you feel like home - part six
“Uh, sorry. Sometimes Jackson’s just too much, so I come out here and—”
He’s not quite sure why he’s saying anything. Neither is Ryan, considering her face is blank, brown eyes staring into green wondering why she hasn’t turned her back to him yet. Because in any other instance she would have listened to Harry unfalteringly, but that was before she read the signs wrong and tried to kiss him. Now she’s just staring at him, blinking through her blurry thoughts, wondering why the lift is taking forever to reach their floor.
“Sorry,” Harry says quietly, and Ryan isn’t sure if it’s for this awkward moment in the hallway or for not kissing her back. She doesn’t really want to think about it at all, if she’s being honest.
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***
When It Goes From Bad to Worse
In the days that follow, Ryan does her best to stay locked inside her flat. She dodges Fiona’s constant calls, ignores the text messages that have flooded her mobile, all filled with questions regarding the so-called date she wishes she can just forget she ever attended.
Ryan feels a bit bad, because she knows she’s being selfish by leaving Fiona out after she promised to ring her the following day with a play-by-play of the evening’s events. But reliving those felt like some cruel sort of torture Ryan refused to bestow upon herself, therefore she’s decided to do the next best thing—sit in her flat with the front door locked wearing those ugly flannel pajama bottoms she buried in the bottom of her drawer, drinking cheap beer and ordering takeaway because she refused to leave her flat in order to do her food shopping. The slightest possibility of running into Harry in the fucking hallway was enough to keep Ryan inside, swallowing her pride and suffering in silence.
She feels like an idiot if she’s being honest. Because for the quickest of seconds, she let her guard down—her resolve that she’s built up and practiced purposely whenever she finds herself spiraling into a fit of anxiety and social awkwardness. For people like Ryan, people who feel their stomachs bubble with nerves and their brains whir with too many thoughts, people who over-analyze and plan their sentences because they can’t fathom feeling off guard, people like that need to have a protective layer. A perfectly practiced layer that allows Ryan to keep herself at a careful distance, so that she can act accordingly to whatever social situation is thrown her way.
But that night on Harry’s couch, she felt suffocated by his presence. She didn’t want to be at an arm’s length with him—she wanted to be smothered by his warmth and feel him crack through her walls, breaking down her barriers inch by inch and filling the gaps with everything she found herself liking about him. And for a split second, she did. She allowed her brain to turn off, finally welcoming the way her thoughts turned to mush around him. She completely opened herself up to the possibility of not knowing what was going to happen next. She let herself be vulnerable to the fullest extent around him.
And she figured that’s what Harry wanted her to do in the first place. Ever since she first met him, Ryan’s felt that he’s been chipping away at her wary exterior, scratching away at the concrete until his fingernails bled with every innocent query he had about her life. Whether it be her peculiar moving patterns, or her fascinating career, or how she spent her days in uni, he wanted to know everything about her. About the person she was buried beneath this protective layer she’s spent years curating.
But with one inch backward, one brief movement that ruined their almost-first-kiss, Ryan immediately realized that Harry did not want the same things as her. And she feels like an idiot because she was almost certain that he wanted her to kiss her, that he wanted her to make the first move and finally show her interest in him.
That’s the thing about infatuation, it allows for a momentary lapse in judgment, a brief juncture of blindness. It made Ryan’s tough exterior falter, but only just slightly—because the second Harry backed away from her, Ryan forced herself to close off completely, to rebuild her walls.
The most aggravating part of it all is that she’s angrier with herself than she is with Harry. Because it’s not his fault he backed away—how could she be upset with him for that? He clearly invited her over for dinner to thank her for watching Jackson, just as he had said in her doorway that afternoon. Ryan let herself listen to Fiona in believing that it was anything more than just an amiable dinner between two friends, as he so reminded her when he defined their relationship as a “friendship” after she jokingly called him clumsy. Ryan couldn’t bring herself to be angry with Harry for not wanting her in the same capacity that she wanted him.
And that’s okay. It’s okay to not be wanted by somebody, because deep down Ryan knows that boys like Harry do not fall for girls like her. Girls who are far too awkward for their own being. Girls who feel more comfortable speaking to his four-year-old son than they do his father. Girls who misinterpret a comforting handhold as something more than a kind gesture.
She just wishes it didn’t hurt this much.
