I will forget you, somehow.
The one where Y/N sees Harry months later since their night together in the Hamptons and they reminisce a lot
Word Count: 3.7k
TW: angst! fluff!
A/N: Part Three of Still In Love!! I don’t know if there’s going to be more!!! All I have to say is prepare to die!!
Thank you again to my wonderful wife @belladonna-styles for reading it over!!
Read Part One here! Read Part Two here!
You were standing next to Jeff, a proud smile on his face and even a few tears in the corner of his eyes. You looked around and saw all of your friends with the same kind of look in their eyes; proud and happy. They were all dressed in their best attires; colorful suits and dresses. All of them grinning and cheering. You wondered why you couldn’t be as happy as them; after all it was a wedding.
Weddings are happy events but you just looked depressed, miserable and when you saw her walk down the aisle in her gorgeous white dress, a blissful expression on her face, the tears ran down your face; the bluest tears.
But the real moment you felt your heart break inside your chest was when he placed the ring on her finger. When he kissed her cheek and murmured in her ear. When he promised to love her forever in sickness and health, until death do them part. You thought about all the times he told you; you would be the one he’d give the ring to, the one he’d love forever.
You felt the heartache; the sadness and a surprising rage grow inside of your body. When the minister asked if anyone opposed this union, you felt a rush inside of you and your blood boiling. You stood up and walked toward them, and with pain in your voice, you said “I oppose.”
The only thing you could hear were the laughs of Harry and Rosie and everyone in the audience booing you until the minister asked you to go back to your seat.
You woke up in a cold sweat.
You’ve been dreaming about the same awful scene for days on end, since you received the call from Jeff. He told you Rosie was getting married (he didn’t mention to who… But you knew it was just courtesy not to tell you Harry was getting married.)
Apparently you were invited to the wedding. You mulled over the idea for weeks. You didn’t want to go but you couldn’t dismiss that no matter what happened between you and Harry, he still was one of your closest friends.
And perhaps, this whole wedding thing would make you forget what happened almost six months ago.
After you left the Hamptons, you could not get Harry out of your mind. All the feelings you had for him, everything; from the crave for his touch to the heartbreak of his departure, all those feelings came back. Strangely, despite being sure you moved on, it took him only one night to make you fall in love with him all over again. Maybe you weren’t in love; maybe you just needed closure. Something he never gave to you; he left early with Rosie on the fourth day without addressing a word to you.
You’ve been living your life as usual since then; going out with your friends, working and avoiding each other. Your life just went back to what it was before that night, except that you missed him so much you’d swoon every time a picture of him would randomly show up on your Instagram (not so randomly since you started following his update accounts again).
So basically the only changes you went through after your trip in the Hamptons was being in love with your ex, again; feeling heartbroken and loosing a good friend.
Indeed, you broke up with Danny. You told her about your night with Harry and how you had a hard time getting over him. She cried a lot when you told her. You apologized a thousand times and let her know that she deserved to be with someone who only thought about her, someone who loved her. And that wasn’t you, and maybe it was never you. Of course she dismissed you and asked you not to ever contact her again.
You didn’t, but oddly she did. She called you on a cold night to let you know that she forgave you and that she was glad you told her the truth. You two had a lovely chat over the phone, and your conscience was cleared.
You felt well because you never intended to hurt her and to know she forgave you made you feel good. You were happy that the two of you left on good terms.
The wedding was getting closer and you still hadn’t given an answer yet. What if you went and you messed it up like in your dreams? What if you started crying? What if everybody looked at you because you’re the ex?
After all, that meant you were going to see his family again, all of his friends, and him, in whatever amazing outfit he’d wear, you’d see him dancing tipsy on his wedding night with somebody else… It hurt just thinking about it.
But maybe that’s what you needed, maybe you needed the hurt of realizing he was over it. Maybe you needed that for you to move on.
You decided after much reflection that you’d go to the wedding reception only for the party. You wouldn’t go to the religious ceremony, just the celebration that started at 8PM. You planned on congratulating him, having a glass of champagne and leaving as soon as possible.
The wedding was in LA but you didn’t plan on staying. You tried thinking what outfit would be best for the occasion and your heart decided on a blue silk dress that was just the right amount of slutty and classy. Harry picked it and it was always one of his favorites but you convinced yourself that wasn’t the reason why you picked it.
