I could feel his eyes burning holes through my skin from across the table; I could feel them the minute I slipped passed him and into the house. I tried to avoid his gaze as best as possible and I was doing a pretty good job of it. I didn’t want to be mesmerized by his gorgeous green eyes like I usually was. When Harry gave me that infamous look, I could never say no or stay mad at him and I wanted to stay mad at him for as long as possible.

He didn’t realize how much he had hurt me and I was sure he didn’t care in the slightest either. He was too concerned about his adoring fans and all of the girls that were throwing themselves in his direction. For as long as I had known him, Harry had always been a lady’s man and very flirtatious. He loved the attention and it obviously hadn’t changed now that he was famous – hell, it probably boasted his ego more knowing that he could pretty much have any bird he wanted, when he wanted.

It disgusted me whenever my mind wandered to Harry and some random girl shagging whenever I saw a picture of him and his new meat on the internet or in a magazine. It was typical Harry – he’d smooth talk his way into their pants and once he got what he wanted, he’d drop them like a fly and find his next willing victim. Some of the birds he ended the night with were questionable, even for him. Although he was known for his skills in bed, he did have standards of his own.

Harry never liked girls that revealed too much skin or came across as easy by the way the dressed or the way they acted. When it came to the girls he spent the night with, they were girls that seemed to respect themselves for the most part – Harry always had a way of getting them out of their reserved shells, at least for a night. They were also very pretty and I didn’t mean the pretty that came out of a make-up bag and hours of preparation – these girls had natural beauty and only accentuated it with a touch of eye shadow or blush or a bit of color to their lips.

Now, all he seemed to be photographed with were girls that caked on their make-up, making them look like clowns or trashy slags, sometimes both. They always had on dresses or skirts that barely covered their arses and heels they could barely walk in because they were so tall and slender. That’s why it surprised me when I found out about him and Taylor.

She seemed like a wholesome and reserved girl. She had long legs that anyone would swoon over and a slim figure that made it easy for her to wear anything and still look gorgeous. You never heard bad things being said about her other than how she’d been with loads of guys and wrote songs about them. Why she was with Harry I didn’t know – everybody knew he was a notorious womanizer. Harry wasn’t one to be committed, even to someone as sweet as Taylor, and she seemed like she was ready to settle down any minute. He always liked a challenge and the fact that Taylor was so innocent and out of his league made him want her.

I hadn’t realized that my facial expressions were changing along with my thoughts until my dad addressed me for the first time since we sat down for dinner. “Are you alright Petal” he asked while beginning to stand up from his seat. “You’ve gone pale and it looks like you’re not feeling rather well.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Harry’s own face look worried as his mouth turn down into a frown and his eyebrows knitted together. “I-I’m fine dad. Just tired I guess” I was able to stutter out. The look on my dad’s face told me that he didn’t believe my bullshit lie, but he wasn’t going to push the subject any further. Instead he just gave me a quick nod.

“Alright then darling. Why don’t you go on up to bed. Harry and I will just finish up our conversation” he replied with a sad smile. I slowly nodded my head as I excused myself from the table, catching Harry’s eyes for the first time since sitting down. I quickly started making my way to the staircase before I was stopped in my tracks by his voice.

“Goodnight Abby” I heard his low voice say as I was walking away. My feet stopped me dead in my tracks as his voice rang through my ears. I scrunched up my nose and furrowed my brows as I realized that was the first thing he’d said to me other than when he answered the door earlier. I didn’t get this boy. I didn’t understand what he was doing in my house in the first place or why he was being so nonchalant about everything.

I turned on my heels to meet his gaze, his eyes already fixed on me. The look on his face disgusted me – he had no right to smile at me with that infectious smile, not after the past eleven months. I wanted to walk right over to him and smack that stupid smile off of his face, but I refrained from doing so. I simply just looked at him with a blank expression on my face before turning on my heels and walking up the stairs to my bedroom.

I headed up to my room to clean myself up once I was done with dinner. The rain and the amazing sex I had earlier were still clinging onto my skin, but Harry’s gaze was what I really wanted to get off of my skin. He left me feeling naked and I hated that feeling – unless I was about to have a good time. It was like he was slowly peeling away at me with his burning stare, trying to figure me out and get to the center of things. I was closed off with him, tense and a bit apprehensive around him and I usually wasn’t that way and he knew it. I hated how he got so easily under my skin and all he had to do was look at me.

As soon as I stepped foot inside the bathroom that was attached to my room, I stripped myself of all of the clothing that clung to my body and ran my bath water. After the day I had, I needed to relax not only my muscles, but my mind as well. I added white tea oil once the tub was half filled as well as a handful of lily petals. I made my way over to my iPod dock to play some calming music. The sound of Ed Sheeran and his guitar immediately filled the room, making the scene more relaxing. Before I was ready to step in the bath, I dimmed the lights and lit a few candles to complete everything.

I got in the tub and sunk all the way down to my chin, letting the warm water take over my body. It was amazing what a bath like this always did for me. Whenever I was in a bad mood or if I was stressed, I’d run a bath like my mum always had for me and it made everything better. I really missed my mum in times like these. My dad always gave good advice and said the right things most of the time, but it was easier with my mum. It wasn’t always about saying the right thing when it came to her – it was the things she did that made things better.