After completing another series of the new Netflix show she decided to start bingeing at the beginning of her self-induced isolation, Ryan’s decided that it’s finally time to get off the bloody couch and change out of her horrid flannel pajama bottoms.
Luna stretches on the rug beside her, curious in her owner’s newfound sense of urgency. She follows behind Ryan as she gathers all the empty beer bottles and takeaway containers, throws them into the appropriate bin, and wipes down the coffee table. When Ryan strips down and scrubs at her skin in the shower, erasing every remnant her abrupt downward spiral left on her, she feels ten times better than when she first entered the bathroom.
She decides it’s time to properly stock her fridge, considering the only thing sitting on the shelves is an expired carton of milk and raspberries that are due to spoil by tomorrow. So with wet hair and fresh clothes, armed with a long grocery list and reusable bags, Ryan exits her flat for the first time in four days.
As she’s waiting for the lift to arrive on her floor, she tries her hardest not to focus on the voices coming through the crack under the front door of Harry’s flat. She can hear Harry’s low tonality through the thin walls of the hallway, and she can distinctly make out the words “please” and “Daddy’s very busy” and “I promise, later.”
Ryan knows it’s not her place, but when she hears the shrill sound of a toddler crying, she finds herself leaning a bit closer to 4G. She can’t really make out much over Jackson’s blubbering, but she can somehow piece together Harry muttering, “Bubs, please, daddy is so behind on work and I can’t sit here and read to you. Not right now. I promise when I’m done, just please stop crying so I can try and finish this song.”
She flinches when she hears Jackson’s wails grow louder, and suddenly she’s wondering how on earth Harry can manage to be a father while working at the same time. She starts to feel bad, because if she were in Harry’s position, taking care of another living, breathing human being all by herself, she’d probably go absolutely mental.
Suddenly the sound of heavy footsteps overtakes Jackson’s cries, and before his front door flies open, Ryan makes sure to back away, pressing her finger repeatedly on the lift call button once she’s realized that the doors had already closed and moved on to another floor.
Ryan tries her hardest not to look over her shoulder when she hears Harry’s front door close, because the thought of facing him after she ran out of his flat seems far too unbearable. But when a moment passes and the lift still hasn’t arrived, Ryan caves and peeks, and the sight is enough to bring a frown to her face.
Harry’s back was pressed against the wall next to his front door, his neck extended with his head leaning upwards facing the ceiling, his eyes closed tightly. His hair a mangled mess atop his head, tufts of curls sticking up haphazardly from being pulled in every direction. Two big palms were pressed over his eyes, his arms causing his wrinkled jumper to look even more disheveled. Ryan’s almost certain this is the most distressed she’s ever seen Harry, and before she can say anything, he rips his hands away from his face and takes a deep breath that causes his chest to rise and fall.
Harry can sense that he isn’t alone in the hallway. And just as he opens his eyes, his face shifts to the left and he realizes it’s Ryan waiting near the lift. He notices the frown on her face immediately, and he wonders if it’s because of their failed kiss or something else entirely.
“Uh, sorry. Sometimes Jackson’s just too much, so I come out here and—”
He’s not quite sure why he’s saying anything. Neither is Ryan, considering her face is blank, brown eyes staring into green wondering why she hasn’t turned her back to him yet. Because in any other instance she would have listened to Harry unfalteringly, but that was before she read the signs wrong and tried to kiss him. Now she’s just staring at him, blinking through her blurry thoughts, wondering why the lift is taking forever to reach their floor.
“Sorry,” Harry says quietly, and Ryan isn’t sure if it’s for this awkward moment in the hallway or for not kissing her back. She doesn’t really want to think about it at all, if she’s being honest.
The lift chimes and the doors open behind her, and somehow from her position at the end of the hallway, she can see Harry’s eyes fall and his head shake frustratedly. He seems to be upset, and Ryan’s not sure if it’s from Jackson or from the fact that she’s about to walk away from him again.
Somehow it’s enough to cause her to ignore the lift for the second time, her feet creating a determined path to her front door, key fitting into the lock and turning unceremoniously until the door swooshes open and she’s standing in the entranceway of her flat. She can hear Harry call her name in a questioning tone, voice laced with confusion and worry. But before she can respond, she’s standing in front of one of her bookshelves, plucking the red paperback from the middle shelf. Just as quickly as she arrived, Ryan locks up with the same gusto, extending the arm holding the book tightly in Harry’s direction.
