No Control | Holding Me Ransom (Book 2)

91 - Written In My Memory

"What did?" I asked, my voice barely above a squeak. "What started last summer?"

Callie swallowed nervously, her eyes darting between mine. She took a deep breath.

"You'd just come back from LA after visiting Harry, and you thought he'd been shagging around behind your back with Taylor Swift. You were a mess. You were barely eating, barely functioning. You looked like death. I convinced you to come out one night, and we ended up in the same bar as Nick Grimshaw. You had another row with Harry on the phone, I can't even remember what about, and that set you back even further. You were moping around, crying all the time... I was so worried about you."

I shook my head wordlessly, unable to fathom where this was going.

"All he ever seemed to do was humiliate you publicly. There was the story about him hooking up with some girl on tour, only a few days after you two met -"

"Which had happened before I even knew Jess," Harry put in.

"Then there was the whole Taylor Swift fiasco, then there was that girl who had the matching tattoos who was dating him while you were supposedly seeing him -"

"We've been through this, that was a load of bullshit," Harry growled.

"I know!" Callie snapped. "I'm setting the scene, trying to explain, if you'd just shut your arrogant mouth and let me speak."

"Careful, you almost showed your true colours," Harry sneered.

I stared at them both in shock, momentarily silenced. I had never heard them speak like this to each other before. I had never heard Harry speak like this to anyone before. It was uncomfortably out of character.

"Anyway, you ended up dumping him on the phone, and I remember being astounded that you were the one to break things off, considering how crazy you were about him. I mean, you were in love with the guy when all he did was treat you like shit."

Harry opened his mouth to protest and Callie glared at him.

"I'm telling it like I saw it, before you interrupt me with your self-inflated opinions."

He shut his mouth again and looked away, his lips set into a hard line.

"The second break up was even worse than the first," Callie continued. "You just cried constantly. I was worried you would hurt yourself, or worse... I've never seen you in such a state. And then we went to the Big Weekend and you seemed to be a bit happier; you were laughing and joking with us, and it was so obvious Gary had a crush on you. I hoped he might be just what you needed to move on from Harry, but then Harry showed up with his sister, and I thought she was his girlfriend and you kissed Gary to make Harry jealous and everything went wrong again. You had another row with Harry, and you were back to square one: a trembling wreck. And it started to become obvious that every time Harry came into your life he just made you miserable. He couldn't go five minutes without messing you around, or making you cry, and I knew you would never be happy as long as you were hankering after him."

I felt a pang of misery as I remembered those awful few weeks last summer. I couldn't deny that it had probably been the worst time of my life.

"Anyway, you left us in Norwich and went to your mum and dad's, and Harry came up to me at the bar. He was looking for you, and he was almost in as much of a state as you were. He was pulling at his hair, asking me where you were, and his eyes had this look of desperation. I realised then that he was in love with you, but you'd said you needed to break all contact with him to get over him. I tried to call you to tell you he'd been looking for you, but your phone was switched off. I texted you, asking you to call me urgently, but you texted back saying you didn't want to talk. I took that as a sign that it wasn't meant to be. I didn't want to get your hopes up by telling you he was in love with you, because I knew that would make it harder for you to let him go. But as it turned out, he drove to Cambridge to find you, and all of a sudden you were back together again. When I saw you at the Fleetwood Mac concert a week or so later, it was as though someone had flicked a switch. You were on cloud nine, and that worried me again, because he seemed to have such power over you. He held your heart in the palm of his hand, and he controlled your feelings. If he was nice to you, you were flying. If he messed you about, you were practically suicidal."