Perilous (Harry Styles)

chapter 27

"How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode."

― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

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My hands were trembling by my side.

Out of nowhere, I was reminded of my first F in an exam and the way I was afraid to tell my parents that I failed. A thousand thoughts had been running through my mind, but I had known that there was no way I could get out of it.

That was exactly how I was feeling now, only far worse.

I had this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that things would go horribly wrong, and that I wouldn't be able to stop it even if I combined all my strength.

For a moment, I thought about turning around and just running away. If we didn't talk, nothing bad could happen.

Even though it all made sense in my mind, I knew better. I had to face the problem on hand, although I was still in the dark about it.

Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I told myself I could do it. Whatever it was, Harry would tell me and then we could just talk about it and find our way through it.

Yes, we would be alright. We had to be. We always were.

Neither of us had broken the silence yet. Harry was studying me in a way that sent chills down my spine, but I just couldn't decipher what he was thinking.

"Long time no see," I finally spoke up, not being able to stand the silence anymore.

"Yeah," Harry replied, then turned around and walked past me.

I stood in the clearing for a moment, gobsmacked, before I understood what he was doing. Gathering myself, I managed to carry my feet across the clearing to the bench Harry had already sat down on.

My eyes flickered over the bench for a moment, not sure what to do. If I sat down next to him, I would feel like I invaded his personal space, which was actually stupid considering our relationship. But if I sat away too far, I would distant myself.

Choosing some kind of in-between, I left a little space between us and awkwardly put my bag on my lap.

"How have you been?" My voice was barely above a whisper, the oppressive atmosphere weighting me down.

"Great," he answered. I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or actually serious.

I tried to read the expression in his eyes, but Harry turned his head to the side and only let me study the side of his head.

All I could tell was that his hair has grown a lot lately and was at a touchable length now. My fingers itched to trace it, but I knew I couldn't right now.

"Harry," I whispered and immediately cleared my thought. Louder this time, I asked him, "what's wrong?"

At lightning speed, his head snapped around again. Those beautiful, heart-shaped lips I loved to kiss all the time and used to watch shape words, opened to surely let a string of swear words out. Or something else that I wouldn't want to hear.

Somehow, he caught himself. "As if you didn't already know."

My mind blanked momentary, but soon enough, a slideshow of past memories flashed through it. All that I could really think about was my affair with Louis.

It didn't seem very likely that this was the reason though. After all, we had already talked about it and dropped the subject.

I played fair during our little meet-up with Amelie and hadn't uttered a mean word about her even when we were home again.