down my alley.”
She cringed at his joke while he burst out laughing, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He looked
quite nice when he smiled properly, even if it at was his own joke.
“Just drive, Styles,” she said, shaking her head as she put the CD in the player.
Isabel told him her address as he pulled out of the car park, driving much too fast for what Isabel
imagined this old engine could manage, and then they sat in awkward, sharp silence.
She looked out of the window at the black sea front, the cold January wind whipping the waves
up into crashing blankets of water onto the pebbly shore. Harry started to sing quietly along to
the music, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
“I try to laugh about it, cover it all up with lies. I try and laugh about it, hiding the tears in my
eyes, cos boys don't cry.”
It was hard to believe, really, that she and Harry were sitting civilly, if not uncomfortably, in his
car, driving along and listening to The Cure after the way they had fought a few days before.
She’d been pretty certain she was never going to speak to him again, given how strange he’d
been. It was clear that both of them thought that we had the other entirely figured out, but Isabel
was starting to think that maybe both of them were wrong. She didn’t really understand him at
all.
After a few minutes, she heard him exhale softly.
“So, seeing as you know all about my love life now,” he said, smirking as he looked over and
caught her eye. “How’s the boyfriend?”
He almost sneered on the word boyfriend, and it made her feel sick. As much as she privately felt
let down or humiliated by Louis sometimes, she would still defend him to anyone. She loved
him, after all.
“He’s fine,” she lied. This morning she’d gone over to his with every intention of letting him
know it upset her when he let their plans fall through, but he always had a way of stopping her
from talking things over. Coerced her with sweetness and compliments and sex until she forgot
why she was upset with him.
Harry nodded knowingly, biting down on his lip, as if he knew she was lying, and this only
served to make her anxious.
“How do you know him?” she asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
“I don’t know him,” Harry said firmly, and she looked up at him in surprise. “He’s just well
acquainted with my house mates.”
He glanced over at her with a frown, raising his eyebrows slightly. She sighed.
“If you don’t know him, how would you know that I’m his girlfriend?”
Harry laughed softly. “My house mate was stalking him on Facebook and showed me. I saw you
tagged in photos with him.”
Isabel chewed on her lip and turned to stare out the window again. It was weird, being in the car
with him and not trying to wind each other up, but Isabel was starting to think that that was all a
bit unnecessary, really. She wouldn’t admit it, but Harry’s assessment of her last week had really
hit home with her, made her insides swim uncomfortably, made her feel a little queasy. She did
know a lot of people, and yeah, maybe she did think she was popular, but that was only because
of Louis. Louis was the most popular person she knew, perhaps one of the reasons why she was
so drawn to him in the first place. He was known for going out and getting drunk, meeting new
people, thinking up mad schemes. He had organised freshers’ week for the new first years in
September and it had been a record-breaking success. He was known by almost everyone, and
although some people despised him, most were in awe of him.
Isabel and Louis lived in the same hall in first year and he took a shine to her for no reason
whatsoever, always bringing her out and introducing her to people, forcing her out of her shell.
She owed a lot of her first year friendships and experiences to him, but also many nights of
crying into Millie’s shoulder in her shitty little room in hall with the peeling wallpaper and dirty
carpet after Louis had told her about the latest girl he had pulled. She was like his little sister –
that’s what Louis’ friends had often called her – that he dragged around with him but never
really showed that much interest in. It was only after a drunken night when they ended up
sleeping together that Louis and Isabel got together.
She was enraptured by him, she knew it. She thought she was the luckiest girl in the world for
having him, for being his. The fact that he would give up single life to be with her, of all people,
meant that she became both equally conceited and self-conscious. She’d never been popular in
high school, and now she was suddenly so well-known and with, by her standards, the best guy
at uni, and that did mean she thought more highly of herself than she had done in the past, it was
true.
But Louis had the power to break her heart in two, and they both knew it. He knew how much
she adored him, how she would come running whenever he wanted her to, how she would defend
him no matter what. Worse than that – she was becoming increasingly aware that she knew very
little about him. They’d hardly been friends before they had got together - Isabel was more like
his little project than someone he genuinely wanted to hang out with - and she’d only found out
certain things about him after they’d been together a while. Some very important things,
actually.
“He doesn’t actually deal, you know,” she said to Harry almost inaudibly, feeling his judgement
of Louis as though it was an actual physical entity between them. “He just delivers. He knows
everyone and it’s easy money.”
Harry nodded again, pushing his tongue into his cheek in an effort not to retort.
“Are you telling me you never smoke, Harry?” she asked, her tone one of utter disbelief. Clearly,
she'd completely misjudged him.
“Nope. Not cigarettes, not weed, nothing.” He said it with an air of haughtiness which made her
feel uncomfortable. She swallowed nervously as his hands grasped the steering wheel tighter.
“And I don’t take anything else either. I’m clean.” He gulped. “Absolutely clean as a whistle,
me.”
He seemed to be saying this more for himself than for anyone else, as if he was repeating a
mantra. She blinked at him.
“How long have you been clean?” she asked him gently, looking at the way his jaw was clenched
and his nostrils flared. He stared straight ahead, glaring at the road in front of him, but his head
jerked slightly at the question.
“A while,” he said sharply. “I wasn’t an addict if that’s what you’re getting at. I’d never let
myself become – I’m not –”
He was starting to get agitated, she could see it. He turned sharply around a corner into a street a
couple of roads away from her house, and the familiarity of the street was comforting. She
couldn’t have been more eager to get out of the car.
“You know what!” he barked suddenly over the music, making Isabel jump. “I
fucking despise people that get involved in that kind of shit, Isabel. I really fucking do.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” she replied carefully, trying her best not to aggravate him.
“No! No it’s not okay. It’s not fucking okay at all!” He was working himself up into a state,
pushing down hard onto the accelerator as the speedometer crept up to 40 miles-per-hour on this
tiny residential street. “Your boyfriend thinks it’s fucking easy money to ruin someone’s life?
That’s NOT okay! How can you think that’s okay?”
“I don’t think it’s okay,” Isabel said hastily, starting to get really scared as she gripped her
seatbelt with both hands. “It’s not okay, it’s really not. I’ve never even touched anything other
than weed, I wouldn’t want to. I barely ever smoke anyway, I don't like it all that much and I – I
don’t think Louis does either.”
“You don’t think?” he laughed a chilling laugh, completely devoid of humour. “Of course he
fucking doesn’t! He’s reaping the rewards of making someone else’s life a shit heap. Fuck him!”
He turned a corner without braking, and she squeezed her eyes shut in horror, yelping out in fear.
“Harry –”
He slammed on the brakes, and she opened her eyes to find them skidding to a halt in front of her
house. Feeling safer now that she had an easy escape, she turned to him in fury.
“You can’t say all that stuff when you said yourself your housemates do it!” she shouted. He had
the ability to make her furious so quickly, her fists clenching and her face staining red. “Most
people round here do, Harry, so take your head out of your arse and – and Christ, don’t offer
people lifts and drive like a fucking lunatic!”
“Get out of my car,” he said to her darkly. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly
the knuckles were white, and when he looked at her - the bright green of his irises now a thin
ring around the angry, dilated black – she recoiled.
“I would say thanks for the lift,” Isabel snapped, glaring at him as she undid her seatbelt. “But
seeing as you nearly killed us both, I’d rather settle with fuck you.”
“Get the fuck out of my car!” he yelled, and she did as he said, scurrying out and slamming the
door behind her. He pulled away as soon as she got out, and she stood watching him go, the
scratched black paintwork fading into the dark as she was left alone on her doorstep.
End Notes:
We’re learning a few new things about Harry (and Louis it seems)! What do you think? Let me
know and ask any questions at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com :-)
ALSO MAKE SURE you stick around for the next chapter because it’s pretty fun in my opinion
and I'm very excited to share it!
Please review if you enjoyed or want to ask any questions - see you Thursday xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
tired of fighting the good fight
January
It was a Saturday night and Isabel was substantially drunk in the bar at The Dome, the town’s
concert hall, doing shots with Millie and gagging ungracefully, when she saw him.
He was only about twenty feet away, facing some friends that had their backs to her, clad in a
grey t-shirt with a burgundy shirt over the top, black jeans, the addition of a thin white bandana
wrapped around his head. Harry laughed widely at something one of his friends said, his eyes
shining as the dimple in his cheek flexed, the skin by his eyes bunching up in the corners. He
took a sip of his beer and scanned the room, his gaze eventually landing on Isabel. Eyes
widening in horror, he looked away quickly and shuffled so that they were no longer in direct
eye view of each other in an effort to pretend he hadn’t seen her.
During her shifts on Wednesday and Friday afternoon, Harry and Isabel had barely spoken a
word to each other, only communicating when they had to. He went back to hunching
protectively over the table while Isabel tried her best to get some of her course work done, and
when push came to shove and they were forced to interact, he stared pointedly at somewhere a
few inches to her left.
Although she had fretted all of Monday and Tuesday about going to work on Wednesday, by the
end of her shift on Friday she was starting to think she could stick it out after all. Harry
completely ignored her unless it was absolutely essential to acknowledge her existence, and she
was fine with that. This really was easy money – without Harry irritating her constantly, she
realised how lucky she was; two out of three shifts she barely had to move at all, and it was
basically like she was there alone with how little she and Harry spoke to each other.
But as she had hurried out of work on Friday to a party Louis’ mate was hosting, Isabel looked
over to Harry as he chatted away happily to their boss Dan, his eyes shining brightly above the
permanent dark circles, and let the familiar flood of guilt momentarily wash in. She hated being
mean to anyone, and clearly she had been rude enough to Harry that she had obviously really
upset him. She spent enough of her life being ordered around and belittled by Louis and her
friends and her older siblings that she genuinely felt horrible when she made someone else feel
that way. But when she’d spilled this to Millie over a mug of hot chocolate in the greasy spoon
by the lecture theatre, biting her nails to the quick as she did so, Millie had reminded her Harry
was a big boy. He’d live.
“What are you looking at?” Millie asked, leaning into her and craning her neck in the direction of
Harry.
“No one. Nothing.”
“No one?” she raised an eyebrow. “Who were you staring at, Is?”
Isabel started to panic. Knowing Millie, she wasn’t likely to let this go. “Just this dickhead from
work. Leave it, okay?”
“Who? Do you mean Harry?” Millie said eagerly, trying to look over Isabel’s shoulder. Isabel
stepped in front of her, creating a human barricade, but this was a pointless effort and they both
knew it.
Millie, if anything, was persistent. She was a Drama student, and seemed determined to apply
theatricality to the entirety of her life. She was one of those people where everything about her
was interesting and enigmatic; she and Isabel’s friendship was forged when Millie barged into
her room and demanded to know whether she liked raisins in her bagels. When Isabel had replied
that she didn’t like raisins in anything, Millie knew she had found a new best friend.
“Yes, Harry,” Isabel hissed, regretting ever telling her about him. “Stop it, I don’t want him to
ruin the night!”
“Ruin the night?” she asked, as if Isabel was crazy. “This is gonna make the night! Plus, luckily
for him, dickhead is just my type.”
She smiled deviously and started to drag Isabel through the throng of people in the crowd,
leaving Isabel to spill her drink over everyone in the immediate vicinity as she apologised
profusely. Before she could finish saying sorry to an angry looking bald man in a suede coat, she
was suddenly shoved in the opposite direction, straight into someone’s hard chest and was nearly
knocked right off her feet.
“Shit, I’m so sorry!” Isabel spluttered, looking up and staring straight into the green eyes of
Harry Styles, who was glaring down at her.
“What the fuck?” he snapped, whipping away the hand he had placed on her waist to catch her as
if it was being burned.
Isabel whirled round to see who had pushed her and found the culprit to be Millie, giggling
drunkenly as she mouthed an insincere “sorry!”
Isabel turned back apprehensively, drawing a deep breath as Harry stood scowling at her, his
arms folded across his chest.
“I really am sorry Harry,” she said as civilly as she could. “My friend Millie – this is, uh,
Millie.”
“It’s fine,” he said shortly, nodding his hello at Millie who beamed back at him.
“Sorry,” Isabel said again, and she heard Millie sighing behind her. Isabel’s profuse apologies
were regularly the butt of her friends’ jokes, and she felt a familiar twinge of embarrassment.
“Okay, I heard the first time,” Harry said, a smirk forming, and Isabel felt her cheeks burn red. “I
um – didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Why would you?” she asked him, and he sighed and rolled his eyes at her dismissal of his
attempt at pleasantries.
“Sweet as always, Isabel.”
Isabel scowled. “Just for you, Harry; you know how much I love pleasing you.”
“That’s what all girls say to me,” he smirked, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Although,
they usually say it with their hand down my pants.”
“You’re absolutely vile,” she snapped. “Don’t humour yourself with thinking I would ever have
my hands near anything as dangerous as your nether regions.”
“Dangerous?” He leaned towards her, and lowered his voice to mumble in her ear, “As in I could
destroy you, Isabel?” He pulled back, grinning as he shrugged. “True.”
She gagged, tripping backwards away from him. “As in you would give me an infection!” she
retorted. “That is, if I hadn’t already killed myself from having to sustain conversation with you
long enough to initiate a hand job. Which would, by the way, never happen.”
He laughed. “There’s never much conversation, I’ll be honest. Usually I get the girl to skip
straight to the job in hand.”
Someone Isabel hadn’t even registered to the left of Harry coughed, loud enough to be heard
over Harry’s laughter, and Isabel snapped her head over to look at him. He had tanned skin and
dark hair, as well as a smattering of stubble and a smirk similar to the one Isabel had seen so
often on Harry. He was nowhere near as tall as Harry but had such an air of self-confidence that
Isabel felt as though he was towering over her, his eyes bright and darting between them.
“Aren’t you gonna introduce me, Harry?” he said, seeming somewhat taken aback by Harry’s
attitude.
“Er, yeah,” Harry said reluctantly. “This is Isabel. I work with her.” He coughed, scratching the
back of his neck awkwardly. “This is Zayn.”
“Nice to meet you,” Zayn said kindly, leaning over and kissing her on the cheek before doing the
same to Millie. He smelled like an ashtray, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Harry rolled his
eyes at his friend’s pleasantries and Isabel scowled at him.
“So are you two, like, on a date?” Millie asked, gesturing between the two boys with a wicked
smile, and Isabel snorted. Zayn chuckled light-heartedly, if not a bit uncomfortably, while Harry
just glowered. Clearly just being around Isabel was enough to completely decimate his cheery
mood.
“No, no,” Zayn clarified, “our friend Olivia’s with us too, she’s just in the toilet.”
“None of our other friends like Haim,” Harry said directly to Millie as though Isabel wasn’t
there, and Isabel’s eyes narrowed as she saw his gaze drag quickly up and down her body.
“Neither do I,” Zayn said, shaking his head. “Harry dragged me here when our other friend
backed out.”
“Good friend you are,” Isabel said, smiling up at him, and he bit his lip as he looked down at
her.
“Tell that to Harry,” he whispered conspiratorially, both of them looking over to Harry who was
glaring at the pair of them sulkily. “He seems to think I’m a bad one.”
“There you are!” a high pitched voice cried, and the four of them all turned to see a tiny girl,
barely over 5 foot, with flaming red hair balancing three beers in her little hands. “Just found
these full ones over there! Fucking result! Don’t know if someone had just freshly bought them,
but if you leave it unattended it’s up for fucking grabs –”
Her excitement faded into confusion as she registered the girls with Zayn and Harry. She glanced
between the two pairs – Isabel and Zayn, Harry and Millie – and sighed loudly. “Oh for fucks’
sake, you boys said you wouldn’t pull tonight!”
“We’re not,” Harry said tersely, stepping away from Millie and grabbing the drink from Olivia.
Olivia looked up at him in confusion, registering his foul mood with raised eyebrows, and then
peered round him at Isabel and Millie.
“I’m Olivia,” she said, shoving Harry out of the way and coming over to greet them. “Sorry
about him, I don’t know why he’s being such a twat.”
Harry downed his drink as the rest of them laughed at him, and Isabel introduced herself to
Olivia more shyly than she would have liked. Olivia had an upturned nose embellished with a
ring, and wore bright green sparkly harem pants that she managed to actually pull off without
looking like a genie. She bumped Zayn on the hip to get him to move out the way as she came to
give the girls a hug, and Isabel couldn’t help but feel intimidated by her. She was so headstrong
and sure of herself, someone that boys like Zayn and Harry wanted to befriend, and Isabel felt
weirdly envious of her, a little lurch of jealousy at the pit of her stomach.
“Come on, Livvy, it’s gonna start,” Harry said, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth and
draping an arm around her shoulder. “We wanna get near the front.”
“Do you girls wanna come with?” Zayn asked politely, and Isabel smiled at the warmth in his
deep brown eyes. The drink seemed to have got to Harry though, as all pretence of civility had
gone. His eyes widened and he shook his head wildly at Zayn, gesturing a cut sign across his
neck with his free hand.
“Stop being such an arsehole!” Olivia shrieked, but Harry just laughed and laid his palm across
her face.
“Sorry,” Zayn said with a shrug. “See you later?” He smiled at the pair of them before placing
his palms on his friends’ backs and pushing them forward into the crowd.
Millie spun round to Isabel as soon as they were gone, her jaw dropping.
“You didn’t tell me Harry’s hot!” she shouted, but Isabel just shook her head at her.
“You,” Isabel pointed her finger in her face, “are a class-A bitch! That was the most awkward
thing I’ve ever experienced!”
Millie laughed and wrapped her arm around Isabel’s neck. “You can’t admit that Harry’s face
was a picture, Is, it was worth it for just that!” Isabel kept a straight face but silently agreed as
they stumbled into the crowd together.
“Plus,” she whispered, her lips brushing Isabel’s ear as she fell over her feet and bumped her
head against Isabel’s, “If you wanted to, I reckon it wouldn’t take much effort for you to snag
Zayn.”
“No, stop it!” Isabel howled in reply, and her instant thought was of what Louis would think. Just
as the lights dimmed and people started to scream and whistle, Isabel decided against asking
Millie not to tell Louis. Millie would just tell Isabel that he wouldn’t care, and to Isabel, that was
exactly the problem.
~~~~
Millie and Isabel stumbled out of the concert hall hand in hand. Millie’s hair was an
uncharacteristic mess, sticking to the damp parts of her face as it fell out from her ponytail, and
Isabel was certain she didn’t look any better, but she was so drunk and so excited that she had a
smile plastered across her sweaty face all the same.
“Let me stop for a fag for a sec,” Millie said, and they crossed the road and sat on a bench as she
rolled her cigarette, the pair of them singing completely out of time with each other. Isabel
leaned back against the bench, closing her eyes and letting the cold air sting her flushed cheeks
as she smiled. She’d worn shorts and a baggy t-shirt, and although she’d been too cold on the
way here she was feeling perfect in that moment as the January air crept across her hot skin,
absolutely, perfectly content.
“Hey guys!” someone shouted, and Isabel’s eyes opened lazily to see Zayn loping towards them,
proceeded by a bounding Olivia.
“How fucking SICK was that!” Olivia shouted, and the three girls went into a frenzy of excited
post-gig chatter. Even Zayn chimed in, despite sticking to the fact it ‘wasn’t really his thing’
once Olivia elbowed him with raised eyebrows.
“Did you see me at the end?” Olivia asked, positively bouncing on her feet and waving her
cigarette around haphazardly. “Harry put me on his shoulders, it was insane, we were so near the
front!”
It was only then that Isabel realised that, with Zayn and Olivia both lit up, she was a bit at odds
being the only non-smoker there.
If Harry were here, at least she’d have someone else that didn’t smoke.
“Wait, where’s Harry?” Isabel asked as Olivia announced that she was going to just ‘fucking sit
on the floor’ and Zayn came and squeezed in next to Isabel, smiling and offering her a drag of
his cigarette which she declined with a shake of her head.
“He saw this girl he knows as we were leaving,” Zayn said, smirking at Olivia as she rolled her
eyes. “He said he’d be out in a minute.”
“Ah, leave him alone Zayn,” Olivia said, waving her hand at him. “He’s only just split up from
that psycho bitch, and he’s pissed out of his fucking mind, let him have some fun.”
“You were the one complaining about pulling earlier!” Zayn reminded her, and she ignored him.
“You’re letting the side down,” Isabel said, nudging Zayn with her elbow and blinking up at her.
“Where’s your girl for the night?”
There was a moment of calm, a moment of delightful innocence, before it hit Isabel how
shamelessly she’d just flirted with him, and her cheeks burned red, looking away from him
hurriedly. She felt faintly sick, a sloshing in her stomach, and when she peeked up at Zayn she
saw he was biting his lip and staring at her, a faint smile on his face. Christ, she was
much, much, too drunk to be around people she didn’t know; she was making a fool out of
herself.
“I don’t know,” he said with a smile. “You tell me.”
“So,” Millie said after a stilted sort of silence, attempting to change the subject. “Do you guys go
to uni here?”
“Yeah, Harry said we’re all in the same year,” Olivia said.
“Well, we go to the art uni,” Zayn explained, taking a drag of his cigarette. “So not the same as
you, I expect.”
“You go to … the art uni?” Isabel asked in surprise. “With Harry?”
“Yeah, didn’t he say?” Olivia replied. Isabel shook her head slowly, confused. “What, he didn’t
tell you he goes to uni?”
“He did, but he didn’t say it was the art one,” Isabel said quietly. Harry went to the art uni. One
of the best in the country.
“Yeah, he does fine art,” Olivia added, and Isabel just blinked at her, completely stunned. “He’s
sick I might add – on a partial scholarship. I have no idea how he has time though, he works like
four days a week and gets hammered every weekend.”
“What do you do?” Isabel asked Zayn, wanting to think about someone else other than Harry for
a second because she felt guilty for not knowing this about him. She always felt fucking guilty
when it came to Harry.
“Graphic design,” Zayn replied, and gesturing to his friend on the floor he added, “Liv does it as
well.”
Isabel was torn away from the conversation when Millie gripped her leg suddenly, so hard that
Isabel yelped.
“I’m gonna be sick,” she whispered, and before Isabel could make any suggestion of a course of
action she turned and started to retch over the other side of the bench.
As if this turn of events wasn’t enough, Harry then stumbled over, a lazy grin on his face as he
looked down at the bunch of them with unfocussed eyes.
“Hey, H,” Zayn said calmly, as if one of their party wasn’t violently vomiting over the side of
the bench. “How was she?”
“I was too fucked to do much,” he said cheerily. “So she just gave me head in the disabled
toilets. Classy.”
Isabel looked away in disgust as Zayn extended his fist to tap it against Harry’s, turning to Olivia
in the hope she was equally as offended, but she’d wandered off a little way up the road to take a
phone call. Glancing back at Harry, Isabel didn’t think he’d even realised she was there, clearly
thinking he was in some kind of confidential lad chat with Zayn.
“What girl is it again?” Zayn asked with interest.
“Leila summat,” Harry slurred. “Leila Graham? Leila George? Fuck, I don’t remember, ask me
tomorrow. It’s been a long time since I last saw her.”
“Well you got reacquainted quickly,” Zayn laughed, and Harry just smiled languidly, his dimple
pressing deep in his cheek. His eyes lazily travelled from Zayn to Isabel to Millie as Isabel
rubbed circles into her back.
“Shit, is she okay?” he asked Isabel, eyebrows puckering in concern.

“Harry, your fly is undone,” Isabel snapped, and his head dropped on his neck as though it was
made of lead as he looked down.
“Oh, cheers,” he said cheerily, flashing her a gracious smile as he did it up. “Have a nice night,
Isabel?”
“Yes, thank you. And you?” she replied stiffly.
“Never better,” he said, smiling so that all his teeth showed. Zayn’s head whipped between the
two of them as though he was watching a tennis match.
“Wait – have you two fucked?” Zayn asked, gesturing between the two of them. Isabel shook her
head vigorously but Harry just snorted.
“Nah mate, she’s Louis Tomlinson’s girlfriend.”
Zayn’s eyes widened so much Isabel thought they might pop out of his head. “Really? Well,
shit.”
She looked up at Harry to see him smirking at Zayn’s reaction.
“Knew I recognised you from somewhere,” Zayn added, running a hand over his face and
shuffling away from her ever so slightly. “Ah, I like Louis. He’s a sound guy.”
It was Isabel’s turn to smirk up at Harry, but he just laughed and slapped Zayn in the arm.
“You’d say that about anyone you got your draw off,” he smiled, and before anyone could argue,
Millie sat up.
“Okay, I’m fucking ready to go home,” she said, swiping her hand across her mouth. Isabel
kissed her cheek and wiped a stray tear away from her eyes.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Isabel agreed, wrapping an arm around her waist and helping her up. Isabel was
unsteady on her feet sober, and given that she was drunk the fact she wobbled dangerously as
soon as they took a step wasn’t a good omen.
“You alright?” Zayn asked, holding onto her hip and steadying her. “How are you girls getting
home?”
“Walking, we don’t live far,” Isabel said, but Millie’s weight was starting to topple her and
Zayn’s eyebrows pulled together.
“Are you sure? Maybe you should get a taxi or –”
“It’s fine, we can walk them home,” Harry said loudly, muscling his way back into the
conversation. Isabel stared at him blankly. “Then we can get Niall to come and pick us up from
there and drop Liv home.”
“Liv doesn’t need dropping home, actually,” Olivia said, reappearing. “One of my mates from
hall last year just rang, she was at the gig as well and she wants to go get drinks. I’ll see you two
soon, okay?” She hugged both Isabel and Millie simultaneously, smiling warmly at them,
blowing a kiss at the boys before turning on her heel and disappearing off down the road.
“Ditch us then, Livvy!” Harry yelled after her, loud enough that several sleeping seagulls on the
lamppost woke with alarm and flew off in a frenzy.
“Just us then,” Zayn said to Isabel with a smile, ignoring Harry. “I’ll take Millie since I’m the
most sober. You lead the way, Isabel.”
She shrugged Millie off her shoulder, handing her over to Zayn, and started off down the road.
She shivered slightly, a sign she was sobering up, and she tried not to let that make her nervous.
It didn’t matter that Harry was here – Zayn was nice, and they weren’t far from home, after all –
“You cold?” a slurred, gravelly voice said as Harry fell in step beside her.
“A bit,” she replied.
“’S fucking cold,” he agreed, shoving his hands in his pockets, before adding, “Are we really
gonna talk ‘bout the weather?”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” Isabel grumbled childishly.
“Stop being grumpy, it doesn’t suit you,” he said with a cheeky smile, showing off his dimples
while she just scowled at him.
“You are so annoying,” she snapped. “And I still don’t know why you wear that bandana. Are
you trying to look like a decrepit Keith Richards? That’s not a look I’d recommend, personally.”
“Is this how you got Louis? By firing insults at him? Cos ‘snot on me working, babe.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not actually trying to ‘get’ you, as surprising as that may be.”
“Let’s play a game,” Harry suggested. “We try have a normal conversation, and then you decide
whether or not to be a bitch.”
“Don’t call me a bitch,” she snapped.
“You’ve called me a prick,” he reminded with a smile.
She sighed and raised her eyebrows at him, but he just waited patiently, until she eventually spat
out, “What did you think of Haim?”
“They were siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick,”he said, licking his lip as he dragged out the word. “I hope I can
remember it tomorrow.”
He smiled sheepishly, crinkles forming by his eyes and Isabel couldn’t help but smile back, the
pair of them grinning at each other, before she restrained herself and rearranged her face into a
blank expression.
“Why is it not surprising to me that you’d go to a concert and then forget the entire thing because
you drank too much?”
“I guess I’m just a crazy guy,” Harry joked, dragging out the word ‘crazy’. “You only live once
and all that. Carpe diem.”
“Latin, Styles, nice one,” she teased, and he tapped the side of his nose, winking like an idiot.
“To tell you the truth, I got an A at Latin GCSE. I was a smart arse.”
“Now that surprises me.”
“I’m full of surprises,” he said with another outrageous wink. “Just ask any of my friends.”
“I like your friends,” she admitted, and his smile faded, eyebrows drawing together slightly.
“They’re a lot nicer to me than you, anyway.”
“They really like you as well,” Harry said, nodding solemnly, and although it was all very
drunkenly exaggerated she appreciated it all the same. “They really do, I can tell.”
He was so drunk. It was sort of cute on him. He seemed a lot more vulnerable, a lot less guarded,
his limbs floppy and eyes glassy.
“Well that’s good then,” Isabel said lightly, as though he was a child. He nodded again, and
smiled sadly at her.
“Are you surprised that I’m friends with nice people like them?”
The way he was looking at her so sadly, a ghost of a smile on his lips that didn’t reach his eyes,
made her breath tug in her throat. She looked away, swallowing. “You were a bit of a dick when
you saw me earlier, you have to admit.”
“You were too. A bit. A little bit.” He nudged her with his elbow, raising his eyebrows and
pouting his lips out dorkily until she laughed.
“Okay, I - I’m sorry Harry. I was, and I am to you, I guess. I really am sorry. I don’t know why
we can just never get on.”
He shrugged with his entire shoulders, his hands flying up as he did so, and when she giggled he
laughed too, his eyes scrunching up and his teeth biting down into his lip. Seeing him laugh after
he’d looked so sad made her smile even wider.
“Soooooooo are we friends now?” he asked, slinging an arm around Isabel’s shoulders, but he
stumbled as he did so and rested his entire weight on her. She shoved him with both hands until,
whining and laughing, he extracted himself.
“I don’t know if I want to be friends with you!”
“Why?” he pouted.
“Because you’re not very nice to girls.”
“Says who?!”
“No one has to say! Like with Caro, and then this girl tonight. You know the saying… gentlemen
never kiss and tell, right?” She bit her lip; what she had intended to be a half-joking scold fell
flat, and Harry frowned, his smile evaporating quickly. Isabel sighed, explaining, “I just…I just
don’t think I like that. You know?”
He blinked slowly, his drunken brain trying to think of a way to reply.
“That was…honest.”
“Well, I… I guess I’m a bit drunk too,” Isabel admitted, though she blushed slightly.
“I prefer honest you. We always argue cos” – he stopped, rubbing his hand over his face tiredly –
“cos we don’t say anything we mean. You see? I always get that. I was always get that. I never
say what I mean.”
“I think you’ve said what you mean with me a few times,” Isabel corrected.
“Not really. Not properly. I never say what I mean.” He gestured wildly in front of his face.
“There’s a wall. A wall isn’t there?”
Isabel blinked at him before bursting into laughter. “You’re so drunk.”
He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “No but I’m being serious, I am I swear. I
properly swear I do. I do really want to be friends now.”
Before she had a chance to speak, he thrust his left arm out and pointed to the back of bicep at a
faded and poorly done tattoo of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover. “See that, that
tattoo ‘swhat Zayn did. Me and Zayn did tattoos last year when we were drunk. Bro tats.”
Isabel snorted, but before she could take the piss, he leaned in close to her ear.
“Don’t tell anyone I said this,” he stage whispered, his lips brushing her ear, “but I did his a lot
better than he did mine.” He pulled away and raised his eyebrows, pointing to his chest and
mouthing ‘better friend’.
“Harry –”
“I’m nice to people I like. People I like are cool,” he nodded seriously. “Like Liv, and Niall. And
my friend Caitlin, you haven’t met her but she’s really great. Really great. She and Liv got me
this ticket tonight for my birthday, but she couldn’t come anymore.”
“Harry, I –”
“And I have really tried with you, I swear. I have, honestly I have, I just – I just thought maybe
you might be like Caro, or that girl Laura I was with tonight –”
“Leila,” she corrected.
“Right, yeah. Like her. Caro was all right at first, but I worked her out eventually, I really did. I
know I’m a shit sometimes, I know it, and I don’t mean to be. I respect people, I respect people
who deserve the respect. You know? I just – I just, I can’t fucking stand girls like that – like
Caro, I mean – after a while, they just fuck you over, you know? Only like you if you treat them
like shit, and if you’re nice to them they either think they’re in love or they leave you.” He
smiled, but it looked more like he was baring his teeth and it didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t want
people to fall in love with me. I don’t want people to leave me. Don’t want people to leave me.”
His eyes fluttered shut and his head lulled slightly while Isabel just stared at him blankly,
surprised. She thought about asking if he was all right, but his head snapped up suddenly,
smiling as though nothing had been said.
“I recognise where we are!” he shouted suddenly. “We’re nearly home! I mean, at your home,
not my home.”
Isabel gulped, taking a moment to ground herself following this swift diversion from Harry’s
speech. “What, you recognise it even though you were driving like a lunatic?!” she asked in
mock surprise.
“Listen, love,” he said, holding his palm out to stop her. “I was barely over the speed limit.”
“Way, way over the speed limit,” she reminded him, and he closed his eyes and shook his head,
holding a finger to his lips.
“My insurance company never have to know that.”
“I should tell them they have a mad man driving a car that should be written off by now,” Isabel
teased, and his jaw dropped in indignation.
“Heeeeeeeeey,” he whined. “That car is absolutely fine!”
“As fine as your driving? Because take it from me, I won’t be getting in a car with you any time
soon.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he said, and she smiled, coming to a stop outside her house. She and Harry
looked back down the road to see that Zayn and Millie weren’t far behind, and Zayn was chatting
away to her as she hobbled along, pale and unsteady, next to him.
“So we’re friends now, right Isabel?” Harry asked, leaning against the garden wall and crossing
his arms, smiling at her, his expression a heady mix of sheepishness and charming boyishness.
Being friends with the Harry she knew from work seemed like a dangerous, frankly doomed
prospect, but being friends with the Harry she’d seen tonight didn’t seem so bad. In fact, it
almost seemed like it would be fun.
Biting down on her lip, she studied him, the way he was pouting while he waited for her answer,
his hands folded across his chest and his eyebrows puckering adorably above his green eyes.
No, not adoringly, she corrected herself. Stupidly, manipulatively.
But that’s the thing about people skilled in manipulation – they always win.
“Oh, all right then,” Isabel conceded in what she thought was an ultra casual tone, fiddling with
her hair. “But you have to promise to be nicer. Not just to me, I mean. Like, you should send
Caro an apology, maybe. She was upset.”
He rolled his eyes but the corners of his mouth puled up all the same. “You drive a hard
bargain.”
“That’s my condition.”
“All right, deal.”
“I rang Niall as soon as we left, so he should be here any moment,” said Zayn as he brought
Millie over to them. He looked at Isabel and gestured to Harry. “How bad is he on a scale of one
to ten?”
She took a moment to consider. “I’d say eight to nine. He’ll pull through.”
Harry smiled lazily at the pair of them, barely aware that they were talking about him. Right on
cue, a black range rover pulled into the middle of the road and blared its horn. Zayn gave it his
middle finger as a greeting.
“Thanks so much for taking us home,” Isabel said to the boys. She gave Zayn a hug, wrapping
herself around his smoky waist and drinking in the warmth of his smile before hovering
nervously, eventually reminding herself they had just agreed to be friends and reaching for
Harry. Even propped against the wall her nose was only level with his shoulder. He smelled like
a mixture of musky cologne and citrus shampoo, with a slight undertone of sweat and women’s
perfume that must have been left over from his rendezvous with Leila. His arm wrapped around
her waist was strong and comforting, and when Isabel pulled away, she realised with alarm she
did so almost reluctantly.
“See you tomorrow, Harry,” she said to him, letting Millie lead the way down the path to the
front door.
“Yeah, see ya,” he said, giving her an all too familiar smirk as a way of parting.
And Isabel felt that excited flutter in her stomach, the promise of new friendship, of strange and
fun and unknown things to come, even when she reminded herself that, actually, she knew
nothing about him at all.
End Notes:
Yaaaaay so now we’ve been properly introduced to 4/5 (and don’t worry, Niall’s coming next
chapter) and we’ve got a bit of drunk Harry which is a personal favourite of mine! From here on
you’re going to find out a lot more about Harry’s world and his friends…. We’ll see where that
leaves him and Isabel now that they’re friends
The next chapter won't be up on Sunday like it should be because I'm going away, but it will be
posted on Tuesday instead! You might want to stick around, because it's set on February 1st ;)
Until then, please let me know what you think or ask at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com :-) xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
anonymous artist
February
“Wow,” Millie said as Liam whistled loudly in appreciation, “this was not at all what I was
expecting.”
Isabel adjusted her skirt one more time, tugging it farther down her thighs, and took a deep,
shuddering breath in order to calm her nerves. She reminded herself that she liked what she was
wearing, at least, but she wished she didn’t look so tired, and even the make-up that she’d spent
an hour carefully applying hadn’t covered it.
This week had been a hard, sleep-deprived slog. After the Haim gig, Millie and Isabel had spent
all of Sunday afternoon recovering in front of the television, and she’d loped into work in the
evening with a splitting headache. Luckily, Harry was even worse off, and they’d struggled
through that shift together, near on flinging bowling shoes at customers and trying not to
suffocate in the omnipresent smell of sweaty feet in the shoe booth.
Monday to Friday was one of despairing sobriety as Isabel had exams on Tuesday, Thursday and
Friday, and so she’d spent the first shift of the week – the Wednesday - desperately revising, and
had had to cancel her Friday one so she was able to make the exam. Harry was quietly
sympathetic all week, but her frantic cramming left little time to build on their newfound
friendship.
It was on Friday afternoon, as Isabel walked out of her final exam in a state of crippling relief
with a dampening undertone of disappointment which was sure to grow, that she found the text
from Harry.
From: unsaved number, at 14:49

Hiiii Isabel this is Harry Styles.. I forgot you weren’t working today so sorry I didn’t mention
this on Wednesday, but it’s my birthday tomorrow and my housemates are throwing me a party.
Bring Millie and any other friends, if you want. Hope your exam went well x
She’d replied almost immediately, without pausing for much thought at all, that she would be
there, and it was only when he replied a couple of hours later with his address that she started to
freak out.
Although she knew and liked Zayn and Olivia, she was terrified about meeting his other friends.
Apart from Millie and Lydia, friends she’d made because she lived in hall with them in her first
year, and Liam, because he was Lyd’s boyfriend, everyone Isabel knew was through Louis. Even
Scarlett, who was one of her best friends, knew Louis first. It sounded ridiculous even in her own
head, but the question remained: How did she make people like her without his constant,
imposing influence?
She knew a lot of people at their uni, but the art uni was an entirely different playing field. She
couldn’t fake confidence and self-assuredness like she usually would, because clearly it hadn’t
sat well with Harry, and by extension, it probably didn’t sit well with his friends either.
Scarlett was going to her parents’ house for the weekend, it coincidentally being her little
brother’s birthday this weekend too, so it was just Isabel, Lydia, Liam and Millie going to the
party. She’d toyed with inviting Louis and some of his friends, but decided against it when she
remembered that Harry’s opinion of Louis wasn’t exactly savoury. She decided to play it safe –
he already knew Millie, and Lydia and Liam were the least offensive people she knew.
That was how they ended up standing outside what must have been Harry’s house, if the address
was correct. Granted, they should have expected this when they ended up on the posh side of
town – the side where the houses belonged to actual married couples with kids and dogs and
people carriers – but it only hit the four of them that Harry actually lived somewhere nice,
somewhere that could be accepted as a house for grown-ups, until they got there.
It was by no means palatial – it wasn’t incredibly big or specifically attractive – but compared to
the cramped and barely legal safety hazard of a house Lydia, Scarlett, Millie and Isabel rented, it
may as well have been The Ritz.
“Well would you look at that,” Millie admired. “They’re fucking rich bastards. Who would have
known?”
They traipsed up the garden path towards the large black front door, music blaring from inside
and the sound of shouting and laughter trickling out through the windows.
“You okay?” Liam said quietly, elbowing Isabel softly after she rang the doorbell.
“Sure,” she lied, smiling up at him, but she felt all wobbly, like she was standing on a high ledge
next to a big drop, and she very much wished she’d thought about Harry’s invitation before
blindly accepting. She always did that – didn’t think about things properly, got a little distracted
and vague and unfocussed – and she had the overwhelming urge to spin around and run all the
way home to bed.
The door swung open and in its place stood a blonde, red faced boy with his arms flung wide
apart, wearing a tank top and shorts despite it being the first of February. In one hand was a beer,
in the other a spliff, and he hardly batted an eyelid before pulling Isabel into a bear hug.
“Wheyyyyy!” he shouted as though he was at a football match. “I’m Niall, nice to see you!”
He pulled back and held her at arm’s length, studying her face suspiciously. “Do I know you
from somewhere?”
Isabel knew exactly where from, remembering Harry’s confession that he and his housemate had
stalked Louis on Facebook, but, for once, she didn’t really feel like bringing up Louis.
“I don’t think so,” she gulped nervously. “I’m here for Harry.”
“Aren’t they all!” he bellowed, guffawing at his own joke as though it had been even remotely
funny. “Here love, go straight ahead and grab yourself a drink.”
She raised her eyebrows at Liam and Lydia after Niall had finished introducing himself to them,
mouthing “free drinks?”. On a student budget, anyone that provided free drinks was, in their
books, completely insane. Lydia shrugged with a look that said “I’m not complaining”, and
headed into the main room.
It was completely devoid of furniture and absolutely packed with people, and the air was thick
with smoke and stank so strongly of weed that you could have got high just from sitting in there.
Music blared loudly from the speakers and, through a crowd of people, Isabel could make out
doors leading out to the garden.
“Over there,” Liam said, pointing around the corner to what looked like an open plan kitchen, the
counter serving as the bar for the night, stacked with cans and bottles. They shuffled over as
surreptitiously as they could, trying not to draw attention to themselves by bolstering anyone in
the crowd, a mission which was promptly aborted when Millie appeared out of nowhere,
shrieking Isabel’s name and running over to them.
“Oh my fucking God,” she whispered hysterically, although it was far too late for discreetness as
everyone in close proximity was eyeing them with suspicion, having no clue who they were. “Oh
my fucking God, I want todie!”
“What’s wrong?” Isabel asked quietly, trying not to look too embarrassed. Millie grabbed her
wrist and stared at her with wide eyes.
“Niall!” she choked, as though that explained it. Isabel looked round at Liam and Lydia for
clarification, but they were equally as dumbfounded.
Millie rolled her eyes as if they were all being purposely idiotic. Murmuring so that she was
barely audible, she explained: “I slept with Niall.”
“When, now?” a confused Lydia asked, genuinely perplexed, and Millie’s nostrils flared.
“No, not now Lyd, for God’s sake. About two weeks ago.”
Isabel nodded, vaguely remembering Millie saying she’d slept with a boy from the art uni a
couple of weeks earlier, but in all honesty her alarmed expression invited more humour than
sympathy.
“Calm down,” Liam said, patting her on the arm in a way that was meant to be comforting, “it
didn’t mean anything. Just pretend like it never happened.”
“I can’t!” Millie wailed. “It was so embarrassing, I was so horrendously drunk and he...” She
broke off abruptly, as if she had said too much, and her gaze flickered around like he might have
the place bugged. “He must have come home and laughed to all his friends about me!”
“Come on now,” Isabel said soothingly, leading her towards the alcohol. “Let’s get something
strong down you and this will all blow over.”
A number of shots later, Millie was feeling considerably happier, and Isabel decided she ought to
go and find Harry. Worming her way through the crowd, leaving Millie in the capable hands of
Liam and Lydia, she scanned the room for the mop of curly hair.
“Isabel!” somebody called, and in her peripheral vision she spotted Zayn, his drink raised in
greeting. Smiling her hello, she noted that he was wearing all black just as he had at the Haim
gig, but this time he had on a short sleeved t-shirt instead of a leather jacket and she could see
now that his arms were even more inked than Harry’s.
“Nice to see you,” he said warmly, planting a kiss on her cheek. He gestured to his friend, a tall
girl with a shock of curls who was eyeing Isabel with a straight face. “This is Caitlin.”
Isabel smiled at her shyly, about to say she’d heard nice things about her from Harry, but
Caitlin’s smile back, which wasn’t altogether friendly, stopped her in her tracks. Caitlin looked
up at Zayn, nudging him on the arm.
“Did you see Alex Dratton? He’s a mess already, it’s not even eleven,” she said, her voice low
and husky, mentioning someone Isabel didn’t know in an obvious effort to remove her from the
conversation. Zayn laughed, although he looked around worriedly.
“Where? Is he being sick?” he asked, craning his neck to find the culprit. “I have to look after the
house, Niall will go absolutely mental if he has to pay for a new carpet again.”
“He looks like he’s having a good time,” Isabel broke in, smirking and nodding towards the
inappropriately clad boy who was singing along to the music at the top of his lungs, both of his
arms slung around two much less enthusiastic friends.
Zayn grinned at her. “He’s high as a kite now, sure. But he always gets mad at me and Harry
after we have a party, as if we were meant to be walking around with coasters all night while
he’s the fucking life and soul.”
Isabel gazed at Niall, who had been handed a bong and was holding it in the air like it was Simba
in the Lion King, caterwauling a battle cry of exultation. “That seems just a little unfair.”
“Well he does pay like half the rent, so I think it is fair,” Caitlin snapped defensively, rolling her
eyes, and Zayn glanced at her with a look of irritation on his face. Isabel frowned, confused.
“Let’s not talk about rent tonight,” Zayn concluded hastily, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
Caitlin shrugged, batting her eyelashes innocently up at him as she sipped her drink and he
looked pointedly away, gazing at Niall and the bong enviously.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go and find the birthday boy,” Isabel said, feeling more than a
little awkward. “Nice to meet you, Caitlin.”
“You too,” she nodded, and as Isabel walked away she grabbed her elbow, adding, “I’d try
upstairs if I were you.” And without a second glance, she turned away, tapping someone on the
shoulder and joining in their conversation.
Isabel battled her way through the crowd to the stairs, edging past a couple going at it right there
on the staircase. At the top, she found herself in a corridor with four identical doors, three shut
and only the one at the end slightly ajar, which was a bit of a disaster and, in hindsight, she
probably should’ve turned back then. She called out Harry’s name tentatively, a fruitless effort
given the noise from downstairs, and when she was met with silence she decided the ajar door
was the only place to start, given that opening and closing doors in this unknown house was a
recipe for catastrophe.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Isabel knocked on the door, once softly and then again, a little
louder, but when there was no response she poked her head round the door, and her mouth fell
open in silent surprise.
Harry was sitting on a bed, leaning back on his elbows with messy hair – bandana free for once –
and a bored expression. He was staring out of the window, his tongue poking the inside of his
cheek, and he wouldn’t have looked out of place on the bus, or in a queue at the supermarket, or
in a particularly dull lecture. Except for the fact that there was a girl kneeling in front of him, her
head in a position and moving in a way that only meant one thing.
For a moment Isabel just stared. The girl pulled away and said something to him that Isabel
couldn’t hear, and he looked down at her, dragging his gaze away from the window with
palpable physical effort, disinterest colouring his entire face.
“It’s fine, babe,” he said calmly, and he moved his weight onto one arm as he gripped her hair in
one hand and pushed her back down, gently but without much grace, and Isabel took that as her
cue to leave, stumbling back down the corridor before he caught her.
Back downstairs, Isabel didn’t recognise a single person till she got to the garden, and it
happened to be a fantastically mellowed Niall, his cheeks even redder than before and his pupils
dilated so far that his irises appeared black.
“’Sup?” he said, nodding at Isabel to sit down in the free camping chair. She obliged, waving her
hello to Olivia who she could now see was sitting opposite Niall and in the midst of smoking
from the bong.
“Niall, do you think I could …” Isabel trailed off uncertainly. He took a minute before getting
her gist.
“Liv,” he yelled. “Get the girl involved with that.”

Olivia passed Isabel the bong while Niall stared at her unabashedly.
“Oh, no,” Isabel responded, shoving the bong back at him and shaking her head. “I was going to
ask if I could have some of that JD.”
She gestured towards the whiskey sitting on the table, and Niall laughed widely.
“Sure, have it. I don’t need it anymore.”
Isabel picked up the bottle, taking a sip and trying not to gag as it left a burning trail down her
throat.
Isabel liked being drunk. There was something reckless about drunkenness, about how honest
and open and unashamed it made you. She liked the feeling of losing her inhibitions every once
in a while. Isabel liked being in her own head, having time to think about anything you liked and
not worry about what was actually happening, and being drunk, you could say these things aloud
and nobody would think you were strange.
Truth be told, Isabel worried about everything. There were three things Louis and her friends
made fun of her for: her extortionate apologising, her embarrassing clumsiness, and her constant
fretting.
“You get into a tizz about literally anything,” Scarlett had laughed once when Isabel had sat
refreshing the train times on her laptop all day. She did this so that she wouldn’t have to pack,
because packing took ages and was boring and she always forgot something, but by the time she
was absolutely sure the train wouldn’t be delayed because of the bad weather, she’d left herself
about half an hour and missed the train anyway.
She was late to everything, even when she left five minutes early. She procrastinated so as not to
meet impending disaster, but when disaster happened she was still surprised and unprepared, any
semblance of control dissolving like wet paper into sodden little flakes. She was a girl who
would wait quietly and patiently for an hour on the platform for her train, and then be in the loo
when it came.
Niall was still staring at her with his wide, curious eyes. “I’m Niall Horan,” he said slowly.
“I know,” she replied, smiling. “I’m Isabel. I know Harry through work.”
She realised her mistake quickly, and busied herself with choking down some more Jack
Daniel’s while Niall’s eyes widened.
“You’re Louis Tomlinson’s girlfriend!” he blurted, pointing at her with accusation. She nodded
as the alcohol thankfully started to creep slowly through her bloodstream, the familiar warmth of
it quietly ungulfing her. “I knew it! I knew I recognised you! Siiiiiiiiiiiiick.” He mirrored her
nod, leaning his head back on the camping chair. “Nice guy, Louis.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I know.”
~~~~
An hour and many, many gulps of the drink later, Olivia, Niall and Isabel, along with some other
people Isabel didn’t know, were sitting in those same camping chairs when Zayn poked his head
out of the door and gestured wildly towards them.
“Niall! We’re doing it now!” he shouted, and Niall leapt to his feet, bellowing to the entire
garden that they should head inside.
Olivia and Isabel obeyed, shuffling in with linked arms. “What’s this about?” Isabel asked her.
She shrugged her response, gazing around with lazy eyes until she paused on something – or
someone – and frowned in confusion. “Hey,” she said, pointing. “Isn’t that –”
“Louis,” Isabel breathed. She was so surprised he was there that she actually looked over her
shoulder, as if someone was going to jump out screaming “surprise!” and announce he was a
hologram or a trick of the light. He looked perfectly at ease, slotting into a group of people Isabel
had never seen in her life, swigging from a beer bottle and laughing.
“Are you gonna go and say hi?” Olivia asked, nudging her.
“Oh – yeah, yeah I will,” Isabel replied dazedly, patting Olivia’s arm before stumbling over
towards Louis, a peculiar mix of dread and annoyance building slowly in the pit of her stomach.
“Louis?” Isabel squeaked when she reached him, and he whipped round in surprise.
“Issy!” He squinted at her in surprise. “Wow I – what are you doing here?”
“I’m friends with Harry,” she said defensively, shuffling on the spot under his confused gaze.
“Who?” he asked.
Isabel glared at him. It was a little childish, but it was just – she’d specifically gone out of her
way not to invite him, and here he was. Accepted by all of Harry’s friends immediately, laughing
and making jokes with these complete strangers when minutes ago he’d probably thought she
was sitting alone at home watching television. Why had he not even bothered to text all
weekend? Why did he have to show up and intrude on the only thing in her life that didn’t
involve him?
He leaned down to plant a kiss on her lips softly, smiling as he pulled away, and all anger and
confusion seeped from her pathetically. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Isabel admitted, smiling up at
him and leaning in for another kiss. He let her do so, wrapping an arm around her waist and
squeezing her.
“I only just got here like fifteen minutes ago,” he explained. “Had to deliver some draw to
George Pitfield down the road, that Zayn Malik guy was with him and invited me to stay a bit.”
Her eyes narrowed at the mention of the draw. This time last year, Louis only did and delivered
drugs every now and then. These days every conversation they had he would bring it up.
“Speaking of which,” he said, his lips pulling up at the corners as he stared at her eyes, “how
high are you?”
“’M not high, I’m drunk,” Isabel told him with a giggle which burst from the back of her throat,
and he rolled his eyes. Louis was always funny with her when she was drunk and he wasn’t – it
seemed he’d almost prefer it if she was high all the time like most of his other friends so that she
wasn’t so slurry and happy and, as he called it, “annoying”. Often the night ended with him
moaning at her for being childish and clingy, that she was a liability he shouldn’t have to deal
with, and Isabel could feel it coming like one of those trains in a film, those ones that you hear
off screen getting closer and closer and suddenly out of nowhere it carelessly flattens its victims
with a beep of its horn as a way of apology.
“ALL RIGHT EVERYBODY LISTEN!” The music suddenly cut out, and Niall was standing on
the kitchen counter, his arms raised above his head and swinging from side to side so that he
appeared to be assisting a plane landing. “We all know why we’re here… and it’s for my very
good friend Harry’s birthday!”
The crowd whooped and cheered, and when Isabel glanced to the left of Niall, she got her second
glimpse of the evening of Harry. He was standing at the foot of the kitchen counter, his arms
folded across his chest as he looked up at Niall with a small smile. He was wearing a black
Henley rolled up to the elbows, and his hair was wildly messy, sticking up in different directions
as he shook his head up at his friend.
“Let me tell you something about Harry,” Niall slurred loudly. “We met on the first day of uni,
when I was lost, and Harry found me in the corridor. You know what he did? He snuck me into
the back of his class and hid me under the desk so I wouldn’t have to wander about on my own.
He didn’t even know me, but he did that. That’s the type of guy he is.”
Niall nodded solemnly, and Isabel glanced up at Louis to gage his reaction. He was staring down
at his drink, swilling it around in boredom.
“And now he’s TWENTYYYYYYY!” Niall bellowed. “Well, it’s actually 12”24 so it’s
probably necessary to add he was actually twenty yesterday. But you know what, Harry’s the
most grown up person I know. Although he can be a right shit at times, let me tell you, and
Christ, he does have fucking poor taste in women –”
“All right Niall, that’s enough,” Harry interjected with a laugh, pulling on Niall’s arm.
Niall clambered half-heartedly off the table as Zayn and Caitlin came around with a cake, a shop
bought £2 job embellished with two candles and a messy “Happy 20th Styles!” in Smarties.
Harry laughed delightedly as the three of them started a chorus of happy birthday.
Isabel’s heart jumped at how lovely his friends were, how lovely everything was, really, a wave
of untarnished, bewildering happiness washing over her, and clutching Louis’ arm closer with
red cheeks and a blistering smile, she said, “Do you want to go, Lou?”
“Go?” he frowned down at her. “What? Why would we go?”
She swallowed, blinking up at him in confusion. “Well neither of us really know anyone here,
and I’ve been here for a few hours.” She squeezed his hand in an effort to encourage him, but he
just continued to frown down at her. “We could go back to mine?”
“Why would we want to do that when there’s a party here?” he pulled his hand away from her,
running it through his hair and exhaling slightly in poorly concealed annoyance.
“Because,” Isabel licked her lips nervously, unsure of how to proceed, before taking the plunge
and leaning into him. “Because I haven’t seen you in ages, and I… I want you.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Louis said, stepping back from her. “I just got here, all right? We can go
later.”
“But you won’t go later,” she mumbled, a lump forming in her throat, stung from his rejection.
“You always find excuses not to spend time with me.”
He rolled his eyes, not even bothering to try and correct her. “Don’t start something, Isabel, I
really can’t be arsed to deal with you right now.”
He pushed past her, slinking through the crowd and leaving her alone. For a moment Isabel just
blinked after him, the sting of it so sharp she felt like she’d been slapped, and then she gulped
and stumbled off in the direction of the hallway, not even realising where she was going until she
found herself sitting at the top of the stairs with her head in her hands.
The night had quickly turned into a disaster, and once again it was because she’d made Louis
angry. She wanted to leave, but she had no idea how to get home on the bus and she didn’t have
enough money to order a cab just for herself, and she was so close to crying that her eyes burned,
her lower lip wobbling miserably.
“Isabel?” a soft voice asked, and she looked up into the concerned eyes of Harry. He was
standing a few steps below her so that they were eye level, and Isabel noted that his hands and
shirt were covered in icing, a blob of cake on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She nodded unconvincingly. “Happy birthday, Harry.”
“Thanks,” he replied, smiling warmly. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“You’ve got a bit of stuff on you,” she said helpfully, pointing to the cake.
He grinned. “Yeah, we had a bit of a cake fight.”
“Who won?”
“Me, obviously,” he laughed, and she rolled her eyes. He bit down on his lip, considering
something, before he said, “Do you want to sit down for a bit? I know it’s a bit hectic
downstairs.”
Isabel nodded, her eyebrows pulling together, and Harry frowned but didn’t question her.
“My room’s the one at the end, I’ll just wash my hands and then I’ll be in.”
Isabel did as she was told and shuffled unsteadily to the end of the corridor, pushing open
Harry’s door and stepping inside. It was small; she could tell this was the box room of the house
as his unmade double bed took up most of the space, and even then one side of the bed was
pushed against the wall. On the other side, there was only enough room for a small chest of
drawers acting as his bedside table.
The floor was scattered with clothes and shoes, and the drawers belonging to the other chest –
which was nestled in the alcove on the left of the chimney breast, and surrounded by wide
windows which overlooked the garden – were flung open and overflowing. What drew her
attention the most though, was the chimney breast itself, as on it hung a huge canvas that was
nearly floor to ceiling in length. It was a painting of a boy, on what she assumed were white
sheets, lying with his arm slung across his face. Although his forearm obscured most of him, she
could just about make out a closed eye and slightly parted lips, as though he was in the most
peaceful, serene sleep.
“Having fun?” a gravelly voice questioned, and Isabel turned to find Harry leaning against the
doorframe, studying her with crossed arms and an apprehensive expression.
“This painting is so beautiful,” she told him quietly. “Did you paint it?”
He blinked, pausing for a second, but then he exhaled slightly and shook his head.
“No, it’s done by an anonymous artist,” he explained, coming into the room to join her in
studying it. “I like it though.”
"It’s amazing,” she said, nodding, and he smiled at her, watching as she gazed at the painting
with heavy eyelids and parted lips.
“Most people think it’s weird that I have a massive picture of a boy facing the bed in my room.
Quite a few girls have asked me if I’m gay when they come in here,” he laughed, biting down on
his lip. She looked up at him slowly, blinking in concern, her eyebrows drawn together.
“Why don’t you take it down then?”

It was his turn to frown at her. “Because I like it. And I don’t care what people think of me.”
Isabel looked away from him, slightly embarrassed. “Plus, nothing wrong with being gay. I
might be for all they know.”
“Not at all,” she agreed, “but clearly you aren’t.”
He raised his eyebrows, and her cheeks flushed. “Someone’s had a bit too much of something, I
think,” Harry mused. “Has Niall been getting you high?”
“No. Just a little drunk,” Isabel admitted, and when Harry poked her lightly with suspicion, she
tripped over her feet.
“It was fun.”
“Yeah, I bet,” he surmised, and he scratched the back of his neck and looked out of the window
into the garden, going quiet. He did that quite a lot, Isabel had noticed. Went quiet without
warning, drifted off into himself, and Isabel shuffled about on the carpet, a bit unsure what to
say.
“I, um, got you a present,” Isabel said awkwardly, her voice a little too loud. She reached into
her jacket and fished it out clumsily, shoving it into Harry’s hands without much ceremony. He
looked down at the CD, a smile growing slowly.
“It’s just cos you don’t have a radio player in your car,” Isabel explained quickly when he didn’t
say anything. “And it only just came out like a few days ago, but I didn’t think it through cos you
have like a million CDs and Zayn works at HMV, so now that I’m thinking about it maybe a CD
wasn’t the best –”
"Thank you,” Harry interrupted, and Isabel stopped talking when she realised he was smiling at
her, warmly and genuinely, the dimple appearing in his cheek. “I love The xx. And I don’t have
this CD, only their old one.”
“Glad you like it.”
Thank you so much, you didn’t have to.”
“It’s okay,” Isabel replied, and he pointed at the bed.
“Here, sit down and I’ll put it on.”
She obediently did as he asked as he went to the overflowing chest of drawers next to the
chimney breast and put the CD into a battered old player. He had to tap it, with some force, a few
times to get it to open, grumbling under his breath, but eventually it obeyed.
Harry turned and smiled slightly as he saw that she had decided to lie on his bed, pulling the
covers up to her chin and staring dreamily at the painting. He crawled up the bed and lay down
next to her on top of the covers, on the side nearest the wall. They lay in companionable silence
for a while, and Isabel felt quite relaxed, least of all because everything smelled faintly like
citrus, and she resisted the urge to bury her face in his pillow.
“Did you have a good birthday?” she whispered eventually.
“Yeah, it was good,” he replied, crossing his arms over his stomach and staring at the ceiling.
“What did you get?”
“From who?”
“Family? Friends?”
He chewed on his lip. “Niall got me this party. Paid for everything, the cake included, which is
pretty sick. Then Caitlin and Liv got me a Haim ticket. Zayn bought me some new tattoo ink and
needles.”
“And your family?”
He coughed into his hand before rubbing his face tiredly. “They didn’t get me much.”
“It doesn’t matter though. It’s still a present?”
“Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “Well I… my sister drew me a picture and my little brother bought
me chocolate, though it melted a bit in the post.”
He turned and grinned at her, smiling as she stared at him curiously. “What about your parents?”
“They paid off my car insurance for a year,” he said with a faint smile, and Isabel tried her best
not to frown. “It’s what I asked for. I don’t want anything else.”
“So a good birthday, then?” Isabel asked again.
“The best in a while, I reckon,” Harry replied, closing his eyes and sighing. “I’m so tired,
though. I was out last night as well.”
“Hard life for some. I was stuck doing exams all week.”
“How did they go?”
“Fine. I’m not expecting big things, as long as I scrape through I’ll be happy.”
“Why?” he asked inquisitively, his eyes still shut as he frowned slightly. Isabel continued to
study his face unabashedly, turning her body so that she was curled up facing him as he lay on
his back with his hands resting on his chest. “You might as well try your hardest now that you’re
here, right? Only a year and a half to go.”
“Hmmm,” Isabel replied. She was getting sleepy, the combination of Harry’s deep mumble and
the mellow sounds from the CD player making her eyelids heavy. “Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I see some of your artwork?”
“I, um –” He opened his eyes then, drumming his hands on his chest nervously. “I don’t really
show anyone. I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal.”
“Okay,” Isabel responded, blatantly disappointed, and it was all she could do not to drunkenly
pout like a petulant child.
“You know what you can see though?” Harry volunteered, sitting up on one arm and looking
down at her. “Look in the middle drawer in the cabinet on the side.”
Isabel rolled over underneath the duvet, leaning to open the drawer and finding the top one was
already open. It was messy – like everything else in Harry’s life, it seemed – a mixture of
chargers and headphones and old train tickets and pencils, and what Isabel considered to be an
excessive number of condom boxes, seeing as they were mostly empty.
Harry sat up to see what Isabel was doing, and, leaning over her, he saw what she was looking at.
Hastily, he stretched over her and pushed the drawer closed, his cheeks staining red. “Oh, um,
just shut that one.”
In the brief interval that Harry shut the top drawer before opening the second, Isabel could see
into the third one, which was also hanging open. It was surprisingly neat and ordered – a closed
box in the corner, a number of items laid out carefully side by side, an old picture nestled in the
corner. At first, Isabel thought it was Harry and his younger brother, but she quickly realised
Harry was the smaller boy, as the taller had straighter, shorter and lighter hair, and his smirk,
although similar, didn’t provoke the same dimple in his cheek. Harry was laughing brightly, his
shoulder bumping into the taller boy as the taller boy leaned right back, his arms crossed over his
chest.
Harry yanked open the middle drawer suddenly, and Isabel startled.
“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” he murmured, as Isabel stared at a drawer full to the brim of CDs,
stacked in a disorderly fashion.
“Quite the collection you’ve got there,” Isabel affirmed, turning her head to look at him and
finding his face much closer than she’d thought it would be. He was still sitting up with his arm
touching the drawer, and so his face was level to hers, his arm draped over her, hovering just a
few inches from her body.
She could feel his breath on her lips, and she dragged her eyes down his tired face, realising for
the first time that his eyelashes were long enough to cast light shadows across his cheekbones,
that he had freckles on his nose, that his lips were pink from being bitten and slightly chapped.
When she glanced up to meet his eyes she realised he was staring at her lips too, blinking slowly,
and Isabel’s heart thundered as she waited for inevitable. Waited for him to kiss her. At this
point, she wasn’t even able to say that she didn’t want him to.
“I – I need to go and –” Harry backed away from her until his back hit the wall. He stared at her
wide-eyed as though she was a wild animal, breathing heavily so that his chest rose and fell. “I
have to, um – I have to go and see if everything’s okay downstairs. We’ve been up here for
ages.”
He shuffled off the bed, running his hands through his hair as he edged towards the door,
tripping over nothing.
“You seem sleepy - do you want to stay here and sleep for a bit?” he asked her, and Isabel could
only nod. “Okay, I’ll tell… tell Louis you’re here.”
Before she could say anything else, Harry had left the room and slammed the door. Isabel closed
her eyes, swallowing and trying to calm the hammering of her heart.
What if Louis had walked in?
Secretly, although it was a ridiculous thing to wish for, she hoped he would be angry, that he
would punch Harry and shout at Isabel for being such a bitch, only so that he would show he
actually cared about her. But with a sinking feeling, she doubted anything like that would
happen at all, and it made her so sad she suddenly felt like crying. She squeezed her eyes shut,
burying her face in Harry’s pillow, and just inhaled it, let the smell of citrus, of him, really, relax
her until she drifted off.
When Isabel next opened her eyes, the CD player had stopped and muffled sounds of shouts and
laughter from the garden were leaking through the window. Yawning widely, she got out from
under the covers and took a quick peek out of the window. It must have been way past midnight
at this point, but the party was still in full swing, and Isabel thought she spotted Niall rugby
tackling another boy to the floor with energy that seemed a bit inhuman at this stage of the night.
Isabel herself no longer felt drunk, only exhausted, and the thought of leaving Harry’s room and
heading downstairs was so unappealing that she considered going back to sleep. She scanned the
room with heavy eyelids, pausing on the beautiful painting again, and it was then she noticed a
part of the room she hadn’t seen before; at the right of the chimney breast there was a big
wooden desk. She walked towards it, running her fingers across the surface. There was a jar
containing pens and pencils and brushes in the far corner, a lamp in the other, and a closed
sketchbook lay between them. On the wall, Harry had carefully stuck a list of outstanding work,
and he’d been ticking it off as he went, adding little notes here and there. He’d tacked up
postcards of paintings as well, presumably those of other artists that he’d taken inspiration from.
On the wall to the right of the desk, there were two long shelves that Isabel couldn’t believe she
hadn’t noticed when she’d come in. These, too, were neater than anything she would ever expect
from Harry. There were at least twenty big black books stacked carefully on top of each other,
taking up about half of the top shelf, and from the varying thickness Isabel concluded they must
have been full of his artwork. Pots and boxes and packets were also arranged orderly on the
shelves, and long brown tubes for rolling posters were balanced with precision at the end of the
top shelf. Isabel was desperate to rip them open and see what his artwork looked like, but she
settled for running her fingers across the length of the long shelves. At the very end, near the
door, was the first and only sign of mess: a disorderly pile of books. Most were about or by
artists she’d never heard of, big fat books that she could never imagine reading, but there was a
well-thumbed world Atlas as well, with a torn cover and bent spine. Next to the towering books
sat a host of tattered novels, one of which was an almost destroyed copy of The Catcher in the
Rye.
Isabel smiled as he imagined him reading them, frowning and chewing on his lip in
concentration, and when she heard his voice, she nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around
as though he might be lurking in the corner watching her survey his room.
“We can’t,” was all he had said, so quietly she thought for a second he was right behind her.
“Why?” replied a whiney voice, and Isabel realised then that they were on the other side of the
door.
“My friend’s asleep in there,” he explained patiently, and then it went silent. Isabel edged closer
to the door, and with a roll of her eyes, understood.
She heard the girl pull away from the kiss and sigh loudly. “Harry, please.”
“No, I said I can’t –”
“Let’s go somewhere else then!”
“I’m not gonna fuck you in my housemates’ bed,” he grumbled, and Isabel yanked the door
open, fed up of being the invisible third party to Harry’s sexual encounters.
A girl, who was, interestingly, not the girl Isabel had seen earlier, was draped all over him as his
back rested against the wall, their lips colliding heatedly. At the sound of Harry’s door opening,
the girl pulled back and yelped dramatically in shock, jumping away from Harry.
“Isabel, you’re awake,” said Harry dumbly, licking his lips as he stared at her with wide eyes.
“Are you, um, did you –”
“I’m going,” she announced.

“Okay, I guess I’ll –”
“Hope you had a good party,” she brushed past him, watching as he rubbed lipstick off his face
with the back of his palm, and raised her eyebrows. “The bits of it when you were actually
downstairs, anyway.”
s She hurried down the stairs, suddenly intent on going home, rushing through the party and,
with a gasp, slammed straight into Louis. She nearly stumbled backwards before he caught her
with a roll of his eyes.
“There you are, clumsy!” Louis exclaimed. “I want to go now, let’s go.”
Even though she wanted to go too, maybe Isabel should have protested, told him it was unfair
that she always had to do things on his terms. Maybe she should have waited to see what Millie,
Liam and Lydia were doing and gone with them instead. Maybe she should have done things
differently. But she didn’t, because that’s the way it was.
End Notes:
I hope you guys enjoyed the update! I was away this weekend so sorry the chapter was a bit late
but from now on they'll be back to normal, so the next one is on Thursday and then Sunday and
so on :)
Soooo many questions to consider: how do Harry, Zayn and Niall live in such a nice house if
they’re students? What’s up with Caitlin? Why is Louis such a dick – or is he just being a typical
boy? What’s Harry’s deal in general?!
See ya Thursday! xxx

Back to index
Author's Notes:
mantis green
February
“I’m so sorry!”
Isabel was scampering into Nell’s, a small, cheap greasy spoon on the edge of campus, her hair a
damp, flyaway mess and her cheeks pinched red from the cold.
She dropped into a seat next to Rory and pulled her scarf off, smiling apologetically at the girl
opposite her.
“I’m so, so sorry Mel.”
“It’s okay,” Mel said flatly. “You’re only” - she glanced at her watch - “half an hour late.”
Isabel groaned. That was bad, even for her standards. “I’m really so sorry, I honestly didn’t – I
wouldn’t –”
“Stop apologising,” Mel interrupted. “That gets annoying.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told.” Isabel reached into her pocket and got out a tissue, dabbing her running
nose while Mel looked on in disgust. “What did I miss?”
“We were just going through the finances,” Rory said with a smile, his glasses slipping down his
nose slightly as he did so. “My area of expertise, you didn’t miss much.”
Isabel fished out her notebook and sat looking at Mel expectantly, pen poised.
“I’ll start again for your benefit then, shall I?” Mel sighed at Isabel, her rhetorical question
hanging in the air uncomfortably until she eventually continued. “Well, the Film Soc was named
over Christmas as the university’s fourth largest non-departmental society.”
“A change implemented by you,” Rory praised, and Mel ignored him.
“We are preceded only by the Ski Soc, the Chocolate Soc and the Rowing Soc. And for this
reason, it’s time to Step Things Up.”
Mel often spoke as if she was capitalising words. It was a thing that took some time getting used
to.
“It’s February now, and I know you two are surprised I called another meeting seeing as we
already arranged the film schedule for this term. But I really want us to find a way to make our
society The Best. So, how do we Step Things Up?” She peered at the pair of them opposite her,
speaking as if she was addressing a large crowd and not two people jammed into the corner of a
sub-par café. “Well, I have a lot of – Issy, are you writing this down?”
“Yes, sorry, I’m –”
“I have a lot of ideas. I also have a lot of work, and I can’t do this alone.”
Mel was a third year politics student with an ambition to work for the EU and a side interest in
film, mostly those involving either of the Phoenix brothers.
“What I’m asking” – she paused dramatically – “is whether you are both fully committed to this
society?”
She seemed to aim this directly towards Isabel, so much so that Rory didn’t bother to answer but
instead turned to face Isabel curiously.
“I, um –” Isabel blushed. “I mean, yes of course I am, I love being secretary –”
“You love being secretary?” Mel scoffed. “Are you not gonna stand in the leadership election in
June to take over from me next year?”
“I mean, I could. I might, I just…” Isabel was unsure how to proceed. “I never really thought
about it.”
“Yeah,” Mel nodded, narrowing her eyes. “Oh, I know you, Isabel. You love film and you enjoy
coming along on Thursday nights and helping out. You like taking notes for me every now and
then, like having the title secretary, sure. Not headed for big things, though, that’s not your
style.”
Isabel was completely taken aback. She sniffed, her nose still running, and blinked at Mel
blankly. “Well I –”
“Don’t worry,” Mel said with a wave of her hand. “Rory here would make a good leader
anyway.”
“It’s not that I’m – the thing is, I’m secretary because Lisa had to drop out. I’m not
even elected, like I don’t think –”
“Sure, sure, you’re doing us a favour. We know.” Isabel had no idea how she’d made Mel so
irritated, but she was too scared to push her any further and so shut up, swiping her hand under
her nose and picking up her pen again. “So anyway: how do we Step Things Up? Well, I’ve done
some research and I’ve got three courses of action.”
She coughed, pausing for suspense.
“Number One: Unique Selling Point. Rory here was telling me just before you arrived, Isabel, an
idea he had to create a library of films we could rent out to students for cheap prices.”
Isabel nodded, scribbling furiously.
“Number Two: Class and Style. I’m going to look for better venues, stretching off campus,
maybe try and get local cinemas involved. And Number Three is for you, Isabel: Action in the
Community. Let’s expand the society and get involved with people in the local area – schools,
clubs, you name it.”
Isabel swallowed. She had about a thousand questions, and a few objections, but before she
could say anything more Mel’s phone rang loudly.
“Oh, fuck it,” she said loudly. “That’s my Terrible Idiot Boyfriend. I’ll be right back.”
She grabbed her phone and waltzed out of the café, the bell ringing as she slammed the door.
“I always forget how intense she is in these meetings,” Rory grinned, offering Isabel a bit of his
brownie.
“She’s just passionate is all,” Isabel said, stuffing the brownie into her mouth. “I always love
hearing about the Terrible Idiot Boyfriend though.”
“Poor guy. I can’t imagine having her as a girlfriend. She’d eat me alive.”
Isabel laughed thickly, her mouth still crammed with brownie. “I’m sure you could handle her,
give yourself some credit.”
Rory shook his head but smiled all the same. “So how come you were so late?”
She looked away from him, staring at the chips in the wood at the edge of the table and a bit of
ketchup smeared across the surface. “I stayed at my boyfriend’s house last night and then… well,
what happened was that I said I was going to the library this morning, but then he decided to
come as well and so I …”
She trailed off, looking up at Rory apprehensively. He frowned, confused, until he understood.
“You lied to him?”
She sniffed. “I’m an awful liar, I don’t know why he bought it in the first place. I guess he can’t
tell when I lie, but I was pretty sure he would guess when I suddenly said I remembered I had a
doctor’s appointment once we got to the library and –”
“Why did you lie?”
Isabel swallowed. “Well no-one really knows that I … that I’m involved in this.”
Rory nodded, disappointed. “I get it. Wouldn’t be cool to belong to a society that isn’t sports, let
alone help run one, right? Not for your lot.”
“No, not at all, that’s not what I said –”
Rory shrugged, pushing his glasses further up his nose with a sigh. “It’s fine, I get it. You’re with
Louis, and all his friends are… you’re popular, right? You don’t get involved with stuff like this
or people like me. You just kinda… bask in how cool you all are.”
Isabel gaped at him. She had no idea what she’d done to annoy everyone this morning, but
clearly she was doing something wrong, and she felt a bubble of guilt in her stomach. “No, I’m
not like that. I’m not, I mean I don’t –I’ve only ever –”
“It’s okay, Isabel,” Rory said, deadpan. “I’m not ashamed of this, of being here. It’s okay if you
are, but I’m not. I didn’t think … well, I guess you are.”
Isabel felt her heart plummet as he looked away from her, entirely disappointed and frustrated.
She liked Rory and his sandy hair and his glasses and his lopsided smile. She liked joking about
Mel with him and sitting in the back of the room on Thursday nights watching and talking about
films together. She liked being part of the Film Soc. She had more in common with him than she
did with most of Louis’ friends, and she hated that he thought that, hated that he saw her that
way.
She opened her mouth to say so, but then Mel was back and the moment was gone, and for the
first time Isabel wondered whether the way people like Mel and Rory and Harry saw her was
much more real than the way she saw herself, after all.
~~~
Nearly two weeks had gone by since Harry’s birthday party, and there was no denying that there
had been a shift in his and Isabel’s relationship. At work, Harry no longer hid his art book
secretively, and in turn Isabel was careful not to look over at it, knowing that he wanted his
privacy. They laughed and joked about, an easy banter between them, and Harry had taken to
driving her home on Friday and Sunday evenings.
What Isabel especially admired was how good he was with children. On Sunday evenings, when
birthday parties and families would march over in loud, excited packs to collect their shoes,
Harry would turn into a different person entirely. He seemed to light up around children, and
they all fell in love with him within seconds, all wide, adoring eyes and toothless smiles. He’d
joke about their shoe size, always guessing much smaller or bigger, and if they were especially
cute he would get them a size ten times too big and scratch his head confusedly when they
shrieked that they looked like a clown.
Once a tiny little girl had asked shyly for a hug when she returned her shoes, and Harry had
grinned delightedly, his eyes lighting up like he’d just won the lottery. He’d jogged round the
counter and squatted down next to her, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she rested her
head against his shoulder. Isabel just watched from behind the counter, feeling for a second that
if he ever looked at her like that, with such enthusiasm and warmth in his eyes, she’d be quite
unable to resist the charm that won over every customer he served.
On this particular Wednesday, a frosty February afternoon, Harry and Isabel had both done work
for uni all afternoon, speaking occasionally but mostly sitting in comfortable silence, the only
sound being Harry’s pencil scratching against the paper.
When Harry suddenly snapped his book shut and shoved it away hastily, Isabel looked up to see
that Ben had come over, tapping his pen against the counter top and gesturing towards the clock.
“Shift’s over, guys.”
She watched as Harry smiled at him, jumping to his feet and babbling about the low numbers of
customers on a Wednesday afternoon, all the while hiding the book behind his back with strained
knuckles. Ben wouldn’t have minded in the slightest, but that wasn’t Harry’s problem. The
secrecy all stemmed from something in him, a self-consciousness so crippling it seemed bizarre
in combination with his outward charm, an assuredness that Isabel used to think bordered on
arrogance.
After changing into their normal clothes and clocking their hours they trudged through the car
park, Isabel treading carefully so that she didn’t slip on the icy tarmac and hugging her arms
around herself.
“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Harry asked, his cold hands shoved into his
pockets.
“I need to go into town, actually,” she told him. “I need to get my niece a birthday present.”
“Well I can go with you, if you want,” Harry said after a beat, shrugging nonchalantly. “I need to
buy a few things as well. We can do a joint shopping trip.”
Isabel nodded, and he grinned at her as he opened the door to his car, yanking the handle a few
times before the door decided to oblige.
“We need to quickly stop at uni,” Harry said, adjusting his bandana as he looked in the rear-view
mirror. “I just need to get something off Niall.”
“Okay sure,” Isabel replied, trying not to sound too excited at the prospect, but she was intrigued.
She’d been wanting to look round for ages.
“So your niece, huh?” Harry asked as he pulled out of the car park, one hand on the steering
wheel and the other resting in his lap. “You seem a bit too young to be an aunty.”
He looked over at her with a smile, cocking his head to the side slightly when he caught her
staring. It’s just - the way his jaw moved when he smacked his gum, the way his fingers resting
in his lap tapped against his thigh along to the music, the way one of his curls followed the curve
of his ear to brush against his neck – it was all a lot to take in, overwhelming and absorbing all at
once.
“My sister’s twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven,” Isabel explained, averting her gaze to the
windscreen in an attempt to appear casual and unembarrassed. “She had Ruby nearly three years
ago now, and Lucas last year. We always knew she’d have kids young, my dad always used to
say so. Savannah will start having children as soon as she finds a half decent guy with a pretty
good bank balance, he always used to say.”
“I don’t think twenty-three’s young,” Harry countered. “My mum was twenty-four when she had
my older brother, but it means that when she had Callum, my younger one, she was forty-one
and had all sorts of problems. I think she may have, uh, had problems and stuff between my
sister and my little brother.”
He coughed awkwardly as Isabel sat there, more than a little taken aback by the amount of
information he had just disclosed. Harry was not one to talk about himself without prompting.
“So the age gap between you and your younger brother is what?” Isabel asked, curious. She
might as well grasp this opportunity with both hands.
Harry frowned, pulling at his lower lip with his fingers as he looked uncomfortable with the
direction of the conversation. “I was fourteen when he was born.”
“And you and your older brother?”
“Adam is three and a half years older than me,” Harry said in a monotone.
“Same age gap as me and my brother,” Isabel noted. “Except I expect your brother is a lot more
sensible than mine. Getting married when he and his girlfriend have no job, no house, nothing.”
Harry nodded, opening his mouth to reply just as his gaze flickered down to the dashboard. He
visibly froze, his whole body tensing, mouth snapping shut, eyes widening, and the whole thing
was so sudden it was almost comical.
“You all right?”
“I – I might have to stop to get some petrol,” Harry answered slowly, gulping.
“Sure, that’s fine,” Isabel replied, frowning at Harry’s worried expression. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Harry snapped, increasing his speed as his eyes darted around wildly.
She shoved her fingers into her mouth, instinctively gnawing on her nails. “Sorry, I didn’t mean
to – it’s just petrol, Harry –”
“Just be quiet for a second,” Harry interrupted, his tone sharp, and Isabel felt her temper flare.
“Jesus, I was only asking,” she muttered, but Harry pretended he didn’t hear, and they sat in
silence until Harry parked up in the petrol station.
It took many attempts for him to undo his seatbelt with shaking fingers, and Isabel watched in
the rear-view mirror as he filled up the car, running his hands through his hair every few seconds
and gnawing on his bottom lip. When he’d done, he took a look at the total cost and reached into
his jacket to take out his wallet. Fingers trembling, he looked through it desperately, before
leaning his forehead against the side of the car for a minute. Exhaling, he stood up and walked
slowly to the passenger window, knocking on it gently.
Isabel wound the window down, looking at him with raised eyebrows. He swallowed, avoiding
her eyes, but that didn’t stop her seeing the shame in his.
“I’m really – I’m so sorry,” he stuttered. “Do you think I could … would you mind if I…”
He looked away, swearing under his breath and running a quivering hand through his hair again.
Isabel waited patiently, eyebrows still raised in expectation, hands folded in her lap.
“Please may I borrow twenty pounds?”
Isabel gaped at him, astounded. “Pardon?”
She had half a mind to ask him why on earth he was going shopping without money, or why he
thought it was okay to snap at her and then ask for a loan moments later, but one look at his face,
lips pressed tight and drawn down at the corners, eyes averted to the floor, cheeks reddening,
made the words stick in her throat.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled. “I just – I’m – fuck.” He was barely coherent, his tongue swiping
out to wet his lips as he bought himself time. “I’m just a bit tight on money at the minute. I’ll be
able to pay you back as soon as we go and meet Niall.”
He finally looked straight at her, his eyes imploring and so sad and ashamed that Isabel’s breath
caught in her throat.
“It’s fine, Harry,” she assured before he could ask again, reaching into her purse and handing
him a £20 note. She forced a reassuring smile and he sighed, his shoulders slumping.
“Thank you,” he said earnestly, leaning through the window and kissing her on the cheek before
marching into the shop to pay.
Isabel slumped back into the seat, playing with her hair with one hand and absently biting the
nails of the other. Harry had to be the most perplexing person she’d ever met, a labyrinth of
secrets and contrasting behaviours, a whole tangled mess that she didn’t understand at all. And
maybe it was just because she liked distractions, but she had this inexplicable pull to work him
out, to decipher what lay behind the hard concrete of his green eyes. She wanted to spend days
listening to him talk about himself and his life, because he did so rarely, but when he did it was
undeniably beautiful, his eyes shining, his speech for once unguarded and honest.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said again as he got back into the car, arriving just as rain had begun to stroke
the car gently. He looked so vulnerable for once, his hair damp from the grey drizzle, his hands
tucked into his sleeves so that only his fingertips peeked out, his cheeks bitten raw red by the
cold. He blinked a lot in embarrassment, a raindrop tangled in his eyelashes, and when he turned
to glance at Isabel it dropped from his eyes like a tear.
She wanted to climb into his lap in that moment, to bury herself in the crook of his neck and
leave her hot breath on his cold skin, envelop herself in his arms and grip his citrusy hair in her
fists, tell him that it didn’t matter, nothing mattered, that he didn’t need to look so sad all the
time.
But Isabel reminded herself who he was, what they were, and she didn’t even have the courage
to respond to his apologies, instead taking a shaky breath and saying “Let’s go.”
~~~
Isabel was waiting in the corridor of the art uni, tapping her boot-clad foot against the dark oak
floorboards. Harry had instructed her to wait in the car, but she wanted to see inside and he
didn’t have the patience to argue with her. For the first ten minutes of waiting outside Niall’s
classroom, she’d paced around the corridor, studying each of the student pieces on the wall
curiously, wondering who had painted them and whether they knew Harry, where they drew their
inspiration from. But now she’d been waiting for twenty minutes, and she was bored and certain
the shops would close soon.
She was just considering leaving and texting Harry later when it caught her eye. A classroom at
the end of the corridor that had the words Fine Art 1 written above it.
Before she even knew what she was doing, Isabel was walking quickly towards the door. She
knew it would be empty – Harry didn’t have a class today, and it might not even be his class,
anyway, for fuck’s sake – but she hadn’t expected the door to be locked either. Frustrated, she let
go of the handle with a sigh.
“What are you doing?”
Harry’s voice, so quiet she barely heard it but as gravelly as ever, made her jump.
She panted, staring at him with apprehension, for some reason her heart slamming against her
ribcage as she took him in, standing in his corridor in his baggy jumper and ripped jeans and a
face like thunder.
“Nothing, I – I was bored, you took ages.”
She was surprised to find herself a little shaken, as though she’d been caught doing something
she shouldn’t. It was his dark expression and his clenched fists and his tight jaw, and although
she hadn’t done anything wrong, she felt horrible, like his glare alone might be enough to burn a
hole right through her. His nostrils flared and he searched for something to say, but when he
found nothing his eyes fell to the floor.
“I have your money.” He held out twenty pounds, his arm so far outstretched and his gaze
averted so that his stance looked like one usually reserved for people putting their hands into
unknown boxes, or people trying to find their way around corners in the dark.
“Thanks,” she replied, walking over and taking it from him. Her fingers brushed his hard,
calloused ones, and he jerked back like he’d been stung.
He coughed into his hand, a habit, and repeated the words Isabel had used earlier when she really
ought to have said something else, anything else. “Let’s go.”
~~~
By the time they’d got into town and Harry had found a space for his car, swearing and
grumbling the whole time about “fucking idiots who can’t park/indicate/ drive/exist” to his
exacting standard, there was only forty-five minutes left before the shops closed. Harry said he
needed to go to the sports shop, which was always busy, and Isabel knew that she would take a
while picking out the right book to send to Ruby, so they split and agreed to meet by the black
horse statue in half an hour.
Isabel poured over the books for herself in Waterstones, forgetting for a moment about her niece
as she picked up a new, bound copy of The Catcher in the Rye. If she’d have seen Harry’s
bedroom before his birthday, she would have given him this as a present seeing as his copy was
so tattered.
After picking out a few books for Ruby, deciding to buy her ones about revolting aliens and
monsters to make a change from the pretty books about fairies and princesses and tea parties that
Savannah always bought her, Isabel returned to the black horse to find Harry leaning against it,
the hood of his jacket pulled up to protect him from the rain.
“Got everything you need?” he asked with a smile, all lips and teeth and tongue, and Isabel just
nodded her reply, words catching in her throat. “Excellent, I’ve just got one more place to go to.
You can meet me by the car if you like?”
It was more of a request than a question, but Isabel just raised her eyebrows.
“What, stand in the cold and wet just so you can shop in peace? Fuck that. Let’s hurry up before
it closes.”
“It’s fine, really,” Harry insisted, rooting around in his pocket. “Here look, take my keys and go
–”
“I’m not that annoying, am I?” she asked him with a raised eyebrow.
The corner of his mouth pulled up. “Debatable. Don’t set yourself up for insults, Isabel, when I
can easily just hand them out to you for free.”
“Shut up and walk,” she said, pushing his shoulder lightly and he winced, rubbing it.
“Heeeeey, that hurt!”
She snorted. “I can barely lift textbooks, Harry, I doubt you’ll be permanently damaged.”
“Well you’ll have to check if I’m bruised later,” he smirked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively
and nudging her. “Give me an examination.”
“Eugh, fuck off,” she snarled. “Get Zayn to do it. That’s what ‘bros’ do right?”
“Hm yeah, maybe,” Harry grinned. “I wouldn’t want to make you jealous though. We both know
you’ve been gagging to play nurse with me.”
Isabel flushed. Sex talk with Harry was not something she wanted to get into, especially as he
would probably laugh her into oblivion if she tried to throw a sexual innuendo back. He flashed
her a shit-eating grin, aware of how uncomfortable he was making her.
“Stop wasting time, you dick,” she said eventually. “I know exactly what you’re playing at.”
“It’s working though, isn’t it?” he said smugly.
“It’s your own time you’re wasting, I’ve done all my shopping. Let’s go before I catch
hyperthermia.”
He frowned, staying put. “Look, I’m not joking now –”
“Neither am I,” she countered, tapping her foot on the wet ground impatiently.
Harry rolled his eyes and looked as though he might argue, but all he did was spit out a sulky:
“Fine.”
“Lead the way,” she grinned, and he glared at her and shuffled off, his plastic bag knocking
against his leg.
“What did you buy?” she asked him curiously, trying to peek inside.
“Running shoes,” Harry confessed, playing with his lip with his free hand.
“I didn’t know you’re into sports,” Isabel said, pulling her hat down further over her head to
protect herself from the rain.
“I’m not,” Harry replied bluntly. Isabel waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.
“Bad weather, huh?” she offered.

“It’s fine,” he countered with a shrug. “I like the rain.”
“Oh, how very arty of you,” she said, sneering slightly, and he glanced over at her, raindrops
falling from the rim of his hood and splashing his bottom lip.
“Is there a problem?”
“Did I say there was?”
“You’re acting like there is.”
Isabel laughed without humour and Harry’s eyebrows pulled together. “I’m not trying to be
funny, but your mood swings are worse than a pubescent teenager’s.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Harry grumbled, but he didn’t argue with her reasoning. They walked in
silence for a moment until Harry stopped so abruptly that Isabel walked straight into his
shoulder.
“We’re here,” he announced, pointing to the shop. An art shop. “Why don’t you just wait here
and –”
Isabel was already marching into the shop before he could finish his sentence, a tinny bell
ringing as she pushed open the door. She tripped over the step on the way in and Harry snorted
behind her, but all thoughts of reprimanding him vanished when she looked around the shop.
It was small and dark, the walls made of the kind of wood usually reserved for stately homes,
lined with shelves laden with every type of art supply she could ever have imagined, and more. It
smelled of acrylic and paper and bleach, and Isabel thought it was wonderful. She looked around
with wide eyes, like a child in a sweet shop, her damp fringe tangling with her eyelashes as
Harry stared at her nervously.
“Harry!” The shopkeeper, a short, plump man with greying hair and a cigarette dangling between
his lips, had come out from behind a curtain and had clapped his hands together in excitement.
“Hi, John, y’alright?” Harry replied, walking over and shaking his hand warmly. Isabel peeked
around his shoulder shyly.
“Oh shit,” John said as he noticed her, dropping his cigarette on the floor hurriedly and stamping
it. “Sorry, shouldn’t be smoking indoors. Illegal and that.” He laughed nervously. “Not like you
to bring a friend, Harry.”
Harry forced a laugh which ended far too abruptly and said nothing else. John stepped out of his
way, going to lean behind the counter.
“I don’t mind if you smoke,” Isabel told him timidly, and Harry glanced at her from his position
by one of the shelves. “I won’t tell.”
John laughed heartily, nodding in appreciation as he took another cigarette between his lips and
lit it, the burst of light from the fire of the lighter illuminating his lined, kind face. “You do fine
art up at the art uni as well, sweetheart?”
“No, I do History at the red brick.”
“Ah, you got yourself a clever one then, Harry,” John puffed out a cloud of smoke as Harry just
choked out a grunt in reply, and seeing as Harry didn’t correct him, Isabel didn’t either.
“Looking for anything in particular?”
“Just charcoal and some other bits,” Harry replied, playing with his lip as he studied the shelves
carefully.
“Working on a new project, are we?”
“Portraiture,” Harry mumbled. John nodded sagely, getting into a discussion with Harry about
the pros and cons of collage when concerning portraits, and Isabel floated off to look into the jars
and boxes at the different types of brushes and paints and pastels, beautifully diverse and
intricate.
There were so many colours – she appreciated for the first time that something wasn’t
just green, it was teal or emerald or mint or chartreuse or olive – and one colour caught her eye
in the palette. ‘Mantis’ it was called, and it was the exact shade of Harry’s eyes, that cool green
that reminded her of damp grass in spring, and she wanted to reach out and open the palette and
dip her finger in it, to feel the colour on her skin.
“Isabel?” Harry called softly, and she jerked away from the shelf. She’d been right up against it,
both of her hands pressed to the wood and gazing at the colours with wide brown eyes. He
looked at her with those mantis green eyes, which were softer and clearer than she’d ever seen
them as he watched her tuck her hair behind her ear, embarrassed, and shuffle away from the
shelf. “I’m done, we can go.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said to John, and he nodded back with a warm smile.
The pair of them trudged through the grey drizzle, the skin on Harry’s knuckles white as he
gripped his two plastic bags firmly. Isabel could feel him staring at her, and when she glanced up
at him through her fringe he was looking at her with his eyebrows pulled together, his lips
pressed in a firm line.
Isabel was going to ask him what he was staring at, because he looked a little strange, giving her
a look she’d never seen before, but she didn’t want more awkward silences and tense
atmospheres that made it feel like there was hundreds of metres between them. So instead, she
offered, “That art shop was lovely.”
“Oh yeah? You liked it?”

“Yeah, I really did.”
“John’s pretty cool, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Harry nodded, the rain on his hood flying off in multiple directions. He glanced up at the grey
sky, rain splashing him in the face as he did so, sliding down his cheeks and falling into the hair
behind his ears.
“I’m sorry you don’t like this weather,” he said, laughing almost nervously, and before she had a
chance to say anything he was taking a wheezing, deep breath and spitting, “What are you up to
tonight, then?”
“Nothing, I don’t think,” Isabel replied. “I was just gonna go home and watch a film.”
“Why don’t you come out with me?” he paused, licking his lips, and hurried to add, “Well not
with me. Not just with me. I mean I’ll be there, obviously, but with other people as well, Caitlin
and Zayn and that lot. We were gonna do something, I’m not sure what yet, but you’re welcome
to come. If you want.”
Isabel smiled at him, biting into her lip as his eyes searched hers. “Yeah, I’d –”
“ISABEL!”
She jumped at the sound of her name as though it was thunder announcing that lightning was on
its way. And lightning it was.
End Notes:
Helloooo!
We got a bit of insight into Art!Harry as well as the sorta stuff Isabel secretly gets up to! What
did everyone think? :)
The next chapter is gonna be mighty dramatic (who was the person at the end???) and so I hope
you all stick around for it on Sunday
Also, I’m over at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com and I’m thinking about posting some extra content
stuff on there, like posting the playlist I listen to when I write or anything people want (I really
don’t/shouldn’t have that spare time but you know, any excuse to procrastinate) so yeah… and if
you’d like you can send me any questions and/or predictions for Sunday! xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
sweetheart all wrong
February
Harry and Isabel turned to see Louis marching across the road, his car poorly parked opposite
them and his arm slung over his head in a feeble attempt to keep his smart white shirt dry.
“I don’t fucking believe this!” He was absolutely seething, his whole chest rising and falling as
he stopped in front of them. Harry was at least an entire head taller than him, but Louis didn’t
seem to notice he was there. “I’ve been ringing you non-stop for two fucking hours!”
“Sorry, my phone must have died,” Isabel replied in an attempt at nonchalance, but her hands
were shaking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t –”
“Okay, whatever, just get in the car,” Louis snapped, turning on his heel without waiting for her
to reply.
“Why, where are you going?”
“We’re going for dinner with my parents,” Louis said matter-of-factly. “I fucking forgot they
were coming, and they really want to meet you, and fucking hell we can’t be late so please let’s
just go.”
“But I – I kind of made plans,” she stuttered, and his face screwed up in confusion.
“Plans? What fucking plans? With who? Just cancel, they won’t mind.”
“With Harry.” Isabel glanced up at him, and saw he was staring at Louis passively, his eyebrow
raised slightly.
“Who’s Harry?” Louis asked, rubbing a hand across his face in stress.
Harry gave a little wave, biting back a smile. Louis looked him up and down, his neck going red
beneath his white shirt as he glared at him. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Isabel’s friend,” Harry replied cheerily, almost extending a hand to shake before deciding
against it. “We met at work.”
Louis whipped his head back to look at Isabel, who was anxiously dancing from foot to foot, her
feet splashing in the puddles. “But you don’t like the guy you work with.”
“I never said that,” she said quickly.
“Yes you did, Millie told me.”

She laughed hastily. “That was in like January, Louis, I’ve mentioned Harry loads between now
and then.” She looked up at Harry, hoping he was still finding the exchange funny, but he was
now staring into the distance, his tongue pressed into his cheek.
“I don’t have time for this shit!” Louis tugged on his hair and glared furiously at her. “Isabel, get
in the fucking car right now!”
“But I –”
Louis looked just about ready to explode when he suddenly, quite visibly, changed tactic.
Softening his expression, he stroked Isabel’s face gently and gazed into her eyes.
“Please, babe, you have no idea how much this has been worrying me. Please come with me, I
need you there.” It was almost pathetic how much Isabel wilted under his touch, and she tried
and failed to keep her face stony. “They’ve been dying to meet you, I swear. Come on, Issy,
come with me.”
Louis lent down and brushed his lips against hers, tugging her bottom lip between his teeth
slightly and swiping it with his tongue. Her heart hammered in her chest, gripping onto his smart
shirt tightly, knowing with an aching heart she would follow him wherever he asked her to go.
Louis pulled away, giving Harry a look that Isabel didn’t see before stalking off to the car
without a second look. Isabel glanced at Harry, embarrassed that he’d been present for her and
Louis’ discussion, but he wasn’t giving her the scathing, smug look she thought he would.
Instead, he was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t work out, a mixture of
disappointment and disbelief and possibly even anger, the curls poking out from under his hood
sopping wet and dripping in front of his face.
He didn’t even need to speak – she knew what he would ask. Are you really gonna go with him?
Unfortunately for Harry, he was the only one of the three of them that hadn’t known from the
beginning that she would go all along.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” she mumbled, avoiding his eyes, before scuttling across the road and into the
car, leaving him there on the pavement in the rain with cold, clenched fists and an even colder
expression.
~~~
When Isabel was eight years old, she went on a holiday to Mallorca with her mum, her sister and
her brother. James was twelve, an awful age her mum always said, and he had made it his latest
habit to irritate Isabel in every way possible. Savannah, at fifteen, was much too old to put up
with his antics and spent all of her holiday pinned to Mum’s side, reclining on sun loungers
reading what Isabel had considered highly boring novels about sexually confused intellectuals
who smoked cigarettes and meant everything ironically.
Savannah had always been this way – mature beyond her years, longing to be an adult. When she
was little she had forced her younger siblings to be students in the classroom she had assembled
in her bedroom, making a three-year-old Isabel write a fifteen minute long exam piece on cats
versus dogs. When Savannah was a little older, she spent hours sitting in the kitchen with her
mother making endless cups of tea and talking about things Isabel thought she’d never be able to
understand. On this particular holiday, Savannah was in her absolute element, as Daddy wasn’t
there.
Isabel had constantly asked why – in the taxi on the way to the airport, in the airside coffee shop
over a hot chocolate, on the plane as she clung to her mum’s arm and the world beneath them
turned miniscule, the cars becoming little toy ones like James used to leave all over the house
that Daddy would always trip over, the houses and hills looking like they were moulded out of
clay. Still, no one gave her an answer, and Savannah completed her transition into adulthood in
the absence of another.
Isabel and James were playing in the sea one afternoon, the salt tangling their hair and pouring
into their mouths and noses as they splashed each other. James dunked Isabel under the water
continuously until she was gasping for air, her throat feeling as though it had been scratched with
sandpaper as she swallowed more and more water.
“James!” she shrieked, coming up for air. “Stop it!”
“Stop being such a girl!” he’d replied, splashing her again so that she had to scrunch up her face
in order to protect herself.
“Stop, James!” she insisted, pushing a hand through her sopping hair, strands of which were
maize and white from the sun. “Stop or I’ll tell –”
She had been about to say Daddy, and James knew.
“Dad isn’t here,” James pointed out with a sneer, but it didn’t quite work as he licked his lips and
looked around anxiously, as if Dad might pop out of the water any second now. He scratched his
freckled nose, and Isabel thought his soaked, dark hair sticking out in every direction made him
look like a confused hedgehog.
“I know,” she replied. “Why isn’t he here, James? Do you know?”
“Yes, of course I do,” he snapped. “I’m just not allowed to tell you.”
Isabel’s bottom lip jutted out. “Why not? Why can’t I know?”
“Because,” James said haughtily as a way of explanation, though his hands were drawing
nervous circles in the water.
Isabel ran a hand through her long blonde hair – she would cut it shoulder length and with a
fringe, as it was now, under Savannah’s instruction at the age of thirteen – and looked over to her
mother and sister, who were lying side by side on sun loungers at the top of the sand.
“I’m going to ask Savvy,” Isabel declared boldly, striking out towards the beach. James grabbed
her arm roughly.
“She won’t tell you,” he insisted. “She’s not gonna tell the baby.”
“Maybe she will,” Isabel conceded, yanking her arm away and attempting to run through the
water, though it made her limbs heavy, like she was wading through a bowl of Nutella or one of
those ball pits people had at birthday parties.
When she reached the sand, her toes sinking into the warm, soft surface, she took off at a sprint
towards her sister, sand flying out behind her and sticking to her wet legs, the sun beating down
on her back.
“Sav,” she gasped as she got there, but she immediately stopped in her tracks, staring down at the
pair of them. Her mum was crying, her head in her hands as Savannah rubbed her arm, worry
etched into her young face.
“Issy!” Savannah bleated, and Mum raised her blotchy face in concern. “Why aren’t you in the
water with James?”
But Isabel had forgotten why she was there entirely. She stared at Mum’s sad eyes, at the
tearstains running down her face like raindrops on a window, and her bottom lip began to
wobble.
“What’s the matter, Mummy?” she asked quietly, and her mother held out an arm, inviting Isabel
to sit next to her. Mum smiled at Isabel when she sat down, her eyes crinkling in the corners in
the familiar way that made Isabel feel as though everything might be okay, that Mummy was
only crying because she got some sand in her eye, or she stubbed her toe against the side of the
sun lounger.
“The thing is, my baby,” Mum said, in her familiar soft Swedish-accented voice, rubbing her
hand up and down Isabel’s arm. “Sometimes boys aren’t very nice.”
“Who? James?” Isabel asked, about to agree that he was horrible and merciless.
“No, not him,” Mum shook her head, smiling slightly. “He’ll be a good one, although probably a
little slow on the uptake sometimes.”
The three of them turned to watch James, who had made friends with a boy his age the instant
Isabel had left, and the pair of them were running up and down the water’s edge in glee as the
warm water lapped around their feet.
“What Mum’s trying to say,” Savannah interjected, resting a hand on her little sister’s knee,
staring into Isabel’s brown eyes with her grey ones, “is that sometimes boys do horrible things to
girls, and leave them feeling upset. And you should never let any boy do that to you.”
“How?” Isabel questioned softly, her eyes wide and curious. She kept her gaze trained on
Savannah, her dark hair swept away from her face and eyes just like their father’s – grey like the
sky on a January morning though nowhere near as cold, not at all – and Savannah could only
shrug.
“Find the right one,” she said.
Mum hugged her close, pressing her lips into the crook of Isabel’s neck as her back rested
against her mother’s chest.
“Or,” Mummy whispered, her voice so soft that there was no way Savannah could hear it over
the shrieks of children dropping their ice creams in the sand and parents shouting at older
siblings for taking younger ones too near the shore without armbands. “Don’t ever let him have
your heart if you don’t have his. That’s the only way they can break it.”
~~~
“So, History is it, Isabella?”
This was the third time tonight Louis’ father had got her name wrong, and at this point Isabel
was past correcting him. She and Louis were sitting opposite Matthew and Jaclyn Tomlinson,
and weirdly, she felt as though she was at a job interview, if job interviews were accompanied by
starched white tablecloths and food so expensive she’d had to reread the menu a number of times
before she could be sure it was correct.
“Yes, that’s right,” Isabel replied, sipping on her wine only to be met with a surreptitious glare
from Louis. If she got drunk, she was in no doubt she’d never hear the end of it.
“A good degree,” was Jaclyn’s assessment.
“Much better than Geography,” agreed Matthew. “Isn’t that right, Louis?”
“Geography’s actually quite well-respected now, Dad,” mumbled Louis in a rehearsed

monotone.
“How are you finding it? We’re thinking of History as a degree for Louis’ younger sister.”
“It’s…” Inexplicably boring? Devoid of teaching me anything useful in the real world? Entirely
not what she had expected? “…challenging.”
“And Louis tells us you balance it alongside a part time job?” Jaclyn enquired.
“Oh, yes, I work at the bowling alley up in town, near the sea front.”
Silence.
“Oh,” Jaclyn said flatly, glancing at her husband who was squinting over at Isabel with a fair
amount of condescension. “Is that right?”
“It pays fairly well,” Isabel explained defensively, looking to Louis for support, but he was just
sitting as stiff as a board, his head turning from his parents to his girlfriend as though he was at a
tennis match. Isabel stared at him pointedly. “I can think of worse jobs.”
He whipped his head towards her, glaring at her with such ferocity that she almost whimpered.
“We’re hoping Louis will go into banking, like me,” Matthew interjected. “So there probably
aren’t many opportunities at his age in that field.”
“What do your parents do, Isabella, darling?” asked Jaclyn.
“Well, my parents are divorced, but my dad’s a software developer. My mum’s in recruitment,
and my step-dad’s a plumber.”
“Ah, the food’s here!” Louis practically bellowed before anyone could make any further
remarks. “Dad and I got the same – the steak frites that’s it – what did you get Issy?”
“Whereabouts in London are you from, Isabella?” Matthew continued, ignoring his son and the
waiter entirely. “I’ve lived in and around Manchester all my life but I’m very familiar with
London; my work requires I go there a lot.”
“Just outside Hammersmith – I had the pasta, thank you.”
“Oh yes, that does have some lovely parts to it,” Jaclyn cut in, smiling down at her salad as the
waiter placed it in front of her.
“Are you hoping to move back to London after university?”
“I’m not sure. Quite possibly.”
“What is it you want to do? Work-wise, I mean?”
“I’m really not sure. I haven’t thought about it yet.”
Louis choked on a chip in an effort to chime into the conversation. “She’s being very modest.
She’s very driven. I have no doubts she’ll be an expert in whatever field she goes into. There’s
just too many options for her skillset to chose at the moment!”
Isabel gaped at him. “And what is it you want to do, Louis?”
He forced a smile, his teeth clenching and making his jaw flex as he did so. “We’ve spoken
about this, sweetheart. I want to be a banker, like my father.”
Sweetheart. A word so beautiful, usually laced with love and affection, as sweet as honey,
spoken with soft eyes and an even softer touch. A word whispered between the sheets, from
husbands to wives on cold evenings with their legs tangled on the sofa and their hearts
hammering lazily, familiarly in their chests. Isabel had ached for it, for any affection, for so long
that it almost hurt to hear him say it, to hear him bark it at her with a tight jaw and cold eyes.
She’d never been his sweetheart. And when he said it like that, she found she didn’t want to be.
~~~
Isabel leaned her head against the cold window of Louis’ car. The rain was persistent even
though it was after midnight now; it was battering down against the windscreen and echoing
through the car, but nothing could be louder than the silence between them.
Louis hadn’t even looked at her since the dinner had ended, and for once Isabel didn’t try and
make him. She closed her eyes, wishing the rain could wash away this disaster of an evening.
When Louis finally spoke, it cut through the silence like a knife and made Isabel jump. “Thanks
a fucking bunch, Isabel,” he said sulkily.
“What did I do?!” Isabel asked incredulously.
“Embarrassed me in front of my parents!” Louis snapped. “Jesus, you were awful.”
She looked at him blankly. “I don’t understand. I tried my best to –”
“Whatever,” Louis cut her off, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly as he drove. “You let me
down, as fucking per.”
Her heart tugged. “How?” she asked. “I’m sorry, Louis, I –”
“Can you stop apologising for one fucking second of your life? It’s so annoying,” he yelled.
“God, could you not have been –”
“Been what?” she exploded, her heart accelerating in her chest. “Been a little less low-to-middle
class? Been a little more conservative? Did you want me to – to fucking turn up an entirely new
person? That’s kind of hard when you give me a ten minute fucking warning!”
“All right, Jesus fucking Christ,” Louis snapped, taken aback. “No need to speak to me like
that.”
“Sorry,” she said automatically, before adding: “But I’m kind of sick of you speaking to me like
this.”
“You’re unbelievable,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “What have I done to you, huh? I bring
you out for the nicest dinner you’ve probably ever fucking had with my parents – who never shut
up about meeting you – and you try and bring up the whole dealing situation? I just – what
the fuck was that?”
“You were all being so condescending, you still are!”
“Oh, grow up Isabel,” he spat, cutting the curb as he turned the corner roughly. “The spoilt little
brat didn’t get her way for once. What a fucking Greek tragedy.”
Isabel’s jaw dropped, tears burning threateningly in her eyes. “W-What? How can you say
that?”
“Easily. You’ve changed since I met you. You were so sweet those first few months, all wide-
eyed and innocent. My parents would have loved that girl.”
“Nothing’s changed! I look the same, I act the same - well, mostly. If I’ve changed, Louis, it’s
because you changed me. You – you’ve introduced me to everyone, you made me p–”
“Popular? Is that what you were gonna say?” He snorted, and Isabel felt like she’d been punched.
“Listen, babe, don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Why do you do this, Louis?” Isabel said, her voice small and mumbly, and although she’d like
to have sounded defiant she just sounded stamped on, wrung out. She wiped at her damp face
roughly, sniffing. “Why do you … you know it really bloody hurts, sometimes. I hate it.”
He groaned loudly. “Why are you so sensitive? Why can’t you be like every other fucking girl
round here and take it on the chin a bit instead of guilt tripping me for every bloody thing I say!”
He parked roughly outside his house, yanking on the handbrake and glaring at her.
“Why are you even with me then?” she asked, hating how pathetic it sounded. “If every other
girl round here is better than me, why did you even go out with me in the first place?.” He sat in
silence, eyeing her with a straight face. “Tell me, Louis! Tell me, then, why you –”
Before Isabel could say another word, Louis leaned across the console and smashed his lips to
hers, grabbing her face with his hand and forcing his tongue into her mouth. She whimpered at
the sudden force of his kiss, before melting against the doorframe and grabbing his hair in her
fist. He was kissing her hungrily, hands grabbing at her clothes roughly, as if he only had
minutes with her and not the entire night.
He pulled back, staring into her eyes with his dilated pupils, his hair messy and his expression
determined. “Get in the back.”
“We’re gonna do this … in the car?” she asked timidly, a little horrified at the thought. He rolled
his eyes in exasperation.
“Yes, it’s hot. Normal people like doing stuff like this. Get in the back now.”
Isabel gulped and then nodded, climbing over the console and laying back across the seats,
which were spotless and immaculately clean as usual. Her heart thumped hysterically as he
followed her, kneeling over her as she lay, still and silent, beneath him. His lips reconnected with
hers, his kiss open mouthed and needy, his hands roaming across her body, squeezing her
breasts, inching down her sides, rubbing her thighs. Isabel wanted to rip off his shirt and feel his
chest against hers, feel if he was as hot and as frantic as her, feel if his heart was punching
against his ribcage like it hated being trapped in there, but the way he was laying on her meant
her hands had to stay motionless by her sides.
“Louis?” she whispered hoarsely when he pulled away to undo his zip. She wasn’t even sure
what she wanted to ask, but when he smiled at her grimly, it reminded her of a smile belonging
to someone in her history textbook, of a miner in the ‘80s putting on a brave face as he went
back to work after the strike had been called off. She closed her eyes, and bit her lip, not wanting
to see him look at her like that again. With that look, she could have been anyone. She might as
well have been a stranger.
He leaned back down and kissed her. “I’m sorry I shouted.” He undid her jeans with one hand
and tugged them down to her ankles, before running a hand along her thigh and hooking his
fingers around the waistband of her knickers. “I’m sorry I made you cry, Issy.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she gasped, finally managing to free her arms and hooking them around his
neck. “I’m really sorry, Louis.”
“Are you gonna be a good girl now?” he said slowly, pulling down her knickers. She nodded, her
eyes wide, her heart hammering with expectancy. “You’re still on the pill?”
She nodded, forcing herself not to roll her eyes. He asked her this every time they had sex, even
if it had only been a day, just in case she’d suddenly decided to come off birth control without
bothering to mention it. He was unreasonably terrified he would get her pregnant, she knew,
even though he never said it; after meeting his parents, though, she was starting to think his fear
might be a little justified.
It was over quickly, and when he was spent Louis collapsed down on top of her, his hot breath
pooling in her neck as she trailed a finger down the damp back of his shirt.
If there was any time when she felt loved by Louis, it would be when she had sex with him.
When he was closer than anyone had ever been with her, when his breath was fanning across her
face and his hair brushing her forehead, losing control because of her and only her. She made
herself forget that most of the time, though, she felt like it didn’t matter that it was her beneath
him, and that he would be exactly the same with any other girl. That she was exchangeable,
dispensable.
“Look at me, Louis,” she said, her voice coming out stilted with her broken and uneven breath.
He hadn’t even made her come, but she was permeated with the desire to tell him what she’d
been holding back for months, and it was making her nervous and breathless. He forced his head
up, yanking his heavy eyes open and staring down at her with eyes bluer than the sky in summer,
the only clear thing in her blurry field of vision.
He was the only thing she was sure of. Even when he made her cry, made her feel silly and
childish and unworthy of attention, even when she felt like she could be someone else and he
wouldn’t care, one kiss, one soft touch and she was his. There was nothing she could do to
change the fact that she would follow him to every corner of the earth if he asked her, because
she didn’t like to focus on a lot of things but she could always focus on him. And that’s what she
thought love was, really.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Louis blinked at her for a second, a frown forming between his eyebrows, before he pulled away
from her. Isabel let her eyes fall shut, biting down on her lip and trying her best not to panic.
When she opened her eyes, Louis was kneeling on the seat between her legs, zipping up his
trousers and staring at her with a hostile sort of gaze. She stared at him, a bit unable to breathe all
of a sudden.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.
“Put your jeans back on, Issy,” he replied, equally as soft. She did as he said, her heart beating
frantically. He was acting weird. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed.
“Are Tom and Danny home?” she squeaked. “Lloyd stays with Yasmin on Saturday nights,
right? So he’s not in?”
“Maybe it’s best if you don’t come in, babe,” he said, avoiding her eyes.
“But I … why?”
“I just – it’s been a stressful night. I just wanna go to sleep.”
He was still staring out of the window, away from her, and she blinked back tears again, chewing
on her nails. “Is this –”
He sighed. “Let’s not talk about this now.”
“I want to talk about it now,” she countered quietly, and he took a deep, exasperated breath.
“What’s got into you tonight?” he said heatedly, his nostrils flaring. “Why are you answering me
back like that?”
“I’m not your child, Louis,” she retorted. “I’m allowed to say when I think you’re being unfair.”
“How I feel,” he countered with laboured breaths, trying to keep calm, “what I feel for you, what
I feel about us, is not unfair. I don’t know why the fuck you just said that to me, Isabel, but I
think you need time to cool down, okay? Don’t go throwing shit like that around.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her nails digging into her palms as she tried her best not to cry. He
said nothing.
“So you’re just gonna make me go? After all of this?” she asked. He didn’t know what to
respond, just stared at the headrest of the seats in front instead of looking at her. “It’s after
midnight and my phone died.”
“You only live fifteen minutes away, you’ll be fine.”
“It’s raining.” Isabel waited for him to reply, to say something else, anything else. He didn’t.
Stung, she climbed out of the car into the rain, staring at the car only for a minute before taking
off down the road and bursting into angry tears. Before she knew where she was going, she was
turning away from the direction of her house and stomping down the street, her hands buried in
her pockets and her teeth biting so hard into her lip that she drew blood. She couldn’t go home,
not now. The girls would only want her to go through the entire evening blow by blow, or even
worse, they’d be asleep and she’d be alone. They would eventually be on Louis’ side, dismissing
his actions as him being a stupid boy, that he would come around, that he didn’t mean it.
Everyone she knew was always on Louis’ side. Except…
Harry.
End Notes:
Poor Isabel :(
I wanted to put in a bit of Isabel’s background into this story as family stuff will become more
and more important as this story goes on, I hope you guys liked the little snippet into her past! :)
The person we're still unsure about is Harry though ....
Obviously lots and lots of stuff happened in this chapter so I would love to hear all of your
thoughts over at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com! It’s been lovely hearing from people this week so far
:) See you Thursday for lots and lots of Harry in case you missed him this week, and maybeeeeee
even a bit of Zayn and Niall too ;)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
really, really do see you
February
She only vaguely remembered where Harry lived, but her feet were carrying her there before she
could remind herself what a stupid idea it was. It was raining so heavily that her hair was
plastered to her face, her tears blending with the rain and falling into her open mouth, her teeth
chattering so harshly she thought they might start to fall out.
The rain poured down from the black, black sky with no indication it would ever let up, and
Isabel felt like if there was ever a time for realised pathetic fallacy, this was it. Her chest was like
it was being squeezed, like it had been clamped and everything inside was trying to smash its
way out. Never in her life had she felt this way, never had she wanted to fall in between the
cracks in the pavement and disappear, to crawl to the bottom of the bed her parents had when she
was little and wrap the covers around every single part of her and curl up there forever.
She walked for so long, tripping over uneven parts of the pavement that were concealed by
puddles and sobbing so hard her throat hurt. Her clothes were sodden, sticking to her skin like
wet newspaper that’s been blown onto the pavement and trodden on by hundreds of feet,
pathetically clinging to the ground. Eventually, though, she wandered into a street with larger
houses that had iron gates and trimmed hedges, with family cars parked outside and loft
extensions, and she realised she was close.
A man with a black umbrella and a briefcase was walking just in front of her, and although it was
complete stupidity to speak to a strange man when it was past midnight and she had no phone
battery, she was desperate. She ran and grabbed his arm, and he jumped about a foot in the air in
surprise, yelping loudly.
“Fucking Christ!” he yelled. “I thought you were going to rob me! Fuck!”
“I’m so sorry,” Isabel said, and her voice was noticeably hoarse and broken from crying. “It’s
just – I’m sorry, it’s just really need directions to Southdown Avenue, do you know how I get
there?”
“It’s just three streets that way,” he replied, squinting down at her. “Are you all right, love?”
“Just fine,” she assured him unconvincingly. “Thank you. And sorry about scaring you.”
She ran the rest of the way, nearly tripping over three times, finally making it to Harry’s
road. Number 17, she repeated to herself over and over again as she sprinted the rest of the street,
eventually stopping outside the big black door and not hesitating for a moment before
hammering on the wood.
She only had to wait a few seconds before the door swung open, and she was completely ready
to collapse into Harry’s arms, a sob breaking from her lips when a confused Niall stared back at
her.
“Jesus,” he said. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Where’s Harry?” she gasped, her chest heaving as she struggled to regain her breath after
running. She laid a hand over her heart, running the other hand through her soaking hair
frantically. “I need Harry, where’s Harry?!”
“It’s all right babe, calm down,” Niall said, pulling her inside and shutting the door behind her.
As she stood in the hall, water dripping from her hair and clothes and creating a puddle on the
wood floor, her strangled gasps and echoing around the room, Niall bounced worriedly in front
of her and flapped his arms in confusion. “What happened?”
Zayn came into the hall, Xbox controller in hand, and raised his eyebrows. “Isabel, are you all
right?”
“Of course she’s not all-fucking-right!” Niall snapped. “What the fuck is wrong with her,
Zayn?”
Zayn walked over, gripping her shoulders and staring into her eyes as Isabel struggled to breath.
“Do you need some water?”
She nodded, and Zayn led her into the kitchen, barking at Niall to get her towels and a change of
clothes. Now that furniture had been brought back in after the party, Isabel could see that the
entire downstairs, besides the hall, was open plan – sofas and a TV, paused on a game of FIFA,
sat to the side of the familiar kitchen. Zayn made her sit on the counter as he poured her a glass
of water and she downed it with big, desperate gulps.
“Slow down,” he said quietly, rubbing her arm comfortingly. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
Niall scampered into the kitchen with a towel, throwing it over her shoulders and chewing on his
nails, looking at Zayn for instructions.
“Better?” Zayn asked her with a smile, and she nodded.
“How do you know what you’re doing?” Niall hissed at Zayn, lowering his voice in the hope
Isabel wouldn’t hear.
“Sisters,” Zayn replied shortly.
“Where’s Harry?” she asked again timidly, sniffing away the last of her tears. The boys
exchanged a glance.
“He’s busy,” was all Niall offered.
“Will he be back soon?”

“Oh, he’s here. He’s upstairs,” Zayn explained, raising his eyebrows. “He’s busy.”
Isabel understood, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Her shoulders slumped slightly. “Oh.”
“You can tell us what happened?” Niall said eagerly, his fingers still in his mouth.
“Did you walk far in that rain? You’re soaked,” Zayn observed.
She nodded. “From Louis’ house, it’s near mine.”
Niall frowned. “That’s fucking ages away! You walked on your own?”
Isabel nodded again and Niall’s frown only deepened.
“Why on earth did you do that?” he shouted. “You could have been raped or something!” His
face fell. “Wait – you weren’t …”
“No, Niall,” she said, and he nodded seriously, his nails returning to his mouth.
“Boyfriend trouble?” Zayn asked, and she hesitated before giving a small nod.
“I just – I couldn’t go home, those girls, they’re my best friends but they’re his friends too.
They’ll always defend him. I couldn’t go home. I’m so sorry I came here, I didn’t mean to ruin
your night.” She blinked back more tears, wondering how on earth they were still coming after
all the crying she’d already done.
“It’s fine,” Zayn said with a smile, squeezing her knee. “Niall and I were literally just starting a
game of FIFA. Not exactly wild.”
“Our night’s already over, and it wasn’t a great one at that,” Niall added, swigging from Isabel’s
glass of water.
“Yeah, Harry made us go out even though we’ve got early classes tomorrow. None of us were
that up for getting slaughtered, except for him.”
She rubbed her face, a smudge of black marking her hand. “Oh, all my make-up’s ran, hasn’t
it?”
“Yeah, no offence but you look terrifying,” Niall said, and she laughed half-heartedly. “I got you
some clothes, go get changed and clean yourself up.”
When Isabel returned from the bathroom with a washed face and Niall’s t-shirt and sweatpants
on (which were a little tight over her thighs considering they were made for men, but she wasn’t
in the mood to overanalyse that right now), the boys were playing FIFA again, a cup of tea
waiting for her.
Despite the horrific mood she was in, she smiled as she watched them arguing about the game,
sprawled out across the sofa with Niall’s feet in Zayn’s face. Unlike most of Louis’ friends, who
saw girls as a kind of walking, talking blow-up doll, the way they’d acted with her tonight could
only be seen as unmotivated, unadulterated kindness. Maybe she was just exhausted, emotionally
and physically, but she didn’t even feel weird having no make up on in front of them. That said a
lot.
She went to sit down by the two of them, holding the tea with both hands to warm her up, and
Zayn smiled warmly at her. Niall glanced at Zayn, who nodded. “You can stay here tonight, if
you want.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I don’t think going home now would be a good idea.”
“And you can talk to Harry tomorrow,” Zayn added. “When he’s… done.”
Isabel eyed the two of them, blowing her tea to cool it down. “How come Harry always seems to
pull, and you two just hang around like the Chuckle Brothers?”
Niall’s jaw fell open in mock offence. “You’ve only met me once before!”
“You’ve only ever met us times when we’re not allowed to pull,” Zayn explained.
“Not allowed? Who says?”
“The girls,” Niall said, itching his neck as his eyes glazed over. “When we do things the five of
us, like we did tonight, they don’t let us pull. Last year we did all the time and they got sick of
it.”
“Caitlin and Liv,” Zayn said for Isabel’s benefit. “They run a tight ship.”
“And actually, for your information,” Niall cut in suddenly, pointing a finger at her, “we both
pulled on the night of Harry’s party, after you ran off with your boyfriend.”
Zayn winced at the mention of Louis, glancing at Isabel as though expecting her to burst into
tears, but she merely sniffed. “So Harry gets to break all the rules, does he?”
“Well the girls aren’t happy about it,” Zayn grumbled. “He doesn’t usually, to be fair. He was a
bit – a bit off tonight.”
“Yeah,” Niall nodded. “He smoked and everything. You know he doesn’t usually do weed,
right? He’s like totally against it. We get sermonised every other fucking day. So when he does
it’s like, a massive deal.”
“Why does he hate it so much?”

Zayn shrugged. “He just does. There’s some things about Harry that you don’t question. It’s just
the way he is.”
A little while and one match of FIFA later – Niall was victorious, six-four – the three of them
headed to bed having agreed that Isabel would have to sleep in Niall’s bed. Zayn’s room was
apparently a total mess of art stuff that he didn’t want Isabel to trip over or accidentally mess up,
and he refused to sleep anywhere other than on his own precious mattress and under his own
precious duvet. Downstairs was supposedly much too cold, and so the only option left was
bunking up with Niall.
Zayn leant Isabel a toothbrush from a stash of them he kept in the bathroom – “for when people”
(read: girls) “unexpectedly stay over” – and said goodnight with a smile and another squeeze of
her arm.
Considering that this was only the second time she’d met Niall,, she felt horrendously awkward
as she took off the tight sweatpants, pulling the shirt as far down her thighs as she could before
jumping into bed and pulling the covers up to her neck like a child scared of monsters. Niall
didn’t even look at her once; he was scrolling through his phone with his arm flung behind his
head.
“Your room is very neat, Niall,” she observed, rolling over so that her back was to him.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I like things to be in the right place.”
He turned off the light, shuffling down into the bed and yanking the covers slightly. Isabel knew
already that she had a long night ahead – Niall was a duvet hogger, clearly.
“Night, Isabel.”
“Night,” she replied, listening to him yawn.
“Don’t worry about the boyfriend thing,” he said sleepily. “If it’s meant to be, it will work out.”
She allowed herself a small smile into the pillow at his childlike philosophy. His breathing
deepened almost immediately, falling asleep within about five seconds, and Isabel just lay there
listening, counting his breath. In the quiet darkness, as she lay in this still, unfamiliar house, her
eyes drooped and, for the first time that night, she felt properly calm.
When she heard a soft bang her eyes shot open. Niall didn’t stir at all, but she heard it again. And
again. And again. And then a feminine, high-pitched moan, muffled because of the brick and
plaster and paint that lay between her and its source. She remembered from her last trip here
what lay on the other side of this wall. Harry’s room.
She wondered how many times Niall had heard Harry with a girl, how many times he’d lain in
bed and heard Harry’s headboard smack repeatedly against the wall. She wondered what it felt
like to be Harry’s girl for the night, or longer in Caro’s case, what it felt like to be with him. She
wondered whether he’d ever told a girl he loved her, whether she’d said it back, whether he
showed her how much he cared with kisses and adoring gazes and soft touches. Whether he’d
had a girl who could call him hers, and she was his.
And the thought of Harry gazing at someone with warmth in his eyes so strong it could knock
you over, and telling them he loved them, that they were his favourite person in the whole world,
was the thought she fell asleep to.
~~~
“Wake up, Isabel.”
Someone was shaking her roughly, and when Isabel opened her eyes groggily, wincing away
from the sun like a newborn animal, Niall was standing at the side of the bed fully dressed,
crouching over her with wide eyes.
“What time is it?”
“8:13,” he said brightly. “I’ve got to go into uni soon and I thought you might want a lift home.
Do you have a lecture or something today?”
“Oh yeah,” she replied croakily. “Oh fuck.”
He chuckled, standing back so that she could get out of bed. She ran a hand through her messy
hair as he gathered some things from his desk and shoved them into a rucksack.
“What degree do you do, Niall?” she asked with a yawn.
“Digital Media Arts,” he replied. “Graphics and that. Cool stuff. Your clothes are in the
bathroom by the way, Zayn put them on the radiator to dry.” He looked in a small mirror hanging
over the desk, running a hand through his hair in an effort to make it stick up. “I’ve been up for
fucking ages, I always wake up early when I bun the night before. Awkward conversation with
Harry’s shag is worth it though. Fucking hilarious.”
“Oh, so she’s gone already?” Isabel asked as they headed towards the door.
“Yeah, she left at like 6 this morning when Harry got up. Always priceless. He’s the most
awkward guy in the mornings, you wouldn’t believe.”
Isabel laughed, heading through the doorway into the hall in front of Niall, and with a jolt of
surprise, nearly smacked headfirst into Harry.
She did a double take when she saw what he looked like. He was covered head to toe in sweat, a
backwards snapback shoved over his curls as he stood with a black shirt balled up in one of his
fists and black running shorts slung much too low on his hips. Her eyes would have been pinned
to the hard grooves of his lower abdominals, deep trenches of muscle disappearing into his
shorts, if she wasn’t distracted by shockingly fluorescent yellow running shoes.
“What are you doing here?” he said rudely, and her head snapped up, her cheeks staining pink.
He glared at her and then froze, doing a similar revaluation to Isabel’s as his eyes skimmed over
her ruffled hair, oversized t-shirt and bare legs. Niall came out of the room behind her, shutting
his bedroom door, and for a moment Harry’s face screwed up in confusion, his eyes widening
and his eyebrows pulling together.
“Did you two fuck?” he asked impolitely, the volume of his voice rising as his eyes flickered
from Niall to Isabel and his nostrils flared.
“Of course not,” Niall scoffed, although he added jokily, “It’s a school night, bro, we’re not all
animals like you.”
Harry rearranged his face into an amused half-smile as Niall smacked him on the chest and
headed towards the stairs.
“Plus,” Niall went on, “it was meant to be family night last night. Caitlin and Liv are gonna kill
you.”
Harry laughed, and Isabel’s eyes lingered on the way his chest rose and fell as he did so, the
sweat glistening over two swallow tattoos just below his collar bones. “How dead am I on a scale
of one to ten?”
“I’d say a six from Liv, nine from Caitlin.” Harry laughed again, and Niall nudged Harry’s new
shoes with his foot. “How far did you run today?”
“Twelve miles,” Harry said and Niall tried his best to look unimpressed. “I’ve got a way to go
yet.”
“Fuck, go on mate!” He whistled appreciatively. “Well, on that fine note, I’m gonna go and eat
my body weight in Coco Pops,” Niall said merrily, giving Harry a final slap on the shoulder.
“See you downstairs in a minute, Is.”
Harry turned his gaze to look at Isabel with unfriendly eyes, so different from the jovial look
he’d just given Niall. She wrenched her gaze away from his chest with some difficulty and
attempted to smile at him.
“Hi, Harry,” she tried. “You okay?”
“Why are you here, Isabel?” Harry questioned, his tone bored.
“I um – it doesn’t matter now,” she replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready to leave.”
She tried to brush past him, but he gripped her arm and held her in place.
“Did something actually happen with Niall?” he asked, his nostrils flaring. “Cos if so, that’s bad,
even for you.”
She blinked at him. “What do you mean, even for me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on,” was all he said.
The fact he thought so badly of her when she thought they were friends now made her breath
constrict in her throat. “Niall and I are just friends,” she said quietly, her voice wobbling.
“Friends?” he scowled. “You’re not friends with anyone here! I’m still struggling to work out
why the fuck you’re in my fucking house at all!”
“Okay,” she responded, entirely defeated and exhausted. “Sorry for intruding.”
She looked at him briefly, feeling the sting of the numerous rejections she’d received in the past
twelve hours snap hotly under her skin. He stared back, blank and cold.
“Sorry,” she said again, and then shuffled away from him towards the bathroom.
Just when she thought she’d managed to escape, Harry was striding after her. He grabbed her
arm and pulled her towards him, and one look at his face told her he understood what was
wrong.
“What happened with Louis?” he asked, his breath coming out in a thick burst as he looked down
at her with intense ferocity.
“Don’t,” was all she said, but he didn’t move, only gripped her tighter.
“You can tell me.”
She yanked her arm up and away from his tight hold, so fiercely that the t-shirt rode up and
exposed her knickers. His eyes flickered down and she pulled the t-shirt down across her thighs
quickly, cheeks flaming, her mouth drying up.
He looked up at her flaming cheeks with a dark look in his eyes, and all at once he was smiling,
pressing both of his palms on the wall on either side of her face, moving so close that her back
ended up pressed against the wall.
“Don’t cover up on account of me, baby,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her ear so that
the stray curls poking out from under his snapback brushed against her cheek and she could feel
his tongue against her earlobe when he spoke.
“Maybe I don’t want you to see me,” she choked out, her voice pathetic and barely audible as her
skin started to burn for reasons entirely other than embarrassment, her heart hammering in her
throat.
His nose brushed the upper ridge of her ear, making her eyes flutter shut as he pushed his hips
against hers. “But I have, and I am, and I really, really do see you,” he whispered in a rasp, and
she had no idea what he was talking about but she understood very, very clearly that his teeth
were scratching against her ear and his breath was hot on her neck and his hips were pressed
against hers and, most of all, that she never, ever wanted him to move. “What would that
boyfriend of yours say if he could see you now?”
He stared down at her, his gaze hard and unwavering, eyes burning bright as she blinked back at
him like a deer in headlights. Before she even knew what was happening he leaned towards her,
brushing the tips of their noses together and tilting his head back. Her lips were parted to assist
her heavy breathing, and Harry opened his own, holding them less than inch away from hers so
she could feel his breath tickling her lips.
She could have pulled back, but she didn’t want to, and when he didn’t move towards her she
couldn’t help but inch forward, getting so close that she could almost feel the heat of his lips
when –
“I thought as much,” he whispered, his mouth turning up into a smile that she could barely see he
was so close.
He pushed off the wall, giving her one last look as she clung to the wall like she was on a ledge,
her heart beating frantically in her mouth and her chest heaving. Then with an uninterested smirk
he sauntered to his room and shut the door without a backwards glance.
~~~
When Isabel stepped out of her lecture that afternoon, exhausted from the events from the night
before and depressed after an intense presentation about Protestantism in the 1600s, the last
person in the world she had expected to see was Caitlin, leaning against a tree and scowling.
Isabel waved uncertainly, and when Caitlin waved back with a sarcastic smile, Isabel took that as
her cue to go over.
“Hey Caitlin, how are you?”
“Fine,” Caitlin replied, stomping her cigarette on the ground and looking up at Isabel with a
glare. “I need to talk to you.”
“Sure,” Isabel said. “I, uh, how – how did you know I was here?”
“I asked someone. Apparently you’re a ‘big name on campus’.” From anyone else it may have
been a compliment, but Caitlin said it with raised eyebrows and a sneer that made Isabel feel
ashamed. “I’m sorry that I came here to say this, I know you’ve probably got some fancy plans
with your boyfriend.”
Isabel blinked at her blankly, taken aback. “Why would I have fancy plans with Louis?”
Caitlin snorted. “Its Valentine’s Day. That’s what you people do, isn’t it?”
When Isabel said nothing, Caitlin sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Look, I’m not trying
to be a bitch or ambush you or anything, so I’m just gonna say it. You need to tell your boyfriend
to stop.”
“What?”
“Tell him that he can’t sell drugs to Harry anymore, okay?”
“Harry doesn’t do drugs,” Isabel said with pulled in eyebrows, utterly confused.
“I know he doesn’t,” Caitlin replied through gritted teeth. “Which is why I was horrified when he
turns up last night with nearly £50 worth of weed and forces us all to go out.” She took a deep
breath and looked down at her feet, shuffling them hastily. “He goes a little mad sometimes, has
U-turns for a night and gives up his resolve. Then he feels shit about it for weeks and I’m not
having that. I’m sick of picking up the pieces. So you tell your boyfriend to back the fuck off and
sell it to someone else, all right?”
“Louis was with me as soon as I left Harry last night, so it wasn’t him that sold it,” Isabel
explained, but her palms were sweating and her mouth had dried up. Why did Harry do that?
“Fine.” Caitlin held up her hands. “Sure, it wasn’t him. There’s other people round here, I get it.
But if Harry ever comes to Louis, or anyone associated with him, I’d like to know that, as his
friend, you stopped them from giving anything to him.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme?” Isabel countered, knowing even from her
limited knowledge that reasoning with drug dealers and trying to cut people off was a pretty
useless effort. “It’s only a bit of weed, Caitlin, some people do it every day –”
“I’m not just talking about fucking weed, arsehole,” Caitlin hissed. “Yeah, maybe this time, but
we’ve all seen worse. You may think you know him, but you don’t, okay? So just stop asking
questions and being a little bitch about it and give me your word.”
Isabel felt like she’d been slapped.
She turned red, her jaw dropping slightly as Caitlin glared at her. She opened her mouth to say
something back, to argue or maybe even apologise, she wasn’t sure which, but shut it abruptly
when she suddenly realised why Caitlin had done this. The answer seemed suddenly so glaringly
obvious that she felt like an idiot for never realising before.
Caitlin was in love with Harry.
That would explain why Harry always mentioned her so much and why she had been so rude to
Isabel when they’d first met. Why Caitlin had showed up here at all. Isabel realised with a
strange ache in her chest that Caitlin was protective of him, wanted the best for him, loved him,
and he didn’t love her back. Isabel of all people should know that people sometimes do things
they’re not proud of when they’re in love.
“Okay, I’ll speak to him.”
“Thanks,” Caitlin nodded, running a hand through her hair again. There was a prolonged,
awkward silence. “Well, I’ve got to get back to uni, so…”
“Yeah, I’m just gonna head to the library, actually.”
Caitlin nodded again as Isabel shuffled awkwardly. “Happy Valentine’s Day, then.”
“Yeah, you too,” Isabel replied and Caitlin scoffed.
“See you around.”
Caitlin walked off, her feet scuffing along the pavement in heavy Doc Martens similar to
Isabel’s, shoving headphones into her ears as soon as she was clear. There’d been a time she’d
wished that she was more like the girls Harry considered to be his friends, but now Isabel
thought that maybe they weren’t so different after all.
When Caitlin was out of sight, Isabel turned, wandering off across the grass and clutching her
notepad to her chest. She had a while before she had to go to Film Society, and she wasn’t
looking forward to it for once. It would inevitably be a horrifically depressing evening at the
back of Lecture Hall 3 watching The Guardian’s top two most romantic films of all
time (Casablanca and Brief Encounter), and even for a girl who loved chick flicks, Isabel wasn’t
in the mood.
She stopped off at the little shop on campus to buy a rather large selection of chocolate, just to
help her through the day, before marching up the hill to the library. She might as well try and do
some work.
As soon as she got there, though, she realised there was no way in hell she was actually going to
get any work done. She just wasn’t in the right mood for the Spanish Civil War, and there was
bound to be people she knew downstairs in the group study area. She was right – as soon as
reached the bottom, Scarlett waved her over.
There weren’t many people on Scarlett’s table and Isabel slid into the vacant seat next to her,
dumping her books and chocolate on the table and deliberating which one to start with. She went
for the Twix.
“You all right?” Scarlett asked. “You didn’t come home last night?”
Isabel had no intention of telling any of the girls what had happened between her Louis, so she
shrugged. “I was with Louis,” she said with a full mouth.
She was an awful liar, and Scarlett knew. “Well, I found some children’s books on the doormat
this morning,” Scarlett told her. “They had a note saying ’You left this in my car yesterday’.”
If Isabel hadn’t cried enough yesterday she may well have broken into tears.
“Oh,” she said.
Scarlett popped open a packet of Maltesers and pushed her notes away. “Tell all.”
And so she told Scarlett everything, starting from her and Harry’s trip to the shop when she’d
bought Ruby’s present, each word tightening the knot that had formed in her chest until her eyes
burned but no tears came out. Scarlett had done exactly as Isabel had expected; smiled
sympathetically and told her he’d come around eventually, that he was being stupid. Isabel tried
her best not to be disappointed, but it felt like nobody was on her side, and that was the saddest
feeling of all.
“Your phone’s buzzing,” Scarlett pointed out after Isabel had finished her story, her mouth full
of Maltesers. “It could be Louis?”
“It won’t be,” Isabel replied, but she still scrambled to check if it was him anyway.
From: Harry Styles, at 15:36

Zayn and Niall told me how upset you were last night.. I’m really sorry I was busy and wasn’t
there to talk about it.
Isabel looked at the message with a frown, ignoring the memories of being half naked with his
lips barely a few centimetres away from hers and slowly going to type her reply. She was startled
when another one flashed up before she could click send.