His wide eyes create a path from the book to Ryan’s eyes and back again, and after a few moments have passed and Harry still hasn’t taken the book out of her hand, she pushes it an inch closer, forcing him to grasp it.
“What’s this?” Harry dumbly asks, even though he can clearly make out the shape of a paperback book in Ryan’s small hand, as well as the yellow lettered Harry Potter writing on the top half of the cover.
“I bookmarked where we last left off,” Ryan mumbles, staring at the loose thread on his jumper instead of the wide look of his eyes.
When it’s still quiet, Ryan just nods, taking that as her cue to leave. But before she can make it past his frozen frame, Harry seems to snap out of his dumbfounded state, turning on his heel and grasping her forearm lightly.
Ryan stops, trying her hardest not to shiver under his touch.
“Ryan, I really think—”
“—Let me know when you’ve finished. I can lend you the next book,” Ryan forces herself to interrupt, before shaking her arm loose and beginning the short trek back to the lift.
With a brief pause, Harry defeatedly calls out, “It’s your thing, though.”
Her finger hovering over the lift call button freezes, and suddenly Ryan feels as if she can’t move. How Harry even knows that his son said those same words to Ryan a few days earlier in his pillow fort makes her heart drop into the depths of her stomach, and she immediately feels bad for the little boy inside 4G. She feels bad because not only did she let him grow attached to her in such a small period of time, but she let herself get just as attached to him. And knowing that she can’t read the rest of the Harry Potter books to him, something so infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, leaves a dull ache in her chest.
She turns around then, feeling Harry’s heavy gaze fall on her. What once would make her shift uncomfortably in her boots from awkwardness now just leaves her feeling sad and empty.
“Just make sure you do the Hagrid voice, he’ll forget all about it being our thing,” Ryan says sadly, and both begin to frown, knowing that what she said held little truth.
He looks as if he wants to tell her something, but before Ryan can fall under his hypnotizing spell, can give him a second chance to chip away at her much thicker walls, she turns back around, jabbing her pointer finger into the lift call button.
She watches the screen count down from twelve, and she knows she only has about two minutes until it reaches the fourth floor. She’s praying that Harry will leave her alone, will reenter his flat and make sure Jackson is okay. But just as the screen reaches eight, she hears her name fall pleadingly from Harry’s mouth, and she knows she’s fucked.
Ryan doesn’t turn around, but she also doesn’t give him a reason not to continue. So as the number falls from eight to seven, she hears, “I really wanted to kiss you,” fall from Harry’s mouth, and suddenly her chest constricts, and she feels even sadder than before.
Because if he had said those words to her four days ago, Ryan would have turned around and ran into his arms, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard. But now, after four days of silence, four days of ignoring the world and rebuilding her walls, it’s the last thing she wants to hear.
She feels her skin warm with anger, because how dare he say that to her with her back turned to him? When she’s been replaying every incident they’ve shared together over and over in her head, analyzing every look, every touch, every word until she’s practically memorized them? When she finally decided that Harry wasn’t interested in her, that he was just another beautiful boy that Ryan could admire from afar?
So she buries it all—the anger, the frustration, the bitterness. She buries it until it’s hidden under every crevice of her insides, until the only thing that’s left is an overwhelming feeling of sadness. Because that’s truly all there is to it—a missed opportunity between two people who didn’t want the same things.
When the doors finally open, Ryan doesn’t hesitate to throw herself inside, her back slamming into the wall with a clamorous thud. Her hands are shaking, and she misses the ground floor button on her first attempt, giving Harry the chance to step forward an inch and try one last time.
“I’m sorry,” he says despairingly, green eyes begging for her to listen to him. Ryan tears her eyes away before he can say anything else, pressing the button successfully and burrowing her hands into her jacket pockets.
Ryan gives him one last nod, her lips upturned in a juxtaposed sad smile. “Me too,” she says softly, closing her eyes just before the lift doors shut tightly.
***
The middle of the week brings a ridiculous amount of work for Ryan to complete, but she’s happy for the distraction. Because for a moment she can stop thinking about Harry, can stop thinking about all of the things he said to her, can stop thinking about what he truly meant when he told her he wanted to kiss her.
