Perilous (Harry Styles)

chapter 37

"Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe."

― C. JoyBell C.

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Zoey's POV

I woke up with a dull headache and due to an unbearable heat covering my body.

Groaning and wincing all at once, I tried to roll over on my right side, only to find that I couldn't move.

Panic overcame me for exactly four seconds before I noticed two strong arms keeping my body close to the source of heat.

Undoubtedly, I was back in the arms of the only one that had ever truly gotten to the bottom of my heart. The only one who knew my mind and spirit better than I did myself.

And unfortunately, the only one who had broken me to the point where I thought I could never breathe again without this stabbing pain in my chest.

But, unlike my outcome with Zayn, this story would have a happy ending. Even though I had been certain I would never find it in me to forgive him, I knew that my heart had already accepted him back, and my body was making no moves to fight him off anymore.

Forgiveness was for the strong, and even though the dried trails of tears on my cheeks showed my weakness, I knew I was strong for forgiving him.

Even though Harry was so incompletely perfect for me, he had his mistakes as well. And, being a manipulative and ruthless bitch myself, I knew that this was all Amelie's doing.

Of course, the fact that she had pulled the strings didn't right his wrong, or meant that the end justified the means, but it at least gave me a reasonable explanation of what had gone wrong.

In the end, we could only come out stronger. We would win this fight, and if I had any say in it, Amelie would be rotting in hell soon.

But first I had to mend a broken relationship.

The conversation at his apartment replayed in my head, and I relived the memory of walking away, running home and immediately breaking down crying.

The pain had seemed too much to bear once again, a wave of emotions crushing me.

But now, I was ready to move on. This breakup and all the perilous threads would probably still linger over us for a bit longer, but sooner or later, we would work this out and move on, without the shadows of the past following us anymore.

We just had to keep going, and this time I was ready to run, just with Harry right next to me.

Twisting in his arms, I turned around slowly and carefully, all too familiar with Harry's way of making sure I couldn't move an inch. Somehow, I succeeded.

My eyes first fell on unfairly long eyelashes falling on his cheeks, beautifully framing his closed eyelids that sadly cut off my view of those piercing green eyes with the tiny grey speckles in it.

Next thing I noticed was the peaceful expression on his face that he usually only had when he was sleeping. Otherwise, there was either a small frown between his eyebrows or crinkles by his eyes accompanied with a smile.

His soft pinkish lips were parted, hot puffs of air fanning my face, but I didn't mind. I would gladly take it every morning, because it meant he was back by my side. I traced the contour of his lips, feeling a small disruption in the corner of his mouth.

I could only imagine him biting his lips furiously in these past few days, stress and worry taking a toll on him.

His t-shirt peeked out from under the blanket, wrinkles already burned in the fabric from carelessly sleeping in his casual clothes.