Mirrors (A Harry Styles Fanfic)

I slump on the driver seat of my small car, lean my forearms on the wheel; I bury my face in my hands and cry. Why does this ocean world like overwhelming me with waves of feelings and problems crashing simultaneously?

I feel like the past few months everything that is bad happens all at the same time, and I don’t know how many more of these clashes I can take before I break.

Is Sean telling the truth? Did Harry really break up with me because my father told him to stay away?

Harry just said he loves me, but what if Sean is right; if Harry has always loved me why would he break up with me just because my father told him to? That weekend he was getting annoyed by him, and seemed like he wasn’t going to put up with his bullshit. He just told me he loves me… I know I shouldn’t jump to any conclusion until I speak to him, but I can’t help if my brain starts picturing scenarios where Harry didn’t love me enough to fight for me.

And my father, for fuck’s sake! When is he going to start acting the way he says he will! I am so tired of him doing this shit to me. He says he will act like a father, and that he will be honest with me, but he keeps doing things behind my back.

A knock on my window makes me jump, I look up to find Sean mouthing and gesturing for me to get out of the car. I wipe my eyes and open the door, stepping out and being pulled by Sean and into his chest. “Sean, I told you to leave me alone!” I said against his now wet sweater.

“No, Piper I love you and I will not let him win!” he holds me tighter, making my skin burn in slight pain.

“Sean, you’re hurting me,” I manage to say, he softens his hold and I manage to pull away. I look him in the eye and fold my arms in front of my chest for warmth, “We.Can.Only.Be.Friends.” I look away from him to not see the hurt in his eyes when I say the words.

I care about Sean, of course I do, but not in the way he cares about me. He’s a good friend, and to be honest, he was there for me more than Bella was when Harry broke up with me and my father spilled “all” the lies he had told me.

“But he doesn’t love you! I love you!” I jump a little at his loud voice. I look around the street and it’s pretty empty, a couple of people are in the coffee shop we came from and a couple in the book store across the street. Nobody looks our way and I’m glad we aren’t grabbing anyone’s attention.

I look back at him, I run my fingers through my hair, “Sean, you only think you love me.” How can he possibly love me just like that, we’ve only been friends for a couple months. You loved Harry way before you admitted it to yourself.

“I know I do!”

Who am I to tell him what he feels or not? As much as I want Sean to keep being my friend, I know that won’t be able to happen, not when he will push me the way he is now.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t-“ I take a deep breath and rub the my eyes, and wipe the tears away, “I love Harry, and if you can’t just be my friend without putting your feelings aside then, I’m sorry Sean but, we can’t be friends anymore.” I feel a knot form in my throat; I was used to Sean being there if I needed him for any kind of thing, even a small distraction, I almost feel as if I had been using him. He’s a great guy, and a good friend, but I can’t bring myself anymore problems.

“How am I supposed to let you just walk away from me?”

“I don’t know, but this can’t work if you’re going to cause problems,” I feel awful for doing this to him, especially if he might be in love with me, I don’t like the idea of hurting him.

“Problems? I just want to be with you?” he takes my hands and I look up at him, his eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are parted. I almost wish I could reciprocate those feelings, maybe my life would be easier if I felt about him the way he feels about me, but I know I love Harry and I wouldn’t change anything that happened between us. I would hate to never find out what could happen in the future. Yes, Harry’s job is unusual, but that doesn’t change anything between us, and I know that even if I saw Sean every day I wouldn’t have strong feelings towards him.

“I can’t be with you,” I lean forward and kiss his cheek, “goodbye Sean, I’m sorry.” I get inside my car before I start to cry again, turn on the ignition and drive to the apartment.

When I step inside the apartment Markie is watching telly, he looks up from the couch and frowns. I step out of my shoes, run to the couch and hug my brother resting my head on his shoulder while he rests his cheek on my head.

“Dad,” I say quietly as he turns off the telly, “he was sort of the cause of Harry breaking up with me.”

“Fuck.” He holds me tighter, “Why did we let him back into our lives? He only causes problems.”

“And I just lost a friend.” I manage to say before I start to cry.

“Who? Please tell me it’s not Harry,” he looks down at me with a brow raised.

