"This fucking... thing."
Liv looked at her boyfriend as he was struggling with the joint he was trying to roll for the both of them. It was the third one of the night; something that wasn't necessarily unusual for them. Smoking weed was something Liv and her boyfriend spent most of the time doing when they were together. They never really hung out at each other's houses; they couldn't really.
"Fuck!"
"Daniel," Liv said calmly to try and calm her boyfriend down, holding her hand up so he could hand the joint to her.
Her boyfriend yelling wasn't something Liv ever jumped at anymore; he was snappy, that's something she just had to get used to when she started dating him. She knew that if no one told him off right away whenever he started getting frustrated, he'd be yelling at everyone and everything all the time.
"You fucking do it," Daniel said as he frustratedly ran his hand through his blonde, slicked back hair before he laid the joint in Liv's hand.
Liv just nodded and licked her fingers before trying to do whatever Daniel was struggling to. She had to admit she was struggling a little too, as she was quite far gone with the amount of weed in her system, but she eventually managed to roll a perfect joint, handing it over to Daniel again.
She grinned when she heard him sigh, and she watched him search for his lighter in his pockets.
"Nothing funny about it," he told her, a little snappy, but at least he was talking on a normal volume. "It's the fucking cold making my hands go numb."
Liv just hummed to give him the satisfaction and hid her hands in the sleeves of her beige coat when she realised how cold her hands actually were. She could feel her phone sitting in her pocket, which was useless at the moment as it died an hour ago.
Since Daniel's phone died too, neither of them was able to tell the time. She knew it was later than ten, though, since it was just before ten when she last checked her phone. It was getting colder with the minute; it was February, so it wouldn't be warm anytime soon.
"Next time we should wait until your parents are gone and hang out at yours," Liv said, blowing into the air to see smoke coming from her mouth, even though she hadn't taken a hit of the newly rolled joint yet.
"If they come back and see you, I'm dead," Daniel told her bluntly, giving her the joint after his third hit.
She had tried to convince him to just hang out inside for a while now. She started daitng Daniel in August, when it was still warm and it wasn't dark so early at night so sitting outside together wasn't an issue. But the past weeks she couldn't even tell if she actually enjoyed hanging out like that anymore.
"Plus, we can't smoke inside. So what the fuck are we actually gonna do there?"
Liv didn't respond, a little annoyed at the fact that all he seemed to ever think about was smoking weed. She did it just as much, but sometimes she wished it wasn't the only thing they did together.
She didn't let it stop her from hanging out with him, though. She'd rather smoke every day against her will than be lonely forever. Daniel was the only one she really had, and he was the only one in school who cared about her.
He refused to talk to her in public, but she had just learned to accept that. With a reputation like hers, after what her dad had done, she knew she just had to consider herself lucky with any kind of love or attention she could get. She wasn't going to get much more.
Her dad had been in jail now for over three years and she didn't associate with him in any way, but people still somehow saw her as a horrible person too. He had ruined everything for her.
Daniel seemed to feel bad about telling her no again, because just as Liv was about to take a hit from the joint, he grabbed her face and kissed her lips. She felt how his hand slowly glided to her neck, gripping her skin a little.
Liv closed her eyes and smiled, moving one hand to his leg to grip his thigh. As soon as her hand was there, though, they got interrupted by footsteps coming their way.
"Fuck," Daniel whispered as he quickly pushed her away, a bit too rough which caused her to almost fall off the tree trunk they sat on. "You didn't tell anyone about this spot, did you?"
"Who the fuck would I even tell?" Liv whispered back as they both bent down to gather their stuff and throw it in their bags. They had brought some snacks and drinks out, like they always did. Some of the crisps fell out of the bag Liv threw back in her bag as she didn't care to close it, knowing it was too loud.
Liv put the joint in a plastic tube in her coat pocket, before they both sat completely still for a moment, just listening to hear if the footsteps were coming their way. They had their bags in their hands, ready to run away in case someone would approach them.
It was quiet for at least twenty seconds, which almost made them unpack their bags and take the weed back out, but as soon as they made eye contact and signed to each other that it was probably safe, the footsteps were back, and a lot closer this time.
"Fuck, Liv. Run."
