Alter ➳ h.s

s i x
mental discussion
harry

I didn’t want to leave. Sure, I was heavily sweating and screaming on the inside, but sitting next to Ember was nice. She accidentally smelled like marshmallows but used the scent of intensified vanilla to try and hide it. Her hair was half up and half down but looked nice. She was beautiful. She reminded me of her; of Ellie. Ellie had light brown hair with the biggest smile. The whole world knew it. The whole world knew her.

Ellie Kent: model and basically the nicest person everyone could think of. I loved her more than I loved music. She was my sunshine, even when everything else was happy, she made it better. Only her face was beautiful, but her heart wasn’t. Ellie was cold, bitter, and I knew she never loved me. Yet, I forgave her for not loving me and loved her anyway. She broke everything, figuratively and literally. When she left me, she took everything that was her’s, and broke everything that was mine. She was angry. I never found out why, but the press starting guessing and picking out details. That she left because I forced her to, that I wasn’t ready for the child she was apparently holding.

We don’t talk anymore.

She continues on in life on the runway and laughs at the mess I’ve become. Gemma, my sister, was good friends with her until she found that Ellie thought it was hilarious that I’d become a nervous wreck, so Gemma doesn’t talk to her either. No one does. Mum brings her up to bad-mouth her. It’s just not what I want to hear. Yes, I loved her and I know she was a poison, but just bringing up her name to insult her insults the love I once had for her. The admiration has disappeared and has left me to nothing but a lost and helpless soul.

“You still there?” Ember was asking, pulling me from a distant stare I had in my lap, where my now dry hands were located.

“Yeah, I’m here. Just thinkin’.”

Somehow her thoughts transferred to mine, He’s not okay, he needs someone. And although I didn’t want to listen to Lou and say she was right, she was right. I was lonely, with no one other than the people I was used to. I looked at Ember and Josie—who was still talking to Liam—and Julia and thought of them as friends. Friends that I just met, and need to know absolutely nothing about me, but friends. Nice friends that would listen if I gave them the chance, probably clueless to the friendship anyway. “You sure? I can get you a water.”

“No, I’m—” Louis kicked me as hard as he could in the shin under the table. I looked up and him and he gave me a look. “Actually, yeah. Can I, uh, have some water?”

“Sure, come on. Doesn’t look like they’ll be done soon,” she said, referring to Liam and Josie. When I walked by the glass door, girls screamed and attempted to push past the police and guards. We got to the kitchen where it was a little dark. “A bulb or two blew yesterday, the boss has to get that.” She noticed me looking around, “No worry, no one can see us.” She sat on the counter and pointed to the fridge.

“Thanks.”

“Whatever, let’s get to what’s important. What’s wrong with you?”

I choked on the water a little, “E-Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Don’t act like I didn’t see you in that bathroom with those pills. Or all the sweating and the anxiety.” My eyes widened at her observations, “You’re crazy! You’ve lost your m—!”

I covered her mouth with my hand and dragged her behind the kitchen counter. “Yes,” I answered while holding my hand over her screaming mouth, “I’m fucking crazy, but aren’t we all? I’m a little off, and I’ve lost my grip! But if you go around telling people, I won’t be the one dealing with you. I’m been turning thoughts over in my mind how someone like you could figure it out after seeing me a total of three times in person, yet people with college degrees in psychology barely understand! You will say nothing about this, yes?”

She nodded.

The conversation was over.

➳ ➳

If there was honestly something beautiful inside personalities of strangers, Ember was a gorgeous girl. We stayed in the kitchen. She was an extraordinary example of hope. She described her family as a type of a cult, as she ate chocolate brownie ice cream on the cold floor. Everyone began to look for us, but gave up after concluding we couldn’t have gone anywhere. The cult, she said, believed in one thing and one thing only: standards. Standards and money and image, but mostly standards. Partially why she was dating that Ben she spoke about.

Her father, although seemingly a nice man, was apparently the worst. A man of secrets. Her and Josie thinking her father was embezzling money from the school. “I mean,” she explained after swallowing a cold spoonful of ice cream, “how do we continue to make more money than the average principal yet the school is still broke?”