If you want to talk about it to me another time you can :-)
From: Isabel Allen, at 15:37

Okay. I’ll bear that in mind, thanks
“Is it Louis?” asked Scarlett.
“No,” Isabel replied. “It’s Harry.”

I feel baaaaaaad…

Why should you feel bad? I shouldn’t have come, it was stupid and I’m embarrassed about it
now. I’m sorry
“Harry?” Scarlett said in confusion. “Like the Harry from work? The one Millie thinks is hot?”
“Yeah,” Isabel confirmed, unsure how to explain this. She settled on: “We text sometimes.”
“Oh my God,” Scarlett squealed, clapping her hands loudly so a number of people looked over.
“I have the best idea!”

Don’t be embarrassed or sorry, that’s only making me feel worse! If it’s any consolation, I’m
going to work in a bit and I just know it’s gonna be the busiest fucking day. I just don’t
understand why anyone would take their girlfriends BOWLING on Valentine’s Day?! Is that
actually romantic?!
Isabel felt the corners of her mouth tug up at the message, immediately going to type her reply.
“Isabel! Are you listening?”
“Yes, sorry!”
“You should go out with Harry!”
That caught her attention. “What?”
“Make Louis jealous! It’s foolproof, it works every time.”
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, looking around nervously before bursting out into a laugh.
“And oh my god, no.”

My Valentine’s Day consists of sitting in the library texting you and then crying over some chick
flicks – I think I’d take bowling if it were offered.
“Why not?”
Isabel sighed, putting her phone down and turning to face her friend. “Because A, Harry would
never go out with me. B, I don’t want to go out with Harry. And C, Louis would never ever get
jealous. He doesn’t care enough.”
“Don’t be stupid! All boys get jealous, it’s like a primal thing! They’re predatory when it comes
to girls!”
“I’m never gonna go out with Harry, Scarlett,” Isabel concluded, picking up her phone again.
“Plus, why are you being so hasty? Louis and I aren’t even broken up yet.”
On reflection, the word “yet” wasn’t exactly a good sign.

Ouch. That cut me deep. Michael will have to wipe my tears for me later (he’s a much till
operator than you, by the way)
“Oh my God, he’s totally flirting with you!” Scarlett squawked, leaning and sticking her head
right in front of Isabel’s view of the phone.
“No he’s not!” Isabel whispered, swatting her out the way. “He’s a total player! Literally every
single time I’ve seen him outside of work he’s got with another girl, and he’s never showed an
ounce of interest in me. I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near a guy like him.”
She might have just slightly been lying, because she would very much like to go near Harry if he
was shirtless and sweaty again like he had been this morning. She’d been thinking
about that quite a lot, actually.

I’d better hope you girls won’t do anything of the sort. I’ll tell Dan what a skiver you are.
“You went near Louis. Wasn’t he just exactly the same?”
Scarlett made a good point, there was no denying that. “I – I guess so.”
“He was! He used to sleep with random girls all the time. He sounds exactly the same, and you
didn’t have a problem then.”
“You’re meant to be Louis’ friend,” Isabel reminded her, and Scarlett rolled her eyes. “You’re
not meant to be trying to set you up with random guys.”
“I’m not trying to set you up, I’m trying to knock some sense into Louis and use a random guy
along the way. I’m being a great friend.”
“I’m not talking to you about this anymore,” Isabel declared, pulling Scarlett’s notes back
towards her and patting them. “You’ve got work to do.”
“Fine,” snapped Scarlett. “But if you had any brain cells and you weren’t so stupidly meek all
the time, you’d see this is a perfectly reasonable idea.”
Isabel ignored her and turned back to her phone, waiting eagerly for Harry’s reply. It was an
absolutely horrific idea, one that she would only mess up and inevitably end up embarrassing
herself in front of all of Harry’s friends. She wasn’t the type of girl to do something like that, let
alone ever actually pull it off. The fear of rejection and of embarrassment and of hurting both her
and Harry’s feelings was much too strong and she never even considered actually doing it for a
moment. She’d leave stunts like this for the girls in films to take care of.
Except when Harry’s name flashed up on her phone, a tiny voice in her head told her that even
though she knew she never would, spending all that time with him and listening to him speak
about himself and laying in his bed listening to music and kissing and kissing and kissing him
and maybe even being the girl that Niall could hear through the bedroom wall – all to make Louis
jealous, obviously – wouldn’t be such a horrendous ordeal really. Not at all.

Okay, I know a threat when I see one.. I’ll leave you to your Valentine’s Date with your chick
flicks. Hope they’re good to you.

And I’ll leave you to your Valentine’s Date with Michael. Hope he’s good to you…in bed

You’re ridiculous.
End Notes:
So in the post-apocalyptic world I’m living in after I managed to screw up one exam and pitifully
hobble through the rest, I actually managed to get this up! Yaaaaaay!
I hope you guys enjoyed a bit of mother-hen Zayn and anxious little puppy Niall! (I love him.)
And a lot of moody, angry, confusing, very shirtless Harry.
We got to know a bit more about Harry’s past via Caitlin – what are everyone’s opinions on her,
by the way? – and what do you think? Do you understand Harry a bit more or are you even more
confused? Reckon Harry and Isabel will be friends next chapter or not? And even though she’s
not gonna do it, what do you think Harry would do if he ever found out about Scarlett’s little
plan?
Also I just quickly wanted to add that people have been saying they’ve been rec’d to come read
BDC which just makes me sooo happy so thank you :) keep rec-ing and reviewing and just
enjoying it and I’ll love you forever and ever and ever
See you Sunday for paintballing (??) and the ultimate brotp Zarry causing some
trouble!! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
lock me up
February/March
When Harry saw Isabel’s name flash up on his phone, he really deeply considered ignoring the
call for a good number of rings before finally giving in and answering.
“Yes?”
“Hi Harry!” she said brightly. “Are you at the station?”
“Yes,” Harry replied flatly.
“Oh brilliant, I knew you’d be early. Me too.” Harry could hear the proud smile in her voice, and
he gritted his teeth, a headache forming in his left temple. If he knew anything about Isabel, he
knew her being early was an occasion worth celebrating. It was a shame he wasn’t in the mood.
“Where are you?”
“By the platform. I’m waiting for someone to make my tea in Caffé Nero.”
“Is anyone else there yet?”
“No,” Harry said, seeing the barista waving his tea in the air and screeching his name. “I’ve got
to go.”
He hung up on her, shoving his phone into the pocket of his jeans and grasping the tea, taking a
gulp immediately even though it burned the roof of his mouth.
“That’s £2.30,” the barista reminded him, and he nearly dropped the drink in embarrassment.
“Shit yeah, sorry,” he said, setting the drink back down on the counter and reaching for his
wallet. He felt the familiar pang of anxiety as he rooted around for small change, counting out
the last 20p in coppers. He was very careful with his money usually, setting aside a prearranged
figure a month in a box that he kept in the bottom drawer of his bedside chest of drawers,
allowing just enough in his wallet to get by. He knew with a humiliating kick in his gut that he’d
inevitably have to ask Niall every few weeks for a tenner or so, but there was little else he could
do.
This is what happens when you raid the box and spend all your month’s wages on draw, stupid
prick, he berated himself as he shoved the coins over with trembling fingers. You have to pay for
a fucking drink with pennies you found under Niall’s bed.
Everyone else arrived fairly quickly, the staff population of Palace Front Bowling crowding on
the platform as Harry’s head continued to throb. Isabel was still absent, but Harry decided not to
worry about it.
When his phone rang again, he answered without looking who was calling.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me,” Isabel said, and he scowled. “Where is everyone? Where are you?”
“We’re all here, where are you?”
He could almost hear her frowning in confusion. “But I’m here?”
“You’re on platform 13? Train to Henfield?”
There was a long silence. “No,” she said quietly. “Platform 2, train to Heathfield.”
Harry groaned in exasperation.
“Oh my God!” she whimpered. “I was early for once, and now I’m going to make everyone late!
I’m so sorry, Harry, I must have got confused!”
“Just hurry up and get here,” he spat. This was such an Isabel thing to do. “Train leaves in eight
minutes.”
“I’m coming as fast as I can, I –”
He hung up on her again, getting on the train with everyone else and setting his bag on the seat
next to him. He wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone today. He rested his head back on the seat
and squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling through his mouth slowly and trying to clear his mind.
His eyes snapped open when someone threw themselves down into the seat next to him.
“I put my bag there so you wouldn’t sit here,” he snarled at Isabel, yanking it from underneath
her and throwing her a glare. She couldn’t reply. She was panting, her face red and her hair
sticking up in every direction.
“Did you run?” he asked, unable to stop a smirk creeping onto his face. She gripped the table,
squeezing her eyes shut and struggling to draw in a breath as the train pulled away. He frowned,
concern spreading slowly across his face until his bottom lip was sucked into his mouth
anxiously and his eyes were wide. “Are you all right? Do you have asthma?”
She shook her head, and Harry reached into his bag and handed her a bottle of water. She gulped
it down manically.
“All right, fucking hell,” Harry snapped, snatching it from her.
“It was far,” Isabel said breathlessly.

Harry said nothing, looking away from her, and they sat in silence for a while. He took that as his
cue to close his eyes, leaning his head back and listening to her now steady breathing. He could
feel her staring at him, and if he wasn’t in such a foul mood he might have smirked.
He had expected her to be awkward today, and he was right. They hadn’t had a proper
conversation since Harry’s face-to-face apology at work after The Bathroom Incident a little
under two weeks ago. He’d tried his best to be friendly and sincere about it, just like he had been
in his texts to her the day after the Incident, knowing with strong, frequent punches of guilt that
he’d been weird with her, and way out of order, but his indirect reminder that he’d pinned her to
the wall had her blushing and unable to meet his eyes for a whole hour, and it had given Harry a
weird twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach that meant he never tried to rekindle the
friendship again.
The worst part was she was trying much too hard with him even though he knew it was
mortifying for her, and the more she pulled the more he resisted. It was a funny thing that. He
remembered when he was younger and his brother Adam kicked a football through the kitchen
window and blamed it on Harry. Harry had to pay for the new window with his pocket money,
and his dad had shouted at him for hours about how irresponsible he was, how he could have
hurt the new baby Callum if Mum hadn’t taken him out of the kitchen just minutes before. Adam
apologised again and again but the more he did the more Harry refused to accept it, and finally
Adam stopped and shrugged his shoulders and walked off, and then suddenly Harry was
desperate, scurrying after him with his heart in his mouth and he ended up being the one to say
sorry.
A funny thing, Harry thought, is that the problem with people is that they like to watch others
squirm and he wasn’t sure why. He’d always believed it was because they could remind
themselves that the other person cares, feels strongly enough about you to try again and again,
because that’s what it was with Adam, because it was amazing that, for a few hours, all Adam –
his older, cleverer, funnier, better brother - wanted was Harry to be okay with him. But then he
reminded himself quite forcefully that he doesn’t care whether Isabel cares about him or not and
then he suddenly got that punch of guilt again.
“Have you ever been paintballing before then, Harry?” she squeaked. Acting like she wasn’t
feeling awkward, when she so obviously was, was such an Isabel thing to do. He glanced over at
her, watching how she avoided his eyes and blushed, a little sweep of coral creeping from her
neck and polluting the skin of her cheeks. He swallowed.
“No,” he said bluntly.
“Me neither, it should be fun,” she replied. “I reckon I’ll be rubbish, though.”
He grunted in an effort to end the conversation.
“Hey, Harry?”
She was poking him, and he whipped round to look at her with a scowl. “What?”
“I’m really sorry about intruding in your house the other day,” she said, throwing him a small
smile. “I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything. I get that it must have been a
shock, and I’m sorry. And thanks for apologising for…” She looked away and Harry’s stomach
twisted again. “Um, yeah, well thanks. And sorry.”
He stared at her blankly. “Okay,” was all he said.
She beamed up at him. “Great. I bought snacks if you want some?”
“No thanks,” he replied, looking away from her. “I need to read my book,” he added, hoping
she’d get the hint and shut up. Clearly if he sat here trying to sleep she would keep talking at
him, and his headache was spreading like wildfire.
“I brought dried fruit?” she coaxed with another smile. He frowned.
“Dried fruit? As a snack?”
She nodded. “I like stuff like that. Only thing I don’t like is Chinese food. And raisins, I hate
raisins.” She blinked at him for a second and then kept babbling. “When I was younger my
brother used to go to the shops and buy things I liked with raisins in just to annoy me. Like he
bought all of these flapjacks and made a huge show of eating them in front of me and then when
I went to eat one they had raisins in.”
“I like flapjacks,” Harry said dumbly, and then looked away with a scowl and opened his bag.
“Absolutely riveting story, by the way, I was on the edge of my seat.”
He imagined she started blushing. Good.
“What’s wrong?” she asked when he groaned loudly, opening a packet of dried apricots and
popping one in her mouth. He stared just for a moment at the curve of her lips, got lost in the soft
pinkness of her mouth, his own lips falling apart very slightly.
“I just remembered I forgot my headphones,” he mumbled.
“Oh, here, have mine!” she offered, pulling them out of her phone and shoving them at him. “I
work better with music, so I guess you do too.”
He waited for there to be a catch, but there wasn’t. “Thanks,” he said eventually.
He shoved them in his ears and opened his book without another word. Isabel stared at him for a
while, chewing the dried apricots slowly before sighing and looking away.
Isabel had thought that maybe, following their friendly text conversation, her and Harry’s
relationship wouldn’t be tainted by The Bathroom Incident, but there was a definite uneasiness
between them. She had no idea why her argument with Louis in the rain had made him do a
complete U-Turn with his attitude, but she wasn’t about to ask him when he was in such a foul
mood with her.
In quiet moments at work, Harry poured over huge books about portraiture, hunching over them
as he read, his lips moving silently as his tired eyes scanned the page, the black bruises from lack
of sleep beneath them growing every time Isabel saw him. And in moments when they had to
speak, he acted like he hated her.
Isabel didn’t mind. She was used to be being berated a bit, and having two older siblings meant
she’d learned how to accept people being rude and moody and offensive. She knew he probably
just felt a bit awkward, like she did, and he didn’t know how to handle it, because those texts
he’d sent her the day after the Incident were nice enough. She was resilient enough not to let one
little awkward moment put her off.
Ultimately, she was sick of being rude to Harry, snapping at him and letting her temper get the
better of her. If her argument with Louis had showed her anything it was that Harry’s friends
were decent people, and by extension that meant Harry was too, and she should treat him the
way she treated everyone else even if he made it his mission to put her off.
So Harry couldn’t get rid of her so easily. Much to Harry and Caitlin’s absolute horror, Niall and
Zayn had taken to inviting Isabel out with the five of them, and seeing as Louis was avoiding her
whenever possible and effectively distancing her from their entire group of friends, Isabel took
whatever she was given.
“What is she doing here?” Harry had hissed loudly when Isabel had first showed up at Olivia’s
house. It was a week after she had stayed over at the boys’ house on that horrendous night, and
Harry hadn’t exactly been lovely to her at work so she probably should have seen it coming, but
it stung all the same.
Caitlin chose to categorically ignore her, only speaking to her when absolutely forced to by the
other three. Harry usually sat in stony silence, barely speaking to anyone and making Isabel feel
like she was ruining his evening just by sitting there. Which, she realised, she probably was.
Now February half-term for the schools was drawing to a close, as was the month itself, and Dan
was rewarding the staff for working through one of the busiest weeks in the year by taking them
all paintballing.
Isabel hoped this wouldn’t be another thing she ruined for Harry, too.
~~~
“Harry and Michael, you two be team captains.”
The seventeen employees and Dan were crowded in a semi-circle, all in white jumpsuits and
matching apprehensive expressions. Dan made Harry and Michael toss a coin, seeing who could
pick first. Harry won with tails.
Isabel smiled at him. There was no way he would choose anyone else.
“Briony,” he said, flashing a dimpled smile at the pretty brunette girl who worked in the arcade.
She sidled over to him, and Isabel frowned.
She waited to be picked, remembering with hot cheeks the feeling of being picked last in P.E.,
remembering standing there in her stupid gym shorts and staring at the hole in her trainers
praying the floor would open up and swallow her. Harry was purposely not picking her to make
her upset, and although she knew he was a total grade A arsehole, this seemed a little much. A
lot too much, really.
“Isabel,” Michael said eventually, and although she wasn’t the last person, she was in the last
quarter. She smiled at him, going over and taking a deep breath to collect herself, forcing herself
with every inch of willpower she possessed. She wasn’t going to let him win this one.
“You’re going down, Styles,” she joked, shooting him a pretend glare. He rolled his eyes at her
and then went back to Briony. Isabel felt adequately jousted.
The rest of Isabel’s afternoon was spent running around aimlessly in a wood, forgetting all of the
tactics Michael had drilled into her and tripping over twigs, getting more mud on her then paint.
She did actually want to play, but she seemed to have ambled outside of the action, and now was
a bit lost.
She wandered around, clutching her gun and trying to think like an animal, trying to zone her
senses and be hypersensitive to any sound, waiting for a rustle or a twig snapping.
Clearly, as predicted, she was rubbish at this, because out of nowhere she felt searing pain in her
back as five paintballs hit her like bullets. She yelped and fell to her knees, dropping the gun in
the process.
Her assailant laughed, a low chuckle, and she knew even from her position face down on the
floor that his eyes were crinkling up at the corners and a dimple had formed in his cheek.
“It’s cowardly to shoot someone in the back,” she told him, but he only laughed again.
“Your guard was down,” Harry said, walking around so he was standing looming over her. He
was covered in paint, his hair messy and splatters of colour on his cheek.
“That’s not an excuse.”
He shrugged. “You’re awful at this. I wasn’t even being quiet.”
He picked up her gun and gave it back to her before offering her a hand. She grasped it,
intertwining his long, calloused fingers with hers, and yanked him so hard that he fell hard on the
ground next to her with a loud thump.
“What the fuck!” he snapped, and she laughed.
“I grew up with an annoying twat for an older brother,” Isabel grinned. “I know how to play
dirty, too.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he said. Isabel flashed him another smile, and when she caught his gaze she
felt like she could drop dead from the way he was scowling at her. She looked around so she
wouldn’t have to look at him, her cheeks flushing.
“Where’s everyone else?”
Harry shrugged again. “It got boring. I wanted to come and check nobody had murdered you yet,
or you hadn’t fallen down a ditch or something. I knew you’d be terrible at this.”
“Well, cheers,” she grumbled. “I suppose I should be grateful?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, I was only doing it to avoid Briony.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows. “Avoid Briony?”
He nodded. “She was asking too many questions.”
“About what?”
He shuffled on the hard ground, crossing his legs together and leaning back on one hand. He
rubbed his neck unconsciously, his hand ghosting over a purplish bruise forming over what
looked suspiciously like teeth marks, and Isabel deduced that it was new, probably from last
night. She tried not to care. “Just stuff. I’m not in the mood.”
“Hungover?”
He smirked. “A bit. Maybe. I’m coping.”
“Do you just get smashed at every opportunity?”
“I’m a teenager, leave me alone.”
“Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re not a teenager anymore.” She grinned at his
scowl. “Twenty is a big old age, Styles. You better get down on your knees and start repenting
your sins otherwise you’re gonna start adulthood on the wrong foot.”
“I’ll have you know I’m never the one on my knees,” he smirked, holding her gaze steadily with
a wicked glint in his eye while she did her best not to roll her eyes or blush, whichever came
first. “And I have a lot of sins, we’d be there a while.”
“We?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “You think I’d be on my knees as well?” He froze, his
cheeks paling and then splotching pink, and she grinned. “Are you asking me to get on my knees
for you, Harry?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Harry snapped quickly. He paused, licking his lips before
adding: “I never have to ask anyway, don’t worry about that.”
He smirked at her obvious effort to hold her tongue, her face contorting into a scowl. “Oh
really?”
He nodded slowly, dragging his teeth across his lip and blinking at her. “Mmhmm.”
A million different things she wanted to say raced across her tongue – you arrogant
arsehole being the main, most prolific one – but she swallowed it back, choking out a small sigh
instead. Harry was purposely trying to put her off, trying to rile her up so that they could go back
to hating each other.
But she couldn’t let whatever she’d done to offend Harry mess up their friendship so soon. She
was too stubborn to let that happen.
“You are very charming, I guess,” she said with a shrug.
He stared at her blankly for a second, and Isabel felt a sudden kick in her gut, in her chest, in her
throat when a little chink of light hit the side of his face through a gap in the trees and his hair
glinted, thick strands of caramel and cinnamon that curled around the skin of his neck. He had
speckles of green and yellow paint on his left cheek, and a smudge of orange across the bridge of
his nose, the same orange as the flecks in his eyes.
Isabel had always thought that his face was made up of sharp lines – the hard square of his jaw,
the hollow under the score of his cheekbones, the deep cut of the circles under his eyes – but now
she saw the softness, the gentle curve of his pink mouth, the tiny freckles picked out by the sun,
the wariness in his eyes. She saw it all, saw the contradictions and the flaws and the
incongruities, and she was entirely, breathlessly transfixed.
Then his face fell. “Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked in a small voice, his shoulders
slumping.
She gulped. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you? This is how I treat my friends.” He frowned, and
she averted her gaze. “I know I was being unnecessarily rude to you before. I misjudged you, and
- and I’m sorry, Harry.”
He sighed and then stood up, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I don’t need you to be nice to
me,” he said quietly.
“I know you don’t,” she said, biting down on her nails. “Nobody needs people to be nice to
them.”
He just stared at her.
“Are you upset with me for some reason?” she asked. “Is it because I turned down our plans to –
to go off with Louis?”
Harry’s face twitched in annoyance, and he snapped quickly, “Are you fucking kidding me?
Why on earth would that upset me?”
“I don’t know, I just thought –”
“Don’t just think!” he interrupted. “I don’t need you thinking about me or scurrying around
being nice to me, okay? I just honestly need you to leave me the fuck alone. We’re
not friends, all right? And I don’t like you hanging out with my friends either. Just get out of my
life.”
“Oh,” was all Isabel said. She stood up too, biting down hard on her nails in an effort not to cry.
There was only so much she could take before she screamed at him or burst into tears. “I mean I
just…but we were texting and –”
He laughed. “I text a lot of girls, Isabel, don’t think for a second that it makes you special
because it doesn’t.”
She blinked hard, trying to get the tears to halt as he stared at her. “Okay,” she said quietly,
adding in her usual: “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t even sure what she was sorry for, but sometimes she
just felt like she needed to say it.
For a moment he hovered there, her apology making him freeze, his eyes widening. And then:
“Don’t fucking apologise,” he growled, whirling on his heels and stalking off through the woods.
After a moment, Isabel trailed after him, dragging her gun on the ground and shuffling with
heavy feet and a heavier heart.
~~~
From: Zayn Malik, at 3:28

Where are you?? :)
From Isabel Allen, at 3:29

In the Burbidge library at uni, why? :)
Isabel was staring at the clock in the library, tapping her pen against the page of her book and
chewing on her nails. She was thinking about whether she should pick up some snacks for Rory
and Mel on the way to Film Soc later, reminding herself that Mel had a severe peanut allergy and
so, unless she wanted an excuse to try out an EpiPen, she definitely shouldn't buy the nice
M&Ms or Reece’s Buttercups.
She was debating between sweet and salt popcorn or wine gums when she choked on her own
spit, spluttering loudly as she saw two figures loping towards her, one hooded and scowling and
the other smiling at her and waving.
"Hi Isabel!" Zayn said loudly, dropping into the seat next to her. Harry stayed standing, his
tongue pressed into his cheek and his hands shoved into his pockets. He gave her a curt nod.
"What are you doing here?" Isabel whispered nervously, looking around the library. People were
staring.
"Harry had something to give you," Zayn smiled. Harry rolled his eyes and didn't move. Zayn
stared up at him patiently.
Eventually, Harry removed his rucksack from its position slung over one shoulder and yanked it
open, shoving a hand inside and tossing her a pair of headphones.
"Oh, thanks! I thought I lost them."
That was a lie; she knew Harry had them, but in the few days that had passed since they’d gone
paintballing and February had died to be succeeded by March, Isabel and Harry had barely
spoken a single word to each other. She thought he would have probably bitten her head off if
she asked for them back, and so kept her mouth shut.
"Silence in the library!" the librarian hissed from her desk. Isabel smiled apologetically.
Harry ignored the librarian, only dropping his voice one volume below normal. "Yeah, I took
them by accident," he said. He avoided her eyes, staring at the table and mumbling: “Sorry”.
"That's okay," she whispered. "Thanks for bringing them back."
"I wouldn't have if Zayn didn't make me," Harry said with a scowl.
"Thanks for specifying the exact library you were in, by the way," Zayn grinned, nudging her.
"Harry said 'that is such an Isabel thing to do.'"
Harry glared at him, his cheeks flushing.
"Silence in the library!" The librarian snapped again from the corner, and Isabel looked up to see
the entire library eyeing them. She turned scarlet.
"Jesus," Zayn said with a roll of his eyes. "She is persistent, isn't she?"
"Let's go, Zayn," Harry mumbled awkwardly. “We’re gonna get her into trouble.”
"I forgot people actually went to libraries," Zayn grinned, ignoring him. "I haven't stepped foot
in one of these in years. Fucking boring."
"Yeah," Isabel agreed quietly. She wanted them to go before they got in trouble, but she was
curious. "How did you even get in?"
"Harry can be persuasive," Zayn smirked, and Harry allowed himself to mirror the expression for
a moment. It slipped away when he looked at Isabel properly for the first time.
"What are you wearing?" Harry asked incredulously.
Isabel looked down at her hoodie and jeans, her hair scraped back into a ponytail, and gulped.
"Why?" she responded, feeling her cheeks turn red. She usually made more of an effort,
admittedly, but it wasn't like the library was a particularly dressy location. She felt self-conscious
under his disbelieving stare, and wanted to add "do you think I look that hideous?" but she didn't
need to.
"You look fine," he said gruffly. "I’ve just never – was just wondering."
"NO SMOKING IN THE LIBRARY!" the librarian screeched so loudly that everyone in the
room jumped. Zayn screwed his face up at her as she marched over.
"I wasn't gonna smoke it in here, obviously," he drawled, as if she was being incredibly idiotic.
His unfinished roll up sat in his hands as he glared at her. "That would be illegal."
She scoffed, her eyes scanning Zayn's tattoos and the dark circles under Harry's eyes. "Oh yes,
I'm sure you boys are very obedient of the law."
Harry raised his eyebrows threateningly. "Excuse me?"
"Wearing a hood in the library is also not allowed," she pointed out, and Isabel wanted to melt
into the floor. Every single person was looking at them, a hundred and twenty eyes boring into
her and setting her skin on fire with embarrassment.
"Oh yeah? Are you gonna arrest us?" Zayn asked her expressionlessly, licking the edge of the
paper and folding it over, smoothing the crease until he'd rolled a perfect cigarette. "Lock me up,
yeah?"
"No," she spluttered, "but I shall certainly report you for being disrespectful to a member of
staff!"
"We don't even go here, love," Harry told her, rolling his eyes. "No need to get your knickers in a
twist about it."
"Pardon?" she screeched, a smear of rouge lipstick on her middle incisors painfully obvious as
she bared her teeth at them.
"It's all right, they're just leaving," Isabel smiled at her, pushing Zayn with her shoulder. "I'm
really sorry about the disruption."
She scooped all of her books and paper and pens up, looking at the librarian and apologising
profusely all the while, and as she tried to shuffle away her grip slipped and everything in her
arms tumbled to the floor.
She would have thought it was physically impossible to blush any harder, but then people started
snickering.
“Isn’t that Louis Tomlinson’s girlfriend?” someone laughed under their breath.
“Yeah,” their friend replied. “Who are they?”
“Art boys, aren’t they?”
“What the fuck does she think she’s doing with them?”
Zayn shoved his cigarette between his lips and bent down to help her pick up her stuff. Isabel
scrambled around desperately, shoving things in her bag and trying to ignore the heat in her
cheeks.
“Are you gonna sit there staring like a wanker or are you gonna pick her book up?” Harry
snapped, and Isabel and Zayn looked up to find Harry glaring at a boy Isabel didn’t know,
probably someone in the year above, Isabel’s book lying at his feet.
“Huh?” was all the boy replied, staring at Harry dumbly. Harry’s fists clenched.
Harry snarled. “I’m sorry, did I stutter?” He marched over and snatched up the book. The boy
flinched away from Harry when he got close.
“You have absolutely no manners, I’d be embarrassed,” Harry growled, walking away and
loudly snapping over his shoulder: “Fucking prick.”
That was the last straw for the librarian. She was still shrieking about calling security when the
three of them had made their way outside and were trampling away as fast as they could.
“That was hilarious,” Zayn said, lighting his cigarette. “You’d think it was like we’d walked in
there and set the place on fire or something. Fucking despicable, yeah H?”
Harry wasn’t listening. “Did you get all your stuff all right?” he asked Isabel, his eyes anxious. “I
can go back and get it?”
“I think so,” she told him. Her face was still burning, and though the crisp March air was cooling
her down, her mind was racing, imagining all the rumours that would be circulating by this
evening.
“Sorry if we get you into trouble,” Harry mumbled.
“Pretend you had no idea who we are,” Zayn said with a shrug. “We’re two thugs that just started
bothering you out of nowhere.”
She gave them a small smile. “Well at least if I get banned it gives me an excuse not to go to the
library.”
“You can go to other libraries though, yeah?” Harry asked. “There’s other libraries on campus?”
“Yeah,” she told him, smiling slightly. “Don’t worry, Harry.”
He made a disgusted face. “I’m not,” he snapped.
He tried to walk faster but then tripped over nothing, and he looked back over his shoulder
incredulously just to check that there was, in fact, nothing there as Zayn hooted with laughter.
“Harry, mate, you’re the clumsiest person I know,” Zayn cackled. “It’s priceless, honestly.”
Harry laughed weakly. Isabel wondered why he hadn’t snapped at Zayn, having to remind
herself with a frown that Harry was only bad-tempered with her.
“What are you doing Saturday night, Is?” Zayn asked.
The answer was nothing. She had no plans for this weekend or for any weekends in the
foreseeable future. Once a girl with parties and gatherings coming out of her ears, her schedule
was now glaringly blank.
“I’m not sure,” she said, glancing up at Harry who was glaring off into the distance. He’d made
it clear he didn’t want her anywhere near his friends.
“You can come hang with us lot, if you want? We probably won’t do much but we all want you
there.”
“Except Caitlin,” Isabel reminded him, nearly adding “and Harry”.
Zayn scoffed. “Don’t worry about her.”
She looked up at Harry again. He shrugged coldly. “Whatever,” he muttered, and walked off
quickly, burying his hands in his pockets, the hood still slung over his curls.
“What’s wrong with him?” Isabel asked.
“It’s generally hard to keep up,” Zayn admitted with a smile. “So anyway, Saturday?”
She sighed. “I don’t think I should. I don’t want to intrude.”

Zayn eyed her with a small smile. “If you’re worried about Harry, don’t be.”
The fact he knew she might be worrying said a lot. “ Has he – has he said anything about me?”
He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. “He says a lot of things, he barely means anything he says. You
take it all with a pinch of salt.”
“Oh,” Isabel said. So now Harry had been bitching about her. Great. “I don’t understand why he
hates me.”
“He definitely doesn’t hate you,” Zayn said with a shake of his head. “He’s bad with girls.
Caitlin and Liv, they’re like… I don’t know, they’re like lads to us, you know? But Harry sees
girls like a challenge. The whole thing’s a massive game to him, and he’s good at playing it, you
see? I don’t think he knows how to play you. Or he doesn’t want to play you.”
“He definitely doesn’t want to play a game with me,” Isabel told him. “He doesn’t think I’m
good looking; I’m not his type. He said.”
“First of all, just cos he’s not attracted to you doesn’t mean he thinks you’re unattractive,” Zayn
told her sternly. “That’s just his prerogative. He likes brunette girls, always has. So do I, to be
fair.”
“Why am I not surprised you two like the same type of girls? You’re like Tweedledee and
Tweedle-fucking-dum,” Isabel grumbled.
Zayn grinned, dropping his cigarette butt and rubbing the heel of his boot over the top. “Look,
I’m not saying he wants to have sex with you; you’re right, you’re not the kind of girl he goes
for. I’m just saying he doesn’t know how else to approach you. It takes a while for him to let
people in, but you’re not a girl he wants to toy with, you know, so you’re in the middle. He just
needs time.”
“Well exactly,” she replied. “I should give him some time, yeah? Leave him alone a bit?”
Harry played games. Harry didn’t want to play games with her. She couldn’t tell whether she
should be pleased or offended, but what she actually felt was weirdly disappointed.
Zayn shook his head. “Listen to me about Harry: sex means nothing to him. Nothing at all. But
his friends are everything to him, and if you wanna be his friend, that’s a cool thing to be. He’s a
good guy. Really, don’t worry. He’ll come around.”
“Okay,” she nodded, not wanting to humour this conversation any further before she started to
believe that her disappointment was actually real because then she’d have to work out what it
meant. “You should probably go and find him now.”
“Sure,” he smiled. “See you Saturday? I can text you the details?”
He grinned at her, his nose crinkling, and against her better judgement, because she liked Zayn
and his smile and she was tired and desperate and really actually quite lonely, Isabel said yes.
End Notes:
Helloooo! I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the chapter :)
It was super weird that this started in Harry’s POV, it just sort of happened while I was writing it
but I actually had loads of fun doing it that way so I was thinking when I have some free time I
might write some little ficlets or drabbles or whatever from his POV if people would like… not
sure whether it will happen really soon but, for my own enjoyment, I think that will be
something I’ll definitely do :)
I’ve had a few questions asking what Harry’s thinking when he says x, why Harry did x, and so
on, so maybe this enlightened you a bit - or maybe you’re even more confused because, now that
you’ve seen Harry’s POV, I don’t think he even has any clue what’s going, but I promise both
you and him that everything will make sense eventually :)
Anyway what are everyone’s theories?! What’s gonna happen when Isabel goes over on
Saturday? Do you guys think Zayn’s right in his analysis?
It’s been really cool hearing how much everyone hates Louis (haha) and that people are rooting
for Hisabel (tumblr has decided that’s what they’re called, by the way) and if you’re one of those
who likes Hisabel I think the next chapter’s gonna be pretty sweet so stick around for that one :)
Catch you Wednesday next time (not Thursday as usual cos busy that night)! Until then come
chat at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com x
Back to index
Author's Notes:
just a bit busy
March
On Saturday, it had been exactly three and a half weeks since the fateful moment in Louis’ car
which had shredded Isabel’s heart into barely redeemable scraps. Not that she was counting.
When she’d arrived to the boys’ house carrying a plate covered by silver foil, Harry stubbornly
sat with his legs in Caitlin’s lap not looking in Isabel’s direction, sipping from his cup with tight
lips and keeping his eyes trained on the television screen. Everyone else apart from Caitlin had
gathered around Isabel’s plate excitedly, and she could almost hear Harry rolling his eyes and
gritting his teeth.
“I had a lot of free time the last few days,” Isabel said. Seeing as she was now avoiding the
library at all costs, and her friends were busy doing things without her, she really did. “So I made
flapjacks. To say thanks for letting me stay the night I – that one time.”
“I love flapjacks!” Liv exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Oh, Harry loves flapjacks!”
“Would you like one Harry?” Isabel asked, shooting him a small smile.
“No,” he snapped, not even looking at her as he stared down at his phone.
“I used to make them all the time when I was little with my sister,” Isabel told the others. “She
used to make me do all the work, so I got quite good.”
“Do they have raisins in?” Caitlin called from her place on the sofa. She wasn’t looking at Isabel
either; she seemed to be directly addressing Zayn, avoiding Isabel’s eyes completely.
“Isabel doesn’t like raisins,” Harry grumbled. Isabel swallowed a piece of flapjack, glancing at
him curiously, but despite the fact he was flushing his expression hadn’t changed at all.
“Ew, I won’t have one then,” Caitlin declared, wrinkling her nose up in disgust. “They’re gonna
be dry.”
They were all too skint to go out tonight and so instead were watching Star Wars back to back
and getting almightily drunk from a cacophony of spirits at the boys’ house. Zayn, Olivia, Niall
and Isabel sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the television, while Harry and Caitlin sat
above them on the sofa, glaring down at the rest of them like angry, predatory lions.
Once or twice she’d felt someone’s gaze burning into her, and when she turned to look she’d
found Harry staring, his lips pressed together and his eyebrows downturned into a frown, his
eyes blazing. He looked away as soon as she noticed, but it left her feeling uneasy, her stomach
churning.
“This is so fucking boring,” Olivia announced loudly. “Star Wars is fucking shit.”
“It’s amazing,” Niall said incredulously, “you clearly just don’t have enough brain to
understand.”
“Fuck off, yes I do. But it’s complete crap. I’ve sat through two already, I’ve had enough of
deserts.”
She shuffled over from her position besides Zayn to sit next to Isabel, reaching for the vodka.
“You know when they started filming the desert parts in Tunisia, there was a rainstorm for the
first time in fifty years, and they had to cancel filming,” Isabel offered, blushing crimson when
everyone looked over at her in disbelief and a beat of silence followed.
“Woah, no way?” Niall replied, but he was the only one who seemed to be impressed. Isabel
took to staring at the floor, not wanting to even look in Caitlin and Harry’s direction out of
paralysing fear that the combination of their scowls would fry her on the spot.
“What do you suggest we do then, Livvy?” Zayn asked, saving Isabel by changing the subject.
“Let’s play a game. Come on, you grumpy little shits,” Olivia said, pulling on Harry’s leg. He
sighed, but didn’t disagree as he came to sit down beside them.
A game seemed a weird but simultaneously natural conclusion for the night, Isabel thought. She
never played drinking games in casual scenarios like this – actually, she hardly ever played
drinking games at all – but then again, nothing felt more teenager-y than sitting in a circle on the
floor with a few shared bottles of vodka and a hangover already looming on the horizon.
“What sort of game? Suck and blow?” Niall jeered sarcastically, turning round to include himself
in the circle and flicking down the volume on the television.
“Don’t be a dickhead, Niall. What about Never Have I Ever?”
“Ah, that game’s always bollocks,” Caitlin dismissed. “We know everything anyway.”
Isabel coughed slightly, gearing herself up to contribute again. “We could – well there’s this
variation of Never Have I Ever that some of my friends played once.” All heads turned towards
her once again; Olivia, Zayn and Niall in interest, Harry with bored indifference and Caitlin with
scathing scepticism. “You basically pose a question, and then if someone’s answer is something
you agree with, or something you’ve experienced or done as well, you have to drink.”
“I don’t get it,” frowned Niall, and Isabel’s palms started to sweat as Caitlin rolled her eyes at the
suggestion, clearly unimpressed.
“Wait, give us an example, Issy,” Olivia prompted, and Isabel looked around nervously before
continuing.
“Okay, so a question could be like… what’s the most sexy thing you’ve done… sexually I
mean?”
She was only repeating a question that had come up before when she’d played with Louis and his
friends as a hypothetical example but she suddenly felt inappropriate and stupid. She blushed and
looked away. “Or not, we don’t have to –”
“No I like that! Let’s do that!” said Niall eagerly. “Livvy, you start.”
“Okay,” Liv said, “although you all know my answer already. Obviously it’s that I’ve had sex
with a girl.”
Olivia, Harry, Niall and Zayn all drank as Isabel tried her best not to look surprised.
“Liv’s bi, by the way,” Zayn explained, smiling at Isabel’s expression. She nodded seriously as
Olivia laughed.
“Yeah, by the way,” she grinned. “Okay, Niall you go.”
“Mine is… I’ve had sex in parents’ bed while they were downstairs.” He drank whilst everyone
stared at him in disgust. “What?! None of you have done that?”
“No, bro,” Harry said with wide eyes, shaking his head. “No one does that.”
“Whatever,” Niall muttered, blushing bright red. The rest of them laughed until Zayn looked
close to tears.
“Niall you’re priceless,” Zayn cackled.
Harry grinned and then rearranged his face into a horrified expression. “Niall, I’m gonna have to
take you to confession.”
Niall scowled. “Fuck off.”
“You’ve got a few sins to confess, don’t you?”
“Fuck off, Zayn.”
“How did you come knowing you were probably conceived in that bed?”
“Zayn you’re fucking disgusting.”
“No, Niall, I think we established you’re the disgusting one.”
Boys are mean, Isabel thought.

“Zayn stop,” Harry cautioned, shooting him a look before leaning over Caitlin to try and kiss
Niall on the cheek with a wide grin. “Come here Niall, love you.”
Niall slapped him round the face – not very lightly, either – and both boys laughed.
“Isabel, go,” Niall prompted, still grinning, the altercation immediately forgotten. Isabel changed
her mind: boys weren’t just mean, they were weird too.
As all heads turned to her, Isabel caught Harry’s gaze. He was looking at her with a cocky smirk,
expecting her to say nothing of worth. “I um…” she tore her gaze away from Harry, looking
down at her lap with embarrassment, waiting for everyone to laugh and wishing she’d never
introduced this game at all. “I had sex in a car.”
When she looked up, only Zayn and Harry were drinking, Zayn with raised eyebrows and a smile
and Harry with a blank expression. He poured the rest of the drink down his throat and reached
into the middle of the circle to get some more.
“You saucy little minx!” Olivia said, elbowing her and smiling, and Isabel gave an embarrassed
laugh, her cheeks flaming. Caitlin scowled from her position next to Harry, gripping her cup
tightly.
Isabel looked at Zayn who was sitting just to her right. “You’re next, Zayn.”
“Okay sure,” he grinned. “Mine is…” He took some time to think, biting down on his lip. “I got
a blow job in school when I was like fifteen. I still think that’s the hottest thing that’s ever
happened to me.”
He beamed as everyone laughed, and Harry was the only one who drank.
“Hey!” Zayn exclaimed. “You too, Harry?”
“Yeah,” Harry said with a smile. “I was a bit older though, like seventeen.”
“Behind the sheds?”
“No mate, in the changing room when all the classes were doing P.E.”
“All right, stop it you two,” Olivia barked. “As much as you two love thinking about each other
getting sucked off…”
“Fuck off.”
“Zayn, who’s next?”
Zayn looked between his two remaining options. “Caitlin, you go.”
“Okay,” she barely paused for breath, already having thought about what she was going to say.
“The most sexy thing I’ve done is given oral outside.”
Caitlin’s eyes narrowed and her face turned sour as she saw that Zayn and Harry were, again, the
only two to drink. “Harry?”
He paused for a minute, his glass empty again. Everyone waited expectantly, and Isabel’s heart
juddered as she waited for him to say something outrageous, something she could never even
imagine herself doing in a million years. When he looked up, his eyes flickered to her before
saying slowly: “I’ve been told gentlemen never kiss and tell.”
She remembered saying those very words to him after the Haim gig, and she blushed and
swallowed again, looking away from him as Niall launched into a tirade of “but that’s not fair!”
Harry shrugged, eventually dragging his eyes away from Isabel. “It’s just a game, chill out.”
“But we all had to do it!” Niall snapped. “Harry don’t be a dick.”
Harry pouted. “But I have a new question for everyone.” He smiled brightly at Niall, who only
glared at him, both of them knowing Harry would get his way. “Where’s the best place you’ve
ever been?”
It was a surprisingly chaste question, and it surprised Niall enough that he shut up. Harry sat
listening with interest to everyone, nodding and smiling even at Isabel as his drink remained
untouched.
The questions immediately went back to wildly inappropriate and personal, and Isabel drank
until she could feel the blood pumping around her body like her veins were on fire and her limbs
and tongue felt heavy.
“Okay, my question!” she sang. “Sooooo… what’s the thing everyone dislikes the most about
themselves?”
She only asked the question because she desperately wanted to hear Harry’s answer, wanted to
know something, anything more about him that might help her begin to understand him, but she
regretted it when she saw Caitlin’s face.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Caitlin spat. “Way to ruin the mood.”
“Shut up, Caitlin,” Zayn defended, and she jolted as though she’d been slapped. “This whole
game’s just a bit of fun.”
“Let’s not do this one,” Harry suggested in a small voice.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Niall said, rolling his eyes. Harry stared at his lap. “Just cos you don’t want
to play, Harry. I’ll go: I don’t like that I’m so lazy.”
Everyone drank except Harry.
“I care what people think about me too much,” said Olivia.
Everyone drank except Harry, and Isabel could feel his gaze burning into her again.
“I’m scared people think I’m boring,” Zayn said.
Everyone drank except Harry, who was still staring at her.
“I’m self-conscious because I compare myself to other people too much and so I over-
compensate for it,” said Caitlin.
Isabel turned to Caitlin, her eyes widening in surprise as they both drank. She hadn’t pegged
Caitlin as similar to her in that way.
It was Isabel’s turn, and she mulled over what to say. She could say what her friends and Louis
always moaned and laughed about – she was too apologetic, she was clumsy, she worried too
much. She got drunk too quickly and was always late and was probably the most likely person
out of everyone she knew to win the lottery and then lose the ticket. She spent hours researching
film trivia and rewatching the same films over and over again on her own in the dark instead of
doing something more productive, like actually caring about her degree. She had a quick temper
and could be selfish and would probably never be entirely confident about who she was.
“I’m a pushover, and I let people I care about make me feel like shit,” Isabel said. She drank, not
even bothering to see who agreed with her as she finished the rest of her cup.
Everyone expectantly turned to face Harry, but he was squeezing his cup so tightly that his
knuckles were white, staring at Isabel with his brows pulled together and his eyes wide. He
looked away quickly, staring at the floor.
“Harry, what’s yours? I notice you didn’t drink for anything, cocky bastard,” Niall laughed.
Harry gripped the cup tighter.
“I don’t want to play anymore,” he said quietly.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Harry,” Caitlin said, exasperated. “Just play the fucking game.”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head.
“Harry!” Niall snapped. “Play the game!”
“I don’t want to play the fucking game!” he roared, jumping to his feet unsteadily and dropping
his cup in the process. It shattered, white china shards flying from the point of impact like debris
from a bomb. “I don’t want to hear what all my friends hate about themselves, believe it or
fucking not!”
“Calm down, H,” Zayn said and Harry looked down at him angrily, his chest rising and falling.
He opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it and stormed off to the hallway.
“Jesus,” Olivia said after a beat of silence, shaking her head.
Isabel chewed on her lip, eventually blurting out: “How do you guys deal with him? He’s just –
he’s so hard to work out.”
Caitlin scowled. “That’s what friends do, isn’t it? Or have you not grasped the concept?”
“Caitlin,” chastised Olivia.
“He acts like a child,” Isabel said, and suddenly she felt like everything she’d kept bottled up
was tumbling out of her mouth and she had no control over what she would say. “He’s rude and
arrogant and he behaves like a twelve-year-old!”
“He’s not like that with us,” Niall defended.
“But I’ve not done anything wrong, Niall! I try so hard with him and he just throws it back in my
face and makes me feel shit about myself every single time! And he just – he just thinks he can
get away with shit like this, smashing up things and walking off and leaving everyone else to
deal with the consequences!” Everyone blinked at her, completely surprised, but she couldn’t
stop now. “I try and work it out, like was he spoiled as a child? Did he never grow out of the
stage where being mean to girls is the only way you know how to act? Because with most boys I
know that ended when they were eight years old.”
She was seething, her fists clenching, but when she looked at the others Niall and Caitlin were
just staring over her shoulder with wide eyes. She turned with her heart hammering, her face as
white as sheet, and found Harry looking at her blankly.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. She wasn’t just scared, she also felt horrible; she was sat in Harry’s
own house being rude about him to his friends and he’d heard the entire thing. An apology was
on the tip of her tongue but it felt stuck, like treacle when you can’t wrench it out of the pot, and
she ended up just staring at him.
Harry shuffled over, carefully scooping up the shards of broken china with his bare hands and
putting them into the centre of the newspaper. He swore at one point, jerking his hand back, but
ignored it and carried on.
“Sorry about the mug, Niall,” he mumbled as he stood up, breaking the silence. “I’ll buy you a
new one.”
It was an empty promise and everyone knew it. Harry had no money. “Don’t worry, mate,” Niall
said.
“I’ll be right back,” Harry muttered, and he shot out of the door, throwing the newspaper parcel
in the bin as he went.
The rest of them cleared up the empty bottles and pizza boxes, and Niall clearly forgot the
austere mood straight away when he slapped Olivia around the face with a leftover piece of
pizza. She shrieked and threw the rest of her drink in his general direction: it splatted all over the
counter tops, the walls, the floor, and Niall immediately went into overdrive about stained
carpets, leaping into the cupboard under the sink and withdrawing a variety of cleaning
products.
“Let’s go and check on Harry, Zayn,” Caitlin prompted as Niall wailed about stain removers.
“Let Isabel go,” Zayn said, and both girls looked at him in surprise.
“Me?” Isabel squeaked stupidly and he just smiled and nodded. Caitlin squinted in total
confusion, looking up at Zayn incredulously, but Isabel brushed past the pair of them and headed
up the stairs without a second thought, rushing off before Niall could shove carpet cleaner and a
pair of rubber gloves under her nose.
When she reached Harry’s door it was shut tight, and when she put her hand up to knock she
found it was shaking.
“What?” Harry’s voice snapped from the other side of the door.
She opened it timidly and found him sitting on the end of his bed, staring up at the painting on
the chimneybreast. He’d torn his t-shirt and bandana off so that both were lying on the floor, and
his hands were gripping his hair so tightly that he looked like he was about to rip it out.
“Who said you could come in?” he snarled without turning to face her.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” Isabel whispered, and his head whipped round quickly,
his eyes wide and manic.
“Oh,” he breathed with surprise. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” She went to sit next to him, staring up at the boy in the painting just as he
had been doing. “Have you been crying?”
“I never fucking cry,” he replied sharply, and she winced. She waited a long while, staring at the
painting in silence, before finally saying something else.
“You kinda flipped out downstairs.”
“Yeah.”
Isabel took a big, drunken breath and blurted out: “I don’t know why, and you don’t have to tell
me why, but that kinda sucks on your friends, Harry. You can’t just be rude like that.”
“They know what I’m like,” Harry replied.
“Well I don’t,” Isabel responded, her heart thumping. “And I sort of think you’re a dick right
now.”
“I know. I heard.”
“You think I’m a bitch.” She wasn’t asking – it was a fact. Harry shrugged his affirmation.
“Well, I think you’re a hypocrite. I know you say rude things about me to Zayn.”
Harry said nothing for a moment, just blinked at her. He sighed and looked away. “The
difference is that you meant it.”
She paused, completely taken aback, and when neither of them said anything for a long time she
sighed, getting up to leave before he told her to go.
“I’m sorry,” he said loudly, anxiously, grabbing her arm and letting go just as quickly, and she
kept her eyes trained on the painting as she raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I get like this
sometimes.”
She looked down at her arm where he’d grabbed it, the skin there burning, and saw a smear of
blood.
“Harry, you’re bleeding.”
“I know. I’m okay.”
She shook her head at him, sighing as she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the bathroom. He
shrugged off her hold as soon as she knew he was following, but the fact he followed was
enough to make her smile slightly. Acceptance, not resistance. Baby steps.
She turned the tap on and forced his hand under the water. He hissed, and they both watched as
red diluted the water.
“Do you have antiseptic?”
“I don’t need antiseptic.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a dick, Harry.”
“It’s basically a paper cut, I’ll live.”

“Paper cuts don’t bleed for this long,” she told him sternly. “Where’s the antiseptic?”
He frowned at her. “What on earth would you know?”
She shrugged. “I had to clear up my brother’s scrapes when I was younger cos he’d never do it
himself. He was just like you. Clumsy and angry.”
For a moment she thought he’d snap at her again, but he suddenly broke into a grin, the corners
of his eyes crinkling as he bit his lip, the whole of his face lighting up. He looked so nice when
he smiled. “Clumsy and angry. That’s what you think?”
Her breath was caught in her throat for a moment, and she coughed out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”
She rooted around in the bathroom cupboards until she found an ancient looking bottle of
antiseptic. She didn’t even dare look at the use before date, just poured a liberal amount onto a
cotton pad and gripped Harry’s hand.
“It’ll sting.”
“Okay,” he breathed. She looked up at him curiously just before she dabbed it on and found him
staring at her, his lips parted and his eyes wide. Her heart jolted and her hand slipped – she
pressed down much too hard on his cut and he gasped.
“Fuck!”
“I’m sorry!” She shoved the cotton pad in his hand and backed away. “I’ll – um, I’ll see you
downstairs –”
“Wait!” he said quickly. “Hold on, let me just turn this off…” He turned the tap off, curling his
fingers around the cotton pad so that it stayed pressed to his cut and stumbling towards her.
“Isabel, I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice soft.
“You’re being so unfair, Harry,” she told him quietly.
“I know.”
“You have to recognise when you’re wrong and fix it.”
“I know.”
“And just because you apologised this time doesn’t mean you can keep doing it and then
apologising after. That doesn’t excuse it. I’m not – I won’t give you many more chances.”
“I know.”
“I’m not a bad person like you think I am, Harry. Well, maybe I was, but I don’t think I am
anymore. At least I’m trying really hard not to be.”
There was a long, heavy silence. “I know,” he said quietly, and when he looked in her eyes at
last she knew he meant it. “Will you… will you come lay with me?” It was a question, but he
made it sound like a plea, and he sounded so small and innocent that she didn’t even think about
how bizarre a question it was and why on earth he wanted her to.
“Okay,” she said. It probably wasn’t okay, and she probably shouldn’t have told him it was okay,
but then again there were probably a lot of things she shouldn’t do when it came to Harry and
she did them all because… well, she wasn’t really sure why, actually. She wasn’t sure at all.
She followed him back into his bedroom – not without a heavy, exasperated sigh, just to keep
him in his place – and he flopped down onto the bed, his good hand travelling to rub his face
tiredly so that his exposed abdominals flexed. She stared just for a second, swallowing loudly,
and then crawled up the bed to lie down next to him.
He’d taken his hand away from his face and rested both hands on his bare chest, rising and
falling slowly as he breathed and looked over at her. “How’s everything with the boyfriend?” he
asked after a beat of silence.
Isabel considered whether or not she should answer honestly, but something about being in that
quiet room, with the beautiful painting and the soft bed and Harry’s slow, methodical breathing
made her feel relaxed. “Terrible,” she answered.
“What happened?”
“I told him I loved him after that time I met his parents,” she admitted, and Harry nodded. “And
he just completely flipped out. He didn’t say it back, and he told me to get out of the car and go
home. That’s why I came here that time.”
Harry frowned, licking his lips before nodding at her to continue.
“So he didn’t speak to me at all for a few days, and I didn’t have the courage to contact him first.
I felt like – I still feel like – I’ve never felt so bad about anything before. And now it’s just so
weird between us. One of our friends rang me up the other day and asked if I was okay, because
Louis’ been saying I’m busy and that’s why I haven’t come out with everyone a lot recently. But
he’s not inviting me, and when he does he acts like everything’s okay, but he won’t spend any
time alone with me, except when he’s… when he’s fucking me.”
She took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling to avoid Harry’s steady gaze.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I don’t know why he just won’t break up with me.”
“Why don’t you break up with him?” Harry asked.

“Because I love him,” she said after a pause, biting her lip. “And I’d rather be sort of with him
than not with him at all. I know it’s stupid, but you know what I mean?”
“Not really,” Harry replied slowly. “I’ve never been in love with anyone.”
“Anyone? Really?”
He shook his head, smiling slightly at her reaction. “I thought I was in love with the girl I went
out with when I was seventeen. I’d been in a stupid little relationship when I was like fourteen,
but this girl – Poppy – she was the first girl that was properly serious, that met my family and
stuff.” He sighed, playing with his bottom lip with his fingers and frowning.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But I was so messed up at this point. I only cared about getting high and having sex, and
I – well I cheated on her so many times, and then whenever she said she was leaving me I’d be
terrified. I’d go and beg her to be with me, and she would. So I thought I was in love with her
because I didn’t want her to leave me. But that’s not love; that’s just needing someone to love
you when you don’t love yourself. That’s just not wanting to be alone.”
“Sounds shit.”
He shrugged. “It’s my fault. I always do this. I always push people away so I can feel like they
want me.”
“What about Caro?” Isabel asked. Both of them had rolled over so that they were facing each
other, their heads burrowed into their respective pillows.
Harry shrugged again. “She seemed a nice girl. She’s hot and we got on and I didn’t need to have
sex with anyone else if I had her. But she got so paranoid all the time, she was suffocating me.
You know? I never felt any differently towards her than I do to my girl friends, other than the
fact I was fucking her.”
She sighed. “I can’t imagine ever thinking like you.”
“Like me?”
She paused. “Like sex means nothing.”
“You think it means a lot?” Harry asked her slowly. “It matters to you a lot?”
She nodded slightly, sucking in a drunken breath. “I was nearly nineteen, you know, the first
time. Maybe I won’t always be like this, but, I don’t know, it still feels really special to me. I
don’t know.”
“I think it’ll always be special for you,” Harry said quietly, and she wanted to ask him why but
she didn’t.
“Do you think it’s weird?” she asked him, and he frowned.
“Of course not,” he said firmly. “I don’t think it’s weird at all.”
Louis and Millie and Scarlett and Lydia and Liam thought it was weird.
“You see how I said earlier that I had sex in a car?”
Harry nodded, his hair brushing the pillow.
“I didn’t like it. I could have been anyone to him. I think about that all the time, you know. When
he has sex with me I could be anyone in the world, but I can only imagine being with him.”
Harry stared at her for a moment, searching her eyes. “That makes me sad,” he said gently.
“Are you telling me you’re different to him? When it comes to sex, I mean?”
He exhaled, his frown deepening. “If I was with someone like you, maybe I would be. Someone
who actually cared and who…” He trailed off, pinching his bottom lip between his fingers. He
let out a shaky laugh and closed his eyes briefly. “No, you’re right. I’m just as bad as him. I’m
fucking worse, I know it. I’m a prick, I know.”
He smiled suddenly, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his dimple deepening in his cheek. He
looked her in the eyes, his own rather sheepish. “I have no idea why I’m saying all this shit, that
stuff about Poppy. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise for telling people who you are, Harry.”
He giggled drunkenly, swiping his tongue over his lips and sighing. “But I don’t like who I am,”
he said.
She had no idea what to reply, a lump forming in her throat. He’d rolled over to his lie on his
back again, and his curls were falling over his forehead limply after all of the tugging he’d done.
His lips were parted as he breathed slowly, his eyelids pulled shut above those deep, black circles
that never seemed to let up, and although she maybe should have said something else, all she
could think about was that, even though he was mean to her, she knew he was a great friend
when he wanted to be, and she didn’t have many of those at all.
“Why were you being so awful to me?” she asked him. “I just wanted to be friends with you.”
He didn’t open his eyes, just frowned, holding a breath for a long time.
“I don’t know,” he whispered eventually. “I’m so sorry.” He might have meant them to be part of
the same sentence, but they came out like two different confessions, and she believed both.
They fell silent again. Harry’s breathing was slow and methodical, his bare chest rising and
falling so that the birds by under his collarbones rose and then dipped.
“Harry?” she asked him as a thought suddenly occurred to her, and he hummed his response.
“Who’s the boy in the picture in your drawer? Is it your brother?”
He visibly stiffened, his eyelids fluttering although he didn’t open them. He seemed surprised
that she remembered the picture from when she’d briefly stolen a glance at it during his party.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Are you close? To your brother I mean?”
Harry shrugged. “We were. We don’t speak anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Stuff came between us.” Harry turned his lips up into a smirk and flipped his head to the side to
look at her. “I think we’ve had enough questions for today.”
“What? But I – it’s just getting started –”
He lifted a finger to his lips to pretend to zip them, and she reached up and pulled his hand
away.
“You can’t force me with violence, Isabel!” Harry cried, taking her wrists in his good hand and
pinning them down at her sides.
“I can try my best!”
“You’re ridiculous,” he laughed, her struggles in an attempt to pull away from him absolutely
worthless.
“But Harry –” she laughed.
He grasped her wrists tightly in one hand and put the other across her mouth to cut off her
speaking, laughing as he did so.
“Unfair!” she screeched from behind the cotton pad, feeling the antiseptic sting her lips lightly
and laughing so much her sides hurt. “You’ll get blood on me!”
“I can’t hear you!” Harry replied triumphantly. She aimed a kick at him, and he struggled around
trying to dodge the kicks and retain his hold on her. They laughed loudly when he flailed so
much he nearly fell off the bed, and finally he took to hovering over her, pinning her legs down
with his on either side of hers.
“Are you gonna be good?” he asked, struggling to pretend he was serious as his chest shook with
contained laughter. His face loomed over hers and his curls brushed her forehead as she nodded
vigorously. “All right, can I take my hand away then?” She nodded again and he did so with a
laugh, using his now free hand to prop himself up as he looked down at her.
She laughed, opening her mouth to ask him another question just to irritate him when she
stopped abruptly. He was staring at her – not just at her face, but her lips – all laughter
evaporating from his face as the air around them seemed to still and all Isabel could feel was
Harry’s breath fanning across her lips and his hair on her forehead and his hips resting against
hers.
His eyes flickered up to meet her gaze, his pupils dilated and a softness in his eyes that Isabel
had never seen before. She stared back, her brown eyes and his green ones locked and Isabel’s
heart hammered so hard she thought it must have been impossible for Harry not to hear it.
She wanted to kiss him so badly. She wasn’t sure whether it was because she wanted to see what
he would do with those pouty pink lips, or whether it was because she knew he would be so, so
good at it, or whether it was because he was Harry, and Harry sometimes made her get that weird
feeling, that pang of longing that she didn’t dare often think about. But it was there even if she
tried to ignore it.
And now it wasn’t just there, it was everywhere, and her were hands shaking with how much she
wanted to know what his tongue felt like, and she stared up into his eyes with her heart thrashing
about, but he wasn’t moving, just staring at her. That’s all he seemed to do, just look at her and
do nothing, say nothing, and she wondered whether he would torture her now by making her be
the one to kiss him first when she shouldn’t, shecouldn’t.
There was a sudden bang so loud that Isabel yelped and Harry jumped, his head knocking against
hers.
“Fuck!” he swore, turning his head to the source of the noise. Isabel followed suit, and looking
towards the doorway they saw Olivia, who had flung the door open and was standing with her
arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “Jesus, Liv, you scared me.”
“I did knock,” she said. “I guess you two were just a bit busy.” She smirked as her eyes trailed
over their compromising position: Harry’s lower body resting on Isabel’s and his arm propping
him up so that his bare chest hovered above her. He rolled off her hastily, standing up and
scratching the back of his neck, searching for something to say.
When he found nothing, Olivia came to his aid. “Well, I just came up to check you two weren’t
killing each other. It’s absolute carnage downstairs. Caitlin and Zayn are arguing again.”
Harry scowled, bending down to pick up his discarded t-shirt and shrugging it on. “What
about?”
Isabel was busy getting off Harry’s bed, pulling her skirt down which had rode up from their
wrestling match, and so she missed why Olivia hesitated, only hearing her answer: “Nothing
important.”
The three of them traipsed down the stairs, Harry and Isabel avoiding eye contact, but Isabel
couldn’t help but notice that Harry’s neck was flushed red and he was doing his nervous thing of
pinching his lower lip between his fingers.
When they got downstairs, Olivia made sure she was first to go into the main room, announcing
their entrance loudly, but that didn’t stop Isabel hearing Caitlin’s distinctly loud, upset voice
shouting: “I just don’t understand why you’re all so obsessed with her!”
“What are you talking about?” Harry asked them, an edge to his voice that nobody missed.
“Nothing,” Zayn muttered.
Harry and Isabel stood there awkwardly as Caitlin reached up to whisper to Zayn, but he only
shook his head and rubbed his face angrily. “I don’t know why you always cause problems with
me when I haven’t done anything, Caitlin!” he said loudly.
“What the fuck?” she spat. “Don’t start on me, Zayn, I never said shit about you!”
Zayn just shook his head, rolling his eyes angrily and taking a cigarette out of the packet. “You
can’t handle your drink, and everyone knows it, so don’t ruin things as usual.”
“You’re a fucking dickhead!” Caitlin shouted, angry tears starting to fall from her eyes.
“Okay, okay, we don’t need an argument tonight,” Harry interjected, moving forward between
the pair of them.
“It’s not even me, mate!” Zayn yelled, gesturing at Caitlin furiously. “She always has a fucking
problem about something and I’m always the one who has to hear about it!”
“Harry, he’s being so unfair –“
“What do you have a problem with, Caitlin?” Harry asked sternly. A prolonged silence
followed.
Isabel shuffled awkwardly. “I think I’m gonna go now,” she announced quietly.
Everyone turned to look at her.
“Why? Don’t go yet, the night’s still young-ish,” Niall protested.
Isabel considered making up an excuse, saying she had work to do in the morning, but something
inside her had snapped. It was unfair of Caitlin to act so despicably towards her all the time, to
take such an instant disliking to her when Isabel hadn’t done anything wrong, and for once Isabel
was determined not to be a pushover.
“Well, clearly Caitlin doesn’t want me here,” she replied coolly, crossing her arms over her
chest. “I don’t want to outstay my welcome.”
Zayn threw his hands up. “See Caitlin! Is this what you fucking wanted?”
He went outside angrily, followed by Caitlin who was screaming at him again.
“I don’t know why she does this. She’s actually quite normal at home,” Olivia said drily,
flopping down next to Niall on the sofa.
Niall snorted as Harry turned to Isabel, looking at her for the first time since the moment Olivia
had walked in on them. “You don’t actually have to go, Is,” he said softly.
Other than in moments when he was taking the piss, he’d never called her anything other than
Isabel before, something Isabel was painfully aware of as she stood there in front of him now.
“I think I do,” she smiled. “It’s okay, I don’t mind. You guys were friends with her first.”
“I’ll walk you to the bus stop,” Harry told her after she’d said her goodbyes to Niall and Olivia.
The pair of them left the house and walked down the road in silence. Isabel wracked her brain for
something to say, desperate to shatter the awkwardness.
“I hope –” she started, just as Harry said “I have –”. They smiled at each other nervously,
looking away when they’d stared for too long.
“You go first,” Harry offered.
“No, mine was just stupid, you go,” Isabel insisted.
“Um,” Harry ran a hand through his hair, digging his other deep into his coat pocket, “I was just
gonna say I have to get up kinda early tomorrow morning, so I hope Zayn and Caitlin don’t
argue long.”
“Why do you have to be up early?”
“I’m going on a run,” he said, shrugging after he said it and letting out a breathy laugh. “Nothing
really. Nothing special.”
Isabel nodded, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth as he effectively dismissed that part of the
conversation. An awkward pause followed, before she desperately asked: “Do they fight often
then?”
“Who?” Harry asked in confusion, as though his mind had wandered.

“Zayn and Caitlin?”
“Not necessarily often,” Harry replied. “Recently she’s been picking fights with him a lot
though. It’s ever since they slept together, I think.”
“They slept together?” Isabel asked incredulously.
“Yeah, just after Zayn’s birthday I think. Zayn regrets it so much.”
“Does Caitlin?”
Harry smiled slightly and shrugged. “No idea.”
“I bet she does,” Isabel said, looking up at him and remembering when she’d come to the
conclusion that Caitlin liked Harry. She angrily suppressed the thought that he wasn’t a hard
person to like, really, with his bright green eyes and dimpled smile and big, clumsy feet. He
turned to look at her, frowning slightly but still smiling, his eyes shining.
“Why do you think she’d regret it?”
It was Isabel’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know. Just friends crossing the line when they shouldn’t
have, that sort of thing. Always gets a bit awkward.”
Harry turned away, his frown deepening as his gaze flickered towards the floor. “Yeah,” he
muttered.
They walked in silence the rest of the way, Harry deep in thought as he played with his lip and
kept his gaze to the ground. When they turned the corner onto the road where the bus stop was,
Isabel could see her bus waiting at some traffic lights up the road.
“Oh, it’s here! That’s lucky,” she said with an awkward laugh. “Thanks for walking me Harry.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you the rest of the way?”
“It’s like 20 metres away,” she said with a raised eyebrow and he forced a chuckle.
“Yeah, of course. Stupid. Sorry.”
She leaned in to hug him, just as he looked up to say “Sorry that I’m too drunk to drive you
home”, resulting in another head bash for the second time that night.
“Shit, I’m so sorry!” he said, and she could only laugh as he nursed his head with a wince.
“Fuck, that hurt.”
“I’m relatively unscathed,” she assured him.

“Lucky for some,” he countered.
Silence.
“Well, I’ve got to run so –”
“Oh yeah, of course. See you at work tomorrow.”
Isabel smiled over her shoulder as she began to walk away hurriedly. “Yeah, see you.”
She turned back around, picking up her pace as the traffic lights changed, but before she could
go much further she felt Harry yank on her arm and spin her back around.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “For being mean. I’m sorry, Isabel.”
“It’s okay, I forgave you already.”
He nodded. “I um – I was going to…” He looked around frantically for some sort of help, and
when none arrived he spat out breathlessly: “Will you model for me?”
“What?”
His eyes searched hers desperately, swallowing nervously as he laughed and looked away. “I
mean for art. For portraiture. I’m doing portraiture and I need someone to model for me.”
“Why do you want me to do it? You could ask someone who knows what they’re doing? Like
Caitlin or –”
“I only want you,” he said, and for a moment his eyes were so warm that Isabel wondered how
she stayed standing. “Because of the style I want,” he added. “But only if you want to, I mean,
you don’t have to if you don’t –”
“I don’t really want to,” she mumbled. His face fell entirely, and for a moment she thought he
might say please but then he didn’t.
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah, don’t worry.”
“I have to catch my bus,” she said awkwardly, smiling and walking off towards the bus stop.
Just before she got there, she turned and saw him watching her dejectedly, scratching the back of
his neck with his curls blowing in the wind. And she didn’t change her mind because she thought
she should please Harry, or because she thought it was the right thing to do, or because she felt
bad. For once she actually did what she wanted to do, which was to see Harry do his art, and see
him happy, and be a part of something he loved doing, and most of all she just really, really
wanted to spend time with him.
So she looked over her shoulder, and smiling, she called: “Okay, I’ll do it.”
End Notes:
Hello hi omg
okay so in this chapter we saw a side to Isabel and Harry we haven’t seen before and I just love
cute awkward drunk honest Harry, I know some of you hate him at the moment but do you think
he redeemed himself here? Do you think things will be better now?
anyway regardless of that, people have been wanting harry to apologise and he did yay (which is
weird because I wrote it like weeks and weeks ago so it’s fab how things turn out) and Isabel
made flapjacks and talked about films and harry was being all apologetic instead of Isabel for
once :)
Next chapter we’ll see the return of Liam, Millie, Louis and Art!Harry AND it is going to be
Isabel’s modelling career debut (haha) – how do we think she’ll do?!
Alsooooo let's talk about how I GOT NOMINATED FOR AN UNDERGROUND1DFF

AWARD!! It’s for Best MA and I have no fucking clue how but whoever voted for me I love
you and thank you so much :)))) the competition is super stiff and I know those fics are
incredible so it's an absolute pleasure to be nominated and thank you so much for reading and
thinking to type BDC into the nomination form whoever you are!
I’ll see ya Sunday, lots of love to everyone for everything thank you thank you thank you
forever!! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
not even a little bit, not even at all
March
“Tea, Harry?” Isabel asked, popping the kettle on and leaning against the counter.
Harry was sitting at the small kitchen table, battling with the SLR camera that Caitlin had leant
him for the occasion. “Yes please,” he replied, looking up at her with a smile.
“How do you take it?” Isabel asked casually, but she knew the answer from all the cups of tea
they had at work: weak, no sugar, like her.
“The same as you,” Harry said without looking up, fiddling with the lens in a worryingly
amateur fashion.
She nodded, trying not to dwell on the fact that he’d not only noticed how she liked her tea but
remembered too, and got the milk out of the fridge.
“Issy, me and Lyds are just heading out now,” she heard Liam’s voice call, and a moment later
he was sticking his head round the door of the kitchen. “Are you sure you don’t –”
He noticed Harry sitting at the table, and for a moment his eyes lingered on the tattoos and mop
of hair – today not in its usual bandana – before going over to shake Harry’s hand.
“For a moment there I thought that was Louis at the table,” he laughed. “I’m Liam, nice to meet
you.”
“Harry. You too,” he replied politely.
“What happened?” Liam asked, nodding at Harry’s left hand. He had a bandage wrapped around
it, snaking in the crevice between his thumb and forefinger.
“I had stitches,” Harry explained. “I cut my hand on cracked china.”
“Ouch. How big was it?”
“Hardly long at all and only a quarter of an inch deep. It kept opening up and bleeding every
time I moved my hand though.”
Isabel rolled her eyes. “Liam, he wouldn’t go to the hospital. His friends had to make him go.”
Harry pouted. “I don’t like stitches.” He licked his lips, his eyes glazing over slightly before
continuing, “It’s cos when I was younger my older brother, he like sliced his eyebrow open and
then his stitches got all infected, it was disgusting. He used to lean over my bed and wake me up
with his head in my face. I still get nightmares.”
He grinned at her shyly and she smiled back. She’d never heard him speak about his older
brother like this before.
Liam coughed, and both of them jumped in surprise. “So are you two gonna join us later?
“No, no, we’re not here for long actually,” Isabel explained. “We’re just gonna go and pick out
some clothes upstairs then we’re going back to Harry’s. I’m being his model, it’s for his art
degree.” Liam raised his eyebrows.
“Portraiture, that sort of thing,” Harry mumbled.
“Okay, sure,” Liam said with a firm nod. “Well, I’ll tell them you said hello, Is.”
She nodded, smiling as he left the kitchen and Lydia called a goodbye before the door slammed
shut. Isabel handed Harry his mug and he followed as she led the way.
“My room’s right at the top,” she warned, “it’s a bit of a hike.”
“It’s no problem,” he responded from behind her. “Is Millie here?”
“No, she and Scarlett went to the cinema,” Isabel explained, nearly adding ‘And I really wanted
to go but I didn’t for you’.
“It would’ve been nice to see Millie again,” Harry said, and Isabel frowned, remembering the
way Harry had eyed her up at the gig. Well, he did like brunette girls.
“Yeah, I bet you would.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means, Styles.”
“Is that all you think of me, Isabel?” he said in mock horror, before adding flatly: “I’m
offended.”
“Oh no, don’t be. I’m sure many guys would absolutely kill to be a lothario like you.”
“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me.”
“Me? Never.”
Reaching the top of the house, she pushed the door open to her attic room and went on in. Harry
followed her, tripping on the small step and nearly smacking his head on the low doorframe.
“Smooth,” Isabel commented with raised eyebrows.

“What is it with being with you and sustaining head injuries?” he asked, rubbing his head even
though he hadn’t hit it this time. She rolled her eyes and shuffled self-consciously as his eyes
raked around her room.
Things were weird. She was used to being the one making the effort with Harry, and now that he
was reciprocating her friendliness everything he said made her smile, and although she was
trying her best not to look toodelighted at the change in him, it wasn’t working. In the six days
since he’d apologised she’d only seen him at work, but those moments had been the highlights of
her week.
And now he was in her room, peering around at everything and blowing on his tea, leaving her
distinctly anxious.
“So, what do you want me to wear?” she asked him, turning towards her wardrobe. “I’ve got
quite a variety of stuff so whatever really… I’ve got –”
“Is this your sister?” Harry asked. He was leaning over her desk and studying her pinboard
closely, pointing to a picture of Isabel and Savannah in bridesmaid dresses at her mum and step-
dad’s wedding. Isabel nodded, and Harry’s lips pulled up at the corners.
“She doesn’t look like you at all,” Harry mused. “Dark hair and light eyes. She’s like the
opposite.”
“Yeah,” Isabel nodded, chewing on her lip. “When I was younger I always wanted to look like
her. I still do, a bit, I guess.”
Harry caught her gaze for a moment before turning back to the pictures.
“So anyway, should I wear all black or colour or… Harry are you listening?”
“Yeah, I am,” Harry lied. “Who’s this?”
“Er – that’s my brother and my dad. We’re in San Francisco.”
Harry smiled. “You look so happy.”
Isabel forced out a vague noise in response.
“Was it a good place? San Francisco?”
“Yeah, it was brilliant. Hey, does your hand hurt Harry?” She desperately tried to change the
conversation, feeling like if he kept looking through her stuff with this stupid smile on her face
she might start crying.
He shrugged. “Nah, not at all.” He looked around, drawing his attention now to the desk.
“What’s this stuff, Isabel?”
She went over to see what he was looking at, her heart jumping to her throat as the worst
possible thing that he could have ever seen was poking out from beneath her Spanish Civil War
notes.
“That’s – that’s nothing,” she choked, pushing him out of the way roughly and shoving anything
she could find on top of it to conceal it from his view.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You don’t have to hide anything, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s nothing, don’t worry,” Isabel said as nonchalantly as she could, keeping her back to him
and rearranging the desk, her face red and her heartbeat erratic.
Before she had time to take a breath Harry was behind her, one hand softly tucking a piece of
hair behind her ear and the other stretched out by her waist to lean on the desk. “Hey. You know
my secret,” he whispered into her ear. “Look at you, you’re right slap bang in the middle of all
this art shit and I - I don’t even know how really. It’s only fair to show me, too.”
His voice was like honey, smooth and low, softer than fresh white sheets. His lips brushed her
ear, and she couldn’t stop herself leaning back into him slightly, her eyelids fluttering. She’d felt
what it was like to be seduced by Harry once before – in the bathroom of his house, when he was
angry and hostile and so sexy – but this was different. It was gentle and warm and she was
grabbing the paper before her brain could even register what was happening.
She had no idea whether he knew what he was doing to her, whether this was manipulation at its
best and most skilled, but somehow she knew that it wasn’t. This had more to do with her than
with Harry, and that was more than a little worrying.
When she was holding the papers with shaking hands, he turned her by her waist so that she was
leaning against the desk and he standing in front of her, a look of encouragement on his face.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said in a quivering voice, looking down at the papers in trepidation.
“Nobody knows about this except my dad and my brother.”
“Of course I won’t laugh.”
She took a deep breath, keeping her gaze averted, before explaining: “I help run the Film
Society. I’m secretary. It’s so … so stupid I know.”
Her gaze flickered up to meet Harry’s and found him staring down at her intensely, his eyebrows
pulled together and his lips in a thin line. “It’s not stupid at all,” he said. “What kind of stuff do
you do?”
He moved back to give her some room, perching at the end of the bed and looking up at her with
wide, encouraging eyes. She wondered how he managed to look at people like this, in a way
where they felt like their story, their opinion, their secrets were the most interesting thing he’d
ever heard, that he was completely engrossed in their voice and, in that moment, they were the
most important person in the world to him.
“Well, every Thursday night we do a screening of a film. And then I make graphs and tables and
stuff to track what we’re doing and how many people show up, that’s what these papers are. I try
and see new films quite a lot, but it’s expensive obviously so I just watch online and then I
sometimes write a review for the blog. Yeah, we have this blog thing as well. I’m working on
making some recommendations and stuff to go in the school magazine, too.” She smiled
nervously and Harry smiled back, a wide, genuine, toothy smile that made the corners of his eyes
crinkle. “And I’m drafting all these plans for Action in the Community stuff, like film screenings
for kids and whatever, and I’ll hopefully get that started after Easter. I just really enjoy it. Film, I
mean. I look up trivia and stuff like that all the time. I’m really good with film trivia.”
“Where are all your DVDs?” Harry questioned, looking around.
“In boxes under the bed.”
“In alphabetical order?”
She shook her head, biting back a smile. “No, by year, then genre, then alphabetical.”
He raised his eyebrows and whistled.
Isabel shrugged, tucking her hair behind her ear. “It’s the only thing I properly love. I used to
like History at school but it’s so much harder and more boring at degree level. I um, I don’t
really enjoy it,” she admitted.
“Am I allowed to see the blog? For your reviews?”
She took a moment to consider. “When you let me see your art, I’ll let you see the blog,” she
reasoned, and he paused before smirking and giving a short nod.
“Sounds fair.”
Isabel put back her papers carefully, feeling almost light-headed with the relief of being able to
tell somebody not one but two secrets, and having received no judgement or amusement on his
part.
“So what should I wear then Harry?” she asked, turning back around.
“What you are now,” he said suddenly, jumping to his feet. “And I want to do it here, in this
room. I want you as you are. This is perfect.”
“Oh,” she said. “What … what do you want me to do?”

He looked around the room, biting down on his lip, and she wished she could see her room
through his artist’s eyes, see the colours and the patterns and the beauty that she couldn’t.
“Sit on the bed,” he commanded, going to the window and adjusting the curtain so just the right
amount of light would hit her. Then, going back over, he stood in front of her, studying her with
concentrated eyes. “You need to mess up your hair a bit. It’s not usually this tidy.”
She stuck her tongue out but did as she was told, mussing it up with her fingers as he grabbed the
camera.
“Wait, Harry,” she said, alarmed. “What do you want me to do? I don’t know what to do.”
“Just relax,” he replied. He took a couple of snaps, giving her little instructions here and there
– “make sure you don’t look at the camera”, “don’t blink so much, that’s it” - as she sat stiffly,
then pulled the camera away with a smile. “Okay, you look really awkward.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing! What did you expect?”
“You’re ridiculous. I’m not asking you to look like you’re in Vogue,” Harry said, rolling his
eyes. “I want to paint you as if I’ve caught you in the middle of talking, or studying or
something. Just be natural.”
“That’s kind of hard when you’re shoving a camera in my face,” she mumbled.
“Just relax. I’m gonna paint these pictures anyway so I promise I’ll make you look less
uncomfortable,” he said reassuringly. “Just give me something to work with. Talk to me. Give
me some trivia about your favourite film.”
She frowned, biting on her lip and humming as she tried to remember one single film, all titles
explicably vanishing from her head when he put her on the spot, and it took her so long to
deliberate that Harry rolled his eyes.
“Do my favourite film then.” He smiled. “It’s 10 Things I Hate About You.”
Her eyes widened in surprise and he snapped away, grinning behind his camera. “No way.”
“Yeah. Although, if anyone asks it’s something manly, like Fight Club or Rocky or something.”
“Who knew you were into ‘90s rom-coms?”
“Oh, I’m not. I just love Heath Ledger.”
“Goes without saying. Who doesn’t love Heath Ledger?”
“I’m glad you said that, I would have walked out right now if you’d have said something snobby
about him.”
“I’m a girl, Harry.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I noticed.”
“There isn’t a girl in existence who doesn’t love Heath Ledger.”
“You’re avoiding the question!”
“I’m thinking, hold on.”
She bit down on her lip as she thought, and the camera clicked furiously.
“Don’t tell me it’s based on The Taming of the Shrew, by the way,” Harry added sternly.
“Because I already know that.”
“I wasn’t going to, obviously. That’s common knowledge.”
He mimicked her from behind the lens, opening and closing his mouth and screwing up his nose,
and she stuck her middle finger up at him. “Okay, I got one.”
“Shoot.”
“On the posters and adverts and stuff for the film, it had the tagline ‘How do I loathe thee? Let
me count the ways’ which is obviously a play on ‘How do I love thee?’ right?”
“Yeah?”
“But that’s not from Shakespeare, which people think it is because the film is based on
Shakespeare. That’s –”
“Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” Harry interrupted, before giving her an embarrassed smile and
hiding behind the camera. “I know her. But I didn’t know that.”
“Well I have another one for you then,” Isabel continued quickly, wanting to say something that
would impress him. “Ashton Kutcher tried out to play Patrick.”
“Eurgh,” Harry made a disgusted face and she grinned delightedly. “Thank God he didn’t get it. I
only have eyes for Heath.”
Isabel laughed, and he smiled, murmuring, “How are you feeling now?” as he flicked through the
pictures.
“Much better. I feel like a natural,” she joked.
“All right, Kate Moss, don’t get cocky,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes, a smirk playing at his
lips. She made a face and lay down on the bed, reaching for her phone.
“Wait, don’t move!” Harry cried suddenly. “I want you right there.”
He knelt on the bed, leaning over her. This time, there was no conversation, no banter, just
silence except from the clicking of the camera and their breathing.
“That’s it,” Harry murmured encouragingly. “These are good.”
He leaned back, removing the camera from around his neck and handing Isabel her now
lukewarm tea to sip.
“I just want to sketch you quickly,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I just have
– it just makes sense if I do it. It’ll be really quick. I’ll go and get my bag from downstairs.”
He scampered off, and all Isabel could do was lie there and contemplate what on earth was
happening. It was Friday night, and she was spending it lying on a bed with Harry instead of
being out with her friends and boyfriend. And she didn’t even care.
She enjoyed spending time with Harry, feeling the centre of the universe when he listened to her,
feeling wanted. And even though he had ignored her and been rude to her and made her feel
awful for hanging out with his friends, that all fell away like sand through parted fingers when he
spoke to her with that deep, smooth voice and shot her a little smile with the lips that made
Isabel’s hand shake.
“I’m back,” he announced, tripping over the step again as he came back in. “You should do
something about that fucking step!”
“Maybe if you weren’t so clumsy,” she told him as he rifled through his rucksack, getting out a
paper pad and some pencils. He snorted at the irony. “Other people who come in here are fine.”
“Oh yeah?” he said with raised eyebrows. “You get a lot of people in here?”
“None of your business,” she retorted, putting her mug on the side as he laughed.
“I thought of some film trivia for you,” he smiled, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed and
holding his pencil between his fingers. “Well, it’s like a hybrid. Of film trivia and Harry trivia.”
“Harry trivia’s my favourite kind,” she replied as a genuine, wide smile crept across her face. He
frowned curiously and her cheeks warmed. Idiot, idiot, idiot.
“Okay,” he said, giving a little breathy laugh. “Um – it was just gonna be the reason I like
brunette girls. There’s a reason.”’
“Oh,” she said, meaning it to sound like a question but it came out flat.
“It was Sloane,” Harry told her, shooting a grin. “From Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? I was in love
with her for like, the best part of my teenage years.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows, pulling her lip between her teeth as the corners pulled up. “Yeah?”
Harry nodded. “You have no idea. She’s perfect. I think the first time I wanked it was to her.”
“Don’t be disgusting,” she said, screwing up her face, and he laughed brightly, all lips and teeth
and tongue.
He began to draw her then, holding the paper at an angle that she couldn’t see the sketch so she
studied his face instead. The way his tongue stuck out slightly between his teeth and his
eyebrows creased up as he drew. The circles under his eyes, purple and blotchy like a bruise, that
only made him even more beautiful in the dim light. A curl poked out from under the lobe of his
ear, starting from his temple and following the shape of his ear right down until it brushed his
neck.
She looked at his neck when he swallowed, the small bump of his Adam’s apple rising and
falling, the incline of his chest beneath his shirt as he breathed, the veins in his neck showing just
slightly beneath his skin. Every now and then she would check back on his eyes, see where he
was looking, but it was never into hers – just at her nose or her lips, her arms, her hair. They
were so brilliantly green – that mantis green which had enchanted her in the shop – and his long
eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks when he looked down at the page.
She was scared of him. She was scared that if he ever kissed her it would never be able to match
the expectation she’d built in her mind, the way she’d imagined it when she lay awake at night,
scared that the real act would never live up to the colossal anticipation. But she was more scared
that he never would and he’d leave her in this pit of longing, because she’d never wanted
anything more than Harry to kiss her and it was terrifying and confusing and she didn’t
understand it at all. And most of all, she was scared that everyone felt like this, that what she had
with Harry was nothing special, that what she felt for him was just some natural, instinctive
reaction, and she was scared that he made tens, hundreds of girls feel this way without caring at
all.
At last he caught her eyes, going to draw them she supposed, and he only glanced at them for a
second before his gaze turned back to his pencil. When he looked up again, she was still staring,
and although his hand moved his eyes didn’t. They stared back, right into hers, and for a moment
all she could hear was her heart beating in her mouth as their eyes locked for what felt like
forever.
All at once, Harry flung the paper to the floor and was leaning over her, grabbing her face in one
hand as his lips grazed hers so lightly she didn’t even really feel it, she couldn’t really even
believe it. But their noses were brushing and his body was shifting so one leg rested between
hers as he hovered above her and she could feel his breath on her mouth and it was all so
unbelievably real, like how she imagined it felt when you jumped off a ledge and you could feel
the wind rushing past and the sharp pull of gravity but couldn’t quite get yourself to realise you
were falling.
He hesitated, his eyes searching hers before he leaned back in, their lips catching for longer this
time so she could feel that his were warm and slightly chapped, and they pressed down harder
with each passing second so that eventually he had to pull away, sighing against her mouth and
swiping his tongue gently against her lips.
Isabel lay entirely still, because although she wanted this she hadn’t seen it coming, and her brain
was screaming so many different things she could do nothing but freeze. But Harry kept kissing
her, his thumb stroking her face, and she could feel the permanent little dent in his middle finger
where he gripped his pencil, and she could feel him getting frustrated, and she could feel pure,
paralysing shock that raced through every nerve and left her entirely still. But then he bit down
on her lower lip and dragged it with his teeth, and she shivered, her heart hurting and she
involuntarily grabbed a handful of his hair and tugged, whimpering into his mouth as every
single inhibition tumbled away into nothing.
When she parted her lips he dipped his tongue into her mouth, sighing again when their tongues
touched and sliding his hand from her face to rest gently against the side of her neck so that his
thumb pressed against her pulse, and he must have known then that her heart was slamming so
hard against her ribs that her body was in overdrive, ready to run or fight or die, whichever came
first. He shifted, grabbing her tighter as their kiss became heavier, their breathing laboured and
hot. When Isabel had to pull away for breath, Harry didn’t stop; his lips moved to her jaw,
trailing wet kisses down her neck with his chapped lips, his breath searing hot and panting as he
sucked on the skin of her neck so hard she winced. He nipped and kissed and licked all the way
from her neck to the part of her collarbone that was peeking out of her jumper until Isabel gasped
quietly, fisting his hair so tight that he hissed into her skin.
He came back up, leaning his forehead against hers so that his hair brushed against her skin, their
noses touching as she breathed in what he exhaled. “What are – how do you do this to me?” he
whispered, his pupils blown black and his voice so breathless that for a moment she thought
she’d imagined it, but she caught his wide eyes searching hers desperately and she knew she’d
heard right.
She blinked at him, entirely taken aback and breathless and confused, and she wondered whether
this was part of his routine, whether this was the well-rehearsed phrase he used to get girls to
drop their knickers. She kept her eyes open for a minute as she watched his fall shut, his hand
sliding behind her neck as he pushed his tongue into her mouth again.
It got messier and more desperate with each passing second, or minute, or whatever it was:
neither of them knew. Isabel’s hands slid up the back of his t-shirt and clawed the bare skin of
his shoulder-blades, and Harry gripped her hips tightly with his rough, calloused fingers, the
gauze of his bandage scratching her as he nudged one of her legs to wrap it around his waist and
ground his hips down hard. Isabel bit down hard on his lip in surprise and he hissed, drawing
back. He leaned back in before she could say anything, swiping his tongue into her mouth and
swallowing her apology.
She could feel how urgent he was getting, how his hands were pushing their way up and down
her body, burning her skin through her clothes, and how she could feel him through his jeans,
and how he was making a little noise in the back of his throat that made her light-headed. He said
her name quietly, and suddenly all she could think about was the other times he’d kissed
someone exactly this way, because this was her first. She’d never been kissed like this, not even
once, not even by Louis –
Oh shit.
She pulled away, only managing to distance the upper half of her body as his hands were holding
her hips to his. He was flushed, his lips swollen and pink, a touch of blood lingering on the
bottom one from how hard she had bit him. His eyes were dark, the pupils dilated, and he was
breathing so hard that his chest was heaving. He frowned, leaning back in to kiss her but she
placed a hand on his chest.
“Harry, I can’t.”
Harry paused for a second, blinking at her, before he pulled away, untangling himself from her
and jumping up from the bed quickly. He ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier
than it was already, and looked down at her only for a moment before grabbing everything of his
in sight and shoving it into his rucksack.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I need to go,” he croaked hoarsely, avoiding her eyes.
“What about your art?”
“I got enough.” He slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way to the door.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel said after him.
He sighed, his back to her. “I know,” he mumbled, and then he was gone.
~~~
“What the fuck is wrong with you tonight?” Millie asked, downing the rest of her glass as the
pair of them sat on a leather sofa that stuck to the bottom of their thighs and stank of smoke.
“Nothing,” Isabel lied, tugging at the tight collar of her top as though it was strangling her. She
watched Louis throw his arm around a mate of his on the other side of the room, laughing
wildly.
“You barely come out anymore, and then the one time we manage to get you here you might as
well be a stale ham sandwich for all the conversation you make.”
“Is that an expression? I don’t recall ever hearing it before.”
“Shut up,” Millie snapped. “Go and talk to your friends, go on Is! Or do I have to babysit you all
night?”
Isabel looked out with trepidation at the people who were supposedly her friends. The thing was,
she seemed to be seeing them through different eyes now. Harry and Rory were right – they
really did all think they were massively awesome, and it was kind of off-putting now she thought
about it.
She wasn’t like that anymore. She didn’t want to feel judged by everyone she was supposedly
friends with, or automatically judge someone else walking into the room. She didn’t want to feel
better than everyone else but inferior to those she hung out with. It wasn’t right to feel like that,
and it annoyed her that she’d needed Harry to show her that before she’d realised it herself.
Fucking Harry, she thought with a scowl, finishing her drink and marching off to get a refill
from her bag. Why does he have to ruin everything?
She’d spent yesterday evening and all of Saturday afternoon worrying about what to do about
this fucked up situation, but when she’d arrived at the party she’d remembered a piece of advice
her dad had given her when she was fourteen.
Her parents split up when Isabel was nine after that fateful holiday to Mallorca. For a long time
Savannah refused to go and see their father, leaving James and Isabel to go on their own, and so
every other weekend, James would take her little hand in his grown-up, teenager-y one and
march them through Hammersmith tube station, Isabel’s plastic Tesco bag full of pre-made jam
sandwiches and orange juice cartons and James’ comic book bouncing against her leg. She never
let him go, just in case, but even though they had to change at Leicester Square and fight their
way through packs of tourists, James knew what he was doing and he never got them lost.
Their dad moved into a flat in Islington – the grotty part, not the posh part – in a basement flat
that Isabel thought was the coolest place in the whole world. It only had two bedrooms, and he
had spent most of his money buying this record player that had apparently once belonged to Ray
Davies, so there was barely any furniture, but it was enough. He lived with a lady for a while but
Isabel was never properly introduced to her, and after a couple of years she moved out and Isabel
never saw another lady with her dad again.
So when Isabel was fourteen, Savannah, at twenty-one, agreed to spend Christmas with her dad
for the first time since the break-up, but James and Savannah got into a huge fight about burned
roast potatoes, an argument which ended up including Isabel, Dad and Savannah’s soon-to-be
fiancé Alex. It reached its tumultuous climax when Savannah had spat out that Dad over-
compensated, spoiled James and Isabel with holidays and theatre trips and cinema tickets to
make up for his Big Mistake and announced that she hoped she’d never be as an awful a parent
as him. Even at fourteen Isabel thought it was impossible for someone to over-compensate for
something neither child begrudged, and although the evening got back onto its awkward, bumpy
track, Isabel later found her dad lying alone in his room and staring at the ceiling.
“Honesty is the best policy,” he told her when she crawled up the bed next to him and laid her
head on his shoulder. He often offered advice like this, in a contemplative voice and faraway
eyes, and she hung on every word he said like he was the wisest man in the world.
“What if it’ll hurt someone?”
He shrugged. “You can tell yourself that it’ll be better for them to keep it from them, but all
you’re doing is delaying the bad feelings and making yourself feel worse.”
“What about if it will hurt you to be honest?” she asked, because although her dad was holed
away in here she knew Savannah was crying in the room next door over a glass of wine with her
head tucked into Alex’s armpit.
He looked at her with a small smile. “Well you’ve got to, but that’s when you’ve got a problem.
If being honest hurts you, that’s when you’ve got a big old problem.”
And so as she remembered this, Isabel realised with a sinking heart that she had to tell Louis
about what had happened as soon as possible. If anything, it would open the door to discussion
and give her answers to long overdue questions.
She grabbed at her vodka bottle, realising with horror that she only had a third left. Taking a
desperate couple of swigs and nearly vomiting there and then on the carpet, she stumbled back
into the living room, fumbling with the collar of her turtleneck to make sure it was covering her
mutilated skin.
Even with a diminished grasp of her senses and lack of reasonable judgement, she spotted Louis
in the crowd instantly.
“Isabel, babe!” Louis shouted loudly, throwing his arm around her neck and planting a kiss on
her cheek. He suddenly seemed so fake that it nearly made her shudder.
Louis’ friends all started to chorus to her at once, which was too much for her drunken brain to
handle. She smiled in their general direction before turning to Louis. “Can we go talk, Louis?”
“What, now?” he asked with a frown, licking his lips with poorly concealed agitation as his eyes
flickered around the room. “Can’t we talk later?”
“No, not really.”
With a pretty loud sigh of “for fuck’s sake” Louis followed her out into the hallway and up the
stairs, letting go of her hand as soon as they were out of sight. Isabel found an empty bedroom
and went in, turning on the lights and sitting down on the bed, patting the space next to her.
Louis sat next to her as he was told, looking disinterestedly out of the window. “What is it,
then?”
She took a deep breath. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her chest she thought she’d hear
it. “Don’t you think this is kinda monotonous?”
“What is?”
“Us. This … relationship.”
He turned to look at her with a disparaging glower. “Oh come on.”
“I’m just getting a bit sick of you only calling me when you want someone to fuck, if I’m
honest.”
“And I’m pretty sick of you moaning every five minutes, but I’m a grown-up, I can deal with
it.”
Isabel’s hands tightened into fists. “Relationships aren’t supposed to be a chore, Louis.”
“It’s only a chore because you make it one!”
“I told you I loved you and you’ve stopped communicating with me, so don’t try and call
yourself a grown-up because you sure as hell don’t act like one!”
Louis pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, spitting out “Don’t bring that up, for fuck’s
sake.”
“Why are you treating it like a murder case or something?”
“Because I’m 20 fucking years old and love is not something I need – or want – right now!” He
sighed, staying silent for a moment before looking over at her and biting his lip. “Sorry, Is. I
don’t want to upset you.”
He was reacting so differently to how she thought he would, and it was making her panic. Her
palms started to sweat as guilt spread from her frantic heart to her burning veins. She avoided his
eyes, swallowing and brushing her hair away from her hot face.
Honesty is the best policy.
“Louis, I need to tell you something.”
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. “What now?”
She hesitated, tripping over the start of her sentence a few times as tears pricked in her eyes and
fear gripped her heart. He got more and more exasperated, his foot tapping on the floor
impatiently, until she finally spat out: “I kissed someone else.”
End Notes:
well, this was all very dramatic wasn’t it?
first of all - Hisabel kissed!!! Are you like 'finally!' or 'oh shit' or 'uh why did they do that' ??
what do you think’s gonna happen with them next chapter?
and oh nooooo Louis – how do you reckon he’ll react?!
the last two chapters have been hella long so sorry or you’re welcome (I’m not sure which is
more appropriate), the next one’s looking to be shorter but v v v intense
also HEY thanks so much for 100 reviews and 10,000 views that was an insanely happy moment
for me this week! massive thank you as well to the people who messaged/reviewed saying they
nominated BDC for the underground award, I love you and am eternally grateful :)
I’ll see you Thursday, have a great couple days and send me any
predictions/questions/reactions/requests at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
worth less
March
Louis stopped tapping his foot. In fact, he stopped moving entirely, every part of him, his eyes,
his hands, his chest as he stopped breathing. “Who?” he whispered, barely audible through his
still lips.
“You don’t know him,” Isabel said quickly. “Louis, I literally can’t tell you how sorry I am, I
feel so –”
Louis’ whole body slumped slightly, a releasing of tension. “Does anyone know?”
“No, just you. It was only yesterday. I’m so, so sorry Louis. I don’t know what came over me, I
don’t know why I did it, but I - I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “Okay.” He slapped his hands on his knees in a casual gesture, getting up to leave.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She frowned. “What?”
“Don’t worry, babe,” he smiled, stroking her hair lightly. “No harm done.”
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘No harm done’?” she said slowly, getting to her feet.
“Exactly as it sounds,” he replied, his eyes narrowing. “Nobody knows, it’s no big deal.”
“It was a big deal to me!” she hissed, her cheeks flushing when he raised his eyebrows. “You
could at least pretend to care!”
“Did you do this to prove some kind of point? To make me jealous?” he laughed coldly. “That’s
fucking low, even for you.”
Even for you. That was familiar.
“No, I did it because I wanted to!” she said, her hands shaking in anger as she ripped the neck of
her turtleneck down and showed him the bruises on her neck and collarbone left from Harry’s
lips, a constellation of marks in shades of red and yellow and purple. She swallowed, looking
away and mumbling: “I wanted to so badly Louis. You have no idea how much.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And? Why are you showing me that?”
“Do you literally not care at all?” She was aware that she sounded hysterical now, but sharp tears
of anger were stinging the back of her eyes and she didn’t care. “I would, if someone kissed you.
I’d want to know why.”
He frowned. “But I know why. You thought I was upset with you. You won’t do it again. No
harm, no foul.”
He could have slapped her and it would have hurt less. She couldn’t understand how he could
think so little of her when she thought the world of him. Or she had done not long ago.
“How do you know that I won’t do it again?” she snapped, and his eyes widened at her sudden,
uncharacteristic fury. “I’m not going to follow you around doing whatever you say however
many times you aim a fucking kick at me for the rest of my life!”
“Calm down!” Louis shouted, but she was too riled up now.
“How do you know I won’t tell everyone? Why do you think you have that sort of authority over
me to stop me from doing that?”
“Because if you told everyone,” Louis hissed with gritted teeth. “That would be so embarrassing
for me. That you cheated on me?” he looked around wildly, as though someone may be hiding
behind the curtains. “No one can know.”
“Fuck you,” Isabel spat. “I’m sick of you treating me like this. I’m worth more than this.”
It was the first time she’d ever truly believed she was better than him. She used to think she was
better than people like Rory from Film Soc, who were practically anonymous and didn’t go out
much or get invited to any of the big parties, but she knew now how terrible that was, and she
felt even worse for that than she did for kissing Harry. Because, although this may have been the
first time she’d actually acknowledged her self-worth in relation to Louis, she knew with
defining certainty that she didn’t deserve to be treated this way, and neither did anyone else.
“Listen love,” he jeered with narrowed eyes, his voice suddenly flat and aggressive. “You’re not
as special as you bloody well think you are. I know that all this weird confidence of yours was
my doing, but you need toseriously consider what you’re saying right now, because I’m not
going to put up with this a lot longer.”
“Confidence?” Isabel was the one to laugh without humour this time, although the effect was
ruined by the tears paving ragged currents down her flaming cheeks. She wiped them off
roughly. “Louis, you’ve done nothing but make me feel worthless for eight months!”
“Well fuck off then!” Louis shouted, throwing his arms out in the air. “If you’re that sick of me
then fuck off! Do you think I want to hear you complaining every second of the day? Just go!
Why you haven’t gone by now is beyond me, if I’m that much of a fucking misogynist
dickhead!”
“Because I’m in love with you, you idiot!” But even as she said it they both knew that, actually,
it probably wasn’t true.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Louis said, looking like he was about to tear his hair out, or punch her.
“I’m so done. I’m done.”
“Good, me too,” Isabel replied, turning to the door.
“Have fun,” Louis bellowed, following her as she made her way through the corridor, “now that
you have no friends, no boyfriend, no one to put up with you. See how it feels now!”
She ignored him, hurrying down the stairs and grabbing her bag from the pile. People were
turning to watch them, but she didn’t care. She just needed to go.
“You’re a fucking idiot!” Louis yelled. “This was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“You’re delusional,” Isabel replied, her voice trembling as she turned to face him, barely holding
herself together. Her own voice surprised her, like she was hearing it over a tannoy and it wasn’t
actually coming out of her own mouth. She took a deep breath, feeling the words tumble out of
her with absolutely no control of what she was saying. “I hope you realise that before you turn
into a replica of your father.”
He winced as if he’d been stung. “You little fucking bitch. Don’t you dare talk about my father –
”
“Do you know what else you shouldn’t be Louis? A dealer.” She raised her voice as she spoke,
making sure their audience could hear. “I don’t think you often find that on the CVs of bankers,
however cool and popularand carefree it made you when you were nineteen.”
“You fucking slut,” Louis growled, his eyes full of rage as his cheeks burned, the group around
them giggling and whispering to each other. “I hope I never fucking set eyes on you again, you
dirty little whore. Fuck you.”
Louis took one more look at her before storming off into the front room, leaving Isabel alone
with what felt like hundreds of eyes boring into her and whispers hissing in the air, and her only
thought, obscenely, was that Harry would never, ever speak to her like that.
“She’s looking a bit fat at the moment, isn’t she?” she heard a girl stage whisper to the
surrounding people with a snigger, and Isabel looked over at her, ignoring the sharp sting of
embarrassment at being subjected to such public scrutiny and tilting up her chin.
“Why do you say it like that?” she replied. She was so unbelievably sick of them all being so
judgemental, so painfully self-serving. “I’m not fat, and I know you’re only saying it to try and
insult me, but being fat isn’t a bad thing just because you say it is.”
The girl snorted in disbelief, smacking on her gum. “Did I ask for your opinion, slag?”
Isabel very nearly apologised. It was on the tip of her tongue, about to tumble out like her words
to Louis before, like it always did, but taking a deep breath she swallowed it down and held her
ground. “No that’s the thing. None of you ever did.”
She spun on her heel and marched out of the door into the cold night air, leaving behind Louis
and her old friends and telling herself this would be the last time they ever made her cry.
~~~
Isabel didn’t go into work the following day, nor did she go in for her next shift on Wednesday
either. She couldn’t face seeing Harry; the thought of seeing him made her feel sick and her
breath catch and her heart hammer in her chest. She felt bad about missing work, not because of
her boss who arranged cover easily, but because she was scared she’d have to ask her parents if
she could borrow the money she’d missed. James’ wedding date had been set for summertime,
money was tighter than ever, and Isabel had never needed a job more.
However, by the next Friday – a whole week since she had last worked – it had become apparent
that she wouldn’t need their money. She had nothing to spend it on.
Her phone, which had once been flooded with messages from her friends, was now going
through an intense period of inactivity. Louis had made sure to be true to his word and leave
Isabel with no friends whatsoever, and she was getting sick of her housemates guiltily creeping
off all together, leaving Isabel without an invite and a date with her laptop for the evening.
The only friends she did have now were Harry’s friends. She’d spoken to Zayn, Olivia and Niall
that week, but she was very wary of meeting up with them in case Harry was there. That was the
other thing: although her phone was so lifeless it was almost in a coma, there was one person
who kept trying. Harry.
He called her a few times, and texted her more, his tone ranging from friendly to curious to
worried to pure angry. She knew it was childish to avoid him like the plague just because of one
kiss, but it was like the entire life she’d built for herself at university had crumbled apart from
the moment she had met him. And that sort of made it seem like it was very much his fault.
On Friday morning after an early seminar, Isabel met up with Liam in the library - she
miraculously hadn’t been banned from it, and she hadn’t decided whether that was a blessing or
a curse - and they studied together, Liam sweetly sitting with her instead of on the table with her
old friends at which she was now unwelcome.
In the car ride home, he kept throwing nervous glances at her, drumming his fingers against the
steering wheel.
“Spit it out, Liam.”
He smiled shyly. “We’re worried about you, Is.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and Lyd, and Millie especially. I’m sure Scarlett is too.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
“Are you really upset about Louis?”
The truth was, she was more than upset. She felt numb. She had cried for most of the Sunday
after the party, but since then she’d felt nothing. Nothing other than anger, for herself, for Harry,
for Louis, for her ex-friends, for everyone, which came in short sharp bursts. “I’m fine,” she
responded evenly.
“Harry’s worried about you too,” he added, and her head snapped up to glare at him.
“What?”
“He’s come by twice now,” Liam admitted, and Isabel’s fists balled up in her hands. “The first
time I saw him sitting outside in his car on Monday morning, when you were at uni. He said he
just wanted to know if you were okay because you didn’t come into work the night before.”
Isabel said nothing. She hadn’t realised that her ignoring his calls had affected him so much.
“He didn’t want to come in or anything, he seemed horrified at the thought. Actually, he told me
not to tell you that I saw him, but I um –” Liam bit his lip guiltily. “Well, the second time was
yesterday. He came to the door but didn’t knock. He just turned around and walked off again. I
saw him from my window.”
Isabel shook her head, grinding her teeth in an effort to stay calm.
“Is there anything going on with you two? Is that why you and Louis…” he trailed off.
“Liam, I need you to take me to work now please,” was all she replied.
“Oh, I thought you wanted to go home,” he said.
“Change of plans.”
~~~
Isabel threw herself down into the seat next to Harry, propping her feet on the edge of the table
and glaring at him. He was on his phone, his lips pouting slightly as he looked down at the
screen, holding it between the fingertips that Isabel remembered were rough and hardened. His
hair was free of its bandana again – maybe he’d finally realised how fucking stupid it looked – so
his curls were flopping down in front of his eyes, brushing his forehead.
He looked up at her and blinked, licking his lips as a million different emotions seemed to flicker
over his face before he settled on a frown. The circles under his eyes were so dark that it made
the green of his eyes brighter than usual, burning into her as he studied her face. “Hey,” he
rasped eventually.
She had planned to come and shout at him – she wasn’t sure about what yet, but she figured
she’d wing it– but her resolve crumbled when he threw her a small smile, the corners of his lips
turning up, and all she could do was glare at him with a dry mouth and crashing heart.
“I thought you had quit or something,” he said slowly. “I was expecting Michael today.”
“Nope,” she responded bluntly.
He frowned deeper, confused, and for once she was quicker than him to jump up and serve a
customer, plastering a bright smile onto her face as she took their change. Harry followed her
dumbly, taking their trainers and getting the appropriate pair of corresponding bowling shoes in
silence.
It was an unsurprisingly busy shift as today the schools and universities broke up for the Easter
holidays, and so the pair of them barely spoke to each other at all. Harry insisted on giving her a
lift home, to which she eventually agreed with a haughty shrug, and that was how she found
herself sitting in the car with Harry in a horrifically awkward silence.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly, the skin over his jaw strained while he drove. She was
reminded of the first time she got in his car, of how angry he got and how fast he had driven. The
memory made her shudder, and she leant back against the battered old seat and looked away
from him pointedly, staring out of the window and watching her breath cloud the glass.
“Please tell me what’s wrong,” he said suddenly, and there was an edge to his voice, a little beg
to it that caught in his throat. “I don’t know what I’ve – I’m sorry for what I did. I don’t –”
“It’s okay,” she interrupted. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him but she could feel his gaze
flickering to her as he drove.
“I’m being serious,” he said quietly. “You have to tell me, I can’t – fuck, I don’t know. I’m sorry
for kissing you, I thought that…” he trailed off. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
They fell silent again, but Isabel could hear him breathing heavily, and suddenly the car pulled
into a space at the side of the road and skidded to a halt, Harry slamming on the brakes and
yanking the handbrake up roughly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she shouted, pulling at the seatbelt that had been the only thing
preventing her from flying through the windscreen.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, ignoring her question completely.
“Nothing,” she mumbled, digging her teeth into her lip and avoiding his gaze. Telling him the
truth, and the argument it would inevitability provoke, had been a horrific idea. “Take me home,
please, Harry.”
“Stop it,” he said. “Please, I’m trying so hard here.”
“I didn’t ask you to try,” she mumbled. “There’s nothing wrong. I don’t need you to be nice to
me.”
“Nobody needs people to be nice to them,” he replied. He grasped her elbow with his left hand,
the bandage scratching at her skin, and she shrugged him off, feeling like she was about to burst
into tears. “If it’s something I’ve done, I’ll make it better. I know I’m on my last chance, I know.
I’m sorry, I’ll fix it –”
“You can’t,” she said, her voice wobbling. “Look, I’m fine, honestly –”
“Fuck off,” he snapped, finally losing his patience. “Tell me what’s wrong now, Isabel.”
“Sorry,” she said, and she heard him exhaling loudly. She turned to face him when he said
nothing, finding him staring at her with wild, furious eyes, his jaw clenched. Just as she worked
herself up to ask him to take her home again, he smacked the steering wheel so hard she jumped.
“Do you have any idea how bad this is!” he shouted. “What do you want, Isabel? Sorry for being
mean to you, Harry. Sorry for intruding, Harry. Sorry for kissing you, Harry. Nothing’s wrong,
Harry. What the fuck? How did – what happened? What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know, maybe the fact that my whole life has fallen apart and it’s all your fault!” she
blurted back.
“What are you talking about?” he replied, staring at her intensely as she avoided his gaze.
“I broke up with Louis, and now I have no friends. And you don’t like me being friends with
your friends, and I don’t want to be friends with you, so I’m fucked.”
Harry’s frown deepened even further. “Did you break up with Louis for … because of me?”
“Well it certainly didn’t help matters,” she said flatly, and his eyes flickered to the fading bruises
on her neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said with no hint of remorse whatsoever.
It was that apology that made something snap inside her, in the same way that the words had
tumbled out when she was fighting with Louis at the party, because neither of them were sorry
even though both of them had broken her, and yet all she’d done was apologise and meant it
every time.
“Don’t lie, Harry,” she replied angrily. “Don’t pretend you’re sorry. I’m sick of you lying about
everything.”
She wasn’t looking at him, but she could tell he was frowning. He swallowed, stumbling over his
words. “I – I don’t know –”
“You’re the most dishonest person I know and it’s exhausting,” she said suddenly. “You just
cover up everything and march around being rude to people and expecting them to fall at your
feet when you want them to without any explanation about what the fuck is wrong with you! You
can’t hide behind this front all the time Harry. What’s the point of speaking if you’re – you’re
just not saying anything?”
He didn’t respond for a long time, and when she heard him exhaling slightly, clearly having held
his breath ever since she’d started speaking, she regretted being so harsh. There were so many
things between her and Harry that she didn’t understand, but she knew that she didn’t want to
hurt him. She didn’t dare to look at him, and so she sat there with her heart in her mouth, guilt
flooding through her.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” she finally said, her voice quiet.
“Yes you did,” he responded flatly.
“Harry, no, I didn’t –”
“Yes you did!” he said loudly. He let out a loud breath. “It’s fine. You can think what you
want.”
“Look Harry, I know this is my fault, okay? I know that I kissed someone who wasn’t my
boyfriend and that I kept – kept going back to even when you told me to leave you the fuck alone
so many times.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “I know it’s
unfair to blame you. I know you don’t cheat, and I did and I know you’re judging me, and I’m
not blaming you for my mistakes but just – just don’t make me feel even worse than I already
feel, alright?”
She felt his hand on her arm again, and when she looked over at him with wide, watery eyes he
was looking at her anxiously. “Don’t cry, Is,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”
He tried to pull her towards him but she flinched, terrified of how fast her heart was beating and
of the way he was looking at her. He drew back, dropping his hands into his lap and looking
down at them, his cheeks flushing.
She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t think of anything other than ‘sorry’, and
sometimes it wasn’t good enough. She could see that her pushing him away for the second time
was getting to him, the sting of multiple rejections increasing every second, burning his face and
quickening his breathing. His fists curled up in his lap and he looked up and out of the window,
his tongue pressed into his cheek.
“You fucked up, Isabel,” he said quickly. “You’ve fucked this all up, haven’t you?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘this’ so she just stared at him. He took a deep breath, running
a hand through his hair and starting the engine up again. “I’m a fucking idiot,” he muttered. “I
knew you’d do something like this.”
She struggled to say anything at all she felt so completely trampled on. “You kissed me, Harry –
”
He sighed. “Because you wanted me to kiss you,” he said breathily, and it was pathetic that even
though he was annihilating her she still wanted to kiss him. Maybe not now, and maybe not later
today, but she knew that in a week she would be thinking about kissing him again and it was
ridiculous and hopeless but it was true.
“You were doing me a favour,” she finished for him, and he might as well have had her hand
around her neck because she could barely breathe. He looked away.
“That’s not what I said,” he mumbled.
“Then what?” He paused and then shrugged, getting ready to move the car away.
“What was this all about then, Harry?” she asked, her voice wobbling. “Why did you ask me to
be in your art and wait outside my house and – and kiss me if you don’t care?”
“I never said I don’t –” He stopped mid-sentence, and then barked out a laugh. “Did you think I
had a little crush on you or something?” he spat coldly, looking at her with flat, harsh eyes. “I’ve
told you before that you’re not my type.”
He pulled out of the parking space roughly and drove off.
“So did you just make it your mission to ruin my life, that’s it? Because you know full well you
could have literally any girl you wanted, and you chose me just to fuck everything up. Is that
it?”
Harry glanced at her briefly, before his lips stretched into a forced, unnatural looking smirk, the
dimple in his cheek flexing.
“I can’t believe – I can’t –” she struggled to find words, berating herself for her own stupidity.
She’d known from the moment she’d met Harry that he was just like all the other boys she knew,
that he only thought about himself and where and when he could get his latest fuck.
“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” was all she could come up with.
“Yeah? And you’re ridiculous. Completely, utterly fucking ridiculous,” he snapped.
She said nothing for the rest of the journey, digging her nails into her thighs in an effort to keep
calm. He drove manically, ignoring the speed limit and cutting the curb on corners so that they
reached her house in record time. She undid her seatbelt and moved to get out of the car
immediately, but he leaned over her and grabbed the door roughly to trap her in. He stared at her
with eyes so mad they were near slits, his mouth turned up in a snarl, and when he leaned
forward she instinctively leaned back, pressing herself against the glass behind her as he leaned
into her over the gearstick.
“You know what, Isabel?” he snarled, and she could tell he’d been waiting to say this for the
whole journey, rehearsing it in his mind. “You want me to be honest, so I’m going to come out
with it. You weren’t in love with Louis, you were infatuated with him because you have low
self-esteem and you thought he was too good for you. So I’m not sorry, you’re right, because
he’s a fucking arsehole and you’re a thousand times over too good for him and I hope he never
goes near you ever again.”
She gaped at him as he glared down at her, his breathing heavy as his teeth clenched. She opened
her mouth to say something, but he spoke over her.
“No, don’t,” he said slowly, pointedly. “Isabel, you need to stop it. You need to stop being so…
stop being like this. Stop letting people underestimate you. Nobody can make you feel worthless
unless you let them.”
But that’s just the thing – Isabel knew she wasn’t worthless. She drifted about and put things off
and chose not to think about the essay due next week or the milk that had gone off in the fridge
or the leaky tap in her bathroom. She treated people who were shit to her with kindness because
she knew that, somewhere in them, there was something up, something that most probably
wasn’t her fault and something that being horrible back wouldn’t help that. And yeah, maybe she
had thought she was worth less than Louis and Millie and their lot, but that didn’t mean she
thought she was worthless.
“Are you calling me weak, Harry?” she asked him, an edge to her voice that dared him to say
yes.
He paused, and that was enough to confirm it. “You don’t know how to play the game is what
I’m saying.” She frowned and he smiled slightly, a glint in his eye that made her breath catch in
her throat.
“The whole thing’s a massive game to him, and he’s good at playing it, you see?” Zayn had told
her. She’d been warned what he did with girls, and she hadn’t listened. She’d chosen not to.
“What game?”
He frowned and smiled at the same time, a horrific combination that made her feel like she’d
been punched. “You know.” Yes, she did. And just when she thought he’d said enough, when he
couldn’t possibly say anymore, he carried on. “I always know how to win.”
Her heart plummeted and her stomach twisted and her eyes welled up. She felt sick. This was all
a game to him.
She just stared at him for a second, watching his scowl fall into a look of horror. “Wait, wait no –
”
Isabel shook her head wildly at him. “Don’t, Harry, I want to go –”
“No, no, no,” he said in pure panic, grabbing her tightly. “Fuck, no don’t, I didn’t –”
His eyes flickered across her face wildly, biting down on his lip, and then all of a sudden he was
grabbing her face in his hands and hovering right in front of her, teasing her with the thought of
his lips touching hers so that she nearly whimpered. “Listen, please,” he whispered, his lips
nearly brushing hers. “Isabel, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t –”
She moved away, staring at him like he was a wild animal with wet cheeks and wide eyes.
She hated herself then, because she knew she was about to kiss him even after everything they’d
just said, and he knew it. He knew what he did to people when he kissed them, when he looked
at them like he was looking at her, and it hurt way more than it should have. “Why do you do
this to me?” she asked, a sob ripping from the back of her throat so hard it hurt. “Fuck this,
Harry. I’m not being part of your stupid fucking game.”
“Hold on –”
“I’m not as weak as you think I am! I’m not gonna sit here and let you walk all over me just
because I want… Why do you do this Harry?”
“Wait, no, Isabel –”
“No! Fuck you,” she spat. It was coming, the words crawling up her throat about to topple from
her mouth, like every anxious thought, every worry, every insult that she’d stored up had
collected like little snowflakes to form an avalanche, completely inexorable, unstoppable.
“You’re the meanest, cruellest, most selfish, childish, manipulative, self-obsessed person I’ve
ever met in my life and – and trust me, that says a lot.”
She pushed his arm out of the way with as much strength as she could before the look on his face
broke her heart, yanking the door open and stumbling out of the car. She ran up the path to her
door, fumbling with her keys and staggered inside without a second glance.
The house was deathly quiet and dark, and it only took a second for Isabel’s composure to break.
She burst into hot, violent tears, sobbing as her back hit the doorway and her face fell into her
hands.
First Louis, then all her friends, now Harry. She’d lost everyone.
And although losing the others had hurt so much that she had a constant, anxious tightness in her
chest, Harry had tipped her over the edge. She’d sat at a party with her old friends thinking that
she didn’t need them anymore, that they didn’t understand her the way Harry did, but all along
he’d just been playing a game with her. He’d played her and dropped her like he did with
everyone else, and she’d willingly wandered into his trap like the clueless, meek idiot that
everyone thought she was.
She no longer felt numb; she felt as though her heart was thrashing around in her chest, getting
speared by her ribs and torn into shreds. She dragged herself into the shower, standing under it
for a good twenty minutes and just staring at the floor and thinking only of Harry, his stupid hair
and soft lips and rough hands and anxious eyes that tricked everyone.
She got out of the shower and into her sweats, sitting at her desk and staring at the rings in the
wood until her gaze dragged heavily over to a piece of paper from Mel about the film
recommendations for the university newspaper, shoved into a messy pile of things she’d been
putting off.
She grabbed it with shaking hands, and the first suggestion from Mel that caught her eye was so
horrendously ironic that Isabel nearly laughed.
A list of films where the main character is a jackass/bad boy that you fall for even though you
shouldn’t – you know the type.
She did indeed.
Picking up a pen and a piece of scrap paper, she wrote out a list of ten films carefully, and when
she was done she paused to proofread her answer, realising with a sinking feeling she’d forgotten
one. She hesitated, her pen hovering over the paper, but finally she gave in, adding to her list
with an aching heart:
Heath Ledger – 10 Things I Hate About You

End Notes:
helloooooo!
well, I know some people hoped things would be plain sailing once Isabel and Louis broke up,
but things get worse before they get better, right? Also (maybe in my bias as she’s my character
but whatever) I’m proud of Isabel! She’s taken quite a beating - poor Iswiz :( - but she stood up
for herself!! how do you think things are gonna go now?
and Harry, what do you think of him this chapter?? What’s up with him? (this question is
becoming v familiar I feel) And what do you think is in store for him and Is?
quick note – very soon (not sure if it’ll happen after the next chapter or not, but you’ll be
informed in good time) I’m changing to one update a week because of my workload and also
because if I keep doing two a week the entire thing will be finished by like end of June and I’m
not sure I want it to be over so soon :( It’ll probably be Thursdays but if people would prefer
another day I’m open to suggestion - does everyone like Thursday?
I hope you all enjoyed the update and until Sunday I’ll see ya at oxygenstyles.tumblr.com x
Back to index
Author's Notes:
this was hell then; it wasn’t anything to worry about
April
Replaying saved voice message from: March 30th at 02:47
“– fuck it, I don’t know how to work this fucking – oh shit, Isabel hey, it’s Harry! Harry Styles,
in case you know more than one, I’m the – ’m the one who’s a total bellend, yeah? I’m in
Manchester and it’s cold and I was wondering if London’s cold for you? I’ve on-only been once
really so I think about what it’s like when you’re there. I’m just – just thinking about you
because I’m out and it’s late and I feel really bad and I – fuck, sorry mate, didn’t see you – I just
want to say sorry cos I upset you and I know it doesn’t take back what I said but I – I was going
to text you a few times but I was scared you’d… and everything you said about me’s true, I’m a
worthless piece of shit and I just got – just got mad cos it really hurts but I … fuck, anyway, I’m
really drunk so ring me. Or don’t ring me. I don’t know. Have a good Easter, yeah? I’ll see
you.”
Message deleted.
~~~
On Isabel’s first week back to uni after the fortnight off for Easter, her life fell into a
monotonous crawl that felt like she was dragging herself through mud. On a good day she would
wake up, go to her lecture or seminar, go to the library, come home and get into bed.
On a bad day, she would do all of that with a shift at work in between, in which she and Harry
didn’t even look at each other. It felt like they had been in this position endless times before, she
and Harry ignoring each other with every ounce of effort they had, but this time it felt final.
There was no way back.
It wasn’t even the weekend yet, but she knew life would be even worse once it hit. Her friends –
well, Millie, Liam, Lydia and Scarlett, the only ones she had left – would go out with the same
guilty expressions they’d worn before the holiday, and she knew she would be left to sit alone in
the quiet, empty house, and even the thought of it left her with a crippling sort of loneliness,
emptiness, that felt like it would never get better.
And as if this wasn’t enough, she had impending exams, seemingly endless essays, and her first
Action in the Community session. The date of the first session, April 14th, had been written in
her phone for so long that it had seemed like it was never going to come, but now it was here all
of a sudden and it left Isabel sick with nerves.
It was at a local high school, set up for anyone in Years 10-13 considering taking anything
English, film or media related at degree level, or studying those subjects at GCSE and A-Level.
Mel and Rory had come along on Thursday afternoon to the school with her at 3:23, both of
them hiding their nerves a lot better than Isabel if they had any, because she was completely
terrified to the point where her hands were shaking and she kept dropping everything.
When they walked into the classroom and found no less than thirty-one students aged thirteen to
eighteen staring expectantly at her, she wasn’t sure whether this was a blessing or a curse. On the
bus on the way there, they had thought ten students was an optimistic number.
Isabel gave what she hoped was an inspirational speech about film – the places it can take you,
how much you can learn about society and politics and history, how important the entertainment
industry is in each and every single person’s life – and collapsed in a chair next to Rory as Mel
pressed play on their first ever Action in the Community film screening: Brighton Rock.
“Hey,” Rory whispered, nudging her. Isabel turned, surprised. Rory hadn’t willingly spoken to
her in months. “This is really cool, Isabel. You’ve done a great job.”
“Thanks,” she whispered back. “I can’t believe they’re actually doing it!”
“You gave a pretty great speech back there,” he grinned. “It made me want to give up my
Accounting degree and become Martin Scorsese.”
“That was the goal,” she joked. “Although I don’t know if the world needs another one.”
Rory smiled, then bit down on his lip. “I heard about you and Louis breaking up,” he ventured,
and Isabel looked away from him, her heart plummeting. “I hope your Easter wasn’t too rubbish
because of it.”
“It’s okay,” Isabel shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant. “I think you were right about me
before. I used to care about being popular and whatever, but now I’m nobody and I realise how
stupid all that was.”
He blinked at her. “You’re not nobody, Isabel. You’re definitely somebody, you just haven’t
worked out who that is yet.”
Isabel stared at him, dumbfounded. “When did you get so smart?”
Rory grinned. “It’s the Accounting degree,” he said.
~~~
Nearly a month after Isabel and Harry’s final argument – not that she was counting or anything –
Isabel was trudging up the road from the bus stop to the bowling alley when she saw him.
He was leaning against the wall by the carpark, a beanie pulled down over his hair and his
fingers tugging his bottom lip. When he saw her he smiled slightly and straightened up, digging
his hands into his pockets.
“Hey,” he called when she nearly reached him. “You okay?”

“Harry, why aren’t you inside?” she asked flatly.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows. She was already nearly late, and that meant Harry was making
himself late – unprecedented for him – by waiting for her.
He lingered expecting her to say something, but when she didn’t he took a deep breath and
started speaking. “I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you since Easter, I’ve been trying to work out
what to say and I … well I’ve got it now.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’m sorry I was such an arsehole. I’m a fucking idiot and I know I’m unfair but I swear I
tried to fix it so many times and I just got frustrated because you weren’t letting me in,” Harry
said slowly, evenly, like he’d rehearsed this hundreds of times. “But that doesn’t excuse it and
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be like that with you, I’m not like that with anyone else – I don’t – I
can’t understand why I –”
He broke off and laughed nervously, clearly going off script. Isabel said nothing, acutely aware
that this was the first time they’d spoken about something not directly related to bowling shoes
all week. The only other thing she’d heard him say, the only other piece of him to cling onto,
were his voicemails, which she’d played over and over and over again until she knew the bits
when he’d pause to swallow, to repeat himself, to stumble over the words.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m trying so hard, Isabel, I really am.” He took a hand out of his pocket
and rubbed it across his face tiredly, looking down at his shoes. “There’s, um, well I think there’s
a reason why I’m like this. I don’t like letting people in and I just get scared sometimes
because…”
He looked up at her suddenly, his eyes so anxious and frightened that she wanted to pull him
towards her and wrap her arms around him and squeeze every worry out of him until they pooled
at his feet.
“I want to tell you something,” Harry said lowly, stepping towards her. “I haven’t told anyone
else this and I – I just think you deserve to know after everything because it’s why I’m … like
this. Stuff happened with my brother that –”
“Harry,” Isabel replied quickly, stumbling back away from him. “I don’t … I can’t hear this.”
He blinked at her, his face draining of colour until he looked faintly grey. “Oh.”
“I’m really sorry, I just – I don’t know if I want to hear it.”
It would hurt too much if he told her, if he pulled her back in with the promise that she was the
only one that knew this about him, the only one he wanted to tell, and then he dropped her again.
She was so, so scared of how much it would hurt and so she just crossed her arms and looked
back at him with what she hoped was a blank expression.
“Okay,” Harry said, running his hand across his face and then dropping it limply to his side.
“Okay, alright.”
His pale face started to redden with embarrassment, rejection, and for a moment Isabel’s heart
jumped when she thought he might shout at her like he had last time he felt shunned, his hands
balling up and his jaw clenching. Now though, he took a deep, shuddering breath and then just
looked deflated, staring at the ground and shuffling his feet.
“Is this because of that whole game bullshit?” Harry asked quietly.
“Maybe,” Isabel answered, digging her nails into the skin of her crossed arms. If they talked
about this too much she might start crying. “Look, Harry, shall we go inside?”
“Isabel, I didn’t mean it,” he continued. “I didn’t mean it, I tried to tell you.”
Isabel nearly scoffed. “What, so you don’t play games?”
Louis’ friends played games. They’d go out and pick a girl and bet how long it would take her to
fuck them. They would have one girl on the go but play her against another, make her jealous.
They would compete to see who could get with the targeted girl first. She knew what some
teenage boys could be like, and she wasn’t about to assume Harry was any different.
“No,” Harry said quickly, swiping his tongue over his lips. “Well yes, I mean I do, but not – I
didn’t mean to say that I was playing one with you, it just came out and I –”
“Let’s go inside,” Isabel suggested desperately, turning away from him. He reached out and
grabbed her arm quickly.
“You don’t want to try and fix this?”
She waited for a second, memorising that look in his eyes that always made her feel weak, that
complete uncontrolled fear and panic that made him seem so young and terrified.
“I don’t think I want to,” she said, and she wasn’t sure if she was lying or not but she pulled
away before Harry could figure it out, turning away from him and his sad eyes and hurrying off
into the bowling alley without a backwards glance.
~~~
Isabel was leaving work to meet Scarlett and Millie for shopping and dinner, a forced excursion
on all sides, but Isabel appreciated the effort nonetheless. She was shrugging on her coat in the
employee common room, trying to shake the guiltiness she’d felt since her conversation with
Harry outside, when she heard his voice.
“I know,” he said lowly, and she paused in the act of pulling a scarf on. “Shhhh, you have to be
quiet.”
She looked around, completely confused, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. The room was
empty, the television off, the couches vacated.
Harry had spent the whole shift frowning, staring absently at the table when there were no
customers instead of working on art stuff like he usually did, pulling his bottom lip between his
fingers until it was bright red. He kept getting things wrong, getting the incorrect shoe size or
forgetting what he was meant to be doing. He didn’t even interact with the little children, only
sent them a vague sort of smile before stumbling off to make another mistake.
Isabel hung back when the shift was over, pretending to clear up her stuff for a lot longer than it
should have taken so he would be gone by the time she went to the staff room. She’d never seen
Harry like he had been today, and she felt so bad that she was starting to regret not hearing him
out, even if it would only inevitably end in disaster.
She shut her locker quietly, feeling bad for eavesdropping but sort of curious as well. But she
didn’t hear him again, and assuming Harry was gone she went round the corner to clock her
hours out, shrieking in surprise and being met with a loud yelp in return.
Crammed into the tiny little crevice with the wage sheets and machine to clock in and out
employee’s hours were Harry and Briony. Isabel stared in complete horror as she noticed
Briony’s hands up the back of Harry’s shirt and his hand trailing up her skirt.
“Isabel,” he breathed, pulling his hand away from Briony’s thigh and drawing away from her
quickly.
Isabel was frozen to the spot. She remembered how much Harry liked brunette girls. She
remembered the way Harry had chatted up Briony, the arcade girl, the day they went
paintballing. And she remembered what his hands felt like on her skin, and she remembered
what his lips felt like on her mouth, and she wondered whether Harry had been thinking about
touching and kissing bloody Briony all this time, too.
Harry swallowed, stepping towards her slightly. “Wait, it wasn’t –”
“Don’t tell Dan, please,” Briony begged, swiping her hand over the back of her glistening mouth,
but Isabel wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at Harry and his swollen lips and his messy hair
and his dark circles and his guilty expression, wondering how on earth it was possible to feel
worse than she had all Easter, but somehow Harry had made that happen. He was right – he
always knew how to win.
“It’s okay, I won’t,” Isabel said shakily, dragging her gaze away from Harry. “I need to clock my
hours, then you guys can get back to it. I’m – I’m going out with my friends.”
“It just happened,” Briony babbled, laughing nervously as Isabel squeezed past her to swipe her
card through the machine with trembling fingers. This space was tiny for two people, let alone
three, but Briony and Harry didn’t seem to have a brain cell between them to think to move out
and so Isabel was left with no choice to brush right by Harry, ignoring how being so close to him
made her skin burn.
“I see your hand healed, Harry,” Isabel said evenly, trying her best not to vomit right there on the
carpet. “Is this part of your prescribed healing exercises for the tendons, yeah?”
“Isabel,” Harry said pleadingly, his voice low and gravelly but before he could say anything else
Briony was talking again.
“He wasn’t… he hadn’t got there yet,” she said with a shrill laugh, and Isabel could have cried.
“You know how it is, Isabel –”
“Please don’t,” Isabel said, smiling tightly at her. She dropped her card on the floor her hand was
shaking so hard, and Harry bent down to get it before she could even consider moving. Their
fingers brushed when he handed it back to her, and she snatched it from him before she had a
complete break down.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she told him, avoiding his gaze.
“You’re ridiculous,” he replied, and she felt a lump form in her throat.
“I’m sorry for interrupting.”
She turned on her heel and marched away, trying to shake the image of Harry kissing Briony,
one hand pressed to the wall by her head and the other moving inside her skirt, her hands
clawing the skin of his back underneath his t-shirt. She had no right to be jealous, but it was
making her feel sick.
Jealousy wasn’t something she’d often dealt with before and it was horrifying, searing through
her like acid, turning her limbs into water as she tried to stride away as fast as she could, but all
she wanted was to go back and rip him away from her. The moment she caught them was
replaying in front of her in a tortuous loop, and each time she noticed something different – the
swipe of his tongue across her lips, the curve of his wrist as he moved his hand higher, the
tightening of the muscle at the top of his arm. It was suffocating, all-consuming, and she tried to
catch her breath but she felt like she’d never be able to ever again.
“Isabel, wait!”
She stopped abruptly, knowing that if she kept walking he would grab her, and she wouldn’t be
able to deal with him touching her. She turned to look at him, hurrying after her looking entirely
breathless and pale, the sleeves of his sweatshirt falling over his hands.
“Yes?” she said.