You pondered over the idea of Harry getting married… Was that planned before the night in the Hamptons? Was that the result of the night in the Hamptons? Was he seeing Rosie back when you two were together?
That thought cut your breath off and made you nauseous. It couldn’t be.
You flew in the night of the wedding; you didn’t care about the jet lag, you knew you’d sleep on the flight back home.
When you arrived, late as usual, everybody was already dancing; probably because your flight was delayed and instead of making at 8, it was already past 11.
The room was huge; they picked a very fancy venue in Malibu, with a high ceiling and a lavish bar. You couldn’t recognize anybody in the lightning and the music. You were moving blindly, just searching for your friends.
You didn’t want to see Harry yet. And he was probably already tipsy and being all ‘lovey dovey’ with his new wife.
God, he had a wife, now. You felt a knot in your stomach and now you only wanted to go home. You turned around and walked to the door but you felt someone grabbing your arm.
“Y/N! I’m so glad you could make it!” Glenne offered you a warm smile and she pulled you in for a hug.
“I’m not staying long…”
“Ah Y/N! We haven’t seen you since that terrible restaurant in Manhattan! It feels like a decade!” Jeff laughed as he embraced you.
“That was last week, Jeff!” Glenne slightly slapped his arm and chuckled.
They were pretty drunk. And you had visual confirmation when you saw them kiss in the mouth. You laughed at them for a second and a waiter interrupted you by offering a glass of champagne; that you accepted straight away.
You took a sip while looking around you, searching for the newlyweds; you still wanted to congratulate them. “Damn, that’s some good champagne!” You told yourself as you made your way through the crowd. After a few glasses and talking with your friends that you found at the bar, of course, you still didn’t have a glance of the bride nor the groom. And none of your friends mentioned Harry while talking about the wedding. It all seemed so weird.
You went over to the bathroom and ran into Rosie. She was glowing; both metaphorically and literally. She was beautiful and covered in glitter; her dress was a sparkly white dress with a bustier covered in sequins and you didn’t know what to think, you just knew it wasn’t your taste but she looked wonderful.
“Congratulations! You look amazing!” You smiled at her and she grinned back.
“Thank you! I thought you wouldn’t come. After what happened I didn’t want you here, but then I thought it was impolite and I wanted to show off a little bit.”
She laughed at your face. You understood her reaction and you couldn’t help but wonder if inviting you was Harry’s idea. Where was he, by the way?
“Yeah, I understand. Sorry about that. Where is he?”
She looked confused. “Who?”
“Your husband?” You asked, letting a little nervous laugh escape from your lips.
“Oh!” She smiled widely. “He’s over there!” She pointed over the huge throne standing in the back of the room, that stayed empty for a while and where now, her husband, was sitting.
You couldn’t get yourself to look at him but your curiosity was stronger than you.
What the fuck was happening?
The man sitting in the throne was blonde, thin, in a plain black suit with a bow tie, and more importantly; he wasn’t Harry.
Your stunned expression made Rosie guffawed. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”
“Yeah…” You said absentmindedly. Your brain needed time to process.
“But… I thought you and Harry were…” You needed answers now.
“I broke up with him when he told me about you two and now I’m married! That’s growth, honey!”
You looked at her flabbergasted. So Harry never married her.
“If you’re looking for him. He’s probably drunk somewhere. He came to congratulate me and then he disappeared.” She looked behind her, and then grabbed her dress to lift it up. “Anyway, I have to go.” She pointed to the bathroom door and giggled.
It wasn’t Harry’s wedding. You felt relieved. But somehow, you were still hurt. They broke up after he told her about you but he didn’t reach out. Or did he? Did you just plainly miss his calls? Did he not have your new number? Did he ask your friends?
Every possible scenario played out in your head. You rested in a corner, a glass of wine in your hand. Your eyes rummaged in the room looking for him. The music was playing and when the song finished; you lifted your head on the spot when you heard the first notes of the next one.
The Pina Colada song. Your song. You looked at the stage where the band was playing. Your jaw dropped at the sight of the man behind the microphone.
I was tired of my lady.
