Ace (HS)

Greetings

Left. Right. Breathe. Left. Right. Breathe.

His fists collided with the punching bag, ragged breaths falling from his lips. This was something Harry Styles knew and understood; the swinging of the bag on its chain as his knuckles made their impact, the heavy rise and fall of his sweat-coated chest. His mind could wrap around everything in that moment.

He could not wrap his mind around Carmen, though.

She was so difficult to comprehend. She was like a game of poker he could never win no matter how goddamn much he tried. One minute she was smirking haughtily at him with those black, sardonic eyes, and the next moment she was crying while they were fucking in front of the fireplace.

What. The. Fuck.

He could vividly see the image of her tear-stained cheeks in his head, imprinted in his memory like a fucking brand on a cattle's hip. It had pained him to see her cry, just as much as it joyed him to experience any sort of vulnerability from her. He hadn't decided yet if seeing her cry was better or worse than her being emoitonally closed off.

Surely, if their relationship was normal, he could have asked her about it and she would've responded truthfully. He could've told her he loved her, and maybe she would have reciprocated the feelings, and they could be happy. But their relationship wasn't normal, it was far from it actually. It was always back and forth, with Carmen either pulling away from him or taking his hand and pulling him closer. It didn't make sense to Harry. He was getting more and more tangled in her web with each day, each minute, and it was suffocating.

The question of whether she was worth it or not would occasionally seep into his thoughts, but he would always dismiss it. Of course she was worth it. She was the only thing that made him feel alive. Angry, infuriated, annoyed- but alive. Before Carmen, Harry felt absolutely nothing. He felt no desire to be anything or to better himself as a person; he still didn't have much of a desire for anything but her, but that was better than nothing, wasn't it? She was his life, his world. She was the pools of morning light that sang to him when he woke up. She was the air in his lungs that he could never seem to keep. She was the alcohol in his veins that made him drunk with love and lust and every other feeling she imposed on him.

He needed her, but she would probably never need him.

"Fuck!" he seethed, grabbing the punching bag to stop it from swinging on the chain, and pressing his dampened forehead against it. He took deep, labored breaths in attempt to let out all the built up stress inside of him. This was too much. Love wasn't supposed to be this complicated and tiring, was it?

Harry grabbed his bottle of water and brought it to his lips, the cool liquid easing down his throat. He knew Carmen was waiting at his apartment, but part of him wasn't ready to see her yet. Even after his workout, his mind was still obscured. He grabbed his discarded shirt and wiped his forehead with it, collecting the clammy sweat over his skin.

What he needed was a drink.

As if on cue, Harry's eyes drifted to where a familiar face was standing before him. Crook smiled, his hands casually slung in his pockets, and his hard features soft with amusement.

"Are you stalking me?" Harry questioned with a breathy laugh, tossing the sweat-dampened shirt to the floor of the gym.

"Perhaps," his friend shurgged. "Seems like the only way to get ahold of you these days."

Harry frowned as he took a tie from his wrist and pulled the hair away from his face, something he had made a habit of doing when it was too hot. It was also noticeable that he would do it more often now, since Carmen always seemed to laugh at it, and there wasn't much Harry wouldn't do to hear her laugh.