He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, struggling to find the right words to say what he
wanted to, or maybe trying to force himself to say something in particular. Everything hung
heavily in the air between them, suspended, waiting, and she held her breath.
“Please don’t tell Dan,” he said eventually, his tone disappointed and utterly defeated.
“I said I wouldn’t already,” she answered flatly, turning away.
“No really,” he pressed, his hands twitching as though he wanted to reach for her but thinking
better of it. “I know you hate me already, and I’d understand if you’re thinking about telling him
just to get me back. But please, I need this job. Just – fuck,” he swore desperately, raking a hand
through his hair. “Please, please don’t tell him.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you did it.”
“It happened out of nowhere, she just came over and I…” He trailed off and looked at the floor.
“I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. You don’t want to hear anything I say, I know, but
just this once please listen. Please don’t do this to me.”
She stared at him, overcome all at once by how much she wanted to kiss the skin of his bare neck
and bite down on his collarbones and run her hands through his citrusy hair. Sometimes it was
like that with Harry: there were moments when suddenly she was left breathless. He wasn’t the
sort of guy you caught a glimpse of at the supermarket or on the street, hurrying past you on
Southbank with a look in his eye and a hardness to his jaw that made you turn back to stare after
him. He was the sort of guy you thought about long after he’d gone, the sort of guy who made
someone’s girlfriend’s head turn, loosening their grip just for a moment on their boyfriend’s
hand.
Because Harry had lips that could make you cry, the colour of raspberries, chapped and bitten so
that there were splotches of red where he’d broken tiny little blood vessels underneath the skin.
He had dark, murky shadows under his eyes that looked like bruises, that made you wonder what
he stayed up for, who he lost sleep over, and you caught yourself thinking about it much too
often for it to be okay. He was all wide eyes and cheekbones and eyelashes, and then he smiled
and flashed his dimples and crinkled the corners of his eyes and broke your heart.
And he knew it. He knew it, he knew it, he knew it.
Briony didn’t know that Harry’s bed smelt like his hair, of citrus that was both sharp and sweet
at the same time, and she didn’t know about the painting on the chimneybreast or that his
favourite food was flapjacks or that he liked his tea the way Isabel did or that he’d never had
feelings for anyone. And maybe Isabel had never thought about it, but knowing all of those
things had let her pretend he was hers. In her head, Harry was hers in the way that she’d never
been Louis’ and he’d never been anyone’s at all, because he looked at her like there was nobody
else on earth and kissed her like he needed her to breathe. But now, in his rendezvous with
Briony, he had taken away the ability to let her pretend that this was all for her, that he wasn’t
like this with everyone, and that he had belonged to her for even a second.
“I won’t tell him,” she said. “I don’t play games.”
And this time she really did turn around and walk off, leaving him to watch her go with his own
confession thrown back in his face.
~~~
Isabel couldn’t help but feel for Millie and Scarlett. They were caught in the middle – they
couldn’t really drop Isabel, seeing as they lived with her, but they couldn’t exactly hang out with
her now that nobody else liked her.
So they were taking her out for the evening to try and keep things even, and that was how Isabel
found herself in HMV, rifling through the sales racks in the films section and biting down on her
lip in concentration, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning, she saw Zayn standing behind
her in his HMV uniform of a black polo shirt, smiling warmly.
“Long time no see,” he said, pulling her into a hug.
“Zayn!” she exclaimed. “How are you? I completely forgot you work here.”
“I’m good,” he replied. “And you?”
She bit her lip. She was, in fact, awful, and then Harry had to go and pull that little stunt at work
and completely flatten any speck of sanity she had left.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“We miss you,” Zayn replied, busying himself with aimlessly rearranging DVDs in order to look
like he was working. “Me and Niall were saying the other day how much we do. And Liv too.”
“I’m guessing Caitlin is glad to be shot of me,” Isabel countered with a smile, and Zayn shook
his head with a frown.
“She’s just territorial sometimes, that’s all,” he told her. He turned to look into Isabel’s eyes,
lowering his head slightly. “Why don’t you come and hang out with us sometime, Issy?” he
asked softly.
She gulped. “I’m a bit busy,” she stuttered, the lie burning like poison on her tongue and she
glanced away from him.
“Okay.” He coughed into his hand, not believing her for a second, and looked at her imploringly.
“Well if you’re not too busy tomorrow night, do you want to come to a party with me? It would
be nice to catch up somewhere where my boss isn’t staring me down from the corner.”
She laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear as she considered his offer. “A party?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “A fancy dress one. You have to be a fairy-tale character I think.” He rolled
his eyes. “It’s not really my thing, but it should be fun. And our loan just came through, right? So
we can all get smashed. All of us are going.”
Her heart plummeted. “So…so Harry will be there?”
Zayn nodded, and Isabel stared at her feet. “I don’t think – I’m not sure he really wants me
there.”
Zayn squeezed her arm, making her look up at him. “But you’re my friend too, and Niall and
Liv. Don’t worry about him.”
Zayn’s eyes were so warm, so brown and comforting, that they appealed to the desperation in her
heart. She did really, really want to do something on a Saturday night, to socialise with people
other than the ones in her classes and the ones in Film Society and the ones she lived with. It was
an ache so deep that it made her response sort of breathless.
“Okay.”
“Yeah? Sweet,” Zayn grinned. He looked over Isabel’s shoulder and gave a little nod. “Hey,
Millie.”
Isabel turned to see that Millie and Scarlett had come over curiously, eyeing up the pair of them.
“This is Scarlett, Scar this is Zayn,” Isabel introduced. “He goes to the art uni.”
“I better get back to work,” Zayn said with a small smile to Isabel’s friends. “I’ll see you on
Saturday, yeah Is?” Isabel nodded and he squeezed her arm again before loping off to the till,
spinning on his heel just before he got there. “By the way,” he added, calling across the room to
them. “Niall says hi, Millie.”
Millie brushed crimson as Zayn cracked up, and Isabel couldn’t help but snort.
“What a fucking bellend!” Millie hissed.
“He’s only teasing,” Isabel told her, but Millie shook her head, mortified.
“Let’s go,” Millie demanded, dragging the pair of them out of the shop without another word.
“What was that about?” Scarlett asked.
“Millie slept with Niall a few months ago,” Isabel explained. “For some reason she’s really het
up about it.”
“Let’s not talk about it!” Millie shrieked.

Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Where are you going on Saturday, then, Is?”
“A party I think,” she said, unable to repress the smile on her face. “It’s fancy dress.”
“And you’re going with Zayn?” Scarlett questioned.
“Not with him in that sort of way,” she mumbled. “Not like a date.”
“I don’t like him,” Millie announced loudly.
“How can you say that, Millie, when he was so nice and walked you home that time you vomited
everywhere?!”
“Oh please,” Millie barked dismissively. “You can tell all of those boys have been talking about
me, laughing at me.” She pouted slightly. “And the way he brought it up in a public place!”
“Alright, alright,” Scarlett sighed. “You sound like a Victorian, pack it in.”
The three of them found a restaurant, going in and asking for a table for three. Isabel picked up
the menu, scanning it and looking for the cheapest main course she could, and when she looked
up she found both girls staring at her.
“What?” she asked.
They glanced at each other, before Millie licked her lips and spoke. “We want to ask you about
Harry.”
Isabel glowered. “What about Harry?”
“We just don’t – we don’t think he’s the sort of guy you should be involved with,” Scarlett
explained.
“What does that mean?”
“We’ve heard some stuff about him,” Millie said hesitantly.
“Like what?” Isabel pressed.
“Well, obviously you told us he’s a player,” Millie went on evenly, “and we heard from Louis
that he’s bought some pretty hard stuff from a few other dealers round here, too.”
Isabel’s eyes narrowed. So now Louis was doing background checks on Harry?
“We just don’t want you to get hurt again,” Scarlett said soothingly. “This whole Louis break up
was really, really bad, and we don’t want anyone else to –”
“For your information,” Isabel interrupted, looking back at her menu, “Harry and I hate each
other and we hardly speak anymore.”
“Well, that’s good,” Millie said with a nod, looking at Scarlett who nodded as well so that they
looked faintly ridiculous, both nodding away solemnly at her. Isabel couldn’t think of anything
less good than her and Harry’s falling out so she said nothing. “Just maybe try and stay away
from the rest of them as well, yeah? Niall and Zayn and those guys?”
“They’re kind of weird,” Scarlett added, scrunching her nose up as she spoke. “All their tattoos
and weird parties and stuff. You don’t want to get involved with those sort of people, do you
Issy?”
Isabel blinked at them. Scarlett might as well have called them freaks, since that was what she
was implying.
She replied evenly, slowly, looking down at the tablecloth so that she wouldn’t have to meet
their eyes. “Well, I don’t really have much of a choice who to hang out with anymore. I’ll take
what I’m given.”
When she looked up finally, both of her friends were staring at her guiltily, and they swiftly
changed the subject. But no matter how much they tried to start new conversation, their message
was branded sharply into Isabel’s mind: Harry Styles and co are bad for you.
But Isabel couldn’t shake the feeling that even something bad for you was better than having
nothing at all.
~~~
Replaying saved voice message from: April 2nd at 04:17
“Isabel? Hiiiii, it’s Harry. I’m not sure – I did something bad. I don’t know if you care but I
just… it hurts, you know? I’m so bad, I did something sooo bad. Maybe you don’t, fuck I don’t…
fuck. Fuck. I’m going now. I just wanted to see if you’re okay but you won’t answer any of my
calls and I don’t fucking know what to do. Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry for the millionth
time. I’m not even going to remember sending this message so next time you see me spare me the
– the fucking embarrassment. Whatever. Fuck this.”
Message replayed.
Message replayed.
Message replayed.
Message deleted.
End Notes:
Hellooo!!
so this chapter was mostly about Isabel getting her shit together, with a side order of Harry being
maybe a bit sleazy (sigh) and some questionable voicemails left over Easter?? BUT things might
be looking up for Isabel with the promise of a party (and all of Harry’s friends back in full force)
next chapter from Zayn, right?? Let me know what you think about all of this!
also, what did you think of Harry this chapter? do you think all of Isabel’s conclusions about him
are right? I promise that if you’re confused, that confusion is deliberate and things will all start to
make sense really, really soon! (sooner than you think) :))))
Have a lovely couple days I’ll see you Thursday! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com xx

Back to index
Author's Notes:
you know you’re going to fall
April
“Isabel!” Niall screeched, running over and throwing his arms around her, his white rabbit ears
nearly toppling from his scruffy blonde hair in his enthusiasm.
“Hello,” Isabel said with a laugh.
“Haven’t seen you in ages!” he bellowed, already hideously drunk. Isabel glanced at Liv, who
was rolling her eyes at Niall and ruffling his hair affectionately.
Isabel dragged her gaze over to the rest of them and laughed at how surreal they looked. Zayn
was leaning against the wall with a cigarette dangling from his lips wearing a hat and ratty
blazer, Caitlin was stood next to him in a low cut red dress, and Harry was staring at Isabel with
wide eyes, cat whiskers drawn sloppily onto his face.
When Liv had excitedly texted Isabel last night about the party she had told her firmly that,
under her autocratic instruction, the whole group – including Isabel – were dressing up as
characters from the same story. That’s how Isabel ended up in a short blue dress and a black
ribbon in her hair as Alice in Wonderland, Niall the White Rabbit, Zayn the Mad Hatter, Liv the
March Hare, Caitlin the Queen of Hearts and Harry the Cheshire Cat – the hilarity of which was
lost on no one.
He had made the least effort out of everyone, wearing his black jeans with the gaping hole on the
knee and a red check shirt, and without the stripes or the smile he was in no way reminiscent of
the Cheshire Cat. Isabel would have put money on the fact that he’d been physically forced to
allow the cat whiskers and nose to be drawn in shaky eyeliner strokes onto his face, but it looked
sickeningly cute on him anyway. She couldn’t help but notice how tall he looked too, towering
over everyone else with his hands shoved in his pockets, a tight knot in his jaw as his eyes
scanned her and he swallowed, looking down at the floor so that the dim light accentuated the
dark rings beneath his bright green eyes.
“Hello babe,” Zayn greeted, wrapping one arm around her and kissing her cheek. “You proper
look like Alice.”
“Thanks to Liv,” Isabel smiled. “She lent me the dress, did my hair and everything.”
“You look nice,” Zayn approved.
“You too,” she grinned, suppressing a laugh when he grimaced, clearly uncomfortable with his
costume.
“Yes, yes, we all look fantastic,” Caitlin snapped. “Shall we just go in?”
The party was at a girl from the art uni called Ashley’s house, and as soon as someone opened
the door for them they found it was packed with bodies, coloured lights flashing incessantly and
illuminating their faces in alternating primary colours, blaring out music so loud that Isabel could
barely hear anyone speak.
“This is sick!” Niall shouted. “Fucking trippy!”
Isabel frowned. It was true; with the lights and the music and the dancing bodies dressed in fancy
dress costumes, she felt like she was high.
“Is this a – a drug thing?” she asked Zayn, but he shook his head, unable to hear her. He put a
hand on her lower back and leaned into her, asking her to repeat herself.
When she did, shouting over the music, he smiled and bit his lip. “Of course not. But Liv and I
are doing stuff. You can too if you want?”
When she didn’t answer immediately, Zayn leaned in closer to her ear. “You don’t have to do
anything if you don’t want to. Harry doesn’t.”
He nodded towards Harry, and when Isabel looked over she found Harry glaring furiously at the
pair of them, his eyebrows furrowed and his teeth gnawing into his lower lip. He looked away
when she caught his eye, knocking a fist against his thigh in pent up tension.
“Zayn!” Liv shouted, tapping him on the shoulder. “Ya wanna do this now then?”
“Sure,” Zayn replied. “You want to, Issy?”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” a raspy voice chimed in desperately, and everyone
turned to face Harry, who was staring down at her with such a serious expression that Isabel
almost laughed at the contrast of his hard gaze to his cat whiskers.
He took the fact that she paused as a good sign, stepping towards her.
“Listen, I really need to speak to you, Isabel,” he said. And then, even though she didn’t want to
take anything, she stepped towards Zayn because if she stayed put Harry would start speaking to
her when she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to speak to him again. Harry’s eyes widened and he
looked away, swallowing and puckering his eyebrows.
“You sure you don’t want to, H? We bought spare if you want,” Liv asked.
“No!” Harry snapped, and he pushed past them furiously, making his way into the throng of
bodies. Caitlin hurried after him, Niall following too, leaving Isabel alone with Zayn and Liv in
the corner.
“What?” Liv said with a shrug when Zayn glared at her. “I knew he’d say no.”
Zayn rolled his eyes, fumbling around in his pocket and getting out a small tin from which he
withdrew little balls of what looked like paper.
“I pre-rolled,” he said to Liv, who nodded in appreciation.
“What is it?” Isabel asked Liv.
“MDMA,” she said. “It’s wrapped up in there. You just swallow it.”
“I’m not doing it,” Isabel said quickly. “I just wanted to know. “
Louis never really did the stuff he sold apart from weed, and she always stayed clear from people
taking anything especially strong at parties. The state she’d seen her brother in a few times when
he was a teenager, stumbling home with vomit in his hair and a misplaced phone and a wallet
£50 lighter, was an image branded sharply into memory that couldn’t be shaken lightly.
“I’m gonna go find Niall,” Isabel said, squeezing Zayn on the arm and slipping off.
She found him almost immediately, crouched in the corner on the other side of the room mixing
together a variety of drinks like a crazed alchemist. He grinned up at her and shoved a dangerous
looking cocktail into her hand.
“I’m gonna get you so pissed,” Niall said, pointing at her and looking stern. “You’ve never been
drunk if you haven’t done it the Horan way.”
~~~
Niall, true to his word, knew exactly how to get people smashed. He got her perfectly drunk, the
kind where Isabel just felt pure unadulterated happiness creeping through her, crawling through
her veins, into her skin, around her bursting heart. The music felt so loud, like it was in tune with
the nerves in her brain and the beating in her chest. She and Niall danced wildly, ran around like
children, kept a steady flow of drinks going and spoke to anyone they could, babbling excitedly
even though Isabel had no idea who anyone was.
That was how she met Brady. She’d never met him before, obviously, but when she went over to
say hello she found that he managed to keep her there for quite a while. He was funny and
charming, with sandy blond hair that was slicked back and freckles on his nose and cheeks, and
he was dressed up as Hansel - though he didn’t have a Gretel, apparently.
It was fine for a while, all light and cheerful, his eyes scanning over her legs every now and then
in a semi-uncomfortable, unwanted way, but Isabel supposed she quite liked feeling wanted,
really. But then he asked her if she had a boyfriend and she felt for a second the overwhelming
happiness slip, her mouth going dry. She just shook her head, and he smiled and squeezed her
arm.
“Looks like we’re both single then,” Brady grinned, and Isabel smiled weakly, opening her
mouth to say that she was going to find Niall now when Brady cut her off.
“Oh, hey Styles,” Brady said, his hand still on Isabel’s arm, and she turned to find Harry
standing behind them, his face unreadable.
“Hi,” Harry said stiffly, nodding at Brady.
“Do you know Isabel?” Brady asked politely, wrapping his arm around her waist and Harry’s
teeth clenched.
“Yes,” he snapped. Brady raised his eyebrows.
“Are you looking to get stuff?” Brady said. “I’ve got Ket and –”
“No I’m fine,” Harry said quickly, looking down at his feet. “I’m not – I don’t –”
“Don’t worry, Styles, mates rates like usual,” Brady punched him on the arm in what was meant
to be a reassuring gesture, but Harry’s fists clenched.
“I’m not looking to buy anything,” Harry mumbled slowly, licking his lips. His eyes flickered to
Isabel’s confused gaze before he scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked away.
Brady waited for Harry to go, but he didn’t, and they all just stood there in awkward silence,
each of them waiting tensely for one of them to leave. Eventually Brady turned to Isabel, making
a face and gesturing towards Harry. She shrugged. “Do you want to go somewhere a bit more
private?” he asked her.
Before Isabel could get a word in edgeways Harry leaped forward, standing right in front of the
pair of them. “No, no, I need to talk to you,” Harry said breathlessly.
Brady groaned. “Harry, man, talk to her later.”
“Did it sound like I was fucking talking to you?” Harry snarled. Brady’s grip on her waist
tightened.
“It’s okay,” Isabel said, and her tongue felt heavy in her mouth as she detracted herself from
Brady and his grabby hands. Harry seemed surprised for a moment before he clasped her hand
and pulled her through the crowd until they were in the hallway.
“You are fucking unbelievable,” Harry hissed, dropping her hand quickly and glaring at her.
“What was that?”
“Pardon?”
He laughed and pressed a hand to his face. “You really have an affinity with shit boys, don’t
you? You know how to pick the good ones, Isabel, I’ll give you that.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she said. She was itching to get back to Niall and a drink,
and the last thing she wanted to do was speak to Harry, especially if he was being like this.
“Brady is mixed up in drug stuff,” Harry explained through gritted teeth. “I’ve gone to him once
or twice for…” He trailed off, catching her gaze before sighing loudly. “You’re fucking
unbelievable, Isabel.”
“Shut up,” she snapped at him. “I wasn’t gonna do anything, we were just talking.”
“He wanted to take you upstairs!” Harry shouted.
“So what?” she shrugged, glaring at him. “I’m single, I’m allowed to do what I want. What’s it
to do with you?”
Harry snarled. “It’s got everything to do with me when he’s eyeing up your legs like he wants to
–”
“Don’t be crude, Harry.”
He groaned loudly in frustration, running a hand through his hair. “If he was someone different, I
wouldn’t… I know what he was thinking, alright?”
“How would you have any idea what he was thinking?”
Harry just raised his eyebrows at her and Isabel had no idea what he meant by it but she was too
drunk to try and figure it out. “It’s not my problem if a boy can’t look at a girl’s legs without
wanting to fuck her, Harry.”
He winced, shaking his head quickly as if to dislodge the image of her and Brady. “I’m just
trying to look after you,” Harry said loudly. “I just –”
“I don’t want you to look after me,” she spat back. “You’re not my brother. Or my boyfriend.”
He paused, licking his lips. “Yeah, I know.”
Isabel sighed and instinctively started to chew on her nails, staring at him apprehensively. “How
do I know this isn’t another one of you stupid games, Harry?”
“I told you –”
“Am I meant to believe you?” she asked quietly. “Zayn told me you play games with girls.”
His jaw clenched. “He did, did he?” He clawed at his hair again and exhaled through parted lips.
“Isabel, I’ve been trying to tell you. I didn’t mean that. Not with you, I just – I don’t know, I
can’t –”
“Just leave me alone.” She was much, much too drunk, and she felt the words rising in her throat
before she could think about what she was saying, without registering how embarrassing it
would be once she said it. “Go back to Briony.”
He screwed up his face. “Huh?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Nothing,” she mumbled.
But it wasn’t nothing – it was everything. It was eating her up because Briony had got Harry
without trying, without contributing anything other than a flutter of her eyelashes and a flick of
her dark hair and he was hers. She got him in exactly the same way Isabel had, and maybe she
liked him in the same way Isabel did – because that was it, Isabel did like him, she liked him way
more than she should – but Isabel still felt cheated, and just for once she wanted someone to
want her back.
Harry stared at her for a second before taking a small step forward. “Are you jealous, Isabel?” he
asked slowly.
“Fuck off. I think you’re disgusting, that’s what.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Harry said, moving forwards more until his arms were brushing hers.
“Shut up.”
He stepped closer until he was pressed right against her, dipping his head so it was level with
hers. “Make me,” he murmured lowly.
This couldn’t be happening.
Isabel felt a rising sense of panic, breaking through the drunkenness and smashing its way
around her insides, because the tension between them, the expectation and suspense was so
palpable it felt like static electricity and she really really wanted to kiss him, but even as drunk as
she was, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
“I – I’d rather not,” she stammered, pulling away.
He nodded, letting out a shaky laugh and looking at the floor. “I thought as much.”
She stumbled back away from him, the panic crashing around inside her so that it felt like there
was white noise buzzing in her brain. He reached out an arm to hold her up so she didn’t fall.
“Just… don’t go near Brady tonight, okay?” he said softly, defeated. He dropped his hand away
when she was steady, letting it fall limply against his side. He looked so horribly unhappy all of a
sudden that it made her angry, because he had no right to be upset and she was reminded once
again with considerable force that Harry was the most confusing person she’d ever met, and she
didn’t understand him one bit.
“What about you, Harry?” she asked boldly, and he frowned. “You gonna go and buy some more
Ket? Mates rates, yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Is that what you took over Easter? Or was it something worse?”
He froze entirely, not even blinking as he stared at her in horror. “How- how do you know?”
“You left me voicemails. I thought – I just kinda thought it was obvious you were on something
in one of them.”
His eyes fluttered shut for a second and he swallowed. “I don’t do drugs,” he mumbled.
“But you do, Harry,” she told him quietly. “That’s – that’s something that you do.”
He backed away, staring at her with wide eyes, flush creeping up his neck. He pulled his lip
between his fingers and said nothing for a few seconds.
“That’s what I do, yeah?”
And then he turned and walked off.
~~~
Isabel scanned the surrounding area wildly. She couldn’t see anyone she recognised, but maybe
that was because of the fancy dress, and the lights, and the weird unfocussed way her eyes were
working now. She’d lost Niall for the eighth time – last time she’d seen him, she was rubbing his
back in the garden when he was having a ‘tactical’ vomit, and the time before that he’d got
locked in the bathroom and she’d had to summon a rescue team – but she was too drunk to be
concerned that she was alone considering she didn’t know anyone. She just kind of really wanted
some company, specifically someone who wouldn’t keep disappearing to throw up.
She caught a glimpse of shaggy brown hair and zoned in on it manically, nearly toppling over
with her sudden enthusiasm.
Harry was only a few feet away from her, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows as he sat slumped
on the sofa. There was a couple next to him making out furiously and bashing him every few
seconds, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was sipping on a bottle of vodka like it was water,
swiping his hand over his lips and staring absently at the floor.
Isabel felt her heart stop for a second, her breath catching in her throat as she took in how sad
and lonely he looked and she had a very sudden, drunken urge to kiss him. Quite a strong urge,
actually.
His face was only visible every few seconds as the lights flickered, like a camera was flashing in
his face, and every time the lights dimmed and it went black and she couldn’t see him she
stopped breathing. When the lights came back up each time she let out her breath, but then all at
once they dimmed and lit again to reveal a girl sidling up to him, sitting on the arm of the sofa
beside him and scratching her nails against his bicep, her dark hair brushing against the skin of
his neck.
Isabel knew that intoxication brought out the truth in people, the things they shoved away into
the dark corners of themselves when they were sober, when they could control it, and nothing
less could be said for Harry whose entire face lit up when he realised this girl was throwing
herself at him. And even though she was drunk now, Isabel felt with sudden certainty that she
finally understood Harry, who was flickering in her gaze like she was blinking rapidly, dark then
light, dark then light, except she wasn’t blinking at all.
The thing was, Harry wanted to be wanted. Not like that’s a strange thing, because everyone
wants to be wanted, but Harry wanted to be wanted in a way that was different to other people.
Harry liked winning, liked knowing that he could choose any girl at any place and she could be
sucking him off in the toilets within an hour. That’s a different kind of want. That’s wanting to
make someone fall in love with you in the hour that you know them, make them want you more
than they’ve ever wanted anyone else and moan your name into your lips like it’s the last thing
they’ll ever say.
Isabel realised then with a crashing heart that Harry was addicted to that feeling of leaving
someone wanting more, of leaving a mark that lasted longer than a bite on their neck or a scratch
in their skin, and that’s why he was with Caro even though he didn’t want her, and why he got
with the girl at his birthday party even though he was clearly disinterested, and why, Isabel
supposed, he kissed her. She’d thought his game was about the chase, the thrill of setting your
sights on someone and getting them, but she knew now that it was about leaving a scar, that
people throwing their arms around him at parties and kissing him in the corridor at work
reminded him he was real, that he was here, and the only reason she could think of as to why he
was like that was because he felt like shouldn’t be here at all.
The lights were still flickering and the world hadn’t stopped after this revelation even though
Isabel thought it should have, and the more she couldn’t see him because of the stupid lights the
more she wanted to rip him away from the girl that was now sitting in his lap, and she was so
worried she felt sick. She started to stumble towards them, but stopped abruptly when Harry
smiled and pushed the girl off him lightly, very clearly shaking his head. Harry wanted to be
wanted, but not by her.
Someone grabbed her waist, and she span around to find Zayn and his hat looming over her.
“You alright?” he shouted, bouncing around on his feet, his pupils dilated so far that his eyes
were black.
“Harry,” she choked as if that explained everything.
“No, I’m Zayn,” he reminded her with a frown. She took his hand and dragged him out of the
noisy room into the garden, her heart thumping and her ears ringing. Turning as they left the
room to catch one last glimpse of Harry, she saw him watching them, suddenly frozen as his
brows pulled down into a frown.
Isabel spun around as soon as she and Zayn were in a private corner of the garden and gripped
his arm tightly. “Does Harry have a drug problem?”
He frowned, blinking slowly. “Are you asking if he’s an addict?”
She nodded and he paused before shaking his head wildly. “I’ve known Harry for nearly two
years, babe, and he’s only taken stuff like ten, maybe twelve times in that period? That would be
impossible for an addict. He doesn’t need to do it.”
“Why does he do it if he hates it though?” she asked, and she felt a lump form in her throat. Now
was not the time for drunken, hysterical crying, but she felt so bad for pushing Harry about the
drug thing that she could have easily burst into violent, stormy tears.
“I never said he doesn’t have a problem,” Zayn said. He kept twitching every few seconds, his
nerves jolting uncontrollably, and it might have been alarming if his face didn’t look so relaxed.
“He definitely has a problem, just not a drug problem. He has a problem and occasionally he
uses to forget.”
She nodded slowly and he smiled at her.
“You’re sweet,” he said. “You like him.”
She nearly choked. “No, I don’t!”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s okay, I won’t tell him.”
“I don’t!” she snapped, her cheeks flaming. She stumbled slightly on the spot such was the
strength of her indignation, and he laughed.
“You know when people are drunk and they’re talking to someone who’s high, it’s okay to tell
the truth.” He grinned. “You’re meant to lose your inhibitions.”
“Fuck off, Zayn. I have lost my inhibitions, but I don’t like Harry.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure.”
Zayn laughed again, and then before Isabel knew what was happening he leaned in, pressing his
lips to the corner of her mouth. She stood still for a moment, completely stunned, before she
pulled away, screwing up her face and swiping the back of her hand over her mouth.
“Weird,” she said, frowning at him. He laughed knowingly, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah, exactly. You lost your inhibitions, right?” She scowled at him and blushed at the fact that
she’d proven his point. A lazy smile crept across his face. “Can I tell you a secret? Me and Harry
had a discussion about you.”
Isabel looked back at him curiously, her cheeks still burning. “Oh yeah? What did you say?”
“He said you’re not his type,” Zayn explained, and Isabel rolled her eyes at the familiarity of
those words, “which is true. He likes brunettes, that like mysterious, sexy type you know,
although he’s usually not that fussy.”
“Oh yeah, from what I’ve seen he loves the shy, mysterious type,” Isabel said sarcastically.
Zayn nodded furiously. “You’re so right, you’re so right. He pretends he has standards but at the
end of the day he’ll fuck anyone decent. He told me he’s never had feelings for anyone, ever,
you know.”
Isabel nodded, ignoring the way her heart sped up when she realised that she’d known that about
Harry first, even before his best friend, just like he’d tried to tell her about his brother and she
hadn’t listened.
“But that’s not the point, the point is that he told me he kissed you, and he feels really bad that –
”
“Let’s go and find Harry,” Isabel suggested.
“Wait, Isabel, I haven’t finished –”
“Come on!” she shouted, pulling at his arm until he obliged. They wormed their way through the
crowd into the house, checking the sofa where he’d been sat and around the living room and in
the hallway, eventually battling their way through a small crowd into the kitchen.
Harry was standing alone, hunched over the counter with his back to everyone, and Isabel could
see from the way the muscles in his back were moving beneath his shirt that he was swigging
from the same bottle he’d been drinking from earlier. She bounded forward and tapped him on
the shoulder lightly.
"Hey," Harry said flatly, not turning around.
"Harry!" Isabel chimed, and he jerked around so quickly he stumbled, reaching out for the
counter blindly to steady himself and knocking a ceramic mug to the floor. It cracked and
splintered off into sharp fragments which scattered, an indiscriminate brown liquid trickling from
the wreckage.
"Shit," Harry said.

"You keep breaking things at the moment, don't you H?" Zayn laughed. Harry just swallowed,
looking at Isabel nervously.
"Oops,” he said, choking out a laugh.
Isabel took him in, his wide, blood shot eyes, his hair a sweaty mess and the ghost of his cat
whiskers just a black smudge. Her heart raced in her chest so hard she thought he could hear it,
and she looked down at her feet before collapsed. "Sorry, Harry."
"What are you apologising for?" Harry asked with a frown.
"Oh here we fucking go," Zayn muttered with a roll of his eyes, hoisting himself up onto the
counter where Harry had been leaning and sitting watching them with a smug expression.
Harry ignored him, bending down to scoop up the wreckage, and Isabel practically threw herself
on his back.
"No Harry!" she shouted. "You'll cut yourself again!"
He straightened up and blinked at her dumbly. "Oh."
"You need to... um, you need to go and find some newspaper," Isabel told him, distracted by the
crease between his eyebrows and the way his mouth was hanging slightly open.
Harry nodded slowly, wetting his lips with his tongue, and Isabel turned away from him just in
case she had the urge to kiss him again, opening the nearest cupboard to look for a dustpan and
brush.
"Harry, you heard her!" Zayn chimed, kicking Harry hard in the back with his boot clad foot.
Harry grunted but scuttled off out of the room without another word.
"Aren't you really high right now?" Isabel asked Zayn when she located the dustpan, looking up
at him curiously. He nodded with a bright smile, pointing at his feet which were swinging around
off the edge of the counter like a child on a swing.
"Can't keep still," Zayn said cheerfully. "Fucking brilliant."
"Wouldn't you rather go and enjoy the party?" she said, sweeping up the shards of china into the
dustpan.
Zayn shrugged, grinning widely. "Watching Harry squirm is much more fun."
As if on cue, Harry stumbled back into the kitchen clutching a crumpled looking TV
Guide, dropping down on his knees next to Isabel gracelessly and handing it to her.
"It's the best I could find," Harry said anxiously. "It'll do right?"
"It's fine, Harry, thank you," Isabel replied, spreading out the paper and dropping the broken mug
pieces in before wrapping it up tightly and handing him the parcel. "Here, put this in the bin."
Harry scrambled up and did as he was told, before turning around with his lip pulled between his
teeth nervously, extending a hand to help Isabel up. "Should we put some money out for the mug
or something? A note?"
"Are you fucking joking?" Zayn laughed. "It's a mug, Harry."
Isabel took his hand, wrapping her fingers around his wrist as he pulled her up gently. She let
him go as soon as she was standing, shuffling away and ignoring determinedly the part of her
brain that was screaming how much she wanted to touch him again, although it was hard to do so
when she could feel him looking at her even though she’d put distance between them.
"Besides, how much money have you got on you, H?"
Harry snapped his gaze away from Isabel and stared blankly at Zayn, before a sheepish grin crept
across his face. "80p. I was hoping you'd put money out when I suggested it."
Zayn raised his eyebrows and smiled knowingly, while all Isabel could do was stare unabashedly
at Harry and consider how nice he looked when he smiled, the corners of her lips pulled up to
match his.
"How's your first party been as a single girl then, Is?" Zayn asked, pulling her attention away
from Harry. Zayn was smirking, his gaze flickering to Harry as he spoke. "Anything we should
be worried about? Any strange lads try it on?"
"Oh, no –"
"Brady did," Harry told Zayn quickly. "Fucking bellend."
Zayn shrugged, still smiling. "Brady tries it on with any human with boobs."
"He didn't anyway," Isabel said, crossing her arms across her chest. "We were just talking.
Nobody's come onto me, it's not like boys sniff out single girls and pounce."
Harry frowned, swaying slightly on the spot. "I reckon people have tried but probably they don't
understand how to with you, is all."
Zayn's grin widened. "What was that, H?"
"Probably the things guys do that work with other girls don't work on you," Harry said slowly.
He blinked at her for a second before looking away, a flush creeping up his neck. "Maybe, just a
guess, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know."
"Oh right," Isabel said dumbly, watching Harry grab his vodka bottle and take a generous gulp.
Zayn nearly fell off the counter he was suddenly so excited. "How would you know that,
Harry?"
Harry shrugged, still not looking up. He took another swig from his nearly empty vodka bottle,
swallowing loudly and wiping his hand across his mouth.
"Did you drink that whole thing straight?" Isabel asked. He nodded, pausing before holding the
bottle out to her.
"Would you like some?"
Isabel's eyes widened in surprise at the gesture but she took the bottle from him before he could
change his mind, taking a sip and screwing up her face when it burned down her throat, sticking
her tongue out. "How do you drink it like it's water, Harry? I nearly throw up each time I drink it
straight."
He’d had a small smile on his face when he watched her react to the taste, but as she spoke his
gaze flickered to her glistening lips, and he swallowed noticeably. "Just practice, I guess."
He kept staring as she took another swig, her lips brushing against the glass edge of the bottle,
and he was still staring when she rubbed her fingers over her lips to dry them. His eyes were
glazed over, his own lips parted slightly, and Isabel imagined his breath was hot and shallow,
like it had been when he kissed her.
She held the bottle back out to him, her heart crashing against her ribcage when he blinked
slowly, breaking his unwavering gaze from her mouth for a moment. She let go of the bottle
before he had a chance to grasp it and it slipped between their fingers towards the floor. Isabel
winced, waiting for the second shatter of the evening, but it just landed with a dull thump and
rolled across the floor.
"I'll get it!" she announced loudly, chasing after it unsteadily and bending down to pick it up.
"Harry stop staring," Zayn called cheerily from behind her. "You're wearing tight jeans, if you
keep checking her out it'll get painful."
Isabel straightened up, her cheeks burning, and when she turned around she found Harry equally
flushed, glaring at Zayn and gripping the counter.
"Fuck off, Zayn," Harry snapped. "Go and be an annoying fucking twat away from me." He
hiccoughed loudly, his whole body jerking as he did so, and it was then Isabel realised she'd
never seen Harry so drunk. His eyelids were drooping slightly, his entire body slumping over
itself and his words coming out in a long jumbled slur. He brushed his hair away from his face
and hiccoughed again, glancing briefly at Isabel and then looking away, wholly mortified.
"He's being weird, isn't he?" Isabel said to Harry, her voice an octave higher than usual. "He
keeps giving me this little smirk all the time, and then he kissed me and had this stupid smile
after as well.”
Harry had been looking at the floor, but now he lifted his head and blinked slowly, his eyes
falling shut for far too long before he squeezed them open again, his body jerking once more as
he hiccoughed. “Huh?”
Zayn threw himself off the counter and started towards Harry quickly, holding his hands out like
he was trying to stop someone jumping off a ledge. “No, no, no, Harry listen mate –”
“I, um,” Harry mumbled as he backed away from Zayn, and ran a hand through his hair. “I need
to go and see Caitlin about something...”
“No, Harry, wait –”
But Harry was already pushing his way out of the room, Zayn rushing after him and shouting his
name over the noise of the party.
Isabel blinked after them, swaying on the spot slightly. She was so confused, and she could feel
the blood pumping around her body in a weirdly unnatural way, like there was too much of it in
there. She braced herself against the counter and took a deep breath, grabbing for Harry’s vodka
bottle and finishing it in a few horrendous swallows.
She went to put the empty bottle with the other discarded drinks, but found a mess of bottles and
cans littered across the table and falling to the floor, and before she could even really think about
what she was doing she was separating the glass and cans carefully, pouring the last dregs from
leaking articles down the sink and rooting around the kitchen for a binbag. It was oddly calming
and mindless, her actions slow and clumsy and methodical, like all her jumbled, maddening
thoughts about Harry swirled down the plughole with the leftover alcohol, getting swallowed up
in the black and leaving her curiously blank.
“Isabel,” someone snapped, and she jumped up much too quickly from her position under the
kitchen sink, her stomach churning. Caitlin was standing in the doorway glaring at her. “We’re
going.”
Isabel swayed unsteadily on her feet. “What time is it?”
“About half two,” Caitlin said, yanking Isabel towards the door. “Come on, the others are
already on the way to get a kebab.”
Isabel must have been cleaning for much longer than she realised because half two seemed a lot
later than she expected, but she trotted after Caitlin without protest.
“Why did they leave without us?” Isabel asked. Everyone knew Caitlin was the worst possible
person to be left to deal with Isabel.
Caitlin shrugged. “Zayn and Harry are in a funny mood, I don’t know. Liv made them leave,
Harry made me come and get you.”
The rest of the walk was spent in silence, Isabel trailing a couple of steps behind Caitlin, but
thankfully it wasn’t far and they pushed their way into the kebab shop with matching sighs of
relief, only to be met by an even stonier silence than the one they’d shared.
Harry and Liv were leaning against the counter waiting for their order while Niall and Zayn were
sitting opposite each other in a booth, Niall slumped over the table with his head in his arms and
Zayn glaring at Harry’s back.
“Zayn!” Isabel exclaimed immediately. “What happened to your face?”
Zayn scowled, his face contorting in a way that only seemed to accentuate the redness around his
eye, the bruise there starting to purple under the harsh, stark lights of the shop. “Ask that
dickhead,” Zayn spat, gesturing towards Harry.
Isabel looked over at the counter at Harry with wide eyes, but he wasn’t even paying attention to
Zayn. He was looking at her, and when she caught his gaze he smiled slightly.
“Do you want something, Isabel?” he asked her, holding out his hand.
“I uh…” She hadn’t even looked at the menu, but she reached inside the pocket of her dress and
shoved a handful of coins at him. “Chicken.”
He bit down on his lip, withholding a grin. “Okay.”
She shuffled off to the booth, sliding in next to Niall and poking him in the arm.
“You okay?”
Niall nodded into his arms. “So drunk.”
Isabel scratched her hand through his hair and glanced at Zayn, who was still glaring at Harry as
Caitlin tried to whisper some calming words to him.
“Harry and Zayn are arguing?” Isabel whispered to Niall.
He nodded into his arms. “’s weird. They never argue. Always me and Zayn that argue cos ’m
the ‘annoying one’.”
Niall snorted a laugh as Isabel’s eyes scanned over Zayn’s black eye and gulped, imagining
Harry’s fist colliding into his face with a loud smack. The thought made her shudder and she
looked down at the table.
“Man, I’m so fucked,” Niall mumbled. “That was a sick party.”
“Can’t handle your drink,” Liv berated with a grin, slipping into the booth next to Isabel and
unwrapping her kebab. She shot a pointed look at Zayn. “And you can’t handle your MD.”
“Shut up,” Zayn snapped sulkily.
Harry threw himself down in the seat opposite Liv, sliding Isabel a yellow polystyrene food
container with a small smile. “I got you chicken nuggets, if that’s alright? You didn’t give me
enough for a kebab. Hope that’s okay.”
Isabel nodded, smiling back. “Thank you.”
Harry glanced over at Niall as he unwrapped his own kebab, pausing before bringing it to his
lips. “Cheers, Niall. I’ll pay you back.”
Niall waved his hand in the air, mumbling something along the lines of ‘don’t worry about
it’, but Zayn snorted loudly at the unlikelihood of this promise.
Liv glared at him. “Don’t be a dick, Zayn.”
Harry ignored him, shoving about half the kebab into his mouth at once and sighing happily.
Isabel scanned his face and hands as she chewed her nuggets absently, searching for any sign
that there’d been an altercation between him and Zayn, but despite his eyelids drooping lazily
and a drunken flush in his cheeks, Harry looked no different to any other day.
“Sick party,” Niall said again, breaking the silence.
“I wouldn’t call you vomiting all over the living room and Zayn walking out with a black eye a
good party, personally,” Caitlin said with a roll of her eyes.
“How did you get a black eye again, Zayn?” Niall asked, his voice muffled as he spoke directly
into his arm.
Zayn scowled pointedly at Harry, who swallowed loudly and wiped the back of his hand over his
mouth as Zayn waited for him to explain.
“Well… I had hiccoughs,” Harry started slowly. “And I was freaking out a bit anyway, and Zayn
was saying all this shit and kept shoving this bottle of water at me, so then I –”
“Then he lobbed it at my fucking eye!”
“I didn’t,” Harry replied quickly, scowling at the table. “I told you, I wasn’t even aiming at you.
I just threw it behind me blindly.”
There was a pause in which everyone processed what had just been said, before Liv burst out
laughing. “Zayn got a black eye from a fucking water bottle!” she howled.
“Fuck off, it’s not funny,” Zayn snapped, but everyone was laughing now, and even Harry’s lips
quirked up, looking down at the table sheepishly and stuffing the last of his kebab in his mouth.
“It is quite funny,” Caitlin chortled. “It’s not very bad boy of the pair of you, is it?”
“You better not be fucking laughing, Harry,” Zayn snarled, leaning forward to look around
Caitlin.
“I’m sorry I bruised your perfect face, Zaynie,” Harry said flatly, his voice thick as his mouth
was full. “And I’m sorry if it really, really hurt.”
“I was trying to help you!” Zayn shouted as Harry swallowed and glowered at him. “Such an
idiot, Harry, I was trying to help.”
“I didn’t ask for help!” Harry snapped, suddenly just as loud. “And if that is what your help
looks like I don’t fucking want it.”
“I’m lost,” Caitlin said with a frown.
“Isabel,” Zayn said unexpectedly, and Isabel’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked over at
him. “Tell Harry –”
“No!” Harry said quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does fucking matter,” Zayn growled.
“I said I’m sorry Zayn, and I meant it,” Harry snapped, balling up the paper of his finished
kebab. “Now shut up.”
“What’s going on?” Liv asked slowly.
Zayn sighed. “For like, half a second, and to prove a point, I kis–”
“Zayn!” Harry bellowed. “I said shut up!”
Caitlin and Liv were looking between Isabel and Zayn and Harry incredulously, but she barely
registered it. She frowned at Harry and his pink cheeks, watching as he pulled his lip between his
fingers and glanced around with anxious eyes.
“Why do you care?” she asked him slowly.
He gulped, his gaze flickering to meet hers. “I don’t.”
Isabel nodded, chewing on her nails and staring at the table. She knew coming to this party had
been a bad idea, and as predicted it had been problematic from start to finish. Tears were
building up behind her eyes and a lump was forming in her throat and her bottom lip was
wobbling and all she wanted to do was run and run away from Harry until she forgot all about
him.
“I’m gonna go home now,” she declared with a shaky voice, wrenching herself up and squeezing
past Liv. She stumbled slightly over Liv’s feet and Harry jumped up to catch her before she
could topple over. His hands lingered on her waist for a second, making sure she was standing up
straight, and his eyes were wide and concerned, his eyebrows puckered together in the middle.
She jerked away before she burst into tears, shuffling backwards towards the door. “See you
guys.”
Harry started shaking his head but she ignored him, spinning around and pushing open the door.
She marched off down the road, enjoying the cold air biting at her skin because it distracted from
the burning tears behind her eyes, stumbling slightly as her heavy, drunken feet scuffed along the
pavement.
A large hand grabbed her bare arm and she shrieked loudly, her heart skipping a beat as she
yanked it away and considered smacking the assailant round the head.
“Harry what the fuck!” she screamed when she saw him standing behind her. He frowned at her,
his mouth hanging open slightly. “Don’t do that!”
He blinked, confused. “Sorry, I just - I’m not gonna let you walk home alone.”
She shook her head at him, whirling round and stalking off down the road.
“Isabel, hold on!” She could hear how fast and heavy he was breathing from behind her as he
hurried to keep up with her. “You’re ridiculous, it’s four in the fucking morning!”
“It’s not far,” she retorted eventually, swallowing loudly and shivering from the cold.
He grabbed her arm once more, more gently this time, and she shuddered again, but it might
have been more to do with the feeling of his rough skin against hers, the heat of his body against
her cold arm, the way it made her heart judder in her chest. “Why are you shaking, are you
cold?” he asked her. His thumb rubbed over the skin of her arm so lightly she nearly thought she
imagined it, but no amount of invention and fantasy on her part would ever be able to make her
heart hurt in the way it did now, when he touched her like that. “Here, you can have –”
“Please don’t do this,” she muttered, pulling away again. He blinked, and it looked like his
eyelids were stuck for a minute before managing to wrench them open.
“What?” he said hoarsely.

“I can’t do this,” she told him quietly. “I can’t carry on doing this, Harry.” He said nothing, just
looked at his feet and hit his shaking hands against his legs.
“Isabel, I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry before you’ll believe me,” he replied
eventually, exhaling loudly and running a hand through his hair, tugging at it. “I don’t know
what to do.”
But he didn’t understand that it wasn’t about sorry anymore. It was about Harry always insisting
that he didn’t care, that he didn’t want her, that she wasn’t his fucking type, when she liked him
so much that it hurt.
She took a deep breath to steady herself, looking down at the floor as she wracked her brains for
an answer, her hair falling in front of her face. And, as if in slow motion, Harry reached up a
shaking hand and pushed her hair behind her ear gently, making her look up at him as he trailed
his thumb across her cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut and her nerve endings seemed to set on fire,
her breath catching in her throat as her knees wobbled dangerously.
“I missed you,” he whispered, and she nearly crumpled into a pile on the floor.
“Yeah,” she said, grabbing his arm as tightly as she could in order to anchor herself, just in case
she actually did collapse.
She could feel Harry’s breath hot on her cheek, such a contrast to the frigid air, and his shaky
fingers travelled from her hair to the skin of her neck, holding her softly.
If Isabel wasn’t drunk, she might have burst into tears right then. Instead she laughed nervously,
unsure what she could do to salvage this before she threw herself at him or melted into the
pavement.
She shoved his shoulder. “I’ll race you!” she shrieked, aware even in her inebriated state that this
was a crazy, ridiculous idea, and before he could reply she set off at a run down the road.
“Isabel stop!” he yelled, but she didn’t listen. She sprinted down the road, ignoring the ache in
her side and the heaviness of her breath and her heart pounding in her chest and the fact that she
could trip any second.
She could hear him running after her, and when she started laughing she could eventually hear
him laughing too. He was running deliberately slowly so that they could pretend she was
outrunning him, shouting at her to slow down, his voice shaking with laughter and cracking in all
the wrong places.
They ran like that all the way to her house, laughing and shrieking in the night air, their feet
pounding against the pavement and their hair whipping in the wind behind them. When she
reached the house she whirled around, leaning against the wall and laughing hysterically, and
Harry joined not long after. He was red faced, from the laughing and the running, and when he
stopped she could hear him wheezing as he took deep breaths.
“Harry, breathe!” she shouted at him, giggling as he leant his arms on his knees and bent over,
coughing and panting.
She regained her breath after a while, brushing her sweaty hair out of her face, but Harry still
wasn’t okay. She stepped closer and could hear his chest rattling as he gulped, trying his best to
take in some air.
“Are you okay?” she asked him nervously, and he shook his head, placing a hand on his chest.
“Oh my god, Harry are you dying?” she shrieked. He shook his head again and gestured vaguely
to his pocket. She leapt forward, digging around in there and eventually withdrawing a small
blue plastic device.
He grabbed the inhaler from her with violently shaking hands, leaning against the wall and
pressing it to his lips, taking huge deep breaths as she danced on the spot anxiously, her fingers
shoved into her mouth. Eventually he stopped, his breathing settled, the rattle in his chest gone,
and she let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Smooth end to the night, Styles,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
Isabel laughed nervously. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t warm up or anything obviously so… well yeah, I’m fine.” He stood up,
shaking all of his limbs and jumping from foot to foot, his cheeks burning scarlet from
embarrassment now. “This happens. I, um, I have asthma.”
“Oh right,” Isabel said. “Okay.”
Harry said nothing, just looked around as if searching for a bridge to throw himself off, and
Isabel walked over to him before she could stop herself, wrapping her arms around his waist and
pressing her cheek against his chest.
“That was scary,” she said into his shirt, squeezing her eyes shut as one arm wrapped around her
shoulders and the other around her waist, pulling her in tighter.
“I’m okay,” he said, dipping his head so his breath hit her neck. “It used to happen all the time.”
He pulled away from her, keeping one hand on her waist to hold her in front of him and pinching
his bottom lip with the other.
“Isabel, I’m so so sorry.” He reached out his hand to touch her, extending it between them for a
second before deciding better of it and letting it fall. “I’ve been trying to tell you, please believe
me. I’m so sorry.”
She blinked at him. “I know you are, Harry.”

“I said some awful shit, didn’t I?” he laughed uncertainly, though his voice was hoarse and
sincere. “I can’t stop thinking about it and – and even apologising feels bad because I just wish I
didn’t have to cos I just – just wish so badly that I’d never fucking done it in the first place.”
“Why did you kiss Briony?” she asked quickly. He’d also probably kissed lots and lots of other
girls over Easter, but she didn’t want to dwell on that.
“Why do you care?” Harry cut back, and there was an undertone to his voice, a slight sense of
disbelief and maybe even hope.
“I don’t,” she mumbled.
He blinked at her, dropping his hand from her waist as he sighed. “I did it because you… why
didn’t you answer my phone calls?”
“Why do you care?” she asked him slowly, and she felt what she hoped Harry felt – a jolt in her
heart, a longing for him to say that he cared very, very much.
“I don’t,” he repeated slowly.
There was a beat of silence in which they just looked at each other, unspoken things hanging
between them like stale, heavy weights, but neither of them reached up and tugged at them.
“I’m sorry too,” she told him quietly, feeling a lump in her throat when he closed his eyes and
shook his head. “No, I am. I said bad stuff too, and I should have listened, and I’m sorry.”
He opened his eyes and nodded, his gaze flickering behind her to the door. “Can I stay? Am I
allowed to stay over the night?”
She licked her lips. The thought of him staying made her palms sweat, and she couldn’t think of
something she’d ever wanted more in her whole life. “I, um… maybe you should call a cab or –
”
“With what money?” Harry asked incredulously, an embarrassed grin pulling at his lips. “I have
80p to my name.”
She laughed at his stupid smile, and his grin widened.
“Unless, of course, you want me to walk home alone…” Harry said, pouting. “In the dark, all
alone, defenceless, at four in the morning…”
“You’re an idiot,” Isabel laughed, shaking her head at him, and when his face fell she nearly
yanked him toward the house.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” he checked, serious now. When she nodded and unlocked the
door with shaking fingers, he smiled widely. “I’ll be a good boy. Promise.”
And before she could answer – or faint, whichever came first – he was making his way into the
kitchen.
End Notes:
Well loads of stuff happened and this was waaaaay long!!! Let me know what you think :)
See you next Thursday, which from now on is the weekly update
day! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com x
Back to index
Author's Notes:
things I can’t
April
“I’m so thirsty!” Harry announced loudly, yanking open the fridge and getting out the orange
juice, downing it straight from the carton. “I’m so hot, are you hot?”
“Well we ran quite a way.”
“I know, and I run all the time. You know I’ve run twenty-four miles since last Sunday.”
“That’s a lot,” Isabel nodded seriously.
“I’ve done more,” Harry said with a proud smile. “Two weeks ago I ran thirty-eight in a week.”
Isabel’s jaw fell open. “Thirty-eight?!” Harry nodded, and before she could say anything further
he was shoving the empty orange juice back in the fridge and withdrawing a half empty plastic
litre bottle of cider.
“Are we allowed this?”
Isabel screwed up her face. “It’s not mine.”
Harry grinned mischievously, opening the cap and taking a swig. “Blame it on me. Stupid
Harry.” And before she could protest he was running out into the hall.
He bounded up the stairs three at a time, and by the time Isabel caught up with him he had
already taken his shirt and jeans off and burrowed under her duvet, smiling at her with the covers
pulled up to his chin.
“Let’s watch a film, Isabel!” he said excitedly. “I wanna watch a film with you!”
“No, you’ll talk all over it,” she protested, shutting the door and leaning against it, staring at
Harry like he was a wild animal.
“No I won’t, I promise. Come get into bed with me.” He pulled back the covers and patted the
space next to him eagerly. She didn’t move and he pouted. “Please?”
“What film do you want to watch?” she asked, avoiding the way her heart sped up at his request.
“Any more fun films from the nineties? Is that your favourite movie era?” She stumbled across
the room to kneel by the bed, lifting up the duvet to rifle through her film boxes underneath.
“I don’t think I’ve seen any other ‘90s chick flicks,” Harry confessed, and Isabel poked her head
up from the side of the bed, outraged.
“You’ve never seen Clueless?!”
“Noooooooo,” Harry grinned. Isabel found the appropriate box and yanked it out.
“You haven’t lived, Styles.”
“I’m all for losing my Clueless virginity with you, Is,” he said with grin, and she forced a choked
sort of laugh, trying to ignore the way the swallows on his chest were rising and falling with
every breath.
“I hope you’re ashamed because that was super cheesy, Harry, I’m cringing.”
“You flatter me.”
Isabel got under the covers fully clothed in her Alice in Wonderland dress and snuggled down
into her pillow, placing the laptop in Harry’s lap.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“A girl called Cher, and you can forget Sloane because she’s the best person ever. You’ll see.”
“Is she looking for love?”
“Of course,” Isabel said with a raised eyebrow. “It’s a chick flick.”
“Sorry, how stupid of me,” Harry apologised, and she rolled her eyes. “I’ll shut up.”
They watched silently for a while, passing the bottle of cider between them, and though Isabel
watched the screen intently Harry kept fidgeting, squirming about under the covers like a restless
child and sighing loudly. When she glanced over at him, checking to see his reaction to when Mr
Hall and Ms Geist got together, she found that he was staring at her and not the film, his eyes
warm and relaxed, his eyelids heavy.
“What are you looking at?” she asked him with a shy smile.
Harry blinked lazily, for once not averting his gaze when she caught him staring. “Sorry,” he
apologised, mumbling the word.
“It’s okay. You’re missing the film.” Her smile widened. “You’re being like me today. I’ve
never heard you apologise so much.”
He swallowed and looked back at the screen quickly, but after a few minutes she realised he
wasn’t watching again.
“Aren’t you uncomfortable in that dress?” Harry asked, nudging her. “Why don’t you get into
more comfortable clothes?”
“I don’t want you to look,” Isabel mumbled, and Harry frowned.
“Why?”
“Because you make me self-conscious.”
He said nothing, just deepened his frown, and she sighed.
“I’ll go change in the bathroom.”
He kept quiet when she climbed out of bed and went downstairs to the bathroom. She hesitated
about what to do with her bra before shrugging at no one and slipping it off, brushing her teeth
and filling up two big glasses of water. When she was younger her brother had reminded her on
countless occasions that there was no bigger schoolboy error than forgetting to down a generous
amount of water before going to sleep drunk. James used to call it ‘Hangover Prevention Rule 1’,
although it was the only rule, and in Isabel’s experience it had never actually prevented, only
decreased the intensity of, the next day’s trauma.
When she got back to her room, her eyes widened in surprise when she saw that Harry had
turned off the laptop and had removed it from the bed, sitting up with his arms crossed and
frowning.
“Where’s the film?” she asked incredulously.
He ignored her. “You weren’t self-conscious front of Niall and Zayn when you stayed at mine,”
he said sadly.
“It’s different with them.”
“Why?” Harry shifted as she got back into bed, turning to face her. “You know me better.”
“Exactly.”
Harry just scowled, looking down at the edge of the duvet and pulling it between his fingers
sulkily.
“You and Zayn shouldn’t argue,” Isabel said eventually. His gaze flickered up to hers briefly and
he shook his head.
“Don’t worry.”
“But I am worrying.”
“Don’t,” he said sternly. “I didn’t mean anything to happen. I didn’t mean to get like that.”
“Harry, he’s your best friend. Don’t you want to talk about it?”
He rubbed a hand across his face. “Isabel…”
Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed him but he always suppressed things, made sure he never had
to deal with problems by ignoring them or handing them over to someone else, and as much as
he wanted her to stop being a pushover, she wanted him to stop this. “Harry, why did –”
“I got pissed off,” Harry said evenly, not looking at her. “Because you and Zayn…”
He licked his lips and trailed off nervously, and Isabel held her breath as she waited for him to
continue, but he eventually entirely abandoned the end of his sentence and started a new one.
“Zayn kept saying he was sorry and how he thinks you like me and all of this bollocks, and he
kept grabbing me and shoving this fucking bottle of Evian at me and then I just, I just turned
away from him and threw the bottle and then I said sorry but he wouldn’t calm down and then he
told me I’m fucking everything up and now Zayn and I aren’t speaking.”
He said this all very quickly, in one burst of breath, and Isabel stared, completely dumbfounded.
Harry sighed, finally looking at her, his eyelids heavy and his teeth biting into his bottom lip as
he gulped drunkenly. He stared at her for a while, and Isabel didn’t even realise that the tips of
his fingers had hooked over hers until the roughness of his fingertips scratched her skin. “Why
didn’t you kiss me today?”
Her cheeks warmed and she looked away from him. “When?”
“In the hallway at the party.”
She nearly laughed. “We were arguing, Harry.”
“But you wanted to. And you were drunk, people don’t think of stuff like that when you’re
drunk.”
“So what if I wanted to?” she replied nervously. “I’m drunk now and I’m not kissing you.”
“So why didn’t you if you wanted to?” Harry asked lowly, edging closer.
“You’ve been with so many girls and I …” she backed away from him, her heart pounding. “I
don’t know, I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”
Harry’s warm eyes clouded in confusion. “I don’t understand,” he said, licking his lips and
lifting his hand away to play with his bottom lip. She nearly grabbed at his fingers when they
withdrew from hers, but she didn’t. “Why do you care what I think?”
“Because you just - you're you and I - and I'm - all I wanted to do was be your friend.” She felt
tears pricking in her eyes, and she put the heel of her palm against her eyelid to stop herself
crying. She let out a near hysterical laugh. “I’m not your fucking type, remember?”
Harry groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “I swear to God, if I ever hear that phrase again
I’m gonna throw myself in front of a bus.” He looked at her and breathed out an incredulous
laugh. “What does that even mean? I don’t fucking know what it means.”
“You said it.”
“Isabel…” His voice was so soft and warm, and when he reached out to stroke her face he made
the skin there burn. Maybe it was the alcohol, but she couldn’t be so sure anymore that it wasn’t
just him and the way he looked into her eyes imploringly, his perfect face exhausted. “You’re
beautiful, you know,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, her voice much too high as she shifted away to end the conversation, but he
grabbed her waist.
“I don't know how to act with you," Harry blurted out suddenly. "In the car - all that shit I said - I
just, I didn't mean it. I didn't even know what I was saying, I was - I was panicking, and I -
fuck."
He was getting worked up, his eyes shifting about nervously as he licked his lips over and over
again.
“What do you mean?”
“All this game, shit, Is, it's not - it's not anything to do with you. I just said it because I … I just
wanted to push you away and I don’t – I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, stumbling over
his words frantically. “Everything's so confusing, and I thought if I made you think like you were
the same as all the other girls... I thought it would make sense –”
“Make what make sense?”
He blinked at her, barely listening. “You know I took coke for the first time since I was eighteen
over Easter. Two years, gone. Why the fuck did I do that?”
“I don’t know, Harry. Zayn was saying –”
He shook his head wildly so that she stopped talking, leaning in closer to her, biting his lip and
placing one of his hands on the other side of her chest so that he was leaning over her. “Do you
like him?” he asked, his voice so low and gravelly it was barely audible.
She wanted to say yes, so that he couldn’t hurt her again with the knowledge that she
desperately, hopelessly wanted nobody apart from him, but he was staring down at her with
those sad eyes and those pink lips and his face was so distressed and confused and anxious that
she couldn’t help but reach up and stroke his cheekbone. He shuddered.
She traced his cheekbone all the way up to his ear, brushing a curl softly before trailing a finger
down his neck to the heavy rise and fall of his chest. When she swept her fingers across his
collarbone his eyes fluttered shut, his breath fanning over her face.
“I don’t like him,” she whispered, and Harry nodded, keeping his eyes shut. He swiped his
tongue across his lips briefly, and Isabel let her hand fall as she imagined his tongue on her lips,
in her mouth, on her burning skin.
“Does coke feel weird?” she asked out of nowhere, and he grinned with surprise, opening his
eyes so that they crinkled at the corners.
“Yeah, it really does,” he said and she smiled back when he bit his lip. “Not nice weird,
though.”
“How do you feel now?”
“I feel…” he looked away, shifting so that he could redistribute the weight on his arms that were
evidently going numb as he hovered above her. “I feel nice weird now.”
“Did you used to do coke all the time?”
He paused, for a long time looking like he wouldn’t answer before he gave a small nod. “Not like
every day, but often I guess. Heroin, um, a few times. I was fucked up.”
He unconsciously scratched his left arm, leaning all his weight on his left hand so he could move
his right over and claw at the skin, and Isabel’s eyes flickered to follow the movement, watching
his fingers brush right over ‘Things I Can’t’.
He coughed awkwardly and abruptly moved his arm higher so that it was out of her view gaging
her reaction with apprehension. “It’s not a big deal, anyway,” he muttered. He blinked at her
apprehensively, searching for a way to distract her attention with his lip pulled between his teeth.
“How do you feel, Isabel?”
“I feel drunk,” she laughed. “Niall knows how to get people smashed, doesn’t he?”
Harry nodded, smiling slightly, and her stomach dropped as she stared at his lips when they
twitched. Isabel didn’t know whether it was the vodka or how close Harry was or the way he was
looking at her, but suddenly she had to tell him with such a physical urge that it felt like the
words were punching out of her throat even though her heart was cringing in her chest with the
honesty of it.
“I don’t think I could ever take it if you touched me,” she mumbled.
He gazed down at her, and before she could say anything else he was resting his forehead against
hers, closing his eyes so that his eyelashes tickled her cheeks.
“Where do you want to be touched?” he asked slowly, and when he spoke his lips brushed hers.
She swallowed, jolting slightly. “Everywhere,” she admitted.
He moved his head, trailing his nose along her jaw and then nudging it against her neck as her
breathing accelerated. “My mark’s gone,” he said sadly.
She wanted to make a remark, maybe about him marking his territory like a bloody animal, but
when his lips brushed gently against her skin all sarcastic remarks dissolved into nothing. He
sucked on her neck, nipping the spot and then soothing it with his tongue.
“Does that feel good?” he asked, his voice low and husky, and she nodded fervently. He brought
his head back so that it was level with hers, his messy hair brushing her forehead as leant down
and sucked on her bottom lip, making her jolt beneath him and sigh loudly.
He pulled away, repositioning his waist so that his whole body was over hers, before leaning
back down and kissing her again. He kissed her slowly, gently, like he was just trying to
memorise the soft heat of her mouth, but Isabel felt like every single part of her was burning. She
prised his lips open and felt all of her sanity drain away when their tongues met, grabbing a
fistful of his hair and tugging it hard.
He was being infuriatingly, painfully slow, holding the back of her neck and kissing her softly,
but Isabel was suddenly so hot that she was squirming beneath him, and eventually she shoved
him away. He frowned, clearly concerned this was going to be a repeat of last time, but before he
could express his apprehension she was flipping him over, straddling his waist and attacking his
neck.
She kissed her way along it, licking and nipping, and when she found the crevice between his
shoulder and his neck he tensed beneath her. She smiled, biting it gently and he moaned, letting
his head fall back to the pillow as she sucked the spot. She couldn’t think of any sound she’d
ever heard hotter than Harry moaning and she nearly lost it when he groaned again.
She pulled away, sitting back and moving her hands from the pillow beside his head to his
stomach, which tensed beneath her fingers. He stared at her, his eyes raw and wild, his breathing
deep as she trailed her fingers up his flat stomach to the swallows on his chest, leaning down to
kiss them gently.
Isabel decided then, with absolute drunken sincerity, that he most perfect thing she'd ever seen.
She traced the ink under her fingertips, her lips following, and she felt a little high, a bit
hysterical, a bit drunk off the smell of his skin, the sound of his breath, laboured and jagged, the
feel of his fingers pressing into his waist.
She was halfway through telling him this, babbling away with the distinct combination of
honesty and incoherence that only intoxication could produce, when he made a noise so
strangled she was cut short.
When she looked up at him, his eyes were closed, his face twisting as though he was in pain.
“Don’t, Isabel,” was all he said, and his voice was so sad that she felt a pull in her heart, like
he’d kicked her in the chest. She leaned back, unsure of what he wanted.
“Don’t do what?”
"Don't... don't say that stuff." He rubbed a hand over his face, composing himself, before
muttering, “Don't kiss me like you’ll want me tomorrow.”
Isabel just blinked at him, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t for a long time, just
held his hand against his face and breathed quietly. Isabel was about to prise his hands away
when he sat up suddenly and grabbed the back of her head, catching her lips with his. He made a
contented noise in the back of his throat as his hand rubbed up and down her side, dipping it
under her t-shirt and stroking her burning skin. She gasped into his mouth, flinching so that her
hips ground into his.
“Fuck,” he moaned, the word getting lost against her tongue. He pulled back and took a sharp
breath before growling and kissing her again, forcing his tongue into her mouth as his hand
travelled higher inside her t-shirt until he was cupping her breast, kneading it gently with his
hardened fingertips until she moaned, lightheaded. He brushed her nipple with his fingers before
squeezing it, lightly at first and then harder, until her head fell against his shoulder.
He moved his hand away and she whimpered, but then he was kissing along her neck and
shifting her in his lap so he could tuck a hand down her pyjama bottoms and into her knickers,
dragging his fingers across her as his lips and tongue brushed across her neck.
“Do you want me?” Harry asked, rubbing harder so that she whined and squirmed in his lap, the
friction of his fingers making her legs shake.
“Jesus. Yeah.”
She gripped his shoulders, gasping as he bit down on her neck.
"You sure? Tell me."
"Fuck, Harry," she slurred, pouting, her eyes squeezed shut. "You - you know I do."
“How drunk are you?”
“I’m… super drunk.”
Harry swallowed loudly and stilled, unmoving for a moment before he pulled his hand out of her
knickers, resting it in her lap limply.
“Harry,” she said quietly, and his heart nearly stopped. “Are we going to do this?”
He stroked her face gently, pushing her head up away from his shoulder so it was level with his
and placing a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. It was swollen and bitten and stained deep red
like a raspberry and he nearly lost his revolve, a white spot clouding his vision so that he had to
blink hard before he spat out: “No.”
She pulled away, frowning and grabbing the bottom of her t-shirt to pull it over her head, but he
stopped her, his rough hands clutching her wrists.
“Isabel, stop,” he said. He placed her wrists at her sides gently, holding them there in case she
tried to unclothe herself again.
“Why?” she asked, barely able to hear them speak over the ringing in her ears.
“We can’t,” he explained, his voice cracking and his eyes squeezing shut, and Isabel frowned in
confusion. His chest and neck were red, his sharp collarbones glistening with a thin sheen of
sweat, his breathing wild and uncontrolled, and he bit down on his lip harshly before opening his
eyes.
“But – but I want to,” she said childishly.
He shook his head. “You won’t tomorrow. I don’t want you to regret this.”
She glared at him. “You’re meant to be drunk and unable to think rationally.”
He tried to laugh but couldn’t bring himself to force it out properly and so it sounded like a
cough. “I don’t want you to regret this,” he said again. “Friends crossing the line when they
shouldn’t have, that sort of thing.”
“I won’t. I won’t regret it.” She swallowed, and then the words tumbling out of her mouth before
she could stop them: “When you asked me if I want you… I do Harry. For ages I have.”
He said nothing, the silence between them becoming so frigid that it was actually painful, and
Isabel felt sick. “Will you regret it?” she asked him, and when he looked away pointedly and
didn’t reply she scrambled off his lap. She turned away, lying down with her back to him and
biting down harshly on her lip so that she wouldn’t cry.
“Isabel…” he ran a hand across her waist, and she shifted so that it would fall away. “Don’t be
like this, baby.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, listening to him groan in frustration and get out of bed, padding off
to the bathroom without another word. She lay there waiting for him, her heart thumping in her
mouth and her body aching for his, and it might have been pathetic but that didn’t make it any
less true as she squeezed her arms around herself and counted the seconds until he came back.
He switched off the light when he shuffled back into the room and climbed into bed beside her,
sighing slightly and lying completely, unnaturally still. “Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”
he asked eventually.
She paused, unable to decide whether to be sensible and spare herself the heartache or do what
she wanted and let him stay, and he sighed again before she could speak, the duvet rustling as he
swung his legs out of bed.
“No, wait!” she said quickly. “Don’t go, it’s fine.”
After a few tense moments of stale silence she heard him move closer again, felt his arm snake
around her waist, and then he was pulling her hips back so that they were resting against his.
“It’s not that I don’t want you,” he said, kissing the space behind her ear. She tried to shove him
off, nearly whimpering when he kissed her, but he gripped her tighter. “Hey Isabel, if I told you I
just jacked off in your bathroom what would you say?”
He smirked against her hair when she didn’t respond. “Isabel, are you listening?”
“No.”
“Okay. I definitely didn’t just wank in your bathroom.”
“Why do we always end up talking about you wanking?”
He grinned. “You tell me.”
“Shut up.”
“I used your toothbrush as well, by the way,” Harry added.
“You’re actually disgusting.”
“You’re ridiculous, we just shared more saliva than what’s on your toothbrush.”
“Oh my god, Harry, stop talking.”
He laughed again, resting his forehead against the back of her neck and rubbing soft circles into
her stomach with his free hand.
“Are you mad at me?” Harry mumbled after a moment of silence.
“No,” she said with a huff. “I just thought we were…”
“Yeah, me too.”
She sighed, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth as she said again: “I do want you loads,
Harry.”
He was quiet, and eventually she felt him kiss the back of her neck gently. “I think you should
sleep now, Is.”
She yawned, burrowing backwards slightly so she was even closer to Harry, leaving no space
between them. “How much are we gonna want to kill ourselves tomorrow morning on a scale of
one to ten?” she asked him sleepily.
“I’ll probably be a solid eight,” he replied. “You’ll be a nine, you’re pretty drunk.”
“Why not a ten?”
He smirked against her shoulder. “Because you’re waking up with me.”
~~~
Isabel awoke to a worryingly loud crash and the sound of Harry shouting “Fuck!”
She went to move her head but it felt like it was made of lead, and it hurt so much that she
groaned and lay it back down on the pillow. Opening her eyes the smallest amount that she
could, squinting through the tiny crack in her eyelids, she found a shirtless Harry with one leg
through his black jeans, steadying himself against the wardrobe, evidently having just fallen back
into it.
“What time’s it?” Isabel slurred, and his head snapped up when he heard her speak.
“Oh shit,” he grumbled. “Go back to sleep, Issy.”
“Time?” she asked again, and he glanced at the clock on her bookcase.
“Quarter to eight,” he told her.
“What the fuck, we’ve been asleep for two hours?!”
“It’s okay, you can sleep some more. I need to go.”
He pulled his other leg through his jeans and grabbed his shirt from the floor, buttoning it up
haphazardly.
“Why are you leaving?” she asked him.
“I need to go for a run,” he told her.
“Whaddafuckwhy?” she mumbled, rubbing a hand across her face as he chuckled.
“I’ll explain another time.” She heard him stumbling over to her, crouching down beside the bed
and stroking her face gently. “Isabel?”
“Mmm?” she replied, not opening her eyes.
“Friends, yeah? We’re friends.”
“Yeah,” she muttered.
“Yeah,” he repeated, leaning forward and kissing her forehead. “See you later.”
And by the time Isabel opened her eyes, he was gone.
~~~
Isabel felt like she was dying.
She’d been hungover as much as the average girl in her nineteen years, but this was a whole new
kettle of fish. Her head felt like someone was pushing her brain against her skull from the inside,
her limbs were heavy and useless, her stomach unreliable.
She had no idea whether or not she was hungry but she refused to touch anything until the
evening just in case it resulted in disaster, and so this meant she only left her bed twice; once to
shower and get more water, and the second time to go downstairs and tentatively receive the
pizza they’d ordered.
Luckily, her entire house was hungover too and so they didn’t ask too many questions about her
night with Zayn and his friends. They disapproved of them anyway; knowing that Zayn had done
MD and Harry given his best friend a black eye and then stayed the night would only exacerbate
matters.
The five of them were lounging on the sofas in the living room, watching Sunday night
television on Scarlett’s laptop and eating pizza with trepidation when the doorbell rang.
“Who is it, Lyds?” asked Millie. Lydia, who was sitting in the chair by the window, peeked out
of the curtains and turned back with a frown.
“I have no idea,” she said, and Liam got up from his place at her feet to take a look too.
“It looks like your friend Harry, Issy,” he said, and Isabel scrambled up so quickly she nearly fell
over, her heart jumping.
When she wrenched the door open, her eyes widened in surprise. Harry, wearing a white
bandana and a beige jumper so big the sleeves fell past his wrists, was standing on her doorstep
holding a large duffel bag, a rucksack, a big black A3 sketchbook, and a cardboard tube for
rolled up posters slung over his shoulder.
The corners of his mouth pulled up when he saw her, small lines forming at the corner of his
eyes. “You didn’t come to work today,” he said as a way of greeting.
“I didn’t want to vomit on the unsuspecting public,” she replied, and he grinned.
“You wimp. I was up at 7.30 this morning and I made it.”
“Yeah, and you look great for it,” she said sarcastically. The ever-permanent dark circles under
Harry’s eyes looked more like bruises now, dark and blotchy. Not for the first time, she noted
that they made his eyes look even greener though, even brighter. “Why have you brought half
your bedroom with you, Styles?”
He swallowed nervously. “Is it okay if I stay a few nights?”
Isabel wasn’t sure whether to frown or raise or eyebrows or laugh, and so she merely blinked at
him. “What?”
“The thing is with boys,” he explained, “is that we don’t hold grudges, but we just need some
time to cool off. Zayn and I are cooling off.”
“Why didn’t you stay with Caitlin and Liv or any of your other friends?” she asked slowly.
He frowned, blinking at the ground and licking his lips. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me to, I
don’t want to intrude or –”
He looked so hopeless, shuffling on the spot and flushing, and she knew she wouldn’t say no. As
a girl who apologised a lot, she knew apologising took some work, and she’d never met anyone
as genuinely apologetic as Harry had been to her.
“I brought peace offerings?” Harry said quickly. “Some flapjacks from Waitrose – I fucking
know I pushed the boat out, yes – and I made sure there was no raisins. And I made you a card.”
He looked slightly embarrassed but he pushed through it and flashed a full-watt beam, all of his
teeth showing.
“You made me a card?”
He nodded.
“What’s the occasion?”
“It’s a pre-emptive ‘thanks for letting me stay’ card. And it’s also for the ‘Harry was a dickhead’
monthly holiday.”
Isabel nodded. “I’ve got to admit it’s not my favourite.”
“Well we don’t have to celebrate it anymore, then.,” he said with a smile. “It’s probably a bit
late, anyway. I should have done my grovelling like, immediately after the whole car incident.
But better late than never.”
“To be fair, you did try to speak to me and I didn’t listen. Sorry, Harry.”
He bit his lip over a smile and shook his head slightly. “We should stop apologising. We’re
getting embarrassing.”
She sighed dramatically to mask the disgracefully massive grin that was threatening to burst out,
taking the rucksack from him and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’m not having sex with you if
that’s why you’re here.”
He laughed widely, his eyes shining as he followed her into the house. “That’s not what you said
last night,” he remarked.
Isabel was about to rebuke her offer of accommodation but she was cut short when she realised
that they had an audience of four gathered in the hallway, listening to their entire conversation.
Her cheeks burned an even darker red as Millie raised her eyebrows at her, Scarlett frowned in
disproval, and Liam and Lydia just looked confused.
“Hey Harry,” Millie said eventually.
“Nice to see you,” Harry said with a warm smile. He turned to the people he didn’t know – Lydia
and Scarlett – and extended his hand. “I’m Harry Styles, lovely to meet you.”
“Are you staying with us, Harry?” asked Lydia politely.
He glanced at Isabel, unsure of what to say. “Just for a bit,” she cut in, coming to his aid. “He’s
had a falling out with his housemate.”
Harry glared at her for her honesty. “Are you hungry? We’ve got pizza?” Liam offered.
“I ate at work, thank you. I’m kind of tired really, I woke up early this morning.” He looked
pointedly at Isabel, glancing at the stairs and then back at her again.
“Yeah, me too,” she said with a yawn, and Millie’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into her
hairline. Isabel didn’t miss the nudge Scarlett gave her, staring at Harry and nodding, and when
Isabel followed their gaze she saw the bruise she’d given Harry with her teeth poking out of the
collar of his jumper.
“Let’s go,” she told Harry hurriedly, practically shoving him up the stairs as he tried to haul three
large items up two staircases without hitting her in the face.
“Well that was…intense,” Harry said as he got to her room, throwing his stuff into a corner
roughly and flopping down onto her bed. She shut the door tightly and placed his rucksack neatly
next to his other items. “I felt like I was meeting your fucking parents.”
“They’re being weird with me lately,” Isabel mumbled in explanation, sitting down cross-legged
next to Harry on the bed and playing with the hem at the bottom of her sweatpants. She looked
up at him suddenly, eyebrows raising. “Excuse me, where are my gifts?”
He rolled his eyes. “Someone’s demanding.”
“I was promised flapjacks and a card!”
He went over to his rucksack, fishing out the packet of flapjacks and hesitating before pulling out
a white card, shoving it at her.
“I made it at work,” he mumbled, his lips barely moving. “I was bored. It’s not that good.”
Isabel thought it was probably the best thing she’d ever seen. He’d done it cartoon style, in
pencil which he had carefully traced over with black pen. Isabel took up most of the page, a
massive grin on her disproportionately huge face – most of which was obscured by a mop of
messy hair. Harry in comparison was tiny, looking up at her through his Medusa like curls, a
speech bubble larger than him reading “Sorry”.
She flipped it over, grinning at him as he watched her anxiously.
Isabel, Sorry for being a dick. I know I'm already past my last chance, but I promise this last
chance is the actual proper last one. I'm ridiculous. Harry x
“This is amazing, Harry,” she beamed. “Thank you. I love it.”
“It’s okay,” Harry shrugged, his cheeks burning. “I like making things, it wasn’t a problem.”
“You don’t need to be embarrassed.”
“I’m not,” Harry snapped quickly, avoiding her eyes. “I couldn’t give a shit.”
“Well thanks for making it for me,” Isabel said, wanting to hug him but thinking it’d be too
awkward when he looked so embarrassed. She dived into the flapjack packet instead, just to stop
herself from flinging her arms around him.
“How did you feel today then?” Harry asked, aptly changing the subject. “Scale of one to ten?”
“You were right, it was a nine,” she told him with a smile, and he smirked back. “You?”
“Pretty awful,” he said cheerily. “It felt like I’d been kicked in the head by a donkey when I
woke up this morning, and I did actually work out all the different ways I could potentially kill
myself in this room.” He grinned when she giggled, biting down on his lip happily. “Once I went
home and had a shower and went for a run I was fine though. Right as rain now.”
“You’re making me feel inadequate,” she grumbled, and he only smiled wider.
“Shouldn’t be drinking when you can’t handle it,” he teased, and she stuck her middle finger up
at him.
“Okay, mum.”
“I’m just saying,” he said innocently, holding his hands up. “Missing all these shifts isn’t going
to pay for your brother’s wedding.”
“I rescheduled, I’ll have you know. I swapped one with Michael.”
He looked as though he might speak but then paused, playing with his lip. “When did you
reschedule for?”
“Tuesday evening. It’s not like I go out to Digital with that lot downstairs anymore anyway.”
She shifted, feeling awkward that she’d just admitted to him the state her almost non-existent
social life was in, but he just stared at her nervously. “Spit it out, Harry, what’s wrong?”
“I, um –” he looked down at his sleeves, pulling them over his hands and avoiding her gaze. “I
kinda have this thing on the weekend, and it would – it would be cool if you could come.”
“What thing?” she pressed, nudging his knee so that he’d look up at her.
“I’m... well, I'm sort of running a marathon,” he muttered.
There was a heavy pause.
“Sort of running a marathon?”
“It’s not a big thing,” he added quickly. “I’m not doing it professionally or anything, it’s just -
yeah. I’m just doing it.”
Isabel just blinked at him, stunned.
“It’s in London,” he continued rapidly. “Well obviously, cos it’s the London Marathon. I told
Caitlin and Niall and Zayn before the party on Saturday, they’re all coming, and Liv will come
too. They said they’ll book rooms in the hotel me and my family are staying at, so I guess you
could text one of them and see if you could join, Caitlin’s sister works for Premier Inn so she’s
gonna try and fix some sort of discount. You’ll have to try and find cover for work on Sunday
night but –”
“You’re running a marathon?” she interrupted his babbling, and he nodded, his lips pressed tight.
“What for?”
He swallowed. “For charity,” he replied shortly.
“That’s amazing, Harry. That’s such a cool thing to do.”
He shrugged, looking down at the carpet. “I don’t think I’m the best person to do it. I don’t like
telling people about ... so it’s been really hard to get people to sponsor me. But anyway, my dad
said lots of people have donated through him, I just - I haven’t looked at the page. So I dunno.”
She felt a lump form in her throat. She’d seen time and time again how he tried to shut people
out, how defensive and private he was about his life, and here he was not only letting her in,
but inviting her.
“Thank you for inviting me, Harry,” she said, rubbing his arm softly. “I’d love to come.”
He met her eyes again and smiled, and for a moment he looked so heartbreakingly young it was
sad. “Really?”
“Of course,” she smiled. “Will I get to meet your family then?”
“Yeah, my mum and dad will be there. I told them not to but they’re… they’re coming”
“And your brothers and sister?”
He coughed into his hand, buying time. “Callum and Phoebe are there, yeah.”
“But no Adam?” she asked with a frown.
“No,” he said quietly. “No Adam.”
They got ready for bed, Harry setting his alarm hideously early so he could go for a run before
his class, waving his toothbrush around like a sword in front of her face to elicit praise from her
that he’d packed it. Harry told her emphatically that he couldn’t wear anything more than boxers
in bed, stripping off with indecent regard to her sanity, leaving Isabel much too exposed to his
skin and muscle.
As soon as she climbed into bed with him he grabbed her and pulled her to his chest, resting his
cheek on her hair as she lay with her head on his heart. His hand snaked up the back of her t-shirt
and traced patterns onto her skin as she curled her leg around his and let out a contented sigh.
“Harry?” she whispered after a long pause and he hummed in response, the sound vibrating in
his chest under her cheek. “You see your brother?”
“Which one?” he asked after a beat.
“Adam,” she said, and he hummed again. “What came between you? You said you’re not close
anymore because something came between you.”
“He, um… he went to London for university and then he just never came back,” Harry replied
slowly.
“Do you know where he is now?”
“Vaguely,” Harry mumbled. His fingers had stopped moving, his palm resting flat against her
back so she could feel the bump of the scar from his stitches. “I don’t know. We don’t keep in
touch.”
“How come?”
Harry sighed. “It’s complicated. He – he changed quite a lot when he went away.”
Isabel stopped talking. Harry had given her the opportunity to listen before and she hadn’t taken
it, and it wasn’t fair of her to probe him when he wasn’t ready anymore. She’d missed her
chance.
She burrowed her head deeper into his chest, sliding her fingers through his free hand without
thinking. Her eyes widened and her mouth dried up and her heart started to thrash around wildly
when she thought about her and Harry falling asleep holding hands, the domesticity of it, the sort
of thing actual proper couples did, not like her and Louis but people who actually wanted to
spend time together, who kissed for the sake of feeling the heat of the other person’s mouth and
fell asleep wrapped around each other so they knew they’d wake up content in the morning. She
couldn’t even imagine what Harry must be thinking now, what sort of tactics he had to shove her
off running through his head, and the thought of it made her palm go clammy in his.
“Harry?” she whispered again, her voice breaking nervously, and he squeezed her hand in
response. “This isn’t going to get weird, is it?”
“What is?” he replied sleepily.
“You and me…we’re friends aren’t we. That’s what we are.”
He was silent for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep, and just as she was dropping off to sleep
herself she heard him murmur, so quiet that she could barely hear him above the sound of her
own breathing, one small word: “Yeah.”
End Notes:
IT NEARLY HAPPENED (but then it didn’t and I’m sorry)
What do you think???? About the revelations? About Isabel? About Harry and the things he did
and the things he didn’t?
I know there are fewer answers than questions at the moment but the next two chapters might
help you to figure a few things out :)
oxygenstyles.tumblr.com (also if u voted for me in the underground awards thank you!! love
you!!!!!!)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
such a perfect place to start
April
Isabel was nervous. Being sandwiched between Harry and Caitlin as Niall sped down the M23
on Saturday morning with an illegal number of passengers squeezed into his Range Rover really
didn’t help matters either.
Niall and Liv were arguing over what song to have playing in the front, Niall continuously
swatting her hand away as she tried to change it, but the four of them squished together in the
back seat were completely silent. Zayn was asleep, his head resting against the window with his
chin tilted upwards, and from Isabel’s angle his black eye looked even worse. Caitlin had
headphones shoved into her ears, texting furiously on her phone and occasionally singing quietly
without realising.
Isabel was chewing on her nails, glancing at Niall’s speedometer whenever she got a chance, and
Harry was staring out of the window quietly with his hands folded in his lap, completely lost in
his thoughts.
Isabel was nervous because Harry was nervous. She could feel it radiating off him, his anxiety
soaking into her every second she sat next to him. For someone who usually covered up all of his
emotions and hid away from so many things, his apprehension was unnervingly contagious.
She wanted to say something to him, anything that would help him offload, but she had nothing
to say, and she was certain he wouldn’t like it if she tried to talk about it in the confined space of
the car either. So she sat in silence, gnawing on her nails and trying her best not to stare at him.
Closing her eyes, her thoughts drifted back to the Tuesday earlier that week. Coming back from
work in the evening, she’d found Harry and Scarlett making surprisingly adequate conversation
in the kitchen.
It was Harry’s last night there before he went back to the boys, and he’d grinned at her when she
arrived, jumping up to make her some tea as her eyes scanned over the paint splatters on his ratty
t-shirt with the hole at the bottom and the streaks of cobalt and marigold in thin, uneven rivers up
his arms. She excused herself for a minute, going upstairs to change, and as soon as she pushed
the door open to her room her breath had caught in her throat.
Harry had clearly been working in there earlier, and, perhaps forgetting that there was a chance
she would enter the room without him, had left his work lying open on the bed. And Isabel just
stared, entranced, at the drawing of her. Her hair lay fanned behind her, golden and deep, and for
a moment she stared at the colours he’d put into it, how long it must have taken, how someone
could see so many different shades in something she stared at everyday and wouldn’t have been
able to replicate like this. Her eyes were open, barely, and her teeth biting down on her lip as she
laughed, the freckles on her nose drawn carefully, the shadows from her eyelashes, the line of
her cheekbone, the slight dark circles under her eyes, the curve of her upper lip. It was all there,
every part of her, in perfect likeness, but paradoxically so much more beautiful.
It wasn’t even one of Harry’s major works, though, this was just a practice in his sketchbook,
part of his development, a practice leading up to the real thing. She didn’t dare turn the page,
knowing he would go crazy if he knew, so she took to examining the only page available to her.
Every piece of space on the double page space was used; the left-side the painting, with the
original photo paper-clipped to the top, and the right side was Harry’s Harry’s notes, lengthy and
organised, jotted around the page in all different directions with parts crossed out and others
underlined or circled. At the top of the page, it read: “Development; oil paint?? –
‘Confessions’”.
She frowned when she saw that word, trying to read his notes to understand but there were
immediately references to artists and techniques that she couldn’t appreciate. She skimmed the
page quickly, her eyes stopping when she saw “Adam?” and a line coming from it that led to:
“Robert Browning”
She’d scurried downstairs then, scared that Harry would come up and find her pouring over his
work, scared that if she left it any longer he would ask her why she’d been upstairs so long and
she couldn’t lie to him. He must have known later, when he went back upstairs to wash the paint
on his arms off and found his work lying open, or perhaps he’d known all along, but he hadn’t
mentioned it and so neither had she.
~~~
When they arrived at the hotel, the six of them crowded in the lobby and discussed what to do.
The marathon was tomorrow, leaving all of the day and evening to explore London, but Harry
kept mumbling about having to spend the day with his family, and an argument immediately
ensued between Zayn and Caitlin about whether they should go to the London Eye or the Tate.
Isabel tried to remain interested but couldn’t; having lived in London all her life, she didn’t care
about visiting Buckingham Palace or any of the museums or taking a trip to Oxford Street. She
stared off at the other people in the lobby, watching a couple argue about the weight of her
luggage and a little girl cry when she realised she’d left her teddy on the tube. Isabel turned to
point her out to Harry, knowing his eyebrows would pucker in the middle and his eyes would
widen and his bottom would jut out like it did every time a child cried in the bowling alley. As
her gaze shifted though, it landed on a little boy with mousy coloured hair, bounding through the
lobby excitedly towards them. Even from where she was standing, she could tell he had green
eyes.
“Harry!” he shrieked, and everyone turned to see the boy sprint towards his brother, throwing his
arms around Harry’s waist and burying his head in Harry’s stomach.
“Hey, Cally!” Harry replied, and although he seemed very aware of the fact his friends had
stopped talking and were watching him with unguarded interest, he couldn’t help but beam down
at his brother, ruffling his hair gently. “Happy birthday, bro.”
“Thanks!” Harry’s brother replied, his arms still wrapped around Harry. “Phoebe said seven is
still a baby.”
“What does Phoebe know?” Harry grinned. “She’s ten.”
As if on cue, a group Isabel assumed were Harry’s sister and parents shuffled towards them
shyly. Phoebe was hidden behind Harry father, gripping his arm and cowering behind his back.
Harry looked similarly distressed. The happy smile he’d given his younger brother dropped
immediately, and was replaced by a cold blankness that Isabel knew masked panic. She wasn’t
sure whether living with Harry for three days had suddenly made her hyper sensitive to his
emotions, but she could read him like an open book, and it was making her palms sweat.
“Mum,” Harry greeted stiffly, going over and planting a kiss on her cheek. He hugged his father,
much more warmly, and bent down to kiss Phoebe on her forehead.
Harry’s friends and Harry’s family stood looking at each other awkwardly, facing each other like
they were about to launch into head to head combat. Isabel saw Harry’s mother – a short, slender
woman with long brown hair and a kind face – scan over Zayn’s tattoos and black eye with a
worried expression. His father smiled at them all pleasantly, his eyes crinkling at the corners just
like Harry’s, and looked at his son patiently, perhaps for confirmation of whether or not to speak.
Harry said nothing, his jaw clenched tightly.
“I’m Olivia,” Liv announced loudly, going forward to shake Harry’s parents’ hands and
scowling at Harry as she did so. “Lovely to meet you.”
“Edward, but do call me Ted,” Harry’s dad replied brightly.
“Jane,” Harry’s mum added. “It’s so nice that all of you came down to support Harry.”
Niall was doing the rounds now, rushing forward to shake their hands, and Isabel hovered on the
spot nervously. Harry was playing with his lip, his eyes wide and a vein in his neck standing out
as his jaw clenched.
“Bad eye you’ve got there, mate,” Ted pointed out jovially when Zayn introduced himself, and
Zayn laughed.
“You’ve got your son to thank for that.”
Niall and Liv chortled, and Ted forced a chuckle, but Isabel didn’t miss Jane’s face fall, glancing
at her husband nervously.
It was the last straw for Harry. Wrenching apart his gritted teeth, he barged forward.
“Can I talk to you?” he barked to his parents, and without allowing them to respond he took his
mother’s arm and pulled her away, Ted following them quickly.
The rest of them stared after him, dumbstruck.
“What the fuck was that?” Niall exclaimed, then clapped a hand over his mouth when he
remembered the children in their company.
Isabel looked over at Harry’s little siblings. Phoebe had long blonde hair pulled back into a
messy ponytail, flyaway strands falling in her front of her large green eyes and tickling the
smattering of freckles across her nose. Her brother, who was tugging on her sleeve and
whispering to her, looked just like how she imagined Harry looked like when he was little.
Isabel smiled at them, and after a moment of deliberation, marched over to say hello. She
remembered when she was Phoebe’s age how much she hated being babied by Savannah and her
friends, and so she stuck her hand out and grinned.
“Nice to meet you,” she said to them as Phoebe stared at her hand nervously. “I’m Isabel.”
“My name’s Cally,” Harry’s brother replied, not hesitating for a moment before grasping her
hand.
“His actual name’s Callum, actually,” Phoebe explained shyly, brushing her hair back from her
face. “But we all call him Cally cos it’s his nickname.”
“I see! And what’s your name?”
“Phoebe.”
“How old are you?” Callum asked Isabel quickly.
“Nineteen."
“Do you know what day it is today?” Callum pressed excitedly, blinking up at her with wide,
shining eyes and grinning.
“It’s a Saturday,” Isabel replied, feigning innocence.
“No,” he giggled, shaking his head.
“Yes it is,” Phoebe corrected. “It is a Saturday, Cally.”
“What else is it though?” he probed.
“Hmmmm,” she frowned as she thought. “It’s the 20th of April isn’t it?”
Cally nodded fervently, beaming from ear to ear. “Aaaaaand?”
“Oh I know!” She paused for dramatic effect. “It’s your birthday!”
He laughed brightly, squeezing his fists in excitement. “I’m in London on my birthday!”
“Well, happy birthday, Cally,” Isabel grinned.
“Did Harry tell you it was my birthday?” he questioned, his eyes brimming with hope. The three
of them glanced over at the man in question, who was standing with his parents with one hand
shoved in his pocket and the other running a hand through his hair in what – exasperation?
Anxiety? Confusion?
“Yeah, of course he did,” Isabel lied, hating herself for it. Generally she avoided lying: she was
awful at it, and it usually got her into trouble, but as soon as Callum’s face broke out into a huge,
delighted smile, she knew it was worth it on this occasion. What made her feel worse, though,
was that Harry hadn’t mentioned it at all.
“Are you from London?” Phoebe asked, and Isabel nodded. “I knew it, you don’t speak like us
and Harry.”
“You see that guy over there, the one with the blonde hair?” Isabel pointed to Niall. “He’s got an
Irish accent.”
“Cool,” Phoebe said with a nod. “My friend Maddy’s mum’s Irish.”
Callum pulled on Isabel’s sleeve, bored of their conversation. “Are you Harry’s girlfriend?” he
said curiously.
Isabel blushed slightly and disguised it with a laugh. “No, no, we’re all just Harry’s friends.”
“Told you Phoebe,” Cally said, and she glared at him.
“Shut up,” she snapped.
“Told her what?” Isabel interjected.
“Phoebe said she –”
“Don’t, Cally!” Phoebe cried, throwing herself at him and wrapping her hand around his mouth.
He squealed loudly, laughing and aiming his elbow at her as Phoebe blushed scarlet.
“Hey, I wanna know!” Isabel pretended to whine, and Phoebe stared at her shoes as Callum
managed to free himself.
“Phoebe was saying –”
“I’ll say it!” she interrupted loudly. “I was just saying to Cally…” she trailed off, looking up at
Isabel and then edging closer. “Basically, my friend Maddy was a bridesmaid at her mum’s
friend’s wedding, and I thought maybe Harry... I thought it would be cool if Harry had a
girlfriend cos then I could be his bridesmaid.”
“That would be cool,” Isabel agreed. “You know I’ve been a bridesmaid twice? Yeah, at my
mum’s wedding and my sister’s wedding. And I’m gonna be a bridesmaid at my brother’s
wedding in the summer too.”
“Wow,” Phoebe said dreamily. “That’s super cool.”
“Don’t give up hope yet,” Isabel grinned. “You’ve got Adam as well.”
“What are you gossiping about?” a gravelly voice interrupted. Harry was loping over, bypassing
the rest of his friends and making his way straight to Isabel and his siblings. As soon as he was
close enough, Phoebe grabbed onto his arm and stared up at him admiringly.
“Just about weddings,” she told him.
Harry opened his mouth in indignation. “Who are you getting married to, Phoebs?”
“Not me!” she shrieked, as Cally nearly fell over laughing. Isabel laughed too, grinning as
Phoebe buried herself into Harry’s torso in embarrassment, and when she glanced at Harry she
saw he was smiling softly, rubbing Phoebe’s back with his large hand.
“What’s the plan, H?” Liv asked as she and the others came over, followed by Harry’s parents.
“Um, well I’m gonna spend the day with my brother and sister,” Harry mumbled, instantly
guarded. “My parents need to go and sort some stuff out so I’ll meet them later to register for
tomorrow and then we’ll go and grab some dinner. So I guess I’ll see you guys here tomorrow
morning.”
“You’re not gonna come out at all?” Niall asked indignantly, but he shut up when Caitlin
elbowed him in the ribs.
“What are you lot up to?” Ted asked politely. Liv eagerly launched into an explanation of their
meticulously planned day while the boys rolled their eyes and Caitlin smirked, and out of the
corner of her eye, Isabel saw Phoebe tug at Harry’s arm and whisper to him. Both of them looked
over to Isabel, and then Harry shook his head and said, “No, love, not today.”
“You sure you don’t mind doing all this tourist stuff, Issy?” Zayn asked, and Isabel jerked her
gaze away from Harry to find them all staring at her. “You’ve probably done it all before.”
“Yeah,” she said vaguely, biting her lip. Before she could stop herself, she turned to Harry with a
nervous smile. “I could come out with you guys today, if you want?”
Phoebe beamed and Callum nodded enthusiastically, but Harry only frowned.
“Uh, well I –” Harry started, but he was cut off by Niall.
“But we don’t know any of the good clubs!” he exclaimed. “We were relying on your
expertise!”
“I could meet you guys later?” Isabel offered, and Harry just blinked, licking his lips and
deepening the crease between his eyebrows. She shuffled awkwardly, feeling the burn of
rejection start to creep up on her. “Well, unless that would be, like, intruding or whatever, I mean
I don’t have to –”
“It’s fine,” was all Harry said, turning away from her sharply and throwing his arm around
Callum. “Let’s go.”
He marched off in the direction of the doors, both of his siblings holding onto his arms excitedly,
leaving everyone else to sort out the rooms and the luggage and Isabel to trail along behind him
dejectedly, more confused than ever.
~~~
As it was a glorious Saturday afternoon, perhaps London's first day exhibiting signs of Spring,
London Zoo was predictably packed. Harry, however, was a man on a mission, determined not to
let the crowds get in the way of Callum’s birthday celebrations, and so he compensated by being
so energetic and animated that even Isabel found herself gazing at him adoringly throughout the
day.
When they were looking at the tigers and the bears, Harry put Callum on his shoulders so he
could see over the heads of the crowd, and just as Callum caught a glimpse, Harry would run in
the opposite direction so fast that Callum’s shrieks could probably be heard across the whole of
Regent's Park.
When they were watching the penguins, Harry dared Phoebe to name every single one, and
proceeded to point at random ones and make her recall the names until she was in absolute
hysterics, clutching his hand and screeching in laughter.
When they were in the reptile house, he pretended to be scared so that Callum and Phoebe had to
drag him around, shouting at him when he tried to cover his eyes and pressing themselves up
against the glass to show him how brave they were.
He spent time listening carefully to both of them, nodding sincerely when they told him about
their friends and their lessons at school, asking them questions and smiling when they answered
him. When they wanted face paint, Harry took them to the stall and bought it for them in a flash.
When they wanted to go on the carousel, Harry found it on the map and raced them there. When
they were hungry, Harry immediately sourced the least healthy café he could find and bought
them chicken nuggets and chips.
This was the first time Isabel had met Harry’s eyes since he’d asked her how to get to the zoo at
the tube station earlier. She’d spent the day chatting to Callum and Phoebe, whichever one
wasn’t occupied by Harry, and hurrying to keep up with him. In one day, she’d spent an absolute
fortune on zoo tickets and half the price of a hotel room, all for him, and he wasn’t even
speaking to her.
But at last he looked at her. He forced a tight smile when he caught her gaze, shoving a chip in
his mouth and hitting Callum in the face with another one so that he yelped and slapped Harry on
the arm. Sitting opposite Harry, Isabel found it hard to look anywhere else. His hair was wild
today, pushed back off his face mercilessly and especially curly from his unusually energetic
performance. The skin around his eyes was tired as always, but the green irises were bright and
sparkling, happier and calmer than she’d ever seen them. The dimple in his cheek had been
almost omnipresent today.
Phoebe and Callum started a heated conversation about some game they played back home, and
although Harry listened to them happily for a while, he was eventually left with no choice but to
acknowledge Isabel. He looked over at her, the pucker between his eyebrows returning which
made Isabel’s heart drop sadly in her chest.
“Had a nice day?” he asked her casually, forcedly offhand.
“Great, thanks,” she said, and when he didn’t reply immediately she went on, “It reminded me so
much of when I was little and I used to come with my dad.” She smiled at the memory of it and
the corners of Harry’s mouth turned up too. “Blown the bank balance, though.”
“Mine too,” Harry admitted. “My IOU to the Horans was getting out of hand already, the bill for
these nuggets might as well be attached to my suicide note.”
He chuckled, and then almost comically his face slipped into a sudden frown when he realised
he’d said too much. Isabel nudged him with her foot. “Niall’s lending you money?”
He sighed wearily, unsure whether or not to be honest, but after a long deliberation he gave a
slow nod. “Niall’s dad is...very generous. He’s honestly one of the best people I’ve ever met in
my life. Heart of gold and all that.”
“That’s how you afford your house?”
Harry nodded again. “Niall’s dad pays half the rent. Wants Niall to live comfortably, you know?
He’s a solid guy. Runs some big property chain in Ireland, he rakes it in. Has clients everywhere,
goes to New York all the time, Niall says. I met him last year and ever since then he’s been
lending me a bit of money through Niall.” Harry paused, his eyes scanning Isabel’s face
worriedly as if she was going to turn her nose up in disgust and scold him for accepting charity.
“I’m gonna pay it all back though. I write down every penny he lends me, and I’m gonna give it
all to him as soon as I’m earning enough. I’m not scrounging.”
“I know you’re not,” she assured him.
“I just… I can’t take money off my parents, you know? I’ve put them through enough.” He
scrubbed a hand through his hair nervously, and Isabel dropped the subject. Money talk was
uncomfortable at the best of times, let alone with Harry. She stirred the mayo and ketchup
together on her plate with a chip, watching as the colours blended into a dark pink.
“Phoebe likes you,” Harry told her quietly in an unsubtle effort to change the direction of the
conversation. “She likes your hair.”
“The greatest compliment a girl can get,” Isabel grinned, and Harry snorted.
“I’m preparing myself for next time I go to Cheshire and find her with a stupidly long fringe and
even messier hair than she has now.”
Isabel shrugged. “Messy hair’s the way forward, I’ve been trying to tell you. She’s starting
early.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Harry said, shaking his head in mock embarrassment and stuffing way too
many chips into his mouth at once.
“They’re really great,” Isabel told him, looking over at his little siblings and seeing Callum slyly
steal a chip off his sister’s plate while she ranted away at him about her friend Maddy’s massive
bedroom with an actual double bed. “These two, I mean. They adore you.”
She looked back at Harry to find him watching them, his expression soft and sad at the same
time. He swallowed, looking back at Isabel suddenly, his eyes burning with an emotion she
couldn’t work out. “I try so hard to be a good brother,” he rasped. “My older brother, he just…he
– he’s so much better. I’m not – I’m not like Adam.”
He looked away, sticking his tongue into his cheek as he stared across the café, and Isabel knew
without looking that his hands were clenching under the table. She leaned forward, brushing her
knee with hers and laying her hands out flat on the table in front of him.
“Harry,” she said quietly, and he looked back at her, his teeth gnawing into his bottom lip.
“You’re not him. And you don’t need to be. You don’t need to be a replica of Adam.”
Harry didn’t reply, just stared at her with a mixture of pain and confusion and an aching sort of
something that made Isabel’s heart feel like it was shattering into tiny little pieces inside her
suddenly cavernous, brittle ribcage.
Harry was messed up. He could be mean and manipulative and confusing. He was hypocritical
and unfair, and at times he was utterly infuriating. But he was also loyal and passionate and
funny. He gave everything his absolute all and he understood things about people, because he
listened and he watched and he truly cared. And underneath it all, Harry was broken. Isabel
didn’t know why, and she didn’t know what she could do to fix it, but sitting in that café with
Harry she finally realised that beneath all of the extreme defensiveness and the snappy comments
and the sometimes irrational secrecy, she knew that he was barely holding himself together.
He reached a hand out from under the table, and just like the time he’d asked her for money in
his car it was trembling furiously. He rested it next to hers, his eyes closing for the smallest
moment when she slipped her fingers through his and squeezed his hand gently.
Isabel had just realised that she barely knew anything about Harry at all, but if there was one
thing she was certain of, it was that she needed his hand in hers to stop herself from falling apart,
because she was sure that if he let go she would lose him again, that he would retreat back into
himself. She knew how hard it had been to let her come with him today, to let her through yet
another closed door in the long, restricted corridor of his past, and she couldn’t afford to lose him
now.
So they walked around the zoo hand in hand as the sun set over London and the animals went to
bed, and with a deep dimpled smile on his face and his rough thumb tracing soft patterns on the
back of her palm, Isabel couldn’t remember a time she’d someone so happy and so sad all at
once.
~~~
“Isabel!” Liv shouted, and Isabel snapped her head up in surprise. “Are you okay?”
Isabel nodded vigorously, perhaps too enthusiastically because Liv just raised an eyebrow.
“Why are you sitting alone then?”
They were at a club in London, and while everyone else was out there enjoying themselves –
Niall found himself a girl within ten minutes and now had her backed against the wall – Isabel
just didn’t feel like it. She was stirring her vodka and coke absently, only going up to dance
every so often before retiring to the booth.
Her mind kept wandering to Harry, how his dinner was going with his parents, what he was
talking to them about, whether he was anxious about tomorrow. The drunker everyone around
her got, the more Isabel wanted to be back at the hotel making sure Harry was okay.
“I just – I’m not feeling well,” Isabel explained, and Liv frowned, swaying drunkenly on the
spot. “Must have eaten something funny at the zoo.”
“Down that and come dance, you’ll feel better!” Liv insisted, and Isabel rolled her eyes. Liv just
stood there, waiting patiently, and so with a sigh Isabel poured the rest of the drink down her
throat and took Liv’s outstretched hand.
They wormed through the crowd of sweaty bodies to find the others. Isabel looked as
unenthusiastic as she felt; she was still wearing her jeans, black top and boots that she’d worn to
the zoo, her hair and make up distinctly average and in no way club-appropriate. The girls
around them were towering over her in their heels and dresses and puffed up hair, and that only
made matters worse.
“Niall pulled!” Caitlin screamed excitedly as soon as they found her. She was with Zayn, both of
them clutching nearly empty glasses and dancing lightly.
“I know, I’ve been watching him stick his tongue down her throat for the past fifteen minutes,”
Isabel scowled, and even Caitlin laughed.
A Sean Paul song came on then which made Liv and Caitlin shriek in delight and Zayn snort in
indignation, and Isabel’s mind inexplicably wandered back to Harry again. Before she could
think about what she was doing, she had got her phone out and was typing him a text.

How are you?
She didn’t have to wait long for his reply: it came almost immediately.

I’m fine thanks, back at the hotel now. Callum fell asleep in the restaurant, you tired him out.
How are you? X
He’d left her a kiss. She felt like she was fifteen again when she involuntarily smiled at the tiny
little x thrown casually at the end of the sentence.

Bore I wanna cone back to te hotel x
The club was dark and she could barely see what she was typing, clearly, but even though she
was being knocked about by strangers as she stood motionless and she could barely think the
music was so loud, there was one thought that permeated through all this and that thought was
Harry. And by the time he eventually texted her back, her mind was already made up. She was
going.

Oh, aha. Someone’s having a good night…
She paused in the action of tapping Zayn on the shoulder to say goodbye; his tone had changed,
and she was suddenly unsure of herself. She frowned down at her phone as another text came in,
her heart thudding when she saw it.

Why don’t you come back then? X
She was decided. Saying goodbye to the others – bar Niall, who was otherwise occupied – she
went to the cloakroom to grab her coat and left the club, nearly running to the nearest tube
station as she texted Harry with cold, red fingers.

I’m going into Farringdon tube station now see you soon x
It was lucky for Isabel that there was no phone signal underground and she wasn’t able to see
Harry’s reply until she was off the train, because given her current state of mind she probably
would have had a meltdown.
She was officially panicking.
Harry Styles and his stupid hair and lips and dimple and eyes had managed to set up permanent
residence in her mind, and by the way her heart sped up when she thought of him, that part of her
wasn’t excluded from his interference either. This is bad, she thought. This is really, really
bad. Because even though she knew she should, she couldn’t really tell herself she didn’t want
him there.
And when she came out of Westminster Station and walked across the bridge hurriedly, the
London lights sparkling in the water and the chilly wind whipping around her, she only thought
to check her phone again once she was nearly at the hotel. When she did, the words on the screen
made her mouth dry up and her heart skip a beat in her chest and her palms sweat around the
phone she was gripping so tightly that it nearly slipped from her hand.
From: Harry Styles, received at 23:52

The others brought your stuff up to our room earlier. It’s number 505. See you in a bit x
~~~
505.
She swallowed nervously, running a hand through her hair in an effort to try and make it less
messy for once. Of course she’d known she’d have to share a room when they’d booked three
between them, and of course she should have known the others would put her with Harry when
he was the one that linked her to the group. But whether she’d just suppressed the thought of it or
genuinely not realised didn’t matter now – she was on the verge of panic.
“For God’s sake, Isabel,” she muttered to herself.
She was so jittery, so ludicrously scared to see him even though she’d spent half the day with
him. She took a deep breath, furiously reminding herself that she’d slept next to him before,
loads of times, but for the first time she felt like she wouldn’t be able to the last the night with his
body wrapped around hers.
She knocked gently, just below the proud gold numbers hammered into the door, pulling the hem
of her top and staring down the hall so that when he opened the door she would look casual.
It swung open, and she arranged her face into a slight smile, composing herself before she looked
over at him.
The worst had happened.

He was half naked, and wet.
Isabel felt her throat constrict and her cheeks burn as her eyes raked over him. His sweatpants
were hung low on his hips so that she could see the sharp lines of his lower abdominal muscles
disappearing beneath the fabric. His chest was still glistening from the shower, drops of water
from his towel-dried hair slipping down it slowly.
“Hi,” Harry smirked, watching her reaction with amusement.
She nearly whimpered with embarrassment and pushed past him into the room, resisting the urge
to fan herself. She took her coat off and threw it over the chair, assessing the situation. There was
only one bed. Oh fuck.
“How was your dinner?” Isabel asked, busying herself with removing her shoes, untying the
laces as slowly as she could.
“Good, yeah.”
“Where did you go?”
“Bella Italia. It’s Callum’s favourite.”
“Ah, nice,” Isabel praised awkwardly, watching his shadow as he leaned against the wall. “What
did you eat?”
“Chicken pasta,” Harry said, and Isabel finally looked up at him. His back was against the wall,
his arms folded across his torso as he stared down at her, that pucker between his eyebrows that
he always reserved for her company returning. Isabel had never seen anyone more beautiful.
“Was it nice?” she choked.
He ignored her. “Are you drunk, Isabel?”
He’d changed the tone. She stood up and stared at him awkwardly, avoiding his eyes and
choosing to gaze at the dark circles underneath. There was complete silence, a horrible stillness
between them as he waited for her answer, and she knew whatever she replied was important to
him. Her eyes travelled to his lips when he licked them, and she felt her stomach clench in pure
lust. “No,” she stammered honestly, her voice hoarse. “I was tipsy at best but I’m… not now.”
He nodded slowly, dropping his arms from their folded position and placing his palms flat on the
wall beside his waist. “How was your evening?” he looked down at the floor, hastily adding as
casually as possible: “Get off with any fit lads?”
She nearly scoffed. “Are you jealous, Styles?”
He looked up at her suddenly, his burning gaze catching hers when she was off her guard. They
were dark and wide, hesitant but simultaneously needy. “Do you want me to be?” he asked, his
voice barely louder than a murmur as his eyes flickered down her face, pausing on her lips before
meeting her eyes again.
Not for the first time, he was putting the ball in her court instead of having to handle it himself.
He always deflected things to her, made her answer honestly while he cowered away. But for
once, instead of getting angry and frustrated with him, she was going to be brave, because
nothing would ever happen if they were both so reluctant to admit anything.
“Maybe a bit,” she replied, and the moment of stillness crept over the room again, horribly
empty and tense, like the silence in a film before a big, earth-shattering explosion. And then
before she could register what was happening, Harry was striding across the room and crashing
his lips against hers, backing them against the wall as his tongue pushed its way into her mouth
and he gasped against her lips.
End Notes:
hello!! hope you enjoyed the update, I know I'm cruel for leaving it there but....we'll see what
happens
what are your thoughts? on Harry? on Isabel? on Adam? how do you think the marathon will go
next chapter?
if you'd like to read a little more about harry and adam's relationship, have a look at the
drabble posted in the 'BDC extras' story I've created by clicking on 'oxygenstyles'
by the way, thank you so much to anyone who nominated me for any awards recently!! all my
love :)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
might as well
April
Harry’s hands were everywhere at once.
They were in her hair, running along her waist, stroking her face, gripping her hips, squeezing
her breasts, grasping the back of her neck, trailing over her bum. His kiss was searing hot, his
tongue urgent and his lips rough, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip so hard it hurt. She was
desperate to touch his bare chest, to run her fingers across his hard stomach and skim her nails
across his back, but she was so overwhelmed all she could do was grip his hair tightly between
her fists and kiss him back as if they didn’t have an entire night.
He moaned hotly when she yanked on his damp hair, pulling away from her with swollen, wet
lips and a frantic expression in his eyes. “I want you, Is,” he mumbled, his voice so low and
raspy that she felt light-headed.
She swallowed and trailed her thumb across his jaw, looking at the way his eyes flickered from
her eyes to her lips, his own lower lip. “Yeah,” was all she said, but it was enough for Harry. He
hooked his arm around her leg with a low growl, dipping his head to reconnect their lips and
wrapping her thighs around his waist. He pushed their bodies back against the wall roughly, his
hips grinding against hers so that she could feel him through their layers of clothing, and she
whimpered into his mouth.
He was kissing her so fiercely, so hard and rough, making her breath come out in uneven pants
as she clawed at his face and hair. When he rolled his hips forward again, though, she couldn’t
stop herself from imagining how many times he’d done this to a girl, how many times he’d
ripped all power and self-restraint from their grasp until they were a hot, burning, incoherent
wreck in his capable hands.
He let her go suddenly, backing away as she threw out an arm to cling to the wall and stop
herself from melting into the floor. He stared at her warily, panting almost violently, like she was
some sort of wild animal and he was the prey.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, his voice a little breathless, sounding utterly afraid
of what the answer would be.
She stared straight back, trying to figure out her answer. Truthfully, she couldn’t remember ever
wanting anyone this badly before, and more than anything she wanted to see if she could make
him feel even a fraction as good as she felt when he touched her.
Beneath that though was a small flicker of anxiety, diminished in size since the other times she’d
been with him this way, but still there nonetheless. Speaking purely from objective past
observation, Isabel knew Harry was not one to make a massive effort with girls after he fucked
them, and everything would be different between them tomorrow if they did this. Plus, Harry
was more than adequately experienced and she was scared of him, of his intense stare and his big
hands and rough lips, of what they would make of her flawed and comparatively inexperienced
body, of what state he would leave her in after he’d taken what he wanted.
“Isabel,” he prompted lowly, coughing into his hand awkwardly to conceal the urgent whine to
his voice and shifting forward onto his toes, like he was physically restraining himself from
moving towards her.
That little whine made her mind up.
She nodded, reaching for the hem of her top and pulling it over her head, dropping it to the
ground and trying to avoid squirming under his gaze as his eyes raked over her.
She stepped towards him as confidently as she could, gripping the back of his neck and pulling
his head towards her for another open mouthed kiss, swiping her tongue across his hot lips as his
arms circled her bare waist and tugged her towards him, tightly pressing their bodies together.
She had to lean forward on her tiptoes slightly in order to reach him, gripping his bum and
pulling his waist closer to hers, making his fingers press harder into her sides and his teeth graze
her bottom lip.
He backed her towards the bed and lay down on top of her, supporting himself with one hand
and looking down at her with eyes a dark mixture of lust and excitement. She could feel his
warm breath landing on her skin so lightly it felt like wisps of smoke, like the cloudiness on a car
windscreen when you get in on a cold morning. He trailed a trembling finger along her
collarbones, down the crevice between her breasts and across her stomach, his touch leaving a
shaky, burning path.
“Why are you so nervous, Harry?” she asked him with a poorly concealed smile, though the
softness of his fingers made it feel like he’d aimed a kick at her chest and she was struggling to
breathe properly. He glared at her, his cheeks flushing.
“I’m not,” he lied, bowing his head to avoid her eyes and biting down on her neck so hard she
jolted and hissed loudly. He laughed before soothing the skin with a hot lick, kissing his way
down past her collarbones to her bra. He reached behind her back and unclasped it with his
shaking fingers, pulling it off her arms and throwing it to the floor as he took her breast in his
palm and laid his open mouth on it, swiping her nipple with his tongue as she arched her back
and her eyes fluttered shut. He swirled his tongue again, smiling when she gripped his hair in her
fists and whined.
Keeping his mouth on her he stroked a hand down to her jeans and tried to undo the button with
one hand, fumbling around and failing miserably. He pulled away from her chest with a frown,
his lips glistening wet.
“How the fuck do you undo these fucking things?” he snapped, his fingers groping around trying
to yank her jeans off.
“They’re a bit tight, sorry,” Isabel mumbled, reaching between them to undo them gently. Harry
pushed her hands away as soon as she was done, wanting to pull them down himself, and she lay
back and closed her eyes, swallowing loudly and feeling her heart thump in her mouth. The
moment had been interrupted, and suddenly she was nervous again, her palms sweating as they
lay limply by her sides.
“What’s wrong?” Harry asked her gently when he pulled her jeans off, rubbing his hands up and
down her bare thighs.
“I’m just… I don’t know, a bit scared,” she said quietly, not wanting to kill the mood but so
terrified all of a sudden that her chest felt tight.
“You’re ridiculous,” was all Harry said after a beat of silence, and Isabel kept her eyes squeezed
shut, not wanting to look at him.
Harry was still for a moment, before bending down and kissing the skin on the inside of her
thigh, his nose nudging against the skin. “You don’t need to worry, you’re good,” he told her
sincerely, giving her hips a gentle squeeze. “Promise.”
He crawled up her body when she didn't reply and loomed over her, his hair grazing her forehead
as it flopped down in front of his face. “Who’s nervous now?” he asked, gently teasing her, and
she placed her palm flat across his face and pushed it, scowling playfully.
He laughed and bit down on her fingers, not lightly either, so that she squealed and wrapped her
legs around his waist. He dropped his hips down so that her laugh turned into a low gasp, and he
kissed her again, but this time it was messy and hopelessly urgent, his hand wasting no time in
dipping beneath her knickers and trailing a finger over her.
He dropped his head to her neck and dragged his lips across the skin there as he circled his
thumb. Her eyes blinked shut, her breath catching in the back of her throat. “Tell me what you
want and I’ll do it,” he whispered into her neck, his heavy breath pooling into the dip of her
collarbone as her teeth bit down so hard into her lip they nearly broke the skin.
He slid a finger inside her, and then another, and she bit back a moan, the combination of his
thumb and his fingers stripping away any ability she had to respond. She tried to remember how
to breathe, because she wasn’t just thinking about the fact that he was touching her, it was
that he was touching her. It was her and Harry, and Harry wanted this, and she couldn’t hear
much over the pounding in her ears but she could hear that he was panting into her neck, and it
was the best thing she’d ever heard.
She clasped his wrist to get him to stop and he pulled away, frowning in concern.
Isabel pushed on his shoulder until he lay on his back next to her, and she climbed onto his lap,
leaning across his chest and zoning in on the spot between his neck and his shoulder that she
knew he liked. He let her take over, gripping her hips tightly and letting out a quiet moan as she
nipped and sucked on his skin, trailing searing wet kisses down past his collarbones and chest to
his stomach.
“What are you doing?” he asked huskily, leaning up on one arm and staring at her. She smirked
at the frenzied apprehension in his face, hooking her fingers around the waistband of his
sweatpants and sitting up so that she could pull them down beneath her. He breathed heavily, his
flushed chest rising and falling as he watched her examine the bulge in his boxers.
She surveyed his face curiously as she trailed her fingers along him through the fabric, watching
his eyes roll back very slightly and his teeth clench. She pulled the material back and exposed
him, listening to his frantic breathing and forcing herself to ignore that her heart was battering a
jagged rhythm in her chest, hard enough that she could feel it in her throat. She had the upper
hand for once, and she was going to watch him lose it first. If Harry liked games, she was going
to win one.
She gently took him in her hand, her eyes trained on his as she watch him stare at the movement
of her wrist and bite down on his lip. His breathing instantly went shallow, coming out in quick,
loud blasts through his nose, and after a few strokes one of his hands left her waist and gripped
the sheets by his hip tightly.
“Is this good, Harry?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, licking his lips as his eyes glazed over. It was all the confirmation she
needed, and before he would have time to even anticipate what she was about to do, she dipped
her head down and took him in her mouth.
“Fuck,” he said loudly as his eyes fell shut and the knuckles on his balled up fist turned white.
She licked up the side of him, watching his expression as she took him further than before so that
he tickled the back of her throat, and he groaned, falling back onto the bed and grabbing her hair
tightly with his free hand.
She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, taking him deeper each time until she felt him
twitch inside her mouth. She pulled away quickly, seeing a vein press against the skin of his neck
as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly and clenched his jaw. She wanted to test him, to see whether
now, now that he was like this, he would open up and be honest for once like she had been.
“You sure you want this, Harry?” she asked quietly, and he wrenched his eyes open to meet her
gaze.
“Jesus Christ.” He removed his firm grip from her hair to wipe under her bottom lip gently
instead of answering, disconnecting a silver string of spit that attached her to him, and the action
was so strangely intimate that Isabel’s chest actually hurt. “So fucking badly,” he muttered
hoarsely, utterly sincere. “It’s been driving me insane.”
She nodded, savouring the moment of softness between them and the honesty in his eyes, before
dipping her head and wrapping her lips around him abruptly. The sudden warmth of her tongue
made him moan and jolt his hips up involuntarily, hitting the back of her throat hard.
“Fuck, sorry,” Harry apologised breathlessly as she pulled away with a splutter, his head falling
back onto the bed and his eyes squeezing shut again. With a blind fumble he grabbed her head
and pushed her back down onto him as gently as possible, making an obvious effort from then to
restrain himself from bucking his hips up, but it was making him grip her hair tighter and squirm
around restlessly beneath her.
“Your mouth,” he breathed, choking on a moan and then letting out a shaky, slightly hysterical
laugh, shuddering and holding her hair so tightly it hurt. “God, I…fuck.”
He was losing it: his lips parted, his chest heaving, a red flush creeping up from his chest over
his neck. It took all of Isabel’s effort not to pull away and grin smugly at him.
“Isabel, stop,” he croaked suddenly, although his request seemed half-hearted when he made no
attempt to move himself. She didn’t stop, and he groaned involuntarily as her tongue swiped
over him. “I … oh.”
She did smile then, feeling his grip loosen on her hair and she waited for him to come, knowing
it would happen any second, if she just kept –
“Isabel, you have to stop,” he snapped hoarsely, yanking her head back so hard that her eyes
stung. She blinked, stunned for a second, before Harry flipped her over, and she quickly realised
he was absolutely insatiable. He kissed her wildly, his breath scorching hot in her mouth and his
hands leaving burning, frantic trails across her bare skin.
“Is it embarrassing to say that I’ve thought about that happening so much?” he mumbled with a
laugh as his head dipped, his lips pulling over the skin of her heart and she tried not to let that
confession get to her too much, scared he would be able to feel how terrifyingly hard her heart
was beating for him. He kissed over the pulse of it in her chest, bringing his head up and letting
out another small, trembling laugh over her lips. “So good. Knew it.”
He yanked her knickers down as quickly as he could, his lips never leaving hers, and when he at
last pulled away his eyes were glistening with pure desire.
“Tell me what you want,” he demanded again.
“You,” she whispered, gripping his hair tightly and pulling him back to her, but he resisted.
“Say it properly, please,” he said, and although it was an order there was a hint of desperation
behind it that made Isabel feel weak, because Harry always wanted to know if he was wanted.
“I want you, Harry,” she said, and he let out a small smile as he leaned down to kiss her one
more time, his lips barely brushing hers he was suddenly so gentle. That’s what scared her – how
gentle he could be, more than she’d have ever been able to imagine even if she sat for hours
trying to reconstruct it. It was terrifying how much she wanted it, how much she would love to
curl into him and be engulfed by the fragility of his touch, how it made her wanted not in the
bad, feeble kind of way, but in the powerful kind of way, like she was the most important person
in the world.
He urged her thighs apart with his knees, brushing his lips across her jaw before taking a shaky
breath and pushing himself into her. She hadn’t had sex in over a month, and although that
wasn’t a long period of abstinence she felt a burn of discomfort as Harry drove forward inside
her with a little sigh. She pressed her hand into his back, taking a deep breath through her nose
and breathing in the citrus smell of the freshly washed hair that was tickling the skin of her neck,
relaxing her.
He grabbed her leg and hitched it around his waist when he pulled back, getting a better angle for
when he pushed himself back in, grunting as he did so and sponging kisses into her neck.
Isabel’s eyes fluttered shut as he pulled back, going faster and harder so that she exhaled loudly
with every collision of their hips and held tightly onto Harry’s back.
Harry mumbled something into her neck, his lips brushing the skin as he slapped a hand to the
headboard to support himself, his other hand digging into her thigh roughly, but she couldn’t
hear him.
There was a familiar wave of heat starting in her groin and spreading slowly through her, then,
but it felt different to normal. Everything was a hazy mess of limbs and teeth and Harry’s breath
on her skin and she could barely breathe.
“Are you okay?” Harry choked out to her, and she nodded because she was so scared he would
stop if she said no but she wasn’t okay at all. She could feel her bones throbbing and there was a
lump in her throat and her toes were curling and she’d never felt like this before and it was
completely alarming, but if he stopped she thought she’d die.
“’Salright, baby,” he reassured her, biting down into her collarbone and brushing his nose against
her jaw.
She whined her response as he struck her so deep she felt it in every part of her body, felt it so
strongly that she thought she might pass out. He did it again, whispering things to her that she
couldn’t hear as she made a strangled sort of whimper and came, feeling like she was bursting
from the inside out.
It was weird that there really was difference between sex and good sex, because now every
single part of her was consumed by Harry, feeling him with every inch of skin and every
heartbeat as he pumped through her veins and filled her lungs and swept every other thought out
of her mind, so close that he was entirely overwhelming her, and she’d never ever thought this is
the way it could feel.
When she finally blinked her eyes open, her chest heaving and her heart racing, she smiled lazily
up at Harry, who was grunting with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth hanging open slightly,
still rolling his hips into hers messily.
“Harry,” she muttered, patting his hair vaguely and giving him a final bit of encouragement. His
head flopped down into her neck, mumbling incoherently into her as his body jolted and his teeth
caught against her skin.
He collapsed on top of her for a while, breathing heavily into her neck and blinking slowly, his
eyelashes tickling her skin. She traced the ship tattoo on his left arm gently until he finally
heaved himself up onto one arm and pulled out of her, smirking happily.
“Hi,” he said, his voice laced with satisfaction and slightly hoarse. He flopped down next to her
and took her hand away from his arm, lacing his fingers through hers.
“Hi,” she repeated, mirroring his smile. “You look so smug.”
“I just got fucked,” he replied arrogantly, grinning at her as she laughed.
“You’re such a boy,” she said, raking her free hand through his messy hair to push it out of his
eyes.
“You weren’t complaining a minute ago,” he reminded her with a smirk, and she blushed
slightly.
“Yeah, well,” she mumbled, hiding behind her hair. “You can be very persuasive.”
“It’s a useful talent,” he agreed, bringing their entwined hands to his lips and kissing her fingers
gently.
“We shouldn’t have done that, you have a marathon to run tomorrow,” Isabel told him with a
yawn, and his eyes widened as he backed away from her slightly, dropping her hand.
“What?! How could I forget?” he slapped a hand to his forehead in mock horror. “I can’t believe
you had sex with me a night before I have to run twenty-six miles. You took advantage of me.”
“Shut up,” Isabel grumbled, poking him in the side. “You forget I know you, Styles. I’ve seen
you fuck a girl and act like it never happened five seconds later. I doubt your stamina will be
much affected.”
Harry grinned, biting down on his lip as he cocked his head to the side curiously. “I don’t like it
when you compare yourself to other people.”
“Sorry,” she said automatically, then after a moment’s deliberation shrugged unapologetically.
“That’s what girls do. You can’t say you’ve never compared me to another girl, either.”
“True,” he nodded with a smile, “but the comparison’s worked in your favour so far.” She
blinked, trying to understand what he meant, before he gulped and added quickly: “You’ve
passed the test of not being a psycho bitch, I mean.”
She shook her head, failing to withhold a smile and closing her eyes. “Go to sleep, Harry.”
He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her towards him, making her rest her head against
his chest and intertwine their legs. He ran his thumb up and down her side lightly, tracing a
pattern into her skin while he buried his face into her hair.
“I mean it though,” he mumbled into her hair sleepily after a moment of silence. “I had fun.”
Isabel smiled into his chest. “Me too.”
She felt him smirking before he said: “We should do it again sometime.”
“If you’re lucky,” she retorted, and he chuckled lightly.
She lay there for a while, listening to his heartbeat beneath her ear go from frantic to steady and
his breathing deepen, his hand on her waist coming to a gentle stop and resting against her hip.
As carefully as she could, she extracted herself from him and padded to the bathroom, quickly
peeing and washing her face. As she turned the tap off, grabbing the toothpaste and getting ready
to use his toothbrush to save her from searching through the bags for her own, she noticed with a
jolt in her chest that he had already got it out for her.
It was sitting in the cup alongside his, a quiet little reminder that he had thought of her when he
got in tonight, thought of a way he could save a bit of her time and make her day just the tiniest
bit easier. That little yellow toothbrush told Isabel that while she spent her whole night with her
mind on him, if even for just a second, he had been thinking of her too.
~~~
When Isabel woke up to a loud, shrill alarm, her first thought was that she was so wonderfully
warm she would never be able to move again. Harry was just about on top of her, his torso slung
across her chest and his head buried her neck, one of his legs resting between hers.
He pushed himself up onto one hand with a groan, leaving Isabel hopelessly cold as he switched
off the alarm and got out of bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin and rolled to her side,
sighing and falling back to sleep instantly.
“Isabel,” she heard him say some time later, prodding her in the arm. She moaned and ignored
him, clutching the duvet tighter in case he ripped it back. “You need to get up,” he continued
flatly, and his tone made her open her eyes.
He was towering above her, already in sweatpants and a jumper, phone in hand and his hair
pulled back by a bandana.
“What time’s it?” she asked groggily.
“7:03,” he replied. “You need to get up and shower, we’re meeting everyone downstairs for
breakfast soon.”
He turned away from her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and flicking on the television. He
pinched his lower lip nervously as he watched the first coverage of the marathon begin, the
organisers running around in high vis jackets and shouting at each other, unaware they were
being broadcast to the nation.
Isabel stumbled out of bed, staring at him for a moment and rubbing her eyes before moving
towards him and stroking his shoulder softly. “Are you okay, Harry?”
“Yes,” he said stiffly, not looking at her and shrugging so her hand would fall away. She took the
hint and hurried into the bathroom, closing the door hurriedly and locking it shut.
She knew he was nervous so she shouldn’t reasonably be getting upset, but she had hoped he
wouldn’t be like this with her after last night. The water brushed past the new bruises on her
collarbones and neck, her hips darkened too by finger shaped marks from the strong grip he’d
held her in, and she knew then what a stupid mistake it had been, and how sad it was that the
mistake should be realised so soon after the event, that she wasn’t even allowed to pretend it had
been a good idea for a day.
When she came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped tightly around her, Harry was rooting
through his running bag, his lips moving silently as he recounted his checklist for what looked
like the hundredth time. He looked up at her when he saw her coming into the room, his eyes
emotionless as he nodded a hello before returning his gaze to the bag.
“No need to pack up everything now,” he told her as she backed into a corner to get dressed.
“We’ll come back up here before we leave and then we’ll check out.”
She nodded even though he still wouldn’t look at her, and she distractedly slipped on a pair of
leggings and the first jumper she found, not even realising it was Harry’s until the sleeves fell
past her wrists and his scent wrapped around her. It was the one he’d worn the day before, grey
and soft, and she prayed he’d be too distracted to notice as she pulled her shoes on.
He looked over at her impatiently, doing a double take as his gaze scanned over her, his eyes
widening.
“Sorry,” she spluttered immediately, struggling to work out how this had become so awkward so
quickly. “I’ll take it off, I just picked up the first –”
“It’s fine,” Harry interrupted bluntly, heading to the door without another glance.
“Harry, could you – could you just wait a sec?” she asked him nervously, and his jaw clenched.
He ran a hand across his face tiredly.
“What?”
“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay before we go downstairs.”
“I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“But I –” she shuffled on the spot, unsure of how she should go about explaining herself. “I’d
just feel better if I knew you were alright.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re not though, and I just – it’d make me feel better.”
“Why does it matter,” he questioned flatly. “This isn’t about you, believe it or not.”
She flinched as though she’d been slapped. “Yeah, it’s all about you, as usual,” she muttered,
and although she’d meant to offend him her delivery was too wounded to make any impression.
She pushed past him, heading out the door and walking down the corridor without checking to
see if he was following.
Breakfast was a mostly silent affair. Harry’s friends and family couldn’t all sit on one table so he
chose to sit with his family in a nearby booth, leaving Isabel to attempt conversation with the
other four, all of them horrendously hungover. Niall spent most of the time with his head buried
in his arms, while Liv wolfed down a full English and Caitlin and Zayn chewed in complete
silence.
Isabel played with her food, sneaking glances at Harry who was nodding at things his parents
were saying and eating slowly. He looked so pale it was bordering on sickly, a curl twisting
around his neck and brushing against the pallid skin of his jaw.
She watched as he looked up from his bowl, his gaze travelling across the room to find Isabel,
before he met her eyes and his eyebrows puckered into a frown. He looked at her for a moment,
his eyes void of any emotion, and then turned back to his mother. Isabel felt a lump build in her
throat as her cheeks burned, and she stared down at the swirls and knots of wood in the table as
she asked herself the age-old question that, despite its regularity, still burned all the same: what
have I done?
~~~
“Do you have your inhaler?” Jane asked for the eighth time, chewing on her nails as she gazed at
her son nervously.
“Yes,” Harry sighed, glaring at Niall who let out a snort at the apparently still hilarious
revelation that Harry had asthma.
“You look good, H,” Caitlin said, brushing a stray strand of hair from his face and surveying him
with pursed lips. It was true – he did look good. He seemed taller than ever, clad in fluorescent
running shoes and white shirts, his hair swept back from his face and void of the bandana. A
black top hung from his shoulders, emblazoned with the words ADDICTION TRUST, his
running number pinned underneath.
“Cheers,” Harry said with a small smile. “Glad you’ve got that on the top of your priority list.”
“Let me and Caitlin get a quick photo, Harry,” Liv ordered, and he groaned loudly enough for
the nearby group to look over curiously. His parents had been allowed one picture of him with
Callum and Phoebe, surrounded by other runners and their families in the middle of Greenwich
Park with Harry’s arms slung over their little shoulders, but as soon as it was taken Harry had
gone back to standing quietly and staring at the floor.
“Relax, we’re not gonna put it online,” Caitlin said with a roll of her eyes, getting out her phone.
“Just personal memories. Guys, jump in,” she said to the others.
She hesitated before looking at Isabel and adding: “You too, Issy.”
Isabel fought the urge to drop her jaw in surprise before shuffling into the picture, tripping over
nothing and ignoring Niall’s cackle of laughter before slipping under Zayn’s outstretched arm.
“Here, let me,” Jane offered kindly, taking the phone from Caitlin so she could be in the photo.
She ran into the shot, jumping on Niall’s back and laughing as the six of them grinned for the
photo. Liv threw her arms around Harry’s neck at the last second so that he genuinely laughed in
surprise, the corners of his eyes crinkling up for the first time that day.
Everyone crowded round the phone after it was taken to see the picture, but Phoebe was
distracted.
“Harry?” she said to him quietly, clinging on to his arm and staring with wide eyes into the vast
crowd of excited spectators around them.
“Yeah, love?” Harry replied.
“That lady that’s coming over, she was pointing at you,” Phoebe told him, and they all turned
their heads to follow her anxious gaze.
A lady was indeed marching towards them – a lady with a cameraman.
Harry’s eyes widened and he shook his head at his father desperately, but before they could
make an escape she was upon them, all white shining teeth and primped hair.
“Good afternoon!” she shouted. “I’m from Sky News, would you mind being interviewed live on
television in about thirty seconds?”
“Uh –” was all Harry managed to reply before she interrupted him.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Harry,” he choked.
She raised her eyebrows and smiled at him condescendingly. “Harry what?”
“Styles,” he said hurriedly, coughing into his hand and shifting nervously on the spot. “Look,
I’m not really sure I want to –”
“How old are you, Harry? You’re a student?”
“Yeah, I’m nineteen,” Harry said automatically, eyes widening when Niall snorted. “I mean,
twenty, I’m twenty, but hold on I –”
“If you all could just get out of the shot,” she said sweetly to the rest of them, looking directly at
Phoebe who was clinging onto his arm for dear life.
Harry glared at them as they all shuffled behind the camera compliantly, mouthing ‘traitor’ to
Caitlin who stuck her middle finger up at him.
“Hi, Alan!” the reporter shouted suddenly, presumably responding to someone in the studio.
Harry jumped, his hands beginning to shake. “I’m here with student Harry Styles who’s getting
ready to run today. Is this your first marathon, Harry?”
“Yeah,” Harry replied nervously, his wide eyes shifting from the reporter to the camera. Niall
shook his head and held a hand to his face in despair, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
“And a lovely day for it too, you lucky boy! What inspired you to run this year?”
“I um –” he looked over to his father for support, before continuing anxiously: “I’m running for
charity.”
“Wow, amazing,” she replied. “Any particular reason why you chose – what is it – Addiction
Trust?”
Harry swallowed, swiping his tongue over his lips. “It’s my dad’s charity,” he mumbled.
Isabel blinked dumbly and looked over to the others in surprise, but they were all equally
confused. None of them, it seemed, knew that Harry’s dad ran a charity.
“Is your father here supporting you today?” she nudged, and Harry nodded, pointing off camera
childishly. “Come out here!” she beckoned with a smile, and Ted scuffled out obediently to join
them.
“Are you proud of your son today, Mr Styles?”
“So proud,” Ted said, slapping Harry on the back, though Harry was so pale he looked like he
was about to pass out and he flinched at the gesture. “He’s raised over £3000 for the charity, and
he’s been so determined to do this.”
“And obviously because the charity’s so close to your hearts, it means the race is extra special
for you today, doesn’t it Harry?”
Harry nodded again, taking a deep breath before reciting: “Addiction Trust is a charity aimed to
help teenagers and young adults combat not only their drug abuse problem, but also the
underlying mental health issues that may have led them to turn to narcotics in the first place. It’s
something I feel very strongly about.”
Isabel glanced over at the others again, gnawing on her nails and wondering how none of them
had known this, none of them had known that Harry’s disdain for drug abuse extended so far.
Caitlin was on her phone, frowning down at the screen before tapping Liv and passing it to her.
“Oh, and we’ve just heard the calls to the start line, so we’ll have to let you go Harry!” the
reporter chimed cheerily. “Any last words of encouragement from Dad?”
Ted looked at his son, who stood a few inches taller than him, his expression a steady mix of
pride and sadness. “We’re so proud of you, and we know Adam would be too.”
Harry swallowed again and nodded, looking down at his feet.
Isabel’s heart plummeted so fast she actually stopped breathing. ‘Adam would be…’
Well surely that meant –
Niall tapped her on the shoulder, passing her Caitlin’s phone with a dumbstruck look on his face.
The whole line of them were looking at Isabel with similar expressions, waiting for her to read
whatever was on there. She looked down at the screen with trepidation, her hands shaking as she
read the words on the webpage.
ADDICTION TRUST is a charity aimed to help teenagers and young adults combat not only
their drug abuse problem, but also the underlying mental health issues that may have led them to
turn to narcotics in the first place.
The charity was founded by Edward Styles in March 2011 inspired by his son Adam Joseph
Styles, who, following a heroin overdose, has been comatose since 2010.
~~~
Callum was gripping Harry’s hand excitedly, babbling up at him about the race but Harry was
barely listening. He was staring at his feet, taking deep breaths as he tried to compose himself
and everyone stared at him, before eventually announcing with a shaky voice that he needed a
walk.
“But Harry mate, you need to go and get in position,” Zayn reminded him, but Harry kept on
walking in the opposite direction.
“Harry, don’t!” Phoebe shouted after him, but he ignored her too.
Harry’s mother put her hand to her mouth, turning to Ted with wide, watery eyes.
“Just give him a minute to calm down,” Harry’s father said with a gulp, his voice entirely lacking
hope as he stared at his son’s back doubtfully.
“What should we do?” Niall asked worriedly. Caitlin, on the verge of tears, slipped her hand
through Zayn’s, and Liv bounced on the spot wildly as Isabel waited for somebody to run after
him, but no one did.
“I’m gonna go and see if he’s okay,” Isabel said to nobody in particular. She wasn’t sure why she
thought this was in any way an appropriate idea, seeing as she was Harry’s least favourite person
there, but when Harry’s dad gave her a forlorn nod of permission she knew what he was
thinking. It didn’t matter who she was; nothing and nobody would be enough.
She took off after him, pushing her way past members of the public, her heart beating hard in her
throat. She hated how happy and excited everyone around them was when Harry was on the
verge of breakdown. She wanted the entire world, every person around them and every person
rushing to work or home or to catch their film in the cinema and every person about to sleep, get
up, laugh, fuck, cry, to stop because he was like this, because his world had fallen apart while
everyone else’s kept on going.
“Harry!” she called, grasping his arm but he shook her off roughly.
“Fuck off,” he growled, keeping his back to her. She grabbed his arm again.
“Listen, Harry –”
“Did you hear what I said?” he bellowed, turning around and looming over her, his face furious.
“Fuck off and leave me alone, Isabel!”
“I don’t want to,” she persisted. “You need to go and do that race.”
“Just because I fucked you doesn’t mean I want you with me,” he snapped, yanking his arm out
of her grip again. “Just leave me the fuck alone!”
“No, listen,” she continued, laying a hand flat on his chest even though she was close to tears and
her cheeks were flushing. The sharp sting of his rejection hurt, but she knew Harry was hurting a
hundred times more. “You need to do this, okay? You need to get on that starting line and warm
up before you run –”
“I’m not going to fucking run!” he barked, pulling away from her. His eyes were full of pure,
undiluted panic, and when he ran a hand through his hair she saw that familiar terrified tremble
in his fingers. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”
“Harry –”
“I wish none of you had come!” he said so loudly a man in a nearby group turned to look at them
curiously. He turned on his heel and started marching away from her, his back hunched over and
his fists clenched at his sides. “I wish nobody had fucking come and I could have done this on
my own!”
Isabel started to stumble after him. “But you shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”
“Why not?” he snapped. “I’m fine on my own.”
“Harry,” she said as firmly as she could, lunging forward to cling onto his hand. He stopped so
abruptly that she nearly crashed into his back. “You’re making yourself panic, you need to stop
it.”
“No Isabel, you’re not listening. I can’t do this,” he said again, letting go of her hand and
running his shaking fingers through his hair again. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes you can. You’ve ran so far before, you’re so –”
“No, I don’t mean like that,” he choked. “I’m not ready to – I can’t – I’m just, fuck!”
He was so worked up, looking around wildly at anything but at her concerned face. Eventually,
he spat out: “I’m just thinking about the reason why I’m doing it and I can’t do it. I’m not
ready.”
“It’s okay not to be ready,” Isabel said softly, placing her hand over his and trying to prise his
fingers open. She had no idea how to deal with him. She’d never known anyone go through what
Harry was going through; she didn’t know what to tell him to make him feel better. Clutching at
straws, she spluttered: “Do you remember what you said to me, ages ago, when I told you that I
just wanted to scrape a pass on my degree?”
He frowned, failing to see the relevance, and she knew immediately that she’d made a mistake.
She gulped nervously, desperately trying to think of something else to say, and Harry met her
eyes in his curiosity. “No?”
Isabel blinked at him, entirely surprised he was humouring her pitiful attempt at calming him
down, before continuing: “You said ‘you might as well try your hardest now that you’re here,
right?’” She managed to open up his hand enough to slip her fingers through his, squeezing his
hand tightly with both of hers.
He nodded slowly. “I remember,” he said quietly.
“You always try so hard with everything, Harry. You never give up on anything.”
He swallowed and looked at the ground. “I am trying,” he whispered. “I try every day.”
It took all she could not to burst into hysterical tears then. She knew why he was like this now,
why he was always pushing her away. Why he was so horrible to her for the first few months
they’d known each other, why he flipped out so quickly. He didn’t like letting people in because
he was scared of how much it would hurt when they left him, like Adam had left him, and so he
desperately tried to put them off, being rude and snapping at them until they gave up. He was
made up of fear, every part of him, a confused, botched cacophony of different kinds of terror
and it was no wonder then that he was always on the defensive because she couldn’t even
imagine what it felt like to feel all of that all at once.
“It’s not going to get better if you keep running away from it,” she replied, reaching their
intertwined hands to push his head up. He closed his eyes, breathing heavily as his lips parted.
“You push everyone out Harry. It’s not better to be on your own.”
“I know,” he said eventually, his voice small. He looked into her damp brown eyes with his
pained green ones, brushing a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb. He looked like he might
say something, his mouth opening and his breath pulling in, but instead he leaned forward and
pressed his lips to hers hard, and it wasn’t even like he was kissing her, just pushing their lips
together so that he wouldn’t have to say anything else. He pulled away, resting his forehead
against hers and let out a tiny breath that somehow managed to sound broken despite the
smallness of it. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”
~~~
Isabel imagined that most car rides home from marathons were triumphant, excited, full of
laughter and relief, but she genuinely believed that no other car in the country was as proud as
Niall Horan’s Range Rover that evening when they drove back home, a grinning and exhausted
Harry sitting quietly in the cramped backseat as people threw him compliments over and over
again.
Whether or not Harry knew his friends were affected by their newfound knowledge of Adam, or
because of the near meltdown he’d very publically had minutes before he was meant to be on the
start line, was unclear, but he was grateful for their excited chatter all the way home mostly
because it meant he barely had to speak at all.
Isabel wasn’t sitting next to him – Niall and Caitlin were in the front, and Harry was sandwiched
by Zayn and Liv, Isabel sitting on Liv’s right hand side – so she wasn’t able to check whether his
smile was always genuine or not.
But Isabel knew what the others didn’t: Harry wasn’t happy. He’d finished the marathon with a
smile and a time of 4 hours 43 minutes, which wasn’t bad by any standard, and he listened
happily as everyone told him what a hectic day they’d had, getting on and off the train multiple
times in order to travel the twenty-six miles to meet him at the end, making a few stops at the
side line in between to cheer him on. Callum’s feet had barely touched the ground all day - Niall
and Zayn had constantly been heaving him onto their shoulders or giving him piggy backs -
while Phoebe felt very grown up as she conversed with Harry’s girl friends about what high
school was like and which guy from The Hunger Games was cuter. When Harry had crossed the
finish line, Jane had gripped Isabel’s hand between both of hers, cheering on her son with tears
in her eyes and a dimpled smile on her tired face.
But when Harry had found a moment alone with Isabel while they were loading Niall’s car for
the journey back, the smile was gone and replaced with that familiar deep frown.
“I’m gonna do another one,” he’d told her quietly.
“When? Next year?”
He shook his head. “As soon as possible. Anywhere, I don’t care where it is. I fucked it up.”
Now it was Isabel’s turn to frown. He’d started off well, and everyone had been optimistic.
Around the twentieth mile he’d hit the proverbial wall, stopping for so long that everyone
thought he’d give up, but he hadn’t. He’d pretty much jogged the rest, but he’d done it. “In what
way did you fuck it up?”
He took a deep breath, his gaze flickering to the floor. “I can do better, closer to three and a half
hours. I shouldn’t have done that coke in Easter, it stays in your system. It messed up everything.
Hit the fucking wall.”
“Harry –”
“I didn’t train properly. I ate all the wrong things and I didn’t rest properly and I – I fucked it
up.” He didn’t look up from the floor. “I think I did it on purpose. I fucked it up on purpose but
I… but I wish hadn’t now and I need to do it again.”
He paused, licking his lips and searching her face. “You understand why it’s important for me to
do this properly, don’t you?”
She wasn’t sure if she did fully, but she knew that everything that happened with Adam was
something that hung over Harry’s head constantly, a dull, heavy, perpetual weight sitting on his
shoulders. And doing the marathon in his name meant admitting that it was there and not just in
his head, that it was real. “Of course I do.”
He nodded. “Good. Cos now I do too.”