Daniel tried to grab Liv's hand as he jumped up from the tree trunk to run away, but it slipped away. Liv still jumped up as quick as he did, though, and tried to follow him to the exit of the woods, through the complete darkness.
She was so focused on trying to keep an eye on her boyfriend as he ran, she didn't look down at her steps, and she could only take two steps before she tripped and fell to the ground, a twig scratching over her cheek before her face touched the wet leaves.
"Fuck," Liv whispered in pain as she tried to ignore it and push herself off the ground instead. Before she could even stand on her feet though, someone grabbed her wrist, making her scream.
Her heart was racing as the person turned her around to look her in the eyes. Liv's brown eyes met two green ones of a guy who was somewhat taller than her. He had dark brown hair, mostly slicked back but with a few curls hanging in front of his face. They weren't covering his eyes, though.
He was wearing a dark grey suit, which caught Liv's attention especially as it was a little unusual to be wearing a suit while walking through the woods.
As she was studying his suit, her eyes fell on a gun that was sat on his hip, which made her gasp quietly. She quickly made eye contact with him again, thinking about ways she could get away from him.
"What's your name?" the guy asked her as he still had his fingers around her wrist to make sure she couldn't run away. Liv eyed the gun again and figured that the best thing she could do was to just stand still and do what he said, until she got a good chance to run.
"Olivia," she said quietly, gulping after. Her lips were pressed together firmly as she watched the man's free hand closely when he started moving it. For a moment, it looked like he was reaching for the gun, but his hand disappeared in the pocket of his blazer and he took out something that looked like a wallet.
He skillfully opened the wallet with one hand and showed her a card that said Police. Before he lowered it again, Liv managed to read his name: Harry Styles.
"Last name?" he asked her as he put the wallet back.
"Harrison," Liv told him, almost unable to hear herself as her heart was beating so fast and loud, it was all she could hear.
"Daughter of...?" was all he asked, and Liv just nodded.
The officer sucked some air through his teeth before he spoke again.
"What are you doing here?"
"I, uh..." Liv started, her eyes shooting around as she was thinking of something to tell him.
"Empty your pockets for me and tell me who you were with," Harry told her before she even had the chance to come up with a lie. She was a bit caught off guard by the fact that he didn't even need an answer, but she did what he asked.
She waited for Harry to let her wrist go, before she slowly lowered her bag and took the snacks and drinks out, on top of some school books that had been sitting in her bag. She felt around her coat pockets after, but pretended not to feel the joint that was sitting in her left pocket.
"I'm not that stupid, Olivia," Harry said, shaking his head as he looked at the way she was holding both hands in front of him with only her phone in her right hand.
"You're gonna take everything out of your pockets and tell me the name of whoever you were here with, understand?"
On top of him carrying a gun, Liv was also terrified at the way he seemed to immediately know when she was lying or trying to lie. She noticed how she slowly started getting on his nerves more, so with her hands shaking, she reached into her pocket again and grabbed the plastic tube with the joint, not taking it out just yet.
"I was with a boy. His name is James," she told the officer. She couldn't decide yet if lying to him about Daniel's name was the dumbest thing she could do, but she just hoped he wouldn't notice all her lies. He couldn't just read her mind, right?
"James who?" Harry asked her, holding out his hand as he was waiting for Liv to put the joint in it. As she was about to do so, thinking of a last name at the same time, she felt how blood was dripping off the cut on her cheek, onto her coat.
The blood, on top of the anxiety she was feeling and her heart that was racing, suddenly made it feel like everything around her was spinning. As she was slowly losing her sight, she could hear Harry yell "hey!" at her to get her to listen to him, but she barely even registered it.
"I don't... I don't..."
She must have been slurring her words, or her eyes must have rolled back, because it was that moment when Harry realised something was up with her. As she felt how she was losing her balance, she felt his hands on her arms, guiding her to the tree trunk her and Daniel had been sitting on for the past hours.
"Stay with me, hey."
The officer was cupping her cheek gently with his hand, as he was speaking to her with a total different tone than before; it was much softer now.
With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tissue to hold against Liv's cut that was heavily bleeding.
"Fuck, that's a lot of blood," she heard him say, as both of his hands were on her face now, making her cheeks burn as they were insanely warm and her face had been ice cold. He was just resting one hand on her face, as the other had the tissue in it, that he tapped against her cheek every few seconds before holding it against it for a bit longer.