Because thinking about those things only makes the tear in her heart rip inch by inch, and she really can’t bring herself to break apart. Not when she’s rebuilt her walls. Not when she’s gotten so used to being alone, relying on just herself to get through the day.
Because being alone is much easier than letting herself feel things. Vulnerability is a precious thing, probably the most precious thing Ryan has to offer. Her emotions are far too complex, her personality is sometimes fragile, therefore she keeps her vulnerability hidden under lock and key. So the only other option is to be alone—and it’s an option she’s been okay with for the better part of three years.
She hasn’t heard from Harry since his confession in the hallway, and Ryan figures it’s probably for the best. He’s confusing and he makes her feel things her heart hasn’t felt in a long time, and even though she feels an odd sense of emptiness in her chest when she considers her missed opportunity, she knows that trying to find steady ground with him will only make everything hurt that much worse.
Harry’s probably come to the same conclusion, and Ryan can sleep at night knowing that she did everything she could. She can finally put this odd relationship with Harry to rest, and even though she’s sad about it, especially considering she found a new friend in his tiny son, it’s something she has to force herself to deal with.
A loud ping from her desktop shakes her out of her thoughts, and Ryan clicks on it to see a new email from her supervisor. Apparently, he’s sent over two parcels that require product testing, and Ryan sighs quietly, adding another thing to her overflowing to-do list.
After sending over her recommendations on the Nerf blasters she and Jackson played with last week, Ryan heads over to her bedroom to find her ratty slippers. Her legs are covered in cashmere joggers Fiona splurged on for Ryan’s twenty-fifth birthday, and because she misses her friend a little more than usual, she’s wearing a white knitted jumper she borrowed from her closet and never returned before moving out.
Her hair is a mess of waves falling down her back, and she doesn’t even realize that she’s been wearing her glasses for most of the week, feeling far too lazy to put contacts in. With her mobile in one hand and her mailbox key in the other, Ryan heads out into the hallway, her brain already thinking about the next four things on her to-do list.
The sight in front of her makes her slipper-clad feet stop abruptly on the carpeted flooring.
Outside of Harry’s front door stands a beautiful blonde-haired woman, her hair much shorter than the long curly mane in the photographs around his flat. Instead of falling down her back, her hair is straighter now, clipped right above the tops of her shoulder blades. She’s donned in an impressive pantsuit with an expensive-looking briefcase resting on the wall near Harry’s door. From her side profile, Ryan can make out her perfectly constructed jawline, her exquisite button nose, and the edges of her almond-shaped eyes.
Ryan immediately identifies the woman as Rachel, Jackson’s mum and Harry’s ex.
When Ryan looks a bit closer, she can see that Rachel’s pouty lips are in a straight line, and her eyes are downcast as if she were angry. Her hands are moving aggressively as she speaks, and when Ryan chances a look at Harry standing in his doorway, she can tell by his body language that he’s equally just as mad. His arms are crossed over his chest and his mouth is shaped into a frown and his eyebrows are furrowed, and suddenly Ryan feels as if she’s intruding on an intimate family moment she no longer is privy to.
The Ryan before would retreat back into her flat without being noticed, but the Ryan after, the Ryan who understands that she and Harry have nothing left besides a tattered friendship, the Ryan who built her walls back up, the Ryan who promises herself to remain unfazed by whatever sight is occurring in front of her—that Ryan takes a deep breath and steps forward, heading for the mailroom because her job is much more important than her missed opportunity with Harry.
She makes sure not to make eye contact when she walks by Harry and Rachel, choosing instead to stare at the lock screen of her mobile as if the picture she took on the shores of Devon this past summer was infinitely more interesting than the arguing couple to her left. And just when she thinks she’s in the clear, a few meters away from the lift, she hears her name fall from the chipper mouth of a four-year-old boy. She looks over her shoulder, noticing Jackson’s curly head poking out from behind Harry’s legs, and suddenly he’s hobbling over towards her without a care in the world.
“Ryan! Guess what!” He’s in front of her now, head tilted upwards with a toothy grin on his face, excitedly waiting for her response so he can tell her whatever is on his mind.
Before she looks down at Jackson, she can feel the heat of a blue-eyed glare coming from the other end of the hallway, and she tries her hardest not to look up at Rachel. Ryan offhandedly hears Harry scold his son for running out of the flat, and just as Jackson begins telling Ryan his story, she hears the heated whisper of, “the nanny lives next door?” and she instantly flushes with red-hot embarrassment.