His voice reached your ears but your brain couldn’t comprehend the situation.
We’ve been together too long.
The people around you were either talking about the performance that clearly wasn’t planned or just ignoring and dancing. You could not fathom that he was on stage, singing this song. And he looked as tipsy as the night you met him.
Like a worn-out recording of a favorite song.
He looked at you intensely. And you saw his eyes gleam. His lips were ajar but no sound was coming out of them. He was standing awkwardly in the middle of the stage not singing, blatantly staring at you. The bassist of the band made him a sign to sing again but he just got off the stage in a hurry.
Everybody seemed confused but then the band started playing again and the original lead singer carried on with the song and people kept going with their feast.
Harry walked slowly towards you and you felt as nervous as could be. You knew this man by heart, yet it still felt like it was the first time you met him. Maybe because of the song, of the circumstances or just the stark fact that he was wearing a white suit at his ex’s wedding? Bold move you thought to yourself.
“Hey.” He smiled shyly to you.
“Hey.” You sat down on the empty seat that was behind you.
“That was a lame performance, what did you think?” He asked you, a giggle leaving his lips as he sat in the spot next to you.
“That was pretty lame, yeah.” You laughed at him. After all, he left the stage before the chorus. You could hear the song play faintly in the background of your conversation.
“Do you remember when we first met?” He wasn’t looking at you anymore, his eyes just wandered randomly around the crowd.
“Yes. Kinda similar situation.” You looked at him for a second. “I thought you were getting married.”
He snickered at your comment. “You thought that?”
“Yes. Why did you think I came all the way to LA for?”
“I don’t know. You and Rosie could’ve been friends.” Both of you laughed at loud at his answer.
“Sure. She’s my best friend.” He gazed over at you. You thought about mentioning your night in the Hamptons, telling him the way you felt, asking why he didn’t reach out, how he broke up with Rosie, asking him about whatever happened in his life during the last six months? But you chose to not say a word before he did.
“Do you remember after we met at that wedding, the first thing we did together?” His eyes shifted away from you.
“Yes. We went to a Rolling Stones show and got fucking baked.”
You chortled at the memory. You always thought it was the best first date ever.
“It was fucking sick.” He smiled distantly; he looked like he was reminiscing too.
“The first time we moved in together, when you broke your leg in the stairway because you wanted to prove that you could carry the biggest box alone. That was sick too.”
You remembered how he bragged about carrying the box on his own, and dismissed you when you insisted to help him and when you climbed the stairs and left him alone at the bottom of them, you heard a high pitched scream, only to find him on the floor the box next to him and a painful look on his face. You laughed so hard that day. Especially when he got up telling you he was fine and that he just needed a kiss to make the pain go away when it turned out he had a really bad sprain.
“You jinxed me.” He laughed loudly.
“I never jinxed you!” You slapped his arm in a playful way.
“What about that Christmas we spent at my parent’s house and you took the last cookie?”
You thought about that Christmas, the first you spent at his parent’s place. You were nervous about spending the entire holiday with them but it just went blissfully.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You raised your eyebrows at him in fake confusion and giggled.
“C’mon Y/N… It was just after I told you I loved you for the first time.”
Your breath was cut off. You remembered that night exactly. The way he kissed you so gently, the way he whispered he was in love with you, how he made you feel so safe and loved. The way he said that he wanted all of his Christmases to be exactly like this one, with you in his arms.
“Yeah, I remember… You gave me the cookie.”
“I didn’t!” He tittered softly. A silence installed between the both of you, until a waiter offered some more champagne. You looked at each other and after a sneaky smile; you both had the same idea. You took all the glasses on the waiter’s plate and thanked him. You sipped lightly on your glass.
“Do you remember that time, in the studio when Jeff walked in on us?”
He laughed. “Hell yes, I remember. One of our most glorious nights.”
You chortled at his answer. “Most glorious to say the least.”
You reminisced the night with great fondness and arousal… The steamy glasses, the recorded screams, the way Jeff gasped at the sight of you two butt naked literally fucking in the studio.
“Do you remember the church day?”
Of course you remembered. It was when you were staying at his place in London and his parents were invited to a baptism and asked you two to come. None of you were religious but you went anyway to please Anne.