The warmth of his hands caused Liv to pretty quickly gain her sight back, and as soon as she didn't see black anymore, she met his green eyes again that were a lot closer to her face than before. She noticed how he was crouched in front of her and he was biting his lip a little as he scanned his eyes over her face worriedly.
When he noticed she had her sight back, he opened his mouth to talk, but at the same time the tissue was so soaked with her blood, it wasn't doing its work anymore.
Frustratedly, Harry looked around for something else he could use to stop the bleeding, eyeing the stuff she took out of her bag in the hope she had something for it.
When he didn't see anything, he took his hands off her cheek to take his blazer off and held the sleeve of it against her cut.
Liv's eyes landed on Harry's now bare arms, and she noticed how his arms were covered in tattoos. She didn't have much time to study them, as he started talking to her again.
"You still haven't answered me."
The soft tone in his voice had completely disappeared, together with the soft, worried look in his eyes.
Liv bit her lip for a second before she softly said "His name is Daniel Thompson."
He took the name in for a moment as he pursed his lips.
"So you smoked weed, tried to run from me, tried to hide the joint and then lied about your friend's name."
Although the stern tone in his voice was back and he had the same frown on his face that she saw when she first made eye contact with him, he was still physically so gentle with her. Every few seconds, his eyes shifted to the cut on her cheek to check on it, and he was still tapping it gently to make sure he wouldn't hurt her.
"I'm sorry," Liv said, speaking just above a whisper.
Harry chuckled, almost sarcastically, and he shook his head.
"'Sorry' isn't gonna make anything right. Apologising is something you do to your mum after lying to her. If you lie to police, you just face the consequences, okay?"
He finally took his warm hands off her face, making Liv shiver as she thought about his words.
Face the consequences. The way he said it, terrified her.
"Does your mum know you're smoking?" Harry asked as he stood up again which caused him to tower above her, making him even more intimidating than he already was.
Liv shook her head, looking down at her shoes.
"You do know where it can get you, right? Your dad is a great example of it."
It was hard for Liv not to roll her eyes at him; it was something she had heard from people a million times. She couldn't even count the amount of therapists that told her not to ever do weed, or she'd end up like her dad.
She didn't want to piss Harry off more, though, so she just nodded instead.
"Okay Olivia," Harry eventually said, and she looked up at him because she knew he was going to tell her the consequences now. She could hear it in his voice.
"I'll let you go this time."
As he said it, the frown was still there, and he still had the stern tone in his voice. It confused her, because it didn't match with what he just told her.
"But if I ever run into you again and your eyes are red like this or you're carrying a joint, I won't be so nice anymore, alright?"
As he was speaking, he held is hand out, gesturing at her coat pocket at the same time to remind Liv that she hadn't given him the joint yet.
Stunned by what he told her, Liv quickly grabbed the joint and handed it over to him. She didn't care about losing it anymore; as long as she didn't get in trouble with police.
After Harry took the joint from her and stuck it in his own pocket, he bent down to grab the stuff she had taken out of her bag, and put it all back in. Liv just watched him, confused by his actions as she had been certain he was going to arrest him.
"There you go," he said as he put the back up straight next to her legs, as she was still sitting on the tree trunk.
Liv just nodded and wanted to say thank you, but when she noticed how he turned around to walk away from her, she quickly asked "Will my boyfriend get in trouble?"
He stopped in his tracks and she heard him chuckle, but she couldn't see his face.
"I'll be nice and I won't write any of your names down. But tell him the same thing I told you, okay?"
Liv nodded, although she knew he couldn't see it.
"And," Harry added before he started walking again, "tell him that hitting your girlfriend can get you arrested too."
He walked away leaving Liv completely frozen and speechless. She had noticed he was good at reading her, but she never expected him to be able to see any bruises on or around her face, other than the fresh cut from the twig.
She thought the bruises had faded anyway; at least enough for no one to be able to see them, especially in the dark.
Not even her mum had noticed them.
And yet Harry didn't only see the bruises, but knew these bruises came from Daniel.
Harry creeped her out, more than she wanted to. She hoped she never had to face him again.