You Can’t Have Both Of Us
Description: where harry’s girlfriend is insecure about his friendship with y/n and makes him choose between them.
Author’s Note: this was requested so thank you to the lovely anon who requested it! i also didn’t want to create a name for harry’s girlfriend so that’s why i literally just kept calling her harry’s girlfriend. also, i have not written in a while, so i’m sorry this is proper shit. not edited yet! xoxo lee
Before the flashy outfits, the Gucci campaigns, the movie premieres, or his first solo tour – there had been her. She had been there before any of this had. She had been in the audience of his very last performance with One Direction, and she had celebrated with him when he completed his first solo album. She had coached him through his doubt when he would call her from the set of Dunkirk, and she had wept tears of pride when the movie was released and resonated with people throughout the world. She grieved with his family through the loss of his stepfather, and she celebrated with them a year later through happy tears at the beautiful legacy that he had left behind. Since the very moment that she and Harry had crossed paths at a mutual friend’s party, she had been alongside him through it all.
She could not remember the exact moment that Harry became her best friend, but what she did know was that Harry had become so entrenched into her life that one day she woke and realized that she could no longer imagine her world without him in it.
So when she casually strolled up to Harry’s luxurious London home after finishing with work, she imagined it to be like any other typical Thursday evening. However, as she gently pushed open the front door to his home, her body completely froze in the lobby due to the sound of Harry engrossed in an intense conversation with his girlfriend of four months.
“Harry, I can see the way that you both look at each other.”
“Yeah?” Harry had asked, his amusement evident through his voice. He was not visible to her, but she could clearly imagine him leaning against the wall of his large kitchen with his arms firmly folded across his chest, wearing a smirk that tugged on the corner of his mouth. “And how is that?”
“As if you are completely in love with one another,” his girlfriend replied.
Harry paused briefly before responding. “You know it’s not like that,” he argued.
“Harry, she is your first priority,” his girlfriend continued. “She always comes first to you.”
“That’s not true,” Harry muttered, yet it is evident that he was striving to convince himself of this more than he was trying convince his girlfriend. “She’s my best friend. Nothing more.”
She listened attentively as a sarcastic snicker escaped from his girlfriend. A wave of guilt washed throughout her, for she was aware that eavesdropping on Harry’s conversation with his girlfriend was completely wrong. She wished nothing more than to leave the couple in the comfort of their own privacy, but she feared that even the slightest movement would catch their attention, and well, let’s just say that Harry’s girlfriend had never particularly been a fan of hers.
“She is the first person you tell when you have good news, and she is the first person you confide in when something is wrong. You drop everything for her the moment that she needs you, and you will always defend her regardless of the situation. When it comes to Y/N, I don’t stand a chance.”
She felt her eyes widen and her heart nearly leap through her chest, for it was at this moment that she realized the reason for their argument was her friendship with Harry. Deciding that it was definitely time to go, she spun on her heals in an attempt to quickly escape through the front door. However, as she was about to exit the home and close the door behind her, the words that left his girlfriend’s mouth leave her frozen in a state of panic.
“Harry, you need to choose.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Harry asked, his voice growing louder with rage.
“It’s her or me, Harry. You can’t have both of us.”
Before any more words could contribute to her broken heart, she slipped silently through the front door and gently pulled it closed behind her. Despite her worry that the couple had heard her movement, she threw open the door of her vehicle and sped as far away from there as she possibly could, desperate to escape the possibility of her best friend abandoning her.
Throughout her entire drive home, her mind constantly replayed the memory of the night that she had first met Harry. Both attending a mutual friend’s party, she had stumbled onto the balcony, desperate to escape the prestigious conversations that were ongoing throughout the night. The last thing she had expected was for her eyes to land upon One Direction’s front man, but sure enough, there stood Harry Styles. Clothed in a black rolling stones t-shirt and with his long curly hair falling past his shoulders, he leaned on the railing on the balcony and stared at the beautiful view of London. She had been unsure if he would find her presence uncomfortable, but when he extended his arm to offer her a swig from the bottle of Whiskey in his hand, she knew that was his way of asking her to join him. And for the remainder of the night, the two drunken strangers engaged in the most profound conversation that either of them had ever had.
She was confident that Harry would not throw that away. She knew that their three years of friendship meant more to him than a girlfriend of four months. And besides, Harry had been unsure about his girlfriend at the beginning, but he had decided to see where it would lead. Despite his beautiful girlfriend being one of the most successful models, she still felt that Harry could do better than her. And perhaps those feelings were due to the ones that she felt – the feelings that she had buried so deep within her that she could not even recognize them anymore. The butterflies that swarmed within her when she was around him? She had convinced herself that those were normal. The disappointment within her anytime that he had a girlfriend? She convinced herself that was jealousy over her best friend having less time for her. She convinced herself that Harry was her soulmate in the form of a best friend, but little did either of them realize that perhaps they were simply just soulmates.
Harry eventually arrived for Taco Thursday. It was a tradition that the friends had made when they first met, and it was actually one of the reasons that they even became as close as they had. They had promised that one Thursday of each month, they would cook as many tacos as possible and would then force themselves to eat every single of them while watching the most cliché romantic-comedies ever made.
“Wasn’t sure if you were going to show,” she commented as Harry strolled through the front door of her apartment.
“Have I ever not shown up?” Harry responded.
“In fact, there was a point where you didn’t show up for over an entire year,” she joked, smiling at him through a devilish grin.
Harry rolled his eyes as a chuckle fell from his mouth. “I was touring the world, darling.”
