Artwork [h.s]

extra #2

JULY

From Zayn: how are you doing?

Harry looks up from the paper sheet when his phone makes the desk vibrate and picks it up, reading the text message on the screen and letting out a sigh.

He didn't expect such a text to come today. Over the last few months his friend has strangely been more interested in his well-being than usual. He hasn't taken him out to get wasted and has taken the habit of coming to collect him from the gym when it gets too late, as if he knows that if he doesn't he'll find a way to destroy himself even further.

But it's been months and now it's summer, and he stopped checking up on him so often now that he knows he'll survive his pain. It catches him by surprise, and he decides to reply even though he'd usually ignore the text.

To Zayn: Why are you asking me?

From Zayn: she's leaving today.

Harry stands up quickly.

To Zayn: What do you mean, she's leaving today?

His heart is hammering in his chest and dread spreads through him.

She's leaving today.

What?

His gaze falls to his nightstand, a black-and-white drawing of a rose stares back at him. He still remembers the day she drew it for him.

He remembers the way she creased her brows and bit her lower lip as she focused on it, her fingers gripping the top of her notebook. He was too broken and unfeeling back then to know what he truly had in front of him. It was back in the wasted days when he still tried to push her away, still believed he could make it out of it unscathed.

How stupid he'd been.

Now, he'd give everything just to talk to her again, just to see her eyes look right back at him. He's pathetic, he knows that, but he also knows there's nothing he can do to change it.

She made his frozen over heart thaw, and now it is aching.

And now she's going away and leaving him in the mess he himself created, the last one standing in the battleground of their mess of a relationship.

From Zayn: Liam told me they're going.

Harry stares at the message in shock. Liam?!

Liam is going away with Sierra? He's leaving today and told him nothing about it? Why would he keep it from him?

Without thinking twice, he runs out of the house and gets into his car. He almost crashes against a passing vehicle while getting out of the driveway but can't bring himself to care.

The sting of the betrayal is taking his breath away, becoming all he can focus on for the entire ride.

He wildly parks the car in front of Liam's house and runs to the entrance.

"Liam!" He exclaims, banging on the front door. "Open right now! Liam!"

The door opens before he can assault it any further and a confused-looking Liam comes in the frame. "What—"

All the things Harry planned to shout at him on the drive there fade away into nothing, and his arms fall at his side. "Why?" He asks, the defeat in his voice matching the one in his heart.

Why are you leaving with the girl I love?

Why didn't you tell me?

Were you ever going to tell me?