End Notes:
:(((((( oxygenstyles.tumblr.com x
Back to index
Author's Notes:
anything you can do to draw attention to your mouth is good
May
Isabel was stalking Harry Styles.
She hadn’t exactly intended to reach this level of insanity, but when she found herself clicking
off her word document and typing his name into the Facebook search bar instead, she wasn’t
entirely surprised.
They were already friends on there - they had been since February - but she’d never gone
through his profile before, and she found herself clicking through his pictures before she could
restrain herself, a smile playing at her lips.

Whatcha doing? x
He really had uncanny timing.

Honestly? I might be stalking you on Facebook

Should I be worried?
Yeah, I’m worried.

Chill out, no incriminating evidence so far

The so far says it all, I’m coming over now
I’m just in town I won’t be long

Okay I found something slightly embarrassing

This narrows nothing down at all…

It’s got like, loads of likes
I think she’s trying to eat you?

Oh fuck.. yeah. Last year. Let’s not go there
Oh god actually please stop looking I’m getting stressed out
…........did you stop?

calm the fuck down Harry there can’t be anything too bad on here

I’m buying popcorn, be nice

okay sorry.. your anxiety was very telling though

Stupid stuff I did a few years ago recorded forever on the internet... not the best feeling
I’m leaving Tesco now, see you in a bit :) x
She clicked out of his tagged pictures, bored by the multiple shaky mobile pictures of Harry at
parties, and scrolled down his main page, biting down on her lip as she did so. He barely used it
– mostly it was just things he was tagged in, a link from Zayn about a new tattoo opening on
Chancery Street, a post from a friend Isabel assumed was from Holmes Chapel asking how he’d
been. She finally spotted something he’d posted, a shaky mobile upload of a blonde man walking
in front of him.
Look Niall, Isabel and I saw your genuine doppelganger today in town I’ve never been so
scared. He was German and smelt like petrol
Her smile widened when she saw that. ‘Isabel and I’.
“What are you smiling at?” Millie asked, and Isabel looked up quickly, rearranging her face into
a blank, vague expression.
“Nothing in particular, just…history,” Isabel replied sweepingly.
“You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met,” Millie said with a frown. “Plus you’ve never looked so
happy about doing your work. Ever.”
“I’m learning about Queen Victoria, she’s a bundle of laughs.”
“Isabel…” she said darkly, waving her phone at her so Isabel could see the Facebook app was
loaded on her screen. “Why are you stalking with Harry Styles on Facebook? I saw you just liked
his picture.”
“I’m not!” Isabel insisted, “I only just started looking.”
“You’ve been looking for the last fifteen minutes,” Millie accused, and Isabel averted her eyes.
Millie didn’t exactly know that Isabel and Harry had been hooking up since they’d got back from
London, probably because Isabel had purposely made sure she hadn’t found out.
It had happened completely by accident. They’d gone round to Liv and Caitlin’s house after
work on the first Wednesday following the marathon, sitting in the garden in shitty camping
chairs and soaking up the first sun of the year, drinking beer from mid-afternoon. Harry and
Caitlin missed their classes to be there, and so they decided to get inappropriately drunk to make
it worthwhile.
Isabel had gone back into the kitchen to get a top up, her bare feet padding across the cool tiles,
when she’d heard someone follow her.
“Hey,” she said, looking over her shoulder and smiling at him. “Do you want one?”
“Please,” he said. “I’ve had quite a lot though.”
“Me too,” she admitted. “Getting drunk in the day is the best.”
He nodded slowly, grinning at her when she giggled. “Feels like we’re grown-ups.”
“You are a grown-up,” she reminded him as he edged closer. “Me and Caitlin are the only ones
that are still teenagers.”
“Not for long. Less than a month for you.” He came even closer, standing right in front of her
and resting a hand against the cupboard by her head. “You’ve made me feel weird about wanting
to kiss you now.”
“Oh yeah?” she smirked, her heart beginning to thump as he stared at her lips with drunken,
glazed eyes. “Feeling like a pedo, Styles?”
“Don’t kill the mood,” he groaned, sliding a hand around her waist, dipping it under her t-shirt so
that he held her skin in his warm palm. “Now’s not the time for jokes.”
“There’s a mood?”
“Yes. I’m a very serious guy, I’ll have you know.” He’d lent down, brushing his lips across her
jaw agonisingly slow, and she’d gripped the counter tightly.
“You’re thinking about kissing me, then?” she choked out.
“Mmmm,” he hummed, pulling away and biting down on his lip as he scanned her face. “A lot.”
He pushed her up so that she sat on the edge of the counter with him standing in between her
legs, his fingers drawing patterns into her waist under her shirt that made her eyes lull.
“Wanna know a secret?” Harry said quietly, and she couldn’t have said anything if she tried so
she just nodded. “You wearing my jumper the day of the marathon was pretty much the hottest
thing I’ve ever seen.”
She smiled, her heart thrashing around in her ribs. “Yeah?”
He smirked, pressing himself right against her so that their noses brushed. “Sorry I was such a
dick in London.” He trailed his lips along her jaw again and her breath caught in her throat. “It
doesn’t excuse it but I knew you would all find out about Adam and I – I hate letting people in
because of... I just get scared sometimes.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
“I mean it, I’m sorry,” he said, bringing his lips up away from her jaw to look at her straight in
the eyes. “I’m trying really hard to not…not keep fucking everything up.”
“Okay.”
He smiled slightly and then leaned in again, this time towards her lips, but she placed a hand on
his chest. “You can’t here,” she whispered, and she felt like she had to physically punch the
words out because she hated saying them so much.
“Why not?” he asked with a frown. “They all saw us before the marathon on Sunday. Niall
said.”
She cast that embarrassing thought to the back of her mind and focussed on the problem at hand.
Caitlin.
She finally felt accepted by her, like she’d gained Caitlin’s approval, and for the first time in
ages she felt like she actually belonged to a group of friends. She couldn’t jeopardise that, and
she certainly wouldn’t want to hurt Caitlin’s feelings by getting with the boy she may or may not
like right in front of her.
At the same time, though, Isabel did like Harry. She liked his smile and his hair and his hands,
the way he listened to her and laughed at her and kissed her. And she had no hard evidence that
Caitlin actually liked Harry, other than her instinct, which had been unreliable in the past. Either
way, kissing him here ran the risk of her becoming heartbreakingly, horribly alone again, and it
wasn’t a risk she was prepared to take.
“I can’t say why,” she told him, not wanting to embarrass Caitlin, and he frowned even more.
“Explain please,” he urged, brushing his lips against hers just once before pulling back.
“I – I just became friends with everyone and started to fit in properly. I don’t want to feel like
I’m here just because I’m doing stuff with you.” That was a shortened, less detailed version of
the truth, and she played with the bottom of his t-shirt as she waited for his response.
“Okay,” he agreed eventually, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. “Yeah, that’s fine, I get it.”
He smiled at her gently, hesitating before saying: “But can I kiss you some other time?”
He was so tempting. She wanted nothing more than to grab the back of his head and kiss him for
the rest of her life, and it was so hard to resist that her palms were sweating, but she was scared
of giving in to him, unsure whether they were both on the same page, whether they both wanted
the same thing. “Harry, we’ll talk about this another time, okay?”
He pouted. “Sounds like you’re ashamed of me.”
“Oh please,” she rolled her eyes and pushed his face away as he grinned. “Don’t pull that one on
me.”
But then the next evening, as she’d walked into Lecture Room 3 with Rory, a smile plastered to
her face as they discussed how well the Action in the Community school screening of Crash had
gone that afternoon, she’d done a double take when she saw Harry calmly sitting in the front
row, smirking at the way her jaw had dropped open.
“Y’alright, love?” he’d asked when she marched over.
“You don’t go here, Harry!” she hissed at him, and he grinned.
“I wanted to see what this is all about,” he said. “You love it so much, I just wanted to see for
myself.”
Mel was eyeing her from her position in the front, gesturing for Isabel to go over. “Harry, now is
really not the time for games, I need everyone here to like me.”
“Why?” Harry’s grin widened happily. “Is, are you gonna run for leader?”
It was something she’d thought about, something Rory and Mel had both been encouraging her
to do when Mel left in June. She wouldn’t have even considered it a few months ago, but now
she found herself itching to do it, to have something she was responsible for that wasn’t a job or
a degree that she hated. She didn’t even care that it probably wasn’t very cool to be involved at
all, let alone run it, but by the beam on Harry’s face he thought it was the coolest thing in the
world.
If she was going to run, though, approval was what she needed, and having a little chat with
Harry when she should be setting up was not going to get her that.
“I’ll speak to you after,” she told him. “It’s a good film today, you’re lucky.”
She went to walk away, but he grabbed her, smiling up at her cheekily. “Isabel, now is ‘another
time’. Am I allowed to restart this discussion?”
She was aware that Mel’s eyes burning holes into the back of her head, and she was aware that
she was blushing and shifting nervously from foot to foot, but most of all she was very aware of
how much she wanted to kiss him, not just now but all the time, always.
“Don’t be annoying, Harry,” she muttered, and scurried away back to Mel, not catching his
reaction.
And then the next evening they had work, and Harry didn’t mention it once. Isabel was taken
aback with how quickly he’d given up with his pursuit, and she wasn’t sure whether she was
disappointed or relieved. He was just joking about with her instead, laughing brightly and biting
down on his lip when he listened to her speak, watching her intently, and Isabel thought this was
finally it – it had taken sex to make it happen, but now they could properly be friends.
In the car on the way back to Harry’s though, the tension built up until it felt like it was
physically crackling between them, because all Isabel could think about was how close they were
trapped in the car together, and she tucked her hands beneath her thighs to stop herself from
touching his arm hovering right next to hers as his palm rested on the gearstick, so close she
could feel the heat radiating off it.
They attempted conversation but it became stilted and they ended up sitting in silence and
listening to the first CD Isabel had desperately shoved into the player, knowing they were both
thinking about the same thing, and it was excruciating. She tried not to keep looking at him
because he was chewing gum and it was making his jaw work in a way that could have made her
cry, but she kept doing it, and every time she stared he caught her eye and she had to look away
quickly.
Eventually they reached Harry’s house, and even though Harry pulled the car to stop and turned
the engine off, even though they knew everyone was inside waiting for them, neither of them
moved.
Harry just stared at her unabashedly, and Isabel knew he wanted to ask her again but he didn’t,
just chewed his gum and kept his gaze on her.
“Say something, then,” she said to him, digging her nails into the seat beneath her legs, and he
ran his tongue across his lips carefully before replying.
“I already said it,” he mumbled lowly. “I don’t want to keep saying it if you don’t want to.”
Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it in her mouth. “Why not?”
He blinked, his jaw stilling for a moment in confusion. “Because I don’t want to annoy you if
you… don’t want to.”
She was scared to say anything else in case she blurted out that she was having trouble thinking
about anything other than him kissing her, and so she spat out a shaky: “We should go inside”
and then undid her seatbelt and got out of the car. She heard Harry get out behind her, locking
the door and following her up the path. It was warm out so they were both only in t-shirts, and
when he stood beside her his arm brushed right against hers as he fumbled with his keys, his
warm skin grazing over hers so that she felt a bit unsteady on her feet for a moment as she
remembered his fingers, his hands, his mouth.
“Harry,” she said, unable to stand it anymore and touching his arm, and he jolted and abruptly
dropped the keys. They clattered to the floor between them, landing with a sharp jangle of metal
as his head whipped up to look at her.
“Shit, sorry,” he apologised unnecessarily, flushing slightly. He gulped and bent down to pick up
the keys, straightening up and opening his mouth to berate his own clumsiness when he caught
the look in her eyes, that glint of longing that made everything he’d been about to say melt away
until he’d completely forgotten why he’d opened his mouth in the first place. He kept his eyes
trained on her face as he withdrew the empty gum packet from his pocket, taking the gum from
between his teeth and wrapping it up in there, grinning when she made a face as he slid it back
into his pocket.
“You’re grim.”
“I’ll put it in the bin when we get in,” Harry said, his eyes flickering down to her mouth a she
spoke.
“Let’s go in then,” Isabel suggested, and it took a moment to register that Harry’s hand was
creeping around her waist, his hand tucking under her t-shirt to rest against her skin.
“Okay, we’ll go in,” he said quietly, not moving at all, the keys still bunched up in his free hand.
He shuffled closer to her, his face hovering just in front of hers. “Let’s go in then.”
Isabel stood still, feeling his breath on her lips and his palm press flat against her back until she
could feel the raised bump of his scar.
She shook her head slowly, her hand travelling up on its own accord to grab the hair at the nape
of his neck. “We don’t have to go in just yet.”
And before she reached up to kiss him, she didn’t miss the ear-splitting grin spread across his
face, his lips only pulling together at the very last moment from their position stretched out
across his teeth to meet hers.
And kiss they did – a lot. For two weeks they kissed and kissed and kissed, making out like
teenagers in the truest sense of the word, grasping at each other’s hair, a frantic, desperate
collision of tongues and teeth and lips as they moaned into each other’s mouths. In the fortnight
since the marathon they’d seen each other nearly every day and they couldn’t stop, kissing until
her mouth was swollen and hurt at the corners, kissing after work in his car, on the stairs of his
house when he and Zayn and Niall had the others over, in the confines of her bedroom when
everyone else was out. Because that was her other criteria – her friends couldn’t know either.
The fact that they didn’t approve of Harry anyway, coupled with her fear they would tell Louis
and give him ammunition to destroy her life even more, meant that she was adamant they knew
nothing of whatever was going on with Harry.
Maybe Isabel should have insisted they slow things down, not rush into things, into each other,
like they had so far. But she’d never felt more wanted, never felt anything like the paralysing
thump of her heart when Harry looked over at her with dark eyes, brushing the back of his hand
against hers again and again until he finally leaned over and whispered in her ear they should go
somewhere else, away from everyone else. And one time, when they were drunk and at a bar in
town, Harry had looked at her with his dark eyes and whispered to her with his soft lips and then
she was being pulled into the bathroom and pressed up against the wall and kissed like he needed
her to breathe, like he’d never kissed anyone before and he never would again. When Harry
started licking stripes on her neck, his mouth everywhere at once as he whispered to her what he
was gonna do, maybe then Isabel should have said something, but she wanted him so badly her
hands were shaking, and she went along with it, trying to ignore the image of Harry doing this to
countless girls before her, knowing deep down that just because he wanted her didn’t mean he
had been any different with Caro, or Poppy, or any other girl he was with for the night.
But then Harry paused in the act of ripping off her underwear beneath her skirt, leaning forward
and pressing a kiss to Isabel’s neck that was so soft she could have cried, and asked her again
and again in a completely breathless voice if she was okay, if she wanted to do this, and Isabel
couldn’t imagine him doing this to Caro or a random girl he’d just met, not even a little bit, and
so she whispered ‘do it, Harry’ so that he shivered and did as he was told.
That was two days ago, and Isabel could still hear him when she tried hard enough, the tremble
in his voice when he spoke to her while he was inside her, the heat of his lips as he kissed her
when he came. And maybe they shouldn’t have done it, and maybe now it would hurt even more
when he found out she liked him and he had to tell her he didn’t like her back, not in that way,
but she didn’t care because she’d do anything to hear Harry mumble how much he wants her
again and again until his voice was hoarse and he was out of breath.
“Issy?” Millie asked, bringing Isabel back down to earth sharply. “Did you hear what I just
said?”
“No, sorry,” Isabel apologised, rubbing a hand over her face and closing her laptop.
“Are you seeing Harry this afternoon?”
Isabel nodded slowly, bracing herself for Millie’s reaction.
“What are you two doing?”
“Watching a film. Then his friend’s having a party this evening, and I’m going with him, and
then I’m staying over at Liv and Caitlin’s.”
“Party…you mean like a rave?”
Isabel narrowed her eyes. “No, I mean like a house party. I don’t understand where you’re
forming all of these ideas that Harry and his friends are weird drug maniacs that –”
“Did you hear Harry had sex with Lily Hughes?” Millie interrupted suddenly. Isabel’s mouth
went dry.
“Um, no, I didn’t.” Shit. “We don’t really talk about stuff like that.”
Millie raised her eyebrows. “Well Lily told Jon who told me the other day. He’s not changed at
all since we first met him at that gig, has he? Remember he went and fucked that girl in the toilet
–”
“He didn’t fuck her,” Isabel mumbled. “Just a blow job.”
Millie scoffed. “Fucking hell, Isabel! ‘Just a blow job’, are you serious?”
“I’d really appreciate it if you stopped hounding me at every opportunity about how much of a
prick Harry Styles is,” Isabel snapped, before she accidentally admitted that she could now be
added to the list of people Harry had fucked in a toilet. “I’m a big girl, I can choose my own
friends.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, Issy,” Millie explained, and Isabel sighed.
“I know,” she muttered.
~~~
“I have a delivery of popcorn,” Harry said with a smile as Isabel opened the door, leaning down
to place a kiss on her forehead before making his way inside. He was wearing a blue and white
striped t-shirt and his usual black jeans, kicking off his worn boots as soon as he made it inside.
“It’s actually kinda hot out. Had to put the aircon on in my car.”
“Your car has aircon?” she exclaimed in surprise, and he swatted her with the popcorn bag.
“If you take the piss out of my car one more time…” Harry warned, before bounding over and
pushing her up against the wall, placing his hands on either side of her head.
“You’ll do what?” she asked, rubbing her knuckles across the exposed bit of skin above the
waistband of his jeans as his shirt rode up.
“Mmmmmm,” Harry said, kissing the corner of her mouth. “I’ll think of something.”
“Millie’s in the living room,” she whispered, her heart hammering horrifically loud in her chest,
and Harry groaned before moving away from her. “You want tea, Harry? I’ll bring it up. Just
grab my laptop from in the living room for me and head up.”
He nodded and snuck a quick kiss before ducking into the living room with a quick hello to
Millie and then bounding upstairs, Isabel following with two mugs of identically brewed tea. He
was already shirtless when she went in, lying on his front and turning her laptop on.
“Thank you,” he smiled, taking the tea from her. “Hey, I wanna ask you something before I
forget.”
“Me too, actually,” Isabel said, sitting down cross-legged next to him and sipping on her tea.
“You go first, though.”
He smiled at her and gulped some of his tea, not blowing on it carefully like Isabel did in case it
scorched her mouth. “Part of my exam is presentation based,” Harry explained. “I’m pretty
fucking scared, to be honest, but I thought maybe you might wanna come? You always said you
wanted to see my art so – well if you want to, the offer’s there. If you want.”
He was so nervous and awkward that she grinned, smoothing her thumb across the pucker
between his eyebrows. “I’d love to, Harry. When is it?”
“June the sixth,” he said, relaxing as her hand slid from his eyebrow to his hair. “What did you
wanna ask me?”
Isabel swallowed. She had wanted to bring up Millie’s revelation about Lily Hughes – she had
planned to mention it casually, offhand almost – but now it felt inappropriate after Harry had
invited her to the presentation. She wracked her brains for something to say, before blurting out:
“Do you want to come to London with me?”
He laughed, confused. “We literally just went to London two weeks ago today.”
“I know. I meant, like, on my birthday weekend. I’m going back to spend it with my family, so I
thought maybe…” she trailed off, unsure why she’d brought this up at all. He raised his eyebrow,
waiting for her to continue, and she mentally cursed herself for not thinking before she spoke.
“It’s just that my dad bought me tickets to go to the theatre, but he bought them when I was still
with Louis so there’s a spare. So you can come. If you’d like to.”
There was an awkward pause as Harry considered her offer and Isabel felt an overwhelming
desire to self-destruct. “So I’d be like your stand-in boyfriend?” Harry clarified slowly.
“No!” she spluttered, nearly spitting her tea on him. “I mean technically yes, but no. I can ask
someone else, it’s just cos you’re here and I just thought – but it’s fine, don’t worry, I’ll ask
Millie because obviously – no boyfriend. We’re not – you’re not my … anything.”
Harry just nodded, chewing on his lip as he listened to her horrified rambling.
“You still wanna watch Clueless?” she asked, desperately changing the subject.
“Yeah, second time lucky,” he smiled, opening the popcorn as she got the appropriate DVD out
from the box under her bed, sliding it into the laptop as he stuffed popcorn into his mouth.
“C’mere,” he mumbled when she regained her original position on the bed, pulling her towards
him so that their shoulders were touching. He kissed her bare shoulder gently. “You look nice.”
She smiled at him. “Don’t lose concentration already, the film hasn’t even started.”
“I can think of better things to do,” he said suggestively, hooking his ankle around her leg and
pulling her closer.
“You’re watching this film whether you like it or not, Styles. Shut up and watch.”
He pouted but turned back to the screen, watching intently whilst he ate. Isabel mostly watched
him as she’d seen the film hundreds of times already, smiling when he laughed or bit down on
his lip and watching the way the muscles in his arms contracted under his tattooed skin when he
shifted, distributing the weight.
“Stop staring at me,” he mumbled after a while, and she only grinned at him. “It’s very
distracting. I’m trying to be a good boy.”
“Can I ask you a question?” she said, and he smirked at her.
“Yeah?”
“Which tattoo did you get first?”
She was fascinated by his tattoos. She wanted to know what each one meant, when he’d gone
them, if they hurt. She wanted to take things slow with Harry in terms of questioning him, not
wanting to scare him, but there were so many things she wanted to know and a horrible sense of
limited time.
“This one,” he said, shifting to show her a tiny ‘A’ in the crook of his elbow. She studied his
reaction, watching him take a deep breath as he geared himself up to talk about Adam. “I got it
like five months after he overdosed. I was sixteen.”
“Did it hurt?” she asked carefully, and he shrugged.
“A bit. I like the pain, I guess.”
“Masochistic,” she grumbled at him. He grinned, trailing a finger across the bare, plain skin of
her arm.
“You ever gonna get one?”
“Maybe. I don’t really have anything special enough to put there forever, you know?”
“Some of mine are bollocks, don’t mean a thing,” he admitted. “I got loads of them when I was
high. I got fucking George Michael lyrics tattooed to my ankles.”
“Sexy,” she nodded with a raised eyebrow, and he laughed, shifting to his side so he was facing
her. “What girl can resist George Michael?”
“Not you, clearly,” he replied, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“That was what made me want you in the first place. Your love for classic hitmakers.”
“You’re ridiculous, Isabel,” he grinned.
The sun was streaming through the window right onto Harry, landing right on the side of his face
and making his eyes seem even greener, his teeth even whiter, his lips even pinker. He watched
her eyes scan his face with a warm, contented expression.
“Are we allowed to stop watching the film now?” he asked quietly, shutting it before she could
reply and leaning forward to kiss her, flipping her over so she was lying on her back beneath
him. His hand snuck round to cradle the back of her neck, his fingers twisting in her hair as his
tongue delved into her mouth. He hummed happily, kissing her lazily, slowly, like they had all
the time in the world.
“Are you ever gonna watch Clueless all the way through?” she asked when he drew away to kiss
down her neck.
“Promise,” he mumbled into her skin, her hands stroking through his hair as she inhaled the
familiar citrus scent and closed her eyes, the sun and Harry’s lips and rough fingers warming her
skin and his promises warming her heart.
~~~
The party was loud, flooded with the deep thumping bass of music, and incredibly smoky when
they wormed their way in, Harry’s hand low on Isabel’s back as he guided her inside. The five of
them introduced Isabel to Matt, the boy whose party it was, and Isabel hugged people she
recognised – a boy called Nick, a pretty girl called Anna, another boy called Sam – until she was
pulled into the garden by Liv.
The six of them found four empty chairs, Liv sitting on Niall’s lap and Isabel instinctively going
to sit on Harry. His hands curled around her waist, resting on her bare thigh.
“Is Daniel Lyons back with Nikki?” Caitlin asked, gesturing towards a girl Isabel didn’t know.
“Last I heard she was fucking someone else,” Zayn mumbled with his cigarette between his lips.
“No idea if that’s true.”
“When did they break up?” Harry asked, frowning and swallowing his drink loudly.
“Like February?” Liv answered with a shrug, and Harry’s eyes widened.
“Well, then she definitely has had sex between then and now,” Harry tried to say casually, and
there was a moment’s pause before Niall snorted. Zayn broke into laughter and slapped Harry’s
knee beside Isabel’s leg while Isabel forced out a strained giggle, shifting uncomfortably in
Harry’s lap, and Caitlin rolled her eyes.
“Is there anyone you haven’t got with, Harry? Except the three of us girls?” Caitlin spat.
Harry barked out a laugh while Isabel looked away and tried not to blush. She shuffled about,
trying to get a better view of inside the house, when she froze.
A group of girls were staring at her and whispering. One of them laughed, and the others did too,
eyeing her up scornfully, and then Isabel caught a glimpse of Harry’s ex-girlfriend Caro there,
glaring at her furiously. Isabel blushed and shuffled again, feeling Harry’s fingers digging into
her thigh.
“Can you stop fidgeting, please?” he hissed into her ear. “If you do it one more time I’ll be just
about ready to drag you upstairs.”
She turned to smile at him, fighting the urge to kiss him as he bit down on his bottom lip harshly
and glowered at her.
“I think it’s time for shots,” Liv sang, snapping their attention back to the others.
“Liv’s on a plan to pull tonight,” Niall told everyone loudly, and Liv slapped him, not very
lightly either.
“Niall you fucking prick!” Liv shouted. “That was told to you in confidence!”
“Oh please,” Niall said with a roll of his eyes. “We all know about each other’s sex lives
anyway. We’ve got community spirit.”
Harry’s fingers, which were stroking the inside of Isabel’s thigh and making her light-headed,
froze guiltily.
Zayn snorted, throwing back a shot and passing the bottle to Isabel. “You’re making us sound
incestuous, Niall.”
Isabel did two shots consecutively, wanting to forget about the girls’ eyes that were still burning
into the back of her head, and she felt Harry watching her lips around the edge of the bottle, his
pupils dilating slightly when she caught his gaze.
“Love you, Zaynie,” Niall chirped, leaning over as far as he could given the fact that Liv was on
top of him and kissing Zayn on the cheek sloppily, laughing when Zayn slapped him away.
“Wanna fuck?”
“In your dreams, prick.”

~~~
“Pick someone and I’ll tell you.”
Isabel scanned the room carefully, biting on the edge of her cup and squinting. She zoned in on a
boy with a carefully styled blond quiff and a jacket that looked like it belonged in the 1940s.
“Him.”
Harry craned his neck to look. “He’s a thousand percent into anime.”
“Fuck off, no he’s not.”
“He is! Secretly, but he is,” Harry grinned. “I know him. He does my course.”
“That’s cheating then,” Isabel said, looking at Harry with a raised eyebrow. “I couldn’t go over
and start a conversation about that when he’s clearly a closet fan.”
They were sitting cross-legged facing each other on the sofa in the corner, and Harry’s hands had
edged his way into her lap, leaning so that his whole torso was inclined towards her. His eyes
were bright and shiny, and whenever he laughed he opened his mouth so wide that she could see
his crooked bottom teeth.
“Fuck,” Harry said with a smirk, biting down on his lip. “I didn’t know there were rules, Is.”
“There are when I’m playing with you,” she said, distracted for a second by the way his teeth
were sinking into his lip before looking across the room again. “What about him?”
“Who?”
“The red-headed one.”
Harry paused before grinning. “Hardcore porn.”
Isabel pinched the palm of his hand and he flinched. “You’re shit at this!”
“I’m being serious!” Harry said delightedly, wrestling her fingers away from his palm. “This is
the dirty truth, Is.”
“How would you know if he likes hardcore porn?”
Harry shrugged. “Instinct.”
“I don’t trust your instinct.”
“No,” Harry corrected, smiling at her so that the dimple in his cheek flexed. “You just don’t like
the conversation starters I’m giving you.”
“Of course I don’t!” Isabel snapped, and he laughed. “How am I meant to go and say hello and
then start a conversation about porn?”
“It’s been done before.”
“By you, maybe,” she said with a raised eyebrow. He frowned for just a moment, his lips pulling
down slightly at the corners. “Harry help me!”
“I’m trying,” he said, taking her drink from her hand and gulping from the cup. She looked again
at the people around them, her gaze stopping on the group of girls who had been talking about
her earlier, now huddled in the opposite corner and whispering conspiratorially.
“What about her?”
“Who? Which one?”
“The one that looks like Brittany Murphy,” Isabel replied, talking about the girl who was glaring
at Isabel over her shoulder.
Harry screwed up his face. “She looks nothing like Brittany Murphy. She looks a bit like Poppy,
if anything.” He paused, swiping the back of his hand across his lips. “My ex-girlfriend, I mean.
From Cheshire.”
“Oh,” was all Isabel said. She’d only heard him speak about Poppy once before. “Well what’s
she like?”
“Who? Poppy?”
“No, Brittany Murphy.”
Harry shrugged. “She’s alright, they’re all alright.”
“Are they…are they mean?” Isabel asked quietly, trying her best not to look over at them but she
could feel their gaze burning into the side of her face.
“Not really,” Harry said with a frown, confused.
Isabel nodded, but she suddenly wished they weren’t sitting so close together because, despite
the fact that Caro and her friends weren’t bitchy, Isabel’s proximity to Harry had drawn that out
of them, and it was making her uncomfortable.
Harry watched her intently, noting the change in her expression as she went from playful to
awkward. He swallowed, continuing: “Caro was the best one, but she hates me now, so. Who
cares about them, anyway?”
Isabel narrowed her eyes at him. “The best one?”

“Like the nicest, I mean. Easiest to get along with.”
“You called her a psycho bitch, Harry.”
Harry sighed. “You don’t know her.”
“Oh, I’m sure having you as a boyfriend was a barrel of laughs,” Isabel replied moodily, draining
the rest of the cup. When she looked up, Harry was frowning at her again. “What?”
“I –” he paused and then looked at his hands resting in her lap. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he
said eventually. “It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
Isabel blinked at him, about to ask him to elaborate when Harry started speaking again.
“You look nice,” he said quietly. She smiled, taken aback, and the corners of his lips quirked up
too.
“Yeah?”
“Of course you do,” Harry said. His face was flushed, his eyes slightly glassy as they dropped
from her eyes to her lips and then back up again. “God, I wanted you so bad earlier.”
“You did?” Isabel said, even though she knew he did. He nodded slowly, his eyes trailing down
her face.
“Mmm,” Harry replied. He leaned forward even closer. “This afternoon was so good.”
“It was alright,” Isabel shrugged with a grin, and he smirked at her.
“I thought it was ‘fucking amazing, Harry, oh my God –’”
“Shut up,” Isabel grumbled as he cackled, his hands in her lap now untangling so that his fingers
trailed across her calves.
He tilted his head to the side, surveying her curiously for a second before saying lowly: “You
know what I really want to do?”
“What?” Isabel asked, forgetting all about the eyes on her as Harry’s hands inched up her legs.
“I wish we were at home,” he said slowly, “so we could go upstairs…”
“Yeah?” Isabel prompted breathlessly.
“And I’d only have to move my hands a bit higher,” he said, doing just that until his fingertips
brushed the very top of her thighs, and she bit down on her lip, “and then I’d get to feel how bad
you want it.”
“Oh my god,” was all she replied, gripping his bicep so he couldn’t move his hand anymore,
knowing it would only end in disaster.
Harry said nothing, just licked his lips and stared at her, and she could see the cogs working in
his head as his fantasy punched its way into reality, and he leaned right forward suddenly, his
mouth going to her ear.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Harry whispered, his teeth grazing her earlobe, and she nodded as he stood
up, extending his hand to help her up before pinching his lip between his fingers, his face flushed
as he pushed his way through the crowd and she followed him.
She stumbled blindly after him through the fog of people, feeling horrendously out of control of
both herself and the situation and wishing more than anything that she could reach out and grab
Harry’s hand to steady herself but she couldn’t. She was shoved by someone’s back on her left
side and tripped over her drunken feet, nearly tumbling to the floor before somebody caught her.
Blond Anime Guy hauled her up, flashing her a smile. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He grinned. “I’m Jack.”
Isabel’s eyes flickered to find Harry, but she couldn’t see him. “Isabel,” she said absently.
“You want a drink?”
“No, I’m okay –”
“Are you sure?”
“I was just actually going –”
Someone clasped her wrist, and she looked over her shoulder to find Harry, his eyebrows pulled
into a frown. “Let’s go.”
“Harry,” Jack said, scowling. “We were just talking, actually.”
Harry just raised his eyebrows, his hand slipping from Isabel’s wrist to lace his fingers through
hers. “Okay, well stop talking, because we have somewhere to be.”
Jack leaned towards Harry conspiratorially. “Harry, mate, find your own girl.”
Isabel scowled, disgusted, but before she could tell him to piss off Harry made a revolted sound
in the back of his throat. “She’s right here!” Harry spat. “Don’t be fucking gross, mate.”
“Jesus Christ, sorry,” Jack said, backing up with his hands held up in surrender. Harry said
nothing, pushing passed Jack and dragging Isabel after him, pulling her upstairs without another
word.
She stumbled after him, listening to him mumble about disgusting fucking boys before he tugged
her into a room, checking it was empty before shutting the door and slamming Isabel against it,
his tongue instantly pushing past her lips and letting her taste his mouth, all lemonade and mint
and vodka.
She moaned as he kissed her, his hands frantically pushing up her top to expose more skin as his
mouth pressed and pulled against hers. She yanked at his curls between her fists and he put a
hand to the door to steady himself, groaning into her mouth and driving his hips forward to meet
hers.
He pulled away, his eyes glazed over and dark, his lips glistening. “I want you all the time,” he
slurred, and she realised he was drunker than she’d thought. “I wanna fuck you literally every
second. I’m going crazy.” He bit down on her collarbone, wanting to hear her gasp, before
looking around the dark room to find the bed.
“Harry… maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” she mumbled unconvincingly as he pulled her over
to the bed, setting her down and leaning over her.
“I need to,” he moaned, kissing the exposed skin of her stomach. She laced her hands through his
hair, breathing heavily as his lips brushed over her skin.
He lifted his head up, his eyes serious. “You want me to stop?” he asked earnestly, and she
shook her head wildly. He smirked, kissing up the skin of her arm, his lips brushing over her
pulse point.
“Harry?” she breathed, a thought occurring to her out of nowhere, and he lifted his head to look
at her questioningly. “Did you fuck Lily Hughes?”
He frowned, shaking his head like a dog as though he misheard her and needed to clear his head.
“Huh?”
“Millie said you fucked Lily Hughes.”
“Well, yeah, I did,” he said with a shrug. “And?”
In their conversations, they never addressed three things: Adam, sex with other people, and what
their relationship status was. But their unspoken rule meant nothing to Isabel’s intoxicated brain,
and she went on without pausing for thought.
“I just think that’s something I need to know.”

“You want a … catalogue of all the girls I’ve fucked?” he asked incredulously, stumbling over
the words and looking as though he couldn’t believe this is where they’d ended up.
“Just the ones you’ve fucked while you’ve also been with me,” she clarified, and he frowned at
her.
He pulled back, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her and looking down at her with
apprehension. She stroked his knee with the back of her hand. “What?”
He swallowed before leaning down and brushing his lips against hers. “Are you asking me not to
have sex with anyone else?”
She paused this time, proceeding with caution. “I’m not really sure what I want you to do.”
He swiped his tongue across his bottom lip, running a hand through his hair before saying: “I
hooked up with Lily in like... January? February? I haven’t had sex with anyone since before that
fancy dress party last month. Except you, obviously.”
She nodded slowly, processing the information as he looked away carefully.
“Have you?” he asked with forced nonchalance.
She nearly burst out laughing. “Of course not,” she snorted.
“Okay,” he responded, crawling over to her so that he was on top of her again.
“’Kay,” Isabel replied happily, and his lips reconnected with hers, his tongue invading her mouth
heavily as she sighed and wrapped her legs around his waist.
His hand was edging its way higher and higher up her thigh, both of their breathing getting
heavier and more erratic, her heart thumping loudly in her chest and a low growl starting in the
back of his throat, when they heard his name being shouted down the hall.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he snarled, pushing himself off the bed and running a hand through his
hair, trying to compose himself before opening the door. Isabel jumped off the bed, yanking
down her top and backing as far into the wall as possible in order to conceal her from direct view
from the hallway.
“Y’alright?” Harry asked as casually as possible, leaning against the doorframe.
“It’s Caro,” a girl’s voice that Isabel didn’t recognise bleated. “She’s really upset downstairs.”
There was a heavy pause.
“Why’s she upset?” Harry pressed eventually.

“I think she’s a bit jealous of that blonde girl you’re friends with,” the voice said timidly, and
Isabel saw the muscles in Harry’s shoulders tense. “We all told her that you’re obviously not
with her, but she’s in a state and – I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Harry replied. “Thanks, Vic. I’ll just, um, finish what I was doing in here and be right
down.”
He shut the door and turned to Isabel slowly. “Caro’s upset,” he said, as though Isabel hadn’t
overheard the entire conversation.
“Yes,” Isabel replied.
“I should…” Harry paused. “I should go and speak to her, shouldn’t I? I feel bad. Should I go see
if she’s okay?”
“What are you gonna say?” Isabel said, trying to appear taken aback by Harry’s concern for Caro
but she wasn’t. She knew Harry hadn’t meant it when he called her a psycho bitch, and just
because he hadn’t been in love with her didn’t mean he wanted to see her upset. Still though, it
might have been a bit selfish but she didn’t want Harry to go downstairs. She wanted him to stay
up here, with her, away from all the girls that were talking about her earlier.
He shrugged, running a hand across his face. “Fuck knows.” He stumbled towards her, bending
down and pressing his lips to hers. “Sorry, Is. I feel bad.”
“It’s okay, I –”
“I’ll just check if she’s alright, then I’ll feel better,” Harry said, and Isabel stopped talking. She
thought he’d meant he felt bad for abandoning their hook-up, and she flushed. Harry smiled,
kissing her again before heading out of the room.
Isabel followed him a few moments later, and when she got downstairs her eyes found him
straight away, sitting in the corner with Caro, one of his hands rubbing her back and gazing at
her while she spoke to him with a heaving chest and glistening cheeks.
Isabel felt what may have been an irrational wave of panic, but once it started it hit her like a
tsunami, and her fists clenched as she tried to stop herself from crying. Everyone thought
Harry obviously wouldn’t be with Isabel. They were more than an unlikely match, they were
incompatible. It was inconceivable that they’d be together.
“Issy!” someone shouted, wrenching her attention away from Harry. It was Caitlin, sitting
opposite Harry and Caro with a drink in her hand. “Come sit with me.”
Isabel obliged, taking a sip from Caitlin’s drink when it was offered, and the pair of them turned
to stare at Harry and Caro.
“Poor girl,” Caitlin mused, and Isabel nodded, feeling sick.

“She thinks you and Harry are hooking up,” Caitlin said, glancing at Isabel curiously.
Isabel laughed hysterically, her voice suddenly an octave higher. “That’s mental.”
Caitlin laughed too, and then touched Isabel’s arm, looking at her with wide, drunken eyes. “I’m
sorry I was such a bitch to you at first, Isabel. I let my … my feelings get in the way.”
“It’s okay,” Isabel said, her heart plummeting. “I always guessed that you liked him.”
“Oh God,” Caitlin replied, biting on her lip nervously. “It’s not that obvious, is it?”
“Not at all,” Isabel assured, shaking her head vigorously and squeezing Caitlin’s knee. “It’s just
cos you and me are similar, I think.”
“I thought maybe you would get with him,” Caitlin looked at her lap sadly. “I mean, I know you
kissed him once but, like, I thought more than that. But I mean, it’s obvious you two are friends
now and it’s just – it’s really hard for me because he doesn’t know, and we’re such good friends
and I – I have to see him all the time.”
Isabel felt guilt creep up on her, rising from her stomach in a way that made her feel sick. “I’m
sorry, Caitlin. That must be horrible.”
She shrugged in a failed attempt to be nonchalant. “I deal with it, it’s fine.” But Isabel would
have put money on the fact that she wasn’t dealing with it, not at all.
Isabel made her mind up to end whatever was going on with Harry then. It was hurting other
people, and one look at Caro crying drunkenly in the corner told her that it would end up hurting
Isabel, too.
But then as they were leaving, Harry slid a warm hand around her waist and whispered four
small words, with his lips brushing her ear and his teeth grazing her skin, that made her heart
pound in her chest, and wonder whether it was much too late for her to turn back now.
“I’ll come to London.”

End Notes:
helloooooo!!
so just as things may have been looking up, more problems arise – how do you think Isabel will
deal with them? and Harry too? do you think they’re moving too fast?? are they even
moving anywhere or is it just sex???
just to quickly clear up confusion over a few things from last week – yes, Adam is still in a
coma! and no, his parents don’t have to pay for his life support, in the UK we have a National
Health Service that is funded by the tax payer and the government, and so healthcare is free!
see ya next Thursday for Isabel’s birthday weekend, if you have any questions hit me
up oxygenstyles.tumblr.com :)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
stand-in-boyfriend
May
Isabel had always been a proactive, determined kind of girl who went for the things she wanted
and was persistent enough to keep at it until she got it. So it was kind of problematic that the
thing she wanted was the thing that she was trying to stop herself from getting.
Because what she wanted was what someone else wanted, too, maybe just as much. And
although it was killing her, Isabel thought that being with Harry would hurt Caitlin even worse.
It had all started after work the evening following Matt’s party, when he'd asked her to come
over and stay the night but she’d refused.
“I don’t have any of my stuff,” she’d said.
“So? You can just borrow a toothbrush and I’ll drop you home early tomorrow." He looked at
her and smiled. "It’s not like you need clothes to wear in bed.”
“I don’t have my pills,” Isabel tried, knowing how much it frightened boys when there was any
mention of birth control, wanting to wipe the stupid smirk off his face.
Harry was completely unfazed. “You always keep them in your purse."
“I’ve got an essay due tomorrow morning and I need to finish it,” she said desperately, clutching
at straws.
Harry frowned now, clutching the steering wheel tighter. “But you told me yesterday you already
finished it earlier this week.”
“It was another one,” she mumbled, and he sighed, not believing her at all.
“You’re ridiculous, and an awful liar, Isabel. You might as well not even try because it never
works.”
“I’ve got a…feminine situation,” she admitted. This was, finally, a version of the truth, and she
expected Harry to give up at the mention of her period, but he didn't.
He looked over at her, frowning so deeply, the black rings under his eyes seeming even darker
when he did so, like all the tired, sad parts of his face were standing out because of her. “We’re
not just about sex, Isabel. This isn’t what this is to me.”
Isabel blinked at him for a moment, taken aback. “What is it then?” When he didn’t reply she
swallowed, pausing before repeating: “What is it then, Harry?”
“We’ve had sex three times, Is. And we spent every fucking day together for two weeks," he
muttered, and she didn't know what to say because it was true. They'd done things, like going to
town together after work and watched films and made actual plans together, and even though the
implication was always that it was because they were friends, it still meant something to her -
and him, apparently.
"It's not - I'm not…” he trailed off, glancing at her again. “I’m not Louis, Isabel.”
Her heart plummeted. She looked down at her lap, wanting to say something but her throat felt
tight and she couldn’t get any words out.
"Please come," he said eventually. "I don't care that we can't have sex, I was only joking
before."
"Won't it look weird to Niall and Zayn that I'm staying over?" she choked out, suddenly terrified
at how persistent he was being because the last thing she wanted to do was tell him about Caitlin,
knowing it would kill her if Harry found out.
Harry sighed loudly. "I don't give a fuck about that," he said. "I know you’re scared of telling
them but I don't think we should keep it a secret, Is."
"Harry -"
"It’s fine,” Harry said before she could say anything else, knowing from her tone that she wasn't
going to give in. “I’ll take you home.”
Then all week, as hard as it was, Isabel had avoided him. She had revision to do, she’d said, and
then she holed herself up in the library in most of her spare time in case he decided to come over
unannounced. At work, she went back to putting her headphones in and reading rather than
talking to him, and on the weekend when they went out with the others, Isabel kept as far away
from Harry as she could, pretending not to notice that he spent most of his time frowning at her,
and also pretending not to notice that her heart sank every time he spoke to Caitlin.
It was a horrendous kind of self-torture. She missed him so much that it hurt, and what hurt more
was seeing how confused he was, how his face fell when she would purposely go out of her way
to avoid sitting next to him or answer back bluntly to his questions in the car rides home from
work.
And now it was Sunday, exactly a week until her birthday, and it was a busy shift at work. She
hadn’t seen Harry since Friday night and even just walking in and seeing him sitting in the shoe
booth in his red polo with his messy citrus hair made her heart pang with guilt, and with the fact
that she missed him way more than she should have.
The shift ended, and Harry was already waiting by his car when Isabel came out, leaning up
against the boot in his black baggy jumper, a matching black beanie pulled over his hair. Isabel
walked over cautiously, shooting him a smile that he didn’t return.
“Put your bag in here,” Harry said, yanking the boot open for her with some force.
She frowned. “It’s okay, I can just put it on my lap.”
“We’re not going home just yet,” Harry told her, taking her bag from her and shoving it in the
boot.
“Aren’t we?” Isabel asked, confused.
“No, we’re not,” Harry confirmed, closing the boot with a slam and walking round to manually
lock the car.
Isabel raised her eyebrows at him. “Well, what are we doing?"
“We’re going to have fun,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He strolled through the car park, not checking to see whether or not she was following, which,
obviously, she was. “We’re not going clubbing, are we? Because we both smell like feet.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a Sunday night and we both have classes tomorrow morning, I’m not a
complete idiot, believe it or not.”
“Could have fooled me,” she mumbled, and he chuckled but said nothing else.
He glanced at her as she shuffled along nervously beside him, his lips pulling up when he saw
how uncomfortable she was. Isabel and spontaneity did not go hand in hand.
They didn’t have to walk far to get to their destination – they just crossed the road and were
there. The seafront, at eleven pm on a Sunday evening, was completely empty and hideously
cold. But there was something kind of pretty about it at night, Isabel had always thought; the
waves seemed black instead of blue, and they hit the pebbly beach like they were angry, like they
stored up their tension until the children were in bed and the sun had gone away.
“Do you want a beer?” Harry asked, pulling his sleeves down so that they covered his hands. She
nodded, and he hurried off to a nearby fish and chip shop while she sat down on the shore,
pulling her coat tightly around her. The cold wind bit into her cheeks and made her nose red and
her teeth chatter slightly, but she didn’t mind. She felt strangely alive.
“Here,” Harry said, coming back with two Heinekens and passing one to her, sitting himself
down onto the ground next to her and taking a swig of his beer. “It’s pretty cool at night, isn’t
it?”
“Yeah, I was just thinking that,” Isabel said quietly. “It reminds me of Sweden.”
Harry smiled. “Really?”

“Yeah. My mum’s from a place called Norrköping, it’s like a two-hour drive from Stockholm,
and there’s like this big river that runs right through it. The water there is - at night it’s so
beautiful, I think, it’s like a black mirror. I don’t know how to explain it. I just always thought
that, ever since I was little.”
“I’d love to see it,” Harry said softly, staring out at the water with an almost envious look in his
eye. He paused, before adding quickly: “I’ve never been out of England before.”
“How come?”
Harry shrugged. “Money. Adam. That sort of thing.”
It was said so casually, thrown aside like that, but Isabel knew what it took to say it, how hard it
was for him to bring this up.
Isabel sipped her beer, leaning into Harry’s side before she could stop herself and resting her
head against his shoulder, and they listened to the waves crash onto the shore in the first
comfortable silence they'd shared in a long while.
“Why are we here, Harry?” she asked quietly after a while.
“Wow, that’s a tricky one. A bit too philosophical for me, Is," he joked teasingly, and she poked
his side.
“You know what I mean. Why are we here? Was it to purposely make my arse numb?”
“Well, you have been avoiding me,” he said with a small smile. “So I thought maybe a cold-arse-
intervention was needed.”
“Are you going to answer properly or not?” she huffed. “Because, as delightful this is, I am fully
ready to postpone this excursion until after my exams.”
He eyed her with caution, taking a deep breath and playing with his lower lip.
“Because this is the last Sunday you’re ever gonna have as a teenager,” he said. “You’re never
going to come and drink beer on a Sunday night, on the beach, at 11pm, when you’re forty, you
know? That’s just something that adults don’t do, not that combination all together. I just – I
always think about this. You’re never gonna be as young as you are now. It’s kind of cool, don’t
you think?” He looked down at her, his eyes shining. “Maybe it sounds a bit arty and pretentious,
but I mean it. When we’re old, none of all the shit we think about all day will matter, yeah?
Like, oh she blanked my texts, they turned out to be a bad friend, you ruined my day one time, my
hair looks weird when I wake up in the morning. But stuff like this will always matter to me, I
think. And that’s pretty fucking cool, really.”
Isabel blinked up at him, looking at his cold, red nose and the dark circles embedded into his skin
and the warm, mantis green of his eyes staring down at her. “I don’t understand you,” she
admitted at last, and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“So?” he said. “I don’t understand me, either.”
~~~
Covent Garden Station was packed the following Saturday afternoon, bustling with shoppers and
pushchairs and tourists and squealing twelve-year-old girls who seemed to be the most passive
aggressive of everyone.
They’d parked Harry’s car outside her mum’s house before catching the Piccadilly line into
town. It was surprisingly cold, given that it was May, and Harry was wrapped up in a grey
jumper with a collared shirt underneath, a bandana tied around his head. Isabel didn’t want to
admit it, but sitting opposite him on the tube from Hammersmith to Covent Garden, she’d
realised that she actually liked the bandana after all.
When they walked out of the station, Isabel tugging her coat around herself tightly, she
immediately spotted her dad standing opposite the station. He was leaning against a tree with his
arms crossed, staring at one of the street performers with a look of distaste, and she laughed
before they’d even reached him.
“Wizz!” he cried when she scurried over, pulling her into a bear hug.
“Hi, Daddy!” She pulled away, studying his face carefully. She hadn’t seen him since Easter, and
although that wasn’t long, she always liked to check to see if he looked significantly older, less
healthy, more tired. There was no one else to look after him other than James, and the collective
conclusion amongst everyone who knew him was that James was useless.
His grey eyes were warm and bright though, as always, and he was grinning down at her as
happily as ever. “How are you, darling?”
“I’m great,” she said, squeezing his arm. “How are you?"
“Oh, just fine. Who's this then?" Isabel gasped, having completely forgotten about Harry.
Spinning on her heel, she saw him standing awkwardly a few feet away from them, playing with
his lip and looking at her father apprehensively.
“Dad, this is Harry,” she introduced, tugging Harry over to them.
“Nice to meet you,” Harry said, shaking her father’s hand, and everyone pretended not to notice
the slight tremble in Harry’s fingers.
Isabel felt a wave of excitement as she saw the pair of them together. Her father was without a
doubt her favourite person in the world, and Harry was fast shoving his way into the top five at
least. The thought of Harry and her dad talking and getting along had, she supposed, been her
main reason for asking Harry to come with her to London rather than Millie or Scarlett. And now
they were stood facing each other, Harry two or three inches taller than her dad but he looked so
terrified that he seemed smaller, and he shoved his shaking hands into his pockets before
someone pointed them out.
“I’m Patrick,” her dad replied. “You Issy’s new boyfriend then?”
He raised his eyebrows jokingly at Harry, not bothered in the slightest whether or not Harry said
yes or no, but Harry coughed nervously and looked over at Isabel for help.
“I, um, he’s just –” Isabel started, but her dad interrupted her.
“Anyone can be better than the last one, Is, that’s for sure,” he said cheerily. “Your sister told me
about that crying at Easter business, she heard from your mum obviously.”
Isabel blushed scarlet and avoided Harry’s burning gaze, hurrying after her father who was
leading them towards the restaurant where he’d booked a table for lunch.
“A nice guy would be good for you. Not like Savannah’s Alex – not that he’s not a sound guy,
but you know, not the brightest bulb in the set is he? I always said she would marry the first guy
with a decent bank balance.”
“Yeah, you did say that,” Isabel said.
“You should have told me about him though, Wizz,” he said, squeezing her arm and sounding
entirely disappointed. “It’s not like I would have been much of a help, but I always thought we
told each other stuff. I thought – well, I don’t know.”
Isabel swallowed, struggling for words. She knew her dad was blunt and to the point, and only
had her best interests in mind, but she hadn’t exactly expected the interrogation straight away, in
front of Harry, before they’d even sat down.
“Well, you know,” she said light-heartedly. “Bit embarrassing when you realise you let
everything you stand for get crushed by a complete bellend.”
“Fucking hell,” he said with a laugh, squeezing her arm again. “I know. Ask your mother.”
They sat down for lunch at Browns, a vaguely posh restaurant in Covent Garden that made Harry
fidget nervously as he looked at the prices. He and Isabel were sitting opposite her father, who
was squinting through his reading glasses at the menu.
“So we’ll want wine and bread – what wine do you want, Wizz?”
“Pinot Grigio, please,” she replied. “Is that okay, Harry?”
He nodded stiffly, biting down on the lip as he looked at the menu.

The waitress came over to take their order, smiling down at Harry in a much too friendly way
that made Isabel scowl. “What would you like to order?” she said directly to Harry, who hadn’t
even noticed her flirtatious advances he was so anxious.
Her father took the lead, ordering the bread and wine and his main course before Isabel said her
choice.
“Sure,” the waitress said, diverting her attention back to Harry, smiling and batting her
eyelashes. “And you?”
“I, um,” he started, stumbling over the words nervously. “I’ll have the chicken and avocado
sandwich. Thanks.”
“A sandwich?” Isabel’s dad questioned. “Are you sure, kid? You can get anything you want.”
“I’m not really that hungry,” Harry replied, just as Isabel heard his stomach rumble. He coughed
over it, shifting in his seat and looking down at the table. Isabel’s dad frowned at him,
concerned, and Isabel wasn’t sure whether to laugh at how nervous Harry was or kick him and
tell him to man up.
“So you two work together, yeah?” her dad asked, taking off his reading glasses and looking
between them warmly.
“Yeah,” Harry said, meeting his gaze shyly. “Three times a week.”
“At the bowling alley,” he nodded. “That’s a fucking ace job for your age, really is. Isabel says
the pay’s an absolute steal.”
Harry smiled. “Yeah, we’re pretty lucky, I think.”
“Definitely. And you do – no, it's not you that does Geography, is it?”
“No, Dad, that was Louis. Harry doesn’t go to my uni.”
“Of course, yeah… You do art, right, Harry?”
It was asked with polite interest, the formalities of introduction being taken care of before they
could get into more interesting conversation, but Isabel froze slightly at the question, looking at
Harry anxiously. He had never even told her that he did Fine Art; she had to find out the
information through Zayn and Liv because he was so secretive about it.
“I do – well I’m sort of –”
“He does Fine Art,” Isabel interjected, knowing they’d be here all day if she let Harry ramble on.
“At the art uni round the corner.”
“That’s one of the best in the country, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” Isabel replied excitedly, never more grateful for her father than at that moment. “And
Harry’s got a partial scholarship, he’s that good. They don’t even give out full scholarships, only
partial ones, to like six people in the year, and Harry’s one of them.”
Harry smiled, embarrassed, and her dad nodded appreciatively.
“Well, I’m in software development,” he told Harry as the waitress came back with the wine. “I
know loads of people who did art at uni. It opens up lots of doors, you know, especially if you
happen to graduate from one of the best in the country.”
And then Harry relaxed. Isabel wasn't sure whether people had taken the piss out of him for
doing art before, or whether he was just so introverted that any revelation about his personal life
made him uncomfortable, but it was almost incredible the way he lit up once he knew he had
Isabel's dad's approval. He joined in their conversation with enthusiasm, listening intently when
he didn’t have anything to contribute, and when he and her dad got into the topic of some fancy
book that Isabel hadn't read, she listened to the pair of them with a smile so big her face hurt.
Afterwards they walked to the theatre as Isabel’s dad, as was tradition on her birthday, had
booked seats for a play – on this specific occasion, to see Matilda. Isabel sat sandwiched
between the pair of them, her knee resting against Harry’s, and his gaze frequently landed on her
as they watched, judging her reaction to parts he found funny. And Isabel found herself wishing
somewhat desperately then that Harry being her stand-in-boyfriend was something that could
continue permanently.
~~~
After saying goodbye to her dad, Isabel and Harry were heading back to her mother’s house in
Hammersmith when Isabel had an idea.
Harry hadn’t seen much of London – he’d only been once or twice before his marathon, and then
he’d only ever been to the tourist hotspots – but having grown up here, Isabel wanted to show
him one of her favourite places. So changing at Leicester Square, they got the Northern Line
down to Waterloo and Isabel looped her arm through his, marching them across the main road
towards the river.
“Southbank,” she announced when they got there, grinning up at him. He looked across the
water, leaning against the railing at the edge of the bank and looking over at St Pauls, the
Millennium Bridge hovering across the water.
“That got destroyed in one of the Harry Potters,” he pointed out, and she laughed.
“You sound like me,” she said. “Throwing a bit of trivia into everyday conversation.”
“You’re making me into a monster,” he smirked, his eyes shining. “I’m a Frankenstein of film
trivia.”
“I’m improving your character. Trust me, this information is invaluable.”
“Sure it is,” he teased. “Why don’t you write that in your exam next week?”
“Oh God,” she groaned, leaning her head on the railing. “I don’t think I’ve ever revised for
anything so much in my life and I’m still definitely going to fail. I hate history.”
He paused, considering what he was about to say before eventually asking: “But were you
actually revising? Or were you just doing it to avoid me?”
She lifted her head up to look at him nervously, her hair sticking up in random directions in a
way that made his lips tug up in the corners.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she lied, and he shook his head at her, exasperated.
“I thought we both agreed it would be better if you stopped lying?”
“I didn’t want to avoid you,” she mumbled.
“Can you see why I might find you sort of confusing, Isabel?” he asked with forced light-
heartedness, still smiling though it didn't reach his eyes. “Because one minute you were kissing
me and telling me not to have sex with anyone else and asking me to be your stand-in-boyfriend,
and then you were avoiding me like the plague for two weeks.”
“I wasn’t avoiding you last week,” Isabel argued. “We were both busy, that wasn’t my fault. You
had all that art stuff to do.”
He rolled his eyes. “I would have made time.”
“Okay,” she shrugged. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Okay,” he repeated tiredly. He stared at her for a minute, entirely confused, before he reached
out and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.
The pair of them walked silently along Southbank, Harry’s thumb rubbing the back of her palm
as she thought about what to do, whether she should tell him about Caitlin or whether she should
yank her hand out of his to stop both of them getting false hope.
“You want an ice cream?” Isabel choked out, grappling at straws of what to say to break the
horrifyingly sharp silence. He blinked at her blankly, and she knew he’d been miles away when
he shook his head out to recollect himself.
“Ice cream?”
“Yeah,” she clarified. He wetted his lips and nodded, and they walked over to the kiosk without
another word. They bought a 99 with a flake each and went to sit at a bench overlooking the
river, neither of them having spoken for ages, and Isabel’s chest felt tight, like he’d knocked all
the air out of her.
“So,” Isabel choked out, watching him as he ate and avoided her eyes. “How’s Caro?”
Harry finally looked at her, but he was frowning. “Huh?”
“Have you spoken to her since the party?”
He closed his eyes for a second, a grimace forming. “Why the fuck would I have spoken to
her?”
“I don’t know, I just -”
“She was upset, Isabel,” Harry said, sighing. “Just because I don’t… just because I never had any
feelings for her doesn’t mean I like making people upset.”
“So what are you gonna do when you actually have a girlfriend, then?” Isabel cut back, and a
little bit of ice cream melted in between her fingers but she didn’t care. “Because she’ll still be
upset then.”
“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Doesn’t seem very likely at the moment, does it?”
He bit his lip and scanned her face as she frowned, confused, and then all of a sudden he smiled,
his eyes going soft. “You have ice cream on your nose.”
He reached out his hand and swiped his thumb over the tip of her nose, grinning and bringing his
fingers to his lips to lick it off. She rubbed her hand over her face to check it was all gone,
screwing up her nose so it wrinkled, and Harry’s smile got even bigger. “I think you’re so cute,”
he said quietly, and then his eyes widened and he flushed, staring at the floor and promptly
shoving about half of his ice cream into his mouth so he couldn't say anything else.
They finished their ice cream and then kept walking, falling back into the uncomfortable
emptiness of neither of them speaking, and Isabel couldn't help but notice that only one of
Harry's hands was in his pocket, the one nearest her hanging limply by his side. She wanted to
hold it again so badly because she felt so far apart from him that she could have cried, but she
didn't, and this time neither did he.
“Oh that’s cool,” Harry said suddenly. “There’s books.”
He was looking at the space under one of the bridges, where there were tables lined with
hundreds of tattered books, row upon row of them, of all shapes and sizes.
“Oh, yeah,” Isabel replied, smiling. “That’s actually why I thought you’d like it here. They sell
loads of second hand books here, do you want to go look?”
Harry nodded, his eyes widening like a child in a sweetshop, and he grabbed his Isabel's wrist
and tugged her over to the tables eagerly before letting go and scanning the titles carefully, his
tongue between his teeth in concentration.
Isabel wandered through the rows, watching him, mostly, but occasionally looking down at the
books as she ran her finger over the spines. One caught her eye – a copy of The Catcher in the
Rye that was in fairly good shape.
“Harry, come look at this,” she beckoned. “Look, it’s a good copy! You should buy it, get rid of
your one.”
He swallowed and stared at the book, nodding vaguely. “Yeah, maybe… another time.”
She frowned as he walked off, abandoning looking at the books and stalking off down the bank.
She scurried after him.
“Where are you going? Harry!”
He stopped abruptly, letting her catch up. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t reply, just let her fall into step with him and kept walking, though far too quickly and
with long strides that Isabel couldn’t match.
“Harry, talk to me,” she said, gripping his arm but he yanked it away.
“Stop,” he hissed at her.
“Why are you upset?”
He ignored her.
“Wait, Harry… Harry! What the –”
“Isabel, just shut up for one second!” he snapped. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
She stopped walking, staring at his back apprehensively and trying her best not to cry, but her
bottom lip was wobbling at how unfair this all was and all she wanted to do was go home.
Harry stopped walking as well, pausing for a moment and hanging his head before closing the
distance between them as he looked at his feet, taking deep breaths.
“Stop doing this to me,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I’m so sorry,” he replied. “I’m so sorry.”
“Okay,” she said flatly.
“Adam,” he said in a strangled voice. “I – um, I just was thinking about Adam. I get a bit … I
don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, leaning his head on her shoulder, collapsing into her. She could feel
his breath on her neck, laboured and heavy, and she stroked his back gently.
“Okay,” she said again, not condoning him but not begrudging him for it, either.
“I have his book,” Harry explained after a moment, wrapping his arms around Isabel’s waist and
burying his head into her neck. “He did English at UCL before he ... but he always said it was his
favourite book, even though he first read it when he was like thirteen. He was very pretentious
about it for a while, everyone would have laughed had he been anyone else, you know? That's
why my sister’s called Phoebe. My mum let Adam name her.” He laughed a little, a small, sad
laugh that made the lump in her throat seem unbearable, and then took a deep breath. “You were
right when we were at the zoo. I try to be like him, I always have. I read all the books he read. I
listen to the same music and watch all the same stuff and I drive his car and I - I fucking take the
same shit. I did it before he... but when I do it now I feel like – it's like he hasn’t gone.”
“I’m sorry, Harry,” she replied quietly. “I wouldn’t have – I didn’t mean to –”
He brought his head up, and although Isabel had been convinced that he might have been crying,
his eyes were dry. “You don’t have to apologise. It's my fault.”
“But I –”
“You always apologise for everything too much,” he told her. He wasn’t teasing her like Millie
and Scarlett and Louis did. He wasn’t laughing at her. He was saying it as a fact, his voice laced
with sadness. “You don’t need to.”
Isabel swallowed, not sure where to look. “Is he ever gonna wake up, Harry?”
Harry licked his lips over and over again, unsure how to answer for a long time. “They don’t
think so, no.”
“Oh,” Isabel said, and although she had guessed that was the answer, it was enough to break her
heart because she wasn’t sure whether Harry believed it or not.
He rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry that I’m like this,” he said. “I
don’t want you to have to put up with me. It’s okay if you’re avoiding me, I just – I just want to
know if you don’t want me anymore.”
Isabel’s heart nearly broke in two. “Harry, it’s not like that. It’s nothing to do with you.”
“What’s it to do with then?”
“I – I can’t say,” she said, and the words felt like acid in her mouth because she knew how unfair
it sounded, how infuriating she was being, but she couldn’t tell him about Caitlin. She couldn’t.
He paused, pulling away and letting his arms drop. “I don’t understand,” he said flatly.
“I wish I could say, so much,” she told him.
“Then say, then!” he said, starting to sound irritated. “If there’s something wrong with me I… I
want to know.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she replied quickly, because the fact that he thought that
made her so, so sad, and suddenly she had to tell him even though it was ridiculous because they
both knew she wasn’t going to budge, that she wasn’t going to let them carry on anymore. “I
really like you, Harry.”
He stared at her blankly for a moment, entirely confused, and then the pucker between his
eyebrows materialised as he frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”
A sting of rejection hit her, but she shook it off, staring back at him bravely. “It means – it means
I like you, and I've liked you for ages, for months now I think. Fuck, I don’t know. I like you so
much, Harry.”
“Well I don’t believe you,” he said harshly, blinking rapidly. “Because I - I spend half my time
running around after you like a desperate twat begging you to kiss me, and now I'm trying again
and again with you but you barely even look at me, and – fuck, I'm forcing myself to tell you all
this shit about myself that I haven’t told anyone else - that I barely even like reminding myself
about - and you won’t even give me a reason as to why, out of fucking nowhere, you just left me
hanging?”
“It’s not like that,” she insisted, but he shook his head at her.
“How am I meant to know what it’s like? You won’t tell me.”
“Stop trying to force me to tell you!” she snapped, and maybe a month ago she would have
apologised but now she was only feeling angrier and more upset by the minute.
“Well don’t go around saying you like people when it – it’s not true, Is.”
“Don’t try and guilt trip me into this!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand tiredly. “Fuck me, I’m so
confused.”
“Harry listen, it’s not my business –”
He laughed without humour. "Not your business? Whose is it then?"
She glared at him. “You’re here with me now, in London, where there’s no one else around that
we know. Does this look like I’m avoiding you?"
“What, so if I tried to kiss you would you kiss me back?” he asked, stepping towards her, but his
voice was flat like he knew the answer already. “If I tried to kiss you now, or when we get back
to your mum’s house, would you let me?”
She shuffled awkwardly. “Well, no I can’t –”
“So it is different, isn’t it? This isn’t what it was before, and it's like - it's like I'm trying to step
forward and you've just taken eight steps back and I don’t know what I’ve done, and it’s so
fucking annoying because I can’t even make it right.” He paused, swiping his tongue over his
lips as a thought occurred to him. “Are you back with Louis?”
“Fuck off, Harry, of course I’m not.” She let there be a moment of silence before she finally said
something that had been troubling her for a while: “If you want regular sex from someone,
Harry, I’m sure there’s a queue of girls offering. But I’m not gonna be that person, regardless of
this - whatever's holding me back.”
“I’ve told you before, that’s not what this is,” Harry spat.
“Then what is it then?” she hissed back.
He paused, and for a long time Isabel thought he was going to say that he liked her too, and her
heart pounded in her chest as she waited for it.
“I don’t know,” he admitted sadly. “But you’re not letting me find out.”
End Notes:
helloooooo!
I think it's fair to say everyone's a bit confused :( lots of important things happened this chapter,
hopefully you picked up on things and enjoyed it!
next chapter's Isabel's actual birthday, what do you think's gonna happen?
see ya next week! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com

Back to index
Author's Notes:
definitely not thinking about it
May
On the morning of her birthday, Isabel and Harry were sat on the Piccadilly line in the most
horrendously awkward silence she’d experienced to date, and Harry wouldn’t stop staring at her.
Things had gone from bad to worse to positively horrific the evening before. After leaving
Southbank and travelling back to Hammersmith, the pair of them arrived on her mother’s
doorstep without having said a word to each other in over an hour, and then, upon arrival, Isabel
found out that the absolute worst had happened.
Her entire family were home.
Her mum, step-dad, sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law
were all crammed into her childhood home in a well-meaning welcome committee that made her
want to cry because she was in such a foul mood she didn't want to see any of them, and because
a full house meant that there were no spare beds and she and Harry would inevitably have to
share.
She couldn’t decide who she wanted Harry to meet less – her sister or her brother – but she
wasn’t given an opportunity to make her mind up before the pair of them were shoved into the
middle of a family dinner that made Isabel want to throw up.
Her only blessing – one that made her praise every single possible God that may exist for making
May the twenty-fourth an unusually chilly day – was that Harry’s tattoos were hidden beneath
his jumper, because that was the only possible thing that could have made James dislike him
more.
James had the typical protective older brother thing down, the type of attitude that only the
cocky, good-looking and equally as shady brothers can pull off. Isabel knew better than anyone
at the table that James and Harry had more than enough similar experiences to sustain a very
long conversation, and given the way James snarled the moment he saw him, Isabel guessed he
knew that as well as she did.
Harry had, to his credit, handled the situation much better than her. He shook everyone’s hands
and introduced himself when Isabel failed to, offering to take their bags upstairs so that her step-
dad would be spared the trouble.
“What the fuck, Isabel?” James hissed as soon as he was gone.
“Shut up, James,” Isabel had replied flatly. “When are we eating?”
Isabel’s mum had ordered a mountain of Thai food, and Isabel sat in an almost catatonic state
while she watched her entire family devour Harry alive. Savannah – true to character – fired a
thousand questions at Harry as he tried desperately to eat his Khao Phad one-handed, the other
hand steadying both Isabel’s niece Ruby and the cat who had climbed into his lap. Alex, her
brother-in-law, and her step-father Mark sat in good-natured silence, while James’ fiancée
Georgia and her mother were practically fawning over Harry, and James was glaring at him from
across the table, stabbing his chopsticks at his Som Tam with a scowl that said he wished it was
Harry’s face.
Harry just sat there, mostly in silence, his teeth gnawing on his lip in the absence of a free hand
to play with it, and his cheeks flushed. And although Isabel had insisted since the second they
had walked through the door that she and Harry were not in a relationship, nobody seemed to be
listening.
“I knew I made Kanelbulle for a reason!” her mother said, beaming at Harry as Ruby tried to pull
his bandana out of his hair. He smiled adoringly at the child in his arms shifting her in his lap
before she crushed the cat.
“Don’t let her do that, Harry,” Savannah insisted, leaning across the table towards him. “She’s
always messing with my hair as well, it’s a nuisance.”
“She’s probably surprised a guy’s got a scarf in his hair,” James grumbled, and Georgia poked
him with a frown.
Harry swallowed, looking at Isabel nervously. “I heard from Is that you just got a job at ITV,” he
tried, flashing an uneasy smile at James. “That’s sick.”
James just stared at him blankly, and Isabel rolled her eyes at her brother, pouring her wine down
her throat and reaching for more.
“It really is great,” Georgia answered for him. “We’ve both been struggling with what to do for
ages – I got a stupid degree in Classical bloody Civ, would you believe – but I’m gonna go into
teaching now I think.”
“My mum’s a teacher,” Harry smiled. “She teaches Sociology, she loves it. You’ll love it.”
Well, this was news to Isabel. She stared at the table, feeling the beginnings of a headache
forming in her temple.
“Oh, yes, of course you will, I’ve always said that to you, Georgia,” Savannah said wisely. “We
always said that, didn’t we, Alex?”
“Yeah,” Alex agreed dumbly, paying absolutely no attention as he shifted his baby son on his
lap.
“Do you know this Louis boy, Harry?” her mum asked out of nowhere, and Isabel snapped her
head up, glaring at her.
“Elsa,” her step-dad warned, but her mum wasn’t listening.
“Er, not really,” Harry replied awkwardly.
“Yeah, thanks for telling Dad, by the way, Sav,” Isabel hissed. “The one time in the year you
actually talk to him and you have to bring up my fucking problems.”
“Don’t swear!” Savannah shrieked, gesturing dramatically to her children. “And we were
worried about you, I just thought –”
“Okay,” Isabel replied flatly, sick of people telling her they were worried about her. She felt
Harry staring at her apprehensively, but she avoided his gaze, draining her wine glass.
She loved her family, she really did. But sometimes she really wished they would all shut the
fuck up.
She was the baby of a family where everyone else’s voices had been so loud from the moment
she was born that she’d quietly grown up in the shadow, a childhood spent being bossed around
by everyone else. And with the way things were between her and Harry, the last thing she
wanted was the inevitable shower of opinions and advice and guidance that she could feel
approaching like a freight train.
After dinner, Sav and Alex went to put their children to bed and then they all moved into the
living room, the opportunity finally arising for Isabel’s mum to hand out her Kanelbulle -
Swedish cinnamon buns - that she always made for every birthday. She practically force-fed
Harry them, and from Isabel’s position on the other side of the room from him, she could do
nothing but glare at her mother’s back and pour herself more wine.
Conversation – if you could call it that, since Georgia, Savannah and her mother spent the entire
time insisting that Harry come to Georgia and James’ wedding while nobody else spoke – was
kept light, but it was giving Isabel more and more of a headache every second.
“What are you up to tomorrow, Wizz?” James asked loudly, trying to distract attention from the
girls’ babbling.
“Going back to uni,” she replied. “Got exams next week.”
“We could go out in the day if you want? Me and Georgia could take you somewhere nice.”
“Actually,” Harry piped up from his seat, clearing his throat. “I sort of have plans with Isabel
tomorrow.”
“Do you?” Isabel asked bluntly, and James raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Your birthday present is – I’m giving it to you tomorrow.”
James blinked at him. “Can you not give it to her today?”
“Don’t be difficult, James,” snapped her mother. “The boy’s trying to be romantic.”
Harry’s cheeks burned and he laughed nervously. “It’s – no, I mean it’s because –”
“Don’t try and explain yourself, Harry,” Savannah said in an attempt to be kind. “We’ve all been
there once. I think it’s sweet.”
Isabel scoffed, staring into the empty wine bottle with a horrible thought that she’d been
suppressing all afternoon bringing itself to the fore.
She’d told Harry she liked him, and he hadn’t said it back.
He’d had the opportunity to for hours now, and he hadn’t. He didn’t.
She was torn from this thought by James, who had been glaring at Harry for so long that Harry
couldn’t even look at him. “So you look like the sort of boy who would know this, Harry,” he
started, and Harry paled nervously. Everyone in the room tensed, knowing this would be bad.
“My mate from uni fucked a girl last week and now he thinks he might have caught something.”
“Oh my God,” Isabel mumbled into her glass, squeezing her eyes shut as though if she wasn’t
looking, it wasn’t real.
“What would you advise?” James went on, and Savannah hooted with laughter.
“As if you don’t know what a clinic looks like, you dick.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” James snapped.
“He should go - go to the clinic and get tested,” Harry stammered, coughing into his hand and
looking at Isabel for help.
“Is that so?” James pressed, and Georgia rolled her eyes at him.
“Yes,” Harry said stiffly, fidgeting in his seat. “I would do that if I was him. It’s the only way
he’ll know.”
Isabel knew what was coming, and so did everyone apparently, because Georgia sighed loudly
and scowled at her fiancé. “He wants to ask if you’ve ever been tested for an STD, Harry, ignore
him.”
“How do you even know he’s had sex?” her mum said with a shrug, and Isabel actually cringed
in her seat, wanting to melt into the floor. She couldn’t even look at Harry but she was certain he
was blushing and squirming around in his chair, and she would have put money on the fact that
his hands were trembling again.
“I wasn’t even going to ask that!” James said loudly, though this was clearly a lie because he
immediately glowered at Harry and awaited his answer.
“I - um,” Harry said, his cheeks flaming. “Yeah, I was tested in Easter actually.”
This was simultaneously both a good and a bad answer.
“Why did you feel the need to get tested?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, James,” Mum cackled. Alex was equally as amused, red in the face he was
trying not to laugh so much, but Sav and Georgia were glaring at James angrily and Isabel and
her step-dad were pretending they didn’t exist.
“I just - I thought it would be wise.”
“Why?”
Harry gulped. “I – I just wanted to make sure I was okay. There was nothing that I –” He
struggled for words under James’ glare, mumbling fuck me under his breath before continuing. “I
wasn’t worried or anything, I just... I use condoms. Usually.”
“Oh Christ,” Isabel muttered, putting a hand to her face.
“Wait so - so you do or you don’t use condoms?” James asked sternly, and Georgia slapped him
on the knee.
“James, stop crucifying him!”
“Aren’t we glad we married into this family,” Mark mumbled to Alex, who was nearly crying
with laughter now despite the fact Savannah was about to explode, her face an angry shade of
red.
“You’re gonna put him off Isabel for life!” Savannah snapped. “Look at him, he’s so
embarrassed!”
“Well nobody else is gonna ask!” James shouted loudly. “Dad’s fucking useless, he’s probably
picking out a matching fucking headband as we speak! Mum doesn’t give a shit, you’re too far
up his arse already to even –”
“My family didn’t do this to you,” Georgia reminded him. “And you were a fucking nightmare.
You actually did have an STD at one point.”
“Of course he did,” Savannah laughed, and if Isabel hadn’t been so mortified, she probably
would have laughed too.
“I’ve never had an STD,” Harry clarified from his corner.
“That’s all I was asking,” James said, throwing his hands up, and Isabel took that as her
opportunity to leave.
“I’m going to bed,” Isabel announced, standing up rather unsteadily and heading towards the
door.
“Me too, then,” Harry said, and James nearly leaped from his seat in indignation.
“Is-a-bel,” sang Savannah just as she thought she’d escaped. “Will you come here for a
minute?”
“I’ll meet you upstairs,” she grumbled to Harry, shuffling back into the room like she was
walking to the gallows.
“Oh my God,” Savannah squealed as soon as she shut the door. “Why haven’t you told me about
him? I can’t believe you – what type of sister are you!”
“Pardon?” Isabel scowled.
“You two are so cute together,” she said, squeezing her little sister’s arm and looking to Georgia
and her mother for confirmation, while Alex rolled his eyes started to chat with Mark about
Arsenal’s latest transfer, the drama already forgotten. James just glowered.
“I don’t know whereabouts you were for this entire evening,” Isabel countered, “but as far as I’m
aware, Harry and I didn’t communicate for longer than a second.”
“But honestly, like the way he was looking at you was adorable,” Savannah insisted, and Isabel
felt like she was going to throw up. “When did you two start going out? Was it straight after
Easter when you dumped that other boy?”
“Me and Harry aren’t going out,” she spat through gritted teeth. “And I didn’t dump Louis, it
was - it doesn’t matter. Harry and I are just friends.”
“Whatever,” Savannah said with a wave of her hand. “I promise you that boy’s gonna tell you
any day–”
James stood up, towering over his sisters with hair as dark as Savannah’s and eyes as dark as
Isabel’s, a perfect, angry mix of the two of them. “Listen to me, Isabel,” James ordered. “I can
tell from a mile off that boy’s trouble, okay? You don’t want to be getting involved with –”
“Shut up, James,” Savannah snapped. “What would you know?”
“I would know because I’m a boy!” James retorted. “And I know how a boy thinks better than
you do, as hard as that may be to believe."
Isabel doubted that James really thought this about Harry; she was certain any boy she brought
home would have been treated with the same amount of contempt. Still, it hurt more than it
should have, because she'd been told Harry was trouble far too many times and it was starting to
grate.
“Just because you only thought with your dick for the first twenty years of your life doesn’t
mean Harry’s only interested in sex,” Savannah countered, and James flinched like he’d been
slapped.
“Don’t, Sav!” He turned to Isabel, frowning and placing his hands on her shoulders. “Seriously
now. You haven’t already…you wouldn’t…not with him –”
“Oh my God,” Isabel said. “I am not having this conversation with you right now.”
“You’ve had sex with that boy?” James barked, and Isabel’s cheeks burned. “I didn’t think that
you’d already - fuck! You fucked him?”
“Mark is literally right there!” she shouted, gesturing to her step-dad who was probably wishing
he could evaporate at this point. “For fuck’s sake, me and Harry are friends and that’s all there is
–”
“He’ll break your heart, Issy, you need to –”
“James, stop interfering!” snapped Savannah.
“You don’t think she’s a virgin, James?” Mum interjected in a casual tone from her seat,
squinting up at him and rubbing the cinnamon off her fingers. “I mean, we knew not before uni,
but even so when she was in Year 13 I walked in on her on her kn -”
“MUM!”
“Fuck off, Mum!” James roared. He turned to Isabel with eyes ablaze. “Who are you?”
“I’m not twelve years old, James,” she muttered. “I do actually have a life outside of being your
little sister.”
James ignored her. "Make him sleep somewhere else," he demanded to their mother. "I'm not
gonna be able to sleep now."
"We're not gonna do anything," Isabel answered evenly, though she looked at her mum
hopefully.
Both of her parents had always been like this, completely unfazed by matters that would have
horrified other people's parents. Savannah's first boyfriend in high school had practically lived
here he’d stayed over so often, and James had been a liability in every sense of the word. She'd
grown up in a house where almost anything was okay and everything was equal parts relaxed and
dramatic, but for once she wanted her mum to put her foot down and insist Harry sleep on the
sofa because she was terrified of going upstairs and sharing her bed with him.
"They're adults, James," their mum answered nonchalantly, and Isabel’s face fell in
disappointment.
“Has he… does he like you?” James asked quietly. Everyone went silent, waiting for Isabel’s
response.
“I’m going to bed,” Isabel said for the second time, turning on her heel and leaving the room,
going at the stairs three at a time.
When she burst into her bedroom, she nearly had a heart attack. Harry was almost naked, save
for his boxer briefs, surrounded by the room that epitomised the first eighteen years of her life,
and it struck her in the chest like an iron rod.
She didn’t think it would be painful to see Harry amongst her childhood things, in her little blue
bedroom with the small bed and the stuffed animals and peeling, faded posters lining the walls,
but it felt like someone had punched her.
He seemed bigger than everything, bigger and better than her entire life, and he was examining
something with such interest that she nearly broke down into tipsy, hysterical tears.
“Lena,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t know your middle name was Lena.” He was carefully
holding a Christening gift between his fingers, a little silver music box with her name engraved
which had been on her shelf as long as she could remember, and she felt a horrible pang of
longing in her chest that she reminded herself was completely unreasonable. She didn’t need to
have these feelings. She shouldn’t be having them.
“It’s Swedish,” she said flatly.
“I guessed so,” Harry smiled, placing the little box back on the shelf softly, his hand hovering by
it for a moment in case it fell. “I like all this Swedish stuff. Your mum’s hot,” he joked, and
Isabel scowled at him. “I’ve always had a thing for older women.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Isabel snapped, yanking off her jumper and throwing on a t-shirt, pulling off
her jeans and stomping off to the bathroom. When she came back, Harry was lying in her bed,
his hand behind his head as he studied the pictures stuck on the wall opposite the bed.
He smiled at her when she came in. “It’s gonna be a tight squeeze,” he grinned.
“Oh, great,” she grumbled, climbing into bed and pulling the covers up to her chin, turning the
light off immediately. “Just what I wanted.”
“You’re ridiculous, people would kill to be in your position right now,” he joked.
“Shut up before I throttle you.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Not really. It’s my birthday tomorrow, leave me alone.”
Harry laughed and then was silent for a while. “So I just got fucking slaughtered down there.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, serious now. “They’re always like this, I didn’t know they’d all be here.
I thought it was just gonna be my mum and Mark.”
“They’re always like this?”
She nodded. “Sav and James fight all the time; if we’re with my mum she laughs and if we’re
with my dad he just turns the TV on and ignores them, and everyone forgets I’m there.”
“That’s like me with Adam,” Harry said in an effort to reassure her. “I’m the middle one, he’s
the oldest and good at everything, then the other two are so little. Everyone forgets about me.”
“It’s shit,” she said, but now she felt awful because there was no way her situation could be
compared to Harry’s, not at all.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I like how your dad and your brother call you Wizz, though. It’s cute.”
Isabel said nothing, unsure how to respond, and Harry sighed out a little laugh. “I can’t believe
how much your brother doesn’t like me.”
Isabel squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t have a boyfriend till I went to uni, and then he never met
Louis. He’s never had to be the protective older brother before. Just unfortunate he’s taking it out
on you, I guess.”
“It’s fine, I’ve had it before. Poppy’s brother punched me once,” Harry said, and she frowned
curiously.
“Why?”
“Because I, uh… I cheated on her,” Harry mumbled. “It’s a small village, everyone knows
everything. He fucking hated me, and he was so scary as well. He’s like five years older and a
lorry driver, fucking massive. He was the only person that used to try it on with me, everyone
used to let me get away with murder because of - um, what happened.”
Isabel nodded into her pillow. “Did you fight back?”
“Nah, I deserved it.”

“It’s an older brother thing. It doesn’t mean James doesn’t like you, you haven’t done anything
wrong.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m gonna kill anyone who goes near Phoebe. I’ve already got my eye on this one
boy, she wouldn’t shut up about him at Easter. I don’t think he has the best of intentions.”
“He’s in Year Six.”
“I’m telling you, things get heated younger and younger nowadays,” he replied indignantly,
shifting about behind her. “I’m not taking my chances. He’s called Reed as well, that’s enough to
make him a bellend.”
“He didn’t pick his own name, Harry.”
“Did you hear what I said? He’s called Reed. Reed fucking Ascott. I wanted to cry.” He laughed
when Isabel did, the first time she’d laughed since the afternoon, and then he paused for a few
long moments. “So you’ve never had a boy sleep in this bed with you before?”
She blushed, squirming slightly as his leg brushed against hers, suddenly realising how tiny the
bed was with the two of them squeezed in it. “No, I haven’t.”
“I’m the first,” he said smugly. “I’m special.”
"Yeah," Isabel said, meaning it way more than she should.
They were quiet for a long time, Isabel curled up with her back to Harry, but she could tell he
wasn't sleeping because his breathing hadn't changed.
"Are you awake?" he whispered eventually.
"Yeah."
"I think it's your birthday now."
"I think so too."
He took a deep breath before leaning towards her and pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Happy
birthday, Is."
"Thank you," she replied, squeezing her hands into fists before she reached over and grabbed
him.
"Twenty's a big old age," he joked, and she smiled slightly.
"Yeah."
“What do you plan to do this year?”
“You’ve gotta have a plan,” he said, and she could almost hear him frowning. She nearly
laughed again because it was so Harry to have a plan for his year. He was quietly the most
methodical, organised person she knew. She didn’t doubt that he already had ideas for Niall’s
birthday and it was four months away.
“I don’t think I have one. What’s yours?”
“Get a First,” he said easily. “Do another marathon. Sell one of my paintings.”
He stopped talking even though he sounded like he hadn’t finished his list, and she nearly asked
him what else was on there but she didn’t want to push him.
“Yours should be running the Film Soc,” he said gently. “I really think you should do it, Is. It’d
be so good.”
She inhaled sharply to speak again, and she could feel the words pushing their way up her throat,
about to confess to him about Caitlin because he was being so sweet and she didn’t think she had
the strength to push him away much longer. They hovered on her tongue, the confession hot like
acid in her mouth, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from speaking.
“What?” Harry asked softly, brushing his knuckles over her spine. “What were you gonna say?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled, and it was so unfair she wanted to cry.
“Was it about the condom thing?”
“Huh?”
“When your brother was asking me about condoms, I wasn’t sure if I should…” He trailed off. “I
only don’t use them with you, and I didn’t with Caro. I just wasn’t sure how to - I didn’t know if
you wanted him to know that we…”
“Okay,” she replied. “It’s fine.”
“Okay,” he said, and there was a long pause. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What about?”
“Louis.”
She frowned, twisting her hands together. “Okay.”

“Did he - did you guys have much in common?”
She licked her lips, a bit shocked for a moment that this was his question before her frown
deepened as she thought. “Well we - I mean, we watched TV together and stuff. And he was
good at making me laugh and stuff.” She could hear how stupid it sounded even as she said it
and she sighed. “Well now I think about it, no, not really.”
“Okay,” he replied quietly, and she bit down on her lip.
“Can I ask you a question about Caro?”
“Yeah.”
“You see when you said you play games with girls, Harry?”
He tensed. “Yes,” he replied stiffly.
“Did you play games with her? Is that how you got her?”
She heard him rubbing his hand over his face. “Is, please stop thinking about this,” he mumbled,
and she said nothing, just waited in silence. “It’s just - it’s just a boy thing, yeah? It makes you
feel good when you know someone wants you. It’s the way you - you eye up a girl from across a
club and make her come over to you because you won’t go over first. It’s how you know exactly
how to make someone come but not let them because it’s fun. That’s all there is to it, Is. Just
fucking around with people because it’s hot and makes you feel good. It’s a boy thing.”
“Okay,” was all she said, because he hadn’t answered her question.
“Maybe it’s not a boy thing, maybe it’s a me thing, but it’s not… you shouldn’t overthink it,”
Harry replied tiredly. He paused, and she could hear him licking his lips. “Just because I sleep
around sometimes doesn’t mean you should judge me for it.”
She rolled over then, her mouth hanging open as she stared at him with wide eyes. “Harry, you
literally just admitted that you fuck around with people for fun.”
“But it’s not like they don’t get off from it, either,” Harry said, sitting up quickly and leaning
against the headboard, pulling his lip between his fingers. “I wouldn’t fuck with someone who
didn’t want me. That’s why I…” he trailed off, looking away from her.
“That’s why you what?”
“Nothing.”
She frowned. “What, Harry?”
He swallowed, running a hand through his hair. “That’s why I was so weird with you for ages. If
people don’t want me I don’t care, and if they want me they get me. That makes sense. I’ve
never… I didn’t even know what I should… I was confused.”
“But you always used to say that you knew I wanted you,” she said slowly, scanning his face.
“Have we not established that I talk complete shit most of the time?” he laughed incredulously,
still not looking at her, his cheeks pink. “I panic and I have actually no idea what comes out of
my mouth.”
“So what happened with Caro?" Isabel asked, intrigued now, pulling the edge of her duvet
between her fingers. “How did you end up going out?”
Harry shrugged. "We were fucking for a while and then she started calling me her boyfriend and
I didn't stop her."
"That's not what's gonna happen with us, Harry," she said before she could stop herself, and she
was too tipsy and tired to care that she might have been embarrassing herself.
"Clearly," he mumbled. He exhaled through parted lips, his gaze flickering to hers and he
frowned. "And before you ask, I didn't cheat on Caro. I’d never do that anymore. I don't cheat."
"I wasn't going to ask that," she said quietly, lying down again with her back to him because this
conversation was going nowhere and all she wanted to do was sleep and forget it had ever
happened.
Harry shifted about and lay down, lying unnatural still for a while before he shuffled closer to
her, his breath hitting the back of her neck.
"Are we fighting?"
"No," she said, and he sighed.
“I hate fighting with you,” he mumbled.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” she said, meaning it more than he knew.
“Me too.”
And here she was now, sat opposite him on the train trying to avoid thinking about lots of things.
About how, this morning, she had woken up to him curled around her body, his leg between hers
and his hand grazing the bare skin of her stomach and his lips pressed to the back of her neck.
About how, when she’d blown out the candles of her birthday cake, she’d made a wish that had
quite a lot to do with him. About how he was staring at her now, his eyes boring into her even
though she was pretending not to notice. But most of all, she was definitely not thinking about
how she’d told him she liked him, and he hadn’t said it back.
They got off the train at Leicester Square along with just about everyone else on the train, and
Isabel frowned as Harry broke out into a full grin at her confusion.
“Where are we going?” she asked, not for the first time that day.
“You’ll see,” Harry smirked mischievously.
They loped out of the station, following the crowd in silence again, and Isabel couldn’t help
sneaking glances at Harry who was playing with his lip nervously. It wasn’t till they’d walked
for a few minutes through the square and down a side alley that Isabel realised where he was
taking her.
“The cinema?” she asked curiously as the walked in.
She knew about this cinema – she used to come here with her dad sometimes. It screened old
films, did sing-a-longs, theme nights where everyone had to dress up, that sort of thing. She had
no idea how Harry knew about it, and she was completely surprised.
“Yeah,” he said nervously. “They’re doing a double bill screening. Of Ferris Bueller, and,
um, 10 Things I Hate About You.”
She stopped dead in the foyer, entirely taken aback. Harry was fumbling in his pockets for the
tickets when he caught the look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyebrows puckering in concern. “Do you not like it?”
She struggled to say anything, and Harry swallowed nervously.
“I just thought you’d like it,” he babbled. “Because it’s the film that we always talk about and, I
don’t know, I mean I guess maybe I thought you’d like it. I know it’s dumb because we only talk
about these romcoms and I know you actually like proper good films but I just - fuck, it’s stupid.
I know it’s not much, you know I have no fucking money and I wanted to get you something you
like but… I just, I don’t know, I thought maybe you could write about it on that blog thing? If
you want. But I guess if you don’t like it we could –”
“Harry,” she interrupted. “This is the best present ever.”
He exhaled in relief, but eyed her warily. “Really? Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” she said softly, a smile spreading across her face. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“It’s not much,” he said again. “I made you another card as well, I put it in your bag with your
stuff.” He smiled anxiously, then let out a little laugh. “I promise not to jack off when Sloane
comes on. Just cos it’s your birthday.”
She couldn’t even roll her eyes, just smiled, her heart thumping as she realised that no one else
would have done this for her, no one would have known that this was enough, not even her dad
or her brother or Millie.
He was staring down at her warmly, his lip between his teeth as he studied her, the circles under
his eyes darker than ever but she’d never seen his eyes so awake, so alive.
“Thank you so much, Harry.”
She stroked his face gently with her thumb, her heart jumping when his eyes fluttered shut
involuntarily, his lip falling from the bite of his teeth as he exhaled.
That little sigh was enough to crumble her resolve. She’d known all along she’d have to speak to
Caitlin at one point, but now with a strong sense of urgency she knew next time she saw Caitlin
she would have to tell her that she liked Harry too, and that they’d been more than friends for a
while, and even though it may mean going back to square one and having nobody, it would be
better than this. It had to be.
Because when Harry sighed a little and his eyes fell shut, she believed for that moment that he
liked her too, even though he wouldn’t say it back and she was pretty sure he never would. And
although it would hurt, she had to feel it just for a moment, before it was too late. So she slid her
hand from his cheek to the back of his neck, leaning up onto her tiptoes and pressing her lips to
his, closing her eyes tightly as he slid an arm around her waist, drawing her closer and briefly
pulling his mouth away. She felt his hot breath against her lips before he kissed her again,
pulling her lower lip between his for a moment, his lips soft and gentle and slightly chapped
against hers as she clutched his neck and felt the last of her sanity disintegrate into nothing.
She pulled away, and he rested his forehead against hers for a moment before drawing back with
a small, almost shy smile. “That’s what our first kiss should have been,” he mumbled sadly.
But what made Isabel sadder was that it felt like their last.
End Notes:
things are really changing, but they're also really really not :( see ya Thursday!
Back to index
Author's Notes:
tell me something true
May
Isabel had been twenty for a week and she had hated every single second of it.
In between revising, covering shifts at work to make up for the ones she’d missed, and crying
hysterically about failing all her exams, all she thought about was Harry. Which really, wasn’t so
good.
Not at all.
Far too soon for her liking, she found herself in the exam hall and she considered it achievement
enough that she didn’t run out of there crying. She wasn’t happy, and she really had no one else
to blame other than herself, and annoyingly, one of her first thoughts was that if she’d listened to
Harry’s advice from the start and put some effort in a long time ago, she would have saved
herself both the stress and the disappointment.
And as if failing her exams wasn’t enough of a problem, she had Harry to deal with as well.
Because Harry was just everywhere, and she wasn’t sure what to do to get him to go away.
It wasn’t just that she had to see him at work, sit there for a couple of hours with him in the shoe
booth and make occasional conversation over their respective textbooks before they parted
ways.
It was that he insisted on driving her home each time, and that they texted every day, and that
when he hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of hours she got anxious, like he’d suddenly realised
she wasn’t worth the fuss and had given up, finally. Not that she would have blamed him.
Isabel didn’t like to be unnecessarily self-pitying, but the whole thing was just unfair. It wasn’t
fair to her, it wasn’t fair to Caitlin, and it wasn’t fair to Harry, and the whole situation was so
horribly fucking unfair that she actually got angry.
Today was one of those days.
There were technically two weeks left until term broke for the summer, but she was already
packing up to go, pulling clothes out of her wardrobe and flinging them across the room roughly,
letting out little grunts of anger as she did so. The others had gone out a little while ago, probably
to another party that she wasn’t invited to, and so she’d put on the angriest CD she could find
and screamed along whenever she knew which part of the song they were at and vaguely
recollected the words, which wasn’t very often.
In the midst of all this, she had also been made to sign the contract to extend the lease on the
house for next year. It had occurred to her for a brief minute when the pen was shoved into her
hand that she might not want to live with them anymore, but she wasn’t really given a choice in
the matter and so she signed the contract without complaint.
If she was in the mood to look for silver linings, she would have recognised that she didn’t need
to pack up all her things and take them home since the house was theirs over summer as well.
But she was so angry that she didn’t care, and after she was done with gutting the wardrobe she
went over to her chest of drawers and tipped each of the drawers out onto the floor, and then
stood in the mess she’d made, thick jumpers and balled up socks and flimsy tights gathering
around her feet like she was standing in water, and wondered when on earth she’d become so
pathetic.
It was then that she saw her bag from London sitting in the corner, untouched since her birthday.
She’d flung it in the corner when Harry had dropped her home on Sunday night and only opened
it briefly to fish out her toothbrush. Now she went over to it, yanking the zip open with clammy
hands because she’d just remembered that Harry’s birthday card was inside. She was wearing
Harry’s grey jumper, the one he’d worn to the zoo the first time they’d been to London together,
the one she’d worn the day of his marathon, and it made sense to wear it because if she didn’t
she might accidentally pack it, and that would be awkward when he asked for it back. Except, if
she really thought about it, it had been a few weeks now and he hadn’t asked for it back yet. He
hadn’t even mentioned it.
She dug her hand into the bag, picking up the little white card with shaking fingers and turning
off the music before backing up to sit on her bed. She waited for a moment with the card
downturned in her hands, wanting to preserve the last few moments of ignorance, perhaps the
last few moments of sanity, before she looked at it. Considering how angry she’d been a moment
ago, everything seemed very, very still, and she just stared at the whiteness of the card until it
swam in front of her eyes and she flipped it over before she could change her mind.
It was a detailed, perfectly drawn map of the world, nestled between “Happy” written across the
top and “Birthday!” along the bottom. The outlines of each continent, each country, were neat
and precise, and Isabel knew without cross-referencing that each tiny squiggle, each little jut of
the border was a deliberate, careful replica of the real thing.
The part that made her feel faint, though, was what lay inside the boundaries. Because each
country wasn’t just lightly shaded or a blur of vein-like borders, snaking through each big
landmass like spider webs. Instead, they were filled with things.
For a moment she didn’t really recognise anything, and she had to blink for a while because it all
just blurred into one indistinguishable clump of pencil lines and watercolour. But then she took a
deep breath and forced her brain to engage and saw, finally, little drawings of flapjacks and
movies and grumpy Harrys and bleeding palms and zoo animals and messy-haired Isabels and
CDs and bowling pins and running shoes. Each one was meticulously coloured and shaded,
bright and exuberant and perfect. She couldn’t even imagine Harry drawing this if she tried. She
couldn’t imagine that something so inexplicably happy had come from him, the boy who
frowned at everything she said and snapped and overanalysed and pushed people away. Harry,
who tried so hard to cover everything up that he’d become a patchwork quilt of himself, a
botched together, fragmenting caricature of the person he wanted to be, had made this. For her.
She had no idea why he’d drawn a map but it didn’t matter, and she didn’t even read the message
inside, just stared and stared until she thought she’d memorised it, and when the doorbell rang
she questioned for a moment whether it was real, like when you’re watching the television and
the doorbell rings and you flinch in your seat, the lines so blurred that for a moment you’re not
quite sure whether or not it was on the screen or in real life.
She stumbled down the stairs and flung the door open, so distracted that she just stared blankly at
the person on the threshold until she registered with quite alarming force that it was Harry,
involuntarily choking on her own spit.
“You okay?” Harry asked worriedly, rubbing her back as he stepped into the hallway. “Should I
get some water?”
“I’m fine,” she spluttered, wishing she’d done something about her hair before she’d been so
stupid as to fling the door open. He nodded, his lips in a tight line as he surveyed her outfit,
instantly recognising his jumper. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but she really didn’t
have anything to say that could make her seem less stupid, and so she just waited for him to tell
her why he was there.
“You need to go put something nice on,” he said huskily, before clearing his throat and running a
hand through his hair. “You’ve been requested by our friends who miss you very much and want
to take you out for your birthday.”
“I’m actually just packing,” she replied dumbly, most of her coherent thoughts evaporating as
she zoned in on the deep, dark lines under his eyes and he frowned. There it was.
“You’ve got two weeks to go, Isabel,” he said, exasperated. “You’re ridiculous. Just go and
make yourself presentable.”
When she came downstairs half an hour later, Harry was doing absolutely nothing, sitting on the
sofa staring at the floor absently, the fingers of one hand playing with his lip. This surprised her,
but she forgot that she wanted to ask why he hadn’t turned the TV on when he looked up at her
and smiled. She gulped, trying to pull her skirt further down her thighs and raised her eyebrows
as if to say: “Well?”
“You’ll do,” said Harry with a grin, but she noticed his eyes were so strangely nervous that she
now doubted his smile was genuine, “just about.”
~~~
Isabel bleated in shock and nearly jumped a foot in the air when she was met with the deafening
roar of forty people crowded into Harry, Zayn and Niall’s main room shouting "surprise!"
simultaneously when she and Harry walked in.
Most of the people she expected were there for the free party as they only knew her vaguely, but
at least a large handful were genuinely happy to see her, one of those people being Niall Horan
who leaped on her before she had even managed to complete a preliminary scan of the room.
“ISAAAAAABEL!” he bellowed, wrapping his arms around her like a monkey. She had a
strange sense of déjà vu; the first time she’d met Niall, he was wearing almost exactly the same
outfit of a tank top and shorts with a spliff in his hand, although this time he’d added a snapback
and almost certainly an extra tonne of aftershave. “Trust you to be late to your own party! Hey,
this is like when we first met, isn’t it? I threw Harry a party here, and now he’s throwing you
one!”
Harry laughed nervously. “It’s a joint surprise party. It’s not just mine.”
“Yeah, fucking hell Niall, don’t let Harry take all the credit,” Liv said with a grin, kissing Isabel
on the cheek. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
“Thank you,” Isabel replied, hugging Zayn too before being shoved some sort of alcoholic
concoction by Caitlin.
“Drink at your own peril,” Caitlin warned. “Zayn and Niall made it, I think it’s got about four
different spirits in there.”
Isabel downed it, just to get into the spirit of things and because she got the impression that if she
didn't the boys would pour it down her throat, and she nearly threw up right there on Niall’s
precious carpet.
"What the fuck is in here?" she spluttered, wincing.
"Don't ask," Zayn said with a shake of his head. "Just drink."
Isabel grimaced, shuffling away before Niall, whose hand was edging back towards the jug
dangerously, could pour her some more and in doing so, spotted a bunch of familiar faces in the
corner.
“Millie!” she shouted in surprise, worming her way past Liv and over to her best friend. They
were standing in a tight circle by the door to the garden – Millie, Scarlett, Liam and Lydia, that is
– sipping their drinks shyly and avoiding eye contact with the strange art people they didn’t
know.
Isabel wanted to remind them that they'd been more than happy to come to Harry's birthday party
back in February, before they'd categorically decided that he was weird and not to be trusted, but
she bit her tongue. "Hey! What are you all doing here?”
“Harry invited us,” explained Scarlett, and Isabel glanced over at the boy in question. He was
drinking Niall and Zayn’s deadly mixture like it was water, downing a glass in seconds with his
head tilted back and his eyes shut before filling up another one, the bump of his Adam's apple
shifting under the tight skin of his throat as he swallowed. He was being lectured by Liv and
Zayn, though clearly not listening, and he caught her gaze as he swiped the back of his hand
across his glistening mouth, his eyes still perplexingly anxious. “He’s been quite sweet about the
whole thing, really.”
“Oh really?” Isabel said, dragging her eyes away from Harry to raise an eyebrow at Scarlett.
“You think maybe you guys misjudged him, now?”
Millie and Scarlett both mumbled something incoherent about drugs and tattoos and fucking girls
in toilets, and Isabel ignored them.
She stood making conversation with them for a while, ten tedious minutes spent laughing at the
fact the estate agent had had lipstick on her teeth, a conversation they'd all had about eight times
since they signed the contract earlier that week. When she next looked over at the others in slight
desperation, Zayn was beckoning her with a smirk, and she squeezed Lydia’s arm before
hurrying towards them obediently, her relief lost on nobody. Niall instantly poured her a top-up
of the mixture while Liv bounced on her heels excitedly.
“It's time for your present!” Liv sang before Isabel had a chance to refuse Niall's horrendous
beverage.
“It’s kinda not the most – well, you’ll see why,” Caitiln added disjointedly, smiling at her.
“Let’s just tell the poor girl," Niall said with a roll of his eyes. "Go on, Livvy.” He gestured for
Isabel to drink, and she did so with a scowl. Harry must have been on his eighth or ninth cup
now, and he went for the tenth with almost criminal enthusiasm, filling the plastic cup to the
brim so that it sloshed around over his fingers slightly before pouring it into his mouth.
“Okay weeeeeeell,” Liv started, pausing for dramatic effect as Isabel yanked her attention away
from Harry. “We got you a summer job!”
Isabel frowned, confused, and let out a laugh. “What?”
Zayn smirked as Liv clapped her hands together, Caitlin smiling widely and looking up at Harry
to gage his reaction. “We’re all working at Liv’s uncle’s campsite in Devon for a week,” Niall
explained. “We never wanted to mention it because we felt bad that you weren’t coming too, but
it was Harry’s idea you should come. Now we’d all get to see you in the summer!"
Harry mumbled something nobody heard, his lips not moving from the edge of his drink as he
tipped it down his throat.
“It’s not gonna be like, work work,” Liv continued as Isabel still looked confused. “It has a lake
and stuff, we can just get pissed in the evening as well."
"Like a festival, just without the music," Zayn clarified. "And the hot girls."
“But we get paid,” added Caitlin with a frown. "Sorry we're not a good enough selection for you,
Zayn.”
“It’s not like an actual present,” Zayn went on, ignoring her. “But £500 is more than what we
would get you anyway, right?”
Isabel struggled to get in a word edgeways, but when she did, she was gushing her thank-yous
left right and centre, repeating "£500 for real? Are you serious?" multiple times and babbling
excitedly, and it wasn’t after what might have been an hour of excited chattering about getting
pissed by the lake and skinny dipping in the dark that she realised Harry was absent.
She found him sitting alone on the sofa, his previous mission of downing the entirety of Zayn
and Niall's concoction forgotten as he was drinking something of the cheap liquor variety
straight from the bottle and staring down at his lap.
“Hey,” she said, sliding down next to him and poking his side. He turned to smile at her, his eyes
glassy and wide and his cheeks flushed, his smile all tongue and teeth as he gazed at her. She
immediately concluded she'd never seen him so drunk, and she was torn between finding it
hilarious and alarming.
“Isabel!” he slurred happily, swiping his tongue across his lips. “’s good to see you.”
“Yeah, you too,” she replied, suppressing a laugh. “Why you sitting on your own, Styles?”
He blinked at her slowly, evidently taking a while to understand what she’d said. “I’m thinking,”
he answered eventually.
“What about? The universe? The meaning of life?”
“Nooooo,” he shook his head, frowning and pouting his lips, taking a swig from the bottle to
avoid answering and screwing up his face, gagging slightly.
“That’s enough of that,” she said firmly, trying to pry the bottle from his grip but he tugged it
away.
“’s mine!” he snapped childishly, holding it away from her. The bottle waved precariously in his
hand that was held high above their heads, and he scowled at her, his eyelids drooping.
“You’re so drunk, the party’s barely been going for a couple of hours!”
He shrugged with his entire upper body. “’Kay,” he said, accepting defeat. “Drunk is good.
Makes you brave.”
She felt a little wave of anxiety at that, but before she could think about how to respond he was
leaning into her shoulder, his face buried into her neck and his arm slung across her waist.
“Room’s spinning,” he mumbled, his lips brushing against her neck and his breath fanning across
her collarbone. She felt his fingers stroking the skin in the gap between her skirt and her top, his
hair tickling her neck, and she swallowed hard, trying to ignore her erratic heartbeat. “’M scared,
Is’bel.”
“What are you scared of, Harry?” she asked him gently, pushing his shoulder back a bit so she
could look at his face. His eyes were screwed up tightly, one hand clutching the bottle of the
drink so hard she thought it would break in his grip. He licked his lips again and smiled slowly,
lazily, the dimple flexing in his cheek.
“You and I aren’t friends anymore,” Harry mumbled out of nowhere. “We don’t even hang out.”
She swallowed. “That doesn’t mean we’re not friends.”
“Yeah, it does.”
She looked down at her lap. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I’m gonna fix it tonight. I won't fuck you
around anymore.”
He paused for a long time and then shrugged, his entire body moving as he did so, his lips
glistening and his eyes glazed. “Whatever,” he muttered. “I’ll get over it.”
I’ll get over it.
She wasn't sure how those four words managed to hurt so much, five syllables punching into her
with an almost physical force, her breath catching in her throat like he'd shot her right in the
chest with each word. Harry shuffled closer to her, completely oblivious to her horror. "'M
drunk,” he told her. “Keep it a secret.”
“I don’t think it’s much of a secret,” she mumbled, looking around the room to see who had
noticed the state he was in, and her eyes landed on a figure so horribly, unexpectedly familiar
that she audibly gasped.
“I have a proper secret though,” Harry was saying, but Isabel wasn’t listening. She was staring at
Louis, and he was staring right back at her, smirking at her knowingly, and for a moment,
perhaps the first time all week, she forgot all about Harry, all about his slurred words and his
droopy eyes and his ‘I'll get over it’.
“Harry, I need to –”
“No! Wait,” he grabbed her hand with a surprising amount of force and held her there. “Lemme
tell you something –”
“Okay, in a minute, just give me a second –”
“Isabel, where’re you going? Don’t –”
But she was standing up and leaving Harry before he could protest anymore, walking towards
Louis with her eyes locked on his.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him, pulling him away from the crowd he was with as
he laughed.
“Couldn’t miss my favourite girl’s birthday party, could I?” he said, leaning over to kiss her
cheek. She let him, her face blank and impassive. "Even if your new boyfriend forgot to invite
me.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she snapped.
“That’s not what Millie’s been telling me,” Louis said with raised eyebrows. “And I've heard he's
a bit of a slut, so you're a good match then.”
“Fuck off,” Isabel said, rolling her eyes in distaste. Not long ago Louis’ words would have made
her feel like she’d been drenched in freezing cold water, but now she felt nothing but
exasperation. “I don’t have time for you. Have fun, yeah? Just don’t deal to any of my friends.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, love,” he replied, grinning at her. “Plus, I hear your boyfriend goes for
the hard stuff. Never thought you were into that sort of thing.”
"To be honest, Lou, I'm into anyone who isn't a complete fucking wanker like you,” she retorted
sharply, watching the grin slide from his face. He'd never really expected her to be so snappy,
she supposed, and his surprise was enough to bolster her confidence. “Thanks for that, by the
way; you taught me exactly how a boy shouldn’t treat a girl. I’m learning to be grateful for it.”
She walked away before Louis could say anything else, leaving him completely dumbstruck
alone in the centre of the room. She hurried to the counter and poured a glass of Niall and Zayn’s
mixture with shaking hands, and then another, sticking out her tongue when the drink slipped
like acid down her throat.
There was a weird surge of adrenaline pumping through her, and she sort of wanted to punch
something, or scream, or both, but she wasn't angry. She felt almost triumphant, and if the
surprise of the party wasn't enough, the look on Louis' face had cemented that this was the best
night she'd had in a long time.
“Isabel!” someone shrieked, pulling her sharply from her mental satisfaction, and she turned to
find a distraught Caitlin, near tears, hurrying towards her. “I can’t do it anymore!”
“Do what?” she asked, setting her drink down to take Caitlin’s hand. “What’s happened?”
“I just - I can’t stand and watch it anymore, it’s killing me.”
"What do you mean?" Isabel asked, her heart sinking, because she knew from Caitlin's face
exactly what it was. She knew.
"He - he just got with someone else! Oh fuck, fuck. What the fuck do I do, Is?"
Isabel wanted to scan the room for Harry but she didn't, she couldn't, because if Caitlin was this
upset there's no doubt she would be too. Her heart plummeted even further and she looked at the
floor, her opportunity to tell Caitlin right in front of her now but all she could hear was I’ll get
over it.
She swallowed, trying her best to say something but no words were coming out. Her mouth felt
dry, empty, her throat like it was suddenly made out of cotton, but there wasn't much to say
anyway other than the truth, which was that she liked Harry. It was horrible, the pressure of her
confession, because she was pretty certain that Caitlin would hate her and then everyone would
have to get over it whether they wanted to or not.
“This is horrible,” Caitlin said for her, her voice trembling.
“Caitlin, I need to tell you something,” Isabel spat out, but her own voice sounded alien, like it
was a million miles away. “I really like him. I mean I really, really like him, and I don’t think I
can make it go away. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh,” Caitlin said, swallowing hard. “Okay. I mean, I guess you could go for it."
Isabel shook her head. "I wouldn't. Not when you like him so much, I can't."
Caitlin looked at her feet. "It's okay. It's just, I don’t think – I’m not sure he would go for you,
anyway.”
“Yeah,” Isabel replied sadly, her face falling.
“It’s not because of you, it’s because of Harry. He wouldn’t cos of Harry.” Isabel stared at her
blankly. She's expected Caitlin to shout, or to at least call her a bitch, but she hadn't expected her
to be so calm and so utterly, entirely defeated. And she hadn't expected her to say that. "What?”
“I guess we all thought that you felt the same way,” Caitlin frowned. “But if you don’t, that’s
okay, just I don’t think that –”
“What are you talking about?”
“Harry’s mad about you,” Caitlin explained slowly. “He’s so fucking obvious about it. I thought
– I don’t know, I guess I thought –”
“But you like Harry,” Isabel choked out.
Caitlin spluttered out a laugh. “Of course I don’t like Harry! I - I like Zayn.”
If Isabel’s heart didn’t already feel like it was breaking, she felt it shatter into a million pieces at
that moment, the slithers of string holding her together slicing open right there in Niall's kitchen
and the contents of her heart splattering onto the linoleum. She’d wasted nearly a month of her
life avoiding Harry at every single cost to her own sanity for no reason. It had all been for
nothing.
“Oh, Issy,” Caitlin sighed sympathetically, rubbing her arm. “You know, we all knew you were
hooking up. And we know that you stopped because he’s been so bloody miserable. We just
assumed he’d done something to fuck it up but it’s - it was for me, wasn’t it?”
Isabel nodded, digging the heel of her palm into her eye to stop herself from crying. “God, what
have I done?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine, it’s not your fault.” Isabel nearly cried then, and she bit down hard on her lip, her heart
pumping so hard that she could actually feel the blood racing through her, and she felt so
horribly aware of her insides, of her heart and her blood and her lungs all fit to burst, that she
really did feel sick then. “I should have just spoken to you about it when you told me. Fuck, I
should have just -”
“You were just trying to do the right thing.” Caitlin said soothingly. “If you like him, you need to
tell him, Is. He told Zayn back in April that he wanted things to happen with you two. He’s just
scared, he isn’t good at things like this.”
“But I did tell him,” Isabel said quietly, her voice quivering. “He didn’t say it back.”
“Oh,” was all Caitlin said, and when Isabel looked up at her she thought that for a girl so tall she
seemed so little, her face painted with sadness as she glanced over at Zayn, who Isabel now
realised was in the corner with a girl Isabel would never catch the name of.
“We’re a mess, aren’t we?” laughed Caitlin sadly, and Isabel couldn’t even bring herself to smile
back.
“You should tell Zayn,” Isabel said to her. “It hurts when you say it, but at least you’ll know
where you stand.”
Her voice was already trembling when she started speaking, but it broke at the end as she
realised with a thud of finality that she knew where she stood with Harry. Nowhere.
Despite what Caitlin said, he’d never said he liked her back. He’d get over it.
She excused herself from Caitlin because she was sure she had seconds before she started to cry,
and she ran out of the room and up the stairs without one look towards the sofa where she'd seen
Harry last. In blind panic she scampered through the first door on the corridor, and it was like she
was in a badly produced horror film as she slammed it shut behind her and flung herself across
the room in complete darkness. She barely registered that this was Zayn’s room, the only
bedroom she hadn’t been in, before she burst into tears, collapsing down on the edge of the bed
and pulling her knees up to her chest, and she wondered how, for someone trying to do the right
thing, she’d managed to fuck up everything and nobody was any happier for her efforts.
She cried for ages, she wasn’t sure how long, until the ends of her hair were matted with tears
and her face stung. He’d get over it.
Of course he would.
She’d never been the sort of girl he would want for longer than a little while. He'd never even
wanted anyone for longer than a little while. She couldn’t think of one good reason why she’d
ever let her fantasy take over and believe that he would, that he could like her in the same way.
And she’d screwed up what little time she could have had with him and it was so sad and painful
and cruel and more than anything it was just so unfair.
"Is?"
She lifted her head up as Harry stumbled into the room, so drunk he could barely walk properly.
She sniffed and swiped her face quickly, and her eyes were definitely puffy and red and
bloodshot so she looked down at her knees. He ran a hand through his hair and lowered himself
down on the bed next to her, his eyebrows puckering together. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly, her voice small and shaky, and he did a visible double take when he
realised she was crying. He frowned, blinking hard and licking his lips as he tried to get his slow
brain to engage.
“Is, don’t cry,” he mumbled, shuffling closer to her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she muttered, wiping a hand across her face again and biting down on her trembling
lip. “There’s n-nothing wrong.”
He put his arm around her in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, but he was so unsteady
that he leant his entire weight into her and she had to plant her hand onto the bed to stop the pair
of them toppling over. “Why are you upset?”
“Because I…”
She didn’t even know what to tell him. She was upset because she’d messed everything up by
leaving him hanging without explanation, and she was upset that it had all been a massive
misunderstanding. And she was upset because she’d always known he would get over it, but she
didn’t realise it would be so soon. And she was upset at how much it hurt, at how painful it was
to think of him with someone else, even the possibility of it, and how scary it was that she felt
that way. And she was still upset that she’d told him she liked him and he still, after all this time,
hadn’t said it back.
“I’m n-not upset.”

