Heartbeat

It's Not Okay; Help Her

Song of the chapter-

One that got away by The Civil Wars



Harry-



"Let me see."

Alex's body visibly turns rigid in front of me as I say these words. I could feel the anger boiling underneath my skin, my jaw tense.

"Alex, let me see your legs." I tell her again, trying my best to keep my voice calm, gentle, and collected.

She shakes her head, almost to herself as she leans over, hands running through her hair as she continues to shake her head. I knew she was crying as I hear her sniffle. I grind my teeth together as I remain frozen in place, staring at her back. I knew that what I puzzled together was true in that moment, and it made my disappointment, anger, and frustration take over. I didn't want to take it out on her, I didn't want to be harsh to her when she's crying and trembling in front of me, but I couldn't help myself. Because my stomach is in knots, and my chest is aching.

"Dammit Alex, let me see." I speak louder this time, unable to contain it.

A sob racks through her body once I'd spoken as she lifts her head.

"You don't need to see." I blink my eyes rapidly to desperately fight back the stubborn tears threatening to come at the sound of her sweet voice that had just been reading to me happily, now shaking with tears.

"Yes I do." I retaliate, reaching out to turn her around to face me, her shoulders tense under my touch.

I stare her right in her glossy eyes, her pink lips in a line as she flicks her bright orbs away from me.

"Take them off." I speak more gently this time besides my tightened jaw and the way my hold on her is harder than it would usually be.

Large tears stroll down her cheeks as she lifts herself onto her knees, her hands shaking as she lifts herself off the bed. I watch her, and find myself following after her. She seems smaller, more fragile, and more vulnerable than ever in front of me. She looks up to me, as if pleading for me to forget, to not make her do this.

"No, I'm seeing." I tell her.

I could tell she was holding the majority of her sobs back as she hooked her thumbs into the band of her sweatpants, my eyes strained on her face as she pulled them off her legs, her soft flesh bared to be seen before me.

I tear my eyes away from her red rimmed eyes to look at her legs. I curse angrily under my breath as I hunch over to be able to see closer, making sure I'm seeing perfectly clear, to make sure what I'm seeing is true.

Because these red slashes on the insides of her thighs, she wouldn't do that to herself. I don't even want to picture it. Because Alex wouldn't even hurt a small fly, yet herself. She'd once had me put a moth that I'd found in her bathroom apartment outside, not allowing me to flush it down the toilet.

And if it couldn't of gotten worse, I caught sight of more cuts, further back to her legs. I didn't even want to count how many there were. I glance up to her with hard eyes, making her sit at the end of the bed as she breaks into a hysteria of crying, my hand reaching out to brush over a particularly large cut on the inside of her left thigh, my chest tightening, heart pounding as she winces. I back away from her, shaking my head disbelievingly.

"I'm sorry." She says quietly, breathlessly, through the tears that fall down her cheeks.

"No, God dammit Alex, it's not okay!"

She flinches as I break into a shout, unable to control the emotions flooding through me.

"Why would you hurt yourself like that?" I ask her, hands in fists. I know my eyes are beginning to gloss over with tears, but I could care less about that at the moment.

"You were gone and- panic att-" Her quiet words are broken up by her sharp intakes of breath.

"You told me you didn't have a panic attack while I was gone." I speak sharply, turning my back to her, running my hands over my face. It was silent besides her sniffles and my ragged breaths as I leant my head against the wall for a minute or two.

"Why would you lie to me, Alex?" My voice turned to a pathetic, quiet tone as I turned back to her.

My eyes flick over her, her hands shaking in her lap as she looks passed me with reddened cheeks. Why has she been pretending everything is just fine all day, ever since I got back?

When I feel the first tear fall down my face I break my gaze off of her, feeling her own on me now.

"I-I can't- Im sorry." I mumble the words quickly as I walk passed her, knowing I'd just left her in a broken mess of tears as I slam my bedroom door closed.

I take a sweater that I don't know who belongs to off the hook by the door, tugging it over my bare chest before slipping on my discarded shoes as fast as I can, leaving the apartment, attempting to control the aching pound of my heart.



*****


Alex-



The night of the club is what came to memory, how he'd cried.

I said I never wanted to see him cry again, and there he was in front of me with tears pooling in his emerald eyes, his masculine jaw tensed in anger as he glared down at me.

I didn't know what to tell him, or what to say to him. Because I don't have an explanation for what I did to myself. It was a moment of absolute weakness, an incredibly low moment I'd had while he was away. I didn't hold back my sobs once he left, and I think if I was actually thinking straight and didn't have blurry vision from all the tears in my eyes, I would've known I was having a panic attack in that moment.