Thinking about my mum caused tears to well up in my eyes. Sometimes I just wished she were here so I can talk to her, say I love you – to just hold her in my arms and never let her go. I got out of the tub, wrapping a towel around my wet frame as I walked to the mirror. The girl that I saw staring back at me looked a right mess – her eyes were red, her cheeks were puffy, and all the color on her face was drained. That girl was me and she had been since the day my mum died. I tried to regain my composure before stepping out of the bathroom and into my room. I quickly dried off, putting my hair into a messy bun before I put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. I was in the process of getting my bed ready to get into when my door slowly opened, exposing a cautious Harry Styles.

He poked his head around the door, making sure I was decent. “You’ve always had good taste in music” he chirped, pointing to the Rolling Stones t-shirt I had on. I simply nodded my head, not paying him much mind.

He continued to stand there with his head peering around the door as he looked around the room, taking in its appearance. After eyeing every inch of my room, he slowly began to enter, closing the door behind him. I tried to ignore him by fluffing my pillows, but his voice caused me to stop what I was doing and turn to look at him.

He was walking to the far side of the room where I wrote a number of quotes I found over the years that held a special place in my heart. “Your room still looks the same.” His voice was soft, but I was able to catch on to what he said. “I see you’ve put up some new quotes. Where’s this one from” he questioned, pointing to the quote written in cursive in the far right corner. I realized it had been the one that I put up a few days after he’d gone on tour with the rest of the lads.

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.

I smiled thinking back to the day I had come across it and wrote it on my wall. I had been feeling down because Harry and the lads were gone for two years for their first tour. I wouldn’t be able to see them until the tour ended because I was busy with school and work. Harry Skyped me that day because he promised we’d watch ‘The Inbetweeners’ together before he left. He immediately noticed that something was wrong and I had told him that I was upset he wasn’t there with me. He quickly comforted me, telling me that time would fly by and that we’d be together in no time. In the meantime, he said that we’d Skype and call and text each other every day to make the time go by quicker than normal. If it weren’t for Harry that day, I probably wouldn’t have been able to cope with him being gone.

That same night, I began reading a book that my mum stumbled across and thought I might like. As I read through Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah I came across that quote and I immediately put it up on my wall, thinking of Harry in the process.

“Where’s it from” he asked with curiosity as he turned his attention to me. I didn’t want to be rude when he was clearly trying to make light conversation with me. I couldn’t hide behind my dad trying to converse with Harry because he wasn’t here – I had to fend for myself now.

“A book” I answered with a shrug of my shoulders hoping that he got the picture. I didn’t want him here at all and I’d hoped he would get the message soon.

He didn’t seem to notice, like usual – he was so oblivious. Same old Harry I thought as he waited for me to elaborate and when I didn’t, he asked what book I read it in. I walked passed him to my desk, purposely bumping his shoulder along the way. When I came across my desk, I opened the top drawer and took the book from inside. I walked back to Harry, stopping in front of him before shoving the book into his chest.

He flipped the book around in his hands, examining it. “Was it any good” he asked as he began reading the back cover.

“Read it yourself and find out” I scoffed at him, not expecting the response I got from him.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist” he asked, his voice growing louder as he spoke.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” It came out a bit harsher than I’d anticipated, but I didn’t care because I was fed up with his bullshit. I was actually surprised that he’d caught on though. Harry usually didn’t pick up on when I was mad at him until I had to come right out and tell him.

“It’s obviously something Abby. You’ve been avoiding me all night, you didn’t say a word to me since you got here and now that you finally have, you’re being incredibly harsh” he spat right back at me, not sure what he did to deserve the cold shoulder.

“You know what Harry, my problem is you. What makes you think that you can come back here after months of touring and no contact at all and think that everything would go back to normal!?"

The look on his face told me that he wasn’t expecting any of that at all – not my words or the attitude that could be heard in them. “Abby, I just wanted to see how my best friend’s be-” he started before he was cut off by my screaming.

“Well you wouldn’t need to if you had spoken to me in the last year. Some best friend, yeah?” I shouted, not wanting to hear anything he had to say. “Don’t pretend like you care now Harry when you didn’t eleven months ago. What happened then? Oh that’s right, you got a new girlfriend and you thought it’d be a brilliant idea to finally call me and tell me all about it. Well I couldn’t give a damn about you and Taylor” I droned the syllables in her name for effect. “I guess you just didn’t care what I was going through and Taylor was more important than me, your so called best friend. That’s the thing with you Harry – you always seem to worry more about yourself and your happiness rather than those around you and I’m sick of it. I want you out of my house.”

I had waited so long to yell at him and make him feel like the piece of shit that he was. He deserved to be told off and I desperately needed to let go of my anger and there was no one better to lash it out on than the person who caused it all.

He looked like he had just seen the Loch Ness monster or something. His eyebrows were furrowed together and his mouth was agape. “Abby, come on. Why are you being like thi-” he tried to plead.

“Now” I shouted, my cheeks were hot and my body was shaking at this point. I didn’t want to see him, not now at least. I just needed to calm down and him standing there looking stupid didn’t help at all.

“Fine” he let out, sounding defeated. He slowly backed away from me, prolonging his departure. He kept his eyes locked with mine as he held the book to his chest, tapping his fingers along the back of it. Slowly he lowered his head before turning towards my desk and placing the book on top before making his way to the door. Harry moved through the now open door before turning to look at me. With one last glance, he was closing the door behind him, leaving me to reflect on the events that had just occurred.

Notes

Abigail's Outfit
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