Strings Attached (Harry Styles FanFiction)

25. Are You Okay?

A/N: I am so sick of 'Dark' Accusations. I have never plagarised anything in my life and nor do I plan to. Strings Attached is all of my original work and my confidence is shattered whenever ignorant chidlren comment telliing me that I am a shit writer and that I can only find success through ripping off other people's work. Words hurt children. Keep your hate to yourself and learn to think for yourself.

(Edit for this chapter in the sidebar)

Gwen’s POV:

The interview was scheduled to air three days later. Niall had wanted to come over and watch it with me but I’d told him not to. Cassie had been impossible ever since she and Harry’d had their fight. I had no idea what was going on inside of her head; she refused to talk to me or really even acknowledge me. 

She hardly ever ate. I’d leave a tray of food outside of her door at every meal and when I came to pick it up later it was either all cold or there were maybe three bites missing. I had no idea how she would react to having Niall over and the last thing I wanted was to make everything worse. I’d never seen her this way before. She wasn’t the happy, outgoing girl that had moved in with me three months ago. She was broken and haunted. It terrified me.

 I tried to pretend that I couldn’t hear her crying out in her sleep every night, that I wasn’t woken up by the inevitable sobbing. I’d tried to go and check on her the first night but when I came in she refused to even look at me, tormented eyes fixed continuously on the worn notebook in front of her. 

The faces formed by her frenzied sketching were never the same... and yet they were always completely identical. I’d only ever catch a quick glimpse before she would angle her body to shield the visual diary, but the images transposed onto the paper were those of nightmares. Familiar features would catch my eye but they were muted by the foreign and twisted expressions they held.

I’d considered contacting her family back in America hundreds of times but I had no way of getting in touch with them. It wasn’t like I could just go and ask Cassie for her home phone number and all of my internet searches had failed me. The closest I’d gotten was an old FaceBook page but even that was set to the most complex of privacy settings. 

I didn’t know what I would do if she wasn’t at least halfway normal by the end of the month. Fall break was almost over and she had missed an entire week of classes prior because of her cast. Her grades had fallen and I’m pretty sure she was only here because of a scholarship.

“Cass,” I called, gently tapping on her door, “The interview airs soon... I think you should come watch it with me.” No response. Groaning, I twisted the knob, stepping into the dark room. I expected it to be trashed. The only time she ever left her any more was to use the loo and even those occasions were becoming very few and far between.

The frail girl was huddled up into a ball in the center of her bed, the duvet tangled around her. Cautiously, I moved to flick on the lamp beside the bed.

“No, don’t,” she croaked. I stared at her, it was the most she had said to me all week.

“Cassie, sweetie, what happened?” I whispered, climbing onto the bed, pulling her trembling form against my chest.

“He’s ruining everything,” She breathed, hot tears dropping onto my hand as I wrapped my arms around her.

“Who is?” She just shook her head, struggling to control her shaky breathing.

“Cass, I need you to talk to me,” I ordered, forcing her to face me, “What happened with Harry?” Tears welled up in her unusually somber green eyes before she tugged down the edges of her sleeves, pulling the fabric down to wrap around her knuckles. Confused, I lifted one long-sleeved hand up to the limited light peaking in through a crack in the dark curtains. She tried to protest when I lifted the fabric away but her seclusion and refusal to eat for the past several days had left her weak.