part four
I've been having the same dream a lot lately; ever since the day in the coffee shop with Harry and where I talked with Zayn. I'm not sure if it's a dream so much as it is a memory, because it's an almost exact replica of the night that Harry left me. However, this time things are a little bit different. Because towards the end, right when he's about to walk through my door, it hits me that I need to stop him before he ends up leaving me for good.
But I always wake up right before I get the chance to.
xxxx
I don't plan on seeing either Zayn or Harry again for quite a while, let alone at the same time. Clearly luck has never been on my side, though, which is why I end up at the same party as not one, but both, of them.
I didn't even want to go to this party. Not because I'm antisocial, or shy, or even introverted (even though, deep down, I know that I am more than a little bit of all three of those), but simply because I feel like it's inappropriate. I ran away from my wedding, only to realize that I was still in love with my ex, who happened to be a friend of my fiancé. What is there to celebrate, anyway?
Liya thinks differently. She believes that what I have done is honest and brave, but I know that she's only saying that because she's my best friend and it's her obligation. (Also, because I pretend not to notice when she “forgets” to pay the rent again.)
But she doesn't know that I still love Harry, and if she did, I'm not so sure if she would be supportive of me anymore. I can't tell whether or not I'm surprised that she hasn't been able to tell. Harry hasn't either; or, at least if he has, he has never mentioned it. And I honestly did believe that he never would.
Back when I was still naive, I used to think of love as some sort of puppet show that I had complete control over, but I've come to learn that, in reality, it's nothing like that. Love is about learning how to share the strings with someone else, and it's up to you to figure out if that person is worth it or not.
When I was a little girl, I had a clear view of how I wanted my love life to play out. I would find “the one” immediately, and then we would live happily ever after. I learned my lesson when I got my heart broken when I was nineteen years old, and I realized that finding the one is the easiest part--it's keeping him that's so hard.
And I clearly couldn't keep Harry. I'm still not sure why. I'm aware of the fact that running away from things is all he's ever known how to do, I've known this from the second I laid eyes on him, but isn't love supposed to be worth it? Isn't that what it's all about anyway, sticking it out for that one person, even when it gets hard?
After spending months turning my heart inside out, trying to find somewhat of a loophole, like maybe he had just been playing some kind of sick game that he never alerted me about, I finally came to somewhat of a conclusion. That either Harry didn't love me, or he just didn't think what we had was worth it.
And to this day, I still cannot decide which one is worse.
* * * * *
Zayn is drunk when I see him again at the party. He's standing with a crowd of people surrounding him, as usual, but things are different this time, because I'm not sure if I've ever seen him looking this lonely before. I don't know if I'm supposed to go up to him and say hi or not, but I decide that it's better to pretend like I haven't seen him, and so I quickly slither away before he can notice me.
When I enter the kitchen, though, I am not so lucky. Because Harry is standing there with his back pressed to the wall, clad in a flannel shirt and skinny jeans, with a stony expression on his face and a beer in his hand.
I'm frozen for a couple of seconds, and I'm all set to bolt all over again, but I guess that the difference between Harry and Zayn is that Harry could always read me, while all Zayn ever did was see me, and now that I'm thinking about it, that makes a whole lot bigger of a difference than I originally thought it did.
Harry's voice is husky and low when he says my name, but I can also see that he's more than a little bit drunk. It's telling just by the way that he's looking at me; it's not a hungry expression like he wants to devour me, but more of a desperate one. Like he needs me.
And I spent so long thinking that all I wanted was for a boy to need me, but now that I might finally have it, I'm not so sure anymore.
“Hi, Harry,” I say, and I can't help but notice how easy it is for his name to fall off of my lips. I know that I shouldn't be thinking about these kinds of things, but I can't quite help myself. I never can around him, not really.
He stares at me for a long time. We stand there practically motionless for minutes, the only movement made by him taking sips from his beer, and it's a stark contrast to the bustle of the party around us. It's like we're standing frozen in time, and all of a sudden, things are starting to feel a bit too much like the night that I first met him.
I am not the type of person to sleep with somebody the same night they meet them, and I wasn't two years ago either. But it's like I said before, we all have our exceptions, and I think that, even then, I knew that Harry was mine. I'm still not sure if he did, though.
“He's a hit it and quit it kind of guy, Eve,” Niall warned me. “You don't want to get involved with him, I'm telling ya.”