But I didn't care, and I didn't want to care. Where did he even go? He just left?

I bury my face in the pile of messy sheets on his bed, the place where he had once been laying now cold. My broken breaths were muffled by the blankets, and so were my cries. I didn't think or worry about Niall hearing, because I wasn't thinking clearly at all, really.



****


Standing outside the apartment in the cold, freezing night air, leant against a wall, it didn't help me sort anything out very much. Because I just kept seeing her face in my mind, her beautifully tear streaked face as shouted at her.

But it's when I see the entrance door push open, and Niall walk out, I release a sigh; coming out in white puffs in front of me.

"You want to tell me what's going on? I heard you shout from my room." He tells me, his jacket zipped up as high as it can go to keep him warm.

I shuffle on my feet and lift my fingers to run them over my lips; a bad habit I've built over the years for when I'm stressed or nervous.

"I don't know." I murmur, listening to Nialls shoes crunching on the floor as he walks over to rest against the wall with me.

"I heard her crying in there." He speaks, hands finding their way into his pockets.

My nose feels like it's frozen, and my fingers feel like trays of ice cubes, but I don't feel like going back in.

"She.....she hurt herself." I say, my voice numb.

He was quiet for a minute, and every time he breathed out I could see the white puffs in the air out of my peripheral vision as I stared across the street.

"And you're mad at her for that?" He asks me, his voice calmed, as if he'd thought of what to say very thoroughly before speaking his thoughts out loud.

"Yes, I'm mad at her. She didn't need to hurt herself." I retaliate, looking at him.

"You don't know what she needed when she did it Harry." He shoots back, but his voice was still much more controlled than mine.

It's a weird feeling, being mad at her. I've never been angry at her before.

"She's been having panic attacks Niall. She had one while I was gone and lied about it." I tell him, discovering that it feels odd to me to share this with someone.

Niall seemed to get irritated, his mouth sealed shut as he looked across the street in the darkness.

"You didn't see them, Niall. I didn't even want to count the cuts because it would've hurt too much." I murmur.

"If you're feeling this shitty right now, how about you think of what she's feeling in there, all alone?" He asks me.

I clench my jaw and look away from him.

"I don't want to talk to her about it right now. Not while I'm angry at her." I tell him in a monotone voice.

"We'll you shouldn't even be angry at her in the first place, it doesn't affect you."

As he begins to walk away, I talk to him again, irritation flooding through my system. Because he doesn't understand.

"It does affect me Niall! You don't know how much it hurt me to see those cuts on her legs, it crushed me. I've been trying to stay strong for her, and act like these panic attacks that she's having aren't having me worried like crazy but they are, and what I just saw blew it up even more."

I'm off the wall now, Niall a few feet away from me , his hand on the door handle to the entrance.

"I know I've never had someone that I loved as much as you love Alex, but if it were me I would be in there with her right now, if I was furious at her or not."

"I don't know what to do." I admit.

"I don't know what to do for her anymore, Niall." My voice is choked up, and I can't help but curse myself for letting it show.

He looks at me, seeming to study my face with thought.

"Help her."

And with that, he pushes the door open and leaves me outside, alone.

Isn't that what I've been doing all along, helping her?



Alex-


I laid silent and still, the shrill ring in my ears proving that there was absolutely no sound. That is, until I hear the creak of Harrys bedroom door open. My heart picks up speed as I glance over to look at Harry, but instead finding Niall peeking through the door.

"Hey." He says softly.

When he slips through the door, I sit up in the bed, looking at him expectantly. When I see his eyes glance down to my bare legs, I reach out and grab the sheet beside me to cover them, his eyes instantly flickering away.

"Um, I came in here to tell you that Harrys outside." He tells me.

I nod my head, internally thanking him because I had started to wonder where he'd went off to. I hoped he hadn't left in his car, because it's late and dark, and he is upset. And if something happened, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.

"I talked to him." He says, leaning gently against the side of Harrys bed.

I pull the sheet over my legs some more, sighing softly. Did he tell him....everything?

"He's just....shook up. Just give him time, I think I got into that hard head of his." He chuckles softly; halfheartedly.

When he stands up again, my eyes follow after him. He's easy to talk with, but not the way Harry and I talk. Harry is something unbelievably unexplainable, the way we communicate. I couldn't put it into words if I tried. But if I had to, I think I would say that he can just read me, he can read my eyes and my body language in a way that another person wouldn't be able to do. Niall just knows his ways with words, he knows the right things to say, and tells you the truth without being too blunt about it, but not surgarcoating it too much either.

"Oh, and by the way." Niall turns around to face me again.

"He's only angry because he cares so much."






I GOT TICKETS TO WWA TOUR IM DYING I can't I can't I can't

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