He gulped drunkenly, saying nothing, and then all of a sudden he grabbed the corner of Zayn’s
duvet and yanked it right over their heads. “‘s a tent,” he explained, rubbing his hand up and
down her arm. “People don’t cry in tents.”
“Yeah?” she replied, and even though she was crying she couldn’t help but laugh a bit. He
smiled lazily, like he wasn’t even sure what was going on.
“Me and Phoebe always make crying tents.”
His head brushed the top of the duvet, creating an apex so that the rest of it draped around them,
and he continued to smile at her, his dimple appearing, hollowed deep in his cheek. Isabel still
sat with one arm wrapped around her knees and the other flat on the bed to hold them both up,
but she put her head on her kneecaps to look over at him, at his ruddy cheeks and his hair falling
into his face.
"Your hair's getting long," was the only thing she thought of to say.
She wasn't sure whether he didn't hear her or whether he ignored her, but either way he didn't
respond.
"You need me to shout at Louis?” he slurred instead.
“Huh?” she asked, and she nearly laughed at the thought of him laying into anyone given his
current state.
“What did he do?”
“No, no, it was me,” she said, looking away from him and taking a deep breath. “I’m - I was just
trying to do the right thing, but I - I messed everything up.” She pressed a hand to her face.
“God, I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. You got into uni,” Harry said helpfully. He shifted his weight so that he
wasn’t leaning into her so much, swaying slightly even though he was sat down and he reached
up his free hand to tug her fingers away from her face. “Don’t say that.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry.” He smiled at her, squeezing her arm and scanning the tear tracks on her
cheeks, his body jerking slightly when he breathed. “You looked so nice wearing my jumper. I
wish you’d worn that to the party.”
“You told me to change.”
“I was being good,” he said, shrugging hugely so that the tent trembled around them. “It made
me want to kiss you a lot.”
She swallowed. “It did?”
He wasn’t even listening, his gaze riveted on the puffiness of her eyes.
“Why were you crying?” He looked down at his lap. “Did I do something to upset you again?”
“No, Harry,” she said quickly. “It was me. I just - fuck, I just messed everything up. It’s why
I’ve been avoiding you -”
“Isabel,” he interrupted, his voice quiet. “If we’re over cos you don’t want me, I want to know. ’s
fine. Don’t have to keep making excuses.”
It always came back to this. Harry wanting to be wanted so much that it ate him up, that he
became obsessed with it - but they couldn’t want him too much, not so much that he had to let
them in. He was completely, horrendously frightened of either scenario, but Isabel was in,
completely submerged in him whether he wanted it or not, and the fact he didn’t know that when
she made it so obvious made her want to tear his hair out, or punch him, or collapse at his feet
and cry and cry and cry.
“Harry,” she said harshly, squeezing his hand so hard he had to look over at her. “That’s never
been what this was about. It’s just, I thought - I thought Caitlin liked you.”
He frowned, wetting his lips. He was so gone his eyes would barely open now. “What the
fuck?”
“I know,” she said, giving a little hysterical laugh, and she could have started crying again then.
“I just didn’t want to upset anyone and I - fuck. And now she’s saying you like me, and I -”
“She said what?”
Isabel paused, surprised by how loud he’d spoken all of a sudden, and her eyes flickered across
his face as he scowled and his eyes fell shut. “Well, she said that you like me.”
Harry swallowed and then inhaled sharply, keeping his eyes shut tightly before edging away
from her. “I’m too hot in here.”
He started flailing around with the duvet until it was off him, shuffling away from her and
scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I dunno why she said that,” he muttered. “She doesn’t - how
would - what does she know?”
“So it’s not true?” Isabel replied, and she wished he knew how fragile she felt right now because
she was sure one more rejection, one more frown thrown her way amidst hollow silence on his
part would be enough to break her.
“I’m so hot,” Harry mumbled, not looking at her and pulling on the collar of his t-shirt. “Fuck
me, it’s so hot.”
“Oh,” Isabel said flatly, and fresh tears pricked hard in the back of her eyes but she ignored
them. Pulling the duvet off her lap, much more gracefully than Harry’s effort, she swung her legs
out of bed and walked towards the door, her knees wobbling and her bottom lip trembling.
“Wait!” Harry said loudly, throwing himself across the room to grab onto her hand. “Hold on,
wait.”
“What for?”
Harry stepped closer, and Isabel knew he was so, so drunk that he could barely see, tripping over
his own feet with every step and his mouth hanging open heavily. “Look at me.”
“Harry, don’t.”
“Look at me, Isabel.”
She did look at him, staring up at him with as much defiance she could muster though her eyes
were watering and the lump in her throat actually hurt. Looking at him hurt more, though,
especially when he was breathing so heavily she could feel it, hot and desperate on her skin.
“I need to talk to you,” he said emphatically. “Please, fuck, please let me talk to you.”
“Go on then,” she prompted, looking at him like he’d asked, at the way he swallowed harshly
and blinked slowly and stumbled around unsteadily despite the fact he was meant to be
stationary.
He placed a hand flat on the wall for support and his eyes fell shut. “I - it’s just I -”
He gulped loudly, his fist clenching against the wall but he said nothing, just standing there in
silence as the unspoken ending hung in the air between them.
“Go on then,” she said again, her voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. He growled a little, like
the words were lodged in the back of his throat, and Isabel noticed he was actually sweating, tiny
beads of moisture forming at his hairline.
“I really - fuck, I just -”
Isabel could have collapsed there and then under the weight of her expectation, so sudden and so
strong that she actually felt her heart stop for a second. “It’s okay if you want to say it,” Isabel
said softly.
“What?” he croaked.
She stared at him, at his eyes screwed shut and his mouth hanging open as he took shallow, fast
breaths, and maybe she shouldn't have pushed it but she was certain that this is what he'd been
trying to say, so certain that her hands were shaking with how much she wanted to hear it. “If
you want to say it, don’t be scared Harry.”
“Say what?” he mumbled, his face paler and paler by the second, and he swayed dangerously on
his feet.
“Is this - do you like me?” she questioned, and at that Harry finally wrenched his eyes open,
looking so terrified that her breath caught in her throat.
“You think - but you - that's it?” he mumbled unintelligibly, wetting his lips, his heavy eyes
darting around the room.
“Harry, it’s okay. Don’t be scared.”
“I -” Harry started for the third time, his eyes falling shut again as she placed a hand on his
extended arm and squeezed it encouragingly.
"You know I like you, Harry. So much. You can say it too."
"I - Christ, I -"
She just waited, the seconds dragging out between them as his body jerked when he breathed,
and Isabel’s heart sank with every passing moment, waiting and waiting and waiting until the
seconds started to gnaw away at her, gathering like ants in the pit of her stomach and crawling up
inside her slowly, and she dropped her hand from his arm.
“I …”
All there was a vacuous, heavy pause.
“I can’t.”
She should have expected it really, but it still hurt so much that she was taken aback, and she
nodded and pulled away from him, backing away from him and tripping over her feet before
turning towards the door.
“Isabel –” Harry choked out, but she left before he could say anything else, slamming the door
shut just as Harry gagged and threw up all over Zayn’s floor.
End Notes:
soooo
I think Caitlin/Zayn was the worst kept secret in the world but I'm also pretty glad that everyone
guessed. and if you're shocked by it then... the signs have been there!!!
and as for Harry - hmm. what do you think? :( see you Thursday! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com
Back to index
Author's Notes:
this is it
June
There comes a point in the night during a party, the point where you’re considerably drunk
enough to feel philosophical but not so drunk you’re falling over, when you start to consider
whether some of your actions were unnecessary.
That was the point Isabel had reached at around 1 am, when she suddenly realised she hadn’t
seen Harry in hours.
After their fight, she’d gone to the bathroom and cried for a while, before cleaning herself up,
heading downstairs and getting so drunk she forgot all about it. She spent most of the night with
Niall, who was effortlessly hilarious with his red face and his tank top, dancing out of time with
the music and trying to impress girls by telling them he’d once downed half a dozen Fosters in
15 minutes and thrown up everywhere.
But as people started to leave and Niall started to slump, Isabel got to thinking.
When she’d avoided Harry for weeks with no explanation, with no indication as to why she’d
dropped him out of nowhere, Harry hadn’t given up on her. True, he couldn’t say that he liked
her back, and true, he knew how humiliating it was for her every time he didn’t, but Harry had
also arranged this party for her, had put up with her family for an entire weekend, and had done
nothing the last couple of weeks but try and make her happy.
And it didn’t seem like enough, but maybe it was. Maybe it had to be.
She helped Zayn clean up as most people started leaving at around 2.30, following him around
with a black bin bag as he threw the empty cans and plastic glasses in there.
“You shouldn’t have to clean up your own party,” Zayn smiled, and Isabel shook her head.
“Least I can do. Plus, from what I hear Niall is a bit of a clean freak in the morning. I don’t want
him to hate you.”
“Oh yeah, he’s not gonna be happy about this massive stain,” Zayn laughed, pointing to a red
spillage on the carpet. “You’ll vouch for me that it’s not my fault, right?”
“I’ve got your back,” Isabel affirmed, and he smiled lopsidedly at her.
“’The Big Red Stain has nothing to do with Zayn’. That’s what you have to say.”
She grinned at him and then bit down on her lip. “Can I ask you a question?” she said quietly,
stuffing an empty vodka bottle into the bin bag and holding his gaze.
“Sure.”
“Did you - do you ever think about being with someone?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well it’s just - you’ve never seemed interested in anything other than a night-long thing?”
He swallowed, considering his answer carefully. “Maybe I just haven’t found the right person.”
Isabel’s heart sank for Caitlin. “Yeah, maybe.”
He smiled slightly. “Are you indirectly talking about Harry?”
She stared at him, uncomfortable under his knowing smile. “Should I be?”
“You’re not a night-long thing for him,” he said with a shrug. “Trust me. He’s my best friend.”
She wasn’t really sure what to say, so she just blinked, an uneasy feeling building in her stomach
and she shoved the bin bag at him.
“I’m gonna go see if Harry’s okay,” she mumbled, avoiding his gaze. Zayn bit down on his lip
and grinned at her, nodding knowingly. “Will you be okay cleaning up?”
“Sure I will,” he answered brightly. “I’ll get Caitlin to help me.”
Oh, she’d love to, Isabel thought quietly, and she wondered how Caitlin could stand to be around
him like this, how strong she was to pretend he meant nothing to her, to pretend that when he
bounded over to her and kissed her cheek and placed the bin bag in her hands with a smile it
didn’t make her palms sweat and her stomach lurch and her heart drop in her chest.
Making her way upstairs, she passed a tired looking Liv in the hall.
“You all right, Liv? Did you have a nice night?”
Liv sighed, running a hand over her face and avoiding Isabel’s gaze.
“If you count spending the last two hours considering taking Harry to hospital to have his
stomach pumped, then yeah I’ve had a great night thanks.”
Isabel stared at her blankly.
“Harry’s –”
“Unwell,” Liv finished for her bluntly. “Really, horrendously unwell.” She sighed, finally
looking at Isabel with a raised eyebrow. “He’d kill me if he knew I said this but - but you may
think you’ve got him figured out, Issy, but I’ve known him for nearly two years and you
haven’t.”
Isabel frowned, and Liv squeezed her arm. "Be careful not to hurt him, Issy,” she said, and then
she left Isabel alone in the hall, her words hanging heavily over Isabel’s head.
She shuffled down the corridor to the end door and pushed it open, poking her head around it and
calling Harry's name softly into the darkness. When he didn't respond, she stumbled over to the
bed, her vision adjusting enough to find Harry sprawled out across the mattress, his bare chest
rising and falling slowly with the duvet bunched up around his waist. There was a strategically
placed bucket by the bed and a full glass of water on the chest of drawers.
She sat down and gazed at him for a while, reaching out a hand to pull her fingers through the
hair flopping over his eyes as he slept. It was getting long, long enough to touch his nose when
she pulled it forwards, and for some reason that made her heart tug, the dull ache that was just
always, constantly there around him intensifying even more so when she brushed it back gently
off his face.
There was something so young and breakable about him when he slept, his lips pushed out into
an open mouthed pout, the crease between his eyebrows long gone. Beneath his eyes, the dark
circles seemed even more prominent, even deeper and darker and sadder.
She could have sat there forever looking at him, savouring this calm, still moment when he
wasn't scowling and calculating every last thing he did, but she got out her phone reluctantly,
wondering if Liam and Lydia had stopped for a kebab or something on the way home. The bright
light of the phone made her wince for a second, but when she saw the notifications plastered
across the screen, her heart jumped.
Harry Styles: new messages (3)
She frowned, wondering when on earth Harry had texted her, glancing over at his sleeping form
as if he was going to answer, before swiping her finger across the screen.
From: Harry Styles, yesterday at 23:12

I fucksd up im so soryr

Isabel p lease

Pleads I need you staay with me tonight
It was the thought of him typing out the messages with trembling fingers, collapsed in the
bathroom with his back against the cool tiles and the toilet bowl within easy distance, that made
her decision easy.
Because really, he could have asked her to walk to the ends of the earth for him then and she
would have done it. And maybe a couple of months ago she would have thought that he knew
that, that he knew he had that hold on her, but now, she wasn't sure if he did. In fact, she was
pretty certain he had no clue at all.
She pulled off her clothes quietly, finding one of his t-shirts in an open drawer and shoving it
over her head. She quickly scampered to the bathroom to brush her teeth with her finger and take
her make-up off before climbing into bed with Harry, pulling the covers up to her chin and
wrapping her arm around his stomach.
Perhaps she was staying with him against her better judgement, but if she'd listened to her better
judgement she wouldn't be here at all, and somehow this would always be the infinitely greater
alternative.
Her last thought before she fell asleep was of those three words Harry had said in his last text,
because despite only one word being different, she realised with a thudding heart that there really
was quite a difference between ‘I want you’, ‘I like you’, and ‘I need you’.
She wasn't sure what the difference was yet, but she had the feeling she would soon.
~~~
Isabel woke up earlier than she’d hoped to, the sun streaming through a gap in Harry’s curtains
right onto her face and rousing her from her sleep. She winced as she fluttered her eyes open, the
light blinding and fierce.
Her arm was still slung around Harry’s stomach, although at some point in the night she’d rested
her head on his chest and hooked her leg around his waist, her calf between Harry’s thighs. She
lay there for a moment, perfectly still as she felt the steady rise and fall of his chest and his
heartbeat under her ear.
She looked at his left arm, at the hand that was curled up slightly and resting on his hip. ‘I
CAN’T CHANGE’ was printed across his wrist. It was the first tattoo of his she’d seen; on their
first day at work in December last year she’d noticed it immediately. She felt like she was seeing
it for the first time now, though, and she traced it gently with her finger, brushing over each letter
as she tried to picture him getting it, what a bad place his mind must have been in. She wondered
if she'd ever get to know the specifics of it, the story behind it, and with a dull pang of
disappointment she knew that she wouldn't.
She glanced up to check if he was still okay when she realised his breathing had become shallow,
and was startled when she realised he was awake, watching her quietly. Isabel scrambled away
from his chest and blushed, entirely embarrassed, but all he did was blink at her.
“Morning,” Harry said throatily.
“Good morning,” she replied stiffly, shuffling away from him.

“You stayed with me,” he pointed out, his voice cracking with sleep three times. He blinked
slowly, his eyelashes brushing his cheeks when he did so, and he ran a hand though his hair,
tugging it away from his face.
She shrugged.
“You asked me to.”
“Did I?” he said blankly, and when she nodded he looked down at the duvet, a blush creeping up
his neck. “Did I… did I say anything else?”
He coughed into his hand and met her gaze, his eyes unreadable.
“Did we talk?”
“Not really. We just shouted at each other,” she said, not wanting to remind him of the details of
their conversation. “You were a mess.”
Harry grinned sheepishly, but his eyes conveyed a perplexing mixture of relief and
disappointment and Isabel frowned.
“I was a bit ill, yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t think I’ve been ill like that since
sixth form. I feel like someone’s hit me with a sledgehammer.”
“To be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone down spirits so fast,” Isabel reasoned. “You
were drinking Zayn and Niall’s hell-in-a-cup like it was water.”
“I was on a bit of a mission,” he admitted with a small smile, yawning then and rubbing his hand
over his chest. “Wait here, I need to piss.”
He moaned loudly as he stumbled out of bed, hobbling to the bathroom in his boxer-briefs, and
Isabel played with her hair as she lay back on his pillow, wondering how the smell of his citrus
shampoo managed to soak into everything he came into contact with, how he and his clothes and
his room and his bed and her now, probably, smelled of it.
Harry came back in groaning like an old man, and Isabel watched as he swallowed a couple of
aspirin before throwing himself on the bed dramatically and flinging an arm over his eyes. “I
actually feel like I’m about to die,” he mumbled, and Isabel caught the mint of his freshly
brushed teeth as he sighed.
“That’s usually what happens when you drink that many spirits,” she reminded him, noticing
that, in this position, he looked almost exactly like the boy in the painting on the chimneybreast.
She glanced over at it to make a comparison, only to find that it was gone.
“Where’s your painting, Harry?” she gasped.
He tensed slightly beside her.
“Sold it,” he said shortly from behind his arm.
“Why?”
“To buy a plane ticket.” He peeked out through the crook of his elbow at her, judging her
reaction carefully.
“Plane ticket to where?”
“New York. For the marathon. I told you I’m doing another one.”
Isabel scoffed.
“You’re flying all the way to New York to do a marathon?”
“I need to do another one,” Harry explained nervously, pulling his arm away from his face. “And
it was the only one that worked out date-wise, because I need to start training again in good time,
and you have to sign up far in advance and stuff.”
Isabel nodded slowly, looking back over at the gaping space where the painting had been. She
could never imagine herself being as spontaneous as Harry, buying a plane ticket to a city he’d
never been to just for a marathon; he’d never even been out the country before, let alone out of
the continent, but he didn't see a reason why he shouldn't go for this. She and Harry were
different in that way. He was very methodical with a lot of things - with his art, his money, his
plans for the future, with his behaviour - but he was an impulsive person, too. He would easily
change his well thought-out plan last minute because he was the type of person who could think
through a new one instantly. And although Isabel didn’t plan, she certainly didn’t jump into
things either. She had no idea what it was like to think that way, and she found it funny for a
moment how different they were and how easy it was to forget.
"What are you thinking about?" he prompted quietly.
“I just - did you have to sell the painting though? Couldn’t you have borrowed some money off
Niall?”
Harry gave her a small smile. “I wouldn’t have sold it if I had another option. And I couldn’t ask
Niall because he’s coming with me.”
“Oh,” was all she said, because she was so surprised and strangely sad that she couldn’t manage
much else.
They lay in silence for a long time, and Isabel wasn’t sure when she fell back to sleep but the
next time she opened her eyes she was curled up in a ball facing Harry and his arm was around
her, his hand snaking up the back of her shirt and resting against her spine as he slept. She
moved closer to him until her head was tucked under his chin, and then lay there listening to the
sound of the birds outside Harry’s window and Niall watching tv on his laptop in the room next
door and Harry's breathing, in and out, in and out . Eventually he shuffled about slightly and
yawned, his hand sliding down the vertebrae of her back until it rested flat against the skin just
above the waistband of her knickers, and he pressed down so that he was pulling her closer,
sighing sleepily.
“Do you remember any of what we said yesterday?” Isabel asked him gently, her eyes still shut
as she lay with her nose pressed against his chest.
“Not really,” Harry admitted, his voice thick with sleep. “I’m sorry though. I know I fucked up.”
“Me too.”
“Okay.” They were silent again, and Isabel kept her eyes closed, focussing on the pads of his
fingers that were brushing delicately against her lower back.
“Isabel?” Harry asked after a while.
“Yeah?”
“Is that…thing that stopped you being with me still there?”
She swallowed, unsure whether or not to ease into it slowly or be honest with him straight away,
before deciding she had nothing to lose now.
“No, it’s gone,” she admitted.
“Okay,” he said softly after a moment's pause. “Did you tell me what it was last night?”
She sighed, her heart dropping at the memory of her devastation the night before.
“I thought Caitlin liked you.”
“Oh.” He said nothing, stunned, and then all of a sudden let out a little shaky laugh. “What the
fuck?”
“That’s what you said yesterday.”
“You stopped us because of Caitlin?”
She nodded into his chest and he laughed again, pulling her closer until her entire body was
squeezed right against his, the hairs on his legs tickling hers and his face pressed into her hair.
“God, you’re so sweet.”
“It’s not funny,” she mumbled. “I feel so stupid, I fucked up everything with us. I feel so bad,
Harry.”
“You don’t have to feel bad,” he said, his voice muffled. “That’s much better than what I thought
it was.”
“It’s too late though now, isn’t it?” she asked sadly, and he tensed.
“It is?”
She licked her lips.
“I just - I thought -”
“Could you give me some advice?” he interrupted, pulling away from her so that he sat up, his
back pressed against the headboard, and she followed suit. “I just feel like you’re a lot more
knowledgeable in a certain field than I am.’
“Okay.”
“So there’s a girl that I - that I think I wanna start seeing. If she wants to.”
“Really?” she managed to choke out, and she honestly felt like her spine might snap in two with
how violently her chest constricted, looking away from him because her cheeks were starting to
burn and she wanted to scream.
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes boring into the side of her face. “But I fucked it up.”
“Oh,” she said again, closing her eyes and willing for him to shut up, her lungs burning like he'd
pummelled the air out of her.
Harry was quiet for so long that she thought he’d fallen asleep, but when she opened her eyes to
check, she saw that he was staring at the ceiling, his lips pressed into a tight, irritated line.
“Isabel?” he asked again when he felt her staring.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I should go for it?” he asked, reaching a hand up to play with his lip.
It was that movement that threw her, because he did that when he was deep in thought, or when
he was distracted, or when he was nervous, and it would only make sense right now if it were the
last one. And then suddenly, because he was so apprehensive, she was quite certain the girl he
was talking about wasn’t very far away at all.
“Well, this is you we’re talking about," she started slowly. You like plans. You need to have a
plan."
“Obviously. That’s why I need your help.”
“Does she like you?”
“I - I don’t know,” he admitted. “She says she does, but then other times I’m not sure because ...
I don’t know. I don't know."
“Then maybe you shouldn’t,” Isabel told him, biting down on her lip in exasperation, quite
unable to believe he was still doubtful of her feelings for him, and her hand itched by her side
like she wanted to punch him. “Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He smiled softly. “You hate it when people say that to you.”
“I know,” she replied. “But you should know if she likes you, it hurts when you like someone
and they won’t say they like you back.” He looked down at his lap then, unable to hold her gaze,
his eyebrows pulling together. “You need to tell her you like her.”
A small, frustrated smile played at his lips and he closed his eyes. “Mmm.”
“What?”
“I’m not good at talking,” he mumbled. “So maybe the plan’s out.”
“How are you going to get anywhere if you don’t talk about things?”
He glanced over at her, frowning, and then all of a sudden he was pulling her towards him until
their bodies were flush again, one arm hooking around her waist and the other tucking her hair
behind her ear.
“You don’t always need to say things,” he told her, his breath falling onto her mouth.
“Sometimes it’s better not to talk.”
“Tell that to your girl,” she replied slowly, watching as his tongue darted out to dampen his lips,
and he was close, so close, that she’d barely have to inch her head forward to kiss him.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said with an exasperated sigh, cupping her face with his hand, his thumb
stroking her cheek. “You’re my girl.”
Isabel tried to keep a poker face but she couldn’t. First her lips quirked, and then they pulled
back across her teeth, before a laugh ripped from the back of her throat.
“I know,” she giggled, and his eyes widened before he grinned, gripping her tighter. “I realised.
But I do say you need to improve your communication skills.”
He shook his head, smiling sheepishly. “I disagree.”
“I’ve actually got a queue of guys just outside this door,” she joked, and his smile widened,
raising an eyebrow. “So you better speak up before I go for someone else.”
He shook his head again, his nose brushing against hers, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“Let’s” - he started, kissing her cheek - “not” - he kissed her nose - “talk.”
And before she could take another breath his lips were over hers, hovering tentatively like they
always did, like he wasn’t quite sure whether he should close the miniscule, fragile gap between
them. And she knew somehow that this time it wasn’t because he was scared but because he
wanted it to be perfect, that all it would take was their lips brushing for them to cross the void
into something deeper than anything he’d care to admit out loud, and he had to make up for it
with his mouth. So Isabel just waited, their noses brushing and their breath tangling until he
finally tilted his head forward and their lips caught, grazing in a tiny flash of heat that made
Harry pull back and bite down on his lip, as if to check if it was real. And then he knotted his
fingers in her hair and kissed her again, trapping her lower lip between his teeth and humming
when she sighed.
He shifted them so she was on her back and he was above her, curling his fingers around her
throat gently as he prised her mouth open and let their tongues touch for a moment, drawing back
and panting heavily before connecting their lips again, pushing his tongue into her mouth as her
heart slammed against her chest so hard she was scared it might break through.
“Keep going,” Harry breathed when she pulled away to try and catch her breath because her
lungs felt like they were collapsing, and her eyes glazed over when she saw how wet his lips
were, how flushed his cheeks were, how bright and wide and alive his eyes were.
“Hmmm?”
He pressed his lips back against hers, his mouth sliding against the corner of hers when he
whispered.
“This is it. Keep going. Keep going.”
Then his tongue dipped back into her mouth and they were kissing again, both of them panting
and shivering a little, Isabel especially when Harry made that little suppressed whine, snagging
over a heavy breath in the back of his throat, that tiny sound that she wanted him to replay over
and over and over until she’d memorised it.
There was nothing rushed or frantic or desperate about it, nothing like it had ever been before. It
was hazy and careful, and Isabel knew they were both aware that they were slipping, that they’d
never be able to sit in the shoe booth and glance at each other over the top of their textbooks and
pretend they were friends now, that they’d never be able to kiss and touch each other because it
was hot and they needed to and convince themselves that it was enough. Because it never had
been enough for her, not really, but for the first time Isabel wasn’t worried about competing with
all the other girls with softer lips and longer legs and darker hair to keep Harry around, because
even though he would never say it, she knew when she swallowed his little gasps as his tongue
swept against hers that, even if just for now, she was enough.
He moved his hand from her neck to stroke down her arm as she gripped his hair, and he was
touching her so softly, so gently, that she had to pull away and smile at him, her heart tugging
when he smiled back, his eyes bright.
“Okay?” he asked, pressing his lips to hers once, and she breathed in deeply through her nose
when his hand slid over her stomach to push his t-shirt that she’d slept in up, up past her navel
and up along her ribs until it sat under the curve of her breasts, the little bump of the scar on his
palm pressed flat against her tummy. It was so different, so, so different, because Harry wasn’t
grasping her with adolescent impatience or growling about how much he wanted to fuck her, and
had she had time to reflect she probably would have realised how much that meant, but she
couldn't because he kissed her again, his eyes concerned. “Is? You okay?”
“Yeah,” she told him, and her heart actually ached when his eyes softened, and he nodded, just
once, his long hair flopping down in front of his face.
He buried himself into her neck, his hair tickling under her chin as he kissed his way along her
collarbone, his nose nudging the skin, his breath hot, and his hand flat and heavy against her
stomach. She mumbled his name and then something switched, like he went from wanting to kiss
her to wanting to kiss her, yanking the t-shirt roughly so that the neckline was pulled halfway
down her arm and his mouth could swipe over every inch of her neck and her jaw and her
shoulder and her collarbone until she was trembling. He diverted his attention to the revealed
skin of his stomach, his breath hot against it as he trailed open mouth kisses down, lower and
lower, his tongue licking stripes by her navel, his teeth dragging across her hipbone, until his hair
was brushing over her thighs and he was sucking on the skin by the hemline of her knickers so
hard she knew he’d break the blood vessels beneath it and leave a bruise.
He looked up at her, his eyes dark and his lips wet, and she swallowed hard, her heart pounding.
“Is,” he whispered. “This is it. Yeah? No more confusion?”
She nodded desperately, resisting the urge to buck her hips up when his breath landed right
between her legs, releasing his hair caught in her fist to curl her fingers around his cheek.
“This is it.”
He smiled, hooking his fingers around the waistband of her knickers and pulling them down,
kissing the palm of her hand. “Thank fuck.”
And then he dipped his head and she gasped, his tongue hot and wet against her as she tugged on
his hair and bit down hard on her lip. It was kind of clumsy and messy in his eagerness to please
her, in his desire not to make it slow and sensual and drag the orgasm from her teasingly, but to
make it perfect, to make it an alternative to all the things he hadn’t, should’ve, wouldn’t say. Her
jaw fell open wordlessly as his mouth pulled and pressed and licked and kissed her, and he was
pressing the pads of his fingers into her thigh with one hand and snaking the other up to hold
down her hips, humming lightly when she dug her nails into the back of his palm.
Before long she was whining with every curl of his tongue, gasping for air and jolting so that he
growled into her, and she swore loudly as the vibration raced from his lips through her like
electricity.
“Harry,” she choked and then she came with a helpless gasp, feeling it tear through her entire
body like lightning, as she squeezed his fingers tight with one hand and nearly ripped his hair out
with the other.
Before she could recover he was kissing his way up her body, capturing her winded mouth with
his own and kissing her heavily. His fingers pulled from hers and immediately fluttered their way
between her breasts and down her stomach until they dipped between her legs and she whined,
squirming about and gasping. It didn't take long for him to elicit the response he wanted from
her, his lips pulling away to hover by her jaw so he could hear her whimper again and again, his
eyes squeezing shut and his breath catching in his throat. He pressed his fingers hard, deep inside
her and lifted his head to watch her, in total, wide-eyed, shallow-breathed, heart-shattering awe
as she came again, writhing around beneath him and choking out his name. He waited until she
got her breath back before he moved away, swiping the pad of his thumb over her parted lips and
watching her, watching her eyes blink open lazily and attempt to focus, watching her smile at
him slowly in a way that made him smile too, much bigger and wider, before collapsing next to
her.
“You look so fucking good,” he admitted happily, his voice husky and low, stroking her face and
kissing her forehead as she blushed.
“This was an unexpected turn of events,” Isabel mumbled, and he grinned, kissing the corner of
her mouth, and her chin, and her nose, and just under her eye. He couldn’t stop kissing her, every
inch of her face, pressing his lips to the flimsy skin of her eyelids and the tiny dip under her
cheekbone and the curve of her jaw, and he was holding her face so gently with his fingertips,
like she was about to crumble in his hands, that her heart raced so hard she thought she might
cry.
Her eyes fluttered shut when his lips brushed the skin behind her ear.
“Is,” he whispered quietly, swallowing loudly. “Isabel.”
“Yeah?”
“I missed you,” he said quietly, tentatively, and there was a moment where she just shut her eyes
and let the words sink into her like they were seeping through her, like when you’re caught in the
rain and the water drenches your clothes until they’re stuck flat to you and they might as well be
part of your skin, but before she could respond his stomach rumbled so loudly he burst out
laughing into her neck.
“Fuck,” he breathed as she laughed beneath him. “I forgot my stomach’s completely empty.”
“I’m hungry too,” she said, raking a hand through his hair and scratching his scalp as he hummed
into her neck.
They got out of bed reluctantly, and Harry just stared as she stretched her arms up and his t-shirt
rode up past her hipbones. He closed the space between them and kissed her, stifling the yawn
about to break from behind her lips, his hands cupping her bum and his teeth nipping her lower
lip gently. He pulled on some sweatpants distractedly and threw her some shorts, unable to stop
himself from grabbing her and kissing her until she eventually just laughed into his mouth,
clutching the back of his neck and grinning as he hooked his arms tight around her waist and
pressed his lips to hers again and again and again like he could never ever stop.
Zayn and Niall were sitting in the kitchen already when they made it downstairs, arguing about
the Big Red Stain on Niall’s carpet.
“Issy will back me up!” Zayn shouted when he noticed her, not showing any surprise that she’d
stayed the night and was in Harry’s clothes. “It wasn’t my fault, I turned my back for a second
and it was there!”
“It’s true,” Isabel nodded, sitting down in the chair next to Zayn and watching Harry as he
stretched to grab the Golden Nuggets box on top of the fridge and check how empty it was, the
muscles in his bare back flexing, his shoulder blades shifting beneath the skin.
“Where were you when this was happening, Niall?” Harry asked, pouring Isabel a bowl of cereal
and pushing it across the table towards her before emptying the rest of the packet for himself.
“Isabel and I were busy!” Niall defended, his mouth so full of toast that some stray crumbs flew
across the kitchen, and Zayn winced despite the fact that Niall’s position leaning against the
counter was much too far away for Zayn to be caught in the crossfire. “We were dancing up a
storm in here, Harry. Also, I’ll recommend her as a good wingman, if you ever need one.”
Harry grunted his reply, shovelling Golden Nuggets into his mouth at record speed, his knee
grazing Isabel’s beneath the table. He smiled at her lopsidedly, his mouth full, and she smiled
back, and it was almost like the promise between them was tangible, like the touch of their knees
made the expectation of everything to come a physical entity in the kitchen with them all.
“Did you get with that girl in the end, then?” Isabel asked Niall when she caught him gazing at
the pair of them, and Zayn rolled his eyes.
“Yep, and she had to go and make a fucking break for it at the most ungodly hour in the
morning, didn’t she?” Zayn grumbled. “She made so much noise trying to unlock the front door
that even I couldn’t bloody sleep through it.”
“There’s worse noises to hear,” Niall said with an evident grin, and Isabel snapped her head up
to meet his gaze. He stared at her pointedly, a wide smile on his face as he raised his eyebrows.
She blushed and looked down at her bowl quickly.
Harry stood up and wandered towards the fridge, the contents of his enormous bowl of cereal
demolished in incredible time but he was clearly still hungry. He yanked it open, burying his
head inside before emerging with arms laden with a random selection of ingredients – Isabel
spotted both marmite and honey as well as ham slices – before kicking the fridge shut and
throwing bread into the toaster. Zayn and Isabel both grimaced at the assortment of toppings, but
Niall had barely noticed, beaming from ear to ear as his gaze flickered between Harry and
Isabel.
“Still hungry, Styles?” Niall asked with a shit-eating grin, glancing over at Isabel and nudging
Harry with his foot. “Pretty sure you already had breakfast.”
~~~
“This is it then?”
Mel looked up from the sheet of paper, her nose crinkling.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Isabel said with a smile.
They were on the bus to Mel’s last ever Action in the Community session at the school before
she graduated. Since it was her last session, as well as being the last session of the year, Mel had
got to pick the film, and she’d chosen The Breakfast Club.
“Well it’s out of my hands now,” Mel said, sliding the paper into her bag and shooting Isabel a
tiny smile. “I’ll put all the entries on the website tonight, and voting closes in two weeks.”
“May the best man win, yeah?” Isabel said light-heartedly, shooting Rory a grin. “I’ve got my
money on you.”
“I don’t know,” Rory shrugged. “I think there’s something kinda charming about being the
Treasurer. I’m not cut out for leadership anyway, you know that Mel forced me to apply.”
“That’s not the attitude!” snapped Mel.
“Well you would say that,” replied Rory with a roll of his eyes. “You’re gonna work for NATO
one day.”
Isabel laughed. She and Rory would never admit it, but they were going to miss Mel bossing
them around every Thursday with her stern face and her sharp tongue. It was hard to imagine
anything would get done without her next year, but it was vaguely exciting too, like she was their
benefactor and they were launching off into the big world without her.
“What made you change your mind, Isabel?” Mel asked. “Me and Rory were sure you’d never
put yourself up for leadership.”
Isabel debated how truthful to be, gnawing on her thumbnail before finally speaking.
“I met someone who thought being on the Film Soc was pretty cool. And I realised it’s kinda
cooler hanging out with you guys and watching good movies than it is hanging out with people
who don’t care at all about good movies, or me, really. Gets kinda monotonous, you know?”
Rory and Mel exchanged a smile.
“No,” said Rory cheerily. “We don’t.”
“Good for you though,” Mel said with a genuine laugh. “Now that you’ve stopped hanging out
with them, do you reckon you’ve stopped being a bitch too?”
“She was never a bitch,” Rory defended. “Just misguided.”
“Okay, not a bitch. But a bit stuck-up. And very late,” Mel teased. “And overly apologetic?”
“A bit ditsy at times,” Rory continued. “But endearingly so.”
“You’re okay, Isabel,” Mel concluded, and Isabel’s heart swelled because it seemed like the
highest praise anyone could ever give somehow.
“Well, cheers guys,” Isabel said jokingly, hiding her pride and pressing the stop button on the
handle in front of her. “Thanks for the character analysis.”
“It’s all right,” Mel shrugged. “What are friends for?”

End Notes:
hello!
soooooo this is chapter twenty-one which means we’re over halfway! and things are looking …..
up?
someone asked me if this chapter is a turning point and I was gonna answer buuuut what do you
think?
love you more than harry styles loves smacking his gum (thanks kaylie) and see ya
thursday! oxygenstyles.tumblr.com
Back to index
Author's Notes:
how sad and bad and mad it was
June
Isabel was wriggling nervously in her plastic seat, her bare thighs sticking to it as she bit down
on her nails and craned her neck to see the front. Harry was next up.
She was surrounded by parents and friends of the Fine Art students – all equally as sweaty and
nervous on this uncharacteristically hot June morning – but no one else had come to see Harry
except her, something which would have been fine had it not been for the girl glaring at the back
of Isabel’s head as though she was plotting her violent death.
Isabel had instantly recognised Caro as she and Harry had walked into the room earlier that
morning, but Harry hadn’t even noticed she was there. He was sitting near the front with the
other students now, and even from behind him Isabel could tell he was desperately nervous, that
he was playing with his lip and most likely frowning, his knee bouncing impatiently.
“Up next we have Harry Styles,” Harry’s teacher said at last, clapping her hands together
excitedly as Harry stood up to arrange his stuff. There were only twelve or so students in total,
but seeing as they’d been ordered alphabetically Harry was the penultimate person to present,
and as he scurried about getting his presentation ready Isabel could see how much the waiting
had got to him. The muscles in his back were tense and his jaw was set and his hands were
already trembling, and she was so nervous for him that her clammy fingers slipped on the seat,
her heart thumping.
“Harry is one of our most exciting students," the teacher went on, "and we as a college have
always recognised his potential. Harry is one of the few recipients of the Michael Burbidge
scholarship, and throughout his time here has truly proved himself worthy of such an accolade.”
Harry smiled shyly at her, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment, and then she gestured for him
to begin speaking before she took her seat and stared at him expectantly.
“So I’m, uh, Harry,” he said unnecessarily, clearing his throat and glancing at his teacher who
nodded encouragingly. “In the second term of this year I decided to focus on portraiture, and I
decided to explore this in many different forms –”
He started babbling about different mediums and artists he took inspiration from, none of which
meant anything to Isabel. She kept glancing over at his teacher and the examiners, a small wave
of relief following when she noticed they were nodding appreciatively and jotting notes down.
Harry cleared his throat once more, lifting his hand to change the slide on the powerpoint with
the remote, and before he shoved it behind his back again, she could see from metres away that
his hand was shaking violently.
“In studying other artists’ portraitures, I became really interested in the links between literature
and art.”
He spoke slowly as always, but this was deliberate and careful, clearly terrified of stumbling
over his words like he always did, or messing something up, or sounding stupid. He paused after
each point, licking his lips as his eyes flickered over to the people marking him, before taking a
deep breath and continuing.
“We were asked to create pieces that held a deeper meaning within us, so I decided to centre my
work around the poetry of Robert Browning. He was, um,” he paused, looking down at the floor
and scrubbing a hand through his hair. “He was my brother’s favourite poet, and so I’ve been
familiar with his work for a long time.” He licked his lips, ringing his hands together and saying
nothing for a while before he spat out quickly: “I - yeah. I um… yeah.”
Isabel glanced at the examiners in horror, almost irrationally concerned that they would penalise
him. When she eventually looked back at the screen after concluding they didn’t think much of
his slip-up, she saw he’d changed slides again, and there was Harry’s first painting.
Even from the picture of it on the slide, she could tell that it was an enormous canvas, probably
as tall as her and much wider, and Isabel was so stunned her jaw nearly fell open.
It was of Zayn, his face profile, his eye black and bruised as he stared at the floor. She vaguely
heard Harry mumbling a quote – “When the fight begins within himself, a man's worth
something” – but Isabel could barely do anything other than stare at the screen, enraptured,
finding it sort of funny that Harry had made art out of the bruises on Zayn's skin that he'd made,
too - albeit with a water bottle - and she wondered whether he'd say this but he didn't.
And then Harry changed the slide again.
It was the painting of her, and she completely zoned out from what Harry was saying, only
hearing the appreciative hum from the fellow members of the audience and the thump thump
thump of her heart in her chest, in her ears, in her mouth, imagining Harry painting her. She was
lying across her bed, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open, her hair messy and sprawled
behind her as the sheets bunched up behind her head, and Isabel didn’t believe she was biased in
thinking that this could be hung in a gallery somewhere Harry’s work on the wall for hundreds
and hundreds of people to see forever. The sad part was, though, she knew that thought would
terrify him.
The painting on the last slide was a self-portrait, but it was so unexpectedly, horrifyingly sad that
Isabel actually gasped, inhaling sharply as the air felt suddenly punched right out of her. She had
to squint to check it was him – but it definitely was, definitely was Harry in the painting, sat with
his back against a wall, his head resting against it and tilted back so far that mostly all that was
visible of his face was his jaw. His arms were wrapped tightly around his knees, gripping the
sides so hard that the knuckles were white. And his eyes were squeezed shut, a deep frown
between his eyebrows, the dark circles beneath his eyes more prominent than ever.
“I count life just a stuff to try the soul's strength on ,” Harry recited, swallowing nervously as his
gaze dipped to the floor. “I just - yeah. Uh, I guess this is… me. Obviously.”
She tried her best to breathe, but Harry was leaving this picture up far too long as he talked about
different uses of paint and brushstrokes as if he wasn't responsible for the most horrendous, gut-
wrenching creation behind him, and she wanted to look away from it but she couldn't. She’d
never seen a sadder picture, and the more she stared at it the worse it got. And when he caught
her eye at last, he frowned when he saw her expression, his lips jutting out into a pout for a
moment before they parted as though he might say something, before he looked away.
He finished with a small smile, hurrying back to his seat and collapsing down into it as his
classmates whispered their congratulations and gave him thumbs up, and Isabel sat there in a
daze, the last person’s presentation unfolding in a blur in front of her as she slumped in her seat
pensively, entirely distracted. Before she knew it, she was being shunted out with the other
friends and family to the gallery full of every second year Fine Art students’ paintings, order
forms shoved into their hands in case they wanted to purchase one. She squinted at the price of a
nearby painting and Christ, she thought, her eyes widening when she saw it exceeded £1000.
She shuffled through the gallery until she found Harry’s three paintings, standing back and
staring at them from the corner as other people stopped by them. She chewed on her lip, so
completely engrossed in her observation that she nearly didn’t feel the tap on her shoulder. She
glanced over her shoulder and smiled, expecting to see Harry, the smile slipping when she found
herself face to face with Caro instead.
“Hi,” Caro said. “I’m Caro.”
“I know,” Isabel spluttered, brushing her hair out of her face. “I mean, I’ve met you before, at the
bowling alley one time and then I –”
“Okay,” Caro interrupted bluntly, uninterested. “I want to talk to you about Harry.”
Isabel swallowed nervously. She wasn’t sure what was so intimidating about Caro – perhaps
because she was so gorgeous, or because she clearly hated her, and probably because it seemed
she still had feelings for Harry – but whatever it was, it was turning her into an incoherent mess.
“Oh, all right, okay well I –”
“Is he your boyfriend?” Caro asked, her eyes narrowing.
Isabel laughed breathily and looked away awkwardly, because it was perhaps the worst question
Caro could have asked.
For all intents and purposes, Harry was her boyfriend. Now that Isabel’s exams were over, she
had no obligations here other than work, and so she’d stayed at Harry’s every night since her
party, which, after tonight, accumulated to seven nights by now.
She’d been home once – Harry had driven her back to collect her stuff the evening after the party
– and since then, she’d spent every moment with him. But they’d never spoken about what this
meant for them, what it meant that every morning she woke up with him half on top of her, his
head buried in her neck, and what it meant that he held her hand when they went out, and what it
meant that everyone knew they were together, and what it meant that sometimes he kissed her
when she was just about to fall asleep, kissed her at the exact moment she was slipping off the
ledge of consciousness so that she fell asleep with his breath on her lips and her name on his
tongue, and although she’d not admit it, it was something that was playing on Isabel’s mind. A
lot.
Because maybe she just thought he was her boyfriend, but he didn’t think the same. It was more
than possible that she could be misinterpreting what was going on, or want them to move too
fast, or want too much, and it was so scary that she hated thinking about it. Maybe they didn’t
need to put a word on it, and maybe that just wasn’t how it was meant to work, for anyone or
even just for them, but it sort of felt like it did.
“Well I - I don’t know,” Isabel answered honestly.
Caro raised her eyebrows. “If he hasn’t said it, he doesn’t want it. Trust me.”
Isabel shuffled uncomfortably. “I don’t think I’m comfortable taking relationship advice from
you, to be honest.”
Caro sighed dramatically and stuck her tongue in her cheek. “I’m giving you the facts, babe. I’m
not trying to be a bitch, honestly. I just don’t want you to get hurt, yeah?”
Isabel didn’t really know what to say, because she didn’t doubt that Caro was a nice girl but she
also knew that her primary objective was hardly conserving Isabel’s feelings, and so she just kept
quiet, blinking at Caro with wide eyes and waiting for her to continue.
“Harry is a fucking nightmare,” Caro went on when she realised Isabel wasn’t going to speak.
“He’s completely fucked up, and he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He fucks girls
for fun, and then he’ll drop you when he’s had enough.”
“No, it’s not –” Isabel started, shaking her head slowly and licking her lips.
“Has he ever admitted that he has any feelings for you? Other than, like, sexually?” Caro
pressed, and Isabel just stared at her blankly for a second, unable to say that he had. Caro nodded
knowingly and sighed.
“I don’t even know you,” Isabel laughed, glancing around nervously, but Caro just rolled her
eyes. “Look, this is really weird –”
“Don’t be so prim, Isabel,” Caro barked, running a hand through her hair. “I’m trying to help.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay,” Isabel mumbled.

"For fuck's sake –"
“Why do you want to help me?”
“Because I know. I know he draws you in. I’ve been there, I know the signs. I just don’t want
you to blame yourself for it, he does it on purpose. He knows how to make people fall in love
with him – he needs it. And he’s hard to get over, sure." She looked down for a moment, losing
her confidence for a second before meeting Isabel’s gaze again. “But really, I knew nothing
about him.”
“I know stuff about him,” Isabel mumbled defiantly, her voice breaking slightly and Caro
scoffed at her.
“Yeah, okay, he may have told you some things. But have you ever seen him high? No? Well,
that’s the real him. That’s been him the last four years, and he doesn’t talk about that so much,
does he? He doesn’t talk about it at all, does he?”
Isabel just gulped, gazing at Caro wide-eyed with her heart beating in her mouth. “Well, you’re
wrong,” she said. “You have no idea how much he –”
She felt a hand slip around her waist, and she yelped in surprise as Harry pressed a kiss to her
temple.
“You alright, Caro?” he asked casually, pulling Isabel into his side and pretending not to notice
that Caro’s face visibly crumpled.
“Fine,” she spat, looking somewhere over Isabel’s shoulder so she didn’t have to look at them.
“I’m gonna go find Joanna.”
“Give her my congratulations,” Harry said jovially. “Her presentation was really good.”
Caro nodded stiffly and stalked off, leaving Isabel alone with Harry. He turned her around,
wrapping his other arm around her so that they were facing each other, his arms looped around
her waist.
“You okay?” he asked, kissing her forehead and smiling.
“Yeah,” she lied, forcing a big grin up at him. “Well done for your presentation. It was amazing,
you’re so incredible.” He smirked at her, and her cheeks heated before she added hastily: “At
painting. You’re so incredible at painting.”
He chuckled and bit his lip. “I liked it better when you didn’t add the end bit.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. I know it’s hard not to be amazed by me.”

“Shut up,” she said again, squirming about but he locked his arms around her waist and laughed.
“You’ve gone so red, Is.”
“Cos you’re being annoying,” she grumbled, dipping her head so that her hair fell in front of her
face. Harry only laughed and squeezed her sides.
“What were you and Caro talking about?” Harry asked, changing the subject so abruptly that
Isabel didn’t know what to say for a moment.
“You, obviously,” she replied, still looking down as she picked at the hem of his t-shirt. “What
else would we talk about?”
“She was singing my praises, clearly,” Harry joked, but there was an edge to his voice that made
Isabel glance up at him. There was a pucker between his eyebrows, his eyes concerned. “What
did she say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t care what she says,” was all Isabel replied. “I mean it. It doesn’t matter.”
Harry frowned, but he didn’t push it. “Okay.” He nodded, and his hair fell in front of his eyes, so
long it brushed against the tip of his nose.
“I’m proud of you, you know,” she said quietly, pushing his hair back off his forehead, and for a
few seconds Harry just blinked at her, completely stunned, before he smiled.
“Well, you see, the thing is,” he said conspiratorially, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “I
happen to know the head of the Film Society starting from September. She won the election by
an incredible landslide, apparently. So I’m a little bit proud too. Just a bit.”
She beamed before she could stop herself, looking up at him with a drumming heart. Nobody
else knew that she’d even stood for leadership, but it didn’t matter because the way he was
looking at her, his eyes wide and crinkling at the corners, his teeth biting down on a lip over a
smile and his arm still around her waist, equated to a thousand congratulations. Maybe that
should have scared her, the fact that all it took was one smile from him to make her heart swell
so much it felt like it was bursting in her chest, but it didn't.
“I hope you buy me something nice when you make thousands when someone inevitably buys
those paintings,” she teased. “Now that would be incredible.”
Harry pretended to frown in distaste. “Gold digger.”

“If I was a gold digger, I would have gone for Niall,” she reminded him.
“Are you suggesting you’re not attracted by his Irish charm? His great pick-up lines? His bodily
gases?”
“Sounds like you have a crush on him, Styles,” she smirked, poking her finger into the dimple in
his cheek, and he laughed happily.
“Well,” he said quietly, still smiling as he leaned down to brush his lips against hers, just once, “I
do have a thing for blondes."
~~~
"What's that?"
Isabel frowned at him. "Strawberries."
He'd met her by the checkouts, as planned, carrying a four pack of cider that he'd sourced from
the drinks aisle. They'd counted their money on the bus from Harry's presentation to the
supermarket on the promenade, and found they had £6.21 between them in small change.
"Organic strawberries," Harry corrected, prising them from her grip and blinking down at the
price. His eyes widened in horror. "£2.50?! Fuck that."
"They don't have any normal ones," Isabel replied, but Harry was still staring at the box in
alarm.
"That's like 15, 16p a strawberry," Harry pointed out, flinging the box to a nearby shelf in
disgust. "That's diabolical."
He took Isabel's hand in his free one, letting her lead him back to the fruit section.
"You can see for yourself," she told him. "We could get raspberries instead?"
“What sort of fucking supermarket doesn’t sell normal strawberries?” Harry grumbled. Isabel
ignored him, pulling him over to the strawberries and gesturing to the gaping hole where the
normal priced ones should have been.
“See? It’s summer, Harry. They’ll probably get some new stock in later.”
Harry wasn’t listening, though. He let go of her hand and walked forward to peer at the small
pile of boxes with bright yellow stickers tacked to them, catching his bottom lip between his
fingers.
“Those are out of date,” Isabel told him. “I already looked.”
Harry kept on scanning carefully before he leaned forward and selected a box, turning around
and smiling at her triumphantly. “Reduced to £1.10! These ones are alright, yeah?”
Isabel blinked at him. “But they’re out of date.”
“They’re strawberries,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes. “They’re not gonna kill you.”
She frowned, remembering forcefully how when she was younger her mum had refused to
buy anything out of date, regurgitating horror stories about her sister getting food poisoning in
1974. Her tales were always horrendously graphic, and ended with a shudder and a bout of
cursing in Swedish.
“But –”
“They’re strawberries,” Harry repeated, laughing and kissing her forehead. “You’re ridiculous.
I’ve eaten leftover pasta sauce that’s two weeks old and I’ve been fine.”
Isabel screwed up her nose as Harry looped his arm around her waist and pulled her towards the
checkout. “You could have got salmonella.”
“But I didn’t,” Harry said with a smile, and she just shook her head at him.
“You could have.”
“I saw on the news the other day – you know the UK throw away £12.5 billion worth of food
in a year? That’s 4.2 million tonnes.” He licked his lips, his eyebrows puckering as they shuffled
forwards in the queue. “Have you ever heard the governments talking about tackling food
wastage? I haven’t, and I read all the manifestos. That’s so much money. Imagine what people
could do with that money.”
She nearly laughed. “What on earth are you talking about, Harry?”
He flushed slightly, fiddling about with the cider in his hand so he didn't have to look at her for a
second. “I just find it interesting.”
“Who knew you were an environmentalist?” she giggled, poking his ribs, and he flashed her a
grin.
“I’m not,” he said with a laugh. “I’m poor as fuck.”
~~~
After that, they went to the beach. They’d decided it was worth making the most of it before the
schools broke up for summer, and it was unexpectedly, uncharacteristically empty, the deck
chairs lonely and vacant, only a few families littered across the vast expanse of shingle and rock.
They sipped their cider and ate their fruit straight from the box, lying on their backs and closing
their eyes against the sun. Harry was wearing a shirt with no sleeves but he kept complaining
about being too hot, wriggling around on the floor like a worm and yanking up the bottom of his
jeans until the ankle sat mid calf.
"It's too hot," he whined. Isabel smiled, because Harry moaning was so out of character that it
wasn't even annoying, but she had to roll to her side so she wasn't facing him because his lips
seemed obscenely pink today, especially when they were jutting out in a pout like an invitation.
"Is," he grumbled, shuffling towards her, and when he didn’t get her attention, he brushed her
hair away and kissed the back of her neck. "It's fucking boiling."
"I heard you the first time. And the million times after that."
"Why did we even leave the house?" he continued, pressing on her waist so she had to lie on her
back again. He lay on his side next to her, leaning on his elbow so he was looking down at her
with one arm resting across her stomach, and he frowned petulantly. "I'm gonna get heatstroke."
"For your presentation," she reminded him, pressing her fingers against his cheek. "And we
haven't left the house much this week."
“For good reason,” he mumbled, smirking slightly and pressing his lips to hers, so briefly that
she barely felt it.
“You’re moaning about being hot,” she reminded him, pulling her fingers through his hair.
“What you’re thinking of is not a way to cool down.”
“Why do you automatically assume I’m talking about sex?” he asked, drawing back and
pretending to be offended.
“Because you are.”
Harry grinned. “I could have been talking about all that reading we’ve been up to.”
Earlier that week, Harry had caught Isabel looking at his bookshelf one morning and fished out
some for her to read in summer. She’d barely got through three chapters in the week she’d stayed
with him and he’d already reread two books, devouring whole chapters in ten minutes before he
got distracted and flung the book to the floor.
“There’s no point in us staying inside in summer, anyway,” she said, smiling when he kissed the
corner of her mouth. “Gotta make the most of the sun before it starts raining again.”
“Nah,” Harry countered with a grin. His eyes scanned over her face for a moment, his tongue
darting out to wet his lips, before he asked: “Did you like my paintings this morning?”
She frowned at him, catching his fingers with hers. “Don’t fish, Harry. You already embarrassed
me enough.”
“No, I’m being serious,” he replied, looking down at their intertwined hands. “You were looking
a bit… I don’t know. When I looked at you during the presentation, I mean.”
“You think about things too much,” she said with a small smile. He nodded, still not looking at
her.
“Yeah, I know,” he said quietly.
Isabel wasn’t sure what to say then so she didn’t say anything, just bit down on her bottom lip
and watched him, his eyes clouded as he thought about something that he didn’t want to share
aloud.
“I know what we should do,” Harry said after a while, his sticky strawberry-stained fingers
brushing Isabel’s bare thigh. She squinted over at him, smiling because he was beaming, his
bottom lip tucked between his teeth. "We should go rock pooling!”
Isabel grinned at his excitement, at his fingertips digging into her thighs and his eyes bright.
“Shall we?”
“Yeah, let’s do it!"
He hauled her up and the pair of them waded out to the unoccupied shore, slipping on the rocks
and feeling the moss and seaweed beneath their toes.
“Ahhhhh,” Harry moaned when he got ankle deep. “So cold. So good.”
Isabel snorted. “Alright. Don’t get too excited.”
He laughed, before biting down on his lip and groaning and fluttering his eyes shut as though he
was mid-orgasm. He grinned delightedly when he opened his eyes and saw she was giggling and
shaking her head at him, trying to splash him with the water but missing.
They went so far that they were knee deep, and a large section of Harry’s jeans were submerged
but he didn’t seem to mind. He bent down over the water like an inquisitive child, his long hair
flopping into his face and brushing the end of his nose.
They looked for ages unsuccessfully, although Harry had enough false starts for the both of
them, plunging his hands into the water with caterwauling cries of “I found something!” before
emerging with nothing but a disappointed frown and a strangely shaped pebble caught between
his fingers.
Isabel, by comparison, peered around them calmly, waving the water around with her fingers,
and she gasped when she saw it.
“Look!” Isabel said excitedly. “Starfish!”

She pointed just to the right of Harry and waded forward to follow her finger, his face breaking
into a wide, childish smile as he watched her. Isabel bent down and picked it up, holding it out
for him with a wide grin. The starfish was scratchy on her palm, bright, stark orange and bigger
than her hand.
"Hi," Harry said quietly to the starfish, nudging the pad of his thumb over it, and she snorted. He
poked her with his free hand and she squealed, nearly dropping the starfish when she jerked
backwards away from his hand before Harry steadied her by hooking his arm around her waist.
“You’re fucking weird, Harry.”
“Shhh, you’ll scare him,” he said, looking up at her sternly. “You have to be gentle with small
things,” he told her bossily, unconsciously slipping into Older Brother Mode, and she rolled her
eyes.
“How many times have you said that before?”
“Shut up,” he said with a laugh, stroking the starfish with the tips of his fingers. He looked up at
her, his eyes shining. “Liv and Caitlin would never do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pick it up out of the water like that. They hate stuff like this.”
She shrugged. “Try growing up with my idiot for a brother. He used to pick up fish out of the
water and throw them at me when we went to Sweden.”
He squinted at her with a small smile as she crouched down to put the starfish carefully back into
the water. When she stood up and turned back to face him he was still staring, so she reached
into the water and splashed him. It hit him right in the face this time and his mouth hung open in
shock.
“What was that for?!”
“Stop looking at me, you freak,” she laughed, and he raised his eyebrows threateningly, shaking
out his wet hair before hitting the water so hard that a tidal wave of salty water washed over her.
She shrieked and he threw his head back in laughter, holding his sides and howling, his eyes
screwed shut.
“Fuck! You’re a dick!” She was soaked from head to toe, her hair clinging to her face and her
clothes turning translucent, and if it hadn’t been so warm she would have shivered.
He laughed again. “Am I?”
“Yes,” she clarified with a pout, rubbing her eyes to get the salt out.
"Isabel?" he said, and the sudden change of tone in his voice made her blink the salt out harshly
and look at him, at his hair brushing his forehead in shaggy damp curls and his eyes, bright and
alive, trained on hers.
"Yeah?"
"You see the girl I was telling you about the other morning?"
She frowned, confused at what sort of game he was going to try and play when they both knew
that the girl was her. She rubbed her eyes again and blinked at him. "Yeah?"
"Do you wanna hear some stuff that I think’s cool about her? You said you wanted me to talk."
She paused, licking her lips and squinting at him, the sun beating down on them in a heavy,
suffocating sort of way. "Okay."
"Okay," he repeated, drawing circles into the water with his fingertips. "Well she's pretty funny. I
mean, she takes a lot of care with how she looks and stuff but then she chews her nails off and
never bothers to brush her hair." He grinned at her widely. "And she says sorry for everything,
and it should be annoying but it's kinda sweet really. Well, I think so."
Isabel blushed, looking away from the intensity of his gaze but as soon as she broke their eye
contact he grabbed her waist with his wet hands, the heat of them burning through her soggy
clothes as he pulled her hips flush with his.
"And when it's cold she wears this massive coat that's five times too big and when it's warm she
still wears these huge clunky boots even though they make her even clumsier than she already
is."
"She sounds great," Isabel grumbled sarcastically as Harry beamed down at her.
“It’s okay, I’m clumsy too,” Harry said, squeezing her sides so that water dripped from his
fingertips back into the water. "But honestly. I like – she has a really nice mouth. Like, these
crooked bottom teeth and these pouty lips and stuff. I think they drove me insane for a while, you
know."
Isabel was already blushing, but now her cheeks were burning and she squirmed around,
mumbling at him to stop, but he shook his head.
"I like how she has this - this like, genuine love of trivia and things that aren’t real and it’s funny
cos when she's confronted with real life, she's just - just careful and cautious about everything.
It’s all a bit late and breathless and confused. It's so funny. It’s amazing."
Isabel just blinked at him, her heart shuddering in a strange rhythm. She wondered how much
time he'd spent quietly analysing her, figuring her out entirely and completely and saying nothing
at all.
Because that’s the type of person Harry was, she was realising. Isabel was the sort of girl who
forgot a lot of things, who accidentally got the wrong train platform and zoned out during the
important bits of Eastenders on Christmas Day so her whole family shouted at her when she
asked them to repeat it. Her dad always used to say that Isabel embodied the phrase blink and
you’ll miss it, because she always blinked at the wrong moments, and she always seemed to miss
everything.
But blink and you’ll miss it was a phrase that would never apply to Harry because he
saw everything, not just because he was observant, and because he was clever, but because he
wanted to. He saw and processed and thought about everything, and if Isabel had been thinking
clearly, maybe she would have realised that was his problem.
He had been light-hearted, almost joking in his tone up till now, but as he sensed her mood
change, his did too. He shifted, taking a sharp breath before continuing. “I um - I've never even
told her that I -"
He paused, and all the unspoken things that she needed him to say seemed to flow between them
like electricity. Except that when she thought about it, there wasn't loads of things she needed
him to say at all. Just one thing, three words long, and she wasn’t even sure what she wanted the
middle word to be because she wasn’t certain even that like would be enough anymore. He
licked his lips, his gaze darting away from her for the first time and she knew he could feel it too,
the weight of what she needed him to say bearing down on him, the intensity of it, the
consequences it would have.
"I think you're the coolest person I know," Harry said.
And it wasn't what she wanted, but as Harry pulled her in for a slow, lazy kiss, a smile playing
on his lips when they brushed hers, it was enough.
End Notes:
hellooooooo!! sorry for the unexpected pause in proceedings – I hope you all had a good
productive week while 1dff was down!
I also really hope this was worth the wait and I'm also sorry that instead of punching Louis you
got Harry mumbling about Robert Browning – I don’t know whether this was what you were
expecting, but it’s certainly different….I mean, everything’s good now… riiiiiiiiight?
see ya next week (that is - if the site doesn’t explode again, I know that was a promise I failed to
keep last time) oxygenstyles.tumblr.com :)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
just need a little time
June
When Isabel woke up, Harry was on top of her, his head buried so far into her neck that his nose
was pressed into the crevice above her collarbone, his lips warming the skin below.
He was heavy, but not unpleasantly so; one of his legs was between hers, the hairs on his calves
brushing the stubble forming on hers, his whole torso splayed across her and one of his hands
tangling in her hair.
She lay still for a moment, his breath hot against her collarbone and their feet touching, his toes
tickling the arch of her right foot. She ran her hands up and down his bare back, wondering how
it always ended up like this. They could go to sleep in any position but now Harry would always
end up at least half on top of her, his face burrowed into her neck or chest and their legs tangled.
Afraid she would wake him, she wormed her way out from beneath him carefully, but he only
sighed and smashed his face into the pillow when she moved, still lying flat on his front. Isabel
smiled at that before yawning and stretching, the distinctive ache of her thighs and soreness of
her hips indecently reminding her of the night before, and the night before that, and before that...
When she shuffled into the kitchen clad in one of Harry's discarded t-shirts and her sweatpants,
she found Zayn sitting at the table shovelling cereal into his mouth, glaring gloomily at his bowl
like it had offended him.
“Morning,” she said cheerily. Zayn nodded his hello, eyes half shut.
“Fuck me, I have to go to work,” he mumbled as she switched the kettle on and stuffed some
bread into the toaster. “It’s too early for this.”
“You hungover?” Isabel asked, surveying Zayn’s pale skin and bloodshot eyes. He groaned at
the sound of the kettle boiling.
“I feel like I’m gonna explode,” he said dramatically, rubbing the heel of his hand over his eye.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to last the whole shift.”
“Ten till six?” Isabel asked as she retrieved jam and butter from the fridge. She was acquainted
with Zayn’s schedule at HMV now, and he nodded with a familiar air of self-pity, sighing
loudly. “You’ll be all right in a few hours,” Isabel chimed brightly, and he scowled at her.
“Reckon Harry’s okay?” he asked, scooping the last of the cereal out of the bowl. “Is he still
asleep?”
“He’s just tired, I think,” Isabel replied before taking a sip of her tea. “Neither of us drank too
much.”
This was because neither of them had wanted to go to the pub last night at all, but they’d been
forcing themselves out with the others as much as possible, however tempting it was to stay in
bed. They'd spent most of the night trying to cut Niall off in an effort to ensure he'd be all right
for his big exam the following day, but he’d drank far too much anyway and promptly been sick
all over Caitlin’s shoes on the way home.
“Has Niall gone to his exam?”
“He left just before you came down,” Zayn replied. He stood up with a groan, crossing the room
to drop his bowl in the sink before turning to face Isabel, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
“How do I look? Do I look hungover?”
Isabel tried not to laugh at him, her lips quirking up at the corners. “You look like death.”
“Cheers.” He smiled, tapping her lightly on the arm with his fist and loping to the door, calling to
her over his shoulder. “Don’t let Harry sleep all day, lazy shit.”
Isabel finished her breakfast and her tea in solitude, contemplating whether or not to take some
up for Harry before accepting both would go soggy and cold respectively before he touched it.
She padded up to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face, peering at the bags under
her eyes and her swollen lips in the mirror, before heading back to the bedroom to find Harry in
exactly the same position she’d left him, face down with his cheek squashed against the pillow.
She grinned inadvertently and made her way over to where he was splayed out, climbing onto
the bed and swinging her leg over him so that she sat carefully on his lower back, her legs on
either side of his torso as she pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
“Wake up, Harry,” she murmured softly, running a gentle hand through his hair. He groaned but
didn’t move, his eyes squeezing shut tighter, and she laughed, leaning down to kiss his cheek so
that her hair brushed his face. “You have to wake up, baby.”
He blinked a couple of times, eyes dreary and lips pushed out into a pout, and she shifted so she
was lying beside him, smiling as he rubbed the back of his hand across his face.
“What time’s it?” he asked, his voice was so gravelly that she could barely make out what he
was saying.
“Nearly ten.”
This prompted a pained moan from Harry. “So early,” he mumbled. He looked at her through
puffy eyelids and blinked rapidly before hooking his hand around her waist and pulling her
towards him. “Why d’you have clothes on?”
He brushed his lips across her neck, his hand wasting no time in dipping beneath the sweatpants
to rest against the curve of her bum, and she shut her eyes, sighing contentedly. Her heart flared
up with familiar scorching anticipation, blood pooling under the skin his mouth closed over, and
heat pooled between her legs when he palmed her ass with little subtlety. He lifted his head up
and, half-blind, his nose bumped against hers as he went to kiss her, but she placed a hand on his
chest before their lips could touch. “Go and brush your teeth, Harry,” she murmured, rubbing her
thumb over his nipple and grinning when he scowled.
Harry did as he was told without protest, save for a loud groan when he pulled away from her
and flung the covers back, and then Isabel watched as he hobbled off to the bathroom completely
naked, stretching his arms up so that the muscles in his back pulled beneath his skin in an
obscene kind of way.
His eyes were still half-shut and puffy – like they always were in the morning – when he shuffled
back in, and he had a bit of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth, and for some reason, this made
Isabel's heart feel like it was being tugged inside out with rough insistence. Before she could
analyse this further, though, Harry was crawling up the bed towards her yawning and still half-
asleep, shooting her a sloppy smile before pressing his lips to hers.
“All fresh,” he murmured, his voice still rough and husky, and she smiled back, swiping the
toothpaste by his mouth with the pad of her thumb.
“Good boy,” she said, patting the side of his face. He didn't reply, just kissed his way across her
cheek, mouthing at her jaw wetly as he worked on removing her clothing.
“Don’t ever wake me up with clothes on again,” Harry muttered, his nose brushing the upper
ridge of her ear as he threw her sweatpants across the room roughly. “No clothes.”
Then his mouth was back on hers, his tongue tracing her lips and then the edge of her own
tongue with drowsy but palpable enthusiasm as he hooked an arm around her sore, worn-out
thigh and pulled it around his waist.
It was slow and sleepy; Harry wasn't even fully awake yet, his eyes pressed shut and his breath
coming out in thick and heavy gasps between his parted lips. They’d done this almost every
morning, sometimes with Harry rousing her from sleep with his mouth hot on her skin, and
sometimes after breakfast, and sometimes just because they could both feel that he wanted it as
soon as they woke up, Harry letting out a little embarrassed laugh and flashing her a sheepish,
apologetic grin.
Today was different because when she came she knew she didn’t have to be quiet as nobody else
was in, but she was anyway - her toes curling and her breath catching in her throat, head flung
back against the pillows. Harry came not long after with a little muffled whimper, his eyes
droopy and his teeth biting down on her shoulder as his hips worked sloppily towards
conclusion, pushing himself until he was completely spent.
When he collapsed beside her and pulled her with him with one arm slung across her waist so
that they lay facing each other, for a while they were silent. Harry's eyes were still closed and it
looked almost like he'd fallen asleep again, but his fingertips trailed up and down her back,
drawing patterns there that Isabel couldn't decipher, and she watched him with silent adoration,
her heart throbbing helplessly.
“I’m hungry,” was the first thing Harry said, eyes still clamped shut, and she exhaled out a
laugh.
"I already ate."
"Lucky for some," Harry grumbled before yawning as she burrowed closer to him, slotting her
hands onto his chest and tucking one of her legs between his. Isabel thought, not for the first
time, that Harry was the sweetest version of himself in the morning, his hair tufty and
dishevelled, his eyes barely able to stay open and his cheeks pink.
He smiled, squinting at her through his swollen eyelids and pressing his lips to hers, softly at first
and then harder, swiping his tongue across her lips. "I wanna stay here forever," he mumbled, his
hand hooking tighter around her lower back. "Let's stay here forever."
"Here?" Isabel questioned, pulling her knuckles across his stomach. Harry nodded, kissing her
again and trapping her lower lip between his for a moment.
"In bed here. Let's never leave."
"Yeah, that would be nice," she agreed, and he drew his head back, frowning deeply.
"Nice?" he repeated incredulously, pressing the pads of his fingers down harder into her back.
"Nice? I think I'm a bit better than nice."
"And modest, too," Isabel replied, raising her eyebrows.
"Take it back."
"Grow up."
"Whatever. I'm just gonna pretend you never used that word," Harry said decidedly, flopping his
forehead down to her shoulder and pressing his lips over her heart. He was smiling against her
skin, and Isabel tried not to take the bait but she couldn't resist him when he was like this, all soft
and tactile and teasing, his fingertips dancing across her bare skin like they were trying to
memorise it.
"Well, what did I say instead?"
"Great," Harry mused. "Amazing. Incredible." She felt him smirk, his feet shifting so that he
tickled the bottom of hers with his toes, and then he added triumphantly, "You have said all those
things before."
"Shut up," she grumbled, listening to him cackle before he kissed his way up her neck, hovering
over her lips with a satisfied smile.
"Hi," he whispered, peppering kisses onto her lips, “I’m awake now.”
"Morning," she replied, running her fingers through his hair and briefly pinching his upper lip
between her teeth.
"Let's stay... here all... day, today," Harry suggested between kisses. "Let's just stay in bed
aaaaall day."
She nearly entertained the idea, wanting nothing less than to stay cocooned under Harry's duvet
indefinitely, but then he smiled big enough that the dimple appeared in his cheek and her heart
flipped inside out again in a way it shouldn't for the person she was ultimately just fucking, albeit
every day, albeit multiple times a day. "You have to eat," she reminded him unenthusiastically.
"And I have to shower and shave my legs."
Harry ran his hand down the back of her thigh, nipping at her lip. "It’s fine, I don’t mind. I think
I kinda like it stubbly.”
“You’re weird,” she teased with a frown, and he shrugged, smirking.
“Mean. You still fuck me even though I’m weird,” he pointed out, planting a kiss to the corner of
her mouth.
"Maybe weird is my type."
"Really? I can get weirder," he promised solemnly. "If that's what you like, I'll
get proper weird."
"Oh God. What does that mean?"
Harry waggled his eyebrows. "Oh, you know... in bed. We could try some stuff."
"Harry."
"Watersports?"
"I don't really want you to piss on me, no offence."
"I could borrow Liv's Kama Sutra book, see what's up." Isabel's eyes widened at that and Harry
cackled, biting at her mouth playfully. "Could spice things up. Bend each other in half, you
know."
"It sounds a - a bit complicated."
"It's ancient stuff, Is. Like, I'm talking Before Christ ancient." He squeezed her hips, eyes bright
and mischievous. "If the Romans can get it, we can."
"I think I'm happy with how it is."
"Just happy?"
"More than happy. Over the moon."
Harry grinned triumphantly. "See. I'm better than nice."
She shook her head at him, running her fingers through the little curls at the nape of his neck.
“Savour it while you can. One day you'll crush me half to death with the way you fall asleep all
over me.”
“That's the plan,” he said with a smile. He ran his hands over her thighs again, trying not to beam
when she quivered a little, and then, quite out of the blue, “Why don't you shower with me?"
She smiled in surprise. "Shower together?"
"No-one's home," Harry said with a small shrug. "You said you need to shower. Sexy, right?"
He grinned, and when she agreed he wrestled his way out of the duvet and stretched, the muscles
in his back rippling again as he ran a hand through his hair and groaned, shaking out his stiff
limbs.
She watched him with a little shudder, wondering what seemed the thousandth time how it was
possible that she was the one in his bed, how out of every girl he could have chosen she was the
one he picked, and how she had seen him wake up every day for ten days straight and she
couldn’t imagine ever being bored of it.
“What are you looking at?” he asked her, smiling slightly when he looked at her lying across his
bed, watching him with her lip pulled between her teeth.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring,” he teased her, scratching his fingers over his chest and gazing at her with soft
eyes. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and raised his eyebrows impishly. “Thinking how
lucky you are, yeah?”
Yes. “No.”
“It’s okay,” Harry replied with a smirk, and he was only joking but her cheeks still coloured all
the same. “Don’t be embarrassed. You are very lucky.”
Yeah. “Shut up.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he said with a grin, and she covered her reddening face with the duvet,
burrowing underneath it so he couldn’t tease her more. It was suspiciously silent for a moment,
and she supposed he'd gone before suddenly Harry’s entire weight was on top of her, pushing her
down heavily into the mattress as she squealed.
“Harry get off!”
He laughed delightedly, digging his fingers into her sides hard enough that she could feel it
through the duvet and she squirmed around beneath him.
“You’re - such a - dick!” she choked out between laughs, and eventually he yanked the duvet
away from her face, his eyes bright and his mouth hanging open in a smile.
In moments like this, when he displayed such genuine happiness, a smile so big spread across his
face that his eyes bunched up in the corners and every pore seemed to emanate it, she felt the
breath knocked out of her. There was nothing like it, she was sure – no smile in the world that
could match this one, and he must have been able to sense her awe because he shifted so he
wasn’t lying a dead weight on top of her and then kissed her, holding her face in his palm and
stroking his thumb against her cheek.
She wasn’t surprised when he deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping into her mouth and his hand
sliding from her face to gently curl around her neck. He breathed heavily, shifting his hips
against hers and grasping the pillow tightly by her head, but just as she’d been about to tug away
the duvet that was creating a barrier between them and wrap her legs around his waist, absolutely
ready to go again for the second time that morning, he pulled away and groaned into her neck.
“I honestly am fucking starving,” Harry grumbled. “I can’t concentrate.”
“It’s all right,” Isabel told him somewhat breathlessly, running her palm up and down his back.
"I'll be a minute," Harry said, trailing his lips down her jaw and leaving one open mouthed kiss
on her collarbone that had her squirming before pushing himself up away from her. "Stay here,
yeah?"
It was that request that had Isabel grinning as she waited for him - stay here, as though she'd
escape in his absence - and she was still smiling as she retrieved a bottle of nail varnish from her
make-up bag and set about painting her nails, burrowing back under Harry's duvet and resting
her hand against a hardback. She was in the midst of painting the crucial first stroke when Harry
bounded back into the room and flung himself onto the bed, the whole mattress quaking on his
impact.
“Harry!” she cried loudly, smacking him on the arm. “You jogged me!”
“Sorry,” he said thickly, his mouth full. He balanced the plate of his toast between his hand and
his chest, watching as she tried to salvage the mess she’d made.
“I’m so shit at this,” she sighed, frowning petulantly at the nail varnish smeared halfway down
her finger.
“Sorry,” Harry said again, swallowing loudly. He paused for a second before putting his plate on
the floor, wiping the crumbs from his lips with the back of his hand and then reaching for the
little bottle of nail varnish, prising it gently from her fingers. “Here, let me do it.”
He shifted to sit cross-legged in front of her, pressing her palm flat on the book before dipping
the brush into the pot a few times, frowning in concentration.
“It’s harder than it looks,” Isabel warned him, and he nodded seriously, his tongue between his
teeth as he bent over her hand. He painted two careful strokes onto the nail on her ring finger,
and when he leaned back, she examined his handiwork. It was perfect. Not a speck out of place,
not even the tiniest smear on her skin.
“Of course you’d do it perfectly first time,” she grumbled.
“Hmm?” he asked, distractedly readying the brush for his next stroke. “What was that?”
“Just jealous of how good you are at everything,” she told him with an inadvertent pout. He
laughed a little and looked back at the brush.
“Nah, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’ve just got a steady hand,” he replied, painting her middle finger carefully and, again,
faultlessly. He glanced at her with a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I kinda paint
everyday. I’m used to this.”
Isabel wanted to remind him that he actually had the least steady hands she'd ever seen - any
time he was slightly nervous they shook so much he blushed - but he seemed so focused and
content with his task that she didn't want to ruin it.
Harry worked in silence for a while, and Isabel stared at him with a sharp pull in the centre of her
chest, as though her heart was reaching for him with outstretched arms like a cartoon. It just felt
so domestic, so couple-y, something people did with their boyfriends - if said boyfriends would
ever voluntarily paint their girlfriend's nails, which Isabel, with an inexplicable swell of smug
pride, doubted many would. Harry wasn't her boyfriend, though, but right now, that felt
inconsequential.
“This is so weird and grown up, isn’t it?” she said excitedly, grinning at him as he rubbed his
thumb over the back of her hand. “It’s midday and we’re - we’re sitting in bed and you’re
painting my nails. I feel like we’re fucking married or something.”
The words fell out of her mouth before she could even think to hold them back, and she blushed,
her eyes widening as she mentally throttled herself and tried desperately to think of a way - any
way - to take them back. To her utmost surprise, though, Harry didn’t even hesitate before
responding.
“It’s like the kids have gone to school and we both had the day off, so we took advantage of the
empty house and lounged about naked all day,” Harry said, smiling as he held her fingers down
and moved the brush delicately. “Which is kinda true, cos Zayn and Niall are out.”
“I reckon you’re a right miserable old fucker,” Isabel laughed, and Harry’s jaw dropped in
indignation, looking up at her with eyebrows pinched together in the middle. “Ended up as an art
teacher or something.”
“Nothing wrong with being an art teacher.”
“Doesn’t everyone with a Fine Art degree end up an art teacher?”
“Some of us might actually enjoy it,” Harry retorted, trying to appear haughty as he pouted.
“What are you then? A history teacher?”
“I can’t think of anything worse.”
“We teach at the same school,” Harry went on, not missing a beat. “And we have matching
sandwiches at lunch - here, give me your right hand. Yeah, sandwiches. I packed them for us and
wrapped them up in clingfilm.”
“We’re so domestic.”
“I know. I even label them some days, because you don’t like tuna and you’d kill me if they got
mixed up.”
“I bet all the other teachers hate us,” Isabel said with a grin, enjoying this way more than she
should. “They all cringe when they see us with our matching sandwiches.”
“They’re just jealous.”
“Especially that old granny who teaches Geography. She wants you. I've seen her eyeing you up
in the staff room.”
Harry looked up at her with a suggestive raise of his eyebrows, his hair falling into his face.
“Well, I do like an older woman. Especially the cardigan and sandals type.”
“I wonder whether our sex life would be this good though,” Isabel mused, ignoring him. “Do
married people have sex a lot?”
Harry’s eyebrows travelled even higher. “We’re sitting here in an empty house and I’m painting
your nails. I don’t think this says much for our sex life.”
“I don’t remember you complaining before,” she replied and his face broke into a smile.
“Nah, you’re alright. I’m not complaining.” He pulled back, surveying her hands with a frown,
his teeth biting down on his lip before he decided he was satisfied. “All done.”
“Better than a manicurist,” she praised with a smile.
“This is it. Fuck being an art teacher. I’m going into nails.”
She laughed as he picked up her fingers and blew on them, his cheeks hollowing and his lips
puckering out as he exhaled a stream of air against them. She zoned in on the deep pink of his
mouth, her mind racing with the things he could do - had done - with it, the expert curl of his
tongue, the wet brush of his lips against her skin, and quicker than should be possible, her body
ached for him, the space between her legs throbbing for his soft touch, his long fingers, that pink,
wet mouth blowing warm air over her hands. And when he was done, he seemed halted for a
moment by the way she was watching him, blinking at her slowly before his eyes flickered
across her face, his gaze coming to rest on her mouth.
“How long before these dry?” he asked, his tongue swiping out to wet his lips.
She wasn't sure how this always happened, but it still surprised her when it did. One minute they
were joking about, and all it took was one of them to get just that bit hotter, their heart
accelerating, for the other to forget the light-hearted mood entirely. That's why over the last ten
days, they'd struggled to ever make it out of Harry's room. One of them always wanted more,
more, more of the other, and they couldn't stop consuming each other, kissing and biting and
touching until Isabel felt like she might explode with how hot he made her, how all he had to do
was mumble something filthy in her ear and it was like he'd set her skin on fire.
This is what sex was meant to be like. Not a fumbling, hurried fix in a back of a car, not chasing
a quick orgasm, not using each other to get off. It was meant to be drawn out, enjoyed, pushing
each other to the brink and then pulling each other back, burning and branding and scorching
each other. Isabel hadn't known how good it could feel to be scrutinised, watched intensely, have
your skin mapped by someone else, until Harry had reached for her with warm, trustworthy
hands.
“Like ten minutes,” she replied, pulling her fingers from his to drum her fingertips against his
knees as she looked away from him, suddenly far, far too hot. “Let’s distract ourselves before we
fuck up my nails.”
“We were talking about our sex life,” Harry reminded her, his voice low and smooth as he slid
his hand up her thigh.
“No,” she said as sternly as she could manage. “We were talking about married people’s sex
lives first. Like our parents and stuff.”
This had the desired effect. “I hope my parents don’t fuck,” Harry replied, screwing up his face
and withdrawing his hand quickly. “God, I don’t even want to think about it happening in my
lifetime.”
“Well Cally’s only seven,” she reminded him with a grin. “So you were twelve when they were
shagging.”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Harry groaned.
“It’s not that bad!”
“Honestly, imagine your mum doing what we do,” Harry said, widening his eyes at her. “Like
imagine it.”
“No thanks,” Isabel grumbled.
"Imagine her doing what he did last night," Harry went on with a broad, devilish smile, crinkling
his nose and tilting his head to the side. “Imagine Mark had her against the wall –"
"Harry!"
"I'm just saying! They’ve not been married too long, they probably fuck all the time.”
“You’re absolutely grim,” she told him, and he laughed delightedly, leaning forward and
pressing a kiss to her mouth.
"You love it."
"Absolutely not."
"Go home then," he murmured against her lips, and he was only joking but her heart still sank.
"Can't think of anything worse," she replied dejectedly, pulling away from him. She sighed,
biting down on her lip as he tucked her hair behind her ear and waited for her to elaborate. "You
know, I was gonna come back in summer cos I'm still paying rent for the house in July and
August, obviously, but Millie and Scarlett said they'll be here and I - I don't want to."
Harry frowned. "That's a waste of money, though. You shouldn't let them ruin it."
“We’re hardly friends anymore, though. I haven’t seen them for ages, have I?” She blinked up at
him, pausing for a moment. "Will you be here over summer?"
She’d thought about this a lot. It was Tuesday, and Friday was the last day for both unis before
the summer holidays. They all had a week at their respective homes - besides Niall, who was
going to stay with Caitlin since it wasn’t worth flying back to Ireland - and then they were off to
work at Liv’s uncle’s campsite. What would happen in the long stretch of summer after that was
anybody’s guess.
"I don't think so," he replied, licking his lips again. "I'm really busy. Work experience and all that
in Manchester. Gonna do some paid jobs around the village as well." He swallowed and looked
away from her, knowing that they’d just concluded that they wouldn’t see each other here, at
least, for the whole of summer.
“Oh okay.”
“Niall said his dad was on the phone to the landlord the other day and I think he arranged some
sort of … deal thing. I don’t know. I think some of his clients might be staying here for a few
weeks while Niall's dad's still covering the rent over summer. I don’t know, I’m not clued up on
the specifics. It’s just – yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“So there's times when I can’t come back even if I… if I wanted to.”
“Yeah.”
Summer talk was excruciating. They'd avoided it, and for good reason it seemed, because Isabel
suddenly felt sick. There were fourteen long weeks stretched out before them, something like a
hundred days and thousands and thousands of hours and minutes, and not one word of whether
or not they would see each other.
Because why would they? They weren't together, were they? Harry hadn't said so. Harry hadn't
even said whether or not he liked her. And maybe it was childish of Isabel to want him to say,
"Please be my girlfriend," but she couldn't help it. In the same way, she knew it was childish to
want him to say it and not have to be the one who said it first, for the tenth time, but she couldn't
help it.
Harry scanned her face worriedly, as though he could tell what she was thinking, and he leaned
forward and pressed his lips to hers before either of them could drag out this conversation
further. “Shall we have a shower now?” he mumbled, and she nodded.
They climbed out of bed and headed in the direction of the bathroom, Harry’s arms around
Isabel’s shoulders as he followed her, his lips pressed to the back of her head. When they got
there, though, it was safe to say Isabel was unimpressed. Having only ever showered alone here,
standing in the bath under the showerhead attached to the wall, she'd never really realised how
small it was.
She surveyed it with pursed lips as she turned the shower on and waited for the water to heat up.
It was nothing short of tiny, and she struggled to envisage Harry's long gangly legs slotting in
with hers without either of them tumbling out or seriously injuring themselves.
"Have you ever tried this before?" Isabel asked dubiously as Harry busied himself with getting
them towels.
"Nope," Harry replied cheerfully.
"It's gonna be a bit tight," Isabel mused, eyeing the space in the bath doubtfully, and when she
looked back at Harry he was smirking, leaning back against the sink with his arms folded across
his chest.
He opened his mouth, the look of self-satisfaction in his eyes warning her he was about to tell an
awful joke. "Well, I –"
"Don't say a word," she interrupted, and he laughed. "I promise you, whatever you were gonna
say isn't funny."
She stuck a hand in the water, and happy with the temperature, climbed in and stood under the
spray, pushing her hair back and closing her eyes as it stroked her face.
“I’m comi– fuck!” Isabel heard Harry crash into the wall beside her and she spluttered out a
laugh. He’d managed to slip before he’d even got in properly.
He stepped forward, sliding his hand around her waist before proceeding to wince so loudly she
jumped. She spun around to face him and watched with wide eyes as he yelped sharply and drew
back like he'd been scalded.
“Fuck!” he said loudly, stumbling back until he was leaning against the opposite wall. “Why is it
so hot?!”
“It’s not hot,” she replied, rolling her eyes.
“Why do girls run the water so that it gives third degree burns?” he growled, his palms flat
against the tiles and his feet planted firmly by the plughole.
“Harry, don’t be stupid,” she laughed, turning her back to him.
“I’m worried about your safety,” Harry went on loudly, bravely sticking one arm out to grab hers
and whining when the water hit his skin. “Are you blistering? You’re standing in the fiery depths
of hell right now.”
“Harry, don't be pathetic.”
He sighed, and she knew he didn’t want her to laugh at him so he stepped forward, slotting in
gingerly beside her until one leg was under the water, his entire face painted with worry. “Is, this
is insane.”
“Get in, it’s fine!”

"I think we have very different definitions of fine,” he replied and she glared at him. He shuffled
a bit further in and exhaled harshly. “I genuinely don’t think I can.”
“What?” she said incredulously, laughing and pinching his leg. He didn’t laugh back, just looked
at her with wide eyes.
“I’m worried it’ll damage my ability to have children,” he said seriously, cupping his hand
between his legs and blinking at her. “It’s actually scorching.”
“Harry stop it,” she spluttered between laughs, digging her nails into his leg, and he laughed too
but his eyes, terrified, gave him away.
“I’m being serious,” he said, his voice higher than usual as he laughed and tried to pull away
from her without success. “I was planning on having at least two.”
“It’s only gonna get down there if I take the shower off the wall and aim it at you,” Isabel replied
and he tilted his head to the side, his lips pouting out. "I might at this rate."
“Don’t be mean.”
“You’re so annoying. Remind me never to shower with you again,” she told him, bending down
to get the shampoo.
“All right.” She looked up at him, surprised by his sudden change of tone, and she became aware
of her position when she saw he was smiling. “Hey, this is familiar.”
His hand twitched by his groin, and she knew he wanted to move it away because she was at the
perfect level, her face hovering right in front of his crotch. She raised her eyebrows and stood up.
“Wimps don’t get blown.”
He sighed dramatically and then inched himself forward, wincing and mumbling with every
movement until he was finally directly under the water. “Fuck me, you’re trying to kill me.”
Isabel ignored him, squeezing some shampoo into her hands and rubbing it into her hair. He just
watched her for a moment before taking the bottle and doing the same, and for the first few
minutes they were just laughing as they tried to awkwardly manoeuvre in the tiny space, getting
shampoo in their eyes as both of them slipped and stumbled about, hitting each other in the face
with their elbows and knocking each other with their knees. Harry nearly toppled from the bath
when Isabel tried to reach for the razor, yelping loudly and then laughing so much he had to lean
against the wall and clutch his sides.
“Oh, fuck it,” she said dejectedly after a few hideous moments of trying to get into a position
where she could reach her calves. “There’s no way I can shave them when you’re here.”
“This was an awful idea,” Harry agreed happily, flinging the razor haphazardly out of the shower
curtain before sliding his arms around her waist. “I knew we weren’t gonna fit.”
He kissed her gently, his tongue teasing her bottom lip before he pulled away.
“You smell like my shampoo,” he said quietly, so quietly she could barely hear him over the
sound of the water, and her heart accelerated at that, at the thought that she smelt entirely like
him. Harry smiled at her, water trailing down the side of his face and dripping off the sharp line
of his cheekbone, and he didn’t seem to mind the temperature now, not when his arms were
around her waist and hers were around his neck.
“What are you gonna do next week?” she asked him as one of his hands stroked up her back, his
lips pressed against her jaw.
Harry pulled back to look at her, grinning. “I’ll probably just wank the whole time.”
“Stop,” she cut back, tugging the ends of his long hair as he laughed. “What are you actually
gonna do? I wanna know.”
Harry’s hand dipped so that he was squeezing her waist and drawing her closer to him as she slid
her hands from his neck to rest against his chest. “Why?” he asked softly, a smile playing at his
lips.
“I like knowing what you’re doing,” Isabel mumbled, fiddling with his necklace so she didn’t
have to meet his eyes, embarrassed.
“You’re sweet,” Harry said, kissing her forehead. “I think I’m just gonna do stuff with my car.”
“Stuff with your car?”
He nodded. “The brakes are all fucked up, and I think the engine’s overheating because the paint
on the bonnet’s gone all cracked. Needs new tyres as well.”
Isabel frowned. “Isn’t all that really expensive?”
“I’m gonna try and do the brakes myself first,” Harry replied, running his fingers up and down
her sides, the water trickling through his fingers. “The other stuff will probably be expensive
though, yeah. I’m gonna borrow money off my mate from home and pay him back once we’ve
got our wages from Liv’s uncle.”
Isabel pressed her lips together, her frown deepening, and Harry laughed at her. “What are you
frowning at?”
“Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to get a new car?”
Harry paused, wetting his lips. “No,” he said flatly.
“I think it probably would be,” Isabel continued. “One of my crazy Swedish cousins bought this
shitty car for 1000 kronor, which is like £100, and it was awful, but then he sold it for parts and
made a huge profit.” Harry was squinting at her like he had no idea what she was talking about,
water dripping from his hair over his face, and she just kept going because he wasn’t saying
anything. “I mean surely it’s cheaper to sell your car now and buy a slightly newer model than
paying so much to get it fixed? It’s just gonna get worse.”
Harry blinked at her, a drop of water falling from his eyelashes like a tear. “It’s fine. My car’s
fine.”
“But I just… surely it’s not gonna last much longer?”
He pulled away from her then, rubbing his hands over his face as hers dropped from his chest. “I
don’t need to buy another car.”
“Not another car, a new car.”
“I don’t need to buy a new car, then,” Harry spat. “My car’s fine.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, her eyes scanning over the tight knot in his jaw, his face the picture of
annoyance as he crossed his arms across his chest and looked away from her. “Do you
understand what I mean, though?”
“Not really,” he replied, irritated. “Why would I get a new car?”
Isabel just stared at him for a minute, at his tongue pressed into his cheek in irritation and the
pinched skin between his eyebrows, entirely taken aback. “Because your car is nearly a write-
off.”
“It’s fine!” he snapped loudly. “I don’t - I don’t understand why I would replace this car when
it’s not fucking broken? What a - what a fucking stupid conversation to have in the shower. I just
- Jesus. Fuck."
Isabel swallowed hard as she turned around to switch the shower off, biting down hard on her lip
and closing her eyes. She knew what this was about. It was Adam’s car, and he didn’t want to get
rid of it. What was worse, though, was that even the idea of letting it go was entirely
incomprehensible to Harry. He didn’t even think that getting a new car made sense, and he
wouldn’t let himself recognise that Adam was the reason he was clinging onto it.
Everything, without fail, always came back to Adam.
It was completely silent for a moment, and Isabel expected to hear Harry get out. Instead, she
jolted in surprise when his palm pressed lightly on her lower back before sliding around her
waist, turning her back around. “Let’s not fight,” he said gently, his eyes wide and his eyelashes
tangled from the water. He smiled at her, a wide, toothy smile that didn’t meet his eyes at all, and
she gulped. “Sorry, Is.”
“We’re not fighting,” Isabel said quietly as he dropped his head and kissed his way along her
collarbone, his tongue swiping over the skin on her clavicle. He dotted messy kisses up her neck
and jaw until he found her mouth, pushing his tongue against hers before she could catch her
breath and grasping her waist tight, pressing her back against the wall.
She pulled away, rubbing her thumb across his lips, her heart hammering. “Harry, maybe we
should talk about –”
“Shhhh,” he whispered, reconnecting their lips and dipping his hand between her legs, for once
not smiling when he heard her gasp. He kept kissing her hard, fingers creating an unforgiving
rhythm and wrist flexing between them until he felt her breath hitch and her hands tighten in his
hair, her body melting into his.
“Baby,” he said breathlessly, cupping her face with his free hand and kissing the very edge of her
mouth before pressing her further back against the wall so that they slid down it. When she was
sat on the edge of the bath he dropped to his knees in front of her, withdrawing his fingers so that
she whimpered at the loss of contact. “Let’s not fight, yeah?” he mumbled, kissing the inside of
her knee.
“We’re not,” she said again, lacing her hands tighter in his hair and squeezing the water from it.
She was shivering, half from the lack of warmth now that the shower was off and the strikingly
cool wall she was leaning on, and half from Harry’s wet mouth that was making its deadly
voyage up the inside of her leg.
“We haven’t fought in so long,” he muttered, hooking his arms under her thighs and looking up
at her. He smiled again, but his eyes were different, clouded, and Isabel’s face fell. “Let’s not
fight, Is, I hate it.”
“We’re not, Harry,” she said, her voice uneven as he bit down slightly on the top of her thigh,
soothing it with his tongue. “I think we really should talk about –”
“Shhhh,” he said again, and before she could protest he dipped his head and swiped his tongue
between her legs, and she forgot why they needed to talk about things at all.
End Notes:
so this was just a snapshot into what Harry and Isabel were like in those two weeks of June
before the unis break up for the summer, and I hope you enjoyed it!! you might find these two
weeks being mentioned some more as we go through so keep them in mind!
I’d love to hear what you think will happen next, and where they can go from here both
individually and together – there are lots of things left unsaid and I think (hope) this chapter
exposed a few things which should be food for thought!
anywaaaaaaay have a fab week and I’ll see ya next Thursday! :)

Back to index
Author's Notes:
best time of your life
June
“How the fuck do you do this?!”
It was Niall’s third swear-ridden exclamation in the last ten minutes, and it was still just as funny
as the first one he’d made almost an hour ago.
He was standing shirtless with a snapback shoved backwards over his blonde hair, his shorts
slung low on his hips as he waved the tent pole around dangerously. He’d already managed to
smack Harry across the face with it, and Harry had punched him so hard in the ribs that Niall had
taken a self-administered break from tent construction to recover.
“Harry, is this right?” Zayn said doubtfully. He was moaning just as much as Niall, but subtly so;
deep sighs emitting from him every few minutes and mumbling curses under his breath. He held
up a wonky looking section of the tent for Harry to inspect.
The two of them had somehow silently elected Harry as the leader, and Harry – to his credit,
seeing as he was no more experienced than either of them – had accepted the role with grace. He
wrestled silently with the tent, stopping every now and then to scratch the back of his neck and
survey the oddly shaped, lopsided, poorly erected creation that the three of them had managed to
make from a bag of pegs and poles.
“I don’t think we’ve put it in right,” Harry mused, pinching his bottom lip. “I don’t think I
should have stuck it in that hole.”
“How many times have you said that before?” Liv snorted up at him, lying flat on her back on
the ground. In the short time they’d been there, she’d wasted no time in pulling off her top and
sprawling across the grass, lying only in her bra and shorts and a pair of sunglasses.
Caitlin and Isabel had taken to sitting in two of the camping chairs, their heads thrown back and
their eyes closed as the sun radiated down on them. Isabel couldn’t remember being this hot in a
long time, and although the boys were making a mess of it, she was glad that they’d insisted they
do everything so that she and the other girls could start drinking their way through the first few
cans of beer that the boys had hauled all the way from the car park.
Technically they didn’t have to camp – Liv’s uncle had just about enough room in his house at
the corner of the campsite for them to stay in – but the boys had argued that camping would be
fun and so here they were. They were pitching their tents a little way away from the paying
customers, just at the edge of the wood that led down to a huge lake, and from here they could
just about see it, the glint of the sun off it through the trees.
There was something about camping that made boys suddenly much more aware of their Y
chromosome, Isabel thought, because from the moment the two cars had met in the car park the
three boys had insisted on doing everything. They’d dragged the crates of alcohol, along with the
tents and their bags, across the campsite moaning and whining, but refusing all help.
And despite the fact that Liv was an experienced camper, and Isabel had been camping in
Sweden lots of times too, the boys had insisted the girls relax while they put up the tents.
Or that is, attempted to.
“Don’t need instructions,” Niall had said breezily when Caitlin had suggested with a raised
eyebrow that they ought to give the guidebook a quick scan before they set to it. He might as
well have added “because we’re men” to the end of the sentence, since the implication was
there.
And yet, an hour later, here they were.
The sun was so hot that it was making Isabel drowsy. Camping chairs were surprisingly comfy –
she’d always thought that – and before she knew it she’d fallen asleep with the can of beer still in
her hand.
She was jolted awake by Niall jamming her in the arm with the leg of the camping chair he was
doing battle with. Isabel noted he was wearing his tank top now, and he managed to successfully
unfold the chair after swearing at it loudly a few times. He threw himself down into it with a loud
sigh, closing his eyes and leaning back tiredly, clearly having accepted defeat on the tent front.
She blinked and yawned, stretching and glancing over at Harry and Zayn. She had no idea how
long she’d dozed off for, but now one tent was up and Zayn was going round and hammering in
all the pegs half-heartedly with a scowl on his face. Harry was negotiating the second tent on his
own, but now that they’d successfully done one he managed to get it up in just under ten
minutes.
“Fucking hell, someone get me a drink,” he croaked, collapsing at Isabel’s feet and leaning back
against her legs as Caitlin passed him a cider from the crate.
“You sound like you’ve been down a coal mine,” Liv said, rolling her eyes. “All you did was put
up a few tents.”
“You try put up a tent when you’ve been up since 6am!” Harry replied tiredly, leaning his cheek
against Isabel’s knee as she scratched his scalp gently, twisting his curls between her fingers. Liv
bit down on her tongue, saying nothing, and Isabel thought this was charitable of her seeing as
they all knew she could have put up both tents single handedly in half the time. “And remember I
drove your arse all the way here from Birmingham while you and Zayn had a nice little sleep!”
It had conveniently worked out that the two of them who could drive were situated in places that
meant they could take two people each from various parts of the country to the campsite. Zayn
had stayed at Harry’s the night before, and then the pair of them had driven to Birmingham to
pick up Liv, while Niall had been staying with Caitlin in Putney since they’d broken up from uni,
and so had been able to collect Isabel from Hammersmith before making the long drive to
Somerset.
They’d arrived just past midday and met in the car park, both trios having stopped on the way to
buy crates of beer and cider, and after a debriefing from Liv’s uncle at 2.30 they had the rest of
the day off. Work started tomorrow, which meant the afternoon and evening were for exploring
and getting drunk, the latter of which Isabel had already made some headway on.
“I’m fucking starving,” Niall announced loudly. “Does anyone wanna go get some food?”
“Let’s just wait for a bit, I’m shattered,” Harry groaned. Everyone ignored him.
“Yeah, let’s go explore!” Isabel said excitedly. “On the way in I saw that there was this Mexican
food stand in town!”
“Fuck me,” Niall said, jumping up and holding out his hand to pull Isabel out of her seat. “I
could kiss you right now. Let’s go.”
“I’m not walking to town!” Harry said loudly, leaning further back on Isabel’s legs so she
couldn’t stand up.
“Harry,” Caitlin said sternly, “it’s a fifteen minute walk.”
“Zayn’s already asleep,” Harry argued, gesturing to Zayn who was lying down next to Liv.
“‘M not,” he replied lazily, not sitting up.
“Well you can just starve then, Harry,” Caitlin snapped. “The rest of us are hungry.”
Niall held out his hand for Isabel again, but just as she took it Liv cleared her throat. “Wait, let’s
just decide who’s in each tent before we go.”
“Can’t we do it later?” Niall whined.
“What, you want to leave your bag out here on the grass while you go and get some tortilla
chips?” Liv shrugged, throwing him a pointed glare. “That’s fine by me, but all your shit will be
full of bugs by the time we get back.”
“You’re mean when you’re camping,” Niall mumbled and Liv just shook her head at him.
“You’re meant to be my partner in crime, Livvy! There's Mexican."
“I’m not moving till you men put my stuff in a tent for me.”
“Why don’t we just not go?” Harry offered, resting his cheek against Isabel’s knee and trailing
his hand up and down her calf. Nobody listened to him again.
“Fine,” Niall grumbled. “Shall we just do boys in one, girls in the other?”
“Are you five years old?” Zayn said, sitting up and smirking.
“I don’t want to be with these two!” Niall snapped, jerking his thumb towards Harry and Isabel.
“I’m not lying there like a bloody lemon while they’re fucking right next to me!”
“That wouldn’t happen,” Harry insisted, sheepishly removing his hand from Isabel’s calf and
setting it in his lap.
“You’d sleep right through it,” Caitlin said, rolling her eyes while Isabel’s own eyes widened
and she looked at the floor, pretending not to hear Zayn snicker.
Niall spluttered incredulously. “Have you ever heard Harry having sex? Cos I’ve had it in the
room next door to me for the past year and if plaster can’t block out the noise, I’m not gonna get
a fucking wink of sleep with it happening right by my ear!”
“It's not that loud,” Harry said calmly, completely unfazed while Isabel felt like her face was on
fire.
“I beg to fucking differ,” Niall protested. He gestured between Harry and Isabel. “Thin walls
mate, I’ve heard everything."
“Oh my God, Niall, I am here!” Isabel choked while everyone laughed, even Harry. He looked
up at her with a wide smirk, and she shoved his smug face away.
Nobody wanted to be in a tent with them after that, but it was eventually decided that Liv would
brave it in a tent with Harry and Isabel after they’d both promised multiple times, Isabel’s face
hotter and redder than it had possibly ever been in her life, that they wouldn’t have sex.
“Should have brought three tents,” Harry grumbled as the six of them headed off to town,
automatically sliding his fingers between Isabel’s as they walked. She squeezed his hand, the
slight bump of the scar on his palm pressing into the flat skin of hers, and he leaned in towards
her and pressed his lips to her temple. “I thought about you all week, Is.”
She felt her heart accelerate at his words but she knew the implication was meant to be sexual
and not the way she sort of wished he’d mean it, so she gripped his hand tighter and smiled up at
him. “A bit frustrated, Styles?”
“Guess you could say that,” he said with a smirk, brushing his lips across her forehead again.
“I’ve been trying to deal with it on my own, but it’s not exactly the same.”
He grinned as he saw her intake of breath, the slight widening of her eyes before she looked
away. He’d chosen his words carefully for effect, and he was getting exactly the response he’d
hoped for. The thing was, they’d spent every moment of two weeks together, and a week apart
after that felt like she’d suddenly been plummeted into a drought. She’d missed him more than
she’d thought she would, way more than she’d care to admit, and Harry might be making
everything about sex but it wasn’t for her any more. It probably hadn’t been for ages, really.
She collected herself before biting down on her lip and looking up at him through her eyelashes,
playing up to what he wanted as she gave him a little shrug. “We’ll have to make up for lost time
later then, won’t we?”
His smug smile slid off his face slowly. “Yeah,” he agreed, letting go of her hand and snaking
his arm around her waist, pulling her into him. “A week’s a lot of lost time.”
She sighed theatrically. “Shame about the rules, isn’t it? Imagine all the things we could have
done...”
His jaw clenched as he stared down at her, his eyes glazing over a bit. “Fuck the rules.”
She had to suppress a smile at how easy he was to wind up. “Don’t be mean, Harry. Think of
Liv.”
“Is,” he growled. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she asked innocently, blinking up at him as he gripped her tightly, their feet
brushing against each other as they walked behind the others.
“No offence, but I don’t really give a shit about Liv right now.”
“It’s a shame,” she went on, nearly laughing at the seriousness in his face, “because I did miss
you so much.” She blinked up at him, watching as he swallowed and his eyes scanned over her
face. “I’ve not thought about much else.”
“What part did you miss most?” he asked huskily, his hand dropping from her waist so that it
grazed the skin of her thigh at the hem of her shorts.
“Your clown feet?”
“Fuck off,” he snapped, his voice gravelly. “Answer properly.”
As if to tempt her, he bit down hard on his bottom lip, and she suddenly had an overwhelming
desire to kiss him. “Missed your lips a bit.”
“Mmmm.”
“Your hands too, maybe,” she went on as his fingers brushed against her thigh again, and she felt
her cheeks redden.
“And?” Harry prompted, his smirk returning when she was the one to gulp now, and he looked
down at the crotch of his denim shorts as if she needed reminding.
“All right, Hefner,” she grumbled, hitting him lightly on the chest and he grinned broadly.
“Don’t torture us more than you need to.”
He licked his lips, the corners pulled up into a lopsided smile. “I think this is gonna be the best
weekend of my life.”
~~~
That evening, Isabel emerged from the tent with dishevelled hair and flushed cheeks, stumbling
out drunkenly with Harry following close behind her. He looked equally as guilty, if not more;
he had a lazy, satisfied grin plastered to his face, and he ran his hand through his already wild
curls as he looked around for the others.
“Where are they?” he slurred, standing behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist,
placing a kiss to her neck.
“They went to the shop to buy cigarettes,” she reminded him. “They’ll be at the lake by now.”
“Oh.”
“We’re just getting my jumper, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said, grinning and twisting her around to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Got
distracted.”
He kissed her for a bit before he pulled away and started laughing at nothing in particular. She
smiled as he pulled her into the trees and towards the lake, rubbing his thumb along the back of
her palm and blinking down at her.
“What?” she asked him with a smile.
“I’ve not held hands like we do before,” he admitted, swiping his tongue across his lip. “Not
since Poppy anyway.”
“D’you like it?”
Harry smiled warmly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Yeah. I really do.”
Isabel grinned back at him weakly, but she was nervous and it didn’t meet her eyes, and she
wished he wouldn’t say things like that because it was going to make it so much harder to get
through this. Because the thing was, in their time apart that week Isabel had realised with quite a
surprising amount of force, like she’d been punched, that Harry was not okay.
He pretended he was so much that he’d convinced himself of it, and as he squeezed her hand and
chatted away to her drunkenly, she saw how easy it would be to believe it, that he was fine. If
she wanted to, she could pretend he was as well, and they could probably carry on being sort-of-
together all summer. But he wasn’t.
When she’d got home from uni with deep, dark rings under her eyes, her mother had frowned,
rubbing her thumb over them and snapping that Isabel wasn’t looking after herself. Isabel had
known then that they were due to the fact that she and Harry didn’t often go to sleep early and
not taken much notice.
"Du ser helt hemsk ut," her mother had barked, running her hands through Isabel's hair and
scowling.
"Thanks," Isabel had mumbled back sarcastically, not even bothering to speak in Swedish and
worming her way out of her mother's arms.
"How's Harry?" Isabel's mum had asked in English now, for Mark's benefit, and Isabel’s
tiredness wasn’t mentioned again.
But then, when she’d left London a week later with even darker shadows under her eyes and
nails bitten down to the quick, she knew something was wrong.
She’d spent the entire week worrying about him, checking her phone incessantly and leaping up
whenever he rang her like she’d been electrocuted. They spoke on the phone everyday, and most
of the time it was nice and light-hearted, the deepest thing being the occasional I miss you which
made her smile so widely her cheeks hurt. But ever since their argument in the shower she’d
known, somehow, that it was coming, that a breakdown was imminent. She knew something
would happen.
And one day something had.
She’d been watching Scary Movie with her step-dad - his favourite film, much to Isabel's disgust
- when Harry rang, and she excused herself quickly, her hands sweating like they had every time
she’d answered the phone to him that week.
“Hello! You all right?"
“Is,” he breathed down the phone, and she nearly tripped up the stairs, her entire chest tightening
like somebody had pulled strings inside it. “Oh God.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, trying to stay calm.
“Oh fuck, oh God,” he mumbled, his voice wheezy, and she knew just from hearing him speak
that his hands were shaking. “Please, please come here.”
“What?” she replied, and her eyes were already burning and with a little thud right in the pit of
her stomach she knew this was it, realised that this was the meltdown she’d been waiting for all
week, the phone call that kept her awake when she really should have been sleeping because
she’d felt it coming, felt it creeping up on her for weeks and now it was here. “Harry, what’s
wrong, baby?”
“I need you here,” he gasped. “Isabel, I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
He groaned loudly down the phone, the sound ripping from the back of his throat, and she
realised he was walking somewhere, the sound of his feet heavy enough on the pavement that
she could hear it. It was past midnight.
“Harry, where are you going?”
“I hate that house!” he said loudly, and she jumped. She’d made it into her room now and she sat
down on the edge of her bed without bothering to turn the light on. “I hate it! I – fuck, I hate my
mum, I hate fucking everything in there. Fuck!”
“Har–”
“All they want to do is talk all the time! Talk talk talk talk fucking talk. Why don’t they care
what I want? Why doesn’t anyone care what I want to do? I don’t want to fucking talk!”
She put her head in her hand, nearly crying she felt so helpless, two hundred miles and hours and
hours away from him. “Harry, calm down.”
He was breathing so loudly down the line she thought he might have an asthma attack but all he
did was swear loudly.
“I hate it,” he said after a while. “I fucking hate it here, Is. I wish I was with you.”
“Okay,” she replied shakily. “Where are you going? Where are you walking to?”
“I don’t know I just – fuck. Fuck.” He stopped speaking for a long time, and she waited
tentatively, and had he not been breathing so harshly down the phone she would have thought
he’d put it down and walked away. She just sat in the dark in her room, her knees pulled up to
her chest and her heart pounding and her eyes watering, waiting and waiting for him to talk but
he didn’t.
“Maybe you should let them speak to you,” Isabel said eventually, calming down enough that her
voice was even and steady. “Talking is good.”
“No it’s not,” Harry replied decisively.
“It is, Harry. You need to –”
“The only thing I need is you,” he interrupted, his voice laboured. “None of the – nobody else
can make me happy like you do.”
And Isabel thought that if this were a romcom, she would be flinging off the duvet and catching
the next train to Holmes Chapel with that, because in a film that might just be the most romantic
thing anyone had ever said. But in real life it was horrible, absolutely excruciating, because
Harry wasn’t okay, and needing someone to make you okay wasn’t romantic, or endearing, or
charming. It was awful, because all she really wanted was for him to love her but instead
he needed her, and the worst part was that he didn’t even realise the difference between those
things. He was standing alone in the black, empty street in Cheshire, his hands shaking and his
breath wheezing and his heart breaking, and he hadn’t realised that it was so unfair to ask that of
somebody.
And so when they’d arrived at the campsite this morning, Isabel had expected him to at least
bring up this phone call they’d had two days ago in a flyaway comment, but he hadn’t at all.
He’d just kissed her, commented on how tired she looked, and from then on made a show about
how much he wanted her. And maybe that was true, but one thing she’d learned from her stupid
fucking History degree was that you couldn’t leave out large chunks of truth just to make things
make sense, just to make your argument convincing. You couldn’t write about what a great guy
Stalin was because you focussed on his successes and conveniently forgot everything else. And
you just couldn’t keep pretending you were okay to the only person you let in enough to realise
that you weren’t.
They met the others down by the lake and found them strewn out on the ground, their faces
illuminated by the newly bought cigarettes.
“Hey guys!” Niall shouted.
“Took forty minutes to get a jumper, yeah?” Zayn added, laughing and raising his eyebrows.
“It was dark,” Harry defended.
“So, did you come on my sleeping bag, Harry?” Liv asked.
Harry laughed brazenly, not embarrassed in the slightest as everyone cracked up. “Classy as
ever, Olivia.”
He ruffled Liv’s hair and smacked a kiss to her forehead before he and Isabel flopped down on
the grass and grabbed a beer each.
Isabel had to admit that, although she always liked Harry, there was something about drunk
Harry that made her smile just that bit wider. When he wasn’t too far-gone like he had been at
her party, he became magnetic. Everyone wanted to talk to him, to make him the centre of
attention so they could see him laugh with glossy eyes and flushed cheeks. And even though
Isabel knew that not one member of their party was sober, Harry was louder, brighter, happier
than everyone around him. He was constantly fidgeting as he sat down, excitedly laughing and
speaking loudly, running a hand through his hair and pinching his lip and grinning delightedly at
everything that was said.
And although in the back of her mind Isabel was still worried, she found herself laughing too as
they sat chugging their alcohol and shivering as the air got colder, savouring how perfectly
adolescent this all seemed. It was kind of weird, when she thought about it, but this was the type
of thing she would look back on when she was old and say was the best time of her life. It was
funny that she was sitting right in the middle of the best time of her life and it didn’t feel much
different to any other time she’d been drunk and cold, and in a way that was kind of sad.
“Issyyyyyyy,” Harry said happily when he thought nobody was looking, shuffling closer and
planting a sloppy kiss onto her neck. Harry was affectionate sober – Isabel had noticed a while
ago he was always kissing Caitlin and Liv on the forehead or jokingly punching or poking the
boys – but drunk, like everything else about him, it was magnified. He wasn’t overbearing with
it, but when he thought no one would notice, his eyes darting around without much subtlety, he
would pepper kisses onto Isabel’s skin, smiling widely at her with warm, bright eyes.
“Hello,” she greeted, squeezing his knee and grinning at him. “Having fun?”
He nodded. “I’m so drunk. It’s amazing.”
“Amazing?” she clarified with a laugh.
He nodded again, his long hair falling into his eyes, and he smiled broadly. “Yeah. So good.”
“You're a mess," she told him in an attempt to be stern, but he pouted and shook his head in a
way that made her laugh anyway.
"Don't be mean," Harry mumbled, flopping his head down onto her shoulder and leaning into her
heavily. "You're meant to be nice to people when you've missed them."
"Who said I missed you?"
Harry lifted his head up and frowned at her, his face the picture of indignation. "Hey now," he
started, pressing his fingers over her lips. "That is mean."
Isabel laughed. "Harry –"
Harry pushed his fingers across her lips, both of them laughing when her response came out
mangled behind his fingertips. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it."
"I –"
"That's enough!" Harry interrupted, his laugh open mouthed and his eyes wide, darting across her
face brightly. "There's only so much a man can take before it gets too much."
Isabel yanked his hand away and set it in his lap, swallowing back more laughter and shaking her
head in mock disapproval. "You think you're funny."
"Nooooo," he said with a grin, leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers. "You think I'm
funny."
"Which is good for you," she replied, smiling when he kissed her cheek, "cos nobody else does."
"Ah well," Harry said brightly, shrugging as he pulled away from her. "Least I got you. We make
a right good team."
It was easy to forget about everyone else when they were like this. When Harry's hands were
resting on her knee and his body was inclined towards her, and his eyes, bright and alert, trained
just on her and nothing more. She couldn't even really hear anything else, or see anything beyond
him, and she wasn't sure whether that was the effect Harry had or the effect Harry had on her but
either way she liked it.
She'd never had that before, that pull in her chest just from someone smiling at her, just from
seeing their eyes bunch up at the corners and their teeth bite down on their lip. She'd never felt
her heart go hysterical just because someone said her name in a certain way, just because they
glanced at her with a certain look in their eye, and it topped everything, topped kissing him or
having sex with him or even, she imagined, having the confirmation that she was his girlfriend.
Because in moments like this, she could nearly convince herself that it was enough that she loved
him and he, maybe, possibly, liked her. The feeling was enough to forget, just momentarily, why
everything was going to crumble.
"You're looking at me funny," Harry slurred, brushing his thumb across her cheek.
"Sorry," Isabel mumbled.
"'Salright," Harry replied with a smile. "No need to apologise."
"Sorry," she said again before she could help it, and he smiled and shook his head all at once.
"You're ridiculous," he told her, pressing his lips to hers, and Isabel sighed when he smiled again
and dipped his tongue into her mouth, still rubbing his thumb across her cheek.
“Harry!” Niall bellowed and Harry pulled away from her, dropping his hand from her face but
leaving it in her lap. “Are you listening to what we've been saying? We've been having a proper
reminisce!”
“What?” Harry asked, smiling lazily.
“You might wanna cover your girlfriend’s ears,” Zayn laughed, and Isabel winced at the word
but Harry didn’t seem to notice.
“We were talking about Alice Longfinch’s party, do you remember?” Niall asked with a cackle.
“When you and Caro were upstairs in the guest room and someone walked in during –”
“I wasn’t asleep,” Harry clarified loudly, guessing the end of Niall’s sentence. “I was high, I was
chill.”
Everyone laughed but Isabel, who just frowned and chimed in with: “What happened? How does
everyone know?”
“Cos Annabel, the girl who walked in, told Alice,” Niall said with a waggle of his eyebrows,
“who told Thea who told Josie who told Laura who told Chloe who told me.”
“What were you doing with her?” Isabel asked, her cheeks burning at the idea of anyone walking
in on her with Harry.
Harry’s eyebrows pulled together, and he ignored her question and everyone around them
entirely as his eyes scanned her face. “Why are you so concerned?” he asked her quietly.
"I don't know how you were chill when you were fucking Caro anyway. That girl never shuts
up,” Liv added, swigging from her can. “She’d be there jabbering away.”
Niall laughed. “Well they weren’t fucking. It’s kind of hard to speak when your mouth’s
occupied.”
Everyone except Harry and Isabel hooted with laughter. It’s not like this surprised her or
anything; she herself had walked in on Harry getting head before, at his birthday. But Caro’s
words of warning were replaying in her head – “If he hasn’t said it, he doesn’t want it. Trust me”
– and she swallowed, her heart pounding. She tried to separate herself from Caro but she felt like
they were merging into one now, being squeezed together like playdough into an
indistinguishable lump of a girl that Harry made fall in love with him without ever saying
anything back, and she wondered whether this time next year they’d all be sat around laughing at
her, too.
Harry was staring at her, his bottom lip pulled into his mouth, and she looked around at the
others to avoid his gaze. She blinked and frowned when she glanced over at Caitlin and realised
that she and Zayn weren’t looking in on the group but sitting facing each other instead, speaking
in hushed, angry voices. Zayn reached out and squeezed Caitlin’s shoulder lightly while Caitlin
looked pointedly away from him, her tongue pressed to the inside of her cheek.
He said something and she didn’t listen, and he frowned, leaning forward and dropping his hand
from her arm as he said it again, and she suddenly screamed: “Just shut up for one fucking
minute!”
Everyone else whipped around to look at them, but Zayn didn’t seem to notice. He threw aside
the can he’d been holding in his fist and glared at her. “What the fuck is your problem?”
Caitlin said something to him that Isabel couldn’t hear, and Zayn drew back like a python,
looking equally offended and seething. “Say that again, Caitlin!”
“You heard me the first time, dickhead!”
Harry nudged Isabel’s side, drawing her attention towards him. “They’re fighting,” Harry said
helpfully.
“You should do something,” Isabel whispered to him, and Harry’s face pinched up.
“I don’t get involved.”
“Why?”
“Who do I go to?” He made a good point. “It’s best not to get involved. I don't get involved."
Isabel glanced towards the pair of them dubiously as Caitlin stood up, throwing her can on the
ground and swearing loudly at Zayn, who looked like he was about to explode.
Liv and Niall were sitting wide-eyed and immobile on the floor, and Isabel knew from the look
on Caitlin’s face that she was about thirty seconds away from crying. If she did, sides would
have to be taken, she was sure, and feelings hurt, and probably this fight would be dragged out
for the entire week. She had enough to worry about besides Caitlin and Zayn spatting, and if
anything she wanted to get away from Harry because it wasn’t long before he started asking why
she seemed upset, so she pushed herself up off the floor unsteadily and started towards the pair
of them.
“Let’s go on a walk,” Isabel suggested, grabbing Zayn’s hand seeing as he was the angrier of the
two and pulling him in the opposite direction before anyone could say anything. He stumbled
along after her with deep, heavy breaths, tripping over twigs and hissing out profanities.
“What happened?” she asked him as soon as they made it to the line of trees.
“She is just infuriating,” Zayn snapped loudly. “I’ve never met anyone like her. She makes me
so fucking angry.”
“What did she say?”
“I just asked why she was being so quiet,” Zayn said with shaking breath, “because I hadn’t
spoken to her all evening. And she was just off with me straight away!"
"Why?"
"I don't know! I hadn’t even done anything and she was already acting like a bitch –”
“Did you say that to her?” Isabel asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well yeah, but –”

“I’m guessing that didn’t help matters.”
He sighed, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. “No, I guess not.” He ran a hand across his face
tiredly. “I just don’t know how to win with her. She’s one of my best friends but I spend half my
fucking life arguing with her. I’m sick of it.”
“Why don’t you speak to her about it?”
He scoffed. “And have her scream at me again? No thanks.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t mean to do it,” Isabel reasoned carefully. “She wouldn’t want to upset
you.” Zayn scoffed again, kicking at some twigs. “This can’t ruin the weekend, yeah? Try and be
nice.”
“Me be nice?” he repeated incredulously.
“Maybe if you are first then she will be, too.”
He groaned, looking at his feet moodily.
“It can’t hurt that much to get over it,” Isabel challenged. “You forgave Harry when he gave you
a black eye.”
Zayn smirked slightly, looking up from the floor. “But I deserved it anyway.”
“You did?” Isabel replied in surprise.
He nodded. “I fucked up. I mean, the MD had a lot to do with it, but he’d said stuff to me and I –
I was trying to do the right thing, but I fucked up. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
"But you ... tried to help," Isabel said with a frown, knowing he was referring to the time that he
kissed her. "Maybe it wasn’t smart, yeah, but it was a nice thing to do.”
Zayn shook his head. “Maybe Harry shouldn’t have thrown a bottle at me, but we’re even. We
both did things we regret.”
Isabel paused for a minute, wanting to ask him a million questions but focussing on the problem
in hand. “So you can get over grievous bodily harm but not Caitlin ignoring you?” Isabel teased,
poking his side and Zayn cracked a small smile.
“I got it, okay?”
“Good,” Isabel replied with a grin, slinking her arm through his as they turned back around and
meandered through the trees, their shoes squelching in the mud.
“What about you and Harry?” Zayn asked.
Isabel frowned. “What about us?”
“Do you –” he paused cautiously, knowing this was a sensitive topic. “Are you together now? I
just kinda assumed that you...”
“I don’t know,” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “He’s - he’s kind of hard to
understand.”
Zayn nodded knowingly. “Well, you know you have to be careful with him, right? He doesn’t…
he’s not used to giving himself to people. Just remember that, yeah? I just feel like… if you don’t
know anything, you’re gonna hurt each other.”
Isabel nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she agreed, although she didn’t understand, not at all.
~~~
“What about her; she’s hot?” Harry said, pointing over to a girl with long dark hair twisted
around a flower crown, her flat stomach on show in a crop top and tiny little skirt.
Isabel tried her best not to scowl.
“She’s definitely not into girls,” Liv admonished, raising her eyebrows as the girl noticed
Harry’s attention and smiled coyly at him, clearly interested despite Harry’s puffy eyes and red
nose. “You can’t just expect that every girl out there will be into me, Harry, I’m not you. It’s
harder for me.”
Isabel tugged down her top to conceal her own, comparatively unsightly stomach, walking just a
bit faster than the other two so that she wouldn’t have to listen to their conversation. It was only
6pm but they’d been up for nearly twelve hours already, and although this was only the first day
of work, Isabel was exhausted. All morning and afternoon she and Caitlin had been down by the
lake, helping in the kiosk selling water and ice cream, and her hands had that metallic smell you
get after holding coins for too long.
“It can’t be that hard,” Harry was arguing behind her, still loud enough for Isabel to hear.
“You’re pretty, just go up to a girl and ask if she’s into it.”
“Are you a fucking idiot?” Liv retorted as Isabel marched up to the next tent and smiled at the
occupant, asking for their rent. Harry, Isabel and Liv’s job from 5.30 till 7 was to wander around
the campsite and ask the occupants of each pitch to pay the nightly rent for pitching and
camping. It had been going fine, and Isabel, having not seen Harry all day, had been looking
forward to this moment ever since she’d seen the schedule this morning. But then they’d got onto
the subject of Liv wanting someone to pull, and since then things had taken a turn for the worse.
All of these doubts about Harry had been creeping up on her, swarming around her head like a
swarm of bees, stinging her tongue whenever he spoke to her and poisoning the blood around her
heart, and it was getting more and more difficult to ignore.
Caro was right; she didn’t really know him. It was something she’d thought about for ages, but it
had never mattered so much to her until this point. Until she found herself lying awake between
him and Liv last night, his arm wrapped around her waist as he lay half on top of her as always
with his head buried into her neck, and she knew for certain that she loved him.
But she couldn’t understand him, not at all. He was purposely keeping himself closed off from
her, still, even though she’d done so much to try and get him to open up, even though she’d
given herself to him fully, completely. He was a closed off person, she knew that, and she didn’t
want him to talk if he wasn’t comfortable. But she was being constantly reminded by everyone –
Liv at her birthday party, Caro at the art show, Zayn yesterday – that she didn’t know Harry as
well as she thought.
Harry came up behind her and slipped his hand through hers, smiling at her. “You okay?”
She swallowed harshly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“So I was thinking…” He hesitated nervously, his eyes searching her face and then looking over
his shoulder to check that Liv was busy collecting money from campers before saying: “I want
you to come to New York with me.”
“Harry,” she laughed, squeezing his hand. “As if I have that kind of money.” Harry blinked at
her, his face serious, and she realised with horror that he wasn’t joking. “Harry, I can’t come to
New York. That’s insane –”
“Why is it insane?” he asked seriously, all big eyes and pouty lips. “Borrow some money off
someone. You said you’ve always wanted to go, this is your chance.”
“I don’t have anyone to borrow it off,” she said, looking down at their intertwined fingers to
avoid his burning gaze. “I can’t, Harry, I’m sorry.”
"You've loads of people you could borrow it from."
"I just - I can't just ask someone to borrow all that money, I'm not –"
"You're not what?" Harry replied flatly. "Not a scrounger like me?"
"That's not what I meant," Isabel mumbled, but that kind of was what she meant and she felt
awful.
He paused for a while before tilting up her chin so that she’d look at him. “Please, Is,” he rasped,
and it was pathetic but Isabel felt her resolve melt a little when he looked at her like that. “I’m
scared I – that I won’t run again. You were the only person who could help me.”
“Don’t make me feel bad for this,” Isabel replied, suddenly angry as she pulled away from him
“You of all people should understand. I don’t have the money, Harry –”
“Use the money from this! Our wages for this week cover it; that’s what Niall’s doing.”
“Maybe I had plans for this money,” she replied, even though she didn’t.
“What plans?”
She faltered. “Well, I was gonna put it into savings like you are.”
“Look, after the summer you get your allowance back,” Harry said quickly. “So you won’t need
to work as often as you do. But if you do, I get to see you, and you could use that money to come
to New York with me. It’s a win-win.”
He grinned widely at her, trying to get her to smile to but she just shook her head at him. “But I
haven’t transferred any money to Niall’s dad yet and I’m here, how can he –”
“He’ll let you pay him back,” Harry cut across her. “Trust me, he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met.
He’s honestly amazing. Don’t worry about that.”
“I don’t have any money to pay him back with!”
“Borrow off your sister, or your dad, or fuck, someone in Sweden, I don’t know,” he rambled,
sliding his hand into hers again and looking at her with pleading green eyes. “I’m desperate. I
can’t do it without you. I need you.”
Those three words again.
And Isabel knew it would be ridiculously expensive, that it was a bad idea to sign up for
something that was five months away with Harry when she wasn’t sure they’d be anything this
time next month. It was a stupid idea. And she knew it. And he knew it.
Liv came back over then and neither of them said anything, just walked in silence to the next
pitch. Liv stopped and stared at the pair of them expectantly, but when neither of them made any
effort to approach the campers she huffed, swearing at them under her breath, and did it herself
again.
“How much is it?” Isabel asked casually when Liv was gone, looking down at the grass so as to
avoid Harry’s wide, elated smile.
“Just under £500 for the flights, and we’re only going Friday to Monday so it won’t be too much
for the hotel. Plus November’s out of season. And Niall’s dad’s booking it for us the day after
tomorrow because he’ll be there on business when we’re there and he’s built up some member
points with one of the hotels so –”
“Stop rambling,” she chided, and he shut his mouth abruptly, biting down on his lip. “I’ll come
on one condition.”
“Yeah, of course,” he breathed, squeezing her hand tightly and suppressing a smile so badly she
had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
“You come with me to my brother’s wedding. My mum won’t shut up about you coming.” There
was a hint of a pleased, lopsided smile at that. “It’s on July 27th, near her house in Winchester.”
Harry nodded slowly, his smile fading as he considered it. “Well I – thanks but I, I don’t think –
I’m not sure if I should come.”
She took a moment to stare at him blankly. “What?”
He coughed into his hand and looked away. “I’ve got loads on this summer. I’ve got three
different work things and I –”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked incredulously, glaring at him. “At least think of a
better excuse than that, Harry! I’m coming to New York with you for fuck’s sake!”
“Calm down,” he mumbled, but she was riled up already and it was too late.
“It’s literally one day and one night, but I’m sorry if your schedule’s too fucking busy to make
time for me,” she exploded. She thought he’d defend himself then but he didn’t, just blinked
down at the floor, and she looked away from him furiously. This was fast becoming just another
indication that they wouldn’t see each other in summer, another missed opportunity, and she took
a deep breath before continuing: “Look, this is really important to me, okay? My brother is –
well, he’s an idiot but we’re close, and – and I know I said my mum wants you to be there, but I
do too. Like, a lot.”
When she finally looked over at Harry after taking a deep, hopefully calming breath, he was
staring at her with his face twisted into a weirdly pained expression. He rearranged his face into
something contemplative. “Well I –” he started, his voice cracking and so he coughed again.
“Okay.”
“You’ll come?” she checked.
“Yes,” he snapped as Liv came back over. “Can we drop it now?”
See that was just it – she still didn’t know how he was able to ask so much of her and hesitate to
give it back. How his entire face lit up whenever he did something that made her happy, but he
could just as easily shut himself off from her and build a wall between them.
When she’d managed to calm him down at the marathon, it had been a pure fluke. She distinctly
remembered being terrified, having no idea what to say that could make him better. And now he
relied on her, thought she could save him all the time, when she had no idea what she was doing.
This conversation about New York wasn’t the only time he’d said he needed her. He’d said it
when he rang her last week, and he’d said it a lot before then, too, enough to make her anxious
and awaiting a breakdown when they weren’t together. The more and more he let her in, the
more she realised how far from okay he was, and it was so draining and terrifying that she felt
like he was sapping the life from her by trying to fix the cracks in his own.
She didn’t want to be with him like that. If Harry was just the person who painted her nails and
jokes about sandwiches in clingfilm and kissed her and told her how much he liked holding her
hand, if that was the person he was all the time, then it would be fine. But she didn’t want to love
someone when it made her feel like this.
And now as she trudged through the campsite, she remembered what he’d said to her on
Southbank the night before her birthday - “I’m sorry that I’m like this…I don’t want you to have
to put up with me.”
She was trying to change; she had been for a long time. She wasn’t there yet, but she felt like she
nearly was. And Harry was there, unchangeable, rigid, so riddled with problems she didn’t
understand that she wondered whether he was smothering her with his inflexibility, whether they
could ever be together properly when he was like this.
And then Harry stopped walking so that she could catch up, slinging his arm across her shoulders
and kissing her cheek and pretending that their argument hadn’t just happened, and she forced
him a smile with as much effort as she could, her head pounding and her heart aching.
End Notes:
Hey! This was really long and a lil bit heavy sorry:(
So a couple of things here (skip if u dont want a lecture) - I’ve read a few things before (not just
fic, books too) and seen films etc when someone’s not okay and their romantic counterpart
whisks in to save the day and save them and make it all better. That’s not really what I’m about
cos in my opinion, that’s not really what life’s like. I don’t wanna bore you so I’ll keep this short,
but just from my own observation, you can help someone with their problems but you can’t fix
them for that person. You can love someone, but to need them isn’t really fair. And you can
absolutely really really really REALLY like someone, but should never to your own detriment.
So just to make it clear, if it wasn’t already, this kinda thing isn’t and won’t be romanticised in
this. It’s kinda why I started writing this in the first place and if you expected that’s what’s gonna
happen it’s …. not
ANYWAY so I hope you enjoyed it and please let me know what you think and what you reckon
will happen next time! It’s a reaaaaaaaaaally big one, (I mean like, hold your horses big) so get
ready! See ya Thursday!
Back to index
Author's Notes:
i can't change
June
“You okay?”
Isabel glanced over at Harry, finding him looking at her with his eyebrows puckered up.
“I’m fine, just tired.”
It was late, around 11pm, and they were walking through the woods back from their shift down
by the car park at the bottom of the hill. There was a big funfair in town in two days’ time and so
people had been arriving constantly all day, and Liv’s uncle had asked Harry and Isabel to direct
cars into the car park, regulating the traffic, answering questions and making sure nobody got
lost in the dark.
But Isabel wasn’t really that tired, even though they’d been working long shifts for four days
now. She was worried, constantly, about how she felt about Harry, about what to do, and it was
eating her up.
“Are you sure?” Harry asked, tugging his lip between his fingers. She nodded, smiling at him,
and he stopped walking, tugging at her hand so that she’d stop too. She was wearing his jumper,
the sleeves falling past her fingertips, and he had to burrow his hands up the cuffs to catch her
fingers.
“Yeah,” she nodded. He took his other hand away from his lip, tucking it under her hair to hold
the nape of her neck and leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
“You’ve been acting funny for ages.”
He smiled and kissed her nose, but she could see the anxiousness in his eyes and it made her feel
guilty. “It’s just hard working on a hangover every day when it’s so hot and stuff. I’m fine.”
He screwed up his nose and sniffed. “Maybe you should get chronic hay fever like me. Then you
get drunk off one beer you’re so pumped with pills.” He grinned. “It’s pretty hard stuff that, I’ll
tell you. That antihistamine high is something else.”
She bit her lip and laughed, and his smile widened. “You’re so weird.”
He laughed, leaning down and brushing his lips against hers once. “Let’s do something mad.”
She raised her eyebrows and waited, watching the cogs whirl in his head as he looked around the
expansive black of the trees surrounding them. Then he smirked, looking back at her with
mischievous eyes and kissing her again, swiping his tongue across her bottom lip but pulling
away before they could kiss properly. “Let’s go.”
He pulled her along behind him, turning left instead of going straight ahead back up the hill
towards the tents, and she struggled to keep up with how fast he was walking. They were
wearing high vis jackets so that the cars had been able to spot them in the dark, and the
fluorescent light of Harry’s back was the only thing she could see in the black as she stumbled
after him, clutching his hand with both of hers and digging her nails into his palm.
“Here,” Harry said triumphantly, and when Isabel peeked around his shoulder she realised they
were at the lake. It was completely deserted, the deck chairs that normally surrounded it put
away and the kiosk shut. Everything seemed so dark and silent that for a moment Isabel was
scared to breathe in case she interrupted the complete stillness of it.
Harry let go of her hand and shrugged his high vis jacket off, unzipping his hoodie and taking
that off too.
“What are you doing?”
He cocked his head to the side and smiled. “Swimming.”
“Harry, it’ll be freezing!”
He frowned. “No it won’t. It’s had the sun on it all day, it gets hotter in the evening.”
Isabel just gaped at him, but he was already shirtless, pulling off his shoes and socks. He looked
up at her, his nose wrinkling as he smiled. “Come on.”
She followed suit slowly, discarding the high vis vest and pulling his jumper over her head. By
the time she took that off, Harry was already walking towards the lake, his skin obscenely pale
against the blackness around them as he waded into the water. Her eyes scanned over the knots
of muscle in his back, the way his arms bulged when he ran a hand through his hair. She
swallowed hard, her heart accelerating, and she pulled off her clothes a bit faster after that.
“Is it cold?” she called, shivering as she removed her bra, looking around nervously even though
she knew no one was there.
“Maybe don’t look at my dick when you get in here,” Harry joked, looking over his shoulder and
watching her from his position stood waist deep in the water. “It’s not looking so impressive
right now.”
When Isabel followed him she swore loudly, nearly falling over she was suddenly so cold, and
Harry caught her with a loud laugh.
“If I get hyperthermia and die I’m blaming you,” she warned, her teeth chattering as he hooted
with laughter. He walked her backwards so that more and more of her was submerged and then
let go, falling back so that he was lying on the water with his chest towards the sky. “Harry, you
said it was warm!”
“It is warm once you put your shoulders in,” Harry said. “Put your shoulders in, Is.”
“I’ll die!”
“Fuck you.”
Harry grinned. “You already have.”
He laughed again, ducking his head under the water before she could reply and disappearing. She
waited for him to come up with a nervous little laugh, but he didn’t for so long her chest
tightened, and she stood shivering with her heart in her mouth as she stared at the water in terror.
She nearly called his name, but then he popped up behind her, wrapping his wet arms around her
waist and laughing gleefully as he dunked her under the water.
When she came up for air, gasping and laughing, Harry let go of her, pushing his wet hair out of
his eyes before doing the same for her. “See? It’s warm.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled, wiping her face with the back of her forearm. "You're a dick, though, that
scared the shit out of me."
"I'm sorry."
"Idiot," she told him, kissing the corner of his mouth, and he smiled. “Twat.”
“But I still get a kiss?"
Isabel shrugged, looping her arms around his neck. “You’re mad.”
He smiled and then kissed her again, pushing her lips open and sliding his tongue into her mouth.
Her fingers looped in the hair at the nape of his neck and tugged gently until he pulled back, the
pair of them smiling at each other. “I feel so alive right now,” Harry said quietly. “I love this.”
“Me too.”
He pressed his lips to hers again, sucking at her bottom lip and smiling when she sighed. He
pulled her closer, his hands rubbing up and down her sides beneath the water, and when she was
close enough she could feel him beneath the water pressed up against her thigh.
"Are you always fucking turned on, Harry?” Isabel asked, pulling away from him with a laugh.
He grinned sheepishly. “You’re wet and naked, what did you expect?”
“Well you’re all snotty and puffy eyed, so maybe I’m not feeling it quite as much.”
He pouted. “Heeeeeey. Making fun of hay fever’s not cool."
"Well, I -"
But as if on cue, Harry screwed up his face and sneezed loudly, right into Isabel’s shoulder, and
although she maybe should have been disgusted she just laughed at the mortified look on his
face, his cheeks flushing as red as his nose.
“Shit, I'm so sorry,” he said in total embarrassment, splashing some water up to wash it off,
rubbing his hand over her skin.
"It's all right."
He sighed into a laugh. “My brother always used to take the piss out of me in the summer, when
my eyes went puffy and stuff."
She swallowed loudly, on edge now. "Oh. Really?"
"Yeah. He used to sing this song when we were really little, it was like…” He trailed off, smiling
slightly and staring at the water with glazed over eyes. He kept his hands on Isabel, but they went
limp, his grip loosening. “It was something we used to do when we were younger but he still
used to sing it sometimes, right up till he went to uni. Like our joke, you know? It - it went like
‘wheezy Harry, sneezy Harry, no one’s gonna marry Harry’.”
He said it softly, didn’t even sing it, and for a moment Isabel’s lips pulled up at the corners at
how nostalgic he looked. He smiled more, but then it turned into a frown so deep Isabel stopped
breathing. “There’s more but I – I don’t remember.” He looked so suddenly panicked, his eyes
darting around as he swallowed loudly, his hands falling away from Isabel and splashing into the
water. “I don’t remember.”
Isabel said nothing, her throat seeming completely blocked as she stared at him. He coughed for
no reason, his breathing deep as he screwed his eyes shut for a minute and then shook his head
out. “We should go back,” he mumbled eventually. “It’s cold.”
“Yeah.”
He turned without another word, marching off out of the water and pulling his clothes on before
Isabel had even made it to the bank. The grass and gravel crunched beneath her feet as she
walked hesitantly towards him, shivering and watching him zip up his jeans. He was still
completely soaked, and his t-shirt turned translucent as it clung to his damp skin.
“Are you all right?” he asked eventually, watching as she bent down to pick up her dress lying
gutted on the ground with the zip slicing it open down the middle. She nodded, stepping into it
and hoisting it up to her waist, looping her arms through the holes.
“I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t fine – the horrible, poisonous doubts that Harry had managed to quiet for half an
hour were back and much, much louder, like they were screaming in her head, and it was
becoming deafening. Harry came up behind her, zipping up her dress and placing a kiss to her
shoulder, but it felt different now. It was too chaste, too apologetic, too empty.
“Are you okay?” she asked him as she tugged his jumper over her head on top of the dress and
slipped her hand into his, her heart racing as she looked at his eyes staring blankly into the
distance, knowing she’d lost him for the evening and she’d never properly know how to bring
him back.
He blinked at her for a moment like he didn’t know who she was, and she gripped his hand so
tightly she thought she might break it, as if she was scared if she let go he would run off and
never come back.
“I’m fine.”
~~~
Isabel was so distracted that she didn't notice Caitlin speaking to her, not until Caitlin shook her
shoulder and said her name loudly.
"Sorry," Isabel mumbled, pulling a hand through her hair and blinking hard to focus on Caitlin.
"What were you saying?"
"I was talking about Harry," Caitlin said with a frown. "How weird he was this morning."
Isabel sighed and nodded, because she'd been thinking about how weird he'd been too. Weird in
the sense that as soon as Isabel had come back from the shower he'd pulled her onto his lap and
kissed her right there on the camping chair, his tongue hard against hers like all of their friends
weren't standing there watching. He acted like he couldn't keep his hands off her until he'd
eventually been peeled away by Zayn to their shift in the car park, and Isabel had shuffled down
to the lake with Caitlin, her cheeks still burning with embarrassment half an hour later.
She knew why he was like this. Last night when they'd got back to the tents after they had gone
skinny dipping in the lake, both of them still soaking wet and silent, Harry had shuffled off to the
shower and then not spoken a word all evening. He'd just sat there staring at the floor, pinching
his lip so much that it started bleeding but he didn't notice. He also didn't notice that nobody
could stop glancing at him, all too afraid to ask him what was wrong but knowing that he wasn’t
all right and it wasn’t anything they knew how to fix.
She didn't understand the thinking behind it, and she wasn't sure she ever would if he'd never talk
to her, but she knew that his attitude this morning was linked to last night. He'd gone from
silence, from sitting there vacantly with thoughts he didn't care to share with anyone, to grabbing
and kissing her like he'd never touched anyone before, and the whole thing just made Isabel's
heart plummet.
"Are you all right?" Caitlin asked, leaning across the counter towards Isabel and knocking her
knuckles against her arm. "I was only joking about Harry. It's not weird that he wants to fuck
you, if that's what you thought I meant."
"I'm fine," Isabel lied. A customer came to the kiosk before Caitlin could press her further, and
Isabel served them with a forced smile, grabbing some water bottles from the cooler and popping
open the till.
When she shut the till with her hip and glanced over at Caitlin, she realised Caitlin was staring at
her worriedly, her eyebrows pulled into a frown.
“What?”
“You see you and Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you - are you guys together together?”
Isabel swallowed harshly and looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think you will be soon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you gonna see each other over summer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he love you?”
“I don’t know, for fuck’s sake!” Isabel snapped, and Caitlin looked down at her lap.
“Sorry.”
Isabel sighed, feeling instantly guilty. “No, I’m sorry.” She went to sit down next to Caitlin,
chewing on her thumbnail. “It’s just – it’s all a bit confusing.”
“Yeah.” Caitlin looked up at Isabel with a small smile. “It’s not meant to be easy though.”
“Mmm,” was all Isabel said, because she was sure even if it wasn’t meant to be easy, it wasn’t
meant to be like this.
“We’ll see each other over summer, though, Issy,” Caitlin went on, knocking her knee against
Isabel’s. “You and me, I mean. We live so close.”
“Yeah,” Isabel agreed, smiling properly for the first time that day. “Yes, please.”
Caitlin returned her grin. “I really don’t mean to pry, you know.”
“I know.”
"It's just the pair of you are so closed off and I..."
Isabel raised her eyebrows. "What?"
“I'm just a bit curious…” she trailed off, staring at Isabel hopefully, and Isabel conceded with a
sigh. “Do you love him?”
Isabel paused and then nodded.
"You haven't told him?"
She shook her head.
“How come? Is it that you don’t want to tell him?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Isabel spluttered, her cheeks heating up as she shook her head
again. “It’s just – he relies on me so much, you know? It’s just I – he needs me so much.”
Caitlin sighed, shuffling her feet against the floor. “I wish Zayn would need me,” she mumbled
wistfully.
“Yeah,” Isabel whispered, agreeing even though she didn’t agree, not at all, her heart sinking.
~~~
Isabel was yanking off her shoes as fast as she could, sitting on the edge of the tent and flinging
them off her feet, her hands actually shaking as she clambered into the tent and waited for Harry
to follow her.
He scrambled into the tent after her, his head brushing the top of the canvas material as he zipped
the door up hurriedly, before he threw himself onto the floor and grabbed the back of her neck,
pulling her forward until her lips crashed against his.
They’d barely kissed all week, not properly, but they hadn’t kissed like this in ages, a hot,
desperate mess, demanding and frantic, and for the first time in ages Isabel wasn’t thinking of
anything, nothing other than his mouth, of how shockingly pink his bottom lip was when he
pulled away to tug her shirt over her head.
“Gonna fuck you,” Harry mumbled into her mouth, his hands everywhere as he grappled at both
of their clothes, drawing back away from her lips briefly every now and then so he could see
what he was doing. He hadn’t said that to her in so long but she felt it as strongly as if it was the
first time, the promise of it snapping over her skin until her entire body was burning. And maybe
she should have been thinking that this was wrong, because she knew that he was acting this
desperate because of the Adam-shaped blip last night, and because of all the things she’d thought
of when she was with Caitlin that afternoon, but she also knew he was absolutely insatiable and
had probably been thinking about this all day.
When they were finally just in their underwear he pulled her into his lap, his mouth all over her
neck and collarbone, and his hands running up and down her sides so hard she felt the heat of it,
the friction scorching her.
“Fuck,” Harry said, bringing his head up to catch her mouth again, biting and licking and kissing
her all at once, squirming around beneath her and jolting his hips up. She pulled away from his
mouth, to kiss along his 17Black tattoo, her hair tickling his chest as the muscles of his abdomen
tensed beneath her fingers.
He buried his head into her neck, panting as she ran her tongue along the tattoo, tasting the sweat
that had build up over his collarbones when he’d worked in the sun all day. She bit down gently
and he winced.
“Fuck,” he growled again, into his lips ghosting against the skin of her neck. She yanked his
head back by his hair, and he hissed at the pain, his jaw tensing.
“You okay, baby?” she asked him in a falsely innocent voice, planting a small kiss on his pouty
lips as she ran her fingers through his hair, so long now that she could have tied it back. She
smiled when he glared at her, his breath coming out jerkily, and she raised her eyebrows.
“Isabel,” he snarled, shifting beneath her and grabbing her sides harshly. It wasn't often he used
her full name. “Please.”
“Please what?” she asked, tilting her head to the side as he breathed out angrily through his
nose.
“Please touch me,” he whined, moving forward to kiss her but she yanked him back again,
shaking her head at him.
“We’re not allowed to have sex in here,” she reminded him, pouting out her bottom lip as he
squirmed beneath her, digging his fingers into her waist hard.
“Fuck off,” he snapped. “We had sex in here on the first night.”
“When we knew Liv was busy. What if she comes back?” She kissed the strained vein on his
neck, hearing his breath come out in thick bursts through his parted lips as he let go of her waist
and gripped the fabric of the sleeping bag beside him.
“She won’t come back,” he insisted huskily. “She’s in town, remember?"