I ignored him, my gaze still focused on the taller, curly haired boy standing a few feet away with a smirk on his face. Niall hadn't seemed too impressed when I had confessed to him that we had just snogged in the toilets, but it wasn't like that, and I was sure of it. Harry was different.
“Eve, are you even listening to me?” Niall whined. He gave my shoulder a gentle push and then tried, “Why don't you go out with Zayn? You know that he's liked you for the longest time.”
I wasn't listening to him, because I was too busy staring at Harry, who was mouthing something that seemed suspiciously close to ‘let’s go’. My heart skipped a couple of beats, and then I turned to my best friend. “Ni, I have a feeling that that boy could very well be the love of my life.”
He groaned loudly. “Eve, don't start with--”
“It's like fate!” I hissed at him.
“For fuck’s sake, Eve.” Niall shook his head at me disapprovingly, but he didn't press the matter any further. Instead, he finished, “You go and do what you want, I can't stop you. But don't say that I didn't warn you.”
Niall ended up being right. Harry did break my heart. But I think that, despite all of the pain that I endured, part of me still believed that he was worth it.
+++
Harry pulled away from me for a second, slightly out of breath, as he shuffled for the key in his pocket. “Fuck,” he muttered as I continued to pepper kisses along the side of his jaw. It was hard to ignore the bulge in his pants, and had I been sober, my cheeks would have probably heated up knowing that I had managed to do that to a man as attractive as him.
Niall’s prediction may have proved to be correct, but he was wrong about one thing, though. Because maybe Harry had been the hit it and quit it type in the past, but he wasn't for me. And I ended up growing too attached to him, because I allowed myself to believe that I was special, that I had somehow managed to “change” a boy like Harry.
(I think that's part of why it must have hurt so much when he walked away from me.)
“Here we go,” Harry said triumphantly once he had finally managed to locate the key. “Room 93.” He flung open the door desperately, and then immediately latched his body back onto mine.
And from then on, Room 93 became our place. Somewhere we could go whenever we needed each other, where he could be my Harry and I could be his Evie, without anyone else trespassing. It was like we were isolated from the rest of the world whenever we were in there, and sometimes I think that I might have loved the environment more than I loved him.
I wouldn't return there for a long time, though--two years, to be exact, when I took off an engagement ring that had been interfering with every breath that I took for the past seven months.
Zayn hadn't sent Harry to find me after I had ran away, but Harry had known. I think that a part of him always would.
“Eve? Eve!”
My head instantly jerks up at the sound of him repeating my name over and over again, and I'm instantly snatched out of my flashback. Harry's looking at me with a strange look on his face, but I can see the ghost of a smile slowly creeping up. I'm not sure why, though. We didn't exactly end our last interaction on best terms. We're not good with endings, Harry and I. There's no sense of finality when it comes to us, and I still can't tell whether that's a blessing or a curse.
“Sorry,” I say quietly, and then I surprise myself when I lean forward and take a sip from his beer. I think that I catch him glancing at my lips for a second when I do this, but I don't know for sure.
Harry opens his mouth, and then closes it. This goes on for a few more seconds, and I observe the silent debate that he's having with himself, until he finally says, “I miss you, Eve.”
I gulp nervously, and drink some more of his beer. I notice how he's said ‘miss’ instead of ‘missed’, and that makes me nervous. “You just saw me a couple of days ago, Harry.”
This time, he doesn't hesitate when he says, his speech a little more slurred now, “Still miss you. I think I'll miss you for the rest of my life. It's stupid, right?”
It takes all I have not to tell him how I feel right then and there. But I can't, obviously, and so all I do is shake my head slowly. “‘S not stupid, Harry.”
He doesn't answer me after that, and all I can think about now is how I still love him. It's almost pathetic, really. I should be over him by now. I try to convince myself that he's not good for me (even though the truth is that I don't think there's ever been anyone who brought out the same side in me that he could).
But then I glance over at him, and notice that he's already staring at me, an unlit cigarette now hanging out of his lips, and I can't help but think that maybe it's not so pathetic, after all.
All of a sudden, Zayn walks into the kitchen, and it’s silent for a couple of seconds as the three of us stand there ad stare at each other. His eyes immediately zero in on my close proximity to Harry, and when I see them narrow, an alarm goes off in the back of my mind. This is not a situation that I want to be in--not now, not later, not ever.
“I’m such a fucking idiot, aren’t I?” Zayn says after a few seconds, but he’s not exactly talking to either of us in particular. His face is twisted into a stony glare, but I can see the hurt in his eyes, and right now, he doesn’t look like a twenty two year old man. He looks like a little boy, who’s lost and doesn’t quite know where to go. And I hate that I’ve done this to him, but I know that things would be even worse if I stayed.