You’ve spent the day joking about everything in the Church from the paintings to the literal baby that was getting bathed in holy water. Truth was you probably needed to be bathed in holy water way more than this baby, because while the priest recited the prayers, the two of you escaped and had sex in the confessional. And when you came out of the booth, to hear the choir sing; he held you in his arms, and whispered for the first time that he wanted to marry you.
“You said you wanted to marry me.” The words left your mouth and you realized what you said only when you looked at his face; his eyebrows raised and a smirk plastered on his lips.
“I said that?” His cheeky tone made you laugh.
“Yeah. You said you wanted to make me your wife.”
“I want to make you my wife.” He held the glass of champagne to his lips, his grin never leaving them.
It was probably the alcohol talking; the both of you were quite drunk by now.
“I still love you, you know.” Now you didn’t control the words that were coming out of your mouth, they were just slipping on their own.
Before Harry could answer, you shook your glass in front of his face. “But I’ll forget you, somehow.”
He looked you in the eyes. And took your glass away from your hands, he looked much more serious than he did a few seconds earlier.
“I don’t want you to forget me.” You could hear the desolation in his voice.
You didn’t want to forget him, either.
“Why did you leave in the morning, that night in the Hamptons?”
He seemed surprised by your question and looked at the ground.
“I felt terrible.”
You felt tears gathering inside your eyes. He gave you a wretched look.
“Not about our night. It was wonderful. I felt terrible because of Rosie, because of what I did to her.”
You both looked around the crowd and giggled. “She didn’t go that bad, though.”
“I felt like the worst scumbag in the world and I owed it to her to tell her the truth, you know?”
You nodded for an answer. You understood his stand; you were in the same position.
“I’m so sorry you felt left out. I just didn’t know what to do. And then you left with Danny and everyone told me you were fine and you were still with her, so I guessed you didn’t feel the way I did.”
You stopped him in his track. “What? Who told you I was still with her?”
“Herself. She called me like a week after the Hamptons to tell me that I should not try to contact you in any way because you two were together. And she sent a message a few months later to tell me you were still with her.”
You were bewildered by what you heard. You broke up with Danny a few days after the Hamptons. And now you discovered she told Harry you were still together.
“I broke up with her, like two days after coming back.”
“I tried to reach you but I didn’t want to interfere. I didn’t want to hold you back from moving on.”
“I can’t believe that.” You were dumbfounded by the revelations Harry made. You thought about calling her and settling scores but it wasn’t necessary, you preferred to just let it go. Karma would do her better than you ever would.
“I still love you, Y/N.” He cupped your face with his hands.
“I meant it when I said I never stopped loving you.”
His thumb stroked your cheek in a gentle way. He tilted his head to the side and smiled.
“I mean… I sang the Pina Colada song for you! Out of tune!”
You giggled and he brought his face closer to yours. You know he was about to kiss you, but you didn’t want just a kiss or just another night. You needed more. You took his hands off your face, and stared into his eyes.
“I need more than words, Harry. More than a half drunk kiss. More than one night in the Hamptons. This will not erased the last two years, or the hurt from our past.”
He nodded at you and held your hand inside of his. He held it tight and brought it to his heart. A dramatic gesture that made perfect sense in the light of his alcohol consumption.
“I promise you I will give more. More love, more time, more effort. I will do anything you need me to do if that means you’re willing to try again.”
Your heart was pounding so fast that you thought it might as well jump out of your chest. That was what you needed to hear. But now you needed to see and feel the actions.
“I am willing to try again.” He beamed widely. “But I need actions, Harry, not only words.”
He gazed in your eyes for a moment.
“Well, my first action is asking you if you want to start over?”
You looked at him confused.
“I’m Harry.” He reached his hand out for you to shake it. And you understood what he meant; the wedding, the song, the white suit and his drunk ass. Everything was like your first night meeting, and it was worth the try. You smiled at him and shook his hand.
“I’m Y/N.”
He giggled before the words fell from his lips, “I’m pleased to meet you.”
You snickered before grabbing his face and kissing him. You felt him smile against your lips. You were ready to start over.
But you couldn’t act like you forgot him. You would never forget him.
TAGLIST: @tandy-mikaelson; @caringharrystyles ; @babebenhardy ; @madformichael