“No! Sean.”

“Oh, that arse dad wouldn’t shut up about.”

“What?” I unwrap my arms from around him, “Dad wouldn’t shut up about him?”

“Yeah, he kept asking about you two when you’d hang out, but since we aren’t talking I wouldn’t answer,” his phone rings and takes it to ignore the call, “I guess he had seen pictures of you two somewhere and wanted to know if you liked him.”

“No I don’t,” I wipe my cheeks, “I mean, I like him as a friend, but he’s in love with me and that can’t possibly work.” Now that I think back to when Harry told me really liked me I realize I was really scared that it would change everything. It did. And now the same has happened with Sean, but the results are a lot different, and are worse for him than for me.

“So Harry told you about my dad?” he asks.

“No,” I bite my lip to stop myself from getting mad at him, “Sean told me-- apparently Niall told him.”

“Piper you need to talk to Harry, now, before your brain starts running and you think the worse, I’m pretty sure it’s not what you think.”

I nod, kiss him on the cheek and walk into my new room. I curl up on my bed with a bunch of pillows and a new warm blanket after turning off the ceiling light and leaving on the lamp next to me. I grab my phone and check the world clock to see what times it is where Harry is-- It’s barely about three a.m. where he is. I decide to text him and hope he sees it when he wakes up and calls me.

Me: Please call me when you have time, we sort of need to talk. It doesn’t matter if you wake me up.

I hope he doesn’t get scared after reading it.

I change into my pajamas and go to my bed to try and sleep without thinking about anything that happened today. As I’m about to fall asleep, I hear my phone vibrate, I grab it and Harry’s face pops up and a ringtone I imagine he recorded when I didn’t notice starts playing, “Piiiiiipes! Answer your phone, I’m calling you, baby!” I giggle and slide the screen to answer.

“Why are you up at four in the morning?”

“Work demands to be worked, but enough about my lack of sleep, what did I do?” his voice is raspier than usual, and deep with sleep. It makes my belly ache.

“It’s more about what you didn’t do… are you busy? We can talk later?”

“No, if you don’t tell me know I will probably go crazy and end up flying back to London and miss a couple of shows.”

“Don’t.” Do?

“Then tell me, baby.”

“I spoke to Sean today-“

“No,” I hear shuffling and a small bang, he curses.

“Are you okay?” I sit up on my bed as if I could help from all the way here.

“Yeah, I just fell from my bunk,” he takes a deep breath and I hear more shuffling, “W-what did you speak to Sean about? Did he apologize?”

“Yes, he did. I forgave him-“ he interrupts me again by cursing.

“Pipes, please tell me if you chose him or not?” his voice cracks and my heart aches.

“No, Harry, what?” I stand from my bed as if I could just walk over to him and wrap my arms around him, I sit back down on my bed, “He just told me all these things and-“

“What things, Piper what things?” he asks desperately.

“Harry, calm down, he just kept saying that he loves me and that you don’t and-“

“Tosser!” He whispers, “Piper, you know that I’m in love with you, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

He sights, “Good, what else did the fucking tosser tell you?”

“H-he told me that you didn’t fight for me the way he did,” I don’t know why I’m telling him this, maybe to hurt him so he knows it hurt me? I don’t know why I did it, but regret it immediately, “because you didn’t put up a fight with my father.”

“Bloody hell,” I hear shuffling and a door open, “Niall keep your mouth shut about what I tell you!”

“Alright mate!” Niall’s agreeing scream is heard, “Will do!”

“Harry?”

“What exactly did that twat tell you?” he says angrily.

“Erm, that you broke up with me because my father told you to leave me alone, that was all, the rest he was just… telling me that he loved me and then I just-“

“Fucking hell,” I hear him open the sliding door, of the bus I’m guessing, again and yell out, “Niall I’m going to kick your friend’s but!”

“Who, Sean? I’ll help mate.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake Niall!” He closes the door and I hear him shuffle back to his seat.

“Harry, I told Sean we couldn’t be friends anymore.” I take a deep breath and lean against the backboard of my bed, the light from the window in back of me drapes over my blanket and pillows, I turn around to look out into the nightlife in London.