“I remember,” she agreed, pulling back and petting his tight jaw with her free hand. “It’s just
risky.”
“Stop teasing me,” he croaked. He pushed his hips up, pressing himself hard against her
desperately, and she swallowed loudly, her eyes falling shut.
They’d been working for five days, with one to go tomorrow before they went home, and in that
time she and Harry had only had sex once, the first night, a drunken, giggly and clumsy blur that
had been over far too quickly. If Isabel was being honest with herself, she wanted this just as
much as he did, not only physically but also because she thought it might silence her worries.
She couldn’t pretend that when he’d practically jumped her that evening when they were meant
to be going to a bar in town with the others, pulling her back to the tent and shouting his
apologies to the rest of them with his hands all over her before they’d even got inside, she hadn’t
been just as eager as him.
“I can go without sex for a couple of nights,” she went on, pressing kisses up his jaw. “I’m not
like you.”
“Liar,” he replied, trailing a hand towards her knickers, but she slapped it away and he groaned
loudly.
“You’re angry,” she chided and he took a furious breath. “Is it the antihistamine high?”
“Isabel, please,” he begged wildly. “I’m being serious… I've been thinking about this all day. I
don’t think I can hold on for another second. Please.”
“Please what?”
“I need you,” he whined, and for a moment her heart dropped, before he rolled his hips up again
and his breath snagged over a whine. “God, please, Is."
She shuffled backwards on his legs, sitting on his calves as he pulled his lip into his mouth and
bit down harshly, watching her take off her underwear with drooping eyelids. The flush over his
chest spread up to his neck as he trailed a hand down his stomach absently, palming himself over
his boxers to relieve some of the tension as he watched her stand up to step out of knickers.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed as she pulled back his boxers and sank down onto him slowly,
hooking her arms around his neck. She dipped her head towards his and he leaned forward to
meet her halfway, their mouths catching in a kiss as Isabel swallowed Harry’s harsh breath.
She was moving excruciatingly slowly, and she could tell the pace was killing him. He was
running his hands over her thighs roughly, breathing heavily into her mouth as she tried to keep
kissing him, though it wasn’t long before he peeled his mouth from hers and dropped his
forehead against her shoulder.
His hands slid from her thighs to stroke her back, his eyelashes fluttering against her neck when
she squeezed his hair between her fingers and he let out a little strangled noise.
“Can you … speed up?” he choked out. “I’m gonna lose it.”
“No,” she mumbled, smiling because she knew it would make him furious. She had to savour the
power while she had it, because most of the time with Harry she felt utterly helpless, like they
were spiralling out of control, and when he snarled at her, biting harshly at the skin of her
shoulder, she grinned.
“I swear to God, don’t do this to me today,” he fumed against her skin. He lowered his head
further, swiping his tongue over her chest and humming as she pulled at his hair. “Come on,
come on.”
“Harry –”
“Faster please,” he mumbled against her now wet skin, and she stopped moving entirely,
blinking down at him because she suddenly remembered why this was wrong. He always did
this, used sex when he shouldn’t have, wanting to be close to her because he didn’t know how, or
didn’t want to talk instead. She could feel it now, when he gripped her hips so hard it hurt,
breathing harshly with his tongue pressed on her skin, and she was suddenly completely frozen.
He moaned loudly in frustration, pulling away and bringing his head up, squeezing her thighs so
tightly she gasped.
“What are you fucking doing?” he grumbled. “Don’t stop.”
“Harry –”
“Shhh,” he said before she could go on, pushing his tongue into her mouth and locking his arms
around her waist, moving her himself until she was digging her nails into his arms and
whimpering, and he pulled away with a string of fucks.
“I’m gonna come,” he mumbled, his eyes shut tight, and she wrestled her way out of his arms
before he could live up to that promise. He growled like a feral animal, wrenching his eyes open
to find her next to him staring hesitantly, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “What the fuck?”
“Don’t yet,” she said to him. She was so, so scared of this being over that the tightness in her
chest was physically painful now, and after the lake incident last night she didn’t know how
much longer they had left before one of them had to get out of this non-relationship. She gulped,
trying not to burst into tears. “Slow down, Harry.”
He took a few deep breaths and let his eyes fall shut, his body red and glistening with a thin layer
sweat, and when he eventually opened his eyes he was calm, crawling over to her and placing a
soft kiss to her neck, running his hands gently over her body as he made her lie down.
She swallowed, feeling a jolt of something deep in her chest as he stared at her with wide,
appreciative eyes, touching her so gently as though he was terrified of breaking her, and in a way
she hated how he could do this, how he could switch from one thing to another so quickly that it
took all of her strength not to just cry and cry and cry. He kissed over her heart, laying his palm
flat against it to feel how hard it was beating and then smiling.
“Mine too,” he promised with a grin. He positioned himself between her legs, hooking his arm
under her knee and kissing her calf gently before pushing himself into her.
He was quicker than she had been, and deeper, until Isabel’s head tilted back and her mouth
opened wordlessly, gripping the sleeping bag beside her desperately as he let out a strained
moan, his teeth biting down on his lip hard enough that it must have hurt.
She clamped her mouth shut but a noise still broke out, and he kissed her mouth gently with his
bitten, swollen lips.
“You’re okay,” he rasped and he knew before she did but then she felt it, starting in her toes and
sweeping its way through her body. “Fuck, I’m gonna come soon,” he groaned again, his arm
shaking as he tried to keep himself up.
She could barely hear him though because she came then, her whole body humming with the
strength of wave after wave washing over her for so long that she was completely drained by the
end, breathless and bewildered and struggling to remember why she’d thought for even a second
that this was a bad idea.
When she blinked her eyes open she found him lying beside her, his head buried in her neck and
his hand tracing patterns softly into the skin just beneath her breast.
“God,” she said with a laugh, and she felt him smile into her neck.
“Yeah,” he agreed quietly, like it had been a question, heaving himself up onto his elbow so that
he could press his lips to hers. “Will you get in the sleeping bag with me tonight?”
She nodded, having denied him a few nights ago while Liv was sleeping beside them, and the
pair of them tiredly pulled on their underwear before wrestling their way into Harry’s sleeping
bag, unzipping it halfway so that they could both fit. She lay with her head on his heart, hearing
it beat frantically beneath his ribcage as his hand trailed up and down her spine.
“I can’t believe tomorrow’s the last day,” Harry whispered after a while.
“I know,” she replied, lacing her fingers with his free hand that he’d rested on his stomach. “I
never want to leave.”
“Me neither,” he admitted. He paused, his breath heavy, before adding: “Will we see each other
over summer, Is?”
He’d finally asked her. The problem was, it didn’t seem like he was looking for confirmation, it
seemed like he was genuinely asking, as though there was an equally viable chance they
wouldn't see each other, and the distinction made Isabel frown. Because if it was just down to her
there'd be no question of it, none at all.
“I’d really like to,” she replied, swallowing nervously. He said nothing, just kept lazily stroking
her back, and she unhooked her fingers from his, tracing the “I CAN’T CHANGE” tattoo with
her fingertips.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Harry asked when he realised what she was doing,
his voice low and steady.
She took a moment to recollect herself before replying, surprised by his question. She was so
exhausted that her eyelids were drooping. "Hmm?”
“I was just wondering.”
She looked up at him and smiled, confused, and he smiled back and waited patiently. “Well, it
sounds stupid but I ... when I was like thirteen everyone went through this weird criminal
phase.”
He laughed, his eyebrows pulling together. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It became, like, cool to steal stuff. Nothing too expensive, but like, you know, cheap
make-up or something. So one time I was with a group of my friends and we went to Topshop
and I tried to steal some earrings, and everyone stole stuff but I was the only one that got caught
out. They made me write down all my details and sent a letter to my house, and I got banned
from Topshop for a bit and I had to pay for the earrings.”
She laid her head back on his chest and Harry kissed her hair. “Did anyone find out?”
“Everyone found out. There was like a week of school where no-one would talk to me, and even
after that loads of my friends weren’t the same with me and it was - it was just so ridiculous
because they’d all done it too." She sighed, frowning at the memory. "My brother was in Year 13
at the time and I remember going up to him and all his friends and just bursting into tears. I was
just really scared school would find out and I would get in massive trouble, because it was a
Church of England school and they’d obviously be funny about it. James calmed me down
though, and he kept it a secret. Shredded the letter and didn't tell my mum."
“He's a good brother,” Harry said quietly, and she nodded into his chest.
“He is. He shouted at me so much when we got home, which I found annoying because
I know James has stolen something at one point in his life. But he was just worried about me, you
know?"
“Yeah,” Harry replied slowly.

“What about you?” she asked him, running her thumb over his wrist tattoo, the three words
printed there in big, block capitals. Like a warning.
He was quiet for a while, before he said: “One time, I slept with this girl and then stole twenty
pounds out of her purse so I could get a taxi home when she was asleep.”
Isabel rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see her. “Ever the charmer, Styles.”
She could hear the sheepish grin in his voice. “To be fair, she only slept with me to make her
boyfriend jealous. I nearly got beaten up for that one.”
Isabel scowled and slapped his stomach. “You’re such a dick, Harry!”
“I know. I was seventeen and high as fuck, not that that excuses it.” She kicked him ineffectually
- their legs were tangled in the confined space of the sleeping bag, and so all she really did was
tap him with her toes - but he pretended it hurt all the same. “Why are you being so violent
today?”
“Stop moaning. And I don’t believe you anyway,” she grumbled. “That’s definitely not the worst
thing you’ve done.”
He sighed, reaching his left hand up and she knew it was to play with his lip even though she
couldn't see it. And then finally he said: “I fucked up my A levels pretty bad.”
She waited for him to continue, completely astounded, but when he didn’t she felt the need to
prompt him. “That’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“Well, sort of,” he muttered. “I was alright in my GCSEs. More than alright, I’m fucking clever,
actually. I just lost my way a bit. Well, a lot. It was after…” He didn’t need to say it, she knew
straight away what he meant, but he swallowed and forced it out anyway. “He overdosed when I
was sixteen, in summer. It hit my parents so hard, I hated being at home. It was horrible, Is.” He
paused, taking a shaky breath. “I kinda felt likeeveryone there had died and, and left me, not just
– not just –”
He gulped, and Isabel wanted to check if he was tearing up but she was frozen to the spot. “My
friends were so sympathetic all the time, it was fucking annoying. I just hated everyone, to be
honest." She sucked in a breath and shut her eyes, hating herself from even asking him this
question at all. “I'd been to parties and stuff before, but then some of Adam’s mates, the ones that
never went to uni, started going to raves and stuff in Manchester and I always got on well with
them so I went too. They were fucked up as well, cos of… cos of - yeah."
She looked up at him then, tears pooling hotly in her eyes, but he was just staring at the roof of
the tent with a hard expression, his eyes distant as he remembered. “And so we all took shit and
it was fun and exhilarating and whatever but I fucking hate myself for it.” His voice cracked and
a tear escaped from Isabel’s eye but she brushed it away quickly. “I didn’t want to do it, I knew it
was weird and sick to do it after what happened to Adam, and I was so scared I would die too.
And then my brother and sister would be alone.”
Her heart nearly broke at that. ‘Die too.’
“Harry,” she said, sitting up properly and clinging to his arm, but he shook his head at her. He
needed to continue, she knew it; he was letting out things he’d kept pent up inside him for years
and it was spilling out of him like blood from an open wound.
“It’s just – it just feels so good, Is. It makes me so happy.” He spat out the word from behind the
hand that was still pinching his lip like he was swearing, like it was acidic on his tongue. “I
fucking loved it. And I couldn’t stop. And then I did heroin a few times and I never did it more
than a handful of times but – fuck. It makes you numb in the best way ever, I can see why people
get so addicted. I literally felt nothing. I didn’t realise that’s what I wanted until I got it.”
He laughed a little and smiled at her sadly, meeting her eyes for the first time. “You know sex on
heroin is like – it’s like fucking incredible. I used to go out on Friday night and come home on
Monday morning, and in that time I had no idea what I'd done or where I'd been or who I fucked
but it was good. And it just got to the point where going out was all I cared about, and Poppy
broke up with me and my mum hated me and I hardly went to school and I wasted all my money
on it but I didn’t give a fuck. My parents cut me off but that didn’t work.” He laughed
humourlessly, his cheeks colouring as his gaze dropped away from hers. “I’ve always been good
at scrounging.”
Her heart nearly tore in two at that, because he was so, so angry at himself that he was shaking,
and she wanted to tell him that nobody thought he was a scrounger but she couldn’t get the
words out, knowing that nothing she could say would make him feel any differently. He paused
for so long Isabel thought he was finished speaking, but eventually he pulled his hand away from
his mouth and blinked at her.
“I miss her.”
Isabel was taken aback. “Who?”
“Poppy.” He swallowed carefully. “I was awful to her. I loved her so much.”
“Yeah,” Isabel replied quietly, unsure why he was saying this. She didn’t feel jealous or put off
by his admission, only confused.
“It wasn’t – I didn’t let myself fall in love with her like she did with me. I just loved her so much
it hurt, you know. It’s a horrible feeling, loving someone and hurting them at the same time.”
“Yeah.”
“I could have done. I could have been in love with her. I look back now and – I could have been.
I kick myself for it because I was so close. It’s not like I’m clueless about stuff like that, I know
what I could have had. I wish I’d had it.”
“Yeah,” Isabel said again, watching him as he stared at her, his eyes wide and contemplative, his
teeth biting down on his lip. He looked away, rubbing a hand across his face, and when he
dropped it his expression was blank and emotionless again.
“So anyway, I fucked up my A-Levels big time. First year I got an A in Art, D in English and
Maths and failed Geography. Second year, I didn’t even go to my Maths exams. So I failed that
too, and got a C in English. A* in Art though.”
Isabel swallowed in a breath, her voice shaky. “Why does it matter? That you fucked up? You’re
at the best art school in the country.”
He shook his head slightly. “Cos I could have done so much better. I only started to try and get
my shit together right at the end when I let my dad sort me out and by then I knew I’d failed.
That’s why I didn’t even go to my Maths exams. I just - it's just, I always try so hard at
everything. I wasted two years not trying at all.” He glared at the roof of the tent, and Isabel
knew that this was something Harry genuinely thought about all the time, and it made her so sad
that her bottom lip trembled. “I wish I could be proud of myself for something, but I’m not. I’m
not proud of myself for anything.”
“But - what about getting into uni?”
He made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat. “I fluked my way in. They felt sorry for me.
I didn’t have to work like anyone else, you know? I don’t really deserve to be here. Just cos I can
draw a bit, and cos my school wrote them a fucking letter about my fucking situation I can come
here for basically no fee, with shitty grades, when someone like Niall had to work his arse off to
scrape his way in? That’s not something to be proud of, Is. I can’t be proud of that.”
He looked at her with tired, pained eyes, swiping his tongue across his lips and blinking rapidly,
his breath coming out in a thick burst.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, hooking his arm around her waist and pulling her as close as he could.
"Don't."
"That was intense.”
“Thank you so much for telling me that, Harry,” she said, slipping her fingers through his and
kissing them, running her thumb over the back of his palm before sitting up to look at him. “I
know how hard it is for you to say it.”
She took a deep breath, knowing that this was her chance, that she had to make him talk about
Adam now, about opening up and moving on and letting go, because she could feel him slipping
out of her grasp more and more each day and the thought of losing him was so terrifying that she
felt like it was strangling her. And still, after all this time, he hadn’t said if he liked her, but at
this point she didn’t care: all she wanted was for him to know that she knew he wasn’t fine
however many times he said so.
“I just needed you to know it,” Harry said quickly, his voice now taking on a slightly urgent tone
as he pushed himself up into a sitting a position. “I want you to know that this is who I am, not
everything I - I pretend to be. This is who I'll always be. I can't change this."
“But Harry,” she started, wary of his sudden mood change, as if he knew somehow what she’d
been worrying about all weekend, “it’s not okay to –”
He grabbed her face in both hands, staring down at her with wide eyes that burned with their
intensity and swollen lips and tired skin. Even though it was dark in the tent she realised for the
first time that his bottom eyelashes weren’t brown like the top ones, they were blonde and long,
grazing the dull lines of his dark circles. His nose had freckled more from being in the sun all
weekend, and his hair was far, far too long, falling messily across his forehead.
She saw it then. In his eyes, as he gazed at her imploringly, she saw that flicker in the green that
she sometimes caught for a moment, although this time he didn’t push it away. It was there,
jolting her like lightning into water, making her breath catch in her throat. Those three words
she’d longed to hear him say for so long. He was finally going to say them back. I like you. She
knew it.
He took a small breath, stroking her damp face with his thumb, and suddenly Isabel was scared,
because he wasn’t just looking at her like he liked her, and she started to think that the look in his
eyes was something more like adulation, or adoration, or –
“I’m in love with you,” he whispered.
Or love.
End Notes:
for very important reasons that i'll explain next week, the next chapter will be up on wednesday
Back to index
Author's Notes:
people don't cry in tents
June
They sat in horrifying silence, staring at each other until Isabel finally squeaked: “Are you
sure?”
Harry dropped his hands from her face, resting them in his lap but keeping his eyes trained on
her, his expression blank. “Yes,” he said. “I’m in love with you.”
He said it like he was telling her the sky was blue, or that it was a Saturday. It was factual, with
no slight intonation that would make it become a question, or a plea for a matching response. It
was simple, and it was honest, and it was so unlike Harry, who stumbled over everything he said
and could never admit to anything, that she was entirely shocked into silence.
He waited patiently for her to say something while she squirmed under his gaze, horrendously
aware that most parts of their bodies were touching and that they were both nearly naked and,
most of all, aware that she had no idea what to say.
“Right, okay,” Harry said eventually, his voice cracking slightly and he coughed and let out a
breathy laugh. He clambered out of the sleeping bag, picking up a jumper from the floor, and his
hands were shaking so much that the jumper rippled in his hand. “Just…just forget I said
anything.”
“Where are you going?” Isabel asked him, and her own voice sounded miles away, completely
alien to her.
“I just need to be on my own for a bit,” Harry responded, not looking at her as he scanned the
dark tent for his jeans.
“Harry, listen –” Isabel started, trying to grasp his hand.
“To what?” he cut back loudly, and when he looked at her she realised his cheeks were stained
pink, his eyes so humiliated that a lump formed in the back of her throat. He pulled on his jeans,
the top of his head brushing against the upper canvas of the tent as he yanked them up his legs.
“I think you might be confused,” she said, her voice an octave higher than usual as she wrestled
out of her cocoon, suddenly much too hot in the stifling sleeping bag and the small, cramped tent
with Harry.
He blinked at her, his hands balling up into fists by his legs, before he replied calmly, “I’m not
confused.”
“But you haven’t ever even liked anyone before,” she rambled, horribly aware she was only in
her underwear and that the air was freezing cold but she was absolutely boiling. “You never even
said that you liked me, Harry, and I told you so many times and you never said it back. I just – I
think you might just be misunderstanding it, because I know that maybe, if you don’t know the
feeling, it could be easy to –”
“How would you know?” Harry interrupted, his voice barely louder than a mumble. “You’ve
never been in love with anyone. How would you fucking know?”
It took a moment for that to sink in, and Harry was already moving to the door of the tent,
stepping gingerly over her legs. She threw herself forward, grabbing onto his hand tightly,
terrified that he’d leave like this. “Harry wait, hold on!”
He whipped around angrily, yanking his hand from hers. “How could you think I - I’m not
fucking confused, all right!” he snapped, and she flinched, her hand falling to her lap. “Don’t you
think I would have thought about it before I just said it? Don’t you think this is something I’ve
been trying to make go away for fucking months?”
“Harry, I –”
“It won’t go away, okay? You always say I’m brave, but I’m not brave at all. I’m fucking
terrified of this feeling. I hate it; it makes me feel sick every time you’re not with me because
I’m so, so scared that you don’t want me. It’s fucking killing me and I've tried to tell you so
many times but I couldn't and I’m trying to stop feeling it but I can’t.”
He took a deep, shaky breath and looked away from her, staring at the floor of the tent. She did
start crying then, a little sob breaking past the teeth clamped down on her lower lip, and against
his better judgement he looked up at her and inhaled sharply.
“It’s all right, Is, don’t cry. Forget I said anything."
Not long ago she’d wanted him to say this to her with every part of her body, she’d mentally
begged him to say it, needing to hear it with an almost physical yearning. But now she was
terrified, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and she was so in shock that all she could think
about were the doubts swarming her, buzzing by her ears and behind her eyes and in her mouth.
She wasn’t going to say it back, but then he came and sat on his heels in front of her, placing his
big hands on either side of her face and running his thumbs across her wet cheeks, kissing the tip
of her nose. “Don’t cry,” he said, smiling slightly even though it didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s meant
to make people happy, when people say they love them.”
She swallowed, still so frightened that she could barely speak, but she couldn’t deny him when
he looked her at her like this. “I love you too, Harry.”
He didn’t react for a long time, just stared at her, not even blinking. “You do?” he said
eventually, his tone entirely disbelieving.
“Yeah,” she replied, waiting for him to smile but he didn’t. Instead he sat down properly, moving
his hands away from her face and resting them on his knees.
“Why do you say it like that?” he asked evenly, his voice flat and steady.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to take it back. Like there’s a ‘but’.”
She swallowed and tried again, her voice quivering. “I love you, Harry.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” Harry asked, his voice raising as he scanned her face wildly.
“I don’t want you to say it back if you’re saying it like that.”
Isabel brushed away the new tears on her face roughly and then laced her fingers through his,
trying her best to be brave even though her voice was thick and her eyelashes wet and her chest
heaving so that she looked nothing short of terrified. “I think things are moving too fast.”
“Too fast?” he repeated incredulously, nearly laughing. “Is, if things were going any slower,
they’d be stationary. We’ve been having sex for ages, we've not agreed what we... I don’t know
what I’m…” He trailed off, blinking at her with anxious eyes before he finished: “I don’t know
what I’m meant to do.”
Isabel’s heart shuddered, and she felt something reverberate deep inside her, the crushing weight
of defeat. “Why didn’t you just ever ask me what we were?”
Harry frowned. “Why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t - why couldn’t you have just fucking asked me to be your girlfriend, Harry?” Isabel
covered her face with her hand, trying to swallow back more tears but it wasn’t working. “God,
how did we fuck this up so much?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to be my girlfriend,” Harry replied slowly.
“How on earth did you come to that conclusion?” Isabel said, her voice higher than usual. “I’ve
never been so obvious about my feelings to anyone!”
“I just - I wasn’t sure if you… I didn’t know what to do,” Harry stuttered, swallowing loudly.
“I’m a fucking idiot, I know. I’m sorry, Is. I just got confused and I… I don’t fucking know. I
overthink things.”
He stopped then and waited for her to speak, his thumbs tracing over the back of her palms. She
took a deep breath, sniffing loudly before saying: “The thing is, I just – I went straight from
Louis to you basically and I never had any time to… to think. It’s not fair for either of us if we
do this. We got into this so quickly, neither of us was ready. Neither of us are ready. We both
need to work things out.”
“Okay,” Harry said, nodding slowly, and she could see from the look on his face that the cogs
were working in his brain, that he was trying to piece together what they needed to work out, and
she knew that he hadn’t landed on the real problem yet because he was still so calm. “Let’s work
things out then.”
This was it. The chance she’d been waiting for. It needed to be said because it was eating away
at her, at them, and Harry was unwittingly dragging her into the midst of his reluctance to let go
without realising what he was doing. If he knew what he was doing, she was sure he’d want to
change, to fix things, but she was so scared of telling him that she couldn’t get anything out.
“Is,” he said, squeezing her hands and gazing at her imploringly. “Just talk to me. It’s okay.”
“I don’t think you’ll like what I have to say.”
He lifted up her hand to kiss her knuckles. “It doesn’t matter, baby. Just tell me and I’ll do it. I’ll
do anything you want.”
Isabel swallowed, her throat suddenly thick. “Promise?”
He leaned forward and kissed her properly then, cupping his hand around her neck and pressing
his lips to hers gently. “Promise,” he told her breathlessly, sincerely.
Isabel nodded, taking a deep breath, her heart thumping under every inch of skin until she felt
like she was on fire, and she tried to concentrate on Harry’s hands that were back holding hers to
stay calm.
“I – I think we need to talk about Adam.”
For a long time, there was silence. Harry just blinked at her and then screwed his eyes shut,
shaking his head as though he’d misheard her. “What?”
“Harry, we really need to talk about it.”
“Why?” he asked, his tone sharp. “What does he have to do with anything?”
Before she could respond, he whipped his hands away from hers, rubbing them over his face and
backing away from her slightly as he spat out: “Nothing! He’s got absolutely fucking nothing to
do with us!”
“Harry –”
“You are real and you are alive and I love you,” he snapped, glaring at her. “He has nothing to
do with this. Don’t bring him into this.”
“But we need to talk about this.”

“Why?” he asked loudly. “Why does it always go back to this? Why do we need to talk all the
time? Why does everyone try and make me talk? Why do I always have to fucking talk?”
“Don’t overreact –”
“You want me to talk?” Harry interrupted harshly, running a hand through his hair and tugging
on it. “All right, well let’s see: how about, all I want is for you to love me – is that enough?
I need you with me, is that adequate? Or do you want more even though you fucking struggled to
say it back?" He was suddenly so angry at the mention of Adam he was shaking, and he couldn’t
even look at her when he spoke, his teeth clenched as he stared at the wall of the tent.
“Listen, first of all you can’t keep saying you need me, Harry,” Isabel said, her voice wheezy as
she struggled to breathe she was so panicked, and her heart was beating so loudly in her ears she
could barely hear herself speak. She suddenly felt what a claustrophobic must feel when they’re
forced into a busy lift, like the one at Covent Garden tube station, because Harry had unwittingly
put the most crippling amount of pressure on her and it felt like he was backing her into a corner.
He was trapping her, forcing her to be the remedy for a problem that Isabel hardly knew anything
about, and even less knew how to fix. She felt like she was suffocating under the smothering
weight of his expectation and it was excruciating.
“Fuck me, I have to get out of here,” he mumbled, going to stand up again.
“Harry, listen to us,” she said, laughing hysterically as tears splashed against the arm she’d
reached out to grab him with so he couldn’t get up. “We just said we love each other and we’re
fighting.”
“It’s not meant to be obligatory,” Harry muttered, pulling his arm out of her grip but staying sat
down. “Just because I said it doesn’t mean you have to say it back.”
“What?”
"It’s fine, I know why you said it. You feel sorry for me," he replied, his tone flat. "I'm another
of your Action in the Community projects. I'm the fuck up with no money and a brother who
might as well be dead."
She flinched, sniffing and staring at him with wide, watery eyes. He was pushing her away again
so that he could feel like she’d left him because he was a dick, because he was angry and mean,
instead of rejecting him because of him. He hated losing people, but to Harry, even worse than
losing people was them leaving you. It was easier to shove someone away than have them drop
you out of nowhere.
"Harry that's not true -"
"Isn't it?" he cut back, his voice quiet. "You think I don't understand love, you just said so. But
you thought you loved Louis and you didn't, and now you think you love me, and I'm the only
one who understands anything." He took a deep, shuddering breath, and when he spoke again it
was clear he was trying to sound sharp but more than anything he sounded defeated. “You
couldn't even go out with me to make Louis jealous. You couldn't even manage that." Isabel
blinked at him as he ran a hand over his face and sighed. "I'm such a fucking idiot."
"What are you talking about?" she breathed, brushing a hand across her face roughly to gather all
that had fallen from her running eyes and nose.
"Scarlett told me," he replied, his voice small.
"When?"
"When I was staying with you guys after my fight with Zayn."
She hadn't even spared a thought to that conversation she'd had way back in February in months,
hadn’t thought about it once since she'd humoured the idea for approximately one second, and
she almost laughed at the significance he’d placed on it. "Harry, I'd never do that to you. It's
got… it’s nothing to do with my feelings for you."
"Sorry," was all Harry replied, mumbling it, looking down at the fingers that were shaking in his
lap with his jaw clenched tight.
“Harry, I do love you,” she told him quietly. “It’s just - you just need to start figuring things out.
I'm so sorry that I didn't say it back straight away, but I was just scared because I - I didn't know
if I could handle this. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try, okay?" She took a shaking breath,
wiping her face again. "But I – I can't make things better for you Harry. You have to do it
yourself because you can't rely on me to do that for you. You have to start trying."
“Don’t you think I’ve been trying?” Harry said, blinking at her with wide, sad eyes.
Isabel stared at him, unable to see how this could be salvaged, unable to find the light at the end
of the tunnel. She ran her thumb across his cheek, her fingers shaking, and when she spoke her
voice was soft. “I don’t think so, baby. I don’t think you want to just yet.”
For a long time, Harry just stared at her, his mouth opening and closing and his eyes widening in
shock. “I can’t believe you just fucking said that,” he said, his voice low.
“Harry –”
“Shut up!” he bellowed. “Don’t speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t do this again,” she said carefully, digging her nails into his arm as he tried to shake her
off. “Stop trying to push me out. You need to think about this.”
“Don’t you fucking dare pretend you know what it’s like!” he snarled, ripping his arm away and
standing up. “You know nothing, Isabel. You know fucking nothing about me!”
“I know!” she shouted back, finally losing her temper. “This is exactly what I’m trying to say,
Harry! How can you be with someone properly if you don’t know them?”
She thought he would say something back, but all he did was shake his head and reach down to
grab his socks without a glance in her direction.
“Harry, don’t –”
“You think I’m the one who misunderstands things?” he cut back, and although it was meant to
be vicious he sounded so hurt that it failed. “I don’t know lots of things. I don’t know why Zayn
doesn’t like Caitlin, but I still love him. I don’t – I don’t know how my mum gets up every
morning and is as – as brave as she is, but I love her. I don’t know why Adam didn’t … I don’t
know why he didn’t talk to me instead of ... but I still love him.” He took a deep breath, his voice
dangerously shaky. “Loving someone isn’t knowing them, Isabel. You don’t need to understand
someone to love them. You’re so completely wrong that it’s painful.”
“Why are you leaving?” she asked him, scrambling to get up as he unzipped the tent.
“I can’t be here,” he croaked. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Harry, please don’t go –” she said, her voice cracking as she grabbed at his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gently pulling his hand away and slipping into his trainers hurriedly. “I’ll be
fine tomorrow, I just need to be alone right now, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He walked off before she could say another word, pulling his hood up over his head and burying
his hands into the pockets of his jeans. She watched him go, climbing over guy ropes and
snaking his way between the tents until he was out of sight.
She sat staring out of the tent until her whole body was shaking she was so cold, and eventually
she turned and pulled on some clothes, still shivering violently even after she’d put on three
layers. She went to zip the tent up but her quivering hand kept missing the zipper, and by the
time she caught it she saw a hooded figure walking towards her.
“Harry?” she cried desperately, her voice breaking as she did, and she saw the figure trip over a
guy rope and swear loudly.
“Y’alright love?” Niall asked, looking down at her with a grin. “Just fucked this girl up in town
who must have been at least eight years older, I’m fucking buzzing, I was –”
He paused, frowning with concern. “What’s wrong?”
And before he could say another word Isabel was pulling him into the tent, gripping his hand
tightly between both of hers and sobbing violently into his shoulder.
~~~
“Morning!” Liv chirped brightly, shoving Isabel a breakfast bar as she emerged from the tent,
her hair pulled back into a limp ponytail and her toothbrush hanging precariously from her
mouth.
She accepted the breakfast bar, avoiding eye contact with everyone as she shuffled over to the
path. She spat out the toothpaste, her heart thumping as she shuffled back to their tents like she
was walking to the gallows.
“I thought you’d never get up,” Niall joked, throwing his arm around her neck and kissing her
forehead. He was being overly enthusiastic, way too cheery for someone who still stank of the
alcohol from the night before.
She smiled weakly at him, looking over at the others with trepidation. Caitlin and Zayn were
already drinking, even though it was 6.30am, they had a full day of work ahead of them and were
surviving on only about five hours sleep. After a couple of hours of hysteria with Niall last night,
Isabel had slept for two, Niall three, and one look at Harry told her he hadn’t slept at all.
He was slumped in the camping chair, his hands crossed and resting in his lap as he stared at her,
his eyebrows pinched together. His face was pale and his eyes bloodshot, and the bags under his
eyes looked like dark, painful bruises. When she caught his gaze, though, he looked away.
She sat down in the camping chair opposite him, noting that he’d changed his clothes and his
hair was wet so he must have come in the tent at some point to pick up new clothes after his
shower and seen her and Niall asleep in there. But whatever he thought of that, of last night, he
hid with a blank expression.
For a long time, all Isabel had thought about was Harry. Harry's feelings, Harry's
problems, Harry, Harry, Harry. She’d been lucky to be with him, she’d been grateful that he’d
wanted to be with her over everyone else. But it had never been about Isabel and Harry, them
together, in her head and she’d never considered that he might have felt just as fortunate to be
with her, and if she thought about it that really meant something. Because if she never thought of
them as a pair, as both equally invested in each other, then really, they never had been.
“Excited for the last day today?” Niall asked loudly, clapping his hands together. “Issy?”
“Uh, yeah,” she replied drearily, and Niall sighed.
“We’ll meet back here when the shift’s over, right?” Zayn clarified.
“Right,” Caitlin confirmed. “And then we’ll head off home.”
“Last day, we have to make the most of it,” Liv chimed in, and everyone except Isabel and Harry
nodded.
Then it was summer. Then there were weeks and weeks and weeks of it, whole months of it, and
no Harry. Definitely no Harry.
“H? You agree?” Niall asked, slapping his friend on the knee in forced cheeriness. Nobody
missed the anxious look he gave to Liv, who nodded to encourage his efforts.
Harry swallowed, looking at his feet before dragging his eyes up to meet Isabel’s briefly, her
heart hammering so hard it seemed suicidal, wanting to splinter itself against her ribs. “Yeah,” he
answered hoarsely. “Absolutely.”
And just like that, she knew it was over.

End Notes:
hello!
so to start, some housekeeping. first off, my update schedule from now on is at

oxygenstyles.tumblr.com/schedule but if you'd prefer to be surprised you don't have to look!
they're still weekly just not always on Thursdays (also pls take that with a pinch of salt, like if I
ever can't manage it on the date i've said i promise i'll let u know in good time and im p sure i
can do it but don't be mean pleasey)
v v importantly, after twenty-six chapters of weekly (and originally twice weekly) updates, I’m
having some time off - not just from BDC, but from the internet generally. I’ll be back on
Tuesday 8th (just under two weeks today!) with twenty-seven, so to clarify there’s no update
next week
I probably won’t come on tumblr during that time. I’ll stay on a couple of days after this chapter
goes up to answer messages and stuff, but then I’m going off to de-stress and can come back to
you all fully energised with lots of drabbles and fun new stuff :)
HOWEVER i could not have chosen a better time to take a break because (in case u miss me and
rereading BDC will not suffice) there are TWO new things being posted in my absence, hence
this chapter coming a day early! the first is the AU prompt challenge im doing with a bunch of
other writers which will be posted on July 2nd (five AU one shots will be posted but you don’t
know which one is mine, fun fun fun)
the other, very important thing is that on Sunday night at 11:30pm GMT a very, very long
BDC extra is being posted on my blog which you don’t HAVE to read, but it makes up for the
lack of chapter and if you’ve ever been confused by Harry or wondered what he’s thinking or
wanted to know a little about his past, I really suggest you do read it
ANYWAY please come and tell me what you think of this chapter :(((((((( see ya in a fortnight,
all my love xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
it's too late it's too soon
July
“Isabel! Isabel, hold this!”
Someone was thrusting a bouquet of lilies at her, and Isabel just managed to blindly grab them
before they fell on the floor, a few petals peeling off in the ruckus which resulted in a sigh from
the indiscernible assailant.
“Fix your fringe!” the person snapped, and this time there was no doubting that Isabel was being
chided by her older sister. Savannah didn’t give Isabel a chance to fix anything; she attacked
Isabel’s messy hair with her fingers, desperately trying to flatten the flyaway strands that a stylist
had already spent the last hour and a half trying to tame.
“Get off, Sav!” Isabel snapped, shoving her sister away. “I’m not six years old.”
“Don’t sulk like it then,” Savannah hissed. “This day is not about you.”
“She doesn’t think it’s about her,” someone said, coming to Isabel’s aid. Both sisters span around
to meet the gaze of Madeline – the bride’s sister – who was standing nervously behind the
bickering siblings, pulling at the hem of her dress. Madeline was only fifteen, but was already 5
foot 11 and had thick, unruly black hair and wire rimmed glasses, a combination that
accumulated to low self-confidence and painful shyness.
“Thanks, Madeline,” Isabel smiled, and Savannah rolled her eyes.
“Are we nearly ready girls?” asked the father of the bride, shifting nervously from foot to foot as
he clutched his daughter’s arm and tried his best not to peer through the door of the church to see
the waiting crowd within.
Georgia, who had been staring at the floor in what could only be described as complete terror, let
out a whimper. “What if I fall over?” she squealed to Savannah.
“You won’t,” Savannah said firmly, fully transforming into bossy, self-important mode, petting
Georgia’s hair and fiddling with her veil. “When I got married, Alex was absolutely hammered
by the time I got there and –”
Isabel zoned out, having heard the story far too many times for it to be interesting anymore, even
when Savannah grossly exaggerated the events in increasing measure every time she retold it.
“You look nice,” she said to Madeline. She really did – now that her hair was pushed back into
the same half-up, half-down style that the two Allen sisters had and she could no longer hide
behind it, Isabel could see that the glasses framed her amazing bone structure well, and she had
beautiful clear skin and shining blue eyes.
“So do you,” Madeline grinned shyly. “I love your hair.”
“Tell that to my sister,” Isabel grumbled, and Madeline laughed. “What are older sisters like,
eh?”
“Fucking irritating, that’s what,” Madeline muttered. “Is it bad that I can’t wait for this day to be
over so that Georgia will finally shut up about it?”
“Trust me, she won’t,” Isabel told her. “My sister got married five years ago and I still haven’t
heard the last of it.”
“Oh great,” Madeline replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes, and Isabel decided she liked her a
lot.
“Okay, we’re going, we’re going!” barked Savannah. “Right, so Georgia and Gary, you two first,
then Madeline, then me and you, Issy – who do you want with you?”
Isabel blinked at her. “What?”
“Which child!” Savannah shrieked. “Which child: Ruby or Abigail?”
Isabel had been too busy rolling her eyes at her sister’s bossiness that she’d completely forgotten
there were the two little flowergirls – her niece Ruby, and Georgia’s goddaughter Abigail – to
contend with, neither of whom had been present at yesterday’s rehearsal. Weighing up her
options, Isabel was vaguely horrified at the thought of carrying a baby who couldn’t have been
older than a year down the aisle, just in case she tripped and squashed it, or dropped it, or it
started screaming in her inexperienced arms.
“I’ll take Ruby,” she said, holding out her hand for niece to take. She grasped Isabel’s fingers in
her little chubby ones, her dark hair curled into fat ringlets and her grey eyes wide and bright.
She was Savannah’s miniature.
“Hear that, Ruby-Ru?” she grinned to Ruby, gesturing with her bouquet towards the door.
“That’s the wedding march. It’s time to do this!”
Ruby nodded vaguely, looking around as the doors opened and Georgia and her father stepped
into the threshold.
“Oh Jesus,” Isabel breathed. For the first time since waking up that morning, she let herself be
nervous. Because really, she wasn’t nervous about walking down the aisle in front of all these
people, and she wasn’t nervous about holding Ruby and making sure she didn’t shriek during the
service, and she wasn’t nervous about posing for pictures all afternoon and making pleasantries
with crazy Swedish relatives and people she didn’t know.
She was nervous because she knew Harry won’t have turned up, and the thought of it was so
horrible it made her feel like her heart was tearing, ripping right down the middle.
It meant they were over.
She gripped Ruby’s hand tightly, taking a deep, shaking breath to try and collect herself as she
followed Madeline through the big wooden doors into the church, her sister following close
behind. She knew this day wasn’t about her, and it also definitely wasn’t about Harry, but she
always made everything about Harry. Everything was always about Harry.
“Wanna up!” Ruby shouted loudly as soon as they’d crossed the threshold, making Isabel’s
cheeks stain red. She looked down at her niece and shook her head wildly, willing her to shut up,
but Ruby only frowned and lifted both of her hands up.
Isabel looked around nervously, feeling the eyes of spectators burning into her as she bent down
and scooped Ruby up, holding her against her hip as she shuffled down the aisle after Madeline.
Isabel was avoiding looking over at the people in the seats, terrified that she would search for
Harry and even more terrified of her reaction when she didn’t find him, so she whispered
pointless comments about the flowers into Ruby’s dark hair, making her giggle and nod and
bounce in Isabel’s arms as they made their way to the end of the aisle.
She caught her brother’s eye at the altar, and for a moment she forgot her worries as she felt an
overwhelming burst of pride for James. He’d been a little shit when he was younger, and even
worse when he was a teenager, but he’d actually sorted himself out. He was actually getting
married. The severity of this had never quite occurred to her until she saw him in his suit,
grinning like a Cheshire cat and bouncing on his heels excitedly as he tore his eyes away from
his wife-to-be for just a moment to give his little sister an encouraging smile.
“We made it, Ru,” she told her, placing a small kiss on her cheek as Ruby waved at James. “We
did it, and neither of us did anything too embarrassing.”
“Yeah,” Ruby agreed as if she understood. “Issy – granny!”
Isabel followed her gaze, looking to the front pew of the church to see her mother – already
crying and in a ridiculous hat – clutching her step-father’s arm. Alex was beside the pair of them
with baby Lucas in his arms, on the other side of him was Isabel's dad, beaming happily and
showing no signs of awkwardness that he was shoved next to his ex-wife and her new husband,
and then, on the other side of him, was Harry.
Isabel spluttered, alarming Ruby although nobody else would be able to hear it over the wedding
march. She coughed, feeling her face turn beetroot as she stared at him, horrendously
embarrassed but unable to look away.
He was wearing a black suit that fit him perfectly, the white shirt and black tie combination
sitting on him like the suit was designer, tailor-made just for him. She’d never seen him in a suit
before, but she’d known before now that he would look like this, because Harry was so
effortlessly good at things and he didn’t even know. The suit made him seem even taller, even
more handsome, even more compelling, but he was wringing his hands nervously and his hair
was dishevelled from running his fingers through it. He was perfect, and he didn’t even know.
That was the worst part, that he looked both the best and worst she had ever seen him. Because
when she dragged her eyes to his face, she saw that the circles under his eyes were even more
conspicuous, huge dark clouds beneath the faded green of his tired eyes. They were the first
thing she noticed about his face; no longer were those dark circles a noticeable but small flaw, a
little blip that made him even more beautiful. Now they dominated his expression, governed his
skin, conquered it. It told every person that looked at him one thing: Harry Styles is tired.
And he was staring straight back at her, his gaze burning as it always did, but his eyes raking
over her like he couldn’t get enough of looking at her, like he needed to memorise every part of
her all over again. It had only been four weeks since they’d last seen each other, but with the way
Harry was looking at her it might as well have been forever.
His hand shot up to play with his lip unconsciously when their eyes finally locked. He blinked
slowly, swallowing, and she felt all of her worst fears about this day confirmed.
She’d like to say that the weeks apart had taught her something about him, about them and how
they could get past this without Harry having to talk, but she couldn’t. And now seeing him in
front of her, she felt herself cracking, breaking apart at the seams, even worse than how she’d felt
this past month, because she’d finally read the message inside the birthday card he'd made for
her, and everything between them just felt so cruel, so out of step, so many near misses.
Harry had once said to her “it's like I'm trying to step forward and you've just taken eight steps
back”, and now Isabel thought about it, that’s what it was like. Every time one of them stepped
forward, the other stepped back, and nothing had ever worked.
“Hi,” she mouthed to Harry. He blinked again, not removing his hand from his mouth, and the
wedding march stopped and the vicar started speaking and Ruby squirmed in her arms and her
heart beat wildly in her chest and for a few terrifying, horrifying seconds she thought Harry
wasn’t going to say anything back.
But then he took his hand away, the corners of his mouth pulling up as he opened his lips and
mouthed back: “Hi.”
~~~
“Killer dress.”
Isabel nearly toppled out of her seat. She whipped around, practically whisking the tablecloth off
the table with the strength of her grip, and stared wide-eyed at Harry.
He’d un-tucked his shirt, and his hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers, rocking on his
heels as he looked down at her.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asked when she didn’t reply, looking over to Madeline and
smiling. “I’m Harry, nice to meet you.”
Madeline blushed, avoiding his eyes and staring pointedly at his chin she was so embarrassed.
“Madeline.”
“Yeah, you’re Georgia’s sister,” Harry nodded. “You look lovely.”
Madeline bleated something in response, looking at Harry with a mixture of adoration and terror
before mumbling something incoherent to Isabel and scampering off.
“You freaked her out,” Isabel pointed out helpfully, and Harry smirked slightly, sliding into
Madeline’s vacated seat.
“It’s cos she fancies me,” Harry replied, his tone light and teasing. Isabel scowled at him.
“Don’t make fun of her,” she snapped, and his smile faded.
“I – I wasn’t, I was just –”
“It’s okay, I know,” Isabel sighed, not wanting to argue with him. “I’m sorry.”
Harry nodded, swallowing nervously. "Me too."
An awkward silence ensued. Harry said nothing, just alternated between staring at the tablecloth
and glancing at her, and Isabel downed her champagne in order to avoid eye contact. She’d spent
the whole of the service pretending not to look at him, pretending not to notice Harry and her dad
speaking seriously when James and Georgia signed the marriage certificate, pretending not to see
his eyes scanning over her face constantly, and she’d become pretty adept at not meeting his eye
by now.
“How are you?” Harry asked eventually.
Isabel had absolutely no clue how to answer him, because in truth, she had been feeling pretty
horrendous the last month. She'd tried her best to stay at her dad's most of them time, avoiding
her mum’s house in Hammersmith because all she could think of was that Harry had slept in her
bed there once, and it was sort of paradoxical that it hurt so much when it seemed like a million
years ago.
“Fine,” she answered at last, and he smiled slightly.
“Liar,” he replied. “Nobody ever means it when they say ‘fine’.”
Her heart nearly broke then, remembering their first proper conversation when he had said the
exact same thing to her. Her eyebrows flew up as she swallowed, her eyes widening, and Harry
realised what he’d done. He looked down at the table awkwardly.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“How are you?” she managed to choke out.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’ve been doing my first round of work experience at a gallery in
Manchester. I have to wake up at like 5am everyday to drive there in time.”
“Yeah, you look like shit,” she told him, and he grinned at her, looking away from the
tablecloth.
“Cheers,” he said sarcastically. “Thanks for the reassurance.”
“No problem, Styles,” she said with a shrug. “How’s the gallery?”
He sighed, running a hand across his tired face. “It’s fine. I just – I don’t know. It’s not for me. I
don’t really think I would want to work in one after uni.”
“Really? How come?”
He paused, staring at her nervously. She’d leaned into him without realising, resting her hand on
the table by his elbow and shifting towards the edge of her seat. She blinked, wanting to move
away but not knowing how to do so without making this even more awkward, so she stayed put.
“I don’t like talking about art,” he explained slowly, licking his lips as his gaze swept over her
face. “I like actually doing it.”
“Maybe you just don’t like it because you’re so tired,” Isabel suggested, her eyes flickering
towards the embedded bruises beneath his eyes. "You shouldn't do something that makes you so
tired."
“It’s all right, don’t worry.”
“No, really. You shouldn’t exhaust yourself.”
“That’s not really the reason I’m not sleeping well, Isabel,” he mumbled absently, looking down
at the table, and her heart jumped into her throat.
She went to back away, feeling like she’d been punched in the chest, but he looked up at her and
gripped her wrist before she could move, his face falling.
“Is, shit, I didn’t mean to –”
“Picture!” a voice sang, and the pair of them turned to see her father standing there with a
polaroid camera, grinning at the pair of them happily.
“Not now, Dad,” she muttered, looking down at his scruffy shoes to avoid his cheerful gaze, but
he scoffed at her. Harry's hand was still wrapped around her wrist.
“Don’t be grumpy at your brother’s wedding, Isabel,” he chided. “Come on, you have to get one
with Harry!”
“It’s okay, Patrick,” Harry said, attempting to stand up but her father shoved him back down
again.
“Shut up, Harry, and give us a smile!”
Isabel glared at him, but he stood there waiting patiently until she flashed him a forced grin. He
raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.
“You two look like you’re at the fucking Year 8 disco, sit a bit closer for God’s sake.”
“Daaaaad,” she whined, her skin heating up with how uncomfortable this was, and she heard
Harry sigh beside her as he shifted his chair closer, slinging his arm out so that it rested on the
table behind them and his hand curled around the top of her ribcage.
She sucked a breath through her teeth, her skin burning through the fabric of her dress. Her dad
put the camera to his face, finally satisfied, and just as he was about to click the shutter button
Harry squeezed her, his fingers dancing against her ribs as he leaned forward and told her an
abysmal joke about penguins, and for a moment she was still, frowning and contemplative,
before she burst out laughing and squirmed into him.
“Brilliant!” her dad laughed, taking the camera away from his face and waiting for the picture to
print. Isabel glanced at Harry, her face on fire as he looked down at her with warm, soft eyes,
and she jumped out of her seat away from him.
Her dad had extracted the picture and was shaking it in order to get the image to come through.
“You’re not actually meant to shake it,” Harry told him, following Isabel over and smiling at her
father. “You’ve been misinformed by Outkast.”
"Really?" her dad asked, genuinely interested, and Harry grinned.
"Yeah, honestly. I think everyone was."
“You were nine when that came out, remember Wizz? I got the vinyl and you and James used to
do the dance in the new house, I remember one time you were only in your vest and knickers
then the postman –”
He was thankfully cut off as the picture finally came through clearly and he stopped speaking.
Isabel let out a strangled breath and nearly ripped it from her father’s hands, not because of how
happy she looked, laughing wildly and gripping Harry’s knee as he tucked his left arm around
her waist, but because of the way he was looking at her, grinning so that the corners of his eyes
crinkled, gazing at her with a look in his eyes that told anyone that saw it one thing.
He was in love with her.
It radiated from him, the warmth in his eyes as he looked down at her and the soft smile on his
lips, and Isabel could have stared at it forever, could have wallpapered the picture around her
house so she’d remember forever that someone once had loved her so much.
She glanced at him but he was looking at his shoes awkwardly, knowing like she did that he
couldn’t have been more obvious in the picture. He was scowling, mentally berating himself she
could tell, and Isabel looked at him desperately, her heart feeling like it had just gone through a
blender.
"I'm just gonna get a drink," he muttered, spinning on his heel and stalking off through the
crowd.
"Oh fuck," Isabel choked out, watching him worm through the crowd with his head down and his
shoulders slumped, before she looked at her dad for help, her eyes wide. "What do I do, Dad?"
"Well don't just stand here," her dad said, swiping the picture from her fingers and giving her a
little shove. "Go and sort this out."
Isabel stumbled off in the direction of Harry, being unhelpfully apprehended by various members
of her extended family on her way. She mumbled random words in Swedish at them, her brain
apparently entirely unable to cope with translation at this particular moment. She eventually
managed to make it to the other side of the room, and found him collapsed in a seat in the corner,
knocking back a glass of wine and frowning at the floor.
"Hey," Isabel said, and he looked up at her, his frown pulling up so that his face transformed into
wide-eyed anxiousness. "You came."
"I promised you I'd come," he replied simply. His eyes scanned over her again, his lips parting
slightly, and Isabel thought she might start crying. "You look so nice," he said quietly, his voice
cracking a little, and it was all she could do not to throw herself at him.
“Shall we dance, Harry?” she croaked, and he blinked up at her, confused. She held out her hand
for him to take, and they both ignored the fact that it was shaking slightly. “Let’s go.”
He blinked at her for a moment before putting down his glass of wine and lacing his fingers
through hers and letting her pull him towards the centre of the room.
They made it to the middle, pushing their way passed old Swedish relatives and drunk, emotional
family members, and Isabel swallowed as they stood facing each other. For a moment she
thought neither of them would move, but then Harry wrapped his arms around her waist and
tugged her towards him. She looped her arms around his neck, resting her head against his
shoulder gently and sighing at the warmth of his body, the smell of his citrusy hair. She didn’t
know the song, but it was vaguely sad, and she only held him tighter, feeling his fingers stroke
the skin of her lower back.
She’d danced with loads of people already this evening – James, her step-dad, her actual dad –
but in some horrible twist of fate the only time there had been a slow song was now, with Harry.
He didn’t seem to mind though. She could feel his breath on the side of her neck, his arms tight
around her as they swayed side to side.
They were silent for a long time, neither of them knowing what to say, if there was anything to
be said at all.
"You need to cut your hair," she managed. It had been long in June, but a month later there was
still no cut, and Isabel couldn’t stop herself running her fingers through where it rested at the
base of his neck.
"Yeah," he replied.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said.
~~~
They were driving along the motorway, Harry’s death trap of a car blasting The Hives on the
highest volume. After they’d both agreed on the album, they’d fallen into stony silence, and the
volume and cheeriness of the music only seemed to heighten the awkwardness. It was
excruciating.
Isabel was gripping the edge of the seat, feeling the frayed fabric between her fingertips as she
stared out of the window, trying her best to calm her erratic heartbeat and avoid looking at
Harry.
He’d been weird all day, and Isabel was becoming exhausted trying to keep up with him.
There were only a limited number of rooms at the hotel which had hosted Georgia and James’
reception, and so, seeing as Harry didn’t know anyone other than Isabel and lived too far to drive
home, she’d been forced to share a room with him. For the first time in her life, she wanted her
brother to come flying over and bash Harry’s brains out in an effort to keep them apart, but he
was too busy being the groom and all that, and Isabel had reluctantly dragged herself to the hotel
room with Harry.
There were two beds, so luckily she didn’t have to sleep with him wrapped around her, but it was
still horrendously uncomfortable all the same. And when Isabel had woken up in the early hours
of the morning to nip to the loo, she’d found that Harry was wide awake, sitting on the window
seat and staring out of the window with his arms wrapped around his knees.
He’d looked at her, waiting for her to say something. But she hadn’t, and neither had he, not then
and not over breakfast and not now, and so he was driving her home to London in silence, his
hands shaking and his eyes exhausted and his jaw clenched.
She wanted to say something, but it was becoming so hard to keep up with him, to find the right
thing to say when he got in these moods. She had tried so many times before to help him, but she
didn’t know how anymore. She couldn’t help him when she had no idea what she was doing, and
whether the problem was Adam, or her, or Harry himself.
She felt herself drifting off, her head leaning back against the seat and her grip loosening on the
seat, when she felt the car come to a stop, the handbrake screeching as it was yanked up. She
shot up, wrenching her eyes open, but Harry was already getting out of the car.
“Just need a minute,” he said, slamming the door shut.
She swallowed loudly, her breath coming out in loud gusts as she undid her seatbelt and opened
the door of the car. Harry had pulled over on the hard shoulder, which was not only illegal but
also completely stupid and terribly dangerous, and she was seething.
“Harry!” she screamed at him, but her voice was barely audible over the cars roaring across the
motorway, and he was already running up the grass bank on the side of the road, sprinting as
though it was a flat surface and not an almost vertical incline. “For fuck’s sake!”
She wasn’t about to run up the hill after him, given that she probably couldn’t and she was
angrier than she’d ever been with him. She knew that getting back in the car was the worst
possible course of action - if a car from the road swerved and hit it she’d be dead - and so she
climbed over the knee-high metal railing and sat down on the hill, glaring at her shoes and
plotting Harry's death by various blunt instruments.
After what felt like several decades, Isabel went back to the car to get out a jumper, and noticed
that Harry’s phone was in the backseat. She’d called him numerous times, not knowing his
phone was here as he usually had it on him at all times, but the lit up screen said he had eight
missed calls, and without thinking she grabbed it and swiped to unlock it.
She knew the passcode and punched it in without hesitation. She’d seen him type it loads of
times, and once he had explained it to her. 0908. Phoebe’s birthday.
He had three missed calls from Caitlin and one from Zayn, and a text too:
From: Niall Horan, at 14:39

Harry mate.. when you get this call me. Hope you’re okay
Isabel frowned, utterly confused, but before she could dwell on it any further the phone started
buzzing in her hand.
“Hello?” she answered, and there was a long pause at the other end of the line.
“Isabel?” Zayn asked slowly.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she replied. “What’s going on?”
“Um,” Zayn said dumbly. “Is Harry there?”
“No, he just ran out of the car in the middle of the motorway and I –”
“What?! Where is he?”
“Well I don’t know, do I?” Isabel replied. “He literally sprinted up this vertical hill before I
could even realise what was happening.”
“Issy, listen,” Zayn said lowly, and Isabel chewed on her lip. “You need to go and find him right
now and make sure he’s all right.”
“Why?” she asked quietly, suddenly completely terrified, jumping to her feet and looking up the
hill. “Zayn what’s going on?”
“I – I can’t tell you. Harry wouldn’t want me to. Just go and find him, please, before –”
“He’s coming back,” she interrupted. He was loping down the hill with his hands in his pockets,
staring down at his feet. “I’ve got to go.”
She hung up before Zayn could say anything else, sitting back on the grass and waiting for Harry
to join her. Eventually she felt him plant himself beside her, and the pair of them stared at the
flashes of red and silver and black as the cars zoomed across the M3.
“I’m sorry,” he said eventually, and she closed her eyes and lay back on the grass.
“Where did you go?”
He was silent for the longest time, but eventually he replied, just loud enough to be heard over
the roar of the road. “I needed to be on my own for a bit.”
She froze, completely stunned at his explanation, or lack thereof. “What?”
“I just – fuck, I don’t know. Sorry, it was stupid.”
“Okay,” she replied flatly, trying her best not to scream at him. “Will you take me home now?”
“Isabel, look at me,” he demanded, and she opened her eyes with a sigh. He was hugging his
knees to his chest, just like he had last night, looking heartbreakingly like he had in his self-
portrait, staring at her with wide, pleading eyes. “I felt like I was suffocating in that car, I needed
to get out before I - I really am sorry."
“You know it’s illegal to park on the hard shoulder?”
Harry swallowed. “I’m so sorry, I just – I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine, Harry,” she said, deadpan.
“No, listen –” he grabbed her, stopping her from standing up.
“What am I listening to?” she replied flatly. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
He paused, his grip slackening on her arm, and even though she'd already known the answer, that
told her all she needed to know.
Of course he wasn't.
She had pushed and pulled and encouraged and confided in Harry time and time again for him to
let go, to open up, and she wasn't sure she could do it again. He’d left her at the side of a lethal
road for God knows how long without so much as a word, and he came back with his wide, sad
eyes and his apologies that meant nothing, really. Nothing at all.
She couldn’t handle the pressure of being there for Harry every time he went off on one,
especially when he would need hours of prompting to tell her why. She couldn’t sit by and watch
him fall apart, and then let him adorn her with apologies and jokes and kisses. She was only
twenty, she didn’t feel old enough to handle this, and she was finally not being a pushover
anymore. She’d had enough.
There had been a time when she threw herself into helping Harry out of the dark, black hole he
was in. But the thing about black holes is that they suck everything in their surroundings in too,
until they all end up empty, dissolved into nothing.
“I want to go home, Harry,” she told him. "Let's just go home."
~~~
Isabel shut the door to her mum's house and leaned back against it, squeezing her eyes shut. It
should have only taken just over an hour to drive from Winchester to Hammersmith, but Harry’s
mid-drive rendezvous meant it had been nearly three hours instead, and she got home just after
4.30.
She ran a hand through her hair, surveying the empty house and smiling her hello at the cat who
had been waiting on the stairs. Her parents were coming home later that evening as they’d had to
stay behind and sort everything out at the venue for James and Georgia, but she sort of wished
she hadn't had to come back alone.
Given that she’d spent the rest of the car ride with Harry in total silence, the house seemed even
more vacuous, the clock ticking loudly and the radio that had been left on for the cat humming in
the background.
She pulled herself from the door, slipping her shoes off and feeling tears prick in her eyes as she
thought of Harry driving back to Cheshire, away from her, with his tired, battered expression in
his almost dead brother’s tired, battered car.
She shuffled upstairs to her room, flopping down onto her bed and reaching for Harry’s birthday
card, the intricately drawn map, before she could think about doing anything else, opening it to
reread his message.
Isabel,
Happy 20th Birthday! It’s 3am and you’re asleep, and I’ve been staring at this trying to decide
what the fuck to write, and the thing is I didn’t know why I drew a map on the front until now.
I’ve never been anywhere but here so I can’t be sure if the rest of the world’s good, and maybe it
isn’t, and maybe it’s a huge disappointment and everything I’ve ever thought about means
nothing, but I want to go everywhere on earth with you because I know for certain it’ll be good if
you’re there, and that means something.
Love, Harry x
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out, prepared to hit ignore before seeing the
caller ID.
“Daddy?” she croaked, and she hadn't realised she was crying a bit until now.
“Did you get home okay sweetheart?” he asked. “Everything all right with Harry?”
She choked back a sob. “No, I don’t think so,” she managed.
“Is it all that stuff with his brother?” her dad questioned, his tone laced with sympathy, and
Isabel frowned, swiping the back of her hand under her running nose.
“How do you know about that?”
“I googled him.” If Isabel hadn’t been so upset she would have snorted.
“Why?”
“You know what dads are like. It’s a cheaper version of a PI background check.”
Isabel rolled her eyes, but even through her tears she laughed all the same. “What on earth were
you expecting to find?”
“Seedy Facebook pictures? Sexist tweets? I don’t know, it was a moment of insanity, leave me
alone.” He sighed. “I didn’t expect him to come yesterday though, what with it being the
anniversary of his brother’s overdose and –”
She jumped up off the bed like she'd been electrocuted. “What?!”
“His brother? Adam’s his name, right? I found Harry on the marathon pages, had a link to the
charity. Really upsetting stuff, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
She felt completely frozen, like all of her motor ability had slid from her brain to her feet and
was gluing her there. The only thing she knew was that a voice in her head was screaming, not
even coherent thoughts, just loud, frantic screaming.
"Wizz, listen. He was telling me at the service yesterday how much you mean to him,
sweetheart. He really does -"
“The anniversary of Adam's overdose was yesterday? At the wedding?" Isabel interrupted,
clutching the phone so hard she felt it might snap in her hand.
“No, today,” her dad corrected. Before he could say anything else, Isabel was throwing the
phone to the ground like it was made of burning metal, staring at it in total horror. She let out a
strangled whimper, breathing frantically. What had she done?
She was down the stairs, wrenching the front door open and running out into the street before she
took a moment to think.
She couldn’t quite believe it when she saw Harry’s car still sitting on the other side of the street,
and she sprinted across the road without looking and jerked the passenger door open, jumping in
and landing on the seat with a thump.
Harry had been sat with his head leaning back on the headrest, his eyes squeezed shut. He looked
at her in alarm, but before he could say anything she had leaned across the console and pressed
her lips to his.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Adam?” she asked when she pulled away, freely crying as she
fisted his shirt. “Fuck, I don’t care why you didn’t tell me, I don’t – I’m so sorry, Harry.”
She buried her face in his neck, soaking his shirt as she clutched it with both hands. He rubbed
her back gently.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I freaked out on the M3, that was a really fucking
stupid thing of me to do. I fucked up so bad.”
She looked up at him, her eyelashes tangled with tears and her face blotchy and red. “Huh?”
He sighed, looking down at his lap. “I don’t want to do this to you anymore. I’m a mess, I know,
and I can’t expect you to have to deal with that just because I lo– I want you to. You don’t need
me fucking up your life, and I’m so sorry that I dragged you into this. I –”
“I love you, Harry.”

She said it quickly, softly, reaching a hand to stroke his face. She smiled encouragingly as he
froze, his eyes widening when he looked up at her and his hand freezing on her back. “Huh?
“You know I do.”
“But I...” he trailed off, blinking at her with his eyebrows pinched together in the middle. “But I
fucked up.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, idiot,” she said, smoothing the frown between his
eyebrows. He closed his eyes, resting his head back against the headrest again, and she leaned
over to press a kiss to his cheek.
His frown returned, his eyes still shut, and he dropped his hand from her back. She swallowed
nervously, not sure what to do, and then he rubbed a hand over his face and left it there,
slumping into it slightly.
"Harry are you crying? I -"
"I can't cry!" he snapped loudly, his voice so suddenly angry she flinched. "I haven't cried for
four years today and I'm not about to cry now!"
Isabel nodded, and sat back in her seat, saying nothing.
She could hear the birds outside the car chirping their good evening to each other. She could hear
the laughter of children walking up the road, about to pass Harry's car, and the rub of pushchair
wheels against the pavement. She could hear her heart pounding and the blood rushing
frantically through the twisted map of her veins. She could hear the roar of Great West Road in
the very distance. And most of all she could hear the overwhelming silence engulfing the car,
slicing through her like a spear.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled eventually, and when she glanced at him she saw that he was staring
down at his lap, looking so ashamed that her heart felt like it might crack in two.
“Okay,” was all she said.
“It’s not okay though, is it?” he said sadly, the corners of his mouth pulling down. He closed his
eyes again, sighing tiredly. “I’m so sorry, Is.”
“I know,” she replied.
“I told myself for ages this was about sex,” he mumbled, staring at his lap. “Because I actually
fucking enjoy it, and ever since having sex high it can sometimes be a bit boring and dull, you
know, and it takes me ages to get off but I do it anyway because… because it’s me.” His words
felt like they were physically cutting into Isabel as she gazed at him, her heart beating in her
mouth. She knew he thought that’s how she saw him, as someone who went around and fucked
anything with a pulse, and he glanced up at her sadly. “I just like feeling wanted. It's so pathetic,
I know. But I - I guess it’s different when you love someone, isn’t it?”
Isabel just blinked rapidly at him, and she wanted to respond but her mouth felt like it was made
of tar.
“When we were talking about knowing people,” Harry continued, twisting his hands together in
his lap, looking down so much that his chin touched his chest. “I meant it, you know. You can
know someone’s favourite film or their middle name or - or where they’re from and you can
know what their skin and their mouth tastes like and you can know exactly what they’ll say in
response to anything you tell them but… but that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?” Isabel asked him, and he shook his head.
“Anyone can have that with anyone. That’s not what we are.” He faltered, his mouth opening
and closing wordlessly for a moment, and he looked up at her. "You love me?"
"Yes, Harry."
He nodded and then swallowed, but his eyes still looked a little stunned, like he couldn’t quite
believe it. "I - okay.”
She waited for a while, unsure of what to say when he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head
out.
“Why though?” he said eventually. “Why would you want to be with me?”
Isabel nearly laughed, wiping at her face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I just left you on the side of the fucking motorway, Isabel,” he said flatly, his cheeks burning as
he stared at his hands in his lap. “That’s so dangerous and I – fuck. I need to sort my shit out.”
“That’s okay,” she said quietly, trying to clasp one of his hands. “I’ll help you.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think you should.” He squeezed her hand gently and then
dropped it.
She blinked, so taken aback she could barely speak. “What?”
“I love you,” Harry said quietly. “But I’ve just realised I don’t really want you to love me when
I’m like this.”
This was it. This is the conversation she’d wanted to have with him before, but now she was
having it, in the claustrophobic confines of Adam’s car and with Harry looking so ashamed of
himself that it was all she could do not to fling herself at him, she was suddenly terrified.
“Okay,” she said, as evenly as she could. “That doesn’t change how I feel, though.”
“I’m gonna go now,” Harry said quietly, not looking at her.
“Harry,” Isabel said, her voice low and trembling. “I’m not letting you go before we talk through
this properly.”
He sighed, twisting his fingers together in his lap, and she knew he was itching to leave but he
didn't want to upset her. “Okay.”
“Are we – what do you want me to do?”
“Are we… is this us breaking up for good?”
Harry finally looked up at her and smiled sadly. “We weren’t ever together, though.”
Her bottom lip wobbled and another tear splashed out of her eye and down her face, and Harry
frowned. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asked. “You wanted us to slow down.”
“Slow down not - not stop!” she told him, her voice trembling dangerously.
“Tell me if there’s another way to do this, then,” Harry said, reaching out for her hand and lacing
his fingers between hers, and she could tell that he’d already made his mind up, his tone entirely
defeated. “Because if there is, I’ll do it. But I don’t know what it is. I can’t think of anything.”
“I –” she tried to suggest something, but there was nothing to say. She and Harry weren’t
working; both of them were cracking even though there'd barely been enough foundations
between them to break. “I just feel like you’re giving up.”
He took a deep breath, his face crumbling. “Isabel, baby —”
“I don’t want you to give up,” she said over the top of him, her voice becoming hysterical. “I
don’t want this to be over.”
“I don’t know what I’m meant to —”
“Why don’t you want me to be here, Harry?”
"I do, I just –"
"I'm saying that I'll help you."
"I know, but I think –"
"I want to be there for you."

"Yeah, me too, but I –"
"What am I meant to do now?"
“I don’t know!” he said loudly, sounding like he was bordering on panic. “I don’t know what I’m
doing, and I’m just trying to do the right thing, all right?”
He said it so forcefully that she was left a little stunned. "Well I —"
He leaned across her and blinked at her with wide, pleading eyes. “Tell me what I’m meant to
do, Is. Tell me what I’m meant to do.”
She realised then that this was his get out. He wanted her to tell him what she really wanted to
say, which was this: Let’s give it a few weeks, cos this time apart hasn’t been so bad, right? And
then you can drive down to see me, or I’ll come up to you. And we could go and stay at a shitty
beach resort, Bournemouth or Blackpool or somewhere, in a B&B attic room with ratty sheets
and a broken shower. It’ll be okay if we’re together, won’t it? It’ll be okay. Won't it?
“I just want you to be okay, Harry,” she managed to croak out. “And I think you’re right. If
we’re together you can’t get better. You'll end up hating me and me you and I - I can't do that.”
He nodded so many times that she thought he might hurt his neck, blinking rapidly, and then he
reached over and opened the door roughly, and Isabel wondered whether he would shove her out
of the car if she didn’t leave voluntarily. “I’ll see you.”
“Harry —”
“Please!” he replied emphatically, begging her now. “I can’t talk about this anymore, don’t
fucking torture me more than you have to, for fuck’s sake.”
"What are you gonna do?" she asked, tears splashing onto his arm. They both knew that she was
talking about Adam, what Harry would do to try and change, and for a moment his face
crumbled and he looked so hurt and broken that she felt her heart freeze and then shatter.
"I have to go home in case my parents have decided four years is long enough to warrant turning
off life support," he said flatly, looking away from her, and it wasn’t the answer to her question
but it shut her up all the same. "I don't have time for this."
He knew playing the Adam card would make her go. She clambered out of the car and padded
slowly back into her house with bare feet and a broken, trampled, annihilated heart.
Harry watched her go, waiting until he saw a light upstairs flicker on before he let out a breath he
didn't know he'd been holding. He wrung his shaking hands, letting himself feel something for a
moment, opening the carefully constructed floodgates that had taken four years to become only
slightly better than cracked and untrustworthy. He felt a familiar wave of loss and anger and
white hot pain wash over him so suddenly that he felt like he was drowning under a sea of lava,
and he gulped loudly, squeezing his eyes shut and wrapping his arms around himself as though
to stop himself from physically snapping right down the middle. He felt the burn of it all over,
right down to his toes but hurting most of all in his head, in his heart, and he remembered the
first time he'd had this feeling four years ago, when he'd curled up into a ball in his and Adam's
room and screamed into his pillow and wondered if anything could ever feel worse than how he
felt in that moment.
Now he knew that it could.
But then he did what he always did. He breathed huge, gulping swallows until his lungs burned
and he knew he needed his inhaler but at least that made him remember that he was alive. And
then he imagined himself gluing all the pieces of himself back together with cheap, 99p store
superglue that he knew would break again very soon but it was good enough for now. And then
he sat back and clenched and unclenched his fists and ran a hand through his hair and started
Adam's car and drove off without looking back.
End Notes:
Sooo… that’s it.
See you next Thursday
(if you'd like an insight into Harry's mind for the past twenty-seven chapters, read Close to
Me which is posted in a story called BDC extras on my 1dff profile. I reckon it'll be really
eye opening, and I hope you enjoy!)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
missing
September
Isabel’s head was buried in a box, rifling around for some more leaflets with her fringe
falling into her eyes. His voice made her jump so much that the hand she’d been resting
against the cardboard edge slipped and she nearly tumbled forward.
“What do you want?” she snapped when she stood up, trying her best to ignore the fact
that he was laughing.
“Do you really think I would pass up the chance to come and see my favourite girl?”
Louis was grinning at her, wearing a baggy orange t-shirt with the university’s name
plastered across the front, and she had an overwhelming urge to slap him.
“This is embarrassing,” Louis said, pointing at her identical t-shirt. “We match.”
She ignored him, clutching the leaflets to her chest. “Are you here to sign up?”
He sneered at her. “What, to this?” He looked around the cluttered stall, at the posters
pinned behind it and at the leaflets, his eyes coming to rest on Rory who was chatting to a
couple of freshers animatedly. “Nah, you’re all right.”
“Well fuck off then,” she said. “You’re putting people off.”
“Me?” he asked incredulously. “Babe, I’m drawing them in.”
She tried not to make a disgusted noise when he called her that. “Don’t you have stuff to
attend to?”
“Well you see, when you’re boss you can delegate,” Louis grinned. “But I guess you’d
know that, wouldn’t you?”
Louis was helping to organise Freshers’ Week again this year, which explained why he and
Isabel both had the fluorescent orange university t-shirts on. The difference between them
was that people thought Louis’ job was something to be admired, especially seeing as he
wasn't an elected head of the Student Union but an unofficially appointed leader due to his
universal popularity, whereas Isabel’s one as head of Film Soc was just plain lame.
“You wouldn’t believe the surprise when I found out you were head of this thing,” Louis
continued, gesturing around vaguely. “I didn’t even know you were in it. But then again,
you did a lot of stuff behind my back, didn’t you?”
She rolled her eyes, not taking the bait. He shrugged.

“Fair enough,” he added falsely. “This is… it’s pretty cool, yeah?”
She smiled slightly, pretending she didn’t get the sarcasm. “Yeah, I think so.”
He scoffed, and she turned away, bending down to get more leaflets out of the box. When
she straightened up again he was still there, standing there with a smirk.
“So, Scarlett told me you broke up with the boyfriend,” Louis said, and Isabel swallowed.
“Sucks.”
She knew it was coming, but it hurt all the same, like Louis had punched her straight in the
chest. She tried to take a deep breath, but she felt the familiar rush of blood to her ears, her
heart accelerating like she was falling, tumbling fast towards the ground, and it was trying
to remind her that she was alive, that if she kept in the air and didn’t reach the ground
she’d stay alive. She didn’t have to hit the ground if she just tried to stay up.
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” she mumbled, avoiding Louis’ eyes.
“Oh, it was like that?” Louis said, letting out a low whistle. “Got to hand it to you, Isabel,
you put on that cutesy innocent little girl act well, I’ll let you have that.”
“Hey, fuck off,” Rory said from over Isabel’s shoulder, and she turned to find him glaring
at Louis, his glasses sliding down his nose. “Leave her alone.”
She gaped at him, completely and utterly surprised. Louis just shrugged with a grin.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said leisurely to Rory. “I was just going. Wouldn’t wanna be
caught hanging out with you lot too long.”
He blew Isabel a kiss and sauntered off through the Freshers’ Fair, waving his hello at
various people and not looking back once.
“Are you all right?” Rory asked her, placing a hand on her shoulder and blinking at her in
concern.
Isabel nodded, but she really was falling, plummeting miles and miles away from the sky,
and it hurt so much all she wanted to do was curl into a ball. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
~~~
Isabel rushed to work after the fair was over, but her head was in completely the wrong
place and she got on the wrong bus, meaning she arrived fifteen minutes late on the first
day back.
“I’m so sorry, Dan,” Isabel panted when she got in, having headed straight to his office to
apologise. She halted in her tracks when she noticed Briony in there, her dark hair flowing
down her back as she sat opposite Dan at his desk.
“Don’t worry, Isabel,” Dan smiled. “Harry’s holding the fort. Did you have a nice
summer?”
Isabel grunted in reply. Harry was here.
Harry was here.
“Freshers’ Fair, yeah?” smiled Briony. She went to Isabel’s uni too, but Isabel didn’t have
a clue what she did, or what year she was in, or who any of her friends were, and she
blinked at Briony dumbly.
“Yeah,” Isabel choked back.
“Briony was telling me she wants to switch from the arcade to the alleys,” Dan told Isabel.
“Maybe you and Harry could show her the ropes if we transfer her over?”
Isabel thought that even if she sat under exam conditions for three weeks with the
question “what’s the most hideous idea you’ve ever heard?” she would not be able to conjure
up something worse than Dan’s suggestion.
“Yeah, sure,” she forced herself to say. Briony grinned and Isabel’s polite smile slipped as
quickly as it had appeared, trying her best not to glare at Briony.
“All right, off to work,” Dan said, pointing at the door, and Isabel shuffled out as though
she was walking to the gallows.
She’d thought about this moment all summer, what it would be like when she saw Harry.
She’d held herself together reasonably well – she barely moped around feeling sorry for
herself, and despite the sharp sting of her and Harry’s ending, the excruciating feeling of
drowning, she’d pushed through it and had been okay. But she had no idea what Harry
would be like, whether he’d ignore her, or be angry at her, or seem sad or tired or
rejected.
She supposed a part of her had assumed, though, that the first time she saw him they would
talk about them, about getting back together even, because all summer she'd thought
that had to be what happened next. She'd seen enough films to know that this was how it
went, that this was the natural order of things. Harry would be better now, and they would
tell each other they still loved each other and everything would be okay.
Except, it wasn't.
Because when she walked in Harry glanced up from his phone, his face freezing for a
moment, his lips parting and his eyes widening and his cheeks flushing, before he shot her a
smile. “Isabel. Hi. You all right?”
She blinked at him, and everything in her, her blood and her lungs and her heart, seemed
to halt as her eyes swept over the curve of his jaw and the mess of hair and the green of his
eyes, and it was like when you go abroad to a place you’ve never been and it’s completely
new but weirdly familiar too, like you’d been there in another life. “Yeah?” she replied, her
own answer sounding like a question.
He smiled, his eyes darting across her face, the skin between his eyebrows pinching
together, and just when she thought he might say something more, he went back to his
phone.
That was it. That was all she got.
She just looked at him, waiting for him to turn and say something to her but he didn’t, just
gripped the phone tightly in his white-knuckled hands and stared down at the screen.
And despite her disappointment, she couldn’t help but notice that he looked so well. The
dark circles under his eyes had almost completely gone, his skin was clear and tanned and
bright. His hair was so much shorter, lighter too from the sun, and even sitting down she
could tell he was broader, that he’d gained more muscle over the summer.
It was horrible because she'd never felt like this about someone. She knew him so well,
knew every inch of his face and every trick to make him laugh and every sound he made
when he slept, when he came, when he was happy, sad, confused, concerned. And it was
still him, but a different version of him, older by a few weeks and healthier and stronger
and she was so weirdly jealous that he'd kept going, kept moving and breathing and living
and people had seen it and she hadn't.
He had a new tattoo on his hand, a cross on the back of his palm, and for some reason this
alone managed to completely incinerate all of the strength she’d built up over summer, the
whole thing dissolving into nothing right there in front of him. And it was another thing to
be stupidly, pathetically jealous of, but the tan and the ink brushed into his skin was
something she’d just sort of hoped she’d have been able to witness, to share with him
almost. In those two weeks of June when they were together every day she’d imagined it,
their summer, Harry driving them in his shitty car to Blackpool and drinking beer on the
beach and staying in an awful bed and breakfast with tatty sheets and sand in their toes.
And not just this summer - she’d imagined the next summer, and the next one, and the one
after that, going around Europe with him, cycling through Amsterdam and trekking
around all the museums in Paris and climbing the hundreds of steps right to the top of the
Vatican in Rome.
She’d seen it all, a series of random images of the pair of them, of holding Harry’s hand in
a tiny tattoo shop in Madrid and grinning when he pretended it didn’t hurt, and maybe
she’d get one too, maybe something he’d drawn. And if she tried hard enough she could
imagine them in five, six, eight years going to America, and she just knew that out of
nowhere Harry would start spouting something about Steinbeck and Wolfe and Kerouac,
his eyebrows pinched as he recollected from his vast, intricate store of knowledge
of everything that always surprised her because he pretended it wasn’t there, and she’d just
nod, so in love with him that she’d forget for a minute how to breathe.
It was there. It was still there, the possibility, because there was always a possibility, but
then there was that new ink scar on his skin and she hadn’t known about it until now,
hadn’t known about a part of him that would be there forever. And that
meant their forever seemed to drift aimlessly away until it was just a faint smudge in the
distance, an idea she’d once had when she was twenty and stupid and thought that just
because there was a possibility of it happening, a one in a million chance, that didn’t mean
it actually would.
There were always possibilities. There weren’t many that made it to reality.
“How was your summer?” Harry asked her, ripping his eyes away from his phone to look
at her, his teeth gnawing into his lip. He was being too courteous, too casual, too
anonymous. Disregarding Isabel’s horrified expression, an onlooker would assume they
were at most vague acquaintances and not two people who had said they loved each other
only two months earlier.
“Fine,” she stammered, and he smiled softly.
“Liar. Nobody ever means it when they say ‘fine’.”
Her breath snagged in her throat and she nodded, biting down on her nails and praying
that she didn’t start crying. He had to say his stupid phrase to her now, and he knew, too,
because the smile flickered from his face and he licked his lips carefully.
“Caitlin said you two had been meeting up a lot,” Harry said quickly, inadvertently
reaching a hand toward her before dropping it awkwardly. “That’s cool.”
“We live close to each other,” Isabel said, sliding into her seat and sitting strategically on
her shaking hands. “It was nice to have a uni friend live so close by.”
“That’s cool,” Harry nodded. “I saw Zayn quite a lot as well.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She tried to memorise his entire face all over again, her
eyes darting hungrily from his eyes to his nose to his lips to his jaw and back again,
drinking him in. He was blinking back at her, saying nothing as usual, but his mouth was
hanging open slightly like he wanted to.
“How was your work experience?” she asked a bit breathlessly, wanting to hear his voice
again.
“Good, yeah,” Harry said, licking his lips. “I mean, I didn’t like the gallery. And I did
another week at an art shop which was all right.” He wetted his lips again and then smiled
slightly. “The best one was helping out at this art summer school thing at my mum’s
school. I loved it.”
Her heart juddered. “Really?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I love working with kids.”
She wanted to ask him a million questions about it, but she couldn’t get any words out so
they just stared at each other, and panic started bubbling in her chest, molten hot and
scorching her insides.
“How was Barcelona?” he asked desperately, his voice cracking a little, and it was just so,
so awkward that it was painful.
“Yeah, it was nice,” she said, swallowing hard. “I went to Sweden as well, to see my mum’s
sisters. Savannah and Alex and their kids came as well, which was weird, I mean I was a bit
of a spare part, but it was fine.”
She was rambling, and she was acutely aware that he was nodding but his eyes had glazed
over and his face was blank and he can’t have been listening anymore. She felt sick.
“Ah, sounds awesome,” he mumbled, and she knew he had no idea what she’d just said. He
blinked hard and looked down at the table as she suppressed her tears, squeezing her
hands into fists and trying to regulate her breathing.
She wanted to quit her job. She wanted to run and run and run and never look back, never
see Harry again, never see anyone that reminded her of him again, and in that moment she
hated him. Awkward didn’t even cut it – this was excruciating.
He lifted his head up, opening and closing his mouth like a fish and trying to say something
before he eventually mumbled: “Nice t-shirt.”
She looked down stupidly, having forgotten that she hadn’t taken off her orange t-shirt and
put on her red polo in her anxiousness. She gulped. “I was at the Freshers’ Fair.”
“Ah wicked,” Harry said, running a hand through his hair before adding in an incredibly
forced attempt to sound breezy: “Just before I forget, we’re all having dinner on Saturday
together before this party Nick’s having. You got the Facebook invite to the party, right?”
She nodded weakly.
“Yeah, well everyone was saying the six of us should go for dinner beforehand and catch
up. Sound good?”
She blinked at him. “You want me to be there?” she asked slowly.

He swallowed and then shrugged. “Yeah, why not? We’re friends.”
She’d heard enough. “Excuse me for a minute.”
“Are you all right?” Harry asked, standing up just as quickly as she did, his eyebrows
pulled together in concern.
She nodded and stumbled off through the complex, not able to get to the bathroom fast
enough, but eventually she did, locking the door and leaning back against it, taking huge,
gulping breaths as she dug her nails into her palms and tried not to cry.
Every morning when she woke up she missed him so much that she had to stop herself
from calling him, her fingers inching towards her phone before she was even fully awake.
She missed the feeling of his nose buried into her neck, of his warm hands limp on her
waist while he breathed heavily onto her collarbone, his lips ghosting over the skin, their
legs so tangled she wasn’t sure where his stopped and hers started.
She missed things she hadn't even thought it was possible to miss, like the feeling of his hair
on her skin, whether that be the hair on his head or on his legs or the dark coarse trail
down his stomach that disappeared into his boxers. She missed the dent in his middle
finger, the bump of the scar on his palm, the way his fingertips were calloused but they
could touch her so softly and gently when they trailed along her jaw and through her hair
and down her sides that his touch alone could have made her cry.
She missed the pinkness of his lips, the way they were always jutting out in a pout and the
way they moved when he spoke. She missed that they were always slightly chapped from
lots of biting with his teeth and pulling with his fingers, but when he kissed her they never
felt scratchy, but soft and warm. She missed kissing him for hours and hours, hearing him
sigh into her mouth and pull away for a moment just so he could breathe in the air she
exhaled.
She missed the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled properly. She missed the
sound of his laugh, the sound of his voice in the morning, the sound of his voice when he
told her a secret, all breathless and desperate and aching. She missed the way he listened to
her, the way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her sometimes when he thought she
wasn’t watching, all warm and adoring like he’d never seen anything like her before.
All Isabel had ever wanted was for Harry to love her in a way that was separate from him
needing her to make him better. She wanted him to look at her and see all
of her insecurities and scars and bumps and freckles and love every part of her. She didn’t
want to be the person he looked to when he wanted to fix himself, she just wanted to be
loved for her, because otherwise she faded into nothing. There was a reason most pills were
plain white, she thought, because they weren’t meant to be exciting or interesting or
alluring. They were there to be used, swallowed up, forgotten about, thrown down
somebody’s throat with a glass of water again and again until their problems went away
and then they were discarded.
But what made it worse was that she knew, somehow, beneath it all, that Harry didn’t just
love her for that. Because Harry’s whole life had been a series of calculations: if I do x then
this won’t hurt anymore. If I do y then people will think I’m okay. And If I do z then I can
feel alive. All of those things surmounted to one solution, which was wanting to be wanted
so badly that it actually hurt him, because that’s who Harry was. He wanted to leave scars
in people’s lives, and as much as it upset him when Caro cried at parties or when he saw
Poppy’s face after he cheated on her again, in a way, he liked the pain. It meant he was
real, that he hadn’t disappeared when Adam had, because she was pretty sure that’s how it
felt most of the time.
But he’d never liked the pain with Isabel. Every time he carved a hole into her he’d tried to
fill it, and every time he’d made her cry he’d tried to stop it, and she knew that for a long
time it had absolutely terrified him, that the thought of it had scared him so much that the
ground must have felt unsteady beneath his feet and all his careful plans and calculations
and x’s and y’s and z’s crumbled right there in front of his eyes until they were nothing,
nothing, nothing.
And with that, she knew Harry was right. You didn’t need to know somebody to love them.
You didn’t need to know anything other than the fact that your heart sped up when they
laughed and that you liked the smell of them all over you and you wanted to be next to
them just because it made you feel safer. You didn’t need to know what their favourite
colour was or what their order was when they got Chinese or why they always liked to
sleep on top of you. You didn’t need to understand them entirely, you didn’t need to try
and figure every last piece of them out, and you didn’t need to be the person they went to
when they didn’t feel okay. You just needed to know that they loved you too, and that
should be enough.
It was enough for her. It had been enough since the moment in his car when he’d realised,
finally, that he wasn’t okay, and it had been enough all summer, and it was enough now.
But that didn’t mean anything, it was just another possibility, just another thing that could
have been but wasn’t.
She unlocked the door and went back to the shoe booth, finding him sitting there anxiously
and pulling his lip between his fingers. He sat up straight when he saw her, coughing into
his hand.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath, wondering when they’d agreed that lying to each other
was the easiest and simplest and best thing to do. “You okay?”
He paused, swiping his tongue across his lips. “Yeah.”
And if that should have seemed like enough, it wasn’t.

But with an aching heart, she knew it was all she would get.
End Notes:
hello!
so I know this one was a bit shorter than usual, but after a few v long chapters there had to
be a bit of a let up! and if you've ever been in this position perhaps you'll know that
sometimes there isn't really all that much to say :(
you may have noticed the gap between the last chapter set in July and this one in
September... some gaps to be filled? what do you think they both got up to?
this marks the point in which there's nine chapters to go (plus an epilogue!) which is both
super happy and super sad, thank you so much to all of you for reading thus far and just
being generally fab :))) I really hope you stick with me and harry and isabel until the end,
even if you don't like where you think this is going, or where it does go when we get there
all my love xx (and also, thanks for nominations for awards and making me the human
embodiment of !!!!!!!) :)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
the strangest twist upon your lips
September/October
“Shove over Liv, you dick, I’m falling off the seat.”
The six of them were squashed into a booth in one of those American diner style
restaurants, and Isabel had strategically placed herself on the outside just in case she
needed to run off and cry, which was probably likely given she was in Harry’s presence.
Because Harry hadn’t even looked at her since she’d got there.
She was sat on the end of the table, Niall on her left and Caitlin on the other side of him.
Directly opposite Isabel was Zayn, Harry was on his right, and Liv was at the far end,
apparently hogging all the room and leaving Zayn with nothing.
Everyone was excitedly chattering about their summers, but Isabel was just staring at the
table, feeling more and more miserable by the second. He hadn’t even acknowledged she
was there, and she had no idea why. She hadn’t seen him since that shift at work and she
wasn’t sure what she’d done, but her only thought now was the quicker they could get to
the party and she could down some alcohol, the better.
Eventually the waitress came over, her heels actually clacking on the purposely chipped
wooden floor, and she flashed a full watt beam at them all, her top so low cut that it was
difficult to look anywhere else.
“What would y’all like to eat?” she asked in a fake American accent, and Zayn’s eyes
widened in poorly concealed excitement.
“I’d like to eat her right up,” Niall whispered in Isabel’s ear, and she elbowed him hard in
the ribs.
“I’ll have the, uh –” Zayn scanned the menu, having completely forgotten what he had
chosen, and he picked something at random. “Spicy chicken burger?”
“Sure thing,” she beamed, and Isabel was sure she was trying not to laugh at him. Her hair
was thick and blonde, falling past her large chest and brushing her waist, and when Isabel
glanced at Harry and caught him staring she wanted to cry.
“I’ll have the double cheeseburger burger,” Niall said, eyeing her with no subtlety
whatsoever.
“Of course, cutie!” she chimed, and Niall went red. “And what about for you?”
She was asking Harry, smiling over at him and completely bypassing the three girls. Harry
licked his lips and frowned, for a moment confused by her interest, and when she didn’t
look away he raised his eyebrows, the corners of his lips pulling up as his eyes shined
deviously and he shut his menu.
“I’ll have whatever you think’s best,” Harry said, smirking arrogantly as her eyes widened
at his challenge, and Isabel dug her nails into her leg.
“Well, I would most definitely recommend the hot dog,” she said, and Caitlin snorted
loudly. “It’s delicious.”
“I’ll have that then, please,” Harry said with a little nod, and her smile widened.
“Nice manners,” she commented as she wrote his order down, her eyes flickering up to him
as she did so, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore, just playing with some sugar on the
table and pushing it around with his fingertips.
The girls’ attempts at ordering were uneventful, except for the waitress expressing
unnecessary surprise when Isabel said she wanted tea rather than a fizzy drink or
milkshake.
“Tea?” she repeated with a simper.
“Yes please.”
“Uh, we only do one very boring kind of tea, sweetheart –”
“That’s okay,” Isabel said, snapping the menu shut. “I would just like some tea, I don’t
care what type it is.”
“Are ya sure I can’t tempt you with a milkshake or a – ”
“Tea’s fine.”
The waitress took the hint and sidled off, shaking her hips as she walked.
“Fuck,” Niall said as soon as she was out of earshot. “Jesus.”
“Calm the fuck down,” Caitlin hissed at him. “I don’t want your jizz anywhere near me,
Niall.”
“What is it about American girls?” Zayn asked with a shake of his head, looking around
for her.
“She’s not even American!” Caitlin snapped. “She’s probably from fucking Clapham!”
“It’s not fair,” Isabel said before she could stop herself, and everyone looked at her. Her
cheeks heated up, but she continued bravely before she changed her mind, avoiding
Harry’s eyes that were on her for the first time that evening. “She probably gets made to
wear that stupid uniform so you boys can look down her top and leave her a tip she
probably doesn’t get to keep.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Liv was looking down her top too,” Zayn reasoned, and Isabel sighed.
“She has a point,” Caitlin argued, ignoring him. “You flirting with her didn’t help, Harry.
She probably thinks you’re a proper dick.”
“No, I don’t think she does,” Zayn said with a smirk, glancing at Harry who was looking
down at the table blankly, fiddling with his sugar.
“Yeah, she probably gets it all the time,” Liv mused, also pretending Zayn hadn’t spoken.
“Probably thought you were a bit of a knob, Harry. Imagine how many guys are like that
with her.”
“Were you here?” Niall questioned incredulously. “She wants him!”
“And you think she’d be that forward if she wasn’t being paid to flirt with the customers?”
Caitlin snapped. “This is capitalism at it’s worst, abusing the sexuality of the proletariat
because stupid boys like you three fall for it hook line and sinker.”
Isabel was quite aware that she’d pushed a button in Caitlin that she hadn’t known until
this moment existed, and all she could do was blink at her in alarm. Niall glanced at Isabel,
a tired smile pulling at his lips, and Isabel knew then that she’d not only pressed the
Explosive Caitlin switch, but also the Caitlin/Zayn Quarrel one too.
“Oh Christ, don’t you fucking start that activism bullshit,” Zayn replied quickly, rolling
his eyes. “We’re not on a protest march.”
Caitlin’s upper lip curled. “What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t mean anything.”
Everyone - that is, except Harry, who was still engrossed with his sugar - was looking
between the pair of them like they were at a tennis match, and if the argument hadn’t come
as such a surprise Isabel might have found it funny.
“You weren’t sounding so above it all when you came with me to that child labour protest
in April!”
“That’s because that actually means something!” Zayn snarled. “Why do you have to make
such a big deal over nothing?”
“You’re an insensitive twat,” Caitlin hissed. “And you, Harry.”
Harry finally looked up, his eyes wide. “What did I do?”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“I asked her what her favourite food on the menu was!” Harry snapped. “Jesus Christ,
Caitlin, don’t make out like I was trying to fuck her on the table.”
Isabel wanted to be sick.
“Do you have to flirt with everyone who thinks you’re attractive?” Liv questioned,
frowning at him.
“I wasn’t –”
Caitlin cut him off. “Is there like a physical urge inside you to do it?”
“He’s allowed to flirt with whoever he fucking wants,” Zayn said with another roll of his
eyes. “It’s not like he’s –” He glanced at Isabel and then stopped talking abruptly. Nobody
else seemed to notice.
“Caitlin, don’t start,” Harry sighed tiredly.
“No, seriously. Why do you do it?”
“Cait–”
“Because clearly there’s a number of people here who are pissed off or upset by it, even if
they’re not saying it. So why?”
Isabel knew why. Because he liked feeling wanted, and they all knew it, and all it would
take was him to tell Caitlin to fuck off and she would, even as riled up as she was. And then
they could go back to watching him light up when the waitress fawned over him, even if he
knew it was because she was being paid to do it, and nobody would say anything further,
because it was Harry.
He took a deep breath, and Isabel waited for it, the snarl in his voice as he told her to stop.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, and she nearly fell off her seat. "I'm actively trying to stop being
an arsehole, but clearly I … I'm sorry."
There was momentarily nothing but silence, all of them shocked by Harry’s apology, and
Isabel blinked at him, her heart in her mouth and her eyes wide, but he still wouldn’t look
at her. He went back to his sugar, and that was that.
“Anyway,” Niall piped up in an attempt to lighten the mood. “No need to worry, Harry
doesn’t go for blondes.”
A horribly awkward silence enveloped the table as everyone glanced momentarily at Isabel.
She had already been considering her various escape routes, and although now would be
the prime time to utilise one, they all inexplicably tumbled out of her brain. She stared at
the table and gripped the edge of the seat so tightly she thought her fingers might snap.
“Oh,” Niall said in a strangled voice. “Shit, no, I mean –”
“Niall, shut up.”
Luckily the waitress then returned with a huge tray of drinks, handing everyone their
order with a flourish and flashing Harry an extra smile. Isabel kept her gaze locked on the
table.
“And lastly, we have your tea, sweetie!” Isabel looked up at her full beam grin and smiled
back weakly. “Would you like cream? Honey? Ginger? Lemon?”
Isabel blinked at her. “Oh, no thanks –”
“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t too boring for ya, since we only had one type of tea.”
Isabel was shaking her head, but the girl didn’t care. “I’ll put some cinnamon and cream in
it for you –”
“She doesn’t like all that in her tea,” Harry said loudly. Six heads snapped to look at him
and he gulped, but his hard stare didn’t slip. “Just milk, weak, but no sugar.”
“Is she sure?” the waitress chirped after a beat.
"Yes," Isabel said.
“Yes,” Harry nodded, his jaw set, and the waitress accepted defeated, pouring Isabel her
boring tea and shoving it at her before clacking off.
“You ruined her fun with the tea,” Niall told Harry seriously. “She’s gonna spit on your
hot dog.” There was a long beat of silence, in which nobody so much as breathed, before
everyone burst out laughing. Even Isabel smiled, especially when Harry threw his head
back and laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his mouth hanging open in delight.
“That reminds me,” Zayn said, interrupting Harry’s laughter by nudging him with his
elbow, “I never finished telling you about what that girl in Manchester did, the night we
went to that club with the 2 for 1 shots? The girl with the red hair."
Harry’s eyes widened in recognition, and when Zayn whispered something in his ear he
started laughing again. Zayn did too, both of them giggling and whispering to each other as
the other four sat there, confused and sufficiently left out.
“What’s so funny?” Liv asked with a frown.
“Don’t ask,” Niall said cheerfully, sipping on his milkshake. “They had some lads week in
Manchester over summer, like they did last year."
Isabel had never felt more deflated, because Caitlin had told her about Harry and Zayn’s
week in Manchester last summer, and she was without a doubt that this year’s antics
exceeded the drama of the previous year’s. Her only thoughts now were of Harry’s hands,
his lips, on someone else, on multiple people probably, and the thought of it was playing a
sharp, cutting loop in her head. She glanced at Caitlin, who shook her head sadly and
shrugged as if to say what were we to expect? and all Isabel could do was sip on her stupid
tea and ponder which option seemed more preferable: throwing it over Harry’s head, or
drinking it so fast she choked.
~~~
The party was in full swing when they got there, and Isabel could tell that, for those of
them who were in the mood, it was going to be a good night. Her sole mission, though, was
to down as many beverages as she could in the shortest amount of time, and she began her
task with gusto, getting smashed within the hour, which had to be a record of some kind.
“Issy, babe, don’t drink too much.” Zayn had come over and placed a hand on her
shoulder, smiling at her with concern. She shrugged, annoyed that she’d had to drag her
gaze away from Harry. She was watching him circulate the party, a wide smile on his face
as he worked his way through a number of cans of beer, happily chatting to everyone. She
was so pathetically jealous of everyone he was talking to, but she couldn’t stop herself
watching, watching the dimple flexing in his cheek and the brush of his hand through his
hair and the pull of muscles in the back of his shirt.
“He loves you,” Zayn sighed, and Isabel looked at him with wide eyes, blinking rapidly.
“Huh?” she said, though she’d heard him perfectly. She just wanted him to say it again.
“He does love you,” Zayn repeated. “He honestly really does. So much. I know he does.”
She ignored him. “What did you guys do in Manchester?”
Zayn laughed nervously. “Er, just stuff.”
She swallowed drunkenly, gulping on nothing. “What kinda stuff?”
He sighed. “Isabel…”
“How many girls did he get with?”

He debated whether or not to tell her, glancing at Harry before giving in. “A few.”
“So, more than one?”
He raised his eyebrows slightly. “In a week?”
“Oh.” Of course she knew it would have been more than one, but her face still fell and her
stomach dropped and her heart hurt.
He licked his lips. “Don’t get upset.”
“I’m not,” she said honestly. She was already at rock bottom, she couldn’t get any lower.
She just needed to torture herself a bit more. “When was this?”
“Beginning of August,” Zayn said. Just after her brother’s wedding, then. “Look Is, I can’t
tell you how upset he was. Honestly, it was awful, you should have seen him. I probably
should have stopped him, but I - with the whole Adam thing, I just thought - at least he
wasn’t taking anything, right? He didn’t all summer.”
She nodded. “Don’t feel guilty, it’s not your fault.”
Isabel dispatched Zayn to get her another drink and leaned against the wall, glaring at
everyone around her like a surly tiger sitting in the corner of its cage at the zoo. This night
was just getting more and more awful by the second, and Harry, who apparently wanted to
be friends, hadn’t even spared a glance, and probably a thought too, towards her since
they’d got there. Stupid fucking prick.
Over summer Isabel had met Caitlin’s mum, a fantastically stern woman born to Nigerian
parents but raised in Hackney, who’d brought up Caitlin and her older sister Tara on her
own after their dad fucked off when Caitlin was three with some woman he met at a bus
stop. Caitlin’s mum got an earful about both Caitlin and Isabel’s heartache, and then told
them with a raised eyebrow that ‘boys are stupid and their worthless opinions about things
they don’t understand don’t mean nothing to you’. She said it in a way and with a kind of
precision that led Isabel to believe she’d said it about four hundred times before, but now,
standing in the corner of the party watching Harry have the absolute time of his life, she
thought never a truer word had ever been spoken.
But, despite her best efforts to keep everyone at bay with a fierce fuck off look at anyone
who looked as though they may approach, she wasn’t alone for long.
“Hiya!” someone chimed, and when Isabel dragged her heavy eyes over to view her
companion she was discouraged to find that she didn’t even recognise them and she might
actually have to engage in introductory small talk.
“Hi,” she replied bluntly.

“You looked a bit lonely so I thought I’d join you,” the girl went on, smiling broadly. “I’m
Becca.”
“Isabel.”
“What course are you doing?” she asked. “I’m in fashion and textile design, you might
know Michael? He does it with me, he knows everyone.”
“I don’t go to your uni, actually. Just mutual friends with Nick.”
“Oh really? That’s interesting!” Becca spouted cheerily. “Who do you know?”
“Caitlin,” Isabel managed, and she was momentarily proud of herself for not automatically
saying Harry before Becca exclaimed –
“Oh, you’re in with that group! You must know Harry then!”
Isabel scowled. “No. I hate him.”
Becca paused, frowning in confusion, before laughing awkwardly. “Oh, right.” When
Isabel didn’t continue, Becca pressed: “I always thought he was really nice?”
“Mmm,” Isabel replied, hoping she’d leave.
“Did he… is it something in particular or…?”
“We used to fuck,” was all Isabel said, spitting out the words like they were acidic because
she had the feeling Becca was the type of person to chime “oh wow, me too!”.
“Ahhh,” Becca said, suddenly the voice of sympathy as she rubbed her hand up and down
Isabel’s arm. “You don’t really hate him, do you sweetie?”
“Yes,” Isabel replied, shuffling away from her. “I do. I do actually hate him.”
“I think that’s the alcohol talking.”
“No, it’s me talking.”
“A little bit bitter, aren’t we?”
“Who’s we?”
It was nothing short of a miracle that Zayn arrived then with a drink, reluctantly passing it
over with a stern look, but she realised quickly that she didn’t need it. In fact, she was so
past needing it that she shoved it back to Zayn abruptly, bile rising in her throat as she
stumbled through the crowd of people into the corridor, making it to the bathroom and
blindly locking the door before collapsing onto the cold floor and retching into the toilet
bowl.
She couldn’t think about anything but Harry’s hands, on her, on someone else, and it was
making her stomach churn even more because she could have had him forever, but now
someone else had. More than one person. A few. The thought of it hurt so much that she
whimpered, clutching her side and squeezing her eyes shut and praying and praying that
this night would just somehow be over by the time she was done.
She had no idea how long she was in there for before someone knocked on the door. She
didn’t bother to respond, just rested her head against the arm that was draped over the
toilet seat, hoping they’d leave her alone and use the upstairs toilet.
“Isabel, it’s me,” she heard Harry say, and she wrenched her eyes open so quickly she felt
dizzy. “Are you all right? Open the door please.”
The sound of his voice alone made her burst into tears, hot streams pouring down her
cheeks and pooling on her arm. She wanted to let him in but she wasn’t sure she could
move at all, let alone stand up, and the door was very, very far away, probably miles away,
probably further than any distance she’d ever travelled in her life.
“Is?” Harry said quietly, rapping at the door again. “Are you mad at me?”
She didn’t respond because she couldn’t, and he tried the door handle.
“I’m a bellend, all right? I’m so sorry. Please let me in.”
She went to move then, an ounce of strength coming from somewhere within her that was
in equal parts surprising and impressive, but she was more than a bit unsteady and when
she grabbed at the nearest towel to hoist herself up the whole towel horse crashed loudly to
the ground next to her. She winced, yelping at the sound, and Harry swore loudly on the
other side of the door, rattling the doorknob so hard she thought it might break off.
“Are you okay? Jesus, Isabel, open the fucking door!” Harry growled. She bleated
something in response but she wasn’t even sure what she said or if it was loud enough for
him to hear. “Is, did you hurt yourself?”
“I can’t,” she said, louder, and this time she was sure he heard her. “I can’t, Harry.”
It was pretty obvious from the thickness of her voice and the wobble in it that she was
crying, and she yelped again when Harry rattled the doorknob harder. “Fuck!” he shouted.
“Isabel please, I’m – shit, I’m panicking. Should I go and get Nick?”
She imagined his hands were shaking, that he was running them through his hair and
pulling his lip between his fingers, that his eyes were wide and darting around. The image
was so familiar to her that it was almost comforting, and it was this memory of him that
allowed her to force herself up, swaying unsteadily and fumbling with the lock. Harry
shoved it open as soon as he heard the lock slide, just in time to see her collapse back to the
toilet, her stomach unsettled again by the movement.
He locked the door behind him, picking up the towel horse and putting everything back in
its place before sliding down to sit beside her and pulling her hair back into his fist.
“You’re okay,” he told her, smoothing his free hand down her back. “You’re okay. You’re
okay.”
Eventually she looked up at him, her whole face red and wet, and she was sure she’d never
looked so disgusting but he didn’t seem to notice. He just gazed at her, his green eyes wide
with concern, his teeth biting down hard onto his lip.
“I hate you,” she said, and she wasn’t even sure why she said it when she didn’t even sound
like she believed herself. Unsurprisingly, Harry wasn’t fazed.
“I know,” he replied soothingly. He pushed a bit of hair out of her face and said again:
“You’re okay.”
“I’m not okay,” she told him, her voice wobbling.
He frowned. “Then I’ll make you okay.”
A sob ripped from her chest, her heart throwing itself against her ribcage as she started to
cry properly then, great colossal tears that as soon as they’d started seemed like they’d
never end.
“Hey, please don’t cry,” Harry said, pulling her to his chest and stroking her hair. “I’ve got
you, you’ll be okay.”
She cried for so long she thought she’d never stop, her chest heaving and her nose running
and her throat aching, but Harry’s citrus hair was right by her nose, and he smelled
exactly the same as he did in those two weeks in June. It was a comforting smell
because she’d smelled just like this in June, too, because it was everywhere, on her skin and
in her hair and on their sheets, and he was shushing her quietly and hugging her to his
chest, and eventually that was all enough to calm her down.
She sniffed and gripped his soaked shirt tightly in her fist. “Why won’t you look at me?”
she slurred, and Harry stiffened.
“Isabel –”
“Why?”
Harry was silent for a while. “I just - I know I made you upset at work. I don’t want to
upset you,” he said quietly, and Isabel wasn’t entirely sure she believed him. “I always
upset you. I thought it was better if I…”
“You think about things too much,” she grumbled. “Don't have to be so… so methodical all
the time."
Harry said nothing, and she couldn’t see what his face looked like but she could only guess
he was frowning.
“Zayn told you about Manchester, didn’t he?” Harry said slowly, and Isabel nodded into
his chest, gripping his shirt tighter in case he suddenly tried to escape. Harry sighed,
tucking her hair behind her ear. “Listen –”
“It meant nothing, I know. It never means anything to you,” Isabel replied, her lower lip
wobbling.
“You’re one to talk,” he snapped, and Isabel frowned, her drunken brain confused.
“Huh?”
He paused for a second, holding his breath before gripping her shoulders and pushing her
back, holding her at arms length and glaring at her. “It meant everything when I was with
you, all right? I’ve told you that before. Everything I’ve been doing is to try and –”
“Get over me?” Isabel asked, her heart beating out of time as she stared at his angry face,
at the pucker between his eyebrows and the pinkness of his lips. Harry let go of her,
rubbing his hands across his face tiredly, and she noticed when he did so that a new flash of
ink peeked out the sleeve of his white Henley.
He dropped his hands from his face and rested them in his lap. “If you believe for a second
that I just - just stopped caring about you after a couple of weeks then you’re r…” He
paused. “Then you’re right, you don’t know me at all,” he mumbled, his cheeks flushing.
Isabel just blinked at him, entirely unsure what to respond as the seconds dragged out
between them for so long she felt sick. “You got a new tattoo,” she said dumbly.
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to reply, but eventually he extended his left arm
to show her.
“Yeah,” he said. “I got this one on my hand, and this one here.”
He pulled his sleeve back to show her the rose on his forearm. She trailed it with her finger
until he pulled his arm away gently, swallowing loudly.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks,” he said flatly.
“What does it mean?”
“It’s for my sister. It’s her middle name.”
She nearly started crying again but she couldn’t because Harry was staring at her,
pinching his lip between his fingers with his eyebrows pulled together. “I don’t want you to
be upset anymore, okay?”
She smiled at his naivety. “’Snot how it works.”
He looked away from her, and then there was silence, a huge gulf of it, so awkward that it
was actually painful. Harry’s eyes kept flickering to the door, like he was counting the
seconds until he could escape, and what was glaringly obvious was that neither of them had
anything to say. All it took was a few weeks apart, and now they had nothing to say to each
other.
Isabel grappled desperately at something, anything to keep him there, and the words felt
like tar in her mouth, but she spat them out before she could change her mind: “Harry,
what are we gonna do about New York?”
She’d asked him quietly, barely whispering it, but his reaction made up for her lack of
dramatics. He completely stiffened, his eyes snapping to hers and burning in their intensity.
“We’re not talking about that now,” he said quickly, jumping to his feet. “Let’s not talk
about that now.”
Niall’s dad had bought them the tickets while they were camping, just as promised, and
Isabel had already paid him back for them out of sheer guilt and her dad’s insistence that
she should never owe money to anyone longer than necessary. But there was no way she
could go. There was absolutely no way she would go.
He ran his hands through his hair as he looked down at her, and his Henley rode up so that
the skin of his stomach was exposed. Her eyes dragged over the line of coarse hair trailing
down into his jeans, the sharp cut of his lower abdominal muscles, and she smiled a little.
“This feels familiar,” she slurred, grabbing his leg lazily as she struggled to keep her eyes
open. Her head suddenly felt so heavy, but it was just at the right height, and if it had been
a few months earlier Harry would have already made at least one stupid comment, a smirk
on his lips and his eyes bright. Now he only glared at her. “Remember, Harry? You used to
love that so much.”
“Stop,” he said sharply. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She smiled in his general direction, patting his knee. “Don’t worry, I know what I'm
saying.”
He exhaled loudly, and then decidedly ignored her. “Where are you staying the night?”
“At Liv and Caitlin’s.”
“Okay, let’s go and find them.”
He bent down and hoisted her up, his arm wrapping around her waist and his rough
fingers tickling the skin there.
“Sorry I made you miss the party.”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t any good anyway,” he lied.
“I miss you,” Isabel said, slumping into his shoulder. He said nothing back, just gripped
her tighter, and Isabel tried to tell herself that his hand on her waist was enough of an
answer because it was the best one she was going to get.
~~~
Isabel was slumped on Rory’s sofa, the new girl, Meera, to her right and Rory in the
armchair opposite them, trying her best to breathe without accidentally smelling the curry
in front of her.
She was still hungover from the night before, and the Indian takeaway that Rory had so
generously got in for the three of them was making her stomach flip, but she was powering
through.
“We need something that sets us apart,” Rory mused, steepling his fingers together in
thought. “Mel would kill us if she knew we let the reputation of the soc drop in the first
year of her absence.”
“Yeah,” Isabel replied flatly, as though this wasn’t something she’d already been worrying
about. She’d never quite appreciated how much responsibility Film Soc would place on her
shoulders.
“How about we do an all night screening thing?” Meera suggested, looking between the
pair of them with wide eyes and playing with her hair absently, pulling it between her
fingers.
Isabel nodded and jotted it down on the paper. “Yeah, good one.”
But Rory shook his head. “We need something big,” he insisted, and he sounded so
uncharacteristically dramatic that Isabel’s eyebrows shot up.
Rory had offered his house as the location for Film Soc meetings when Isabel’s housemates
had taken to the suggestion with reluctant politeness, agreeing in a way that reminded
Isabel of when someone you’ve just met asks you for some gum and it’s the last in the pack
but there’s no way you can say no because it would make things too awkward.
So instead they were at Rory’s, and after being let in by his very naked housemate they
were sitting in the living room and discussing their plan of action for this year. Or that is,
brainstorming ideas that either fell flat, or were not enough by Rory’s surprisingly high
standards.
They discussed and disputed for another hour until Isabel had nearly lost the will to live,
until the curry went cold and what felt like several years had passed, and then Isabel had
an idea.
“A film festival,” she said slowly, “where students from uni create an amateur film starring
their friends and submit it. And it could be for charity - all the money could go to charity.”
“We could have an event for it,” Meera went on, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair.
“Like a screening of the finalists where you pay a fiver. We could hold it in the union.”
“This could be a proper big thing,” Rory said with a solemn nod, a grin creeping across his
face. “We’d have to market it properly.”
“I could ask some of my friends from the art uni to help with that,” Isabel added excitedly.
“Graphics for posters and stuff.”
Rory nodded again and Meera clapped her hands together. Isabel tucked her hair behind
her ears, pushing down the nausea and embarrassment she’d felt all day and finally
engaging in her role as the Actual Leader.
“Meera, if you could ring the union reps and see about setting a date for the screening,” she
said, “and Rory, let’s start working out how much funding we’ll need, and what our
fundraising aim is.”
And amidst all the excitement that ensued, Isabel found herself smiling for another reason.
Because when Rory smiled at her and squeezed her knee and told her how well she was
doing, and when Meera said the three of them just had to go and get drinks tomorrow night
to celebrate the start of her venture, she realised that this was the first time since coming to
uni that she had real friends of her own that she didn’t make through Louis or Millie or
Harry. They were nice and they were genuine and they were hers, and she’d done it all on
her own.
~~~
That evening, as Isabel knocked on the large black front door of number 17 Southdown
Avenue, she said a number of prayers to each and every God that may or may not exist
that Harry Styles would not be home, and if he was, that he would not answer the door,
and that Niall, by nothing short of a miracle, would acquire one ounce of common sense
and get to the door first.
Isabel wasn’t often a believer in miracles.
“Oh, hey,” Harry said breathlessly when he pulled the door open. He was only wearing his
ripped black jeans, and his hands, chest and face were speckled with paint. “You okay?”
She tried to formulate words, but she was too distracted by the muscles in his stomach and
how much firmer they were now, how they shifted under the skin when he breathed. She
made a strangled, vaguely animalistic sound in response, and he swallowed and pretended
that he hadn’t witnessed her degeneration into lechery.
“I’m kind of busy,” he said, laughing lightly and waving his hands at her. “Painting.”
“Okay,” she said, finally meeting his gaze. She was reminded that the last time she’d seen
him she had been drunkenly on her knees talking about sucking his dick with vomit in her
hair and mascara half way down her face. That was cruelly one of the only things she
remembered from that evening, and she’d replayed it over and over in her head until she
actually hated herself a little bit. Her cheeks stained crimson, but he just blinked at her,
waiting.
“Can it wait?” he asked eventually. Oh. He thought she was there to see him. Before she
could reply, he was speaking again. “Actually, you know what, fuck it. I wanted to talk to
you as well. I’ve been thinking since the party and I really, really want us to talk. About
being friends.”
This felt like an out of body experience. She never thought she’d ever hear Harry say that,
and her eyes widened as she stared at him, her heart plummeting like it was freefalling in
her chest, and all the while his eyes were locked on hers, serious and burning and certain.
“Isabel, there you are!” Niall called cheerfully from behind Harry, making both of them
jump. “I’ll just shove my shoes on.”
Harry frowned. “Wait, what?”
“Me and Niall are going out,” she mumbled, and his frown deepened.
“Going out where?”
“To my house.”
“You came here to see Niall?” he was completely confused, and maybe even a bit stung. She
nodded.
“See ya later, mate,” Niall said, emerging from behind Harry and clapping him on the
shoulder. “I don’t know how much fun you’ll be missing out on, we’re discussing the
festival. It’s a strictly professional evening.”
“What festival?” Harry asked sharply, irritated at being out of the loop.
“Isabel’s festival,” Niall grinned, completely oblivious to his mood and turning to her. “I’ll
go start the car.”
He waltzed off down the path whistling, planting a kiss on Isabel’s cheek as he went.
“What festival?” Harry asked again.
“I’m organising this film festival thing at my uni,” Isabel muttered. “Niall’s helping me
organise the graphics for stuff.”
“You asked Niall to help?” He was actually hurt. His eyebrows were drawn together, his
lips pushed into a pout. She nodded with a small shrug.
“Niall and I are friends,” she reminded him. “I’m allowed to ask my friends for help.”
“But I’m your friend,” Harry argued. “You know me better, right? I don’t understand
why…”
He trailed off, his hand instinctively going to play with his bottom lip so that he
unconsciously smeared a bit of blue paint on top of the raspberry skin. She nodded, her
pulse racing, and all she wanted to do was reach out and wipe the paint off but she
couldn’t.
“You used to be my best friend," she said. He breathed in a little through his mouth, his
frown deepening. “See you around.”
She thought he might not respond for a second, but then he gave a tiny little nod and she
nodded back before walking off to Niall’s car, leaving Harry to stare after her with his lips
blue and his brow pulled in and his heart hammering.
End Notes:
hiya!
things aren't so good for hisabel, are they? :( but individually... what do we think?
one quick housekeeping thing - I know some of you might not have read the big, 13k word
extra in the 'BDC extras' story I've uploaded from harry's pov, and i really suggest you
read it before we progress! I think it's important at this stage to feel like, as readers, you
understand harry just as much as you do isabel :)
see ya monday! xxx

Back to index
Author's Notes:
alternative reality
October
“I saw him at the gym yesterday.”
She’d meant to say it casually, but the sadness laced in her voice made Rory look up from
his papers, frowning at her and screwing up his nose.
“What on God’s earth were you doing at the gym?”
She laughed breathily and he smiled. It was easy to distract her from sad things, really, if
you knew the right thing to say.
“Millie and Scarlett dragged me,” Isabel confessed, sipping her tea and running a hand
through her hair. “They’ve started working out. They keep saying it’ll de-stress me, but all
I can think about when I’m there is how much work I need to do.”
“What’s the point of running on a treadmill?” Meera pondered helpfully. “You're going
nowhere.”
Isabel sighed and went back to her papers. They were reading through the first lot of
applications for the film festival, the date of the event having now been confirmed for
Sunday the thirtieth of November. It was going to be a long, laborious process, and Isabel
was beginning to freak out. She still had course work to do, a grade that needed pulling up
before graduation, and work twice a week, and she was starting to seriously consider that
she had bitten off more than she could chew.
Rory and Meera were, in all honesty, life savers, and their meetings together every few
days had turned into Isabel’s favourite moments of the week. Rory was surprisingly
sarcastic and exceptionally organised, and Meera sweet and enthusiastic, and although
Isabel had thought at first glance the three of them had little in common, that didn’t seem
to matter really. And somehow, although they often spent their time together talking about
their respective partners, or exes, or romantic interests, she found she was least sad about
Harry was when she was with them.
“So you saw Harry?” Rory said, typing some figures into the calculator and squinting at
the answer. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” Isabel said, swallowing loudly. “He looked right at me and then pretended he
hadn’t seen me.”
Rory sighed, putting the calculator down and throwing Isabel a stern look. “You broke his
heart, Isabel, and he’s a twenty year old boy. What do you expect him to do?”
“It’s not like he didn’t break my heart, too!” she snapped, and Meera looked up from her
papers in alarm. “Sorry. I just - I don’t know though. I don’t even know why I’m upset. I
don’t want him to talk to me.”
“What?”
“I dunno. I moved my shifts around at work this week so I wouldn’t have to see him as
well.”
Rory frowned. “Why?”
“I’m scared it’ll hurt too much.”
Meera frowned. “Who cares if it hurts? Isn’t that meant to be the point?” She looked
pointedly at Isabel, and Isabel tried her best not to let this uncharacteristically profound
statement surprise her too much. “When it stops hurting, then it’s not love anymore.
That’s the point.”
~~~
Isabel found herself back at the gym later that week trying her best to find her inner
calmness or whatever people concentrated on when they ran on a treadmill, but between
the pain in her stomach and the burning in her lungs all she could find was a wad of stress
that left her body on edge and, rather cruelly, the memory of the day in June she and
Harry had stayed in his bed till two in the afternoon, the day he’d left teeth marks that had
stayed in a certain spot for weeks.
The whole of June seemed like a scrapbook of memories like this one in a way that it almost
didn’t seem real to her anymore. It was hard for Isabel to ever imagine a time when she
and Harry spent every second of the day together, but it had happened in June for two
weeks straight. And even though it didn’t seem real, she kept having these cruel flashbacks
in the most inappropriate of moments, such as now.
Thoughts about sex weren’t really helping to regulate her breathing as she tried to keep a
steady pace on the treadmill, especially when Millie kept leaning over and turning it up.
“Oh my God,” Millie hissed suddenly, and Isabel’s eyes snapped open.
“What’s the matter?” Isabel asked, her voice coming out in a pant. (
“Why are they here?” Millie barked, glaring at her fiercely.
Isabel whipped her head around, her eyes widening and her heart rate quickening as she
saw Harry and Niall strolling across the gym, each clad in exercise gear and clutching
water bottles. Niall was beaming like a child in a toyshop, wearing gym shorts much too big
for him, but Harry was scowling like the older brother who had better places to be.
“Evening all!” Niall called cheerfully. “Fancy seeing you here!”
Isabel felt every part of her face burn red as Niall climbed onto the treadmill next to her
and waved a little. Harry stepped onto the one on Niall’s other side with a face like
thunder.
“Hey, Issy!” Niall said brightly, pretending not to notice that she nearly fell off the
treadmill she was so caught off guard, stabbing at the stop button and taking gulping
breaths. “You all right?”
Isabel stared at him blankly.
“Say hello, Harry!” Niall shouted, sounding like a bossy mother. Harry just glared at him.
“Just ignore them,” Millie hissed desperately from Isabel’s other side. “Deep breaths and
clear thoughts.”
Neither of those two instructions seemed even remotely possible.
“Why are they here?” Scarlett asked Isabel angrily, leaning over Millie’s treadmill.
“How would I know?” she snapped, trying to conceal the fact she was equally as furious at
Niall. When he’d texted her earlier asking where she was, she didn’t expect him to then
turn up - let alone with Harry in tow - and if she had enough control of her limbs and lungs
she would have tried to hit him.
Instead, she stole a glance at Millie, terrified of what she would find, and was confronted
with a furious, red-faced glower. Millie and Scarlett seemed to have come back to uni after
not seeing Isabel all summer with a refreshingly enthusiastic attitude toward her, but
seeing as Millie was not Niall’s biggest fan, Isabel had a horrible feeling this tentative
attempt at rekindling their friendship might be short-lived.
“Sorry,” Harry said to nobody in particular from the other side of Niall. He ran a hand
through his hair and glanced at Isabel nervously. “Niall dragged me here.”
“You could have resisted harder,” Niall chimed happily, and Harry grimaced at him, his
cheeks flushing slightly. “Once you heard who was here you weren’t so eager to stay at
home after all.”
“I could have worked out at home,” Harry mumbled even though that didn’t contest
Niall’s statement in any way, starting his machine so he began a slow walk.
“Yeah,” Niall cackled. “He has a Pilates DVD, Is! Would you fucking believe it!”
“I have a bad back,” Harry snapped.
“Well, some of us aren’t that embarrassing, Harry,” Niall said breezily, and Harry
scowled. “Some of us just deal with it and stand up a bit straighter.”
“Shut up.”
Harry shoved headphones into his ears and started properly running then, and Isabel
looked away from him because she was sure she’d melt into a puddle on the floor if she
kept staring. This was a pointless effort, though, because as she tried to start up running
again she couldn’t help but glance at him, and her cheeks were heating up and her breath
catching not from physical exertion but from the way Harry’s muscles moved in his arms
when he ran.
“This is boring as fuck,” Niall said after just ten minutes of leisurely strolling. “Let’s do
something else, Is.”
He leaned over to stop Isabel’s treadmill, and she ignored Millie and Scarlett’s harsh glares
when Niall pulled her over to the area by the mirrors where they had the mats and big
exercise balls. Although about five minutes ago she’d wanted to kill him, she’d never loved
Niall Horan more than that moment, knowing her sanity would be tested if she’d had to
keep watching Harry sprint a moment longer.
“What the fuck are you meant to do with these?” he asked, sitting on one and bouncing up
and down.
“Stretches and stuff, I think,” she replied. Niall gestured for her to sit on one and she did,
the pair of them just sitting there giggling and bouncing until somebody coughed behind
her.
Harry stood frowning at the pair of them, his chest rising and falling rapidly and his mouth
hanging open. There was a tiny bit of sweat on his forehead, his hair pushed back roughly
by his fingers, and his bottom lip was bright red, like he’d been biting down hard on it
when he ran. And all Isabel could think about was kissing him, and she couldn’t even make
herself look away this time.
“What are you two up to?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly from his sprint. Isabel tried
not to dwell on the fact that this was the first time he’d spoken to her since their
conversation by his front door, when he’d tried again to say they were friends.
“We’re about to do some positions,” Niall told him unhelpfully, and Harry laughed a little
in confusion.
“What?”
Niall ignored him. “Show me a position then, Issy, what’s that dog one? Arse up dog or
something?”
There was a momentary pause before Harry burst out laughing, clutching his sides and
falling back onto the mat, his eyes screwed up and his mouth hanging open and his hands
on his stomach. Niall laughed so much at Harry’s reaction that he fell off the ball, and
Isabel laughed too but mostly she just watched Harry, in awe, because she was pretty sure
she’d never seen anyone look that nice in her whole life.
“That’s in yoga,” she told Niall, shaking her head and laughing as he climbed back onto the
yoga ball and wiped under his eyes.
Niall raised his eyebrows suggestively, glancing at Harry before saying, “You seem pretty
experienced, Is. What are some good positions from your experience?”
And despite the weirdness of this entire situation, despite the fact that she was very aware
of Harry on Niall’s other side, she couldn’t help but find the idea of Niall sitting on the
exercise ball, making dreadful sexual innuendos about yoga and wearing a pair of gym
shorts five times too big, absolutely hilarious.
“Positions, hmmm,” she pondered with a wicked grin.
“Yeah! I mean, do I want the ones that require the most stamina? Or the pleasurable ones
– on the muscles, I mean?”
“Well…” Isabel said, biting down on her lip so that she wouldn’t laugh. “I mean, that
depends.”
“I think I’d say most pleasurable,” Niall smirked, bouncing on his ball. “You seem like you
know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Oh yeah, I could definitely help you out.”
“Well, you could help me get my positions right. Don’t stop till I’m almost there,” Niall
said, his lips quivering. “Then when you think I’ve got it I can finish the job myself.”
“All right, stop it,” Harry snapped angrily, and Isabel looked over to find the smile wiped
from his face, replaced by an almighty scowl. Niall beamed at him, but Harry didn’t return
it. “I’m going, this is bollocks.”
Harry was more than pissed off. He went to stand up, but Niall yanked him back down
again hard, and he flopped to the ground like a fish.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Niall chided cheerfully. “The whole point of this is
that the three of us can hang out before we go to New York!”
Harry ignored him, shaking him off and standing up again, bending down to pick up his
water bottle. Isabel flashed Niall a small smile, but she wasn’t feeling so playful anymore.
“Don’t worry, Niall, I’m not coming to New York.”
Harry dropped his water. “What?” he bellowed.
It seemed like the whole room turned to look at them then.
“Is everything okay back there?” one of the instructors called, frowning and craning her
neck over the ellipticals.
“Don’t worry, love, Harry here just pulled a muscle!” Niall explained, pulling Harry back
down again so that he landed with a loud thump on the floor, and it must have hurt but he
didn’t seem to notice.
Harry was seething. “What the fuck do you mean you’re not coming?” he hissed.
She blinked at him in surprise, her heart racing. She couldn’t actually believe how stupid
he was being. Of course she wasn't going to go. "I mean I’m not coming.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I? We don’t even speak!”
“We do. We will.”
Isabel rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not coming.”
“Yes you bloody well are,” he snapped, tugging his hair with his hands and looking around
wildly. Isabel could feel Millie and Scarlett staring, but she didn’t care.
“No I’m not, Harry, I’m selling my ticket to Caitlin.”
He glared at her. “You can’t. That would be impossible now, it’s got your name on the
details.”
“You can pay to have them changed.”
He snarled. “Caitlin doesn’t have the kind of money to pay for this.”
“Neither do I!” she bit back.
“Guys…” Niall said, his face anxious as his plan deteriorated in front of his eyes.
“I don’t care if I have to pay every penny myself, you’re coming and that’s it,” Harry said
through gritted teeth.
“You don’t have any money either!” A few months ago, he may have winced at her
comment, but now he was undeterred.
“Can you please all shut the fuck up!” Millie snarled, having stomped over with an equally
embarrassed Scarlett, the pair of them glaring down at them. “Do you need to have a
fucking domestic in the gym, for God’s sake?”
“This isn’t any of your business,” Harry told her, his jaw clenched.
“You’re making it everyone’s business!” Millie hissed.
“Millie, don’t –”
“Shut up, Isabel.”
“Don’t tell her to shut up,” Harry snapped to Millie.
“Don’t talk to me like that!”
Harry snarled. “Don’t talk to her like that!”
“Millie, stop getting involved,” Niall grumbled.
“Nobody was talking to you,” she cut back loudly, though she didn’t look at him.
Everyone started speaking at once then, louder and louder until Isabel was sure nobody in
the whole gym was working out anymore, and her cheeks burned red and she was cringing
away from them all like their words were physically cutting into her.
“I’d like you all to leave,” someone said, and they turned to see the instructor, glaring at
them all. “You should all be so embarrassed. I’d like you all to leave now,” she paused for
emphasis, “and you’re not welcome to come back.”
For the first time, there was silence.
The five of them shuffled off towards the changing rooms like naughty schoolchildren, and
Isabel was so scared of Millie’s reaction that her heart was pounding. It wasn’t until they
got out of the gym to the corridor that Millie whirled around, pointing her finger at Harry
and glaring at him with glistening eyes, her face a dangerous shade of red.
“You!” she shouted, her entire face contorting. “You have fucked up everything!”
“Me?” Harry snapped. He was just as angry, if not more. “What the fuck did I do?”
“Don’t even get me started, Styles –”
“You really need to calm down,” Harry spat. “You’re honestly being so melodramatic, it’s
completely unnecessary.”
“Fuck this!” Millie shrieked. She turned on her heel and stormed off to the changing
rooms, her hair bouncing behind her as she marched furiously with Scarlett following.
Isabel scurried in their wake without even glancing at Harry, and she didn’t look or speak
to the girls once, not when they were hurriedly pulling on their clothes and not when they
walked back through the gym, not until they’d successfully made their way outside.
The cold air washed over her like she’d jumped into an ice-cold bath and she winced,
swallowing hard and reaching for Millie’s arm, her hands trembling.
“Millie, listen –”
“To what?” Millie spat, spinning on her heel. “To how you let that arrogant little shit come
in here and mess up your entire life, Isabel? You’ve been nothing but miserable since you
met him and you know it! I’m not having him mess up our lives, too!”
Isabel stared at her, quite stunned. “You do realise you’re overreacting? All that happened
was we got kicked out of the fucking gym. It’s not the end of the world.”
A few months ago, Isabel wouldn’t have been surprised at Millie’s attitude. She was an
overdramatic girl, and Isabel had known that from the moment they met when Millie had
insisted they become friends because they both disliked raisins. But now she just seemed
completely ridiculous, and Isabel couldn’t help but feel like she and Millie had found
themselves on completely different pages, poles apart.
“What the fuck? This isn’t just about gym!” Scarlett chimed in, but Millie cut her off.
“Excuse me for wanting to save myself some money and coming to the cheapest place
around!” Millie screeched. Clearly, it was about the gym. “Now me and Scarlett’ll have to
pay an extra £4 to go to the gym on Rudderick Street because you and your stupid little
boyfriend have ruined this for us!”
“Harry’s not my boyfriend,” Isabel mumbled, but Millie wasn’t listening.
“I honestly just want to shake you sometimes, Isabel! You follow him around like a little
lost puppy and get involved in all of his shit when we’ve told you time and time again that
he’s trouble! He messes up everything he touches!”
Isabel looked at the floor, swallowing and shivering and wanting more than anything to
curl up in bed and forget about all four of them. “You’re being unfair –”
“Oh my God,” Millie laughed. “You’re so fucking – fucking naïve! We’ve tried so many
times to help you out, to give you advice! The rest of our lot don’t like you, but me and
Scarlett and Lyd have tried so hard to stay friends, but you only care about Harry! You
don’t give a fuck about how hard we try! You can’t float through life and think everything
will be all right ignoring the evidence right in front of you! What the fuck is wrong with
you?”
Before Isabel could even respond heard Harry make a disgusted noise behind her, and she
wondered how long he’d been there, how much he’d heard.
“Harry can you just… not, please,” Isabel mumbled as Harry came to stand beside her,
because somehow the only thing worse than the girls laying into her was Harry defending
her.
“What the fuck do you care, anyway?” Scarlett shot at Harry, rolling her eyes. “Don’t
pretend you give a shit, Harry. All you do is upset her, and we have to live with it.”
Isabel thought Harry would reply, but instead he glanced at Isabel, his eyes so sad all of a
sudden that she couldn’t return his gaze for long. She looked down at her feet instead, at
the hole in the bottom of her trainers, feeling tears sting in the back of her eyes and she
clenched her fists.
“Hey wait, hold on,” Niall was saying. “I can’t speak for Issy, but I know that Harry
completely fucking loves –”
“Shut up Niall,” Harry grumbled.
Isabel heard Millie snort, adding a sarcastic “well okay then”, and she looked up, suddenly
furious.
All they did was judge people. They judged Harry and they judged her, and she was sick of
it because they’d never cared for a minute that Harry made her happy and that they
didn’t. They couldn’t stand here in front people who cared about Isabel ten times more
than they ever had and pretend that they had any sort of basis to compete with that,
because they just didn’t.
And perhaps it hurt too because she realised that they rubbed off on her, and they always
had. Even now, she looked at Harry sometimes through a filter of their ideas, and even
though she knew him and they didn’t, she couldn’t help but see him as they did sometimes.
When he’d told her he loved her the first time, she’d shut him down immediately, palmed it
off as misunderstanding despite monthsof waiting for him to say it - because that’s
what boys like him were like, weren’t they? They wouldn’t understand love if it slapped
them in the face, would they?
It was one thing hearing that she was a pushover, that she was silly and easily influenced
and cared too much about what people thought of her. It was another having to admit to
herself that she was, because it meant accepting that, in many ways, she was weak. She'd
got better at standing up to the people she didn't like, but in the face of those she cared
about, she was hopeless.
If there was one thing Harry wasn’t, it was weak. But with a sinking heart, she started to
think that she was.
“Millie,” Isabel said as firmly as she could. “Don’t start. Let’s talk about this at home.”
“What, when Harry’s not around to stick up for you? Are you sure?”
“I don’t want him to stick up for me,” Isabel insisted. “I’m capable of having a
conversation on my own.”
“Is,” Scarlett started, looking at her imploringly. “We’re not trying to like, attack you or
anything. We’re just trying to help.”
Isabel nodded like Scarlett wasn’t talking complete shit. “Yeah. And I know you two think
you’re being charitable by hanging out with me or whatever,” Isabel said, “but, to be
honest, I’ve made some pretty good friends recently who don’t think I’m a fucking chore to
be around.”
A little wave of silence followed, in which Isabel’s confidence crumbled slightly because
Millie was narrowing her eyes slowly, viciously, and the build up was terrifying. “Are you
serious, Isabel? We’re your friends, have you not been hearing anything we’re saying?”
Isabel shook her head. “I understand what you’re saying, but I really don’t think you’re
being a very good friend right now.”
“You think boys like him think with anything other than their dick?”
“Depends,” Niall said, staring pointedly at Millie and smiling a little. “Boys like us only
think with their dick when the girl can keep us entertained.”
He smiled at her, and Isabel watched as Millie’s face went from red to pale, ashen white,
her jaw dropping slightly and her eyes going wide. She swallowed, opening and closing her
mouth before managing to choke out: “Let’s go, Scarlett”, turning on her heel and
dragging Scarlett away with her.
Isabel might even have found Millie’s reaction funny if she wasn’t so suddenly deflated.
She just started staring at her shoes again, feeling two sets of eyes boring into her but
saying nothing.
“Are you okay?” Harry said eventually.
She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Fuck those girls, man,” Niall said, tapping Isabel’s shoulder lightly with his fist. She was
still freezing, and the skin of her arms had erupted with goosebumps. “They’re shit.”
She said nothing.
“You don’t need to worry about them,” Niall continued. “We’re your proper friends,
yeah?”
She said nothing.
“Isabel, say something,” Harry said as he reached for her arm, his fingers brushing against
the goosebumps. She looked up at him automatically when he touched her, but she
regretted it almost immediately.
“I’m okay,” she said, her voice wobbling as their eyes met, and she looked at the ground
before she started crying. “I just – they’re my friends. They’re meant to be my friends.”
“It’s shit,” Niall agreed. “But honestly, they're awful. You don't need them."
Niall kept babbling on with vicious enthusiasm, but Isabel could feel that Harry wasn't
listening and that he was watching her knowingly, watching her bottom lip tremble and her
eyelids blink rapidly, and the moment a tear slid down her cheek he stepped forward.
"Come here,” Harry said, reaching out a hand to tug her towards him but she shook her
head, knowing that if she let herself be calmed down by him again she’d never be able to go
back pretending this was all okay.
"I'm fine," she mumbled, laughing shakily out of embarrassment and brushing away the
tear that had spilled down her cheek. "I'm fine. I'm not gonna cry again, I'm being
stupid."
Harry pressed his lips together, stepping back awkwardly and folding his empty arms
across his chest. “It's okay to cry. It's not stupid."
Isabel said nothing, just stared across the carpark and bit down hard on her lip, holding
the tears at bay. It was a combination of things that made her want to cry - humiliation,
sadness, maybe even relief somehow - but she wasn’t going to let herself, at least not until
she didn’t have an audience.
“We’ll take you home, okay?” Harry said, and after a moment’s hesitation she nodded.
“Thanks.”
“I meant it when I said I don’t want you to be upset anymore, yeah?” Harry mumbled
quietly as they walked back to the car, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I’m not
gonna upset you anymore, I didn’t mean to shout in there.” He smiled weakly. “Don’t
worry about New York. Let's not worry about anything, all right?”
She nodded again, because there was nothing else to say.
“Me and Liv’s birthday thing tomorrow,” Niall commented casually, as though nothing at
all had just happened.
~~~
The car door slammed shut and Harry glared angrily at Niall, his face a stark contrast to
Niall’s full-watt beam.
“What kind of fucking joke is this, Niall?”
Niall pouted. “Joke? This is my birthday celebration, Harry, don’t be a wanker.”
“Who goes fucking bowling for their twenty-first birthday?” Harry snapped.
Liv tucked her arm into Niall’s. “Me and Niall, obviously. Don’t be such a twat Harry or
we’ll un-invite you.”
Isabel bit down on her lip over a smile. It was Liv and Niall’s annual birthday celebration,
an event apparently always held the night before Liv’s birthday, which was exactly a
month after Niall’s. Isabel had been told by Caitlin that last year they’d gone to town and
got so drunk Harry had had to try and carry Zayn home, and Liv had spent a lot of the
night throwing up into a KFC bargain bucket. In comparison, bowling seemed entirely
ridiculous.
“Believe it or not,” Harry grumbled to nobody in particular, shuffling after Niall and Liv
who were leading the way, “I don’t actually want to come to work on my day off.”
But nobody was listening, and so Harry begrudgingly took his bowling shoes from Michael
who was working the shoe booth, shooting him a grimace when Michael raised his
eyebrows in surprise. Isabel followed Harry, shaking her head at Michael and mouthing
“don’t ask”.
“All right!” Liv shouted, clapping her hands together when they got to their lane. “Shall we
go in teams or individual competition?”
Harry scoffed, and when Liv glared at him his eyes widened. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“Harry, don’t be so fucking annoying,” Liv snapped.
“Stop being so grumpy,” Caitlin said, nudging him with her hip. “Isabel’s not being rude,
look.”
“Bowling’s fun,” Isabel said with a wide smile, squeezing Niall’s arm. “I’ve never even
been bowling here, which is weird.”
Niall grinned at her, and nobody missed the fact that Harry stopped complaining after
that.
They got into two teams – Niall, Caitlin and Isabel against Liv, Harry and Zayn – and Liv
managed to flirt her way into copious amounts of discounted beer from the bar. Isabel
found she was actually having fun; she hadn’t seen Zayn and Liv in ages, and although she
was abysmal at bowling, she was better than the rest of them, Harry included.
“You’re actually good,” Harry exclaimed when she got a strike entirely by accident, his lips
quirked up in surprised appreciation.
“I’m not rubbish at everything, Harry,” she reminded him cheerily, and he frowned.
“I know,” he said seriously, “I was just –”
She sighed. She had no idea how everything with her and Harry was so stilted now, taking
everything too seriously, misunderstanding each other, getting everything wrong.
“Don’t worry,” she said quickly, cutting him off.
“Wanna go for a cig, Liv?” Zayn asked when the first game was nearing its end, and she
nodded, grabbing her bag from the seat before the pair of them walked off towards the
exit.
“Oh yeah, same,” Niall chimed after a painfully obvious nudge from Caitlin.
“Fuck off, Niall,” Harry snapped. “Since when do you smoke?”
“I just want some fresh air,” Niall retorted, pulling Caitlin’s arm.
“You want fresh air so you’re gonna stand with smokers?” Isabel clarified.
“That’s right,” Niall said cheerily. “Let’s go, Caitlin.”
“I’m coming too,” Isabel said desperately.
“No you’re not,” Caitlin snapped. “Stay here.”
“But I –”
Caitlin just gave her a steely look and turned around, the pair of them scuttling off like
school children. Isabel turned back to Harry, laughing shakily.
“They think they’re being clever,” she said.
“Yeah,” Harry replied. “Fucking hilarious.”
He scratched the back of his neck and stared at the lane next to them, his jaw clenched and
his mouth shut tight. Isabel watched the way his bicep tightened when he moved his arm,
swallowing and feeling a flush creep up her neck.
“I, um,” Isabel started, wanting to break the silence, but she wasn’t really sure what to say.
He looked at her expectantly. “How’s your marathon training?”
It was the blandest, dullest question she could have thought of and they both knew it, but
Harry smiled and nodded pleasantly. “Good. Really good, actually. I’m much fitter now.”
Yeah I can see, Isabel thought, involuntarily staring at his arms again. Harry pretended not
to notice.
“Speaking of which,” Harry continued, biting down on his lip for a moment. “My dad got a
corporate partner for his charity.” He blinked and looked at the floor. “It’s a pretty big
deal, I just found out this afternoon. I just – I don’t know, I thought you might want to
know.”
“That’s so good,” Isabel smiled. “So it’ll get much more money now?”
“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “And publicity. My dad said the donations for the marathon will
go up as well.”
He sat down on the seat and gestured for Isabel to sit next to him. When she did, she looked
up at him with her fingers in her mouth, chewing on her nails anxiously, and before she
could think what she was saying, she blurted out: “I was thinking about your dad’s charity
the other day actually.”
He smiled slightly, confused. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “The film festival I’m organising, the proceeds are going to charity. I thought
that maybe…”
She trailed off uncertainly. She knew immediately that she’d overstepped the mark,
crossed the line Harry had carefully drawn between his life at uni and his life at home, and
she couldn’t even meet his eyes as she waited for him to respond.
“I don’t know,” Harry said eventually. “It’s a nice idea, but I just don’t know if I’m… if
I’m ready for that.”
Isabel nodded, glancing up and finding panic in Harry’s eyes as he envisaged his old life
and his new life entangling, and Isabel being the interim through which they met. He
looked slightly pale at the thought, and Isabel couldn’t entirely blame him. As long as she’d
known him, Harry had desperately hidden away details of his home life, and now she was
asking for permission to set up direct contact with his father. It was ridiculous. She was
ridiculous.
She swallowed and quickly spouted: “Don’t worry about it, Rory and I will find someone
else, it’s not a problem –” at exactly the same time that he said: “I have so much to talk to
you about, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, and I –”
They both stopped talking.
“Who’s Rory?” he managed eventually, his face blank.
“My friend from Film Soc.”
“Your friend?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes.”
“Ah,” Harry said, his tone flat with disbelief.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m not trying to say anything.”
“Well clearly, you are.”
Harry ran a hand through his hair and exhaled sharply. “You’ve been texting him all the
time.”
“Excuse me?”
“I see at work. When your phone’s on the table and it lights up, it’s always him. I’m just
wondering –”
“Well, don’t just fucking wonder!” she snapped.
“Don’t be so defensive,” Harry cut back, his jaw tight. “I’m only asking.”
“You’re not asking, you’re assuming.”
“Well, I –”
“It’s none of your business.”

