Harry’s girlfriend has depression and he’s afraid to be honest with her
A/N: 1.5k of angst and sad harry!! Alright this is for an anon that requested this type of situation, but this is also from the new fic I’m working on. So if you like it, make sure you check out this story and then stay tuned for the new fic!
I almost didn’t know if it was worth it. I’d told her before--I’d told her that she needed a break, I’d told her that she wasn’t doing well. I told her she needed to tell me what was going on. But here, with the dazed look on her face and the sound of distance in her voice, I only worried that confrontational words would push her farther away from me.
That seemed to be the pattern we were in. It seemed like the whole world knew she wasn’t okay--the whole world knew she was sick. Sad. Depressed. Anxious. Tired. Angry. Bored. Everyone knew that something was off--but no one seemed to do anything about it.
Our album was set for release in less than a month, I’d do promo and radio slots and talk shows. I’d be busy and on the road and she’d probably continue to waste away--the sunshine that used to be housed in her eyes was mostly a distant memory.
She sat in the living room of her parents’ house, the house I came to that first night, the house where we spent last Christmas, the house where we first had sex. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she was quiet--which wasn’t really new.
Maya was on the couch, too. Her curly hair fell down around her shoulders, a stark contrast to her sister’s straight hair.
I looked between to the two of them--secretly hoping that Maya could feel the tension too. Maybe she’d say something, maybe Margot would take it more seriously if it came from her sixteen year old kid sister.
“Can we find something else to watch?” Maya asked, her thumbs typing wildly at her phone, she didn’t bother to look up. Margot, who was deep in thought, handed the remote to her sister and didn’t even blink.
From my spot opposite them--the big brown armchair that Margot had gotten her mum for her birthday two years back--I watched as Maya took the remote, dropped her phone to her lap, and failed to recognize that something was terribly wrong.
I sat there, watching her and studying her, which she always said she hated. A girl who had cameras shoved in her face for the last eight years hated being watched--it made sense. But she had to understand--the more she kept from me, the less she spoke and the more secrets she had, the more I’d want to know. The more I’d ask and the more I’d wonder.
We eventually went to bed, climbing onto the mattress where she’d told me she loved me for the first time, and she finally let me touch her. She let me wrap my arms around her, and when she started to cry, the shaking of her chest against mine, the wetness of her tears on my shirt, I tried to ask why.
And that was when I realized that maybe she didn’t know.
There were nights when I went to sleep and wished that I could read her mind. I wished I could hear her thoughts--as sad and as dark and as confused as they might be. Sometimes I convinced myself that if I could know what she thought, I’d be able to fix it. It was wishful thinking.
There were days when I woke up and wondered what on earth was happening. It’s like I woke up in a life that wasn’t mine. She wasn’t the girl I knew and she wasn’t the girl I fell in love with. I loved her, I loved her every second of every day, even when those days were bad. But I didn’t know what happened--what had happened to us, to her.
I think the thing that made it worse was constantly feeling like I had to keep everything from falling apart. Margot was sad? Fix it. She was anxious? Calm her down. She woke up in a bad mood? Do anything and everything possible to hold on to the goofy girl with big brown eyes that I fell in love with.
No one really addressed that I was doing it, but I think everyone knew. We were all doing it, really. We were all walking on eggshells to make sure that Margot, under no circumstances, fell apart. We were all overthinking our words and our jokes and our actions to make sure that she was okay.
It wasn’t because we were afraid--and it wasn’t like she made us do it. We did it because we loved her and cared about her and because we wanted her to be okay.
I rubbed at my eyes in the bathroom, hoping the headache that was coming on wouldn’t last. She seemed alright today--cheery enough that she was excited to watch the show with Sinead. I didn’t need any illness or issue to get in the way of that.
She knocked on the door and poked her head through the crack. I could hear Niall’s loud laugh from the green room behind her, Liam responded with something as Sinead chimed in. It was a full house, Margot was having a good day, everything was fine. At least, I wanted to believe it was.
“Hey,” she said, her voice quiet and calm. I looked at her in the mirror in front of me as she walked towards me at the counter. She had a small smile on her face, her energy was much more centered than it usually was now. “Y’okay?”
“Yeah,” I nodded quickly, turning around to let my arms drape over her shoulders. She didn’t flinch under my touch--that was a good sign. “Just needed a second away from the crowd.”
It wasn’t really a crowd, per se. It was just the boys and Sinead and our managers. If anyone understood the sudden need to be alone, it was Margot. I hoped she didn’t press.
“Your eyes look bloodshot,” she commented, reaching a hand up to touch my cheek.
I forced a smile, letting my hand clasp around hers as it made contact with my face. I didn’t know if I was tired, or sick, or maybe it was just hay fever. Whatever was going on only posed as a roadblock to having a good night with her.
They were so few and far between that all I wanted was a night where she didn’t cry, where she didn’t bicker with Niall, where we just felt normal.
“I don’t know why--I feel okay,” I lied.
She looked up at me, almost as if she were deciding whether or not to believe my words. She let out a sigh and leaned her head against my chest. I paused for a second, but soon I wrapped my arms around her, thankful for a second where everything felt stable.
So often it felt like we were living on top of a house of cards--like any second something would blow everything over. It felt like a balancing act and I was exhausted, but I didn’t dream of telling her that. If I told her that this was hard for me, too, she’d feel even worse. She’d feel guilty and terrible and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.
So I put on a smile and told her day after day that everything was fine. That’s what you do when you love someone.
“You feel warm,” she said--but it wasn’t a compliment. She pulled away from me and looked up, reaching her hand up again to put it against my forehead. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine, love, really.”
She licked at her lips and I wondered what would happen if I told her. I wondered what would happen if I told her I was tired, too, and that I was upset and worried and concerned. She’d brush it off like she always did. She’d tell me that she was okay and that everything was fine and I would sit there in silence not bothering to tell her that I saw through her lies--we all saw through her lies.
That’s what made me angry--the fact that we were both in this cycle of lying to each other and pretending everything was fine when we knew it wasn’t. That’s what scared me most.
“It’s okay if you’re not,” she said quietly, her eyes looking from my eyes to my lips to the ground and then back.
I nodded. “It’s okay if you’re not, too, y’know.”
She nodded, her eyes steady on the space between our bodies as she pulled back. “I know.”
But that was the problem--she didn’t.