“Zayn…” I say quietly, because that’s what they do in the movies, but when he doesn’t make any effort to cut me off, I realize that I have no idea what to say. Finally, I settle on, “I really am sorry.”
“I think that a part of me always knew it,” he continues, his voice shaking a little bit. “That you still love him, I mean.” I’m not sure who has more of a reaction, me or Harry. I can feel my cheeks flaming red, and Harry’s staring at me like he doesn’t know who I am anymore, but Zayn isn’t finished yet. “And I just...I just don’t understand why, Eve. Why you would even say yes to me if you still wanted him. Why you would even want him after how he hurt you like that.”
I glance over at Harry, but his expression remains blank. He’s not looking at me anymore.
“I don’t know,” I confess, because that’s the truth, which is what he wants, isn’t it? The fucking fact of the matter is that I have no idea what I’m doing; the only thing that I know for sure is that I’m in love with Harry, but that doesn’t change anything--I obviously can’t say that to Zayn, and I know that it won’t matter to Harry, either. He can tell me that he misses me, and stare at me when he knows that I’m looking, but at the end of the day, I will always be the one who loves more. And it’s not fair, but I’ve come to learn that that’s just the way things are. That still doesn’t mean that I’ve accepted it, though.
Zayn doesn’t say anything else after that. I think he’s accepted the fact that it’s over for us, I can see the realization in his eyes, and it’s a kick in the gut, but at the same time, I’m not sure if I’ve felt this free in a long time. After a couple of minutes of silence, he nods his head, still not meeting Harry’s gaze, and then says, quieter this time, “All right. Bye, Eve.”
And, just like that, he’s gone.
Harry and I don’t say anything for a long time. His beer is long gone by this point, and I can tell that he’s craving another, but for some reason, he doesn’t make any effort to move. Instead, all he does is glance back and forth at me every now and then, and I’m forced to dwell in my head over the fact that he knows that I’m still in love with him, even after all this time. I feel like crying, but also like a heavy weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.
Finally, he speaks up, and his question takes me by surprise, because Harry’s never been one to lay it all out there. Everything’s a game with him, one that I was never particularly skilled at, but I was still addicted to all the same. “Did he really mean that?” he asks cautiously, sounding like he is treading on thin ice. “I mean, do you...do you still love me?”
I don’t allow myself to think twice before I nod my head. “Yeah, Harry. I do.”
He sucks in a sharp breath, and hearing that causes my chest to tighten it, but I wait for him to say something. And when he does, he somehow manages to send me into a state of shock all over again. “You broke my heart, you know.”
I can’t keep myself from laughing out loud, but he doesn’t even flinch. After he makes no effort to continue with this new revelation, I manage to choke out, “Are you kidding me? You have to be.”
He shakes his head. “I think that we’re past lying to each other at this point, Eve.”
I shove my finger in his face accusingly and glare at him. “You can’t even try and pull that kind of bullshit on me, Harry,” I scowl. “Haven’t you already screwed with me enough?”
His expression softens ever so slightly when he hears the crack in his voice, but that doesn’t stop him from taking a deep breath and then blurting out, “You broke my heart when you got engaged to my friend, but I had to just nod my head and act like everything was fine, when it was killing me inside, Eve!”
I hate how even when he is acting this excruciatingly selfish, I still love him. Not caring if people hear from the other room, I yell, “You broke my heart when you walked away from me, Harry! You never answered my question last time--why did you stop loving me, just like that? What happened? I spent months trying to figure out why I wasn't good enough for you anymore, what made you change your mind, and...I still don’t know.”
He looks a lot less sure of himself now, and a couple of minutes pass before he says quietly, “I realized that I made the biggest mistake of my life the minute I walked out of there, Evie. But I couldn’t come back to you.”
Unexpected tears blur my vision at the sound of the nickname that I haven’t heard from him in years, but I don’t mention it, because there’s only one question that’s important to me right now. “Why?” I ask, so softly that my voice is almost inaudible. “There was nothing romantic or noble about it. You fucking broke my heart.”
Harry takes a deep breath, and two years ago, I would have yelled at him to stop being so dramatic, but I’m too desperate to know what went wrong between us that I keep my mouth shut. Finally, he speaks up and finishes, “I couldn’t come back to you, because I’d already hurt you enough.”