“What, just the whole Manchester thing was none of your business?” Harry said sharply.
“Because if I remember rightly, you had a proper meltdown about that.”
If Isabel wasn’t so angry, that might have hurt. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “Fuck off.”
“Don’t make this into a big deal.”
“Me make this into a big deal?”
Isabel thought then that this was just one reason why she and Harry would never work.
Before they’d got together, they argued constantly. They were both stubborn and they both
never said anything that they were actually thinking, and all he did was toss around her
emotions like washing in a tumble drier until she felt entirely wrung out and defeated.
Harry clutched at his hair again and took a sharp breath before he said: “Can you just…
are you fucking him?”
Isabel’s jaw dropped. “Are you actually –”
“It’s - it’s fine if you are, I just want to know.”
“Why?”
Harry gritted his teeth. “Because.”
"Because what?"
"Because!" Harry snapped angrily. "Because you and I were a thing, and a lot of myself
still belongs to you and probably always will, and if it's being smothered by somebody else I
deserve to know!"
There was a pause.
“If you must know,” she told him eventually, trying her best to keep her voice cold because
otherwise she was scared she might cry, “Rory’s gay, funnily enough, and if he wasn’t he
wouldn’t be interested in me anyway because we’re friends. In the way that you and Caitlin
are friends, and Niall and I are friends, and boys and girls can be friends without having to
fuck each other.”
“Fine,” was all Harry said, leaning back in his seat and rubbing his hand over his face.
“That’s all I was asking.”
“Why’d you care, anyway?”
He blinked at her slowly, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “In what world - in
what universe - would I not care?” he asked. “Honestly, tell me: where is this alternative
reality where I don’t care? Because, God, if you know where it is, I’ll happily buy a one-
way ticket there and never come back. Of course I fucking care.”
Isabel found herself suddenly unable to breathe, quite transfixed by him and the way he
was now staring at his shoes like he was trying to memorise them, by the way his cheeks
had flushed and his hands were gripping the seat tightly. And although she felt it all of the
time, sometimes she felt knocked out by how much she loved him, like she’d been smacked
in the chest by it and the feeling of it spread across her like a bruise, seeping into her blood
until she felt it everywhere. “Harry..."
He looked up at her, his face the picture of patience and apprehension in equal measure,
and she should have realised then that he already knew what she was going to say. “Yes?”
“I did sleep with someone. In the summer.” She stared at him, waiting for the bomb to
drop, and he froze for a moment before nodding, his fingers pinching at his bottom lip as
he nodded and nodded and nodded. “It was on Caitlin’s birthday. We went to a club and
met these two guys and I… I was so drunk. Like, off my face drunk. It was just a one night
thing.”
Harry just kept nodding.
“So, yeah,” Isabel went on, unsure what to say. “I mean, I know you didn’t ask this, but if
you want to know then I… yeah.”
“I already knew,” Harry replied, his voice a bit lower than usual. He coughed into his fist
and looked away from her.
“Oh.”
“Caitlin told Niall and he told Zayn and he told me.”
“Oh.”
Harry nodded again. “Yeah.”
“How long have you known?”
He coughed again. “Few weeks. Zayn told me just before we all went to that diner the other
week. That's why I was avoiding you that night.”
“Oh,” Isabel said again dumbly.
She felt like she was in a hole, a deep muddy ditch dug into the earth and Harry was
standing on the bank looking down at her. The hole couldn’t get any deeper now, it was
already as far down it could go, but every time Harry extended a hand to pull her out, all
that happened was mud fell into her eyes and mouth and ears, drowning her in it, blocking
her off from him. And the more the mud fell in, the more trapped she was, and she knew
one of these days he would kick in the final bit of dirt until she couldn’t see him at all.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and her rested her chin on her kneecaps. The bowling
alley was loud around them, but they were so silent, and she stared at Harry’s shabby
bowling shoes because she had nothing to say. There was nothing to say anymore.
“Sorry,” Harry said quietly, and when she glanced at him she saw his fingers were laced in
his lap and he was looking at her. “For being angry and jealous and stuff.”
“It’s okay,” she replied, and he sighed and averted his gaze to the floor.
“No, it’s not.” His voice was so sad that she looked over at him properly, resting her cheek
on her knees as she took in his side profile, at his downturned lips and frown. “I shouldn’t
have acted like this. You’re not… it’s not anything to do with me.”
“Yeah,” she replied, squeezing her knees tighter. “Let’s just forget it.”
He glanced at her again, pulling his lip between his fingers before he looked away from her
nervously.
“I just – I remembered hearing about the guy from summer and feeling so sad because I
just - I just wanted it to always be special for you, like we said ages ago. That’s all.” He
swallowed, dropping his hand from his mouth so it rested in his lap. “I mean, aside from
jealousy and whatever, there’s that. One night stands aren’t anything. I would know.”
Isabel blinked hard, resisting the urge to fling herself at him. He caught her gaze again,
rubbing his hand over his knee in pent up tension.
“He was nice to you though, right? It wasn’t horrendous?”
She nearly smiled at how anxious he looked, and before she could stop herself she reached
up a hand and smoothed the crease between his eyebrows. “If I told you it was good, would
you be pissed off?”
He scowled and she grinned, taking her hand away before she felt tempted to hold his face
in her palm. “Maybe,” he said. “But I wouldn’t act like a dick about it, either.”
She nodded, chewing on her lip. “It was all right. I can’t remember, it’s not like I planned
to do it. Or that I even wanted to, really.”
Harry hesitated, and then before he could change his mind, he lifted his hand and tucked a
piece of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering there before he moved them away.
“I’ve been doing this all wrong,” Harry said, running his hand through his hair frantically.
“I just… I tried too hard and I thought about it too much and I just figured if I kept being
around you it would make things worse, and I thought you might think I was better if I
was, like, mature and asked to be friends. And then I, fuck - then I thought you might be
over me and I didn’t know if I... but it just looked like I didn’t care, and I do, I fucking –”
He broke off and took a deep, calming breath. “Isabel, they’re switching him off.”
Isabel stared at him in disbelief. “What?”
“Adam,” he said for clarification, as though she’d forgotten. “They’re switching him off
after Christmas. I’ve been meaning to tell you but we… it doesn’t matter. I've told you
now.”
Isabel’s tongue felt strangely heavy in her mouth, like it was made of lead. “When did they
decide this?”
“A few weeks ago.” Harry nodded at nothing and then smiled slightly, bravely. “They
wanted to do it before the fourth year hit but I - I didn’t want them to. Then they tried
talking about it again in that week before we went camping and I freaked out.” He
swallowed and looked at the ground. “We talked about it before we came back to uni and I
said that they could do it after Christmas. I just need a bit of time so… Christmas.”
“Are you okay?” Isabel asked softly.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “You’re right, I can’t cling on forever. I have to - to let him go, don’t
I?”
She tried to say something, but nothing came out as she gazed at him, her eyes wide, and
she realised she didn’t need to because it was a hypothetical question. He knew. She
couldn’t believe he was actually saying this, and she nearly tumbled out of her seat in
surprise.
“I did so much in summer,” he went on. “I cleared out a lot of his old stuff, like books and
clothes and that. It, um - it made me feel so much better. I didn’t feel like I was getting rid
of his stuff, because it’s not his anymore, is it? That’s what my dad said. Like, if he’d have
still been around, I’m sure he wouldn’t have worn the same things he did four years ago.
He might not even like that shit, if he was here. I just kept the most important things, you
know?”
Isabel wanted to tell him she did know, but he was speaking again before she could open
her mouth.
“And I - I went to visit him. I haven’t since a couple of years ago. I felt like I had to do it,
before we… before he’s gone. But it’s not him anymore. It’s just a body in a bed. I don’t
think he’s there anymore, Is. I don’t think he’s here anymore.” He took a deep breath.
“Maybe I would have known that if I’d visited him before now but I just couldn’t before, I
couldn’t make myself go. But I can now. I’m just - I’m just thinking differently. I’m
changing the way I look at things. It’s so hard, I’m trying so hard.”
“That’s so good, Harry,” she replied, a lump in her throat so big she felt like she was
choking.
“I’m not there yet,” he went on, shaking his head a little. “I’m still struggling with it, and I
don’t know how long it’ll take but I...it feels like I can’t be bothered a lot of the time, you
know? That’s not what it is, but it’s because I’ve been this way for four years and trying to
be different hurts a lot. It’s like walking through fucking mud sometimes. But I have to,
that’s what my dad said. I have to start actually… y’know. Living.”
Isabel nodded slowly.
“But then everything with you is...” he started, a little breathless laugh falling out of his
mouth incredulously. He waved his hand around in a gesture that somehow translated as
‘fucked up’, because she nodded. “And you’re the one that I…”
He trailed off, biting down on his lip and holding her gaze. “I’m gonna sort it,” he said
firmly. “About using the charity for your festival. I’ll sort it.”
“Harry, listen, you don’t have to –”
“I’m sure.” He nodded and then smiled slightly. “Yeah. I’ve been… I’ve been trying so
hard. I can’t stop now.”
Harry ran a hand through his hair and held her gaze, smiling so softly that all of a sudden
she couldn’t breathe.
“Plus, it’s you,” he said. “If anyone’s allowed to be in the middle, it’s you. It’s you.”
End Notes:
hello!
thirty chapters in and nearing the end now, I hope you can all see how much Is and Harry
have changed in ten months, but also where they need to go from here!
this was a big one and lots of stuff happened, so I’d love to hear what you think!
also, thank you so much for nominating and voting for me in the awards friends! I know
‘thank you’ can often seem redundant if used too many times, but I honestly do mean it
more than anything and I couldn’t be happier!
see you next time! (remember to check oxygenstyles.tumblr.com/schedule if you’d like!)

xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
it's just a spark but it's enough
October
Isabel pushed the door open to Nell’s, the bell jingling as she scanned the room and ran a
hand through her hair.
She found Harry almost immediately, sitting at the table in the corner and staring at the
table. He was wearing one of his massive jumpers, the sleeves falling past his wrists as he
sipped on a mug of tea, and he looked so nice that Isabel was hesitant to even approach
him.
“Hey,” she said once she got close enough, and he looked up at her, his face brightening.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“It’s fine, I was late too,” Harry said with a smile. “I got you tea, it might be just on the
right side of lukewarm.”
“Thanks,” she grinned, sitting down opposite him and shrugging off her coat. He
swallowed, watching her for a second before setting down his mug.
“So I spoke to my dad,” he said, going straight in for the business talk. Isabel tried her best
not to be disappointed. “He says he’d love for you to use Addiction Trust for your
festival.”
“Really?” Isabel said, her face lighting up in surprise. She’d half expected him to say his
dad didn’t want to do it even if it wasn’t true, just so he could get out of it. “Oh, that’s
amazing Harry, thank you!”
Harry smiled weakly. “This is his email address, he said you should email him and he’ll
send you all the details and stuff.” He slid a little piece of paper across the table, his
father’s email written in Harry’s neat, familiar handwriting. “He said – uh, he said they’re
gonna use it as an excuse to come down. To see me, I mean. They’ve never visited me down
here before.”
“Oh right,” Isabel replied, sipping on her tea. “Are you – are you okay with that?”
Harry paused and then nodded, his hair flopping over his forehead slightly. “Yeah. I mean,
it’s weird. I cut them off for ages, didn’t want them knowing anything about life here and
whatever. But it’s fine.”
Isabel wasn’t sure what to say, so she just drank her tea, watching as Harry’s fingers
wrapped around his mug and gulped down the rest of his. His knee brushed hers under the
table and Isabel swallowed loudly, horribly aware of the silence between them.
She set the mug down on the table and sighed, looking down so that her hair fell across her
face as she tried to think of something to say.
“You look exhausted,” Harry said before she could say anything, a smile in his voice. “It’s
like the fourth week of term.”
She blinked up at him, trying her best not to seem offended. “I’m very busy,” Isabel said
haughtily.
“What are you studying at the moment?” Harry asked with genuine interest, drumming
his fingers on the table and leaning forward a little.
“Stuff about Lenin,” she mumbled, not liking his proximity one bit. “Russian revolution
and that.”
“You should take a break,” he suggested, his eyes scanning her face. “You’ve got so much
on, you shouldn’t –”
“I can’t take a break,” she insisted, interrupting him before he could lecture her like her
mother did. “I’m busy. I need to get my grade up.”
He frowned. “What did you get last year?”
“A 2:2,” she replied, her face falling. “I was near a 2:1 though, and I got a 2:1 in first year.
I need it, I won’t leave with a 2:2. I can't.”
He nodded, chewing his cheek. “If you weren’t far, it won’t be hard to push it up.”
“What did you get?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Harry worked harder than
anyone she knew, and unfairly, he was just naturally gifted, too.
“A First,” Harry said, and although he tried to suppress it she saw the ghost of a smile on
his lips. Her heart tugged with pride, but it slowly melted into the sharp pull of sadness.
He used to smile like that in the morning, just the tiniest pull at the corners of his mouth,
his eyelashes fluttering as she kissed the skin of his bare shoulder and brushed her fingers
through the curls at his neck. After that, it wouldn’t be long before she’d feel his rough
fingertips graze the skin of her thigh, pulling her closer, and he’d bury his face into her,
kissing whatever part of her he landed on as his hair tickled her skin and he smiled sleepily
against her.
She could remember this with astounding clarity, like it had happened yesterday and not
four months ago, and suddenly the sensation of falling, of tumbling, of spiralling out of
control, was so strong it felt like it was actually happening.
“Well done, Harry, that’s great!” she choked out.

“Thanks,” he grinned, holding her gaze for just a moment too long, as if he could tell that
this memory had toppled her over the edge and she was struggling to cling on to the
precipice, as if he was purposefully trying to kill her. Eventually he looked away, pulling
his lower lip between his fingers. “I’ve started my last project of the year at the moment
actually.”
She took a deep, shaky breath to compose herself. “Oh yeah? What is it?”
“It’s kinda long,” he said, but before she could change her mind about hearing it he
ploughed on. “It’s basically about the visualisation of people’s inner thoughts. I’m gonna
paint people’s secrets.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Paint people’s secrets?”
“Yeah, like I’m gonna ask people to write down their secrets and then I’ll make them into
art. It’s all anonymous and stuff, and I’m asking a few different people, not just my
friends. But I think it’ll be pretty cool.”
Another small smile played on his lips, and Isabel could have cried at how he seemed like
he’d been bursting to tell her this, enthusiastic and excited, like he was actually proud of
himself.
“That does sound cool,” she agreed.
“Yeah?” Harry’s smile widened. “Yeah, I think it will be. They go in the gallery December
7th, so I… would you mind doing one for me?”
“You want a – my secret?” Isabel clarified, feeling a bit light headed. His face fell.
“Well, yeah, I mean… you’re you. Of course you’re gonna be in it.”
Isabel just sat there, watching Harry’s eyebrows pucker, wondering how he could actually
ask this of her when surely he knew that he had already been told all her secrets. He knew
everything about her.
“Are you okay?” he asked after a beat.
“Fine,” she replied quickly. “Should I just do it now?”
Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, well, if you want to you can, I don’t –”
“It’s fine, I’ll do it now.” He blinked and then nodded, fishing around in his pocket and
withdrawing a little blank piece of paper like the one his father’s email address had been
written on. He slid it across the table to her just as he had done minutes before, and then
produced a pen from seemingly nowhere, handing it to her and waiting patiently as she
fidgeted about trying to think of something about herself that was worthy enough to
become art.
“It’s not meant to be a huge deal,” Harry said after a pause in which her paper remained
blank. “Just write anything. It’s gonna be totally non-judgemental, and I promise I won’t
read it, I’ll shuffle it with the others when I get home.”
“You’ll probably know it’s mine anyway.”
Harry shrugged. “If you don’t mind me knowing, then I don’t.”
Isabel nodded her affirmation and then accepted defeat, sighing and writing down a secret
he’d know was hers a mile off because it was all she had.
“Thank you!” Harry said, taking it and grinning. “Thank you so much.” He put it safely in
his own pocket and then they were back to silence.
They’d both finished their tea so there was nothing to do but stare at the table, and Isabel
dipped her head and squeezed her eyes shut, scared that it was so uncomfortable she might
actually be reduced to tears in a second.
What could she say?
I still wear your jumper sometimes, the one I've had since April.
One day in August somebody who smelled exactly like your citrus shampoo sat in front of me
on the bus and I started crying.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
“Isabel,” Harry said, his voice low, and she glanced up at him. He was staring at her with
that little frown of his, his eyebrows puckering and his lips parted. “I’m really proud of
you, you know.”
She blinked at him, entirely surprised. He hardly ever said things with such conviction,
without stumbling over his words in the middle or changing what he was about to say
halfway through. “Huh?”
“For this Film Soc stuff and for - for distancing yourself from people that you’re ... way too
good for. It, uh, makes me… makes me proud of you.” His mouth opened again, like he was
about to say something else, but he faltered and then coughed into his hand, looking away.
“Anyway.”
“Anyway,” Isabel repeated quietly, unable to say anything else, and she wasn’t sure why
but she rested her knee against Harry’s again.
At the touch of her knee against his, he glanced at her again, his eyes wide, and as they held
each other’s gaze Isabel saw something change in Harry’s face. His lips parted, his
eyebrows drew up, and as his eyes flickered between hers, she was sure she was witnessing
a moment of deliberation.
“Anyway,” Harry said again, flashing her a smile, and there was something different about
his voice now. He sounded determined. “I have an idea of what we can do today.”
Isabel frowned. “W-what we can do today?” she stuttered nervously.
There had been no plan to do anything other than meet up and discuss the film festival,
and it had been over so quickly that Isabel had expected as soon as the awkwardness got
unbearable they would both go their separate ways.
“Yeah,” Harry said mischievously. “I’m a man with a plan.”
“Does it involve money?” Isabel asked as Harry stood up and pulled his jacket on, grinning
at her. “I only brought a tenner out with me.”
Harry pouted. “I just bought you a tea. Going along with my plan is the least you can do.”
Isabel paused. Why was he pouting? When was the last time he’d been like this with her?
“What if I already had plans?” Isabel counteracted with a very deliberate roll of her eyes,
her heart racing with how light-hearted this was.
Harry shrugged and started towards the door. “You’d drop them for me,” he said over his
shoulder, yelping when she poked him hard in the back. “Don’t be violent!”
“Shut up,” Isabel snapped, and Harry laughed as he yanked the door to the café open and
stepped outside. He dug his hands in his pockets and turned to grin at her.
“So, are you coming or are you coming?”
“You really are an arrogant arsehole, Harry.”
He ignored her. “We’re going to Preston Circus, let’s go.”
Isabel just looked at him for moment, the pair of them facing each other with their hands
shoved deep in their pockets and their hair whipping in the wind. He’d made his mind up
about something at the table, she knew it. But what was it? Had he decided he didn’t want
it to be awkward anymore? Because that’s what it seemed, for all his faux smugness and
wide smiles. And if so, she was more than grateful, but did that mean he was he back at it
trying to be friends again?
Isabel didn’t want to be friends with him. She couldn’t. But there was that pull towards
him that she couldn’t shake, like lining up the red and blue ends of the magnets in Year 8
Science. She just wanted to be around him, to make him smile like she was now and see his
face light up whenever she smiled, too. Just breathing in the same air as him, just seeing the
tips of his fingers poke out the long sleeves of his jumper, just seeing the slight pink of his
cheeks in the cold air made her heart jump, and she couldn’t deny herself that even if she
knew it would ache twice as much later when it fell back down with a crashing thud
beneath her ribcage.
She sighed and Harry beamed, knowing he’d won. He strolled off to his car, but when he
got there he realised Isabel hadn’t followed him, and turning around, he found her
unlocking a mint green bike that had been chained to the lamppost.
“That’s yours?” Harry asked incredulously.
“Lydia’s,” Isabel informed him. “I was really late; I overslept, so this was – this was
easiest.”
“You’re riding a bike?” Harry clarified, walking over to her with a huge smirk on his face
as she battled with the lock.
“Yes,” Isabel said, turning to him with her eyebrows raised challengingly as she puffed her
fringe out of her face. “Why are you taking the piss?”
“I’m just surprised,” Harry said, biting down on his lip. “Sorry, I’m just –”
“Stop fucking laughing at me!” Isabel said loudly, whipping Harry in the stomach with the
bike lock. He winced, doubling over and cackling with laughter, and they both knew that it
wasn't even funny at all but the idea of laughing together, of teasing each other and maybe
even flirting a bit, was entirely irresistible to both of them. “I do exercise sometimes, you
little shit! I saw you at the gym last week!”
Harry just laughed more at how indignant she sounded, bracing himself against the
lamppost and clutching his stomach. She yanked the bike away and slung her leg over it,
cycling off before he could say anything else.
“Isabel!” he shouted after her, but she kept pedalling, dropping off the curb onto the road
and flying off down the street. Luckily there was a downhill slope, so she built up enough
momentum to go really fast without much work on her part, and she laughed when the
wind bit at her face. She took a left, then after a while a right, and she was starting to think
Harry would never catch up when she heard the growl of an engine behind her.
This really was flirting now, wasn't it? Isabel couldn't remember ever being like this with
Harry, not before they’d slept together at least - it was exciting, and it was playful and
tentative all at once, both of them knowing exactly what the other was doing but neither
willing to call the other out. They’d reached the end of them a long time ago, but this felt
like the start, or at least what the start should have been. And she was quite literally
making him chase her.
She turned and grinned at him over her shoulder; he had one arm hanging out of the open
window and there was a poor attempt at a scowl on his face in an effort to conceal his
delight. When she met his eyes, though, it quickly dropped into a look of terror.
“Keep your eyes forward, fuck!” Harry shouted loudly, and she twisted back around as the
bike wobbled precariously. “Fucking Christ, Isabel.”
“I’m fine!” she yelled, standing up on the pedals and cycling faster to prove her point, and
she didn’t need to look to know he was swearing at her. Eventually, though, she slowed
down, and after a while Harry thought she was steady enough to swerve slightly and drive
alongside her.
“You are mental,” Harry hissed, though he sounded like he was trying not to laugh. She
stuck her middle finger up at him and he pretended not to see. “Seriously, don't piss about,
Isabel, we’re about to go onto the main road.”
“I know how to ride a bike,” she replied breezily. “I’ve actually known how to ride a bike
for sixteen years.”
Harry rubbed a hand over his face, and defeated, he sighed. “Fine.” He glanced over at
her, pulling his lower lip between his teeth. “You’re ridiculous, you know.”
Isabel nearly fell off her bike. “You need to keep your eyes on the road, Harry," she
managed, her voice as wobbly as the bike’s tyres on the tarmac.
“You came,” Harry pointed out, his voice smug all of a sudden. “You could have just gone
home, but you started cycling this way.”
Isabel grumbled something intelligible, but before Harry could start teasing her about it
there was a loud beep behind him. He glanced in the mirror at the gesticulating driver
behind him, a middle-aged man in a Vauxhall Zafira, who was clearly unimpressed with
Harry’s speed. Harry ignored him, rolling his eyes.
“You can go faster,” Isabel told him. “I’ll meet you there.”
Harry ignored her too, just gripped the steering wheel and watched the driver in his rear-
view mirror in the manner of a cat watching a particularly annoying toddler from afar. He
couldn’t have been going faster than 20mph and he was well aware that the road wasn’t
wide enough to overtake, but he made no effort to speed up, just stared calmly at the
mirror. The driver behind beeped again, and when Harry did nothing but press his tongue
into his cheek and raised his eyebrows, the irritated driver stuck his head out the window
and roared for Harry to hurry up.
“Shut the fuck up!” Harry bellowed, throwing his arm out the window to give him the
finger.
“Harry, don’t be a dick,” Isabel warned.
“I’m not!” Harry said loudly. “You’re the one on a fucking bike.”
“I’m saving the environment!”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Harry muttered, his wide eyes flickering everywhere at once. He
wasn't playing anymore. “We’re turning left here, Is.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I w- Don’t take your hands off the fucking handlebars!”
“I’m signalling left you idiot!”
“I’m driving right next to you, if you swerve I’ll kill you!”
“Harry you’re crawling along,” Isabel said, exasperated. “You’d barely graze me.”
They turned onto the main road, and Harry visibly relaxed at the presence of a cycle lane,
the satisfied smirk returning because she’d come with him when she easily could have
chosen not to.
~~~
Isabel knew they were going to the cinema as soon as she caught a glimpse of it in the
distance, and she couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been to not realise as soon as he’d said
Preston Circus.
“What are we seeing?” she asked, grinning at Harry, but he only looked stressed. It had
taken him ages to find a space to park his car, much to Isabel's delight when it took her
about a second to chain her bike to a lamp post, and she could tell he was anxious they’d
miss it.
He glanced at his watch without replying, just sped up so that she scampered along beside
him, and when they got to the cinema he marched them through the foyer like a mother on
a school run, fishing the pre-ordered tickets out of his pocket.
Isabel thought this rather presumptuous of him, but decided he seemed too agitated to
mention it now.
Neither of them said anything until they were in their seats. It was mostly empty, only six
or so other couples and one group of three in the room, and Harry and Isabel took their
seats in one of the back rows just as the adverts ended.
“Harry,” Isabel whispered, and he turned his head to look at her, his smile visible even in
the dim light of the cinema. “What are we seeing?”
"Well," Harry started, "I hope you haven't got your hopes up that we're seeing some
bizarre Wes Anderson thing, cos that's not really for me.” He licked his lips, his eyes
scanning her face, and Isabel wasn't sure whether he was pausing for dramatic effect or if
he was buying himself time. Eventually, he whispered, “I got us tickets to Clueless.”
Isabel’s smile slipped. “What?”
“I bought them ages ago,” Harry replied quickly. “Like before the summer holidays.
They’re randomly doing a special screening today, the only showing this year.” He smiled
at her slightly, and Isabel could have sworn he reached out to squeeze her hand before he
decided against it, letting it fall into his lap. “I promised you I’d watch it all the way
through.”
~~~
“Okay, I told you, I admit defeat,” Harry said, holding his hands up. “That was pretty
good.”
Isabel grinned, satisfied. “Told you. Sloane who?”
“Don’t blaspheme,” Harry said with a scowl, and Isabel laughed.
He glanced over at her, smiling when he saw her laughing, his hands dug deep in his
pockets as they walked along the pavement by the sea front. They were going in the
opposite direction to both Harry’s car and Lydia’s bike, but neither of them said anything.
“So, speaking of keeping promises,” Isabel said, nudging his shoulder with hers after a
moment of silence that wasn’t uncomfortable, but felt as though it needed filling
nonetheless. “You can look on the film blog, seeing as you let me see your art.”
This promise had been made so long ago that she wasn't sure he would even remember
what she was talking about, and her eyebrows raised when he shot her a guilty look.
“Oh – um,” Harry said, biting down on his lip. “I already looked. Over summer.”
He smiled sheepishly at her, waiting for her to tell him off, but instead she just looked at
the floor. Her heart hammered pathetically at the thought of him thinking of her over the
summer, replaying all their old conversations in his head right back to that promise they'd
made to each other in Isabel's bedroom the first time they'd kissed.
“They were really good, Is,” Harry said quietly. “The reviews, I mean. And everything else.
I know we only watch shitty nineties movies but it was really interesting and - and you can
tell how much you love it.” He paused, waiting for her to look up at him. “You should get a
job in film, or writing or something, you know. You should look into getting a job in it after
we graduate.”
“You think?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yeah, I really do.”
After graduating was the phrase Isabel had heard the most recently, because in eight
months uni was over and she'd finally have to be an actual proper adult and get a job and a
mortgage, and the thought was so terrifying that most of the time she pretended the
decision about what to do with the rest of her life was another three years away. She was
like that about a lot of things, really: just don't think about it and hope it goes away.
It wouldn't surprise her, though, if Harry had already mapped out exactly what he was
doing come graduation, so she asked him, expecting a meticulous plan in reply.
He smiled. “I don’t have a fucking clue. I just know I … I wanna travel.”
Isabel blinked at him in surprise. "Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I wanna go everywhere. I wanna be old and decrepit and be
able to say that I saw it all, you know? It’s funny cos I’ve never been on a plane. I’ve never
been anywhere.”
She watched him as he spoke, his eyes bright, his hands animated, and her heart ached for
him. “Yeah?"
"Yeah. My nana lived in Somerset and we’d go there in the holidays, so I’ve been to sandy
beaches and stuff, but never abroad." He pinched his lip between his fingers, his expression
contemplative. "I nearly went once; I chose Geography A-level because there was this trip
to Iceland in the first year, I was so fucking excited. I’m the only one of my siblings to have
a passport cos of that trip.”
Isabel frowned. “Why didn’t you go?”
“They didn't let me,” he said with a small laugh. “I fucking hated Geography, I never went
to lessons. They didn’t let me go.”
Isabel's face fell, but Harry wasn't looking at her. He blinked, tugging his lower lip
between his fingers and going to speak again.
“It’s weird but there’s this … this like, part of me that wants to be doing something all the
time, you know? I just wanna learn stuff and eat new food and feel massively hot and cold,
and, I don’t know, swim in all these different seas and meet people who know nothing
about who I am or where I come from. I’ve got this… this, like, urge for it all. Do you know
what I mean?”
He looked at her then, dropping his hand from his mouth, and she smiled and shook her
head slightly. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I just - it makes me feel … alive, you know? Like, you’re here and you mean something
and if you died tomorrow you will have left something behind.”
Isabel swallowed loudly. “Harry...”
“I don’t wanna die without feeling alive,” he said quietly. "That's my worst fear."
It was such an honest thing to say that for a moment Isabel was taken aback. But then, she
realised with a deep sense of relief that for the first time in a long, long time, suddenly just
it didn't feel like there was a million miles between them. There wasn't much space at all.
She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his and squeezing them tightly. She
should have been nervous about doing that, but she wasn’t. It felt like the most natural
thing in the world.
“You’re the best person I know, Harry,” she told him, and he froze, surprised, before his
whole face lit up.
“You’re ridiculous,” he grinned, and before he could stop himself he brought their
interlocked hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, beaming like she’d just promised him
the world.
~~~
Isabel had been with Rory and Meera since the late afternoon, trying to sort out judges for
the film festival - there was, alarmingly, only five weeks to go - and simultaneously
analysing the character of Rory's new potential love interest whose birthday it had been on
Tuesday. By the time she got home, her voice had gone hoarse and she was exhausted.
It was Saturday night, and she was climbing into bed at 11pm, chewing on her nails and
forcing herself to read her book on Trotsky. She’d been putting it off for too long, and she
fully intended to make use of the empty house by ploughing through it without distractions.
Not that she was speaking to Millie and Scarlett, anyway, so distractions were rare. But
still.
When her phone rang an hour later as she was dozing off, she knew instantly it was Harry.
Caitlin and the others were at the pub - an offer Isabel had declined because she’d
promised to see Rory and Meera - and none of her family would ring at this time on a
Saturday night. Plus, she hadn’t seen Harry since their shift last Sunday, the day after
their cinema visit, because he’d skipped both his Wednesday and Friday shifts. This was so
out of character that she'd tried texting him a few times but he hadn’t replied, and when
she’d asked Caitlin where he was, she'd said that, according to Zayn and Niall, he'd taken
off on Tuesday evening saying he needed to go home and hadn’t come back since.
“Harry?” Isabel asked immediately as soon she answered, not even bothering to check the
caller ID. Rain was punching the window viciously from behind the curtains and Isabel
shivered slightly, hugging the duvet tighter around her. It really did feel like winter now
and it was only October, but she liked it in a strange sort of way, that feeling of being cosy
and dry when it was pouring outside. She wondered if it was raining where Harry was.
“Hey,” he said, and his voice was so small that she was instantly worried, her heart
jumping. “Hey Is. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Isabel replied, her tiredness forgotten as she sat up slightly in bed. “Where have
you been?”
“I’m in Cheshire. I came back on Tuesday night.”
“Harry, are you all right?” she asked him, scared of how small his voice was, that he’d
vanished for five days without a word and thought now was the best time to call.
“I’m fine,” he replied breathily. “Tell me about you. What have you been up to?”
“Briony did her training session with me yesterday,” Isabel said, screwing up her face and
picking at the duvet. When Briony had sauntered into the shoe booth at work, Isabel
couldn’t decide whether she was glad Harry wasn’t there or irritated that he’d left her to
deal with Briony alone. “She’s moving to work in the booth, Thursdays and Saturdays.”
Harry laughed, but it sounded forced and ended too quickly. “Great.”
“What’s wrong?” Isabel asked quietly.
“I - I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Isabel responded, swallowing hard and sitting up properly then. “What… what do
you want to say then?”
“I miss you all the time,” he admitted, his voice wobbling. “I miss you all the time.”
“I miss you too,” Isabel replied as calmly as she could, but he was scaring her and her
heart was racing so hard her ears were ringing.
“Just hearing your voice I - I can’t even believe it. I miss you so much.”
“What’s the matter, Harry?”
Harry was silent for a long time. Isabel listened so carefully that she could hear him
breathing down the phone, steady and deep and even, and she didn’t prompt him, just
waited and waited.
“Adam died.”
....oh.
Isabel nearly had to ask him to repeat herself, and she gripped the phone so tightly that her
knuckles hurt. “Oh,” she exhaled, her heart pounding in her chest and burning, shocked
tears building up behind her eyes. “Oh, Harry.”
“I’m fine,” he said quickly, and she heard him swallow loudly before continuing just as
rapidly: "It’s weird because I feel fine. I’m glad it happened this way, rather than turning
him off.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. Her mind was
racing as she tried to understand what had happened - it hadn't even been a fortnight since
Harry had told her they were going to switch him off after Christmas, and now he was
dead.
She couldn't get her head around it, it just didn't seem to make sense. They'd just decided a
few weeks ago that they'd switch him off, after four and a half years of nothing, and now
he'd died out of nowhere. For an insane moment, she actually had to stop herself from
asking if he was joking. They'd deliberately planned it so Harry would have time, would
have a few months to really get himself ready, and that had been stolen from him, and all at
once she was angry, hot tears burning from behind her closed eyelids.
But then she remembered life was like this - it gave and it took without any sort reason or
logic that could explain it. You revise for months for your exam and the one question you
didn't want comes up. You wait all year for your one week holiday and it rains the whole
time. You tell someone you love them and they don't say it back. You think you have time,
but you don't.
“I just feel like I finished a book or something. It, uh - it feels over and kind of weird and
empty but I knew it was coming.” He paused. "People die in comas all the time, apparently.
The body just has enough, you know? Heart gives up."
She took a deep breath, wishing more than anything that Harry was here so she could wrap
her arms around him and make sure he was as fine as he was saying he was, and she hoped
he could feel that through the line, through the empty space and miles and miles between
them. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”
“It’s the funeral tomorrow,” he continued, his voice growing in strength. “My parents have
had everything ready for years, got the grave and everything." He laughed even though it
wasn't at all funny. "Pretty quick turn around.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Isabel asked, biting down hard on her trembling lip. “I would
have come with you.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you.” There was a muffled sound at the end of the phone, and
Isabel guessed he was rubbing his hand over his face. “I just - I just don’t want you to see
him like this. This isn’t what he’s like. I want you to know him through all the stuff I’ve
told you about him because that way he’s not Harry’s dead brother he’s just… he’s just my
brother. But he's dead."
She did cry a bit then, choking on a sob. “Okay.”
“Everyone’s fine,” Harry said, ploughing on as though he was speaking to himself. “They
all cried a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then my mum had this weird party thing
last night. Like a celebration for him, you know? It was… I don’t know, it was nice. Weird,
but nice. Loads of family and friends and stuff. Weird but nice.”
“You’re doing so well,” she told him, trying to conceal the fact she was crying as she
rubbed the sleeve of her jumper over her face.
"I thought I'd cry. I'm not crying at all."
"You can if you want to."
"I can't. I don't." He paused for a long while, his breath deep and shuddering on the end of
the line, and then eventually he said: “I don’t know how to be someone without him, Is. I
don’t know who I am without him.”
“I’m just not… I’m not anyone without him, am I?” His voice quivered now when he
spoke, like he was starting to panic. “He’s everything that I am. I don’t know what to do
without him.”
“Harry –”
“I’m scared to keep getting better now because I’m - I’m just a worse version of him, but
I’m the one that isn’t gone. What’s the point?”
“Harry, that’s not true at all,” Isabel said firmly, wiping at her face with the back of her
palm. “I don’t know Adam, but I know you. And you’re my favourite person in the whole
world.” She took a moment to collect herself, pressing her lips together and closing her eyes
before saying calmly: “You’re so clever and - and sweet and kind, and you care so much
about people. You don’t give up onanything, and you’re the only person I’ve ever met who
is so willing to - to change and admit that they need to.”
“But I –”
“That’s you, Harry,” she insisted, and she was crying again but she couldn’t help it. “You
can’t copy those things off somebody else. That’s who you are.”
Harry gulped loudly. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Harry, please don’t. Please.”
He took a sharp, wheezing breath. “I miss you so much, Is,” he said, his voice cracking. “I
want to be with you so badly.”
She wrapped an arm around herself, burying her face in the pillow and trying not to sob
again. “I know, me too.”
“I was ... In New York, I was gonna make everything better with us. Me and Niall planned
it. It was gonna be like a rom com, you know?” He laughed, a weak sound that was genuine
despite its fragility, and she laughed too, sniffing loudly and swiping her sleeve over her
face again. “That’s why I flipped out when you said you wouldn’t come and I… I’m sorry.
I just thought we… I don’t know.”
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice thick. “I’ve been thinking about it too.”
“You have?” he asked, exhaling it.
“Yeah.”
Harry said nothing for a while, just listened to her muffled sniffles at the end of the phone.
“Are you in bed?”
“Yeah, are you?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “Remember in June, we slept together every night for two weeks?”
“I know,” she said, her chest aching. “I miss it.”
“Same,” Harry mumbled. “So fucking much.”

She swallowed and closed her eyes, imagining him in his bed in Cheshire, curled up in a
ball with his phone pressed to his ear. “How were you gonna win me back in New York,
then?”
“Lots of kissing,” Harry said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Nah, I was gonna
take you up the Empire State Building at night and it was gonna be very Sleepless in
Seattle.”
“So Niall’s Jonah then?”
“Yep,” Harry affirmed. “He suits the part well.”
Isabel grinned. “You just gave the whole game away, Styles.”
“Well what does it matter? You’re not coming.” He sighed, and she heard him shifting
around in bed. “It doesn’t matter. I know why you don’t want to come, and I - I’m not
trying to make you feel bad or anything.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to run it without me?” Isabel asked.
He hesitated. “Definitely. I'm a hundred percent sure.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. She heard him burrow into his pillow, and she imagined that his
hair was splayed out on it, his face buried slightly into it.
“I wanna sleep with you so bad,” he mumbled. “God, I want you to be here so bad. It
actually hurts.”
He yawned, and Isabel squeezed her eyes shut tightly, because she knew exactly what he
meant. She wanted him there so badly that her limbs actually ached. “You need to go to
sleep, baby.”
“I will,” he said. “Thanks for talking to me.”
“Of course, Harry,” she said. “I always will.”
“I know,” he muttered. He inhaled sharply, about to say something, and Isabel waited for
longer than she expected, waited for him to spit it out. “My dad says after Christmas, when
my big project and the marathon’s over and that, I should, um, should have bereavement
counselling.”
Isabel nodded even though he couldn’t see her. “He did?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, and she imagined his lips were barely moving because he sounded so
muffled. “I think I will.”
“Okay,” Isabel replied softly. “I think that’ll be good.”
“Same.” He sighed. “I know I freaked out just now but I feel like I'm - I know I’m getting
better.”
“You are.”
“So much better."
“That’s good. That’s so good, Harry.”
“I miss you so much,” he murmured again.
“Me too.”
“We’ll work things out?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Fuck. Okay.”

End Notes:
hello!
I’m really really aware this was sad, and that they’ve somehow ended up all being quite
sad, which wasn’t really my intention, and I’m really sorry if it’s all is feeling a bit much :(
if you’ve managed to cling on to harry and is throughout all this, then I love you and thank
you so much!
so from here on, I want you to see it the way Is and Harry do at the end of this chapter.
however, distant, however shadowed by things happening now, there is a light at the end of
the tunnel. sometimes it takes something awful happening for you to realise that life’s a bit
too short, and if you want something, you have to make it happen
so essentially, what i’m trying to say is, we have six chapters left and an epilogue. what we
thought was going to happen last has happened now, but there’s still time to be covered.
and whatever happens with harry and is, i promise things are looking up from now :)
trust me!
xxxxx
(ALSO: i thought this might help if you’re unaware of the British university grading system.
the highest grade you can get is a First Class Honours Degree (referred to as a First), then an
Upper Second Class (2:1), then a Lower Second Class (2:2), then a Third Class (referred to as
a Third) and then just a pass. you generally can’t do a postgraduate degree if you don’t have
at least a 2:1, and most good employers will look for a 2:1 or above. so really, a 2:1 is the aim,
if you’re not setting your sights on a First!)
Back to index
Author's Notes:
images that change as they repeat themselves
October/November
Isabel was chewing on her nails, staring out of the window absently. There was a tree she’d
never noticed before just outside the window of the sitting room at Rory's house, and the
amber and gold leaves had pooled at its base, shuddering slightly when the wind blew past
them. Nearly November. It always came around so quickly.
“Isabel?” Rory asked, and she whipped round to meet his gaze, her hand falling from her
mouth to her lap.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. She went back to her laptop, remembering she had been in the
midst of typing out an email to some people who they wanted to set up food stands at the
festival, and she heard Rory sighing. She peeked over at him, watching as he put down his
calculator and glared at her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, clasping his hands and resting them on the table like they
were at a job interview.
“It’s just - don’t worry,” she said, flashing him a smile. “I’m just tired.”
Rory sighed again, not believing her one bit, but she didn’t want to bother him. She stared
at the screen of her laptop, the letters swimming in front of her eyes as she tried to make
sense of them, but they just looked alien, a bunch of random squiggles merging into
nonsense.
“Isabel,” Meera said, firmly but not grumpily like Rory had. “What's going on with
Harry?”
Isabel blinked, taken aback for a moment by how easy she must be to read. “Huh?”
“You’re completely out of it and you've not mentioned him once,” Rory said, his voice
stern. “Tell us what’s happened. What’s he done now?”
“He - I don't know,” Isabel replied, wetting her lips and looking down at the table. “His
brother died last week.”
There was quiet for a minute. “Oh dear,” Meera exhaled. “Poor boy.”
Isabel nodded. “He’s coping so well. I had work with him this morning and he was fine.
He’s just - he’s doing so well.”
“Mmmm,” Rory said, adjusting his glasses. “So you’re thinking you should go to New York
with him.” He wasn’t even asking, just stating a fact, and Isabel’s eyes widened, in shock
for the second time in minutes at how well they could tell what she was thinking.
“Well I - I don’t know. I mean, yeah, maybe,” Isabel babbled, scrubbing a hand through
her hair and looking at him worriedly. “Well we’re meant to be going on Friday, for fuck’s
sake –”
“Isabel –"
“– we're meant to be flying on Friday and I haven’t done anything about selling my ticket
or getting a refund and obviously I can’t now and I just - I don’t know what to do.”
Meera squinted at her. “Why do you think you didn’t do anything about your ticket in the
first place?”
“Well because I - huh?” She frowned, confused, but her eyes narrowed when she realised
what Meera was getting at. “Wait, you think I didn’t get rid of it on purpose?”
Meera smiled slightly, tucking her hair behind her ear and eyeing Isabel carefully. “Yeah,
maybe.”
“Why would I do that?” Isabel said with a scowl, and Meera shook her head, clearly
thinking Isabel clueless. “Are you saying I was always going to go?”
“No, I’m saying you always knew he’d have to get better at one point.”
“I wouldn’t be going if he was still so reliant on me,” she grumbled.
Rory looked at her with his eyes sparkling, his smile widening into a toothy grin as he
glanced at Meera. “So you are going then.”
“No I - no. No, I’m not, I just said that wrong,” she spluttered, and he raised his eyebrows,
smirking like the fucking cat who'd got the cream. She took a deep, embarrassed breath,
and then spouted: “I can’t go because I have to miss uni on Friday and Monday if we go,
and that’s two shifts at work. And I won’t see you both for at least five or six days, because
I’ll be jetlagged and stuff when I get back. And all of this festival stuff - I get about thirty
emails a day, and I need to speak to Harry’s dad about bank details and I can’t leave you
to do all this because –”
“Isabel,” Rory interrupted in a severe tone. “You’re just making excuses now to panic
yourself.”
“I’m not,” she mumbled, but she knew that she was. “I just - it’s too late. I can’t change my
mind now.”
“We're not gonna fuck everything up the second you go away, you know,” Rory said,
rolling his eyes. "We're very capable, we'll be able to keep the festival ticking over.
Everything will be fine, you’re only gone for four days.”
“I know.”
“And Harry might not need you, but I reckon he bloody wants you there more than
anything," Meera said.
She swallowed. “I know.”
“And you want to be there.”
“I know.”
“You’re not that girl who gives up on people,” Rory said, his voice softer now, squeezing
Isabel’s arm and smiling at her warmly. “If I know anything about you, it’s that you don’t
give up on people, Is. Even when they’re being fucking annoying, you give them the benefit
of the doubt. Don’t be that girl who gives up on people.”
Isabel just gulped. “I want to go.”
“So why don’t you go?”
“Because I –”
“So why don’t you go?”
She stared at him, her voice small. “I don’t know.”
“Then go.”
~~~
“Oh wow,” Harry said, his eyes widening and straining under his seatbelt to get a better
view. “I can’t believe they actually do this in real life.”
Niall cackled. “You’re something else, H.”
“I can’t hear them,” Harry hissed, whacking Niall on the chest and craning his neck to see
the air hostess who was busy signalling to the nearest exits. He glared at Niall. “If the plane
goes down and I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m blaming you.”
“Nobody knows what to do,” Niall laughed. “I’ve never listened in my life.”
Harry sat back in his seat, huffing and glancing to his right at Isabel, who was in the
window seat beside him watching him with a small smile.
The whole journey up to this point had been amusing for Niall but heart-wrenching for
her. Harry had found absolutely everything fascinating, his eyes wide and his lip constantly
caught between his fingers, stumbling over his own feet as he marvelled at the inside of an
airport, at the luggage disappearing off on the little conveyor belt just like the movies. He’d
been so nervous before he went through the security scanner, his fingers shaking when he
removed the contents of his pockets and and belt to put them through the x-ray machine,
that even the security guard had laughed.
He’d spent a good five minutes admiring the stamp in his passport, his first ever one,
staring at it quietly while the three of them sat in Costa waiting for their gate to come up on
the boards. And when they’d finally got onto the plane, Harry sandwiched between the two
of them as though he was their child, he jiggled his foot on the floor impatiently, so excited
for take off that he was practically bouncing out of his seat.
“It’s taking so long,” Harry whined, looking at Isabel anxiously. “Is there something wrong
with the plane?”
“No,” she said with a smile, resisting the urge to squeeze his hand. “It always takes
forever.”
He nodded sincerely, pinching his lower lip and flopping back to slump in his chair. Niall
leaned forward to grin at Isabel, raising his eyebrows at Harry’s reaction and shaking his
head slightly, she smiled back.
Isabel had thought it was a shame that the first time Harry ever went abroad, he was going
to somewhere so similar to places he’d already been. She wanted to see Harry in the middle
of a truly foreignplace, watch him struggle through the language barrier and eat local
delicacies and submerge himself in something entirely different, because she knew that’s
what he dreamed of, really. But now sitting here next to her, his whole face lighting up
when the captain said they were about to take off, she realised it didn’t matter where they
were going. The fact he was going somewhere made this the best day of Harry’s life, and it
was hard to believe now that she’d almost voluntarily missed it.
Harry leaned across her to gaze out of the window as soon as the plane had taken off,
watching Heathrow shrink beneath them, and then London, and then England, until it was
just clouds between them and the ground. He shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe
it, his hands digging into the armrest and his face slowly breaking into a smile.
“I’m not in England,” he murmured, looking at her with wide, bright eyes.
“Yeah,” she said, and this time she did squeeze his hand, just briefly. He licked his lips,
every inch of his face so elated she wouldn’t have been surprised if he jumped up onto his
seat and start yelling out his enthusiasm to everyone on board.
“Fuck,” he breathed, letting out a delighted laugh. “I’m actually travelling.”
“That’s right,” Niall said, clapping him on the back. “We’re off, mate.”
And for a moment, as Harry stared out the window at the vast, seemingly infinite sky,
leaving England behind for the first time, his face fell. Isabel imagined he was thinking
about Adam, about the fact that, for maybe the first time in his life, Harry had
accomplished something that Adam hadn’t. But then he swallowed and shut his eyes for a
second, and when he opened them the sadness was replaced by excitement, and this time he
was the one to squeeze her hand, and this time neither of them let go.
~~~
When they got to the hotel and found the room with two double beds, Harry instantly
turned to Niall with a glare.
“What the fuck?”
“What?” Niall exclaimed, the picture of innocence as he threw himself across one of them.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“When you book a hotel,” Harry said through gritted teeth, “as far as I'm aware, you tell
them what type of beds you want. Three singles. Because we're three singles."
“Yeah, but this is a posh hotel,” Niall defended. “My dad’s members’ points are here.
They’re not gonna have a twin room for three for fuck’s sake, if we wanted that we should
have stayed in a hostel.”
“It’s fine, Harry,” Isabel said from behind him. “Look, if you two share a bed tonight and
then –”
“I’m not sharing a fucking bed with him,” Niall said quickly, a smirk playing at his lips.
“He’ll wanna spoon me and shit.”
“How the fuck would you know?” Harry cut back. “You’ve never been in a bed with me.”
“Fine,” Niall said, throwing his hands up. “Me and Isabel will be together then, seeing as
you’re kicking up such a fuss.”
Harry gulped, looking between them like he wasn’t sure what to say.
“Just to let you know though, Is,” Niall said, staring at Harry as he spoke, "I’m a
cuddler!”
“For fuck’s sake,” Harry muttered, running a hand through his hair and turning away.
“But you would know that, wouldn't you? Seeing as you and me have slept together a
couple of times in Harry's absence." Niall’s face lit up into a shit-eating grin as Harry's jaw
clenched. "Oh, and it’s a thing about being in hotels, I have to sleep naked –”
“All right,” Harry snapped. “Isabel and I will go together. You’re fucking unbelievable,
Niall.”
“Not my fault you’re acting like a fucking child, H,” Niall replied cheerily. “Sharing a bed
with her doesn’t mean anything.”
Harry ignored him, walking over to his suitcase and pulling the zipper open. He left all his
clothes in there, but the things he needed for the marathon - the documents, his asthma
stuff, his running shoes - were taken out and placed carefully side by side on the desk.
Isabel sat on the bed and watched him, her heart tugging.
“So tonight we’ll just get food in the restaurant downstairs,” Niall said, flicking through
the channels on the television. “Tomorrow we can go round and explore, then Sunday’s the
marathon, then Monday we go home.”
“Nothing too strenuous, yeah?” Isabel replied nervously, watching Harry’s back as he
rearranged his items on the desk. “We don’t want him to be too tired for the marathon.”
“We’re in New York, for fuck’s sake!” Niall said loudly, throwing down the remote with
dramatic indignation. “I’m not letting Harry’s first time abroad be spent lounging in the
hotel.”
“What do you wanna do, Harry?” Isabel asked as Harry came and sat at the edge of the
bed, twisting his fingers together in his lap.
“I wanna go up the Empire State Building,” Harry said slowly. “And then go to Central
Park. And the Statue of Liberty, and ground zero." He took a deep breath, and paused for
long enough Isabel thought he'd stopped speaking when he suddenly blurted out: "And
Greenwich Village. And definitely some of the museums. And the Rockefeller Center. And
could we go to Ellis Island? I read in the guide book we could get a joint boat trip to the
Statue of Liberty as well.”
“Why do you want to go there?” Niall scoffed, but he was looking at Harry so fondly that
Isabel wouldn’t have blinked if Niall tried to kiss him.
“It’s all about immigration and stuff, it’s really interesting,” Harry replied, and he was so
poorly concealing his excitement that Isabel and Niall glanced at each other, holding back
smiles. “I just thought it would be cool? Also there’s the Museum of Natural History, like
the one from Night at the Museum, we don’t really have to go there but Cally said if I didn’t
go he’d never speak to me again. That’s the museum in Catcher in the Rye as well so I…
Oh! And there’s Brooklyn, obviously, we could cross the bridge, and of course Times
Square, and we –”
“That’s too much,” Isabel said, patting him on the arm. “You’ll be tired. You have to rest
before the marathon.”
“But I… okay,” Harry said, his face falling, the corners of his mouth pulling down. “What
am I allowed to do then?”
“We’ll do a couple, the least taxing ones,” Isabel said, and he nodded, pouting a bit.
And so that’s what they did. After dinner they went to bed straight away, wanting to kill
the jet lag before it hit them too hard. Isabel curled up in bed with her back to Harry, the
sheets clutched under her neck in fear that they'd touch in the night.
But of course they did.
Then the following morning they woke up early, shoved some pancakes - or in Harry’s
case, a huge, anaemic bowl of porridge - down their throats, and then they set off armed
with cameras and maps and guidebooks into the city. They went to the Expo first to
register Harry for the marathon and pick up all the things he needed, and then they waited
in line to go up the Empire State Building for two hours, a time which Niall assured them
he would absolutely never let them forget seeing as he was “forced against his will up this
piece of shit building”. Niall and Isabel silently agreed the wait was worth it, though, when
they got to the top and Harry was practically quivering with excitement. He walked around
the viewing platform eight or nine times, a couple of times slowly and silently, drinking it
all in, and then a couple of times faster, stopping every now and then to take a picture or
point out things he recognised to them.
“It’s so cool from up here,” he said, looking at Isabel with his eyes shining. “It looks so
different from up here.”
And Isabel smiled back, her heart still thumping at the memory of the morning, when
she’d woken up with Harry’s arm slung around her waist and his head on her shoulder, his
leg between hers. They’d both known that he couldn’t sleep next to her without latching
onto her like a koala bear, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. It only made her smile a
bit wider, her heart beat a bit faster, and she was sure Harry felt the same way when he
grinned at her and squeezed her hand every now and then, as though he was reassuring her
he was there.
After they were done with the Empire State Building, they walked slowly up 5th Avenue
and stopped to buy lunch from a supermarket, finding a vacant bench in Central Park and
sitting cross-legged on it. Niall and Isabel had spent about half an hour choosing the most
American food possible - Hershey’s and Cheetos and Kool Aid - while Harry dug into his
enormous pasta salad and scowled jealously. It was cold, and they sat bundled up in their
jackets with red running noses and hats shoved down past their ears, but nobody minded
that much. In fact, nobody really minded at all.
When they were done they kept walking through the park until they got to the Met, and
even though Isabel knew nothing about art, both the boys were looking at her so hopefully
that she pretended she was up for it. They spent hours in there, and Isabel couldn’t
possibly work out how you could stare at one painting for so long, but Harry did it,
standing in front of it and tugging his lip between his fingers until it was red raw.
“Do you know who this one’s by?” Harry asked Isabel quietly when she came to stand
beside him, smiling at her as she bit down on her lip and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I recognise it?” she offered.
“Warhol,” he said with a little nod, looking back at the painting.
“He painted Marilyn!” Isabel said excitedly, her own knowledge surprising her.
“Yeah,” Harry confirmed. “And Jagger, and Liz Taylor, and Ted Kennedy. And Mao.”
“Mao?”
Harry grinned. “Yeah.”
Harry laughed when she screwed up her nose, and before she knew what she was doing she
shuffled closer and rested her head on his shoulder.
“You’re so happy this weekend,” she said contentedly, staring at the Warhol in front of
them. Harry paused and then withdrew his hand from his pocket, slipping his fingers
through hers.
“I am. I’m really happy,” he agreed. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her palm and
pressed his cheek against her hair, and they just looked at the painting for a while,
perfectly, silently content. “You know Warhol got shot?”
“He did?”
“Yeah. He didn’t die though, but he went mental after I think. He was a bit obsessed with
death.”
“Obsessed with death?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why did he paint pictures of soup?”
And Harry laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
~~~
Isabel woke up with a jolt in the middle of the night, and she realised after a moment of
bleary-eyed confusion that her head had been on Harry's chest, and he'd shifted her in his
attempt to get out of bed.
"Harry?" she mumbled, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"Shit," Harry said, whirling around to face her. He was in the midst of pulling a t-shirt on,
and it remained bunched up around his elbows as he muttered, "Is, go back to sleep."
"Why are you awake?"
Harry paused awkwardly. "I can't sleep," he whispered eventually. "I mean, I was
sleeping. But I woke up and I can't get back to sleep."
"Where are you going then?"
“Walk around for a bit, go and get some water.” He held her gaze for a moment, caught in
a moment of deliberation. “Do you … want to come?”
Isabel didn’t even have to think before she nodded, and she climbed out of bed as he threw
on his t-shirt and retrieved some small change and the spare key card from the bedside
table. Then they left the softly snoring Niall and set off down the hotel corridor in silence.
The hotel was quiet, the only sound being the buzz of the lights above their heads as all the
guests lay sleeping behind their doors. Harry glanced at her briefly but said nothing,
running a hand through his hair and exhaling loudly.
There was a vending machine by the nearest set of lifts and Harry bought himself a bottle
of water, taking a big gulp before handing it to Isabel. She accepted, aware that they still
hadn’t said a word to each other since they’d left the room, and when Harry placed his
back against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor she joined him.
His hair was all matted on one side from where he’d slept - or at least, attempted to sleep -
and his eyes were slightly bloodshot. He sat with his knees up by his chest, and he rested his
chin on them as he watched her drink.
“Why can’t you sleep?” Isabel asked, her voice low even though they’d not wake anyone if
they spoke normally.
“Nervous,” Harry replied shortly, pinching his lip. “Just give me half an hour, I’ll be fine.”
Isabel nodded. “As long as you need is fine,” she told him before taking another sip of the
water. She offered it back to him but he shook his head, leaning back so his head was
resting against the wall and looking at her contemplatively.
“So I have a question,” Harry said after a while, smiling softly as she wiped her wet lips
with the hem of her t-shirt.
“Go for it.”

“You see the guy you were with in summer?”
Isabel raised her eyebrows at him. “Harry…”
“I’m just curious!” Harry said, holding his hands up. The smile hadn’t left his face, and he
seemed surprisingly light-hearted about whatever he was going to ask, so Isabel allowed
him to continue with a small nod. “What did he look like?
“Uh…” She screwed up her face as she tried to remember. “He was tall. Brown hair, I
think.”
“Ah,” Harry said, nodding knowingly and pressing his lips together.
“What?”
“Just checking.”
“What?”
“If you have a type.”
Isabel rolled her eyes and Harry grinned sheepishly at her. “I think you’re the only person
in the world that actually thinks having a type means anything at all.”
Harry tried not to keep smiling but he couldn’t help it. “You’re ridiculous. And plus, this
doesn’t change the fact that you went for a guy that looked like me.”
“Wrong.”
“The facts say different.”
“He was actually better looking than you.”
Harry’s jaw dropped in mock offence. “Well, that cut me deep,” he said flatly, pressing a
palm to his chest. “What was this pretty boy’s name again?” Isabel glared at him and
Harry smirked deviously. “Hmm? What was that?”
“Shut up.” Harry laughed, bowing his head briefly and wrapping his arms around his
knees, and he looked so sweet that Isabel smiled too. “Did you go for girls that looked like
me?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I tried that ages ago, it didn’t work.”
“Why not?”
He paused. “Because they’re not you.”

Isabel gulped and then looked down at the carpet, fixated on counting the number of swirls
in one square of carpet before she said something she’d regret. …Six, seven, eight.
"How many did you get with?” she asked after a moment. She wasn’t even sure she cared
about Harry’s summer escapades anymore, but she wanted to say something that wasn’t I
fucking love you so much it hurts.
“Four,” Harry replied, and when she looked back at him she saw the smile had faded. “In a
week. Well, in two months really, because I didn’t get with anyone else all summer. And I
only had sex with two of them. But yeah, they were all in a week. Two in one night,
actually.”
“Wow,” Isabel said, nodding like she was impressed. “Like that was it?”
Harry scowled. “Nah. I don’t… I wouldn’t.”
“You’ve never had one?” Isabel exclaimed in surprise.
“Why would I?” Harry responded, resting his chin against his knees again.
“I just assumed.”
He shrugged. “They don’t appeal to me. At all.”
“Isn’t it like, every boy’s dream? Two girls and all that?”
Harry just looked at her for a moment. “Not mine.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just… it’s not for me,” he said after a moment’s contemplation. “I’m not gonna
pretend I’m all about the intimacy and emotion when you’re with someone you don’t
know, but still. It’s like - you don’t want to leave feeling like you could have
been anyone. Or that you were second best, and they didn't really want you.”
“Really?”
“I like it being just two people,” he said with another shrug. “It’s just you two and you
want them and they want you and even if they’re thinking about someone else or whatever,
at least they’re…pretending to want you and only you. It’s just you and them and that’s it.”
He licked his lips, blinking a few times as he held her gaze. “I’ve always thought it’s nice
having someone want you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So it’s never been about quantity. It’s just… that feeling of being everything to someone.
You see?”
Isabel smiled. “How very poetic of you, Styles.”
Harry exhaled a laugh, shaking his head. “Thanks.”
“A man of many talents.”
“You flatter me.” He grinned at her, tilting his head to the side as his gaze flickered across
her face before he said: “You know, the first thing I did when I got home from Manchester
after my week with Zayn was get a haircut.”
“Yeah?”
“It was too long, wasn’t it?”
“I thought so.”
He nodded sagely, but a smile was still pulling at his lips. “Is that poetic too?"
“Is it?”
“Cutting off the past, new beginnings, et cetera. A stop feeling fucking sorry for
yourself kind of moment?”
She pretended to think about it, rubbing her hands across the hotel floor carpet. “Maybe.
A bit fucking pretentious though."
"Fuck you."
She laughed and he smiled, gazing at her with eyes clouded with what she could only think
was longing, and when he spoke again his voice was sad.
“I didn’t stop thinking about you,” he said quietly. “Not once.”
Isabel’s mouth went dry, but she still managed to say: “I know. Me too.”
Harry sighed, picking at the hem of his t-shirt. “Sucks.”
“Yeah,” Isabel whispered. “It really sucks.”
~~~
“Tell me everything.”
Isabel sighed, running her hand through her hair. “So they told me not to come.”
Niall scowled. “Why?”
“They think Harry’s not good enough for me.”
“Bollocks.”
“I know.”
“Who even are they anyway? Why do they feel they have to get involved?” he asked
angrily, shifting in his chair and biting down on his nails. Isabel ran a hand through her
hair again and frowned.
“I don’t know, Niall,” she muttered. “They just really don’t like Harry.”
“Who in particular?”
“Lyd’s all right, it’s Millie and Scarlett really, they were the ones who came in while I was
packing and told me not to come,” she explained. “They hadn’t even spoken to me since the
gym fiasco, you know. But when they heard I was coming from Lydia they pounced.”
“What do you mean they haven’t spoken to you since the gym? That was weeks ago!”
She shrugged. “I don’t really spend much time at home anyway. I go to Rory's, or Caitlin's,
or I’m at work. Or in the library.”
Another time and Niall might have teasingly called her a loser, but now he just ran a hand
across his face as Isabel picked at her napkin, and when his hand dropped to the table he
eyed her seriously. “Okay, Is, I’m gonna tell you something now. I’ve only told the boys
about this, but I think it’s time you knew.”
Isabel swallowed nervously. “What is it?”
“When Millie and I shagged…” He drifted off, biting down on his lip.
“Yeah?” she prompted, intrigued. Millie acted like Niall was the antichrist half the time,
and the topic of their one night stand was strictly taboo despite Isabel’s best efforts.
“I might have… I mean I fell asleep.”
Isabel blinked at him. “Huh?”
“I fell asleep during,” Niall said again, more assertively, and this time when he spoke a
small grin spread across his face. “It was an accident, but I was tired, you know? And she
was boring the shit out of me.”
“Are you being serious?”
“I felt so bad,” he went on, biting down on his lip to stop himself smiling. “But then she’s
not exactly a ray of fucking sunshine is she?”
Isabel put her head in her hands, trying not to laugh. “Niall!”
“I couldn’t help it! I was knackered!”
“That must have been so embarrassing for her!”
“Well I didn’t tell anyone, did I?” Niall defended, and Isabel thought about telling him that
the boys did actually count as telling someone but she thought better of it. He sat back in
his seat and craned his neck to get a glimpse of the marathon coverage on television.
“They’re shitty friends to you, Is.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled, not wanting to get into this again, and reached for her phone to
refresh the fancy tracker app on her phone that said where Harry was in the race. It was
half twelve now, and his race had started at half ten, and given where he was on the course
she didn’t expect it would be much longer before he finished. “He’s doing well, Niall.”
“Sick,” Niall grinned. “Should I get the bill?”
She nodded, her eyes glued to her phone. The New York marathon had turned out to be
completely different to the London marathon, and it seemed so unfamiliar that she hadn’t
been able to settle properly all day, even though when he’d set off this morning, Harry had
been completely calm.
The starting line was in Staten Island, so Harry had had to catch the bus from Lower
Manhattan with the other runners on his own because friends and family weren’t allowed
at the start line. Seeing as the course was so spread out - not vaguely cyclical like the
London marathon – and coupled with the fact that neither Isabel nor Niall knew where
anything in New York was, the three of them had decided it was best if Niall and Isabel had
brunch and waited until the fancy tracker app informed them that Harry was near the
finish line before they went to meet him there.
None of them had known until yesterday at the Expo how independent Harry would have
to be this time. The irony wasn’t lost on Isabel that she’d worried so much about Harry
relying on her, when he didn’t even have the chance to. He’d unwittingly chosen a race in
which he’d have to do it on his own whether he liked it or not, and with the lightest of
hearts, Isabel knew that he was doing just fine without her. This time, he was strong
enough on his own.
“I can’t believe how well he’s doing,” Isabel said after Niall had paid and the pair of them
were leaving the restaurant in the direction of Central Park. “It’s unreal.”
“I know,” Niall agreed.
"After Adam and everything..." She trailed off, biting down on her lip. She looked over at
Niall, his cheeks bitten red in the cold November air and his coat wrapped tightly around
him. "Do you think he's okay?"
"Yeah,” Niall said firmly, without even having to think about it. “I think before Adam…
before he passed on, Harry was getting over it, you know? He was accepting that he was
gone already, so now it's just like closure in a way. I really think he'll be okay, Is." He
paused, glancing at her and digging his hands into his pockets. “You know, I don’t really
know what happened with you two, but I know that Harry would give anything to be back
with you.”
Isabel swallowed and looked away from him. “Things just didn’t work out the first time.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “And I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert on relationships, or
on Harry, or on you, but I think just cos it didn’t work the first time doesn’t mean it won’t
work the second time.” He smiled, nudging her with his elbow. “Or the fourth or the eighth
or the twenty-eighth time. If something takes a lot of work, it doesn’t mean it’s bad, does
it? Took Da Vinci four years to paint the Mona Lisa, you know. And it probably took
Picasso a couple of days to paint Starry Night, but people still stand around staring at them
both.”
She blinked at him, taking a moment to let this sink in, and then smiled. “Did you just use
an art metaphor for me and Harry’s relationship?”
He nodded proudly. “Yes I fucking did.”
“What is it with you pretentious art boys and your metaphors?"
For a moment Niall just stared blankly at Isabel in confusion, before he slung his arm
around her shoulder and grinned at her. “Whatever. Just let me revel in the glory of how
brilliantly it worked.”
And she did.
~~~
Harry crossed the finish line with a time of three hours and twenty-eight minutes.
He was sweaty and exhausted when he finished, and Niall and Isabel took him back to the
hotel and shoved him in the shower before he could insist they go out and do something
else. The whole time, though, he was beaming, a huge, tired smile plastered to his face, and
when he came out of the bathroom with shaggy, damp hair in sweatpants and a jumper,
clapping his hands together and insisting they go out and do something else, Niall and
Isabel stared at him in alarm.
“Harry, you can’t be serious.”
“It’s only four!” he said brightly. “Let’s go. What do you wanna do, Is?”
“I don’t wanna kill you, for starters.”
“Isabeeeeeeel,” he whined, pouting helplessly. “I’m fine, let’s go!”
Isabel looked at Niall helplessly, who shrugged. “Well I’m going out for dinner with my
dad later. He wants to see you, Harry, but we figured you’d be tired.”
“Of course I want to see him,” Harry replied instantly, standing up a little straighter.
“Let’s do that! Let’s go out now and meet him later.”
“Why don’t you have a nap now?” Isabel suggested. “And then we can meet Niall’s dad
later. You don’t want to fall asleep over dinner.”
Harry couldn’t argue with this logic, and almost as soon as he climbed into bed he fell
asleep, curled up into a little ball with his mouth hanging open and his hair falling into his
face. Niall went to sleep too after a while, but Isabel couldn’t even contemplate sleeping.
She ran her fingers through Harry’s damp hair absent-mindedly as she thought about
what she would say when she had an opportunity to speak with him privately. More than
anything she wanted to check if he was okay, if beneath the big smile and excitement he
was feeling all right about the marathon being over, about the trip in general, about Adam
dying. They hadn’t spoken about Adam since the phone call before the funeral, and Isabel
definitely didn’t want to push him to until he was ready. But somehow, she knew he was
okay. He definitely wasn't great, and he probably wasn't even good right now, but he was
okay. Like Niall had said, Adam's death was closure, and without him ever having said it,
she knew closure was what he had wanted. What he needed.
Quite a big part of her wanted to talk to him about them, too, because there was a them, she
was certain of it. We’ll sort everything out they’d said on the phone, and she’d never wanted
anything more in her life, wanted it so much that her hands shook and her mouth dried up
and her heart pounded in her chest.
They’d agreed they would sort it out. They were going to talk it through and sort it out,
and the light at the end of the tunnel which had been dimmed and flickering like it was
going out now flared up and sparkled with the promise of hope.
~~~
On the subway home from the East Village after dinner with Niall’s dad, Harry held her
hand.
They’d met Niall’s dad in a hideously posh restaurant, and if Isabel had been nervous,
looking down at her dress and thick woolly tights apprehensively, Harry had
comparatively had a poorly concealed heart attack. He’d shuffled about anxiously,
wringing his hands and avoiding meeting anyone’s gaze, as though eye contact alone would
give away his cover, reveal he’d definitely never been in anywhere half as expensive as here
in his life. He’d tugged on the neck of his sweater - his smartest one, as requested by Niall -
as if it was strangling him, and when they’d been directed to the table where Niall’s dad
was waiting for them, he’d tripped over his own feet.
It hadn’t taken long after that for Isabel to work out why Harry was so in awe of Danny
Horan. He’d insisted they choose whatever they like on the menu, and nearly had Harry’s
head when he’d spluttered his order for a side salad. Danny had ordered a steak for him
instead, pretending to bat Harry over the head with the menu, and it was then that Isabel
had decided he was her new favourite person.
He was funny, swore like a trooper, and he and Niall were so similar in their mannerisms
and speech habits that Isabel found the two of them faintly hilarious side by side. They
both gesticulated when they spoke, and talked with food in their mouth, and laughed like
they’d never heard anything funnier, clutching their stomachs and throwing their heads
back, and Harry just watched Danny in awe. Isabel supposed that Harry saw people with
money as far off, distant creatures: the mothers who only shop in Waitrose and only buy
organic, the private school kids with designer school bags and iPhones from the age of six.
But Danny was loud and funny and kind, and he asked Harry lots of questions - about his
degree, his parents, the charity; nodding sagely at the answers and giving Harry as much
time as he needed to speak. And when Harry mumbled something about keeping track of
the money he’d been loaned, how it was all in his little book and he’d pay it back as soon as
he could, Danny just clapped him on the back and said “I know mate, I know.”
And now they were on the subway and they were holding hands. Niall had said he was
going to the bar with his dad for a bit and that he’d probably be back late, so it was just the
two of them. They were sat in comfortable silence, and Harry was holding her hand in his
lap whilst yawning a lot and rubbing his eyes. Isabel just brushed her thumb over the back
of his palm and tried not to focus on how hard her heart was beating, because if she did she
thought she’d go mad with it, mad with expectation, mad with hope.
“You’re so tired,” Isabel pointed out when they got in and he immediately crawled up the
bed and flipped over, collapsing down onto his back. “You did so well.”
His eyes were shut but he smiled. “Thank you.”
“How do you feel?”
“Good,” he said, biting his lip and opening his eyes, watching her standing there watching
him. He hesitated before holding out his arms to her like a child, and she walked over to
him, climbing onto the bed beside him and burying her face in his chest, curling her knees
over his legs. “It feels - uh, a bit sad I guess,” he went on, and she knew he was talking
about Adam now, “but it doesn’t hurt too much. I always felt like doing the marathon
would be the way to let him go, you know? Like run something in his memory, confirming
that he's gone. That’s why I fucked it up the first time, cos I wasn’t ready. But I - this was
the way to let him go, and I feel like I’ve done it.”
She nodded into his chest, sighing when he ran his fingers up and down her spine lightly.
“You’ve done it, Harry.”
"I think it'll hit me soon and I'll be sad for a little bit. But I'm fine right now."
"Good. It'll be okay to be sad when that happens, you know. It’s okay to be sad
sometimes."
He swallowed and then exhaled shakily. “You’re so good to me,” he said quietly, his voice a
little raspy. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to make it up to you.”
She sat up, placing a hand on his chest to push herself up to face him. “You don’t have to
make it up to me.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, his eyes flickering between hers. "But I –"
“Harry, I’m not here because I think one day you’ll pay me back for it.”
“I just - okay,” he conceded, pulling her back to his chest. He pressed his face into her hair
and kissed her head lightly. She let her eyes fall shut, listening to his heart beat steady and
hard under her ear. “Waking up these past few days has been so good,” he mumbled.
“I know,” she replied quietly, because it really had been. Waking up tangled with Harry
was probably one of her favourite things in the world.
He kissed her hair again. “Isabel, thank you so much for coming.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad I did.”
He sighed contentedly, and for a while they just lay there, Harry pressing kisses into her
hair and running his fingers up and down her back until she thought she might fall asleep.
“Is,” he whispered. “I wanna shower again before I fall asleep.”
He pushed himself up off the bed and stretched as he shuffled towards the bathroom,
reaching over his shoulder and tugging off his jumper and shirt. She stared at the duvet so
she wouldn’t have to look at him, scared that without him she already ached to have him
back, but she knew that he had paused by the bed because of the shadow on the covers.
“Do you… do you want to come with me?” he asked nervously.
She looked up at him, their gazes locking, her heart beating in her mouth, and the seconds
dragged out as the air weighed heavy between them, knowing that her answer could change
everything. No, it would change everything, and maybe not for the better. Maybe if she said
yes it would be the final straw, the last push off the precipice so that she fell and fell with
nothing to catch her. Maybe if she said yes she’d be throwing away her last chance at sanity
without him. Maybe if she said yes she’d be ruined by him forever.
“Yeah.”
End Notes:
well...... see ya next week friends!
Back to index
Author's Notes:
that was then and this is now
November
Isabel waited until she heard the shower turn on before she started to undress, taking off
all her clothes one by one and folding them carefully on the chair by the bed. She was so
scared that she felt faint, but the thought of his touch had her walking into the bathroom,
her knees weak and hands trembling.
Harry stood under the shower with his head hanging so that his hair fell in front his face,
water battering onto the back of his neck and sliding down his shoulders to his chest. He
pushed a hand over his cheek and slid his fingers up to claw his hair back, before resting
his palm over his face as the water beat down on him.
It was a posh shower, the type where you walk in past sheets of glass and try your best not
to slip with nothing to hold onto. Isabel clung to the flat glass with shaking fingers and
stepped towards him, but he didn’t hear her. He stood with his back to her, his head still
hanging.
With her heart pounding, her legs shaking, her mind racing, she closed the space between
them and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his back and spreading
her fingers flat across his stomach, kissing his spine. Initially he jolted in surprise, but then
he seemed to slump even more, his fingers intertwining with hers and his head falling
forward on his neck.
She kissed each bump of his spine on the back of his neck, running her nose along the
ridges and pressing her lips to the cut of his shoulder blade. When she pulled away he tried
to grab her, gripping her hands tightly and making a little disgruntled sound, but she
shook him off. Bending down to pick up his shampoo, she smiled when she saw he had
turned and was frowning at her anxiously.
“I thought you were getting out,” he mumbled, and she shook her head at him. He looked
so exhausted, his body slouched and his shoulders slumped, but his eyes were bright and
alert as he watched her squeeze his citrus shampoo into her hands.
“Here,” she whispered, standing on her tip-toes and running her hands through his wet
hair. He closed his eyes, exhaling through parted lips and wobbling slightly on his feet. She
was so close to him that their noses were almost touching, and the urge to kiss him was so
strong it knocked the breath out of her. It had been so long that she’d almost forgotten
what it felt like.
“Wash it out, Harry,” she told him, kissing the tip of his nose and giving him a little pat on
the shoulder, and he stumbled backwards until his head was right under the water. He
reached his arms up to tease the shampoo out, and it was almost torturous the way he was
standing facing her so that she could see the muscles in his torso stretch as his arms went
up, the rise and fall of his chest, the strain of a vein beneath the skin of his neck as he threw
his head back. She stared at him unabashedly as she rubbed shampoo into her own hair,
trying to breathe normally as she drank him in, wondering how on earth she hadn’t
collapsed into the floor yet.
Isabel stepped forward, sliding next to Harry so she was under the water too and their
bodies were almost close enough to be pressed together. It occurred to her then that neither
of them even needed to wash their hair, but Isabel supposed she just wanted to smell like
him, and now all she could smell was him, that tangy citrus smell everywhere that was so
heart wrenchingly, unbelievably familiar she could have cried.
Her eyes were shut as she raked her fingers through her hair, so she was startled and
flinched when Harry pulled her arms down gently. He slid one arm around her waist,
pulling her closer to him so their chests were flush and their toes brushing, and she could
feel he was hard, pressed against her stomach by the proximity of their bodies, but she
pretended not to notice. His other hand traced through her hair for her, his fingers sliding
across her scalp gently as he washed the shampoo from it. Her head fell to his shoulder, not
caring if she got shampoo in her eyes, and she clawed his chest like he was the side of a cliff,
her nails making half-moon dents into the skin.
“All clean,” Harry whispered to her, and she could tell he was smiling before she even
pulled away from his shoulder. She smiled back, watching little trails of water slide down
his face like raindrops on a window, dripping from his bottom lip. She edged her fingertips
up his chest so they were wrapped around his neck, pulling his hair through her fingers
and watching the way his eyelashes tangled under the spray of the shower.
Harry leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. “I've missed you so much,” he
told her, his breath landing on her lips as he tucked her hair behind her ear and trailed a
finger down her neck.
“So much,” she said back, and she wondered how she managed to say it because she was so
close to crying that her throat hurt.
He tilted his head slightly so that their lips brushed, but neither of them really kissed the
other, and suddenly all Isabel could think then was that she couldn’t. She couldn’t do this,
because she was so scared she could actually feel herself splitting in two right there, a fault
line splintering its way down her torso and cracking her in half, the separate parts of her
loosely held together by Harry’s arm around her waist.
“Can I kiss you?” Harry asked, gripping her tighter, and Isabel thought that if she said no
he would completely crumble. Their noses were brushing and their breath tangling in the
centimetres of space between them, and Harry looked so desperate, his eyebrows puckered
and his lips pushed into a pout, that she nodded.
Harry swiped his tongue out to moisten his lips before dipping his head, brushing his
mouth against hers briefly as her eyelids fell shut. He pulled away for half a second before
doing it again, this time for longer, and it was so gentle, so soft and uncertain that she could
barely even feel the heat of his lips against hers, barely feel the chapped roughness of them
that she’d missed so much. When he went back the third time, though, she could feel that
his mouth was parted now, his breath hot and heavy, and it really was more of a press
rather than a brush this time so that she had to lock her arms tighter around his neck to
keep herself standing.
She could feel how hard he was breathing and it was funny because she was barely
breathing at all, and then his tongue swiped her bottom lip and her heart slammed against
her ribcage and she fisted his hair tightly and stopped breathing entirely, letting him prise
her mouth open.
She’d kissed him lazily and slowly before, in the morning when they didn’t want to get out
of bed, or after they’d just had sex and were both tired and smirking. She’d kissed him
hard and frantic before, in the stairwell of his house when nobody knew they were sleeping
together, in the hotel in London, in the tent at Liv’s uncle’s campsite. But she’d never
kissed him like this, when she felt as though he was kissing her like it was the last thing
he’d ever do, gripping her waist with one hand and cupping her cheek with the other,
pressing his fingers down slightly so she could feel the dent where he held his pencil in his
middle finger against the hollow of her cheek.
She wasn’t surprised to find she was crying, tears seeping from behind her closed eyelids as
she fisted his hair and pulled him closer. His tongue was warm and unbearably soft in her
mouth, both of them shivering and gripping each other so tightly it nearly hurt, and when
her teeth scraped his bottom lip, she wanted to hear that little sound he made in the back of
his throat every day for the rest of her life. And all of it hit her like punches to the chest,
smacking her right over her heart.
His hand left her face, trailing down her side and ghosting between her legs so that she
gasped loudly, her mouth halting against his. He pulled back to scan her face carefully, his
eyes wide and concerned, and whatever he was looking for he found because then his hands
were snaking around her thighs and he was lifting her up, wrapping her legs around his
waist and pressing her back against the cold wall. She hooked her ankles together as the
water hit the side of them, Harry’s left and Isabel’s right, and she tried to swallow back the
sob that was rattling inside her chest.
“Isabel,” he said, his voice breaking as he looked at her with blown black eyes, burning in
their intensity, and her heart spasmed then froze when she realised what he was about to
say. “Is, I lo–”
“Don’t!” she gasped quickly, resisting the urge to press her fingers over his mouth. “Don’t
say it!”
He licked his lips, blinking at her, and he tried and failed not to let his face fall. “Okay.” He
seemed to lose confidence then, pulling back slightly and loosening his grip on her legs. "I,
uh... Do you still want to –?"
She nodded fiercely, because the only thing more terrifying than this happening was
this not happening, and he nodded too, sweeping kisses up her jaw. He rubbed his hand up
and down her leg, listening to her breathing shift as warmed her skin beneath his palm and
broke the blood vessels under the skin of her neck with his lips, and even though she was
trying to stop crying so much that her chest ached but she couldn’t stop herself wanting
him with every single inch of herself, her whole body yearning for him in a way it never
had before. All over her body, her hair was standing on end, a distinct shudder racing
through her with every lick of his tongue against her neck, hot like there was fire under her
skin.
"Yeah?" Harry asked, his teeth grazing her cheek as he pressed himself even flatter
against her, and it was the vaguest question in the world but she knew what he meant,
nodding in the absence of her ability to speak.
He shifted her against the wall and gripped her thigh tightly as he pushed himself into her,
catching her lips in another kiss when she winced, his tongue swiping its way into her
mouth. He gasped against her tongue, gripping the grouting between the tiles with his
fingertips, and she breathed deeply as she tried to push past the discomfort, focussing on
the sound of the water pummelling Harry’s arm as he held her up.
Harry grunted and redistributed her weight on his arms so that he went even deeper. She
whimpered and gripped the skin of his wet back, water pulsing through her fingers, and
tried to ignore how hysterical she was but it was building, building, building up like a
fucking volcano, and she had to pull away from him, leaning her head back against the wall
and biting down hard on her lip.
Harry stopped. “Don’t cry,” he told her, kissing the corner of her mouth gently, and she
hadn’t realised it had been so obvious given the water, but he was staring at her with his
brows pulled together in concern and she finally let out a little sob.
“I’m so scared, Harry. I’m really sorry.”
“I know,” he said quietly, like he understood, but he didn’t know at all because he hadn’t
cried in four years.
She took a moment to collect herself before she kissed him again to let him know it was
okay to keep going. Once she started, she couldn’t stop: she kissed the edge of his jaw and
underneath his ear and the curve of his Adam’s apple, bit the skin of his shoulder and the
dent above his collarbone, just kept kissing and kissing until he was mumbling her name
and his arms were trembling. At first she thought he might be about to come, but then he
started wincing and shuffling about, his breath catching as he tried to hold her up and his
feet slipping on the wet floor. Eventually he pulled out and put her down, stumbling away
from her until his back was against the glass wall opposite her, his palms flat against it and
his chest heaving.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a little breathless laugh, his cheeks colouring pink with
embarrassment. “I’m so tired, it hurts, I can’t –”
“It’s okay,” she said gently, closing the space between them and smiling softly, pushing her
hands across his chest.
“I’m so sorry, Is.” He gulped, barely able to look at her as he ran a hand through his hair.
“Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“You ran twenty-six miles. It doesn’t matter.”
He met her gaze when she trailed her fingertips across his hot cheek and smiled at her
tiredly, leaning forward for another kiss, but she moved away from him to turn the shower
off. When she turned back, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him slowly,
his wet hair dripping onto her face, and when she slipped her hand between them he bit
down onto her lip and choked suddenly, bucking his hips forward into her hand.
“Oh God,” he mumbled, grabbing her waist and kissing her hard, stifling a groan against
her tongue. She pulled and twisted her fist between them until he was so robbed of breath
he had to draw back, letting his head fall to her shoulder as he moaned against her skin
and twitched beneath her palm.
“You should stop now,” he mumbled, but he pulled her closer as he did so, shivering for
reasons entirely other than the fact they were both still wet and the warm water was off.
She was momentarily surprised that he was reacting like this from only her hand, but then
they hadn’t been together in so long, and he hadn't been with anyone for months.
"Isabel..."
She pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “It’s okay.”
“I wanna … wanna be with you.”
“It’s okay.”
“Please… I wanna –”
“It’s okay, we will.”
“Oh fuck – wait, no, Is –”
“You’re okay, Harry.”
His teeth scraped against the skin of her shoulder, the muscles locking in his arms and his
back arching slightly. “Fuck,” he whispered, and when he said it, he said it so quietly it
might as well have been a secret: “I’m gonna... oh fuck –"
“I know, it’s okay.”
He jerked as he came, swearing into her skin and gripping her so tightly she could feel her
skin bruising, and Isabel listened to him in awe, her heart beating so hard it felt like her
insides might bruise, too.
He started kissing her as soon as he was done, keeping his arms locked around her so that
there was no space between them at all and rubbing his hands up and down her sides until
she forgot she was cold, until her skin was burning beneath his palms and the heat between
her legs was back.
“Let’s go,” he said against her lips, taking her hand and holding it firmly as they got out to
make sure she didn’t trip.
He dragged her over to the sink, grabbing a face flannel and wetting it under the tap before
wiping it across her stomach and fingers gently, cleaning up the mess he’d made as he
kissed her shoulder and tucked her hair behind her ear. He did the same clean up to
himself before leaning in and kissing her again, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth
and smiling when she gripped his arm and sighed.
They started kissing before Isabel even properly sat down on the bed, and this time there
was nothing hesitant and soft about it - they were nipping and licking and moaning,
Harry’s body pressed completely over hers as they lay down with their legs dangling over
the edge. His hands were everywhere, making up for all the months he hadn’t touched her
as he traced and stroked and squeezed every single part of her, his ears ringing when she
whimpered, his hands shaking and his heart throbbing, and it didn’t take long before he
was hard again.
“Are you sure?” she asked him when he hooked her leg over his waist, kissing her knee.
She raked her hands through his hair, trying to ignore the heat of him between her legs
and choking out: “You’re tired.”
“If I don’t when I had this chance I think I’ll die,” he said, and before either of them could
say anything else he was inside her, gripping the back of her thigh and clenching his teeth
as he rolled his hips against hers.
She didn’t feel anxious like she had in the shower anymore, she just felt excruciatingly,
blindingly good because this was Harry and his tongue was hot against her neck and she
had thought for a long time this would never, ever happen again. It wasn’t long before she
was struggling to breathe, and she was mumbling his name and digging her nails into his
arms, and her back was arching against him, and she was so, so close - and then she heard
him.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he was saying, shaking his head wildly against her neck. His hips
stilled and he drew back, pushing himself up like he was going to move right away from
her, and in pure alarm, Isabel grabbed blindly for him, her whole body trembling,
suspended.
“Hmm?”
“I can’t.” It was clear he was panicking: he looked completely terrified even though his
eyes were barely open and his mouth wouldn't stay shut. She put more pressure on his
back with her heel so that he’d roll his hips forward and a snarl ripped from the back of
his throat, bunching the duvet in his fists. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Calm down,” she breathed, stroking his face and kissing him as he let out a little tortured
whine, his arms shaking as he held himself up above her.
“I don’t want it to be over,” he gasped, but it was too late and they both knew it.
When she didn’t respond, he dipped his head and kissed her fiercely, his eyes squeezed shut
and his breath coming out in sharp gusts which made it difficult to kiss properly at all,
their mouths meeting in a blurred collision that had Isabel so hot she felt like she was on
fire, but she couldn’t push him, not yet. She knew him - she’d memorised every tiny
reaction months ago, and she knew that the clumsy pull of his teeth against her bottom lip,
the hot fans of air through his nose, the quake of his hands, meant he was done for. She
didn’t need to push him, because he was just as close as she was, and there was no going
back now.
Finally, with a strangled sound against her lips, he gave in, grasping the sheets by her head
and knocking his hips flush to hers so forcefully she whimpered. His forehead dropped to
hers, his breath on her lips, his free hand on her waist, and all of a sudden, she could feel
emotion bleeding out of him like she’d slashed right over his heart, like with every touch
and every kiss and every sound she was bathing in it, every inch of her skin soaking in it.
It happened so quickly after that. He snaked his hand between them to get her there faster,
his teeth grazing her lips as her body tensed and her breath halted in her chest and her eyes
fluttered shut as she came, and it was only then that he let his head drop away from hers so
that it rested against her chest, his forehead wet with water and sweat, and he hissed in a
loud, gulping breath.
“Oh I love you so much, I love you so much,” he wheezed, and he said it again and again
until he choked over the words as he came, completely running out of breath and
collapsing on top of her.
They stayed like that for a while, neither of them moving so much as an inch. Harry’s face
was buried into her neck so that she could feel his eyelashes brushing against her as he
blinked his eyes open, and his arms shifted to wrap tightly around her waist, holding her as
close as possible. She said nothing, just tried to regain her breath and allow her heart a
moment to calm down as she let him press kisses along her neck, right from her collarbone
up to her jaw, his lips soft and light and gentle.
“Harry,” she murmured, a smile playing at her lips, and when he lifted his head level with
hers, she was surprised to see his eyebrows were pinched together, his eyes wide and
anxious.
“It can’t be over,” he said, his voice cracking. “Please, Is. I can’t stand it anymore.”
“It doesn’t need to be over,” she said quietly, running her hand up and down his arm. He
gulped and shifted so that he was lying down next to her, their heads on the same pillow,
just centimetres apart.
“I feel like it is,” he replied, swallowing loudly as his eyes scanned her face. “Why did you
cry if it’s not over?”
“Because I … I’m just scared.” He nodded like he understood and kissed her before she
could explain, pressing his lips to hers briefly before pulling away. “I’m really scared we
won’t work this time because if we don’t I - I don’t know if I’ll be able to be okay after."
“I know,” he whispered, his lips barely moving at all. “I know, baby.”
She exhaled shakily. “Harry, of course I don’t want it to be over. I can’t stop thinking
about us.”
“Me too,” he replied, pulling the covers right over their shoulders and kissing her again.
“God, you have no idea.”
He looped an arm around her and ran his fingers up and down her bare back, blinking at
her for a while before suddenly letting out a little laugh, his cheeks colouring. “Sorry that it
was over quick,” he muttered, his gaze dropping away from hers. “I haven’t had sex since
August.”
“It’s okay,” she replied, biting down on her lip over a smile. “You were still all right.”
“All right,” he grumbled, pressing his face hard into the pillow and pouting. “You could
never just boost my ego a little, could you?”
“Someone’s gotta knock you down a couple of pegs,” she said, smoothing the crease
between his eyebrows. He glared at her, squeezing her hip.
“Mean.”
Isabel jutted out her bottom lip jokingly, poking his cheek. “Don’t cry.”
“I think we’ve just established you were the one crying,” Harry said, a lazy grin stretching
over his face when she scowled and pushed his face away from her.
“There’s still time for me to change my mind and hop into bed with Niall,” she told him,
laughing when he rolled his eyes and screwed up his face in distaste. When her thumb
gently swept across his lips, though, he sighed, his eyes lulling, and if Isabel could ever have
chosen a moment to capture and remember forever, it would be that one.
“You’re ridiculous,” he mumbled, and she smiled so much she thought her face might split
in two.
Harry yawned, the corners of his eyes bunching up and his nose wrinkling, and for some
reason that alone made her heart swell enormously beneath her ribcage, and she knew then
that she didn’t have a choice anymore. She had to be with Harry. There was no other way.
“We have to make it work,” she whispered, as if she said it quietly that it would make it
less scary, less unlikely somehow. She ran her fingers across his cheekbone, over his closed
eyelids, through the hair brushing against his forehead. “We have to.”
“We will,” he replied just as softly, opening his eyes to gaze at her seriously as his thumb
drew circles onto her back. “I’m not gonna let either of us fuck it up. I promise you, it’s
gonna work.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, yeah, I promise.” He swiped his tongue across his lips. “Fuck, I promise.”
Isabel faltered, taken aback by how sincere he was. "How do you know?"
Harry waited for a while, blinking lazily at her and then reaching up a hand to trail his
fingertips across her cheek. "Remember that fancy dress party we went to? And you were
dressed as Alice in Wonderland and I gave Zayn a black fucking eye? Yeah, well just
before that party I spent nearly two hours with Zayn talking about you. And when we got
there I was so nervous, and I didn't even know what I wanted to say but I just had to be by
you, you know? I just wanted to touch you, just be next to you." His fingertips danced
lightly across her cheekbone, his breath warm on her face. "And it was so fucking scary,
feeling like that. Like I - you know, like the tide's dragging me out; that sort of feeling. So,
so scary." He paused, smiling a bit as he tucked her wet hair behind her ear. "But it's not
scary anymore. And that's how I know."
She swallowed harshly, her eyes burning with the promise of tears again, and she leaned in
and kissed him before the threat was substantiated. She wasn’t sure how long they kissed
for but it was lots and lots of time, until the corners of her mouth hurt and her head was
swimming and his arm got so tight around her waist he was squeezing the air out of her.
“I’m so much better,” Harry breathed when they pulled apart, and Isabel realised her
fingers were wet from wringing the water out of his hair. “I’m getting so much better now,
Is.”
“I know.” She smiled, wiping her wet fingers across his cheek so that he winced and tried
to nudge her hand away. It took a while, with a lot of grumbling on his part and Isabel
giggling loudly, but eventually he managed to catch her fingers and bury their clasped
hands under the duvet. When the laughter subsided, she surveyed him carefully, biting
down on her lip, before asking, “Do you want to talk about Adam?"
He hesitated, biting down on his lip. "I do. But not today, not for a while maybe. I talked
about him so much with my parents when I was home and I just want some time to
breathe, you know? Like… I don’t know. Live for myself a bit."
"Yeah, of course.” She smiled again when he squeezed her fingers as a thank you. “There’s
so much time, Harry, we’ve got so much time."
Harry nodded as Isabel let go of his hand and reached up to push some hair away from his
face, letting out a little breath before saying, “Really, all I want is us, Is. I don’t care about
anything before or after, I just want us.” He paused, running his tongue across his
glistening lips and blinking at her, his green eyes burning. “I’ve never wanted anything so
much in my life.”
She nodded. "Me too, you have no idea.”
He smiled softly, letting go of her hand to rub his thumb over her lips as his eyes raked
over her face. “Beautiful girl.”
He was so sincere that her bottom lip trembled, her heart thumping like it was trying to
jump out of her chest towards him, and she felt entirely overcome with emotion all of a
sudden that she couldn't say anything in return, just stared at him in what could only be
described as awe.
Harry yawned again, so exhausted his eyelids looked like they weighed a tonne, but still he
moved his head forward to kiss her, trapping her lower lip between both of his before
dipping his tongue into her mouth, a small whine catching in the back of his throat when
she clutched his hair tightly.
“We have to start from the beginning, okay?” she said when he drew away to kiss down
her neck. “We went so fast last time.”
“Anything you want, baby,” he mumbled into her skin. “I’ll do it any way you want.
Anything you want.”
“We have to start from scratch.”
“We will.”
“I mean it. We have to.”

“I know,” Harry said, bringing his head up and pressing a kiss to her mouth, just once.
“We will. I mean it too.”
“You can’t say ... you can't say it."
Isabel knew that Harry immediately understood which three words she was talking about.
He blinked at her, hesitating to agree for the first time. “I … okay.”
“I just… if we’re going from the start, we need to go slow. We can’t say it if we’re starting
from scratch. It’ll just be like jumping in fast all over again and I think we… I think we
need to start from the bottom and work our way up.”
He pulled his lip between his teeth. “Okay,” he agreed, nodding slowly. “It doesn’t make it
any less true though. I feel it more everyday.”
“Me too.”
He drew her in closer, closing his eyes and tucking her head under his chin. “I think about
the future all the time now, you know,” Harry murmured. “After uni, I mean. You know I
don’t know what the fuck I want to do, but I want to be with you.”
“I know, same. Me too.”
He squeezed his arms tighter around her. “We’ll go slow, okay, baby? We’ll go so, so slow.
We’ll make sure it works. And when we say it, everything will be perfect. Promise.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
She pressed her lips over his heart, clamping her eyes shut tightly and hoping, praying with
every part of her that this was it, that from this moment they were okay, that they would be
okay.
And then, a thought occurred. "Harry?"
"Mmm?"
"Who painted Starry Night?"
"Van Gogh."
"Oh," Isabel replied quietly. “Yeah.”
Harry was too tired to even question what she was talking about, and maybe she was over-
tired, too, because as soon as she asked she wondered why she felt like it mattered at all.
Harry just pulled her even closer, his face buried into her hair, and Isabel pressed her nose
against his chest and let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding.
“Fuck, I’m so happy,” Harry sighed, and that’s the last thing either of them said before
they fell asleep.
End Notes:
WELL
how we all feeling now??? :)

Back to index
Author's Notes:
frisky first dates
November
“Are you seriously telling me you’re wearing that to a date?”
“It’s not a date, Rory,” she told him for the thousandth time, but he wasn’t listening.
“You could have at least worn a dress,” he grumbled. “What’s the point of wearing jeans?
Why do you insist on wearing denim all the time?”
“I promise you Harry’ll be wearing jeans too,” she said, but she looked in the mirror above
the mantelpiece nervously now, adjusting her shirt. “Probably ripped ones, too.”
“How did he rip them?” Meera asked pensively, looking up from the papers on the table.
“He bought them with rips in,” Isabel said with a laugh.
Meera frowned. “Well he should have taken them back.”
Isabel glanced over to Rory on the sofa and they exchanged a smile.
“Are you nervous?” Rory asked, frowning as she looked back at the mirror.
“No,” she mumbled, swallowing loudly. “I don’t know. Maybe. No.”
It was a half lie. She wasn’t nervous about seeing Harry, but she was nervous about this
date situation. As much as she was telling Rory and Meera it wasn’t a date, it kind of was.
It had been three weeks since the marathon, and she and Harry had only seen each other a
handful of times. Harry had been busy with his exhibition, as had Isabel with the film
festival, and they’d both agreed it was best to give each other space. And then at work,
things were tentative between them, shy smiles and playing with each other’s fingers under
the table. That’s as far as it had progressed: there’d been no proper kissing. Not yet
anyway.
On the weekend they hadn’t spent any alone time together either, just gone to the pub or
slobbed about at the boys’ house with the others. And as much as Isabel loved being with
everyone, she’d wanted some privacy with Harry as well. Neither of them knew what things
would be like now they were together, but she wanted them to figure it out and not have
their only moments together be in the suffocating confines of the shoe booth, or in the car
home from work, or a few seconds alone in the kitchen before someone bounded in.
The only respite was that they texted constantly, sometimes even when they were in the
same room. They peeked over their phone screens, smiling at each other in silent delight,
and they texted way into the night, until Isabel's thumbs hurt and her eyes burned from the
brightness of the screen in the dark of her room. It felt like a secret somehow, like they
were fourteen and had school in the morning, and in those texts Isabel learned more about
Harry in three weeks than she had in eleven months. It was all silly things - that he was
listening to Muse’s Hysteria the first time he kissed someone, the fact that he hated broccoli
more than anything, the story of when he had his first ever asthma attack during the 100m
sprint on sports day in Year 4. And she told him, too, about the time James whacked her
over the head with a branch and she had to get stitches in her eyebrow, about how she and
Louis had got together, about how scared she was of graduating. It went on for hours, and
they both knew everything they were saying was unimportant and trivial in the grand
scheme of things, but somehow that made it even more exciting, like each fact or story or
secret was a gift that the other pressed into their skin until it was embedded there forever.
There was only one instance in three weeks that she and Harry had been alone together out
of choice, and that day had come nearly a fortnight after the marathon. That day was also
Adam’s twenty-fourth birthday.
It had been setting out to be a fairly uneventful Thursday when Isabel answered the phone
to Harry and accepted without hesitation his request to come to the pub that evening. The
pub around the corner from Liv and Caitlin’s house had been so often frequented by their
group that the landlord gave them free drinks if they stayed past twelve, and it didn’t seem
like there was anything special about the invitation at all.
It was only when Isabel met the others at the pub that evening, having come straight from
the library with a bag so heavy it landed on the floor with a crashing thud, that she realised
this was not just a Thursday, but it was an occasion. Because it was 8pm and Harry was
already drunk.
This might not have been especially alarming if it weren’t for the fact that the rest of them
were tipsy at best, and as soon as Isabel walked in she knew they all knew something she
didn’t. She sat down opposite Harry and smiled at him, and he grinned back, his eyelids
drooping and his skin flushed, and when Liv slid her phone across the table towards Isabel
with the words ‘Adam’s bday today’ typed in on a note, Isabel’s mouth dried up.
Harry was quiet, just drank until he ran out of money and then stared dazedly at the table
for the rest of the evening. The rest of them humoured him, chatted and kept up a jolly
pretence like they hadn’t noticed he was completely out of it, like they hadn’t stopped
drinking about two hours before him. And when they left, Harry slung his arm around
Isabel’s shoulder and leaned into her as they said goodbye to Liv and Caitlin, walking
unsteadily down the drizzly road back towards the boys’ house.
“Annual tradition,” was all he said, and then he didn’t say anything more.
When they got back to Harry’s he asked her to stay over, and she didn’t have any classes
the following day so she agreed, mumbling her answer, her heart thumping. Finally, they
were alone - just the two of them in his room with the door shut, but Harry didn’t seem to
have noticed. It took nearly ten minutes for him to wriggle out of all of his clothes, giggling
like a child when his jeans got stuck around his ankles and he nearly toppled headfirst into
the wall. Isabel was already in bed by the time he was ready to go and brush his teeth, and
he tripped back after a long while with a wet mouth and chest, like he’d managed to throw
water all over himself in the process. He kissed the tips of his fingers and muttered “Happy
birthday, bro”, pressing his hand to the wall of the chimney breast to steady himself as he
swayed on his feet, before finally collapsing face first onto the bed next to Isabel.
“Okay?” Isabel whispered after she’d turned the light off, yanking the covers from
underneath Harry and throwing them over his back. He nodded into the pillow.
Adam had died on the twenty-first of October, just over three weeks before his twenty-
fourth birthday. There was no way Harry was okay, but Isabel nodded back even though
he wasn’t looking at her, and then she burrowed down under the duvet next to him. He was
breathing hard, like there wasn’t much oxygen in the room and he had to gulp in order to
get it, and she smoothed her hand across his back gently in an effort to make him feel
better. She wasn’t sure whether it even helped a little bit, but she did it anyway.
“I feel like…” Harry started after a while, his voice muffled by the fabric his face was
pressed into. He shifted so that his cheek was pressed against the pillow and his face
towards Isabel, but he kept his eyes shut. “I feel like this day’ll al–” he hiccoughed “–
always be sad even when… even when I stop being sad all the time.”
Isabel was surprised by how sophisticated this statement was given Harry’s inebriated
state, and so it took a moment for her to respond. Perhaps for the first time, Harry seemed
to recognise that getting over Adam didn’t mean he could never be sad again, and Isabel’s
heart lifted, positively brimming with hope.
“I think you’re right.”
“Y’know when you eat loads,” Harry went on, reaching up a hand and wiping over his
mouth roughly before letting it fall on the pillow beside him, “and you think fuck, ‘m never
gonna eat again. ‘nd you can’t remember what being hungry’s like.”
“Yeah?”
“’s what being sad used to feel like,” he said. He sighed heavily, his eyes still shut, and
Isabel shut hers too. “Doesn’t feel like that anymore. Is that bad?”
“I don’t think it’s bad at all. I think it’s so good.”
Harry hiccoughed again, before adding in a small voice: “Don’t wanna forget him.”
“You won’t,” Isabel said firmly, and by the time she’d thought to tell him that the people
we love never leave us and that people live forever in our memories, Harry was asleep.
So when Isabel said she wasn’t nervous about the apparent date between her and Harry, it
was a half-lie. Because she was excited about seeing Harry when they weren’t working or
drunk or surrounded by other people, but she was scared too. This felt like the first proper
step after weeks of tiptoeing, the first proper conversation after weeks of typed ones,
however constant, on a little screen.
Isabel took one last look in the mirror and then went to sit in the armchair across from
Rory. “He’ll be here soon, I think. He said he’d ring me when he’s outside.”
She bit down on her nails and looked at the pair of them lounging across Rory’s sofa. It
was just past six and she’d come over to Rory’s straight after her afternoon seminar to do
last minute film festival organisation before the big event tomorrow. Isabel couldn’t
remember ever being more stressed about anything in her whole life; she’d lost so much
sleep over this film festival that even Millie had noticed she looked tired, but the three of
them had resigned themselves to the fact there wasn’t much else they could do and had
ended up discussing how Meera's boyfriend had invited her to stay at his parents’ house
this Christmas, and how Isabel’s outfit was not date appropriate.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Meera started, “on me and Luke’s first date he took me to
Alton Towers and threw up after we went on Oblivion.”
“So as long as you’re not sick, you’ve done better than Luke,” Rory added with a laugh.
Somehow, this wasn’t encouraging, but before Isabel could reply, there was a knock on the
door. Rory barked for them to come in, and then the door opened and Harry’s head
popped around it, grinning at Isabel and mouthing ‘hello’ before stepping properly into the
room.
She’d only seen him once since Adam’s birthday, an evening at work that had been so busy
she’d barely had a moment to look at him, so she drank him in now, her eyes raking over
his face like she’d never seen him before. Her heart sped up in her chest like it always did,
drumming a quick rhythm against her ribcage like it was reminding her it was there, and
when Harry smiled at Rory and Meera, Isabel smiled too, like there were strings at the
corners of his mouth that were connected to hers, like her body was wired up to his. That's
what being in love is, Isabel thought, her palms sweating. It's finding yourself smiling like a
fucking idiot for no reason other than that they’re smiling.
“I hope it’s all right that I came in,” Harry said, extending his hand politely towards the
pair of them. “Your housemate let me in, Rory. He was naked.”
“He does that a lot,” Meera replied with a serious nod, taking his hand. “I’m Meera.”
“Is has told me all about you,” Harry said, licking his lips a little. “It’s brilliant to meet
you.”
Isabel thought for an alarming moment that Rory wouldn’t take Harry’s hand, but he did,
looking at Harry with a steely glint in his eye. “Rory,” he said bluntly.
Harry nodded and glanced over at Isabel nervously. “So, um. What have you three been up
to, then?”
“We were doing last minute stuff for the festival,” Isabel replied, gesturing to the papers
that were strewn on the floor by Meera's feet. “But we gave up and got distracted.”
“What by?” Harry asked, sitting on the arm of the chair beside her.
“We were talking about –”
“Wearing ripped denim,” Rory interjected, eyeing the hole in the knee of Harry’s jeans.
“On a date.”
Harry coughed into his fist. “I um - well, I guess I didn’t think about it. I don’t own
anything other than jeans.”
Rory didn’t bother to reply.
“He’s being grumpy, ignore him,” Isabel told Harry, knocking her knuckles against his
thigh as he gulped, his cheeks reddening. “If we did things his way I’d be wearing a floor
length ball gown.”
“Excuse me for trying to bring some romance to proceedings."
Isabel snorted. “He’s been watching too many Garry Marshall films,” she said to Harry,
before glaring at Rory. “And for someone who dishes out a lot of advice, you don’t follow it
well. When was the last time you actually properly went out with someone?”
Rory jumped to his feet. “Off you go on your date now,” he grumbled, but he struggled to
keep a straight face smile when Meera and Isabel laughed at him. “Go on, get out.”
“It was lovely to meet you,” Harry said again as they made their way out. “I’ll see you both
tomorrow I’m sure.”
Isabel hugged the pair of them, giving Rory a harder squeeze than necessary so that he
yelped. “See you tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’ll text you later to make sure
everything’s ready.”
“Don’t think about it too much, don’t worry yourself,” he replied, patting her fondly on the
arm before practically shoving her out of the door.
“They seem nice,” Harry mused when they got outside, slipping his fingers through hers
without hesitation as they walked to his car.
“Rory’s an idiot,” Isabel replied, and then she glanced up at Harry, smirking. “Still jealous
of him?” Harry screwed up his face, his cheeks colouring for the second time in minutes,
and Isabel laughed. “What are we doing this evening, then?”
“My mum finished work at 4:30 and my dad picked her up from there, so they should get
here at nine-ish,” Harry replied, rubbing his thumb against the back of her palm. “So we
have about three hours.”
“We could run another marathon?” she suggested with a laugh, and Harry raised his
eyebrow.
“Well, if we’re taking New York as the standard, I could actually run more than one, if
we’re being picky.”
“Yeah, if we’re being cocky.”
He laughed and shoved his key into the passenger door of his car, opening it for her before
going round to the driver’s side and getting in himself. It took several attempts to start the
ignition, and Harry swore under his breath, knocking his fist against the steering wheel.
“Car’s fucked,” he explained quietly. “I reckon the next trip up to Cheshire will kill it.”
“Oh,” is all Isabel replied, because there wasn’t much she could say. She anticipated that
the day the car finally died would not be a good day by any stretch of the imagination.
Once the ignition finally started, Harry looked up at her, pinching his lip between his
fingers and blinking at her with wide eyes.
“What?”
He gulped nervously. “We’re not doing anything special,” Harry told her, drumming his
hands against his knees, and Isabel got the impression this wasn’t what he’d wanted to say.
“Just going back to mine.”
“That’s perfect.”
“I, um,” Harry started, holding her gaze apprehensively. “I was just wondering about
something.”
“What?”
He gulped. “Is this… are you - you’re my girlfriend, yeah?” Harry asked.
For a moment, Isabel was taken aback. But then she registered the anxiety painted across
his entire face, the longing in his eyes for her to say yes, and she was sure that he'd been
thinking about this far too much in the three weeks since New York, working himself into a
state. If there was one thing Harry would never be, it was worry-free - he’d never stop
overthinking things, or winding himself up in his anxiety, or being a little shy sometimes -
but that’s who he was, who he’d always been, and she wouldn’t have him any other way.
And so, it was only after a moment's pause that she rolled her eyes and said, "Of course I
am, you idiot.”
Harry smiled, his whole face lighting up, the skin by his eyes bunching up. “Oh. I mean,
okay. Good.” He laughed nervously and she laughed too. “Thank you.”
There were a million things Isabel could have said to that, her breath catching in her throat
for a second as he squeezed her knee in what seemed like actual gratitude, but she held
herself back before she got emotional in the record time of five minutes.
“You’re welcome,” she said, and he laughed brightly as he released the handbrake and
drove off.
~~~
“Sorry it’s a mess,” Harry said as they walked into his kitchen, scrubbing a hand through
his hair. “I’ll just clean this shit away.”
“What’s this?” Isabel asked, looking at the things strewn across the table. There was an A3
size map of Europe at the centre of the table, a red jagged line drawn across the continent
in marker pen, and Isabel spotted a list written in Harry’s handwriting before he drew her
attention back to him.
“It’s just, uh, my plans for summer,” Harry muttered, his hands fluttering over the table as
he started to tidy it up. “My parents are buying me an interrail ticket for my twenty-first.
Gonna go all around Europe.”
“That’s so cool,” Isabel said, leaning back against the counter, and Harry looked up at her
quickly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, definitely. I’d love to do that.”
Harry paused, looking at her for a moment before he smiled, gathering everything in his
arms and hugging them to his chest. “I’ll go shove these upstairs. D’you wanna make tea? I
think Zayn’s here too, I’ll just see what he’s doing tonight.”
Isabel set to it but Harry returned before the kettle had even boiled, wrapping his arms
around her waist from behind and resting his chin on her shoulder, kissing her neck. Her
whole body jolted, like he had pressed an anatomical on-switch, and she was suddenly
aware of the blood pumping hot under her skin and the ferocity of her nerve-endings, how
they sparked in the places he touched her.
“They’re going on a date later,” Harry laughed into her ear.
“Who?”
“Zayn and Niall. They’re going to the cinema so we can have the house to ourselves.”
Harry tucked her hair behind her ear and then went over to the fridge to get the milk out.
“And when I say ourselves, I mean with Phoebe and Cally too.”
“Oh good, I thought I was gonna be stuck with just you all evening,” Isabel teased, and
Harry pouted as he came back with the milk.
“You better be nice to me so I’ll go easy on you,” he said as he poured the milk into the tea.
Isabel’s heart did a somersault, her mind racing with endless possibilities as she blinked at
him in alarm.
“Huh?”
“I’m about to thrash you at a board game of your choice,” Harry explained, grinning
wickedly at her. “I’m being deadly serious, by the way, I’m good at all of them.”
“Which ones can I choose between?” Isabel asked, praying for Cluedo. She was the
unbeaten Cluedo champion in the Allen household.
“They’re all in here,” Harry said, passing her a mug and opening one of the cupboards to
reveal a selection of haphazardly stacked games.
“Why on earth do you have board games in the kitchen?” Isabel asked, laughing as
the Jenga box fell out and smacked Harry on the chest. “Why do you have board games at
all?”
“They make sick drinking games,” Harry said, rubbing at his chest and flinging
the Jenga box to the side. “Honestly, we’ll play Monopoly one day, it goes on forever so you
get smashed, and there’s always lots of throwing money about and embezzlement. And
strip Articulate is fun too.”
Isabel nodded but was barely listening, her eyes zoning in on the Cluedo box. Harry
followed her gaze and smirked. “You sure about that one?”
“Oh, yeah,” Isabel said, sitting down at the table and cracking her knuckles. “This is my
forte.”
“Well, all right,” Harry conceded, pulling it out of the cupboard and bringing it to the
table. “Just don’t get angry when I win.”
Harry set up the board, choosing Colonel Mustard as Isabel selected Professor Plum for
herself. Apart from the questions they asked each other, they played in relative silence, and
Isabel watched Harry with a smile pulling at her lips, trying her best not to laugh at him.
He was frowning, pinching at his lip furiously and scribbling on his paper much more than
seemed necessary, and every time she answered a question he’d nod seriously like she’d
just presented him with a particularly difficult maths problem.
“Got it,” Harry said quietly after a ludicrously short amount of time, and Isabel raised her
eyebrows at him in disbelief.
“Pardon?”
“It’s Miss Scarlett, in the dining room, with the lead piping,” Harry told her, opening the
envelope calmly and displaying the cards one by one. Lo and behold, he was right.
“How did you do that?” Isabel spluttered, looking down at her own paper. She’d guessed it
was Miss Scarlett and she was certain it was either the lead piping or the rope, but she
didn’t have a clue about the room yet.
Harry shrugged, already reshuffling the cards at lightning speed. “You’re easy to read. I
told you, I’m good at this game.”
They had four rematches. During the second Isabel thought she nearly had it only for
Harry to beat her to it, quietly announcing the three cards with confidence and then
turning them over and grinning at her. After that, though, she got into her stride, learning
how to read him and the little moments of triumph in his face when he worked something
out as well as he was able to read her, and they were in a moment of particularly heated
competition during the fifth game when Zayn loped in. He took one look at the two of them
sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, poised over the board with matching
faces of intense concentration, and gagged.
“You two make me sick,” he announced, staring between them incredulously. “Aren’t you
meant to be like… having make-up sex or something?”
Harry put down his pencil in indignation, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what’s
wrong with Cluedo, Zayn?”
“You’re not eighty, for starters.”
“Clearly you’ve never played Cluedo with Harry, Zayn,” Isabel told him, grinning at Harry
as Zayn looked at the pair of them gloomily, “it’s absolutely wild.”
Zayn blinked at them blankly as both of them laughed, and then he shook his head,
running a hand across his face tiredly. “Okay, whatever, I’m not gonna pretend I
understand how the pair of you work.” He shuffled off to the fridge and withdrew a bottle
of water. “I’m just saying, I didn’t endure months of Harry moaning for you two to end up
as the most boring couple in the world.”
Harry tilted his head to the side curiously. “So are you saying you would prefer to have
walked in on us having make-up sex on the table?” He raised his eyebrows when Zayn
scowled. “Well, bit voyeuristic of you, Zaynie.”
Zayn flashed him his middle finger. “Fuck you. And I’m off out, see you later.” He made
his way towards the hall, muttering over his shoulder, “Don’t do anything too crazy, like
watch a film rated 15, or sit with your knees touching on the sofa.”
“Have fun on your date!” Harry replied, calling cheerfully to him as he made it to the
hallway. “Make sure you sit in the back row so when you give Niall a blowjob nobody
sees!”
Zayn’s only response was a loud slam of the door, and Isabel laughed. “He’s in a great
mood.”
“He and Caitlin had a massive fight yesterday and now she’s not speaking to him,” Harry
explained, running a hand through his hair and holding her gaze for a moment before
looking down at his paper.
“Reverend Green, the kitchen, the rope,” he offered, beaming, and after looking at the
cards she sighed and silently accepted defeat, shuffling off to the sofa with a pout. Harry
followed her with a smile on his lips, collapsing down next to her and trying his best not to
look smug.
“If you say ‘I told you so’, I’ll kill you.”
“Never,” Harry said sincerely, but he smiled as he leaned across and kissed her cheek.
“Next time I’ll have you.”
“‘Course,” Harry said without sarcasm, pulling at the corner of her mouth with her finger
until she smiled and batted his hand away. “What do you want to do now?” Harry asked,
brushing his fingers across her knee. “We have forty minutes before I should order the
pizza.”
“I don’t know,” Isabel replied, smiling as his eyes flickered to her lips and his fingers
paused on her knee before he extracted them and coughed into his fist, looking away from
her. He’d been so good over three weeks, never once trying to make a move on her or being
in the least bit suggestive, but his cheeks were flushing and the temptation to tease him, to
voice the exact thought that was evidently whirring through his brain, was too much.
“What could we do in forty minutes?”
~~~
“Let’s watch the film now now!” Cally suggested, shoving the DVD at Harry. Isabel peeked
at the title that was just about visible between Harry’s fingers and laughed. The Princess
and the Frog.
“Harry knows all the words,” Phoebe told Isabel helpfully.
“This is true,” Harry said, glancing at Isabel and catching the smile on her face. “Of course
I do, who do you think I am?”
Cally wriggled around beneath the duvet. “Will you sing it for us, Harry?”
“Oh yes, please do, Harry?” Isabel pushed with a smirk.
“Not a chance,” Harry grinned, inserting the DVD into the player before turning to face
the three of them wrapped up in the duvet, hands on his hips and eyebrows raised. “Where
am I meant to go?”
“At our feet like a dog,” Isabel suggested, and Harry mock-scowled when they all laughed.
“Don’t gang up on me,” he grumbled, crawling up the sofa and muscling his way between
Cally and Isabel, clambering under the covers awkwardly and then pulling them up to his
chin.
Before his family had arrived, they’d ended up lying on the sofa for their spare forty
minutes talking about Harry’s interrail trip across Europe, their legs tangled, their faces
close together on the armrest. Despite Harry’s frequent examinations of the map, his
proposed route didn’t make sense geographically to Isabel, so she suggested a different one:
instead of starting in Amsterdam and going straight across to Italy before wending his way
back to Spain, Isabel said he should start in Barcelona and work his way north before
heading out east to Italy. Harry nodded solemnly, absently plaiting her hair strands of her
hair as he listened, and occasionally he’d ask a question - “is Vienna worth visiting?” “Do
you think Switzerland will be too expensive?” “Do you think I should go to Rome or
Venice?”.
When he’d exhausted his questions, they’d somehow found themselves whispering about
their respective Christmases, only three and a half weeks away now. Harry had dismissed
his with a shrug and a surly “it’s fine”, much more interested in what she would be doing.
“I’m at my mum’s Christmas Eve,” Isabel had told him, playing with the hem of his
sweater between them. “It’s Swedish tradition on Christmas Eve to open our presents, then
we go to the pub.”
“The pub?” Harry had asked, smiling gently.
“Yeah, then on Christmas Day me and James and Georgia are going to my dad’s. We don’t
do much, just go for a walk then watch TV, really.”
“So we can FaceTime on that day then,” Harry had said quietly, not a question but a fact,
and she nodded, her breath halting when he ran his thumb across her lips. “That’d be
really nice.”
And it was then that she was absolutely certain she would have kissed him had the doorbell
not chimed, announcing his family’s arrival.
“How come you like this film so much, Cally?” Isabel asked, leaning over Harry’s torso to
look at him. Cally frowned as he thought, and for a moment he looked so much like Harry
that she smiled.
“It’s got frogs,” he said eventually. “It’s not all icky love stuff.”
“Harry likes icky love stuff,” Phoebe piped up.
“True,” Harry said quickly, his eyes flickering over to Isabel for the briefest moment.
“You’re missing the film! It’s already late, Mum said you should be in bed by now.”
“Harry likes all the Disney movies,” Cally continued, sitting up on one elbow to speak to
Isabel and ignoring him entirely. “He likes Beauty and the Beast the best, that one’s rubbish
though.”
“All right,” Harry grumbled, but neither of them was done. “Mum’s gonna be mad when
she gets back.”
“Harry always watches Tangled with me, as well,” Phoebe said, pulling on Isabel’s hand to
get her attention. “He says I look like Rapunzel.”
“You do,” Isabel smiled, and Phoebe shrugged in an attempt at modesty.
“Harry loves love stuff,” Cally continued, resting his palm on Harry’s stomach so he could
lean closer to Isabel. “It’s disgusting.”
“He loooooooves love stuff,” Phoebe grinned, and Isabel realised they were teasing him
now, they had to be, because Harry had gone slightly red and he wasn’t looking at any of
them.
“I’m trying to listen to Tiana,” Harry said loudly, catching Cally’s fingers with his and
wrestling with them as Cally tried to yank them away, but Phoebe wasn’t done.
“Harry loves Disney.”
“True,” Harry said. “Okay Phoebe, listen –”
“And he loves flapjacks, we always make them.”
“True, but –”
“And he loves driving.”
“True.”
“And art.”
“True.”
“And he loves reading and his phone.”
“True.”
“And he loves you.”
“True,” Harry said automatically, and Phoebe’s hand flew to her mouth as Cally squealed
and slapped his hand onto Harry’s chest.
“Knew it!” Cally shrieked. Harry just swallowed, unsure what to say for a moment as
Isabel stared at him, and then he shrugged.
“True,” he said again, avoiding Isabel’s eyes as he attempted to push Cally off him, but he
was worked up and over-excited now, and the pair of them ended up wrestling about next
to Isabel, Harry wincing dramatically as Cally aimed kicks at Harry’s stomach which can’t
have hurt at all.
“I knew it,” Phoebe whispered elatedly to Isabel, slipping her hand through hers. “He
talked about you in summer.”
“He did?” Isabel whispered back, more to humour her than anything, but still her heart
soared all the same.
“Yeah,” Phoebe nodded. “And this one time we were in the garden, I heard him telling
Mum that he loves you.”
Isabel’s mouth dried up for a moment, and before she could reply Harry roared: “you
made me miss the best song!” and promptly rewound the entire scene.
They watched the rest of the film without much interruption. Harry and Isabel were
pressed right up next to each other with the backs of their palms brushing, and the entire
time Isabel thought about Harry speaking to his mum about her. Isabel knew Harry’s
relationship with his mum was rocky at best, but he’d gone out of his way to make
voluntary conversation about her. It made her insides feel funny, like they were being
turned inside out.
As the credits rolled, Harry made his way out of the duvet gingerly, and when Isabel looked
over at him she realised Cally was fast asleep, his mouth hanging open and his eyelashes
brushing his cheeks. Harry smiled at Isabel before picking Cally up carefully, his head
lolling against Harry’s chest, and giving a nod towards the stairs for Phoebe to indicate she
should follow.
When Harry came back downstairs a few minutes later dressed in a grey t-shirt and
sweatpants, he clambered back into his spot right next to her despite the fact there was lots
of empty space beside them now, nestling under the duvet and switching the TV over to a
Friday night quiz show as he shuffled as close to her as possible.
“I was thinking, are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked gently as she pulled her
knees up and rested her chin on them.
She wanted to see yes, but she didn’t want to bring the tone down by complaining, so she
shook her head.
“You sure?” Harry pushed, squeezing her side. She looked at him for a moment, replaying
the way he’d shrugged and said “true” in response to Phoebe’s “and he loves you” again
and again, and she wanted to tell him how truly terrified she was about the film festival,
but she couldn’t. She was sure telling him and letting out all of her anxiety would make her
feel better, but she felt silly for worrying about it when they’d had such a nice evening
together, and although it was really important to her, and she’d invested so much time into
it, and she’d never been responsible for anything she’d cared about so much before, that
didn’t detract from the fact it was just a little film festival, after all. She felt a lump forming
in her throat, her heart hammering, and then he was pulling her into his lap, tucking her
hair behind her ear.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyebrows pinched together.
“Nothing.”
He smiled softly. “You can tell me, Is.” She said nothing, just burrowed her head into his
shoulder and inhaled him as he ran his hand up and down her back. “Was it because I
didn’t sing? Should I serenade you now?”
“I think I’m all right,” she mumbled into his shoulder, and he laughed. “You’re shit at
singing.”
“‘S never stopped me.”

“Oh, I know.”
He pushed her shoulder back gently so that she was facing him again. “What is it?”
Isabel swallowed, quickly deciding on a topic that was equally important but detracted
attention from her. “You talked to your mum about me?”
For a moment, Harry blinked at her in total confusion, before he realised what she must be
referring to and his cheeks coloured slightly. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Phoebe knew?” She nodded
and he coughed into his fist, his eyes darting away from hers. “My mum and I are on good
terms now,” he said, his lips barely moving he was speaking so quietly. “We talked about a
lot of stuff in summer.”
“Really? That’s so good, Harry.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through her hair and smiled slightly. “I used to think she hated me,
because she always got so upset with me when I was being an idiot after Adam’s accident. I
mean, how could I blame her? But I did at the time. And she used to think I hated her
because I was so horrible to her.”
“But you’re okay now?”
Harry nodded. “Yeah. Hope so.” He paused and bit down on his lip, a contemplative look
on his face. “My parents aren’t like yours. I don’t swear in front of them or - or talk about
sex or anything like that. They’re not like that. So I think when I was being an arsehole for
the best part of two years they didn’t - they weren’t sure what had hit them. I feel so bad.”
“Anyone’s parents would have struggled with what you all went through. And they’re not
gonna hold it against you, Harry. They understand better than anyone what you were
going through.”
“Yeah,” Harry said after a moment’s hesitation. “Yeah, my mum and I went to visit Adam
together, and we talked about loads of stuff. We’ll be … fine, I think.”
He smiled, swiping his tongue across his lips, and just as Isabel thought he might kiss her,
he pressed his lips to her forehead instead. “I liked hanging out today,” he said with a shy
smile.
“Same,” she agreed. “We should do it again soon.”
He nodded, tugging at his lower lip with his teeth. “So, is this... officially our First Ever
Date?”
“Do you think it is?” she replied. He cocked his head to the side in thought and then
nodded decisively, grinning at her. “Well, then I guess it is.”
“How’d you find it?” Harry asked, tucking his hands underneath her jumper so his palms
were resting flat against the bare skin of her waist. “I don’t really know how dates are
supposed to work.”
“You’re doing fine,” she assured him, rubbing her thumb across one of his eyebrows. “I
don’t really know either, but I like this.” She leaned forward to brush her lips across his, a
careful flash of heat and soft skin before she pulled away. “Thank you, Harry.”
“‘Sokay,” he mumbled, licking his lips before leaning forward to catch her lips again. He
sighed contentedly and pressed another kiss to her lips softly, his hand stroking up her
back beneath her jumper as his lips parted and his tongue curled against her upper lip.
“Harry...” she started with a nervous laugh, drawing back. She’d been the one to insist
they take things slowly, but less than a minute of kissing and she was just about ready to
throw herself at him. All she wanted was to lie on the sofa and kiss him for hours, and the
thought nearly had her shaking.
He nodded, withdrawing his hands from the back of her jumper and letting her off his lap
without protest. She sat beside him, her hands folded conservatively in her lap and her
cheeks hot as she stared blankly at the TV screen, her mind wandering dangerously.
“Heath.”
“Huh?” Isabel asked, blinking at him in confusion.
“Heath was prime minister during the Oil Price Crisis,” Harry answered, gesturing to the
screen.
“Oh,” Isabel replied absently. She followed his gaze, watching as Harry’s correct answer
flashed green on the screen. She nodded. “Cool.”
He laughed, his hand grazing her knee under the duvet. “Cool, yeah?”
She wanted to knock his hand away before she started squirming about, but she liked it
there too much to bring herself to move it so she did nothing, trying to ignore the fact that
her palms were sweating a bit now.
“It’s either Churchill or Blair I think,” Harry said, pinching his lip with his free hand and
frowning, and Isabel blinked harshly at the screen.
Post-1945, which prime minister achieved the largest seat majority in a general election?
“Harry, what the fuck are we watching?”
“But it could be Macmillan,” he went on with a frown, scanning the four options that were
displayed beneath the question and ignoring her, but his hand inched higher until it was
resting against her thigh. “Not gonna be Thatcher, surely.”
“What is this?” Isabel asked hysterically, leaning across him to grab the remote. “Why are
we watching this shit?”
“Hey!” Harry said loudly. “This is improving our general knowledge!”
“Fucking politics is not what I had in mind for this evening,” Isabel replied, switching it
over to the next channel. Big Brother was on, which wasn’t exactly what Isabel had in mind
either, but at least it would be more distracting.
“It’s only this round that’s about politics,” Harry replied with a pout, taking the remote
back and putting the game show back on. “Ah!” he cried and Isabel jumped.
“It was Blair!”
“How do you fucking know this?” She yanked the remote back and flicked it over to Big
Brother.
“I watch the news,” he replied with a raised eyebrow.
“So do I,” Isabel cut back. “I make sure I read the BBC app everyday at the very least.”
“Always room for improvement, clearly.” He prised the remote from her fingers and
changed it back.
“Don’t take the piss!” Isabel snapped. “This is old politics, it doesn’t come up on the
news now does it? It’s history.”
Harry laughed. “You do history as a degree!”
“Fuck off, Harry.” She stole the remote and switched the TV off in protest, burrowing
under the duvet and pulling it up to her chin. “Just because you’re fucking weird and spent
a couple of days on Wikipedia one summer doesn’t give you a pass to act like a smart
arse.”
He laughed again, this time a little incredulously. “You know, that is actually exactly what
I did.”
“I know,” she replied, unable to stop herself grinning at him. “Such a loser. I know you.”
“I know,” he echoed, squeezing the top of her leg, so high up that she did start squirming
about, puffing her hair out of her face and balling her hands into fists. “Are you gonna
turn the TV back on now, Is?”
“I think I’m good,” she replied, trying her best to ignore his hand and the way he was
staring at her.
“Hmmm,” he said, finally removing his hand although he didn’t look away from her. “So
what did you have in mind for this evening?”
She looked over at him then, blinking slowly.
“Remember we had sex on here once,” Harry said, a grin spreading across his face when
she gulped.
“Yes,” she replied haughtily, trying to sound as though she hadn’t been thinking about that
for the past fifteen minutes.
“Mmmm, me too,” he went on, licking his lips. “Well. Good memories, eh?”
“Fuck off.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear, trailing a finger down her neck gently. “I’m not trying
to have sex with you.”
“Oh right, good to know.”
“I just wanna” – he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek softly – “kiss you.”
“We already did.”
“I know.”
He trailed kisses along her jaw, scraping his teeth lightly across her neck. “Do most people
kiss on the first date?” Isabel asked, gripping the duvet between her fists.
“I don’t know,” Harry replied, whispering right into her ear, his lips grazing it. “Most
people aren’t actually together by the first date, though. We’re actually together.”
“Yeah?” she managed, quite unable to say anything more because it was far, far too late
and she knew it. If he didn’t kiss her in a second, she thought she might explode.
He nodded sincerely, pulling back and holding her gaze. “You're allowed to kiss your
boyfriend, you know,” he said, pulling her back onto his lap so that her legs were resting
either side of his and smiling as he ran his hands up and down her thighs. She smiled at the
use of ‘boyfriend’ too, and for a moment they just grinned at each other. “Let’s just kiss,”
Harry went on after a moment. “If you want to.”
She chewed on her lip and blinked at him, wondering how he could even entertain the
possibility she might not want to when she felt as though she might burst into flames at any
second, but her hesitation confirmed something for him and his face fell.
“Okay, it’s fine –” Harry started seriously, edging back away from her in concern, but she
fisted his t-shirt before he could get far, yanking him forward and pressing her lips to his.
He pulled away and grinned before tucking his hand underneath her hair to grasp the back
of her neck and leaning in to kiss her again, nipping her bottom lip when she slid her
fingers into his hair before dipping his tongue into her mouth and exhaling into her mouth
when she reciprocated.
Harry’s free hand was still on her thigh, but it didn’t take long before it slid round to
squeeze her bum and then crept up the back of her jumper so he was stroking the skin of
her back again. She whined a little and shifted in his lap so that he inhaled sharply,
grabbing at her waist to attempt to stop her squirming. His other hand didn’t stop, though,
unable to settle in one place as he clutched at different parts of her, the pair of them kissing
and groping like drunk teenagers, until she was fidgeting so much he could barely breathe.
“Jesus,” he moaned into her mouth, dropping his arm from around her waist and palming
her ass with both hands instead, shifting his hips up to meet hers and groaning when she
tugged at his hair.
She grappled with the bottom of his t-shirt, wanting to feel the bare skin of his chest, and
he yanked it over his head, throwing it across the room and pulling her so close to him their
chests were almost flush, his breath hot on her mouth when he kissed her again. She
gripped his bare shoulders, groaning against his tongue when he jolted his hips up, and
now he was the one pulling at her jumper, about to lift it up over her head when -
“Harry? We’re back!”
Harry shoved Isabel off his lap so quickly she nearly fell off the sofa, yanking the duvet up
so that it concealed his crotch as his parents strolled into the room.
“You okay?”
“Yeah we’re great,” Harry replied huskily, clearing his throat as his cheeks burned red.
Harry had given his parents his key to let themselves in when they got back, but one look at
him now, with his arm clamped over his lap and a blush so strong it must have hurt, made
it clear he regretted this decision.
“What were you two up to?” Harry’s mum asked politely, taking off her coat to sling it
over the edge of the sofa.
“We, uh – we were just watching…” he trailed off dumbly as everyone’s gaze followed his
arm pointing to a very blank screen.
“Ah,” Jane replied after a moment of awkward silence, biting back a smile. “Yeah, I meant
to catch that programme too.” She mirrored Harry’s gesture to the TV and raised her
eyebrows as Harry grinned sheepishly and, out of pure embarrassment, Isabel found
herself struggling not to laugh.
Jane followed Ted towards the kitchen and Harry flopped back into the sofa cushions,
pressing his hand to his face.
“Harry,” Isabel whispered, but he shook his head at her.
“Don’t even speak to me,” he replied, his hand clamped over his face. “Give me a minute.”
That did provoke a laugh, and she kicked her way out of the duvet and shuffled off to the
kitchen. She threw Jane an awkward smile, her cheeks flushing, and Jane just laughed and
shook her head.
“Tea, Isabel?”
“Yes please.”
Isabel leaned against the counter and was engaged in polite conversation by Ted and Jane
about her job with Harry at the bowling alley. The pair of them smiled as she told them
how busy Fridays were, glancing at each other and recounting the days of “working our
arses off for minimum wage” Ted had grumpily pointed out, with lips that quirked up at the
corners, that their situation now wasn’t much different, and Jane laughed brightly,
smacking him on the chest with a tea towel and telling him off for complaining.
Isabel smiled as she watched them. She wondered whether Harry would ever be able to
properly laugh about his economic situation like they did. She didn’t doubt that there were
times when they were inconvenienced, embarrassed, maybe even a little ashamed by it, but
they could laugh about it together, and there was something so nice about that.
Harry came over after a little while, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shirt back on
and his cheeks significantly less pink. He leaned against the counter next to Isabel, yawning
loudly before reaching for her mug to sip her tea.
“How’re you getting home, Isabel?” Ted asked.
“Niall said he’d drop me when he and Zayn get back from the cinema.”
“Their date,” Harry mumbled under his breath and Isabel giggled, glancing at him as he
grinned against the edge of the mug.
“What was that?”
“Nothing much,” Harry replied jovially.
The four of them chatted for a while about Jane and Ted’s evening, and Harry yawned so
much that Ted teased him about setting his bedtime earlier to match Cally’s. Isabel leaned
into Harry’s side, thinking how lovely it was to see Harry in an exchange with his parents
where nobody was tense or upset or offended, and for a moment she wasn’t worried about
tomorrow at all.
“Are you nervous for the festival tomorrow?” Jane asked. And there it was.
Isabel hesitated before shaking her head. She’d rather walk over hot coals than start
moaning to Harry’s parents, who’d been through more than she could ever even begin to
imagine, about something as essentially trivial in the grand scheme of things as her little
film festival. So she kept her mouth shut, and attempted to comfort herself with the
debatable knowledge that a shake of her head wasn’t really lying.
Jane frowned but didn’t question her. “Are your friends coming? Would be nice, for moral
support.”
“Of course her friends are coming,” Harry butted in. “Zayn and Caitlin and that lot are
coming.”
“They’re coming,” Isabel clarified. “My other ... my housemates said they would come,
too.”
As a result of pure curiosity, Scarlett and Millie had started speaking to Isabel again when
she returned from New York, and since then the atmosphere in the house had been politely
frosty, an exchange of frivolous questions about the weather and laughing when they
brushed past each other on the way to the bathroom. It was Lydia, Isabel was sure, who
had persuaded - or more likely, forced - the other girls and Liam to agree to making an
appearance at the film festival, because Lydia was the only one able to hold a conversation
with Isabel long enough to know it was happening in the first place. And so, they were
coming, and although Isabel was apprehensive about them being there, she couldn’t help
but be a little excited that her oldest friends at uni were finally taking an interest.
They all finished their tea with light conversation before Harry went and showed his
parents to Niall’s room; to add to the hilarity of the date situation, Niall and Zayn were
sharing Zayn’s bed tonight so that Harry’s parents could have Niall’s. When he came
downstairs, yawning massively and stretching so that his t-shirt rode up, Isabel was already
tucked back under the duvet.
She reached her arms out for him and he smiled tiredly, rubbing his eyes before grabbing
her hands.
“Come here,” she whispered and she pulled him towards her, lying back on the sofa so that
he followed and rested his head in her lap.
She ran her fingers through his hair, scratching on his scalp gently until his eyes fell shut
and he exhaled loudly through puffed out lips.
“Thanks for kissing me,” he said, his voice small, and she smiled even though he couldn’t
see her.
“That’s okay,” Isabel said, playing with the curl by his ear.
He peeked at her through barely open eyelids. “Are we still going slow?”
“Yep. That was just a relapse.”
“Okay. That’s okay. Whatever you want.”
“We should do that again soon, though.”
“Please,” he exhaled. He pressed his face into her lap and then fell silent, breathing out
through his mouth so that his breath came out like a series of small little sighs.
“You’re so sweet,” she said to him quietly, watching as he curled up into the fetal position
and tucked his hands into his chest, but he didn’t hear her. She ran her fingertips up and
down his spine through his t-shirt and listened to his breathing get deeper and steadier,
certain he would be asleep in a minute.
“Harry? Are you sleeping?” she asked softly, twirling her fingers through the curls at the
nape of his neck.
“Mmm,” he mumbled. “I wanna lie here forever.”
“That’s fine with me,” she said with a smile, and he nuzzled his head further into her,
sighing again sleepily. “Why’re you so sleepy?”
“Been doing exhibition work,” he muttered. “Secrets. Painting secrets. Tired.”
She nearly said “me too” but she didn’t, just brushed his hair away from his face and
listened to his breathing get louder and steadier, felt his head getting heavier and heavier in
her lap until she was certain he was asleep.
But all the way home in Niall’s car, and all the while she was getting ready for bed, and
once she was finally under her own duvet with the lights out, she realised she was so
nervous she wasn’t going to get much sleep at all.
End Notes:
how we all feeling?? :)))
see ya next week! (not long to go now :(( ahhhh) x

Back to index
Author's Notes:
what goes up...
November
In retrospect, Isabel should have known it would all go wrong a long time before it did.
The day started off so well. Everything was waiting for them in the Union when they
arrived, they set up much quicker than anticipated, all of the people running the food
stands were on time, the volunteers helping out were obedient and enthusiastic, the
entrants of the competition arrived nervous and excited.
Caitlin and Zayn and the others turned up just after Harry and his family, the lot of them
introducing themselves to Rory and Meera brightly, and the phrases “this is
amazing!” and “so proud of you, Is!” were thrown around more than Isabel could properly
take in.
Then the audience started to arrive, waves and waves of them, too many even for the chairs
they’d laid out in the union, and Isabel could only put it down to Niall’s fantastically
designed posters because she’d had no idea this many people would come. They’d sold a lot
of tickets, but clearly she hadn’t paid attention to Rory’s bookkeeping because she hadn’t
realised there was this many, and the amount raised for Ted’s charity just went up and up
and up almost tangibly, like there was a flickering counter projected boldly onto the wall.
Amongst the crowd were the judges - Dean Halifax, head of Film Studies at the uni, Tina
Sharpe, editor of the arts section in the local newspaper, and Emily Trawell, student head
of the Union. Isabel, Rory and Meera greeted them all, introduced them to Ted and told
them about Addiction Trust, and nobody fucked anything up or said anyone’s names
wrong.
And then finally, the participants were up the front being cheered and whistled at by their
friends, and the judges were in their seats and the lights went down and Isabel snuck to the
back to slump exhausted into a seat by Harry and his family. Harry looked over at her and
smiled, leaning forward to press his lips to hers briefly.
“You’re amazing,” he whispered, squeezing her hand, and as they turned back to watch
the first entry into the festival, a low budget zombie apocalypse in which the protagonist
seemed suspiciously invincible, Isabel had to take a moment to appreciate how well this had
all gone, because it didn’t even seem real. She looked around just one more time to search
for Millie and the others, and when she knew for sure they weren't there she settled back in
her seat next to Harry and slipped her hand through his.
Months and months of stress, of worried sleepless nights, pacing around her bedroom at 4
in the morning, had all been worth it. It was over, and it was good.
She should have known then.

What goes up…
~~~
“I can’t believe they didn’t come.”
“Leave it, Niall.”
“They’re utter fucking bellends, Isabel!” Niall ran a hand through his hair and swore
under his breath, his face red with anger. “They’re so shit to you!”
“Where are they?” Liv asked, exhaling her cigarette smoke and rubbing her hand up and
down Niall’s arm in an attempt to calm him down.
“I don’t know,” Isabel muttered. It was about five degrees outside the Union building and
she hugged her coat around her as tightly as she could, her breath clouding in the air when
she spoke. “I don’t care that they didn’t come.”
“Well, I do!” Niall snapped.
“And me,” Zayn said, stamping the toe of his boot over his cigarette butt. “They missed the
most important day of your year, and they can call themselves your friends?” He shook his
head, his face steely. “Nah, that’s not on.”
“Let’s just go get some food, yeah?” Isabel suggested, her voice higher than usual because
the four of them had this look in their eyes that was scaring her. “I don’t care, honestly.”
“You do care, babe,” Caitlin interjected. “You were disappointed when they didn’t come,
you kept looking just to check you hadn’t missed them.”
“No, I didn–”
“Issy, stop,” interrupted Liv. “We’re not letting you pretend this one’s okay. It’s time they
were told what awful friends they are.”
“It’s fine, honestly –”
“Well, if you won’t tell them, I will,” Liv cut back firmly. “Where’s Harry?”
“He’s just seeing his family off,” Isabel replied, chewing on her nails nervously. “Look,
listen –”
“They’re at this guy’s party,” Niall said, waving his phone around in Caitlin’s face and
looking over at Isabel. “Who’s Alex Damiani?”
“Niall –”
“If they’re dumb enough to write it on Facebook they get what’s coming to them,” Zayn
concluded, shrugging his shoulders. His gaze shifted to somewhere over Isabel’s shoulder
and he nodded his head. “H, we’re going.”
“Where?” a voice behind Isabel said, and then Harry was next to her, his hands shoved
deep in his pockets as he smiled and bumped his shoulder against hers.
“Alex Damiani’s party,” Caitlin said, as if that explained everything.
“I don’t want to go,” Isabel said quickly, shaking her head and slipping her fingers through
Harry’s as soon as he took his hands out of his pockets. “Let’s just go for food or
something, I’m tired.”
Harry blinked at her and then looked at the others with a frown. "Is doesn't want to go,
why are we going?"
But before Isabel was given a chance to explain, the others launched into a tirade of her
awful friends went to a fucking party instead of here and she knew before Niall had even
finished spitting a long list of expletives that this was a lost cause. Harry's jaw got tighter
and tighter and his grip on her hand firmer as he listened, and Isabel's housemates already
angered him enough that he'd barely needed persuasion in the first place.
And then before she knew it, she was muttering Alex Damiani's address and they were
stuffed in Niall's car like sardines and on their way there.
~~~
The door to Alex's house was hanging open when they arrived, which meant that, at the
very least, she was spared the embarrassment of having to knock and face the who invited
you? glare of the person at the door.
Isabel clung to Harry's hand with both of hers as they pushed their way into the kitchen,
and her cheeks were already burning with embarrassment as everyone eyed them on the
way in. She watched as people noted the hard glare on Zayn's face as he looked around in
distaste, watched as they stared at Liv's multicolour hair like she’d come in wearing a
drowned rat for a hat, and she wanted to be sick. She couldn’t think of anywhere in the
world she’d less like to be than here.
"Isabel!" a voice shrieked, and she flinched into Harry like she'd been punched. She
peeked over his shoulder and found Lydia by the fridge with Liam, her eyes wide and her
mouth hanging open slightly.
Isabel smiled at her weakly, neither her or Harry moving, and Lydia hesitated before
shuffling over.
"What - what are you doing here, babe?"
"We wanted to party," Harry replied flatly, shrugging in a way that managed to seep
almost palpable hostility. "Problem?"
"Not at all," Lydia squeaked, attempting to smile at him. "It's not my party." She looked
at Harry nervously for a moment before averting her gaze to Isabel, her eyes wider and
wider by the second. "Issy, I'm so sorry we didn't come."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine," Harry hissed.
"The others were... Alex invited us and they didn't want to miss it," Lydia explained, the
picture of remorse. "I couldn't come on my own.”
“Well, you could have,” Isabel mumbled, feeling pathetic.
Lydia’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, I just - I wouldn't feel welcome –"
"Wouldn't feel welcome?" Isabel repeated incredulously. "What?"
Lydia gulped. "You've got a new set of friends, don't you? You have for ages, you don't
even really like us anymore. And for good reason, I suppose, but I - I just didn't want to
intrude. Not on my own."
Isabel gaped at her. "Lyd, I didn't mean to make you feel like that," she said softly,
suddenly feeling awful because she knew deep down there was truth in what Lydia was
saying.
Lydia shook her head fiercely, frowning. "Don’t be silly, it's okay. Friends grow apart,
don't they? And as long as you've got new ones, who love you and whatever, that's all that
counts? Right?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"I am so sorry I didn't come, Issy. I'm so sorry."
Isabel nearly said it didn't matter, but instead she nodded. Because now that she thought
about it, Lydia was right. What did it matter that they weren't making the effort to be
friends with her anymore? It's not like Isabel had tried in a long time. And it's not like
she'd ever go back to them now that she had Harry and the others. There was no point
clinging onto old friends for the sake of it, when really, they had nothing to say to each
other anymore.
So she swallowed, tucking her hair behind her ear with her free hand, and said, "Thanks
for the apology, Lyds."
Lydia smiled. "You want a drink?"
"No, no," Isabel replied, looking up at Harry who was watching her with his teeth clamped
down on his lower lip. This whole thing had been stupid from start to finish, and Zayn and
the others might think confrontation was the way to deal with this, but Isabel didn’t. And
in their effort to make her stand up for herself, they’d walked all over her - and one look at
Harry’s face, all wide eyes and furrowed brows, told her he knew exactly what he'd done.
"Let's go."
Harry nodded, pressing his lips to her forehead. "I'm gonna go and get everyone, I think
they went outside. I’ll meet you out the front."
"Okay," Isabel replied, and he curtly nodded his goodbye to Lydia before squeezing
Isabel's hand and worming his way out into the garden.
"He adores you," Lydia mused as both of them stood watching him go. Isabel glanced at
her, her eyebrows raised in surprise, and Lydia just shrugged. “He does. He’s a keeper,
that one.”
“Thanks,” Isabel mumbled, slightly astonished by this admission, and Lydia smiled, pulling
Isabel in for an awkward but well-meaning hug before disappearing off back to Liam.
Isabel wasted no time in hurrying back towards the corridor before she could be
apprehended by anyone else, pushing her way past people that may or may not have
recognised her but she couldn’t care. She just wanted to go home. Her heart was pounding
as the image of Harry’s face after Lydia’s apology seemed to seep its way into every corner
of her brain - his eyebrows pinched together, his lip red from its sharp hold by his teeth, a
look in his eye that she could only describe as guilt. And then, just as Isabel thought she
was safe, she saw Scarlett.
Scarlett with her arms wrapped around a boy, and her lips locked on his.
This was weird enough on its own, because as far as Isabel had been aware, Scarlett hadn’t
been with anyone since The Boyfriend Fiasco last Christmas. But then Scarlett and her boy
shifted slightly so Isabel could get a look at his face, and –
“Issy! What are you doing here?”
Isabel looked over her shoulder at the sound of Millie’s voice to watch her descend the
stairs with a frown and God, this couldn’t be any worse. This actually couldn’t get any
worse.
“What is she doing here?” Scarlett’s man said, now detached from her face so he could give
Isabel a scornful glare, and his voice confirmed that the worst was true.
Isabel blinked at Scarlett as she dropped her arms from around Louis’ neck and stared at
Isabel with a mixture of apprehension and concern, but before anyone could say anything
Millie squealed, clamping her hand over her mouth.
“Oh!” she screeched. “Issy, it was your thing tonight, wasn’t it!” She scampered over and
squeezed Isabel’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry that we forgot.”
“You didn’t forget,” Isabel said, her voice thick as she shook Millie off. “You chose not to
come.”
Millie sighed, the apologetic tone dropped as quickly as it had been adopted. “Don’t start,
Isabel.”
“Fuck you,” Isabel said flatly, stepping away from her. She looked back at Louis and
Scarlett and raised her eyebrows, gesturing between them. “This is a thing, is it?”
“Since September, yeah,” Louis replied coolly. “Look, is there an actual reason you’re
here? Or are you just that sad?”
“You’ve been - you’ve been together since September?” Isabel repeated in disbelief.
“Scarlett, what the fuck!”
Scarlett swallowed uneasily, but then managed with admirable nerve, “Is that a problem?”
And Isabel nearly said no. She nearly said it was fine, that it didn’t matter, that she
was sorry for turning up uninvited. But she was sick of being the ball in a pinball game,
smacked about by everyone so that she was flailing about helplessly with the lights flashing
and the sound blaring, her feelings forgotten. She was sick of feeling like she was falling all
the time. And suddenly, of course it wasn’t fucking fine.
“Of course there’s a problem!” she snapped. “He’s my ex-boyfriend! You didn’t even think
to fucking mention it? Let alone check it was okay?”
“Why do you always make a scene?” Millie hissed, and this was so ironic that Isabel started
laughing. “What’s so funny?”
Isabel shook her head, pressing her palms to her forehead to try and calm down. “Nothing.
I just - God, I just realised I don’t care.”
Scarlett frowned. “About what?”

“What the fuck is she on about?” Louis barked.
“You guys aren’t my friends, are you? And in some ways that makes me a bit sad but…
who cares, right? We all know this time next year we’re not gonna be in contact, so who
gives a fuck?”
Millie didn’t seem to listen to a word she was saying, her eyes wide with sudden horror as a
thought occured. “Isabel, did you bring Niall here?”
“Yeah, but he –”
“Why do you always have to fuck things up?” Millie snapped, her face turning red as she
looked around wildly for him. “Honestly, I was having a bloody good time before you got
here! As fucking always!”
Isabel couldn’t even pretend that this didn’t hurt. She blinked at Millie, her face falling.
“Millie, you can’t just say stuff like that.” She gulped, looking away from her and playing
with the zip of her coat, her anger melting away until all she felt was crestfallen. “You
know that it hurts every time you just blurt stuff like that out.”
Millie licked her lips, not quite sure how to respond, as Louis draped his arm across
Scarlett’s shoulder and looked at Isabel like she was a stray animal that had wandered in
off the street. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he noticed someone behind
Isabel before he managed to get it out, and his eyes widened in alarm - or perhaps
excitement. “Oh, it gets even fucking better.”
“Ready to go?” Harry asked her, ignoring him entirely. He slid an arm around her waist,
and the others might have been behind him but Isabel didn’t notice. She’d never been more
grateful to see anyone in her whole life, and she melted into his side, nodding fiercely at
him.
“All right, Styles?” Louis piped up, and Harry rolled his eyes before dragging his gaze over
to Louis, bored, his tongue pressed in his cheek. “Enjoy the party?”
“Shut up,” Harry replied bluntly, gripping Isabel’s waist and navigating her towards the
door.
“Ooh, feisty!” Louis chimed in delight. “Did you get out of bed the wrong side this
morning?”
Harry said nothing, just gritted his teeth and kept walking. They were so near the door
that Isabel could feel the cold air outside, but Louis wasn’t giving up.
“Speaking of which, does Isabel still always sleep on the right side of the bed? Or did that
change when she hopped from mine to yours?”
Harry stopped walking abruptly enough that Isabel stumbled. “Shut the fuck up.”
Louis had followed them to the door, and sneeringly he said from behind them, “Funny
that you don’t look quite so tough when your back’s turned, Styles, I would have thought
a hard guy like you woul–”
Harry whipped away from her so quickly that Isabel was momentarily dazed, and she span
around just in time to see Louis yelp involuntarily and flinch backwards. And it was only
after a second of assuming the worst - or perhaps, the best - that she realised Harry hadn’t
even lifted a finger.
“What was that?” Harry snapped venomously, stepping forward to close the gap between
them. “You wanna say that again, mate? You wanna say that again?”
Louis tried to keep his glare in place but Harry was still walking towards him so
threateningly that he only looked scared, and he stumbled until his back was pressed
against the wall. “Are you really gonna try and start a fight here?" Louis tried, his voice
higher than usual. "That’s fucking low, man.”
Isabel swallowed loudly, anxiously looking over at Caitlin, Liv and the boys who were
crowded by the stairs watching the exchange with delighted interest, in the same way
people watch boxing on the television. Millie, meanwhile, seemed rooted to the spot, her
eyes as big as saucers, and Scarlett had wormed her way over to Millie and was almost
cowering behind her, her eyes glazed with tears and her fingers shoved in her mouth.
“You talk a lot,” Harry said, his voice low, “but there’s not much there, is there?” He
tapped Louis’ temple and when Louis winced, he smiled condescendingly. “I’m not gonna
hit you, mate. You’re just a little rich boy who tries so hard to be good enough for his
daddy but… you’re not really doing that well, are you?”
Louis’ glower deepened. “What the fuck are you talking about it?”
“You’re something out of a fucking textbook, mate,” Harry said with a shrug, leaning back
away from him slightly. “You’re scared of being a failure so you don’t bother trying, and
you like to think you’re hard because you sell drugs to your mates on the side, and you’re
mean to girls in particular because you’re probably shit in bed.” A snort of laughter came
from over by the stairs, and Isabel laughed too, clapping her hand over her mouth as
Louis’ jaw dropped in indignation, but Harry wasn’t finished. “That’s just a guess, though
- I wouldn’t know. We don’t speak about you. I don’t think Isabel has even spared you a
thought in a long, long time.”
He smiled sweetly, patting Louis on the shoulder, and then stepped away from him and
reached for Isabel’s hand.
“Hopefully I won’t see ya around, Tommo.”

They turned back towards the door, walking away from Louis who was red faced and
slumped against the wall.
“Yeah, fuck off!” Louis spat from behind them. Harry only sighed, tired of Louis’ efforts to
have the last word, but Isabel looked over her shoulder out of curiosity. “Fuck off Styles,
and - and take your slut, you pair - you pair of fucking –”
Everything that happened next seemed to play out like an out of body experience. Because
one moment, Isabel was five feet away from Louis, her hand in Harry’s as she looked back
over her shoulder. And the next, she was right in front of him, and her hand stung, and it
took much longer than it should have to realise that she’d actually just slapped him round
the face.
In the moments that followed, when everyone’s eyes widened and mouths fell open slightly
in surprise, Isabel stared at her hand like it didn’t belong to her, like she’d been overcome
by some sort of alien force. And then Millie gasped like an extra in a soap opera, Scarlett
bleated something indiscernible in distress, Niall and Liv started screaming with laughter,
and Harry just bit down on his lip, a smile creeping across his face as he caught her eye.
Louis rubbed at his face in a way that suggested it had actually been painful, glaring at her
from beneath heavy knit eyebrows, and it was only then that Isabel started laughing too,
incredulous, breathless laughter that didn’t end even when Zayn looped an arm around
her shoulder and tugged her out of the house.
“Isabel!” Caitlin screeched as soon as they were out of the door, gripping her hand tightly.
“What the fuck just happened!”
“That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” Niall hooted, tears streaming down his face.
Niall had only been able to find a parking space a couple of streets down, so for five
minutes of the walk back to the car they all just laughed, stumbling about and grasping
each other’s arms. Niall relayed the whole scene for them as though they hadn’t all been
there, but that just made it funnier somehow, and Isabel’s stomach hurt from laughing.
But after those five minutes, her smile slipped and her face fell, the happiness drifting away
and replaced with a mix of emotions so unpleasant that her actual body suddenly seemed
colder.
“I can’t believe they did that to me,” she murmured to nobody in particular.
“I can,” Niall said with a snort, wiping his eyes with the collar of his jacket. “I’ve been
telling you they’re shit for so long I’ve actually bored myself.”
“That’s not - it’s not even just that they’re being bad friends, though,” Isabel went on, her
voice rising. Harry slipped his hand through hers as a means of comfort, his laughter
replaced with a look of concern, but this time his proximity didn’t help at all. “That’s just -
just not being a nice person!”
Zayn frowned at her. “Who cares, babe? That chick’s welcome to Louis, he’s a bellend.”
“I know,” Isabel replied, irritated now. Nobody was laughing anymore, and they’d reached
Niall’s car but he wasn’t unlocking it. “But it’s the principle.”
“What’s the principle?” Harry prompted quietly, and Isabel was even more incensed to
find that he actually looked a little offended.
“The principle is that you can’t live with someone and fuck their ex-boyfriend for three
months without even telling them!”
“Yeah, that sucks,” Caitlin agreed with a nod. “But listen, Is –”
“I mean, what happened to just - to fucking girl code?” Isabel spluttered, yanking her hand
from Harry’s hold and running it through her hair. She was so angry that for the first time
in her life she understood the phrase ‘blood boiling’, because she could feel her blood under
every inch of her skin like it was lava, and if Louis was there she knew she wouldn’t have
hesitated in hitting him again, for no reason other than he was a deserving target. “I would
never do that!”
Harry nodded, wetting his lips and saying, “Yeah, of course.”
“I mean, I didn’t fucking let anything happen with you when I thought Caitlin liked you!”
Isabel said hysterically, throwing a wild gesture toward Harry. She was so livid that she
didn’t even register the shock of this statement hitting half the group, didn’t notice Harry’s
eyes widen and the slight shake of his head.
“You thought Caitlin liked Harry?” Liv repeated incredulously after a moment’s pause.
Zayn chuckled uncomfortably, glancing at Caitlin and then back at Isabel. “Why’d you
think that?”
Silence.
Oh shit.
“Because I - because she…” Isabel trailed off, and she could actually feel the blood
draining from her face as the anger was replaced by crippling, suffocating dread.
Oh shit.
Zayn licked his lips and smiled awkwardly, his gaze flickering from each person to the next
as they all stared at him in horror. “Why don’t I know this secret?” he asked, elbowing
Caitlin in an attempt at light-heartedness. Caitlin looked like she might faint, her eyes so
focussed on the ground she looked like she could burn holes in the pavement. “Caitlin?
Who’d you actually like, then?”
The silence that followed was so painful that Isabel could actually feel it, burning hot in her
stomach so hard she felt like she’d been kicked. Everyone was trying to think
of something to say, but it was much too late and Caitlin knew it. And then, finally, Zayn
worked it out.
His eyes widened as he stared at Caitlin, and then his head whipped back towards Isabel,
blinking rapidly before he looked back at Caitlin. “What?” he croaked.
But before anything more could be said, Caitlin was pushing past him with tears leaking
out of her eyes, marching off down the road and disappearing around the corner at the
quickest pace she could without breaking into a flat-out run. Niall was the first to recover
from the bombshell that had just exploded like a nuclear weapon at their feet, because after
only a moment’s hesitation, he sprinted down the dark road after her.
And then it was just the four of them.
“Shit,” Harry said, raking a hand through his hair and staring after them even though they
were out of sight. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Isabel glanced at Zayn, her heart in her throat, but he only looked confused, frowning like
he was trying to translate what had been said into Russian. “I’m so sorry,” Isabel
whispered, her voice thick. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Zayn said weakly. He took a deep breath, and when he exhaled his breath came
out like a cloud in the cold air. “I’m just… gonna go walk for a bit.”
“Want me to come?” Liv asked him, and when Zayn looked like he might shake his head,
she added: “I’ll roll you a cig?”
He shrugged his approval then, and Liv shot Harry and Isabel an awkward smile before
tucking her arm through Zayn’s and loping off with him in the opposite direction to Niall
and Caitlin.
And then it was just the two of them.
Isabel looked at Harry, her eyes swimming with tears and her teeth biting down into her lip
and her heart pounding. Harry looked back at her, his face blank.
“Oh fuck,” Isabel spat out eventually, her voice wobbling. “Oh fuck.”
For a moment Isabel thought Harry might not say anything back, but then he said, “I’ll
walk you home. ‘S not far.”
“Harry,” Isabel said, blinking as a tear escaped the corner of her eye and she wiped it away
roughly. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know,” Harry said, sighing, and he swiped his thumb across her wet cheek gently before
his arm dropped back to his side.
They walked in silence for a long time, Harry’s hands buried deep in his pockets and his
tongue pressed into his cheek as he stared at the ground. Isabel’s heart was still
hammering, her body engulfed by that strong punching kind of guilt that she could feel
under every inch of skin, and she struggled to think of anything to say that could make this
better.
So eventually, all she could manage was: “Harry, are you angry with me?”
“No,” he said, exhaling a little and running a hand through his hair again. “I’m just
worried about Caitlin. She’s kept this from him for so long.”
Isabel bit down on her lip, closing her eyes because he was making it worse. “I didn’t mean
to,” she said again.
“I know.”
She gulped when they were silent again. “I can’t wait to get home,” she tried, pressing her
fingers to his forearm. “It’s been such a shit night.”
“Mmm,” Harry replied.
But the fact that he didn’t withdraw his hands from his pockets when she touched him
panicked her, because Harry never hesitated to reach for her, and the panic made the guilt
merge with the anger from before until it was one hot, bubbling mess sloshing around
inside her. “Those girls - they just don’t care, do they? I know you’ve always said but I
just… how could they do that?”
Harry nodded curtly but said nothing.
“Scarlett could have just said something, like in the kitchen one time or - or Millie could
have given me a warning. How long were they planning not to tell me? Forever?”
Harry exhaled loudly. “I don’t know,” he said flatly.
“I just would never –”
“You would never do that. I know, you said.”
Isabel faltered, her breath snagging in her throat. “Why are you being like this?”
“Because!” he snapped suddenly. “Because Caitlin has been a better fucking friend to you
than any of those girls!”
“I know,” Isabel replied, her voice small.
“And you’re just… fixating on the others and it’s frustrating!” He rubbed a hand over his
face tiredly as he walked. “It’s frustrating, is all.”
“So you’re saying I can’t even be a bit angry about this?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“So what are you saying?”
Harry finally looked at her, his eyes meeting hers as he said, “I’m saying that Millie and
Scarlett are god awful friends that you don’t even like, and you have finally acknowledged
the fact that you’re too good for them and have severed ties with a hugely negative part of
your life, and you’re just holding onto all this… all this fucking unnecessary anger! And
you’ve just - you’ve just exposed Caitlin’s three-fucking-year long secret, and you’re out
here moaning about people who don’t mean anything to you.”
For a moment, Isabel just stared at him, entirely taken aback. “So you are angry at me
about Caitlin,” she said, her voice small, and Harry shook his head, pinching the bridge of
his nose in exasperation. “I said I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t know what else I can say.”
“Anything,” Harry said, a bit breathlessly, and when he put his hand on her shoulder
Isabel was suddenly aware that they’d stopped walking, that they’d reached her house and
were standing facing each other in the street. “Let’s talk about anything that actually
means something. Like how awesome the festival was today. You fucking did that, Is, and
you made my family so happy. You should have seen my mum’s face.” He swallowed,
tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear as she stared up at him, her bottom lip
trembling. “Or let’s talk about the fact that term’s over in a week and then we have a
month off for Christmas, and I really, really have to see you. I just - we have to see each
other.” He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his forehead
against hers, his voice dipping to a whisper. “Or we could talk about when we’re gonna say
it. Cos I really, really wanna say it, Is.”
Isabel closed her eyes, her heart thundering so loudly she could hear it ringing in her ears.
“I don’t understand why we’d talk about any of this stuff now.”
“Because,” Harry went on, his voice still quiet, “because this stuff means so much more
than anything else does. And I’ve been so happy for you all day; I don’t want them to ruin
it. This is what matters.”
He was being so gentle with her, his voice so soft and so desperate for her to understand
that her heart actually ached, and she wanted nothing more than to give in and bury
herself in his chest and let this whole thing just blow over. But she felt that horrible
mixture from before crashing over her, that combination of guilt and anger and maybe a
bit of contempt for herself, too, and suddenly all she really wanted to do was cry.
“I’m really sorry, Harry,” she spluttered, and all of a sudden she was crying; burning,
rapid, heavy tears splashing down her cheeks and cascading down between them to the
grey concrete pavement. “I’m so sorry, I f-fucked up everything. I know I’ve ruined
everything.”
“No, no, no,” Harry said quickly, pulling her away to hold her at arm’s length, his face
pinched up in horror. “That’s not what I’m saying, Is, that’s not what I’m saying.” He
swept his thumbs across her cheeks, his eyes wide and anxious. “No, no, no, don’t cry,
baby.”
Isabel gulped, trying to find something to say but there was nothing, and she wrapped her
arms around herself and bit down on her lip so she wouldn’t sob, her head hanging
dejectedly, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion.
All of a sudden Harry inhaled sharply, a thought clearly occurring as he closed the space
between them. “Listen - listen to me,” Harry stammered, lifting her chin up and gazing at
her imploringly. “I need you to get angry with me.”
She sniffed, her head spinning as she tried to keep up with him, and she felt quite a strong
need to lie down. “Huh?”
“Come on,” he urged, squeezing her shoulder. “You can get angry with me.”
“I - I don’t want to –”
“Why? You deserve to be, come on.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Isabel stared at him in alarm, tears dripping from her chin onto her jacket. “No, I don’t w-
want to fight.”
“I fucked up,” Harry told her, licking his lips as his eyes flickered between hers. “I fucked
up, didn’t I?” When Isabel didn’t respond and looked back down at the ground, he
squeezed her shoulder again. “You know why. Tell me, come on. Tell me. Talk to me.”
She did know exactly what he was referring to, but neither of them said anything for a
while, only Isabel’s sniffs and the hum of cars in the distance breaking the silence.
“You shouldn’t have made me come,” Isabel said eventually, still avoiding his eyes as she
stared at her feet. “You knew I didn’t want to.”
“I know,” Harry replied instantly. “And I’m so, so sorry.”
Isabel swallowed, her confidence growing following his earnest apology. “I really thought
you would be the one who was on my side, but you weren’t.”
“I know,” Harry said again, exhaling shakily. “I’m honestly so sorry, I know I fucked up
and I am sorry for that.” He paused, clearly hesitating, before he stammered, “But - but
this is what I’m saying, Is. You need to stand up for yourself. You didn’t want to come, we
all knew that, so you - you should have put your foot down.”
Isabel looked up at him sharply, her cheeks flushing. “I’m not meant to have to stand up
for myself to you. I shouldn’t have to put my foot down to you. This isn’t how this is meant
to work.”
Harry faltered, his mouth opening and closing a few times. “Yeah, but I –”
“What did you think this would achieve? Why would showing up and spelling out to them
how shitty they are be better than just leaving it?”
“That’s the thing, Is,” he said quietly. “You always just leave it.”
She pulled away from him, the anger from earlier back, blood pooling hotly under the wet
skin of her cheeks. “Maybe I like leaving it! Maybe it’s easier that way.”
“Why is it easier?” Harry asked, his voice getting louder to match hers. “Why should you
act like that just because it’s easier?”
“What’s wrong with that?” she snapped, pushing her fingers across her face roughly to
wipe away her tears. “You know what would have been easier? If we just went home
instead of going to the party. All I wanted was to go home with you!”
Harry looked like he might reply, but he was silent when he realised a couple around their
age were walking down the street in their direction, hand in hand and clearly whispering
about them. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited for them to pass, his lips
clamped shut firmly and eyes trained on Isabel as she bit down hard on her lip and looked
down so they wouldn’t see her face, her chest clearly heaving as she tried not to sob. When
they were far enough away, Harry stepped forward to close the gap between them.
“Is, I really don’t want to upset you,” Harry said softly. “I just want you to understand
that it’s okay for you to get angry about things, and tell people how you feel. You can’t let
people push you around.” He reached for her but she stumbled backwards, trying not to
notice his face falling. “No, Is, please don’t be upset.”
It was too late though - years of bottling everything up, of allowing herself to be pushed
around and told what to do, of denying herself the confidence to stand up for herself and
tell people how she felt, and then weeks of worrying and sleepless nights and held in anxiety
- meant she was just about hysterical. Time and time again, she’d listened patiently to
Millie, to James, to Harry, let them spill every problem to her until she’d memorised the
way they spoke when they were worried, the way they bit their nails or tugged at their hair
or pinched their lip. But never once had she thought that she was worth as much concern,
and the betrayal from Millie and Scarlett, the guilt for Caitlin and Zayn, the
disappointment with Harry, meant suddenly the weight of everything she’d held back was
too much, and the patience in Harry’s voice, the overwhelming desire for her to let it all
out, was enough to smash any resistance she had, and just like that, she cracked.
“I don’t mean to be like this,” she blurted out, mopping at her wet face with shaking
fingers as Harry stood by helplessly, still reaching for her. “I know you’d prefer if I was
more l-like Liv or Caitlin but I-I’m not.”
Harry's jaw clenched, his extended arm dropping to his side limply. “How can you even
fucking say that to me, Isabel?”
“This is just what I’m like,” she went on, swiping her sleeve under her nose, her voice loud
and wobbling. “I’m not loud or - or super open about everything or - I c-can’t be
confrontational or -”
"Honestly, stop it," Harry snapped, looking at her with wide eyes and shaking his head, as
though she was absolutely mental. "I’m not asking you to be like anyone else. You’re not
listening to me." He took a tentative step toward her and put a hand on her shoulder,
giving her a tiny squeeze. “I just want you to be happy. That’s all I want, that’s all I’m
trying to say. And I … I don’t think you can be if you keep going the way you are.”
She sniffed, looking into his anxious eyes through a watery haze of tears. “Huh?”
He gulped, letting his hand fall from her shoulder to catch her fingers with his. “Sometimes
you have to realise what’s making you unhappy and change it. Just - just like I did.” His
gaze dropped to the ground. “Just like I am. It’s not something that happens in a day. You
have to - to keep doing it forever.”
“But I –”
“If you hold everything in, you explode,” he told her, his eyes still focussed on the pavement
between their feet. “I would know. And you can’t do that, Isabel. If you never stand up for
yourself, or let anyone know how you feel, then you blow up. Like you have now.”
Isabel stared at him, at the hair falling over his forehead, and felt her heart tug. “I don’t…
I don’t think coming here was right, though. I could have said something to them
tomorrow –”
“That’s true,” Harry said, looking up at her and nodding seriously. “That’s absolutely
true. And you know I’m so, so sorry for making you come.” He paused, his tongue swiping
out to wet his lips. “But would you have spoken to them tomorrow?”
She hesitated. “That’s beside the point, I –”
“This is exactly the point. Would you have said anything?”
Isabel tugged her hand from his, moving away from him. “Harry, don’t do –”
“Why won’t you answer? Would you have –”
“I don’t fucking kn–”
“How you feel matters!” he told her, speaking over her loudly. “How you feel matters,
Isabel.”
“I know it does!” she bit back, both of them flinching when she shouted, her voice slicing
through the quiet air of the street. “I know it does, Harry! But it’s because I … I just - it’s
just that I…”
Her voice trailed off as her throat seemed to close up, realising with horror that there was
nothing else to say. She didn’t need him to tell her that what she felt mattered; she knew
that full well. But as for an excuse as to why she didn’t ever show this, why she never told
anyone who hurt her how she felt, because of course it mattered, she came up short. There
wasn’t one.
Her head dipped towards the ground, her hair hopefully concealing her face as she
clamped her eyes shut, holding her breath so she didn’t make any sort of noise to vocalise
her distress. She heard Harry’s feet before she felt his arms around her, his face pressed
into her hair as he looped his arms around her waist and squeezed her close to his chest.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, his lips tickling her ear as he smoothed a hand over her back. “I
think you’re tired, yeah? You’ve been so stressed lately, you’re just overtired and it all got
too much. You’ve put so much pressure on yourself and - it’s just stress, isn’t it? This is all
just a big release of stress, it’s not - not anything to worry about. Let’s just go to bed,
okay?”
Isabel closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as he hugged her close, and felt her heart
aching. The thing was, that evening the blame had been thrown around to Millie, to
Scarlett, to Louis, to Harry, but in the end, she was the problem, and she was the solution,
and the only person she was really angry at was herself.
She'd been pushed around all her life, the younger sister to the bossy, overbearing
Savannah and the wild, attention demanding James, and never once had she even tried,
really, to take control, unable to admit to herself until just now that she was content this
way because it was easier. She'd done history because she'd been mildly good at it, because
her mum had said it was a good degree. She made friends with people by default, because
they were friends with her already existing friends, but those initial friendships were
usually caused by the other person imposing themselves on her rather than much effort on
her part. She fell, tumbled through life, always looking forward into the distance but never
at right now, never at her feet on the ground at all the things she was tripping over to get to
that undetermined future. And then she kept every thought silent until she spectacularly
blew up. This is who she was, or who she'd let herself become, and she realised now that
she really, really didn't like it. That was probably the worst feeling in the world.
Her mum had told her on a beach a long time ago that, when it came to boys, “Don’t ever
let him have your heart if you don’t have his. That’s the only way they can break it.” And
back then, when Isabel had thought her mum’s word was gospel, she'd wholeheartedly
believed her, not knowing that when she grew up she'd lose that childish gullibility, shed
that juvenile understanding of the world that made everything so simple. Because now she
knew that control of her heart, along with the ability to break it, had nothing to do with
any boy. If her heart was broken, it was of her own doing.
It was a compilation of every stress, every worry, every secret, every time she'd not said
what she wanted to, that created little fissures on the surface of her heart until it cracked
right down the middle. Everything held in, every time she'd not said anything because it
was easier, because she was worried nobody would actually listen if she tried to tell them,
meant that now she was exploding from the inside, everything streaming out of her like the
cork had been popped from a champagne bottle. Ignoring things had never actually made
things easier, it just made things worse, and now standing, exhausted and emotional, on the
pavement with Harry after eleven months of contained worries and fears and anxiety,
easier was all she wanted. And she definitely was overtired, and she was certainly more
hysterical than she was rational, and she was sure that in the morning she’d be able to
think about things a lot more clearly. But even in her exhaustion, she knew Harry was
right. The only way to actually make things easier was to try and change.
She let Harry fish her keys out of her pocket, open the front door and take off her jacket.
When they got to her room, he remembered not to trip over the step as he wrapped his
arms around her waist and walked her over to the bed, his lips on her shoulder. He helped
her out of her clothes, trying to make her laugh as he dabbed at her face with his discarded
shirt, and finally, finally, they were in bed, Harry’s body tucked around hers, little
quotation marks in the centre of the mattress.
“You okay?” he whispered, his hand trailing across her stomach.
“Yeah,” she replied, squeezing her eyes shut.
He said nothing for a while, just pressed his forehead to the back of her neck and pulled
her as close as he could, her back flush to his chest. “Is there anything I can do to make it
better?” he asked eventually, his voice low and soothing. She could have said yes. She could
have told him to tell her everything would be all right, she could have told him to speak to
Caitlin and Zayn and fix it, she could have told him to kiss her just because she knew she’d
feel better instantly. Finally, she understood how Harry had felt when he used to say he
needed her, because she felt like the only way things could be salvaged was if Harry kissed
her until she forgot about everything.
“No,” she whispered back, lacing her fingers through his and squeezing tightly. “I’m gonna
fix things myself.”
End Notes:
hellloooooooooo!!!
so I’m not sure if any of you saw this coming, but I think this has been imminent for a long
time! I’ve had a lot of people say that they think Isabel deals with a lot of things a lot better
than they would if they were in her situation, that she’s always been patient with Harry,
that she doesn’t say what she’s thinking a lot of the time. well, it’s the end of a looooong
year, and Harry’s right - she’s absolutely exhausted, and now she’s finally been the one to
crack. I’m proud of her for lasting this long, really!
BUT we can see that she’s had to deal with some home truths there as well, and confront
some demons that have been present since the first couple of chapters…
I hope everyone can understand where she’s coming from! I’ve had soooo many moments
of hysteria before where everything just gets a bit too much, where you don’t really even
understand what you’re crying about or what you’re saying, and most of the time I put
them down to having a bad day. but I think Is is trying to learn from it, and is thinking
about how she can change, and at the very least, I really hope you can all sympathise with
her for that! cos this is what BDC has been about, really! changing yourself for the better
:)
see you next week for the PENULTIMATE CHAPTER D: (not including the epilogue!) all
my love xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
worth it
December
Isabel woke up the morning after her Film Festival to an empty bed. She stretched out her
hand for Harry, sliding her palm across the sheets for him, but with a jolt she realised he
wasn’t there.
It was only when Isabel sat up and reached for her phone that she remembered why Harry
had gone - despite having told her yesterday, he’d still texted her with a reminder that he’d
gone for a run and then off to uni - and suddenly, Isabel was kind of grateful for his
absence. It meant she had time on her own to think, and re-evaluate, and what better time
than Monday morning, December the first, with only a week and a half left of term.
Her last class of 2014 was on Friday. Technically term ended next Wednesday, but she
couldn’t be paid to stay in this house with Millie and the others for an extra unnecessary
five days. The only problem, though, was that Harry’s secrets exhibition was on Sunday.
So the first thing Isabel did that day was text her mum to say that she’d be home for
Christmas the following Monday, the eighth of December. That left her seven days.
After that, getting out of bed was easy enough, as was showering and getting dressed and
ready for her morning seminar. What was harder was deciding how she was going to sort
everything out, because everything seemed easier in the movies. The protagonist had an
epiphany of some sort about how to fix everything all at once, right at the end of the film
after a huge catastrophe, and then it was all fine.
By the time she was ready to leave the house, she’d thought of everything she wanted to
accomplish that week, which was very much a Harry thing to do, but perhaps, she thought,
it made a nice change. Because Harry had once told her that she was always a bit late and
breathless and confused, always floating through life like she wasn’t really sure what was
happening, and although he’d meant it in a nice way, she’d had enough of it. She didn’t
want to be a blink and you’ll miss it girl anymore. She didn’t want to keep free falling
without any idea when or how she'd get to the ground.
And it was for this reason that, as she walked past the living room on the way out of the
house, she decided to tick off the first thing on her list right away.
“Morning, Millie,” she said as cheerfully as she could, trying not to be deterred by the way
Millie frowned like she’d just said something obscene, pausing in the act of shovelling
cereal into her mouth. “Feeling all right?”
Millie said nothing, just eyed Isabel suspiciously and burrowed her face into the collar of
her dressing gown.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for gatecrashing the party with my friends yesterday,”
Isabel continued, flashing her a smile.
She might as well have been speaking Mandarin. “What?” Millie said blankly.
“We’ve got two more terms living together after Christmas,” Isabel went on, “so I don’t
want this to be more awkward than it has to be. So for everything that I’ve done that
offends and irritates you, I apologise. I expect we’ll try and stay out of each other’s way.”
It was too much to expect that Millie would say sorry back. She just sat up a little
straighter, a smug little smile pulling at her lips as she nodded like it was an effort on her
part to accept this undeservedly generous apology.
“Great!” Isabel said brightly, hitching her bag up her shoulder and smiling broadly. “See
you later, then.”
“Yeah, later.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Isabel added, just as Millie had turned her attention back to the
television. “When Scarlett wakes up, tell her I really do wish her and Louis luck.” She
paused, sweeping her tongue across her lips and raising her eyebrows before continuing,
“Let’s hope she’s good enough not to… send him to sleep. If you get what I’m saying.”
And Isabel stayed just long enough to see Millie’s face turn red and her mouth screw up
into an angry snarl, before she left the house grinning from ear to ear.
~~~
After her seminar, Isabel pushed open the weighty doors of the History building to find
that it was pouring with rain so heavily that there was a thunderous smacking sound with
every drop on the pavement. She dithered under the doorway for a second before pulling
her hood up and hurrying off in the direction of the bus stop, her head down and her hands
deep in the pockets of her coat.
She was walking at a relatively speedy pace, hoping to get on the bus before the water
started to seep through her boots, and that meant that when she crashed into what seemed
like but couldn’t possibly be a brick wall, she nearly toppled backwards before her arm
was gripped firmly, steadying her.
“I’m so sorry,” she spluttered immediately. “I wasn’t looking where I was going, I’m so
clums–”
She stopped talking.