“Oh,” he takes a deep breath, I can see him running his fingers through his hair, “are you okay?”

“Yeah… no?”

“I wish I was with you…”

“I wish you were with me…”

We sit in silent for a while, I look down at the limited amount of cars driving around the city, the lights and the water far in the horizon.

“Pipes?” He says after a couple minutes, “That is not how it happened, I swear.”

“Then how did it happen?” I know I’m a little angry at him, and I know he knows that I am.

“It was the night he told you and Markie everything: After you’d run out in the middle of the night without telling me and I went to look for you, he saw me and talked to me, he told me all these things and I thought he was right.” He sights and I feel as if my heart is being compressed.

“What things?” I ask nervously.

“Just bullshit I later realized wasn’t all true.” He goes silent for a bit, waiting for me to add something but I don’t, “He told me you needed time to figure out things with your family, that I caused you too many unimportant worries, and that it would be best if I’d let you have a normal life, a normal boyfriend who didn’t fly away on you, that was always there and didn’t complicate your life.”

“Harry, you said you didn’t love me!” my voice cracks.

“I know! And I am really sorry Pipes,” his voice cracks and I fight back a sob, “hurting you is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I regret it every second of every day. Every time we sang ‘You and I’ after I left you I couldn’t even look out at the fans, I felt like they would know I was awful.”

“You hurt me.” I manage to say, I feel bad for throwing this back on his face, but I feel like if I don’t address the facts, we won’t be able to really move on.

“I know, and you’ve reminded me of the arsehole I was for leaving you when you really needed me. Pipes I love you, and I will be there in less than twenty days and we can be together okay?” he sights, “If you want?”

“I do want to, but get here first.” I feel like this conversation isn’t over.

“I don’t want your beautiful head to backtrack on me and think the worst of me while I’m not there.” He says after a long, comfortable silence where we could hear each other breath.

“I won’t, Harry, I-“ I know I tempt to think and ponder on things too much, but I know that if I could just see his face I’d feel better, “I just wish I could see your face.”

“I wish you could too, so you can believe me.”

“Have a good day Harry,” I say instead of anything else that would leave him on edge, I don’t want him to worry.

“Pipes, please don’t ever say goodbye to me, ever again?”

I sob and cover my mouth with my hand, “I am so sorry.” I feel guilty now for ever saying that word to him after I asked him to not say it to me.

“Don’t apologize baby, just promise me you won’t say it?”

“I promise.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

------------------------------

It has been a week since I last talked on the phone with Harry, and since I talked to Sean. I start school next week and I’m glad I have something to distract myself with as I walk around the shopping center with Bella and grab a couple more school supplies I don’t even know if I will need or not.

“How are you?” I ask Bella for what seems the thousandth time today, and even though I’ve asked it that many times she refuses to answer truthfully.

“When are you going to stop asking?” she whines and drops the book she was reading the back of.

“When you tell me how you really are, Bells.”

“Fine, I feel like shit because I had to let go of the man I’m in love with because I could never give him what he wants, he probably hates me now, and he’d never want me back, and I am irrevocably in love with him, can we stop talking about this shit now?”

I stare at her wide eyed; Bella has never been this honest about a guy, and especially not about Niall. I wrap my arms around her despite her whining, “I am so sorry Bells.” She hugs me back and I almost cry with her as she cries on my shoulder. After a couple of minutes she stands up straight and wipes her tears, getting back to the strong old Bella.

“I’m angry, so now I’m going to tweet something,” I laugh as she takes out her phone, “I hated living in Ireland.” She narrates her tweet as I stare wide eyed.

“Do you want to cause a war in the fandom!” She’s silent for a while as she reads tweets I suppose and then looks up at me.

“You said Sean was in love with you right? That’s why you had to stop being his friend?” she says as she looks back down at her phone.

“Erm, yeah, why?”

“Well, I don’t think he was being honest,” she turns her phone to me and the screen shows a picture of a brunette being kissed by Sean with the caption “My loving girlfriend. #ILoveYou #BackInIrelandForAWhile.”

“What?” I whisper.

“For the record, hashtags are stupid. And so is Niall.”

Notes