Harry rested his bag on the top of her dining table before making his way across the room to approach his best friend. “Come here,” he demanded as he pulled her into his arms. She always noticed that Harry never hugged her like a friend, for he would pull her into his embrace and tightly wrap his hands around her entire body so that he could grip onto her waist. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.” Harry then dropped his lips to rest on the top of her forehead, leaving a gentle kiss on her burning skin.
“So how’s everything been?” she asked, prying for information on the break-up that she assumed had happened between him and his girlfriend.
Harry turned away from her, grabbing a spoon from her cutlery drawer and directing his attention towards the sauce that he was preparing for their tacos. With his back turned to her, Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Everything’s fine,” he reported. “Nothing new.”
She knew Harry far too well to believe in his clear dishonesty. She knew that when he turned his back to her then he was upset about something, and she also knew that Harry could never look someone directly in their eyes and blatantly lie to them.
“Harry…” she prompted, revealing to him that she knew he was withholding the truth.
Harry sighed in defeat, causing his shoulders to deflate. He dropped the spoon onto the kitchen counter and stopped everything he was doing. Turning his head only slightly to peer over at her, she noticed a pain-filled expression consume his face.
“I have to choose,” he reported.
Of course, she already knew what he was referring to. However, she forced herself to raise her eyebrows and widen her eyes, hoping that she appeared shocked enough for Harry to believe it. “Choose between what?” she asked.
“You and her,” Harry responded. “I have to choose between you or her.”
She laughed nervously, uncertain with how to respond now that he had actually said the words out loud. “Why would you have to choose?”
“Apparently she is insecure of our friendship,” Harry explained. “Which makes sense considering that we act as a married couple.”
“Harry, it doesn’t make sense,” she argued. “Besides, if anything was ever going to happen between us then it would have long ago.”
And for a brief moment, she and Harry did not say a single word, but stared at each other, for they both knew deep inside that her words were not true. They both knew that were was still that chance for them, but neither of them would allow themselves to ever say it.
“Well, you’re my best friend and even though you’re a pain in my ass, I also don’t know what the fuck I’d do without you,” Harry said.
She smiled to herself, for she knew that nothing could ever come between her and Harry. She would always choose him, and she knew that he would always choose her in return. Even more so, she knew that Harry was not a man that would ever choose between two people that he cares about.
So when Harry arrived to her home the next morning, wearing a face of exhaustion and a dishevelled hairstyle, she knew that it was done between him and his girlfriend. He had entered into her home, holding a box in his arms and allowing his eyes to gloss over with tears. She felt her eyebrows furrow in confusion, for she did not realize that Harry had actually liked his girlfriend this much. In fact, he typically had just complained about her, so she was surprised that he was even upset at all about their breakup.
She placed her hands on her hips and nodded her head. “So it’s done then?” she asked. “Things are officially over between you and her.”
She watched his bottom lip quiver as he gently lowered the box onto her kitchen counter. Inside the box were not his girlfriend’s belongings, but it was hers. It was the blanket that he had bought her so that she would stop stealing his whenever she visited his house; it was her old typewriter that she allowed him to use when writing his songs; it was the countless movies that she had brought over for movie nights; and most importantly, it was her favourite sweater of his that he always allow her to sleep in whenever she would drunkenly spend her night in his guest bedroom.
She tried to say something, but no words were able to escape from her mouth. “Harry?” she eventually said, her voice breaking as the words escaped her mouth.
“I really care about her, Y/N,” he whispered.
She did not even realize that the tears had been forming in her eyes before they were already continuously streaming down her cheek. She shook her head, unable to accept that this was actually happening.
“She and I may actually have a chance and I don’t want to throw that away,” Harry explained.
“So you’re just going to throw me away instead?” she asked, nearly inaudible due to the heaving of her chest and the trembling of her voice.
Harry did not reply. Instead, he simply lowered his head, concealing the single tear that had lingered in the corner of his eye. It was clear that the decision was hurting him just as much as it was hurting her, but the worst part for her was that he was still deciding to walk away from her.
“Harry, I’ve been with you through it all,” she wept. “It’s always been you and me.”
Harry squeezed his lips together, fighting the tears that were battling to escape. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but at the very first word that left his mouth, he slammed his mouth shut again, knowing that he would completely break down if said anything to her.
“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” he eventually whispered, using the quietest voice that she could hardly hear him.
She nodded her head, realizing that her best friend was choosing his girlfriend over their three-year friendship. She lifted up her shoulders, fixing her posture so that she stood study before him. She lifted her hands to her eyes and wiped away the puddle of tears that had gathered beneath her eyes.
“It’s okay, Harry,” she responded through a clear voice. “I understand.”
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but she did not allow him to continue any further.
“Let’s just make one thing clear,” she said, cutting him off. “If things do not work out between you and her, then don’t you dare ever return to me. You are deciding to walk away from me, so the minute that you step out that front door, you and this beautiful friendship of ours will be dead to me.”
She strived to stand strong and to be firm in her words, but all she wanted in that moment was for Harry to wrap his arms around her and whisper that everything would be okay. She did not need much in the world, but she knew that she needed him. He had become a part of her and she could not imagine living in a world without Harry by her side.
Harry leaned forward and rested his lips against her ear. “I love you, Y/N.” As he lifted his lips to rest against his forehead, she closed her eyes, appreciating the feeling of his kiss one last time. He remained there for what seemed like forever, terrified to break away from her, for he knew that it would be their last moment together. And before either of them had been ready, Harry dropped his lips from her forehead. He did not take a final look at her, for he knew that one glimpse at her and his entire heart would break.
So Harry turned his back to her and exited through the front door of her home. The moment that he disappeared from her sight, a deafening sob escaped from her mouth as her body sunk to the floor.
Her best friend and the man that she loved with every piece of her heart no longer existed to her.
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