“Makes sense,” most of my answers were short, all I wanted to do was to listen to her talk. Her voice wasn’t perfect, but it was an accidentally cheerful ring in her vocal chords. She was no longer a stranger, I knew an Ember Knight for once in my life, and it wasn’t a terrible idea. She continued to mostly talk and I continued to mostly listen. It was nice to know that I didn’t have to talk for someone to know that I was paying attention, or maybe she didn’t need my attention to speak. Maybe she just needed what I needed: for someone to listen.

Ember was not a stranger anymore, I realized. I knew this because I knew that the only people she recognized as friends were Josie and Julia; and her boyfriend, Ben was the only boyfriend she'd ever loved; and everything else down to her favorite color, which is seafoam. We were alone in the unquiet darkness. We were alone until footsteps wandered to the kitchen, the lights came back on, and someone stood in front of us. Ember had her legs draped across mine while scraping the bottom of the ice cream tub.

The man was quite tall and a bit skinny. Not really, but really. He was strong, though. Tony Stark, a comic book character played by Robert Downey Jr., once quoted a man saying that you create your own demons. I believe that. In that moment, I’d created a demon, and it was Ben Waterson. He looked at Ember with a confused expression and went to clarify it was her, “Ember?”

She hadn’t yet seen him, her face still stuffed in the small tub. She looked up, “Ben? Ben!” Ember removed herself from the ground and hugged him. When we returned to the table, we all fit into two tables pushed closely together. I’d now known what it was like to watch young people in love. Gemma had never loved anyone, and the boys didn’t exactly count. I mean actually seeing love. Or maybe even one-sided love. It was me this time that gave Louis a look and he nodded, rolling his eyes. Everyone did. Everyone, even Julia and Josie, seemed miserable, undoubtedly quietly hating the whole Ben and Ember couple.

When Ben wasn’t swallowing Ember in his “infectious love and affection for her heart that was a big as her collection of nail polish”, he was giving me dirty looks. The sun seemed to burn into my clothes and skin, which made me afraid of the fires of hell that I’d face for looking at Ember the way I did. “I nearly got mauled getting in here. Those girls are crazy, I wonder why.” His comment was snarky and unpleasant, but no one said anything, not even Louis. That is, until he decided to continue. “I mean, what’s with you guys anyway? What do you do, sing? Dance? Woah, total badasses.”

Louis cleared his throat and we all mentally cursed the world for placing Louis on it, and blessed it at the same time. “Well, we sing, only Liam can truly dance. Honestly, millions and millions of people, mostly girls, love us when barely one loves you. Your cockiness is beyond overrated when you basically have no right to be. What do you do, Mr. Waterson? Play American football with your skinny legs? Or do you swim with those, how you say, arms? They look like chicken wings, quite frankly. So, while we continue to be worth over £14 million each, you can continue to be a prick to people you don’t know. Have a nice day, Benjamin. I’ll be in the car.” Louis barely excused himself and walked away to the back door, where he truly did go to sit and wait in the car.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ember asked.

“Oh jeez,” Josie complained. I asked her what was going on, “The fault in their relationship: the constant fighting. Prepare yourself.”

“Me? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me! All you do is act like an ass to people you don’t know! Louis is nice, and all of these guys are, no need to be such a dick!”

“All I wanted to do was see my girlfriend one last time and I get criticized? Thanks, babe. I’ll see you in a few weeks.” Ben Waterson then left to never return. Ember sighed and pulled me from my seat.

“Where are we going?”

“Out. Can’t be hard to sneak a celebrity away.” No one objected. No one. It actually was kind of hard to get away. Once we got out the back door, instead of walking from the alley to the front, we climbed onto the top of an oversized and nasty smelling dumpster. After climbing, we reached the roof discreetly. We reached the store about three buildings over. Ember opened a hatch at the top of the building, “Well,” she exaggerated, “jump.”

So I did.

I jumped and caught her when she jumped. “This place closed about twenty years ago, but no one tore it down. So, I come down here whenever I get way too pissed to go anywhere else. Well, here and one other place. That’s not important.”

“It’s,” I coughed and looked around, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, “nice down here.” I remembered a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in my back pocket. I reached into the overly tight jeans pocket and pulled out the pack and lighter, “Smoke?”

Notes

I can see with only a few chapters that a few of you are starting to like this story.

Oh, and by the way, iT'S NOT ABOUT DEMONS, JESUS!!

It's easier to write now that my laptop is back. Hope you guys like this chapter, and you will love the next.

love your cute faces x