Harry was blinking at her from beneath his hood, a drop of water clinging to the eyelashes
of one eye like a teardrop before falling and sliding down his nose. “Hey,” he said
eventually.
“Hi.”
Harry let go of her arm, pulling his hood forward so that his face would stop getting wet.
He had paint all over his fingers, and a smudge of it on his cheek, a bright canary yellow
streak just in the hollow of his cheekbone.
“I knew you had a lecture or something this morning,” Harry started, licking his lips
almost nervously. “I just - I thought I’d…” He trailed off, seeming unsure of what he was
meant to say, but Isabel didn’t offer anything and so he took a deep breath and went on, “I
just wanted to see if you’re okay. Yesterday was… I don’t know. And I was just - fuck, I
don’t know, I was worrying.”
Isabel nodded, her eyes raking over his damp face as he bit down on his lip and surveyed
her reaction anxiously.
“And I mean, we never spoke about all that important stuff yesterday, did we? About
seeing each other over Christmas and - and all that other stuff.” He smiled tentatively,
though it faltered after a moment’s thought. “Are you - are you still upset?”
He swallowed loudly, his confidence crumbling briefly when she didn’t immediately
respond.
“I meant it when I said I’m not gonna let either of us screw this up,” he said quickly,
speaking before she could as he brushed some rain off his face impatiently. “I meant it. I -
I'm not going anywhere, even if we argue or disagree or upset each other, okay? I'll be
here." His eyes flickered between hers anxiously. "I just thought I should remind you
because I - I just think it’s important you know that, and I - and I … just please tell me
what you’re thinking. Please.”
Isabel took a second to take him in completely. The bright, burning green of his eyes, the
dark sweep of his wet eyelashes, the light, barely visible freckles across his nose, the line of
his cheekbones underneath his faintly flushed skin, the lips that she’d once thought could
make her cry parted slightly as he drew in shaky breaths through his mouth.
“You have paint all over you,” she said, smiling when he seemed entirely confused for a
moment before he looked down at his hands and let out a breathy little laugh.
“I was at uni and … this was unplanned,” he explained slowly. “If that wasn’t already
obvious.”
“Unplanned?” Isabel repeated in surprise. “Is that a joke?”

Harry grinned, biting down on his lip. “No, but it does seem a bit unbelievable, doesn’t
it?”
“What have I done to you?” Isabel asked with mock incredulity.
Harry swallowed. “More than you know,” he responded, his voice much quieter than it had
been before as his gaze flickered to the ground. Isabel’s eyes widened, her heart
cartwheeling in her chest, and she pulled a hand out of her pocket to run her thumb across
his lips.
“I’m not going anywhere either,” she told him, reaching up on her tiptoes to replace her
thumb with her lips. He exhaled against her mouth when her lips met his warm, chapped
ones, and she knew he felt just as strongly as she did in that moment, that in what they’d
said there was an understanding between them that this time, they weren’t seeing where
things went or trying things out or just seeing what happened. They were gonna make this
work. And when she pulled away from him after a brief brush of their lips, he smiled.
“Okay,” he said, kissing her forehead and then her temple. “Great.”
“Great.”
“Great,” he said again, grinning and then all of a sudden he was wrapping his arms around
her tightly, squeezing her and pressing kisses over her face, his lips shaking with
suppressed laughter as she squealed and tried to bat him off.
“You’re like a dog,” she laughed, trying to wriggle away from him but he held her tighter,
the water splashing off his hood all down her neck. “Harry, you’re getting me all wet!”
He snorted, biting down playfully on her neck so her laugh turned into a gasp.
“Harry, stop,” she whined, elbowing him in the stomach, “we’re gonna get ill standing out
here!”
That made him pull away, his eyes widening in horror as he held her at arm’s length.
“Imagine we’re ill for Christmas!” he said, his eyebrows puckering.
Isabel reached for his hand, smiling and tucking their intertwined fingers into his jacket
pocket. “Imagine that!”
“Let’s pray for tissues and medicine in our stockings.”
Isabel leaned into him as they walked off down the road, resting her head against his
shoulder and squeezing his hand inside his pocket. “You think you’ve been good enough to
get anything other than coal?”
“Are you kidding?” Harry asked incredulously. “I’m a good boy now.”
~~~
Isabel waited until Friday before she went to Caitlin’s house.
After a surprisingly productive Monday morning, the whole week had crawled by so slowly
it was almost painful. She’d not been able to stop the constant worrying about Zayn and
Caitlin, that incessant guilt that sat at the pit of her stomach, but Caitlin wasn’t answering
the phone and there was nothing much Isabel could do. She was waiting, because Harry
had told her Caitlin needed time to calm down, and that’s what Isabel gave her.
It made things worse that Isabel had nobody to worry with, seeing as Harry had found
cover for all his shifts that week and barely left his house in his effort to have his exhibition
done on time, and so Isabel hadn’t seen him since Monday.
Since Monday, when she and Harry had ended up cowering in Nell’s for two hours to
escape the rain.
Since Monday, when she and Harry had agreed that Isabel would stay over on Saturday
night.
She was trying not to dwell on it, but she was simultaneously both so excited and nervous
that it was hard not to. The marathon had happened a month ago now, and Harry hadn’t
once pushed her into letting things move forward. Even when he suggested that she stay, in
the corner of Nell’s as they shared a pot of tea, he seemed a little apprehensive, like he
wasn’t sure whether he was doing the right thing. For what felt like the first time in their
relationship, the ball was in her court, and she had no idea what to do with it.
But there were more pressing matters at hand, and getting things sorted with Caitlin took
priority over everything. So on Friday, after handing in her last essays of the term, and
after meeting Rory and Meera at Nell’s to exchange Christmas gifts, Isabel headed over to
Liv and Caitlin’s house.
The pair of them lived with three other girls in an even smaller, even grottier house than
Isabel’s, about a fifteen minute walk away from the boys’ stately home. Every time Isabel
went there the house was a mess from floor to ceiling, like a bomb had exploded and
scattered clothes and jewelery and shoes everywhere. There was always music playing from
somewhere within, and beneath the smell of perfume and pot noodle and smoke there was
an ever-present whiff of damp that was equal parts worrying and disgusting.
When Isabel pushed open the door to Caitlin’s room after being invited in by Liv, she
found Caitlin wrapped up in bed with her headphones hanging round her neck, her laptop
resting on the duvet beside her. She raised her eyebrows, presumably at Isabel’s audacity
for even showing her face, and said nothing.
“Caitlin,” Isabel started, her heart hammering so hard she was struggling to think straight.
“I’m so, so sorry –”
“I know,” Caitlin replied calmly. “I know you’re sorry.”
Isabel gulped, a bit taken aback. “I don’t know what else to do. I can’t take back what I
said, I can’t rewind time or - or stop myself from being an idiot and blurting it out. I don’t
know what else I can do but say how sorry I am.”
Caitlin, curled up in her bed watching Isabel hover nervously by the door with an
impassive expression, did not seem affected by Isabel’s speech. “Is, can I ask you a
question?”
Isabel nodded, if only because she was bemused by the fact that Caitlin wasn’t screaming
at her yet.
“Is it worth it?” Caitlin asked. Her confidence faltered and she looked down at the duvet,
her mess of curls falling to block her face from Isabel’s view. “I don’t feel like it is.”
Sensing this was a good moment to move forward, Isabel edged towards the bed and said,
“Is what worth it?”
“Being with him. Is it worth feeling this horrible all the time?” Caitlin exhaled shakily, her
head still bowed. “Because I hate it. And even if by some miracle he said he loves me too, I
don’t know if I - I can’t see all of this being worth it.”
Isabel sat down tentatively on the bed next to Caitlin and extended an arm towards her,
but Caitlin shrugged her off.
“You and Harry,” Caitlin went on, looking up so that Isabel could see her brown eyes were
wide and wet, “you’re so fucking lucky. You don’t know what I’d do to have someone look
at me like that. I’ve never meant the world to anyone. I’ve never been anything to
anyone.”
“Caitlin, listen –”
“Why? You got your f-fucking happy ending, Isabel. You’re the girl in all th-those films
you watch who gets her man at the end, and I’m the stupid fucking b-best friend who gets
forgotten. Who ever thinks of them when it’s o-over? Best fucking supporting actress.”
“That’s not true,” Isabel said quietly, trying her best not to start crying herself. “Caitlin,
you know that Zayn’s been trying to ring you all week.”
“But I don’t want to listen!” Caitlin replied hysterically, tears streaming down her cheeks
and splashing onto the duvet. “I don’t want the s-sympathy, like, ‘Caitlin, I love you, but
not like that.’ ‘Caitlin, please c-can we still be friends?’. Fuck that! F-fuck that!”
“That might not –”
“Of course it is! I’m so s-stupid, I’ve been so stupid for three fucking years. W-why would
Zayn love me?”
“Because,” Isabel started, her voice firm as she tucked a bit of Caitlin’s hair behind her
ear, “because - fuck, because you’re you, and you’re worth ten Zayns, yeah? Ten anyones!
And if he can’t see that, remember your mum taught you not to give a shit about stupid
boys and their - and their opinions about things they don’t understand. Yeah?”
“My mum’s lonely,” Caitlin sniffed, “she says that to make herself feel better. I d-don’t
hate Zayn.”
Isabel's heart broke for her then. She'd been through this, too, that feeling of helplessness
that made everything seem pointless, and she knew that Caitlin just wanted reassurance
that everything would all turn out all right in the end, even if it wasn’t true.
"If Zayn doesn't want you, then he's an idiot," Isabel said simply, because that's all there
was to it. "He'd be lucky to be with someone like you. But you'll never find out how much
of an idiot he is if you don't answer the phone."
"I don't want to find out," Caitlin replied sadly. She swiped the sleeve of her jumper under
her nose and sighed. “I don’t want to argue anymore, I don’t - I don’t want anything from
him! I just - I just want this over. I don’t want to find out anything.”
And that’s what hurt the most. Isabel had unwittingly stripped Caitlin of that choice, of
that option to continue on without knowing how Zayn felt. She’d taken it away from her,
and even though it had been a genuine mistake, it wasn’t a mistake anyone could fix.
“I’m honestly so sorry, Caitlin,” Isabel said, her voice thick as she blinked back tears of her
own. “I’m so, so sorry. I can’t even tell you how much I wish I’d never said anything.”
“Nothing we can do now,” Caitlin said sadly, patting Isabel’s knee, and Isabel knew that
she was forgiven even if she didn’t deserve it.
Isabel shook her head wildly. “I’m not thinking like that anymore. You shouldn’t think like
that. There’s always something you can do.” She took a deep breath, her eyes widening as a
thought suddenly occurred, and went on, “You know, when I was in New York, Niall gave
me this advice about Harry and I. He said that it took da Vinci ages to paint Mona Lisa but
Picasso only a little while to paint Starry Night, but they’re like, still equally revered.”
Caitlin sniffed. “Picasso didn’t paint Starry Night.”
“I know,” Isabel said, reaching for Caitlin’s hand and squeezing it. “Niall’s a fucking idiot,
isn’t he? And I remember thinking like ‘there’s a meaning in that, isn’t there? Because he’s
saying it doesn’t matter if it’s easy or hard, if it takes ages or takes no time at all for things to
work out, but he fucked up his own advice.’” Isabel smiled slightly as Caitlin blinked at her
with wide eyes, confused. “But I thought about it so much that his advice just stuck with
me, sort of because it was wrong, in a way. In the end, he did actually make me think,
like, who cares if it’s difficult? I’ve thought about that before, that things with Harry and I
are too hard. Or were too hard. Because yeah, we’ve had a bit of a struggle, and other
people might have given up, but we didn’t. And I think that’s more important than
anything.”
Caitlin nodded slowly, licking her lips as she processed what Isabel was saying.
“And like, relationships, they’re - they’re not like art,” Isabel went on. “I mean, Niall’s
comparison flopped, and that sorta made me think too, that like, you can’t compare your
relationship to anyone else’s, because it’s yours. It might be harder than everyone else’s,
but if you think it’s worth it, then it is. And you might have to try harder than everyone
else, but if - but if it’s easy, what’s the point? Cos that’s all it is, I think. You both have to
try, and fail, and fuck up until you both get it right at the same time. And then once you’re
both fine, you work at staying fine, and being like ‘this is it for us’. You just have to do
what’s right for you and not care what other people think, or what other people would do.
You just have to work it out together. That’s all it is.”
Caitlin sniffed again. “Really?”
“Yeah, I really think so. And so - so what I’m saying is, only you’ll know if it’s worth it,
Caitlin, I can’t tell you that. But if you and Zayn don’t… work out, you’ll find someone
better for you. No, honestly Caitlin, I mean it. Because if you really don’t feel like he’s
worth it, he’s probably not. But when you find the right person, it’s worth it, and you’ll
know. It is for me, after all of this. I promise, it’s worth it.”
To Isabel’s utmost surprise, Caitlin considered this for a moment before nodding.
And then she smiled.
It seemed that, for the first time, there was hope.
~~~
“Hello?”
“Wizz! Glad to have caught you, do you have a moment?”
“Er…” Isabel tugged at the straps of her duffle bag with her free hand, trying to stop them
digging into her shoulder. At the rate she was walking, it would be another ten minutes
before she reached Harry’s. “All right. I’m just off the bus, I only have a few minutes.”
“Well, nice to hear your voice too,” James grumbled down the line, and Isabel rolled her
eyes. “How are you?”
“Okay,” she mumbled.
“Okay?” James repeated with a scoff. “Fuck off! I haven’t spoken to you for ages, give me
some news!”
“Ummm…” she said, buying time before sharing the only real news she had, “well, my film
festival raised over £2000 for charity? Oh and Harry and I are together now, and –”
"Oh! Really?” James asked in surprise, not missing a beat despite her breezy delivery.
“Dad didn’t say so!”
“Dad doesn’t know,” Isabel said, frowning now. “Why were you two talking about me?”
“We were talking about Harry, actually. Dad was telling me about his brother.” James
exhaled loudly down the line. “Jesus, Isabel. That’s some tough shit.”
“Mmmm.”
“Is he… is he all right? About his brother… you know,” his voice dropped to a stage
whisper, “dying?”
Isabel threw an exasperated look to the lamppost in front of her in James’ absence. “He’ll
be okay, thanks for asking. He’s getting there.”
“How come you told Dad that, but you didn’t tell him that you’re together now?”
“We’re going slow,” Isabel told him patiently. “I didn’t want to say anything in case it
didn’t work out or - or you in case all started asking too many questions. Like now.”
“What do you mean ‘slow’?” James asked in distaste. “What does that even mean?”
Isabel ignored him. “Why are you so bothered, anyway? I thought you hated him.”
“I never said I hated him…” James mumbled. “I was just distrustful of him at first, you
know? It’s natural. You can just tell with some boys that they’re … But anyway, Dad said
he seemed very into you at the wedding, and you like him. That’s good enough for me.”
“Thanks.” There was a pause in which Isabel waited for James to continue, but he was
silent, lost in thought Isabel supposed. “Was there a reason in particular that you called?”
“Oh, right!” He audibly recollected himself, coughing and inhaling sharply. “Yeah, I did
have something to talk to you about, actually. I transferred some money to your bank
account this afternoon.”
Her smile slipped and was replaced by a frown. “What? Why?”
“For all that money I owe you for the wedding. I’ve put some of it back; not all of it, mind.
But I’m working on it.”
“What are you on about?” Isabel said with a laugh, switching the phone to her other ear.
“You don’t owe me that money you idiot!”
“Of course I do! I basically stole your allowance, and it was me and Georgia’s fault for
pissing about for a few years after graduating - don’t do that, by the way - so of course I’m
gonna give it back. It’s only fair.”
“James –”
“What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t? And I’ve got a good job now, Georgia too.
We’re moving into that rented house near her work after Christmas, did Dad tell you? Two
bedrooms and everything –”
“James –”
“– and honestly, even if I didn’t want to - which I do, honest to God - Georgia would make
me. She feels so bad, you know how she loves you, she’s always banging on about making
sure we pay everyone back for –”
“James, listen!” Isabel snapped. “I don’t want your money. I mean, thanks, but you can
have it back.”
James faltered, perhaps bewildered by the disintegration of his gesture, before answering,
“What are you on about, you fuckwit?”
“Because,” Isabel started, taking a deep breath, “as silly as it sounds, without my allowance
being taken away, I wouldn’t have got that job, and without that job I wouldn’t have met
Harry. And I wouldn’t have met Caitlin or Zayn or Niall or Liv, and I probably would
never have had the confidence to run for leader at Film Soc, and I might even - fuck, I’d
probably still be with Louis. So I know it probably sounds ridiculous, and you can laugh if
you want, but I don’t want your money.”
Silence.
“Well,” James said after a beat, “I have no idea what you just said.”
“Just keep the fucking money, okay?”

“No, no, seriously,” James insisted, sounding a little panicked now, “Georgia will kill me.
She’s trying to Prove A Point. You have to keep it.”
“But I –”
“Look, I know you’re fixating on some fate bullshit, all right? I understood that part loud
and clear.” Isabel chewed on her lip in exasperation, rolling her eyes. “Just spend it on
something that meanssomething, all right? You don’t have to save it or pay any bills with it
if you don’t want to. Just spend it on something meaningful.”
She sighed heavily. “Fine.”
“Something meaningful, yeah? That’s actually a good idea! Something that –”
“All right, I fucking heard you the first time.”
“So basically, don’t come back from uni with a car or some shit.”
“You know I can’t drive.”
“That never stopped me.”
~~~
Isabel needn’t have worried about hurrying James off the phone, because when she got to
Harry’s house, he was asleep.
After being greeted by a surly Zayn at the door, Isabel was up the stairs two at a time and
as fast as her weighty duffle bag would allow, only to throw the door of Harry’s room open
and find him fast asleep, a pillow hugged under one arm as he lay on his front, shirtless but
still wearing his jeans. Isabel had half a mind to wake him, but she knew this week he’d
probably slept a few hours a night at best what with his deadline for the exhibition, and
then his inevitably extreme worrying about said exhibition, and she couldn’t bring herself
to.
So she shrugged off her jacket, threw her bag down and climbed over him to the right hand
side of the bed, arranging a pillow to her satisfaction. In her haste to get into bed beside
him, though, she’d accidentally knocked his hip with her knee, and he stirred before she
had the chance to settle down properly.
He whined a little first, puffing out his lips into a pout and screwing his eyes shut tighter,
before letting go of the pillow tucked under his arm and rubbing his face roughly, his
fingertips pressing his eyelids to coax himself out of sleep.
He cracked his eyes open, and for a moment he seemed confused as he squinted at her, like
she was some sort of hologram, before exhaling contentedly.
“You’re here already,” he mumbled, reaching an arm for her. She shuffled towards him,
letting him pull her closer until her chest was pressed right against his side. He smiled,
burrowing his face further into the pillow. “‘m sorry I’m sleeping.”
“It’s okay,” Isabel replied, lifting her hand to flutter her fingers gently across his cheek. He
let his eyes fall shut again, tucking his hand under her jumper so that it rested against her
back.
And Isabel was still so, so tired that lying right next to Harry, with his thumb rubbing the
skin of her back gently and the heat of his body warming her, she fell asleep right away.
~~~
When Isabel woke up, it was to the sound of Harry fluttering about packing his bag for
Christmas. He was going home tomorrow after the exhibition too, but clearly after the busy
week he’d had, he hadn’t had time to pack.
It was late - the curtains were still open but no light trickled through them now, and she
had no idea how long she’d slept for but her legs felt stiff enough from sleeping in jeans
that she assumed it had been a while.
Harry seemed to be packing rather haphazardly, picking up clothes off his floor and
throwing CDs and miscellaneous items from his desk into his bag without really looking at
anything, and it didn’t help that he was basically packing in the dark in his effort not to
wake Isabel.
“Harry?” she said when he’d finally zipped up his bag, and even though it got lost in a
yawn he turned around at the sound of his name and gave her a small smile.
“Hi,” he said back, scratching the back of his neck and staring at her lying in his bed like
he was committing it to memory. In turn, her eyes raked over the muscles in his stomach,
at the way they moved when he breathed, and she was hit again with the realisation that
she and Harry were alone, in a bedroom with the door shut, except this time neither of
them were drunk or crying. Everything was very still, and very calm.
“Sorry I was asleep when you came in,” Harry mumbled, pinching at his lip as her eyes
snapped back up to meet his. “This week’s killed me. I’ve barely slept."
Isabel smiled. “It’s okay. I’m exhausted too.”
“Yeah," Harry said, raking a hand through his hair, and Isabel watched as he hesitated
before coming over to the bed, sitting down cross legged facing her. “Zayn only gave me his
fucking secret on Wednesday, the little shit.”
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked him, and Harry nodded slowly, his eyes
flitting over her face and his lips parting slightly, his breath catching in his throat.
“You don’t need to be,” Isabel went on, and something about their proximity meant her
voice dropped to a whisper. It made Harry lean closer, close enough that she could feel his
breath wash lightly over her face, and his eyes flickered to her lips when she spoke.
“Honestly, Harry. It’ll be fine.”
He gulped. “Hope so.”
“I know so,” she told him, smiling at him gently as she reached up a hand to swipe her
thumb over his cheekbone.
Harry nodded again as his tongue darted out to wet his lips, his gaze now locked solely on
her mouth, and just as Isabel thought she wouldn’t be able to wait any longer, just as the
pull towards him became excruciating, he kissed her.
His hand was at the base of her neck, his lips soft as he pressed them to hers again and
again and again, like he was trying to memorise the way they felt when they first touched,
that first moment of heat before either of them deepened it.
And before either of them could, Harry’s lips left hers to trail down to her jaw, down to her
neck, right down to the neckline of her jumper. His arms were wrapped tightly around her
waist, and his fingers clutching at her jumper, gripping at it tightly.
“God, I missed you so much,” Harry rasped, resting his forehead against the crook of her
neck and just hugging her now, pulling her so close that she ended up in his lap. “I’m so
glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” She smiled when Harry lifted his head up and kissed the corner of her mouth,
tightening his arms around her waist. “We’ve done well, haven’t we?”
The corners of Harry’s mouth quirked up too. “Go team,” he joked, bumping his fist
against hers so that she laughed. His eyes flickered over her face, his expression softening
considerably as he pulled at his bottom lip with his teeth. “Of course we have; I knew we
would. I told you, didn’t I? You’re the girl.” He pressed his lips to hers again, seemingly
oblivious that her heart was now thundering at what felt like triple its normal speed, like
she’d just fallen out of a plane, like she’d just run a marathon. “My girl. This is it.”
“Yeah,” Isabel exhaled, trying her best to remember how to breathe when Harry kissed her
again, although this time his tongue swiped across her lips and a little noise pushed its way
from the back of her throat, her arms locking tight around his neck.
A ten tonne truck could have bulldozed its way into the room then and Isabel wouldn’t
have noticed, not when Harry was kissing her like this, not when his hand snuck under her
jumper to gently smooth its way across her back, his palm pressed flat against her skin.
There wasn’t anything urgent about it like there had been in New York, or even on Harry’s
sofa last Saturday, and Isabel was taken aback by how much she wanted to kiss him
- just kiss him - for what felt like eternity, just kiss him until he couldn’t breathe and went
lightheaded and forgot how to say anything other than her name. She couldn’t remember
ever feeling that way about anyone, wanting someone so much but not in a rushed,
desperate way, just in a way that made it feel as though they had all the time in the world.
And maybe, they did, because as Harry had said, this is it.
But then, with a sudden, excruciating jolt, Isabel realised she’d said something like that to
Caitlin the night before, and the flood of guilt was so strong she felt like she was drowning
in it. Because for Caitlin, there was no time. There was nothing.
She had to pull away from Harry to catch her breath, burying her face into his collarbone
and dropping her arms from his neck so that she pressed the backs of her fingers to his
torso lightly. He was breathing heavily against her hair, pulling at her jumper so he could
close his mouth across the skin of her shoulder, and when he lifted his head up to look at
her, mouthing “okay?”, his lips were so red and his cheeks so flushed and his breath so
quick that Isabel smiled her reassurance even though she wasn’t feeling entirely okay at all
because she’d never wanted to kiss him more.
Harry caught her smile with his lips, kissing and nipping at her mouth until she sighed,
wrapping her arms around his neck and twisting his hair through her fingers. Gingerly, his
hands skirted the bottom of her jumper, pulling at it ever so slightly as his lips moved to
sweep over her jaw, travelling up across her cheek so that they grazed the shell of her ear
when he murmured, “Can I take this off?”
Isabel swallowed loudly and nodded, lifting her arms up as Harry tugged her jumper over
her head. His hands fell straight to her waist after flinging the jumper to the floor, and
gently he pushed her back so that she was lying with her head against the pillow. He
followed, his knee between her legs as he pressed single kisses to her mouth over and over,
smiling and warming her stomach as his hand smoothed over it.
They were both still in their jeans, and Isabel in her bra, but despite that there was
something so intimate about it, his hands running along her stomach and down the skin of
her arms, his lips brushing soft, warm kisses across her face and then her neck. Her eyes
clamped shut, her breath coming out in intermittent bursts, and when she reached up a
hand to roughly push her hair back from her face, unhooking a strand from a corner of
her mouth, Harry caught her arm before she could let it fall again, trailing his lips up her
forearm and nipping at the crook of her elbow, kissing it hard enough that it would bruise.
Isabel’s heart shuddered then. She’d been thinking about this night all week; her mind
racing as she alternated between obsessing over what they would do and how they would
do it, and then agonising about Caitlin and Zayn, and the two were almost interchangeable
now, both so frequently on her mind that they came as a pair. And as his lips travelled up
to her collarbone, his breath hot and ragged and his hair flopping over his forehead and
tickling her skin, she tried her best to not think about either of those things, tried to just let
herself relax and completely forget about them, but as soon as Harry had bitten down on
her skin she’d remembered all the times she’d imagined him doing that all week, and then
in turn she remembered Zayn and Caitlin, and that was it. The more she tried not to think
about it, the more it knocked around inside her brain like it was trying to punch its way
out, and her heart sped up accordingly, hammering so hard she felt sick.
“Is,” he murmured, his lips ghosting the skin of her shoulder. “I – please can I say it
now?”
Her eyes fluttered open, meeting his desperate gaze with her wide, confused one. “What?”
“Please,” he said emphatically, his voice breaking a bit. He lifted his head up so that he was
looking straight at her, pleading with her. “I’ve never wanted to tell you anything more in
my life. Please.”
“Harry –”
“I just need to say it,” he said, tucking her hair behind her ear with shaking fingers. “I
need to say something before I explode. It’s all I think about, how I feel about you.” Isabel’s
heart seemed to stop then, her breath halting in her chest and her stomach dropping. “It’s
not - it’s not like you don’t know anyway. Please.”
“Okay,” she mumbled, her heart in her throat, but when Harry didn’t immediately say
anything and instead frowned at her, she remembered that he’d told her to be honest about
how she felt, that how she felt mattered, so she gulped and said, “Actually, I don’t - I’m not
sure now’s the time.”
She looked away quickly so she didn’t have to see his face fall. “Why?”
“It’s just - I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Tell me.”
She swallowed loudly, unsure of where to look. “Caitlin and I had such a huge talk
yesterday about her and Zayn and I - I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel so awful, Harry,
and I - I feel like if we say it now, I’ll be really happy for five minutes and then I’ll think
about… everything with them and how happy we are will make me feel worse.” She kissed
the tight knot in his jaw as he clenched his teeth together, his eyes falling shut, and willed
him to understand. “The first time we said it was awful, wasn’t it? And the second time.”
She let out a little laugh even though it wasn’t funny, and eventually, Harry’s eyes opened
and he exhaled through his nose, the corners of his mouth pulling up ever so slightly before
dropping again. “I just want it to be the best possible moment for it, you know, and I - I’m
sorry, Harry. It’s silly, isn’t it?”
“You’re unbelievably ridiculous,” Harry replied, brushing his lips over hers. He pulled
back and eyed her seriously. “If they never get together, are you just going to feel guilty
forever?”
She squirmed, her cheeks flushing. “No, but –”
“So why feel guilty now?” He pressed his lips together, a glint of something in his eye that
Isabel couldn’t work out. “I’m quite certain everything will be sorted out with them fairly
soon, anyway.”
Isabel frowned. “How do you know?”
“I just do.” He seemed to consider something for a second before sighing and collapsing
down on the bed next to her. “You’re right, though. We should wait to say it until all of this
shit’s over. Including the exhibition tomorrow, it’s stressing me out.”
“Yeah?” Isabel said, rolling over to face him and rubbing her thumb across the skin above
the waistband of his jeans.
“I kind of don’t want you to be thinking of sad things when I say it,” Harry admitted,
smiling a little. “It’s a bit disheartening when someone cries every time it’s said.”
“Sorry,” Isabel whispered, but Harry shook his head wildly, picking up her hand to
intertwine his fingers with hers.
“You know I want it all to be perfect, too,” he told her gently, and Isabel smiled with the
knowledge that they were on the same page. From the start, everything between them had
happened so quickly, like a whirlwind, and nothing had really gone right. There’d been so
many hurdles and stops and false starts that it felt like they were
going backwards sometimes, like they were actually taking one step forward and eight steps
back. And all this time, their biggest problem had been talking, because there had been so
much miscommunication, so many moments when neither of them said what they were
thinking, so many bottled up feelings that ended up bursting like a shaken up Coke bottle
at completely the wrong moments. And so although both of them knew exactly how the
other felt without either of them having to say it, when it was said aloud they both felt like
it had to make up for everything that had passed, had to sweep all of that away until it
could be left behind, until all that was left was the two of them and their fresh start
together.
Because really, after everything, they both knew that they deserved a moment of pure,
untarnished, unwavering happiness.
There was a prolonged silence, in which Harry opened his mouth to speak again but then
hesitated, taking a moment to build up the courage to spit out what was on the tip of his
tongue. “Is?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you do me a favour?”
“Depends,” she said with a smile, pushing his hair away from his face with her free hand.
He gulped, nodding a bit. “Can we… you see in New York you asked if I wanted to talk
about Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking this week and… is it all right if we … if we do that?”
“Of course we can.”
~~~
Isabel wasn’t sure how long Harry spoke for, but although he told her a lot, so many stories
and memories of Adam that he’d not spoken about for four years, it didn’t feel like a long
time. She sat mostly in silence, just listened and nodded and let Harry play with her fingers
as he told her everything he wanted to say about Adam, all the memories and regrets and
thoughts and wishes he had. He told her that after Adam died, he got the same tattoo as
Adam had had, a padlock on his wrist. He told her about the day Adam made it on the
local football team and his family went out for a celebratory meal and they all got food
poisoning. He told her about the day Adam got his A-Level results, three A*s, and Harry
found him curled up in bed later that evening crying like it was the worst news in the
world.
And he told her that when Adam had gone to university, he’d changed entirely, and for the
last year of Adam’s conscious life he and Harry hadn’t got on so well at all.
“When he came home for Christmas that year he got angry at me for saying I wanted to do
an art degree,” Harry told her, pinching his lip with the hand that wasn’t holding hers. “He
was like, ‘you’re never gonna make any fucking money, do a normal fucking degree like
everyone else and stop being stupid.’ He was obsessed with money towards the end. He was
in so much debt to my parents.” Harry sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “He was
so lonely. He just hated being in London away from everyone but he didn’t want to let
anyone down. He stopped answering any of my texts or showing any interest in me at all,
and I should have…” He gulped. “It must have been so horrible for him.”
After confessions like that, Isabel thought she should say something, should try and
reassure him in some way. But she quickly realised that, this time, reassurance wasn’t what
Harry was looking for. He just wanted to talk.
“I painted him once,” Harry said a long while later, after they’d had toast for an after-
midnight snack, after they’d taken off their jeans and were lying facing each other in the
dark, after Harry’s voice had gone hoarse from talking. “It was like a year and a half after
the accident. I did it in the shed at the bottom of the garden at my old house, and when it
was done, my mum got all teary. She was like, ‘Adam would have been so proud of you’ and
I just … fucking exploded. I screamed at her for about two hours, I was so angry. I just
hated her putting words in his mouth. I guess it made it seem like he was really gone, you
know, because she thought it was okay to do that.”
“Maybe she was right though,” Isabel suggested. “Maybe he would have been proud.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, yeah,” he mumbled. He stopped talking then to consider this for a
moment, his teeth biting down on his lip and his eyes glazing over, as though wondering for
the first time whether Adam might actually have been proud of whom Harry had become.
And then he nodded firmly. “Yeah.”
~~~
The exhibition room was large, but Zayn, Isabel and Niall made a beeline towards Harry’s
section, not even bothering to glance at anyone else’s work.
“Is Caitlin here?” Zayn badgered, tugging on Isabel’s sleeve.
“I don’t know, we’re not there yet,” Isabel pointed out.
“Can you ring her?”
“My phone’s out of battery,” she told him for the third time.
Zayn’s nerves were somewhat justifiable, seeing as Caitlin had been ignoring him all week,
but he was bordering on annoying after hours of it. Harry had left to set up things for the
exhibition at lunchtime, and while Niall played FIFA and Zayn alternated between pacing
around downstairs moaning and sitting in his room by himself, Isabel had spent the
morning being uncharacteristically spontaneous. She'd borrowed Niall's laptop to check
whether her brother's money had come through, and all of a sudden found herself applying
for five different internships starting next autumn at various film organisations and
companies in London. Her fear of graduation was far from gone, but she wasn't ignoring it
anymore, and for some reason, that felt like the most grown up thing she'd ever done in her
life.
It was only when they left at 5:30 to go to the exhibition that Isabel realised her phone had
died, probably hours ago, but there was no time to charge it then.
“Chill out, Zayn,” Niall said breezily, slapping him on the back and waving his hello to
somebody he recognised. Zayn just gulped.
When they reached the corner of the room that had a little sign stuck to the wall labelling it
‘Styles, Harry’, a waiter roaming around with a tray of drinks thrust them a Buck’s Fizz
each, and they scanned the area for Harry but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” Isabel muttered, biting down on her thumbnail, but Zayn and Niall had
already gone off and, with a final look around, she trailed after them.
Harry had told her during the week that he’d painted about eight people’s secrets in total,
each secret displayed on an A3 sized canvas. Isabel wandered past the first couple, sipping
on her Buck’s Fizz and trying to work out if they belonged to anyone she knew. Seeing as
he’d painted so many different canvases, none of them were as intricate as the paintings of
her and Zayn and himself that she’d seen in June. These were a different style entirely,
much cleaner and sharper and commercial, almost, and underneath each canvas was a
little white card stuck to the wall detailing the secret it was based around.
One secret - I’m twenty years old and I still can’t sleep in a dark room - was the first one that
really caught Isabel’s eye. Harry had drawn a clearly adult figure, hunched in a dark room
on a bed that had about fifteen monstrous eyes peeking out from underneath. It was so well
done it looked like an advert, like something you’d see on billboards, but it still made Isabel
smile as she imagined Harry coming up with the idea. Somehow it didn’t make the
confession seem as bad, because everyone would be scared of the dark if there were
monsters under the bed.
The next one along was a secret she instantly recognised.
After someone at school made fun of my family for living up to the apparent ‘black single
mum’ stereotype, I shredded my parents’ evening slips so my mum couldn’t come. And I’ve
felt awful about it all my life.
And Harry had painted a girl with recognisably curly hair sitting atop a huge mountain of
shredded paper, her head in her hands. But her mum was at the bottom, holding out her
hand to help her down.
It was then that Isabel realised what Harry was doing. He was taking people’s innermost
fears, their suppressed secrets, and he wasn’t just turning them into art. He was showing
that their worst nightmares weren’t anything to be ashamed of. Harry had promised that
he wouldn’t be judgemental, and not only had he stayed true to his word, he’d gone beyond
that. He was making people feel better, too.
Her secret was the next one along.
I’m so scared of graduating, and I feel like I have no control over myself or my future and that
I’m just going to fall through life forever, and it’s terrifying.
The painting to accompany it was, at first glance, just a sea of black graduation caps atop
the heads of indistinguishable students, from the perspective of someone sitting right at the
back of the hall. But then on closer inspection, Isabel noted the girl in the foreground had
blonde hair, and her head was facing to the side slightly so that Isabel could see that she
wasn’t disappointed or scared or upset on graduation day - she was smiling. She was okay.
Isabel found Caitlin a couple of canvases down, staring in wide-eyed awe at the one
hanging in front of her.
The painting was done pop art style, inspired perhaps by the Lichtenstein and Warhol
they’d seen in the Met, and was of an anatomical heart. And bursting right from the centre
of it was a familiar red and yellow ‘ZAP!’, and you’d have only needed to see it on his arm
once to know that this was Zayn’s tattoo.
And underneath, it read: The only thing me and my best friend will ever agree on is that I’m
an idiot for not realising I loved her a long time ago.
Isabel glanced over at Caitlin, her mouth hanging open slightly with surprise. Caitlin was
staring at the painting, absolutely transfixed, and it was only when Isabel said her name
that she registered she had company.
“Caitlin,” Isabel said slowly, a grin creeping across her face. “This is about you.”
Caitlin gulped, her gaze flickering between Isabel and the painting. “Yeah,” she said
eventually, her voice tiny. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“It is!” Isabel chimed delightedly, her entire heart lifting in her chest like it was suddenly
filled with helium. “You and Zayn –”
Isabel stopped, because just then she saw Zayn hanging back in the corner, his eyes on
Caitlin as he chewed on his lip nervously. And suddenly, his nervousness made sense.
Maybe he hadn’t known exactly how Harry would do this, but when Zayn had given Harry
his secret on Wednesday, Harry must have told him he’d sort everything.
“Caitlin,” Isabel murmured, and Caitlin looked over at her with wide eyes. "Do you think
it's worth it now?"
Caitlin swallowed. "I need time to think." She looked at Isabel, still so shocked she looked
completely dazed. “Maybe. I’m gonna - I need time to think on my own.”
Isabel's heart sank but she nodded and squeezed Caitlin’s arm, and with one last glance in
Zayn’s direction, she shuffled off to try and find Harry’s secret. His little corner of the
exhibition room was busy now, enough people looking around that she couldn’t even see
Niall anymore, and when somebody tapped her arm it took a moment for her to realise that
it was intentional.
“Hi!” a voice said, and Isabel turned to find a mousy looking girl with an upturned nose
blinking at her anxiously. “You’re Harry’s girlfriend, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Isabel said, her eyes flickering over this girl’s nervous face with an increasing
feeling of dread.
“I’m Joanna, I have classes with Harry,” she explained. “Have you heard from him since
he texted you earlier?”
“My phone died this morning so I haven’t picked up anything,” Isabel said, her heart
racing now, and she felt sick. “Is he all right? Where is he?”
Joanna’s eyes widened. “Oh - you don’t know! Well, fuck.” Isabel tried her best to wait
patiently for an explanation, biting the inside of her cheek so she didn’t snap at her. “He’s
not here. He went home.”
“What? Why? He’s meant to be going home after.”
“He got a call at like three this afternoon, his sister’s in hospital.”
It felt like Isabel’s stomach hurtled to her feet then, crashing to the ground and smashing
into a thousand pieces. “What?”
“Appendicitis, apparently.” Joanna ran a hand through her hair. “I just wanted to check
he was all right but clearly you … don’t know.”
“I - fuck, I had no idea,” Isabel spluttered, running a hand through her hair and looking
around wildly, and it was then she spotted Niall worming his way towards her. “Niall!
Harry’s –”
“Is, you need to see this,” he interrupted, grabbing her arm. He smiled and nodded at
Joanna before dragging Isabel off through the crowd.
“Niall, listen, Harry’s not here, he had to –”
“Tell me in a minute, hold on,” Niall said. They’d stopped in the furthest corner of Harry’s
space, right in front of a very familiar painting.
The caption underneath read: I’m getting better everyday and sometimes I feel guilty about
it, but mostly I’m just excited about all the things that can happen, and all the things that I
don’t know, and all the days to come.
Isabel stared at the caption, and then the painting, and then the caption again.
“But it’s…”
“Yeah,” Niall said, his eyes wide as he gazed at her. “It’s him.”
It was a smaller, scaled down replica of the real thing, and although it wasn’t exactly the
same because it had been painted from memory, she was sure she’d be able to recognise
this painting anywhere. She’d seen it hanging on Harry’s chimney breast enough times to
have the image of it stamped into her brain forever.
But as she squinted and leaned closer, she realised this version was slightly different.
Because when she’d seen it before, she’d only been able to make out one closed eye behind
the boy’s forearm, but this version of the painting showed both his eyes were definitely
closed. He was definitely asleep. And on top of this, there was an addition to the painting,
or perhaps something she’d never noticed before. There was a tiny padlock tattoo on his
wrist.
And suddenly everything made sense.
“Niall,” Isabel said urgently, turning to him and gripping his hand tightly, “there’s
something we need to do.”
End Notes:
see you on MONDAY for the final chapter!!! xxx
Back to index
Author's Notes:
you're ridiculous
December
“Is this it?”
Niall squinted towards the house, so exhausted he was struggling to see even a few feet in
front of him. “Yeah, I think so.”
Isabel glared at him. “We have to be sure.”
“What do you want me to do?” Niall asked incredulously. “Teleport into the house and
work out if it’s Harry’s by sniffing the fucking furniture?”
“All right,” Isabel sighed, running a hand through her hair. Niall was crabby when he was
tired. “I’m just nervous.”
89 Werburgh Croft, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire. That’s what Zayn had told Isabel about
fifty times on the phone while she and Niall were driving to Cheshire from Sheffield last
night, but now they were here it seemed like it had all been far too easy, and Isabel stared
at what must be Harry’s front door with a lump in her throat.
It was a small terraced house, a tiny little front garden leading to red front door with
peeling paint. There was a bike that Isabel assumed belong to Cally lying on its side in the
front garden, and on the grubby windowsill, just above a withering honeysuckle shrub, was
a fat ginger cat, its legs tucked under its body as it surveyed them stonily.
“It’ll be okay,” Niall said quietly, switching off the engine and rubbing her arm. “It’ll be
okay.”
Isabel swallowed and nodded, smiling at Niall weakly and then finally turning to get out of
the car. The pair of them negotiated the huge package out of Niall’s boot and carried it
carefully between them up the garden path, Isabel’s heart racing so hard in her chest she
could barely breathe.
She knocked on the door in the absence of a doorbell, her fist shaking as she did so, but
before she could have a moment to collect herself the door swung open immediately and
Ted Styles blinked at them, confused, paused in the act of doing up his tie.
“Isabel!” he said in surprise.
“Hello,” Isabel smiled, accepting a one armed hug from him as she clutched the canvas to
keep it upright. “We’re here for Harry. Obviously.”
“He’s with Phoebe at the hospital, he stayed there last night,” Ted explained, a polite smile
plastered to his face. “Would you like to come in? He’ll be back soon.”
The pair of them nodded, and Ted nodded before leading the way.
“I’m just heading off to work, actually,” he said over his shoulder as Isabel and Niall
shuffled down the tiny corridor behind him, struggling to carry the package down a hall
that wasn’t even big enough for two people to stand side by side. “Jane took Callum to
school, you just missed her actually, but she’s at work until 5.”
They made it into the kitchen and Ted turned to face them, finishing the knot of his tie and
smiling again. The room was small, barely larger than Isabel’s kitchen in her shared uni
house, but it was so cluttered and messy and full of stuff that it felt like home instantly.
Three of the walls were lined by countertops and the fourth had a large table shoved up
against it, an assortment of homework and finger paintings and bank statements and
empty mugs of tea littering the surface.
“Tea, you two?” Ted asked as Niall went to shove the package in the corner, promptly
tripping over the cat that had followed them in and nearly tumbling flat on his face.
“Fuck, sorry!” Niall said loudly to the cat. He bent down to stroke it, cooing like it was a
baby, and Isabel tried not to roll her eyes. “Who’s this then?”
“Crummy,” replied Isabel, at the same time as Ted said: “Crumpet.”
He smiled warmly at Isabel, the corners of his eyes crinkling just like Harry’s. “He’s
Crummy, yeah, full name Crumpet. He’s older than Harry.”
“How’s Phoebe?” Isabel asked as Niall abruptly straightened up and stepped away from
Crummy, as if he was afraid the old cat would drop dead then and there from the contact
with his foot.
Ted rubbed a hand over his face and looked absently out of the window into the garden. “It
was all a bit scary. Appendix burst, you know. I didn’t even know they could do that, but it
did. She’ll be okay, her operation went well." He paused for a moment, chewing on his lip,
before turning to smile tiredly at the pair of them. “Sorry, I was making you tea wasn’t I?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Niall said, suppressing a yawn. “Do you reckon I could go and
have a nap in Harry’s room? We haven’t slept, drove up late last night, stopped in
Sheffield on the way. All that's kept me awake is all these shitty service station coffees, you
know.”
Ted chuckled, glancing at Niall almost nervously before busying himself with the kettle.
“Well, um, Harry doesn’t really have a room.” Niall just blinked, his exhausted eyelids
pausing like they were glued together for a moment. “He used to – we used to have a really
lovely house, a three-bed semi-detached job up by the park – but we moved here two years
ago. His bed’s in the living room now, actually.”
“Oh,” Niall replied flatly, and Isabel knew he instantly felt guilty. Niall had more than
enough money, was given everything on a plate and although he was grateful for it, he
didn’t know any differently. To Niall, a three-bed semi-detached job for six people and a cat
wasn’t enough, and that was ten times better than what they had now. To make matters
worse, judging by the embarrassment on Ted’s face it was clear that he knew that the
Horans had been keeping Harry afloat at uni. Isabel couldn’t even imagine how Ted must
have felt to know that his son was struggling so much he’d become in debt to his friend’s
family because he couldn’t ask his own father for help.
“You can sleep in Callum’s room, though,” Ted continued, coughing into his hand and
shooting Niall a tight smile. “It’s the first on the left upstairs.”
“Cheers,” Niall nodded, glancing at Isabel briefly before heading out of the room.
Ted was silent for a while, stirring milk into the tea with a contemplative look on his face
before he handed a mug over to Isabel. “Starting a charity takes a lot of your own money,”
he muttered to Isabel, looking almost apologetic. “And we - you know. We didn't really
have much money in the first place.”
“He doesn’t begrudge you for it,” Isabel replied softly. “I promise you, he doesn’t.”
“I know,” Ted sighed. He licked his lips, waiting just a moment before spitting out: “But I
feel like I’ve let him down sometimes.”
It was such an honest confession that Isabel was stunned into silence, and it was a long
enough pause that Ted felt the need to keep speaking.
“I put everything into the charity and - and maybe at the expense of Harry. He was so
upset for so long and we tried to help him but he didn’t - he wouldn’t let us. I feel like we
could’ve done so much better by him."
“Harry doesn’t see it that way,” Isabel told him. “He thinks the world of you.”
Ted swallowed, looking at his feet, and he looked so much like Harry that Isabel could have
cried. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m being hard on myself. It’s just you - you don’t ever expect
to lose your child.”
"Oh," Isabel said, because there was nothing to say. There was nothing anyone could say.
He rubbed his face and let out a little laugh, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.
Ignore me."
“Don't worry,” Isabel said, setting down her tea because her hands were shaking and she
was scared it would spill. “You had a rough day yesterday with Phoebe, I understand.”
He nodded, pausing before downing his tea quickly and setting it in the sink. “Harry was
his favourite person, you know. My brothers and I were never so close, but Adam adored
Harry. Four years between them, you’d think they’d hate each other like boys often do but
they didn’t. I was scared for a long time that … that Harry'd never get over it because
sometimes when you love someone like that it feels like you can’t ever let them go.” He
frowned and sighed. “We tried so many times to get through to him after, but we were
struggling too. He didn’t want to get over him for a long, long time. I don't think he wanted
to get better.”
Isabel bit down on her nails. “You think…you think he’s better now?”
Ted just looked at her, his lips eventually quirking up at the corners into a soft smile.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I really think he's getting there.”
Ted went to leave then, telling Isabel how to work the television and assuring her that
Harry would be back very soon as she followed him down the hall. He paused when he
opened the door, bouncing his car keys in his hand as he looked back at her.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Isabel smiled. “It’s okay.”
“For a lot of things. You mean the world to him, you know.”
Isabel very nearly did cry then, and Ted patted her on the arm as she composed herself,
squeezing it briefly before letting her go.
He walked down the path, pushing open the gate and hesitating before turning back to her.
“Isabel, I think Ad– Harry’s car broke.” He ran a hand through his hair, holding her gaze
with his anxious green stare. “He came into the hospital last night and said he’d be
surprised if it ever started again. He’s going to be upset, you know. You… you understand
that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Isabel replied quietly, “of course he can be upset. I’d never expect any different.
Adam’s part of who he is, of course he’ll get upset.”
Ted nodded, letting out a heavy breath that he looked like he’d been holding for a long,
long time. “Thank you,” he said again. And Isabel nodded, knowing that those two words
from this man, this father, who had watched his whole world fall apart with pride and
determination and courage, held much, much more weight than she would ever be able to
truly comprehend.
~~~
Isabel wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself while she waited for Harry. When she went
into the living room after Ted left, she spent a good few minutes just staring at Harry’s
bed, pressed against the wall in the corner and smothered with a Lion King duvet cover.
Before she could stop herself she lay down on it, hoping that the pillow would smell citrusy
like him, but he hadn’t slept in it for so long that it smelt of nothing.
She started to inspect the living room after that, peering intently at all the little bits and
pieces that provided clues about the part of Harry’s life that she didn’t know well. There
was a cluttered, heaving bookshelf in the corner, laden with as many picture frames as
there were books – pictures of him when he was a baby on the beach, of him holding
Phoebe and grinning widely when she was born, of him age seventeen or eighteen with tiny
little Cally. There were pictures of his parents too, at their wedding, with newborn Cally in
the hospital, with Crummy in his teenage years. And there was Adam. He wasn’t hidden
away like she was used to with Harry; he was shown in equal measure to the other
children, his arm wrapped around Harry’s neck in the garden, standing holding the keys to
his new car proudly, lying on the sofa with Cally splayed across his chest.
It made Isabel smile to see him there. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t gone, that wasn’t it. It was
just acknowledgment that Adam was their child, and Adam was their brother, and dead or
alive or in between, that could never be taken away.
After that Isabel went to the kitchen and dragged the huge package into the living room
before unwrapping it carefully. She wanted it to be here, in Harry’s room with a pile of his
clothes neatly in the corner and his A-level paintings on the wall and his family captured,
frozen in time and immortalised in the pictures that Jane and Ted had displayed proudly in
their tiny front room.
Then she turned on the lights on the Christmas tree and sat on Harry’s bed, switching on
the television at last and watching a New Girl rerun on E4. All she could do now was gnaw
on her nails and wait; her worn out brain, up for longer than twenty-four hours now, was
too buzzed to even contemplate sleeping.
After what seemed like an eternity, Isabel heard a key in the lock. She sat up quickly in
Harry’s bed, shoving her fingers between her teeth and staring at the door to the living
room with her heart racing.
“Niall?” she heard him call, and even his voice sounded exhausted. She scrambled up,
turning off the television and waiting with her heart in her mouth as he pushed open the
door to the living room.
He blinked when he saw her, completely taken aback, and his tired, bloodshot eyes
widened. He pulled his beanie off his hair, scratching at his flushed cheeks that were bitten
red by the cold. “Hey,” he said eventually. He kept his mouth open, about to say something
else, but his eyes darted over to the corner and whatever he’d been about to tell her
dissolved into nothing.
Isabel followed his gaze, glancing over at the painting of a boy splayed out on a bed, his
arm over his face, and when she looked back at Harry her heart felt like it froze, seized,
and shattered in her chest.
He was crying.
There was just one tear, leaking out of his eye and sliding slowly down his cheek as he
walked slowly over to his painting and touched it gently. His hand was shaking almost
violently, and Isabel couldn’t see his face as he stared at it, but he stood there for so long
that she started to get anxious, wringing her hands together as she waited.
“My painting?” he asked, his voice cracking, and when he turned to look at her his face
was entirely wet, tears cascading down his cheeks now like a dam had burst, dripping from
his jaw onto his t-shirt. “You got it back?”
“Yeah.”
He swallowed, wiping the back of his hand over his face and sniffing loudly. “For how
long?”
She struggled to say anything at all. His voice was jagged, his chest rising and falling
rapidly and his teeth biting down hard enough on his lower lip that it was turning white,
and it was so overwhelming that it took a moment to realise she’d started crying too. He
thought that he only had the painting for a limited time before it was taken away, and her
heart broke for him, tears of her own splashing down her cheeks. “Forever, Harry. It’s
yours.”
He nodded, and then kept nodding, staring at the painting and biting his lip so hard she
thought it would start bleeding, his fingers tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt and his chest
heaving, and then all of a sudden he was sobbing.
He reached up to cover his face with both hands as his shoulders shook, his body almost
collapsing in on itself as he hunched over, choking on his own breath.
“Oh, Harry,” she exhaled shakily, starting towards him but he met her in the middle,
burying his face in her neck and pushing her backwards so that he lay down half on top of
her on his Lion King duvet cover, his tears soaking her shoulder as he cried and cried and
cried. He gripped her tightly with shaking fingers, as though if he held her any gentler she
would leave, and gasped loudly as he sobbed, his breath catching in his throat and coming
out in strangled little whines and chokes that made her heart ache so much she couldn’t
stop crying either.
And so Isabel just smoothed her hand across his back and thought to herself that the
person who said it wasn't possible to shed more than thirty-four tears had never met
someone who hadn’t cried for four and a half years, because even when Harry stopped
sobbing he didn’t stop crying, tears leaking out of his eyes as he squeezed them shut and
balled her jumper in his fists, breathing out harshly into her neck.
When he finally finished, neither of them said anything for a long time. Harry got off her,
rolling to his side so that they were lying face to face with their eyes shut and their noses
nearly touching. She could feel him breathing against her lips and his hand went to hook
around her thigh, pulling her closer and rubbing soft circles into her skin with his thumb.
“How did you get it?” he asked eventually, his voice so hoarse it cracked when he spoke.
“I went through your room to find the invoice from when you sold it,” she said quietly,
peeking through her eyelashes and pushing his damp hair away from his puffy eyes. “I
knew you would’ve kept it. It was helpful how organised you are with money stuff, by the
way.” She paused, biting down on her lip. “I - I’m sorry I went through your things.”
Harry shook his head tiredly. “I don’t think I’ve ever given less of a fuck about anything in
my life.”
She smiled and laughed shakily at that, and he smiled too, just the corners of his lips
pulling up as his eyes fluttered open.
“I saw the man's address on the invoice and Niall drove me to Sheffield to get it. We
explained to the guy you sold it to why you … we explained everything. And he was so
lovely – he’s got a house full of amazing, amazing art Harry, vt undiscovered artists, you
should go and see it – and then we bought it off him.”
“How much?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Harry frowned. “That’s –”
“It doesn’t matter.” She smoothed the crease between his eyebrows and his eyes fell shut
again. “It’s money that means nothing, Harry. My brother gave me the money back that
got taken away for his wedding, but if that had never happened, I’d never have met you. I
don’t want the money.”
“I’ll pay you back,” he said, pulling her even closer and sighing against her lips. For a
while he said nothing, just tracing patterns against her leg, before eventually he mumbled,
“My car might be dead, Is.”
“Your dad said.”
“I had to walk back from the hospital this morning. I just - I didn’t wanna check it
earlier.”
She ran her fingers across his cheek, watching his eyelashes flutter in response to her
touch. “That’s okay.”
“You know…” He trailed off, surveying her for a moment with his tired, red rimmed eyes.
“You know it’s Adam in the painting?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Harry nodded too, and then swallowed loudly. "I'm sorry I never told you it was him. I
always just told people an anonymous guy painted it because I ... it means a lot to me, and I
- I don't know. It means a lot."
"It does?"
“Yeah." He squeezed his eyes shut, sighing slightly. "I painted it before my uni interview,
cos you have to show them a portfolio of your work, you know. In the garden, like I told
you. I thought I didn’t stand a chance, like completely deadset sure that I didn’t, and then
they gave me a scholarship.”
“He helped you in, see?” she said quietly, pushing her hands up the back of his jumper to
rest against the skin of his back. “He’ll never be gone, Harry. He’ll never leave you.”
“Yeah,” Harry whispered. “I know that now.”
Isabel nodded again, knowing that she understood all of this stuff a lot better now. Just
because Harry had let go of Adam didn’t mean he had to get rid of him. Letting go didn’t
mean forgetting, not at all. It meant holding onto the good and losing the bad. And Harry’s
painting of him, the one that had taken him to uni, to Zayn and Caitlin and Liv and Niall,
to Isabel, to getting better, was nothing but good.
Isabel went to tell him this, but Harry was quite suddenly asleep, his breath falling softly
on Isabel’s mouth and his hand resting limply against her thigh. And as Isabel let her
exhausted eyes fall shut, she knew she didn’t need to tell him, because it’s something he’d
worked it out already, something he knew.
~~~
Isabel woke to the sound of Harry singing loudly - and badly.
“Throwing out your frown and smiling at the sound…”
Isabel shuffled over to the kitchen before leaning against the doorframe with a smile,
watching the muscles in Harry’s shirtless back as he stirred a bowl of something. His hair
was wet and he had sweatpants on, riding low on his hips as he sang along, and Isabel's
heart did something funny when he got the words wrong.
“Hello,” she said, and he whipped around, smiling broadly.

“Afternoon,” he grinned. “I’m baking.”
“You are?”
“Yep,” he said, holding out the bowl. “For Phoebe. Flapjacks.”
Isabel smiled so wide her cheeks hurt. “What can I do?”
“I’ve nearly done it now. You can lick the bowl, if you like.”
“You know how to win a girl over, Styles.”
He grinned, pouring out the mixture into a baking tray and glancing at the clock as Isabel
sat at the table. “I have to go and get my brother from school in an hour.”
“Okay.”
“Niall’s asleep in Cally’s bed, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“We should go and wake him up probably,” Harry said, shoving the baking tray into the
oven roughly and slamming the door shut with his hip. “I should say thank you.”
He brought the nearly empty bowl over with two spoons, pulling out a chair beside her and
sitting down. Isabel scraped the side of the bowl with her spoon, shovelling the leftover
mixture into her mouth as Harry watched her quietly. “And thank you, Is.”
She met his gaze, swallowing and licking her lips. “I would do it a million times, Harry.”
“I know.”
He started eating too, still humming along to the song in the background, and Isabel smiled
involuntarily. He glanced up, caught her smile, and then suddenly a thought occurred as he
leapt from his seat across the room.
“Here,” he said, bounding back towards her with his hands behind his back. “I’ve got you
something.”
Isabel frowned. “Huh?”
“It’s nearly Christmas,” Harry reminded her, grinning. He sat down and placed the gift on
the table, rectangular and wrapped in penguin-patterned paper.
“I thought we weren’t getting each other gifts,” Isabel said with a gulp, her heart sinking.
“Oh, we’re not,” Harry said, still smiling and spooning himself some more flapjack
mixture. “But you kinda gave me the best present ever today, and I had this here anyway,
so. Rest assured I spent absolutely no money.”
Isabel screwed up her face begrudgingly, reaching for the present. “Fine. Bit early
though.”
“It’s never too early for presents, Is.”
She smiled and tore open the paper slowly, trying not to think about the fact that Harry
was watching her intently, their knees touching under the table. And then, her eyes
widened.
It was the picture of her and Harry from her brother’s wedding, Isabel laughing at his
awful joke with her hand on Harry’s knee as he smiled at her, his hand tucked around her
ribcage. And in Harry’s neat script, he’d written on the corner of the frame - “Who is a
penguin’s favourite popstar? – Seal”
“Do you like it?” Harry asked after a prolonged silence in which Isabel just stared at the
frame, trying to decide whether she wanted to laugh or cry more. "That's the joke I told
you to make you laugh, do you remember?"
“Yeah,” she croaked, looking up at him and nodding fiercely. “Thank you so much, Harry,
I love it.”
“‘Sokay. Doesn’t really live up the gift you gave me, but I –”
“It’s your picture, though,” she said, because somehow Harry had managed to acquire the
picture from her dad without her knowing and the thought made her heart flip inside out
in her chest. “It’s yours.”
Harry shrugged, smiling. “We can take another one.”
Isabel nodded, swallowing before smiling back at him, and for a moment they just grinned
at each other at the promise of it.
“Hey, how’s Phoebe? I never asked.”
“She’ll be okay. She’s gonna have a wicked scar, she’s really excited.” Harry laughed
gently, shaking his head. “I’ve never been more scared in my whole life, you know, and
Phoebe’s having the time of her life in hospital. She said all her friends are gonna bring her
presents.”
“Lucky girl,” Isabel grinned. “Can we visit her later?”

Harry nodded and smiled. “We’ll take Cally after school. And Niall, if he’s alive. He looked
pretty dead when I looked in there earlier.” He paused, watching with a smile on his lips as
she laughed before he sighed lightly, his face darkening. “I guess we should check on my
car, too.”
“Yeah, good idea.” She leaned forward to tug the corner of his mouth up with her
fingertip. “Hey, it could be okay!”
“Could be,” Harry said doubtfully, reaching for her hand that was still hovering by his face
so he could kiss her palm. “It’s probably its time to go, anyway. I was thinking about
selling it for parts so I can save for my Europe trip.”
Isabel squeezed his fingers. “Don’t write it off yet. Let’s just see what happens.” Harry
nodded, looking down at their intertwined hands that were resting on the table, and she
moved closer to him to try and bring his attention back, their knees knocking together. “By
the way, your exhibition was fucking amazing. And really sneaky, as well. Zayn’s secret
was a stroke of genius.”
“Told you I knew it’d sort itself out,” Harry said with a grin. “Sometimes I do actually
know what I’m talking about.” Isabel laughed again and ran her free hand through his
hair, but Harry’s smile slipped, his teeth biting down on his lower lip. "Do you think they'll
get together?"
"I don't know."
"Me neither."
Isabel gulped. "I hope so."
Harry smiled softly, leaning forward and rubbing his thumb across her lips to wipe off
some stray flapjack mixture that had gathered at the corner of her mouth. He paused, his
thumb lingering there, but Isabel closed the distance between them before he could and
pressed her lips to his, smiling against the heat of his mouth.
“Come here,” Harry mumbled, grabbing at her and pulling her onto his lap, wrapping his
arms around her tightly and kissing her again, his lips leaving hers to smile before pressing
them back together.
“Your nose is cold,” Isabel told him, her mouth still pressed to his.
“It’s always cold when I’m in this house,” Harry said with a smile, his lips not leaving hers.
“Yours is too.”
They kissed again, though Harry’s mouth trailed away from hers to kiss across her cheek,
sponging across her jaw until she let out a gentle, satisfied sigh and he lifted his head up.
“Am I allowed to say it now?” he whispered, the sentence punctuated by a small kiss in the
middle, his lips brushing hers when he spoke.
There was no question of it anymore. The ball had felt like it was in her court last week,
but now it didn’t. There was no ball, no court, no other fancy metaphors. It was just Harry,
just Isabel, and neither of them were worried or stressed or sad. There was no rush, no
ticking clock, no urgency or panic or alarm. They had wanted it to be perfect, and sitting
there in Harry’s kitchen, with mouths that tasted like flapjacks and cold noses and The
Cure playing in the background, it was more perfect than she could ever have anticipated.
“You’re allowed to say it every day for as often as you like,” Isabel told him with a small
grin, and he smirked back at her, raising his eyebrows. “Preferably multiple times a day,
just in case I forget.”
Harry tucked his hands underneath her jumper, holding the bare skin of her waist gently
as he gazed at her. “I love you,” Harry told her. “You won’t forget.”
“I love you,” she replied, feeling her heart swell when he smiled warmly, his whole face
lighting up.
“I’ll never get tired of that.”
“Good,” she smiled, brushing her lips against his. “I love you.”
They kissed again, his tongue slipping into her mouth now and his hands travelling higher,
not missing the nip of her teeth against his lips and the hitch in her breath when he shifted
her in his lap. He pulled away, glancing at the clock, and her heart accelerated as she
watched him.
“How long do we have?”
“Twenty minutes before these have to come out of the oven.”
She said nothing, just bit down on her lip and looped his hair in her fingers.
“Not going slow anymore?” he teased, rolling his hips up so that she squealed.
“What gave you that idea?” Isabel asked, kissing the corner of his mouth.
Harry tucked his hand under the cup of her bra and smirked. “Oh, I don’t know.”
She sighed, her eyes falling shut. “Well, it’s been a month,” she said quietly, her mind
solely on the movement of his fingers. “That’s quite a long time, isn’t it? We did well.”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said with a grin, withdrawing his hand. “So. Twenty minutes?”
“If I’m lucky.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry joked with a frown, pushing her off his lap lightly
and wrapping his arms around her from behind, walking them into the living room. “I
have my sister’s Lion King duvet covers, it’ll take me an hour to come.”
Isabel turned when they got there, looping her arms around his neck. “Don’t make
promises you can’t keep, Styles, you haven’t had sex since November.”
He raised his eyebrows, kissing down her jaw. “Before November I hadn’t had sex since
August.”
“I wouldn’t use that as the basis of your argument, you didn’t last so long then.”
“For someone who is very clearly up for this,” he mumbled against her neck, “you’re being
very judgemental about my sexual prowess.”
“I won’t see you until after Christmas,” she reminded him, humming when he bit down on
her collarbone. “Maybe this is just your gift.”
Harry smiled, bringing his head back level with hers. “We’ll have to make it count then,”
he whispered, his lips catching against hers as she reached out to pull at the waist of his
sweats.
“You better hurry up before I change my mind,” she warned him, and he laughed and lay
her down on his bed, kicking himself out of his sweats and crawling over her, sponging
kisses into her neck.
“I love you.”
“You’ve got eighteen minutes now,” she snapped impatiently, and it was all he could do not
to burst out laughing he was so happy.
“You’re eager.”
“You’re a dick.”
“You mean, you want my dick.”
“Less and less each second, so hurry up.” He smiled and kissed her, his tongue warm and
wet in her mouth, and he tried his best not to break away to grin stupidly at her, at them,
his heart swelling with complete exhilaration, with absolute contentment. He couldn’t stop
himself beaming, though, when they pulled apart so he could yank down her jeans, and one
look at how happy he was changed her mood, a shy smile pulling at the corners of her lips
as she placed a hand on his chest gently. "I love you.”
Harry smiled again and ran his knuckle across her cheek, kissing her so softly and pressing
their warm bodies flush, his leg tucked between hers and his hair falling onto her forehead
and her hand curled over his heart, knowing that when it thundered beneath her palm,
throwing itself hard against his ribcage, it was hers. He pulled away, tugging down his
underwear and then hers, shifting her so he could pull her jumper off too and throw the
covers over the top of them. “Just in case Niall appears,” he explained with a grin, kissing
her cheek.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Isabel mumbled when Harry started to fiddle around with her
bra, “but if you don’t start within the next thirty seconds I might have to smother you with
your Lion King duvet.”
And Harry just laughed, kissing and kissing and kissing her, their limbs entangled and
their hearts thumping, warming her body with his skin pressed to hers, and warming her
heart with the smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners, the brightness in the mantis
green showing her that he was much, much better than okay.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said.

End Notes:
So this is it (except for the epilogue on Thursday)! I’m writing my final endnotes now, and
not at the end of the epilogue, because this feels like the proper ending, really. If you don’t
want to read the rest of my ramblings here, I’ll just briefly say thank you so, so, so much
for reading the story, for sticking with it and putting up with all of the melodrama and
frustrations and cliffhangers, and (hopefully!) seeing beneath that to the real story I
wanted to tell.
It’s been such a long and amazing process writing this and sharing it with you. I still find it
completely, inexplicably insane that anyone takes the time to read it, and more so that
people love these characters as much as I do!! I wanted to write this story for no reason
other than that I love writing, and I had things that I really wanted to write about. If I’d
have known that people would actually read it, I don’t know whether I’d have done things
differently, but for sure I know that the ending will have always been this.
I started this fic at the end - I wrote this chapter and the epilogue about four months ago
now, but the first thing I ever did was map out the ending in detail, and I know there may
seem like a lot of unanswered questions and things left open ended, but that’s the way I
always wanted it to be. This doesn’t mean there will be a sequel (there definitely won’t be),
or that these questions will ever be answered (they might be, who knows), but what it does
mean is that the story ends at a moment in time and from there, it could go anywhere.
Anywhere you want it to go - or anywhere you don’t, if so inclined. Those are always the
best kinds of endings, in my opinion :)
But speaking of endings, Harry and Is’ story doesn’t have to end here!!! As I've said
before, there's some extras posted in the 'BDC extras' story that I've created on my 1dff
profile, including one set three years after the epilogue - I hope you enjoy!!
So I’ll shut up now, but thank you so, so, so, so much to everyone who’s read this little
story of mine (and to everyone who’s read this extortionate endnote)! It’s been hard at
times, but mostly it’s been amazing and wonderful and mindblowing and all those other
superlatives, and dare I say it, ridiculous. All my love :) xxx
Back to index
Epilogue by oxygenstyles
Author's Notes:
fine
August 2015
Harry thought he saw Adam.
It was just the back of this guy’s head, dusty brown hair sticking up and broad shoulders,
but Harry’s breath caught in his throat and he stared for longer than he should have. Then
the guy turned and he didn’t look like Adam at all – his nose was too upturned, his eyes
were blue, his cheekbones weren’t sharp enough – and Harry looked away.
Harry paid for the ice creams, holding all three in one hand as he turned back to get one
last glimpse of this warped version of his brother, but he was gone. And Harry walked
back towards the edge of the water, wondering whether he should feel something about this
encounter, but he didn’t at all.
Isabel was sat on a bench with baby Lucas on her lap, smiling at him as he played with her
sunglasses. Ruby was beside them, her little legs not even reaching off the edge of the
bench, and she stabbed furiously at the screen of Harry’s phone with her chubby fingers,
cackling every time one of the Angry Birds skimmed a block.
“One for you,” Harry announced with a smile, leaning over Isabel and passing Ruby an ice
cream. She beamed up at him, her dark tufty hair falling into her eyes.
“Fanks Harry!”
“No problem, love,” he grinned back. He handed another ice cream to Isabel’s nephew and
glanced at Isabel. It would be all over his clothes in about thirty seconds, but she shrugged
and smiled, and so Harry did too. He leaned back on the bench, taking a lick of his and
Isabel’s shared ice cream before passing it to her, his gaze being momentarily caught by the
strands of her hair that glistened in the light, that had turned maize and white from the
sun. He remembered then that the first time he’d smelled his shampoo in her hair his heart
had nearly stopped, and he smiled slightly when he thought about how it was becoming
normal to him now, how something that had made him lose it months ago was now just the
way things were.
Isabel shifted Lucas in her lap, extracting her sunglasses from him before they got sticky
and sliding them into her hair, pushing it back from her face. She bit the flake of the ice
cream and smiled at Harry as she handed it back to him. They’d only had enough money to
buy three ice creams between the four of them, but it didn’t matter.
Harry took it and looked away from her, looking out over the surface of the river
contentedly, and all of a sudden he felt so perfectly calm that he could have fallen asleep
right there, with the sun glistening off the water and the heat washing over him like a
blanket. Isabel was right when she’d told him about Norrköping – they’d been out here last
night and the water really was like a black mirror, so dark and shiny that Harry had just
stared at it for so long, trying to imprint it into his memory forever.
He’d been like that everywhere they’d been so far on their trip, though: wide eyed and
quietly fascinated, letting Isabel lead him around everywhere while he took pictures
of everything, devouring guidebooks, insisting they visit the same place multiple times so he
could burn the image of it into his brain. When they were in Barcelona, they’d visited the
cathedral three times because Harry wanted to remember perfectly the curve of the
cloisters, the patterns in the windows, the fact there was geese in the garden. Isabel just
watched him mostly, holding his hand and smiling every time they left somewhere and he
turned back, giving it one last look as though he didn’t have his whole life to come again.
They’d started there, in Barcelona, for three days before going to Milan, Zurich, Paris,
Amsterdam, Berlin. Harry had got so used to living out of one rucksack between the pair of
them, sleeping on trains and in shabby hostels with clean sheets but peeling walls, broken
sinks and cracked mirrors and tiny beds that meant they had to sleep on top of each other
until he forgot which limbs were hers and which belonged to him, that he felt like he could
do it forever.
They were stopping over in Sweden for a while because Isabel’s family were here for the
summer before starting again, across Eastern Europe and finally finishing in Rome. And
although Harry had loved everywhere, he thought maybe Sweden was his favourite so far
because even though there were huge mosquitoes that had made it their mission to eat
Harry alive, and even though Isabel’s pregnant sister-in-law had insisted Isabel’s granny’s
house became a strictly alcohol-free zone, and even though Harry and Isabel had to have
sex so quietly, laughing with their hands over each other’s mouths because Alex and
Savannah’s room was right on the other side of the very thin wall, it felt like it belonged
to her, and he couldn’t have loved it more.
“You okay?” Isabel asked him, running her thumb along the raised scar on his palm. He
blinked down at her, at the curve of her upper lip and the freckles on her nose and and her
irises that were almost yellow in the Swedish summer light and the little wrinkles under her
eyes from smiling, and he wondered for the thousandth time how it was possible to ever feel
this much all at once.
Harry would never not miss Adam, but that was okay. And he’d never not lose his breath
for a minute when he saw something that reminded him of Adam, but that was okay too.
There were thousands of double negatives about what Harry’s life would be like now,
without Adam, but Harry was okay with them all.
Sometimes it wasn’t easy. Sometimes he wanted to stay in bed all day, and sometimes he
couldn’t speak really, just wanted to be in his head and on his own for a while, and
sometimes he’d just start crying. It wasn’t often - it had only happened a handful of times
since Christmas - but sometimes he just thought about something a bit too much and cried.
He always felt better after, and if she was there, Isabel would come and sit in his lap and
put her head on his shoulder, letting him wrap his arms around her tight. She never tried
to stop him crying, just let him cry until he stopped. And he always stopped, whether she
was there or not, and each time he cried, he cried a little bit less.
They were almost unrecognisable, sitting there in Norrkoping by the water with the surface
sparkling and ice cream dripping through Harry’s fingers and Isabel’s citrus hair catching
in the breeze, to how they’d been in January a year and a half ago. Least of all, Harry’s ‘I
Can’t Change’ had turned into an anchor.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. Her mouth tasted like ice cream and he
squeezed her hand when he kissed her, not caring that people might be watching his tongue
slip into her mouth, or that his other hand was wet from melted ice cream, or that Ruby
was shrieking and bashing him on the side of the face.
He pulled away, grinning sheepishly at Ruby and licking the ice cream off his fingers.
“I’m fine,” Harry answered, passing Isabel back the ice cream and watching her with a
smile.
And for the first time in his life, with the sound of children around them shrieking and
laughing and a tram rattling along the tracks, with the sun beating down hard on his back
and his blood racing hard through his veins, with his gaze steady on hers and their fingers
locked, with the detail of her, of them, stamped into his mind forever, clearer than anything
else, and with his heart belonging to her, beating for her with the promise that he was alive,
alive, alive, Harry Styles meant it when he said he was fine.
End Notes:
http://hurrricanes.tumblr.com/post/97913122277/bdc-harrys-scrapbooks-part-2-europe-
trip :)
Back to index
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their
respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No
money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
This story archived at http://www.onedirectionfanfiction.com/viewstory.php?sid=95619

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Boys Don't Cry by oxygenstyles

10. Chapter 10 by oxygenstyles

11. Chapter 11 by oxygenstyles

12. Chapter 12 by oxygenstyles

13. Chapter 13 by oxygenstyles

14. Chapter 14 by oxygenstyles

15. Chapter 15 by oxygenstyles

16. Chapter 16 by oxygenstyles

17. Chapter 17 by oxygenstyles

18. Chapter 18 by oxygenstyles

20. Chapter 20 by oxygenstyles

21. Chapter 21 by oxygenstyles

22. Chapter 22 by oxygenstyles

23. Chapter 23 by oxygenstyles

24. Chapter 24 by oxygenstyles

25. Chapter 25 by oxygenstyles

26. Chapter 26 by oxygenstyles

27. Chapter 27 by oxygenstyles

28. Chapter 28 by oxygenstyles

29. Chapter 29 by oxygenstyles

30. Chapter 30 by oxygenstyles

31. Chapter 31 by oxygenstyles

32. Chapter 32 by oxygenstyles

33. Chapter 33 by oxygenstyles

34. Chapter 34 by oxygenstyles

35. Chapter 35 by oxygenstyles

36. Chapter 36 by oxygenstyles

37. Chapter 37 by oxygenstyles

38. Epilogue by oxygenstyles

“What happened back there?!” he asked in mock horror.

“Wow,” he laughed, “and people tell me I’m clumsy…”

“Are you okay?” he asked carefully. “You look a bit grey.”

“Ah,” Harry said, smiling slowly.

“To be fair, you never answered the question,” he replied.

“No you didn’t. You said it was ‘fine’.”

“It was fine!”

“Liar. Nobody ever means it when they say ‘fine’.”

“What happened next?”

“Liar,” she said with a grin.

“The one you’re wearing now. Like you hate everything.”

“Well, you’re a prick!”

“Because you love me so much, clearly.”

“Grow up, I work on a hangover all the time.”

“If you’d ever bothered to find out, I’m a student as well.”

“No you’re not.”

“Isabel Allen, where are your manners!”

“We’re not finished yet, Harry!”

“No, you’re not! What did you just say to me?”

He snorted. “Whatever. You’re an awful liar.”

“That’s not what I said.”

She hated Harry Styles. She fucking hated him.

“Yes?” she snapped.

“The guy you work with what?” Louis asked, confused.

“Do you know a guy called Harry?”

“Harry who? Miller?”

“No, Styles. Harry Styles.”

“Can’t say I have then,” concluded Louis. “Why do you ask?”

“I just… I just thought he may know you, that’s all.”

“Are you coming over tonight?” she asked him.

“Of course. I’ll see you this evening okay?”

“Yeah. Can’t wait.”

And then he didn’t show up. Again.

“Soppy bitch,” Scarlett laughed, poking Millie in the side lightly.