When Ryan finally looks down at Jackson, she realizes that he’s been speaking to her for a few moments now, and she’s completely missed the first part of his story. She begins to frown, immediately feeling bad for focusing on Harry and Rachel instead of Jackson. All she wants to do is get out of the fucking hallway and into the lift, but her adorable new friend is making it that much more difficult to escape unscathed.
“Hey, champ. I’m sorry, but I’ve got somewhere I need to be. Why don’t you go hang out with daddy, okay? We can hang some other time.” It’s a promise she isn’t sure she can entirely keep anymore, but it saves her the guilt of ignoring Jackson completely.
His excited babbling stops and he begins to frown, his bottom lip quivering slightly, not understanding why his new friend who always entertains him suddenly doesn’t want to anymore.
“But, Ryan—”
“—Jackson, leave her alone. Come grab your things and leave with mummy,” Rachel says harshly.
When his face turns red and his big green eyes start to glass over, Ryan’s almost certain she’s the only person who can see his tantrum brewing, considering his back is to his parents and he’s completely facing her. Unbeknownst to her, Harry can feel it too, and he’s instantly regretting this entire situation.
“I don’t wanna go! I wanna hang with Ryan! And Luna! We play games and have fun and she reads me Harry Potter books, and I don’t want to go to mummy’s no more!” He’s having a full-on strop, tears rushing down his red blotchy cheeks. He’s gasping for air between belts and Ryan knows she shouldn’t console him because it isn’t her place, but fuck, he looks so sad and it’s utterly heart-wrenching. And before she understands fully what she’s doing, she’s crouched down in front of him, two hands resting gently on his shaking shoulders.
“Hey, champ. Whoa. Deep breaths, you’re all right, yeah? We’ll hang another day. You’ve got your mum now, don’t worry about me or Luna. We’re always right next door. I need you to breathe, can you do that for me?” Ryan can hear the sound of clipped heels echoing against the flooring, and when she looks up she’s met with nothing but a face of fury, blue eyes darted into slits and red lips thinned out in irritation.
“What on earth are you saying to him?! You’re the nanny for Christ’s sake, not his mother! Stop trying to act like it just because you want to shag his father!”
The silence is deafening. Even though Jackson’s uncontrolled sobs are ear-splitting, Ryan can’t hear anything except for the sound of her heart sinking into her stomach. Instantly, she stands up, ignoring the feeling of Jackson tugging at the bottom of her joggers. She wonders if that’s what Harry thinks of her—if that’s how he describes her to his mates, to his family, to his son’s fucking mother.
This realization is entirely conveyed through her dark eyes, and Harry can practically feel her disappointment and anguish towards him. Immediately he starts to panic, eyes wide and mouth parted, struggling to find the right words to say, because shit—he’s never thought of her in that way ever.
But then he’s reminded of his wailing son and his angry mother. And instantly he goes into dad mode, delegating his son as his top priority and pushing Ryan’s hurt to the bottom of the pile.
Ryan knows this. And she suddenly wants, no, needs to be anywhere else but here.
With a muffled apology that she isn’t sure she meant to direct at Jackson or his mother, she skirts by them, stares straight ahead ignoring Harry’s gaze, and heads for her front door, shutting it tightly behind her before she slinks down to the ground and lets the first tear fall.
She stays on the floor of her entranceway for a long time, muffling her cries with the sleeves of Fiona’s jumper until the tear in her heart rips completely open, flooding her insides until all that’s left in her chest is a gaping hole where her heart once was.
***
A/N: Hi all, that was part six of you feel like home. Please be patient, I know you guys probably want to slap Harry across the face (even though the chapter title sort of explained how it would go). This story is meant to explore how Ryan feels, and I really hope this part helped explain her reasoning. It’s a two-sided story, and I know you’re probably dying to hear Harry’s side! That’s the glory of mult-part fics, it’s his turn to shine next chapter. Thanks for all the feedback and love you guys are giving this fic, it makes writing it that much more fun. Part seven will be posted on Thursday December 7, so feel free to chat with me in the meantime and tell me your thoughts! This was a submission for the 1DFF Quarantine Challenge, which has other amazing writers participating as well, so feel free to check out the page! See you next week my loves x
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