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kwritingbooks · 2 years

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concept: you decided the ending fate of you two’s 3 year long relationship. but now that it’s gone, why are you the one who’s sad and harry is perfectly fine? so fine that he’s already in a new relationship three months later?

three years, the prologue // impulse, part I // regret, part II

pairing: ex-boyfriend!harry and fem!reader

warnings: cursing, angst angst angst

word count: 8.5k

author’s note: it took me like 50 years to get it all finished, but it's here! this is the third (and final) part to the jealousy series. i really wanted to get into the pure angst that i wanted for this series (without going overboard) so i hope all my angst-lovers are buckled in and ready. and thank you to everyone who's been patient and sent me such nice messages about jealousy or if you're even just reading/sharing it! it's all appreciated so much. thank you <3

read on wattpad here + tumblr masterlist

admittance

To you, it felt like it had been an eternity since he left. In reality, it had been more like an hour. At least that was what your phone read, but even then you had a hard time believing it. Its numbers twirled around the screen, fighting against your mind. It was a losing battle you were in the middle of as your eyes blurred around the rims as the tears came to the surface.

It wasn't how you wanted it to go. You had yet to move from the spot he left you in, which was rushed and angered. He was angered at you.

The last thing you wanted was for it to end in an argument, but that was exactly what happened. You were so close to having sex. Your pants were thrown on the floor, your underwear pulled to the side. It all happened so fast that it took you for a whirl when he stopped suddenly.

His heavy breaths stopped as he looked at you up and down, laying out underneath him. It took you completely off guard as he stared you in the eyes for a moment longer than what made you comfortable. You opened your mouth to ask him if he was okay, but then he quickly climbed off of you. The feeling of his skin against yours was stolen away as you heard his zipper pull up.

"I can't do this, Y/N," he sighed as he continued to fidget with his pants.

Your eyes shot over to him, your eyebrows furrowed with a slight drop of your jaw. This couldn't be happening. Things felt so normal again but was taken away as if it meant nothing.

"What? What do you mean?" you stammered out.

All you felt was embarrassment as you blindly roamed your hands along the floor for your pants. They quickly slid over your bare legs, hiding as much of your body he was once over as quickly as possible. You wanted to hide underneath your clothes and pretend as if none of this happened at all.

Pure embarrassment.

"It's not fair," he stated plainly. He ran his fingers through his hair as he searched around the room for any other belongings.

It was too bad he was going to forget the one belonging you wanted him to take: you.

You sat up on the couch, your brows now furrowed for a different reason—anger.

It wasn't fair?

"Not fair? To who? Nadine? You barely fucking know her, Harry!" You stood up to your feet as he walked to the other side of the room where the box laid. "What about fair for me? Huh?"

He sighed loudly, "I don't want to do this with you right now, Y/N." He pulled the box underneath his arm and it only made your anger burn deeper.

"Well it's true! Why don't you see that?" Your lip quivered and you cursed at yourself for letting him make you feel this emotional again. You were so tired of feeling like this, or letting him have so much control over that side of you. It was like everything you had bottled up since the beginning could no longer be kept inside. The anger, the sadness, the anxiety—it was ripping at the seams of your emotional state. He knew just how to poke at it to let it flow so freely.

And yet, all of this spun from the fact you couldn't just admit defeat. You couldn't admit your truth to him. Not out loud. You didn't want to be wrong.

That was probably the saddest part of all.

He spun quickly around, his jaw twitching with his own irritation. "Do I need to remind you that you ended this, Y/N? Or do you just never consider the consequences of your own fucking actions? Hm? This is what you wanted! You did this!" His pointed his finger at you with his words and each syllable felt like a gunshot wound.

You felt stunned by his words but not because you were insulted. What he said was true and you didn't have an argument against it. He knew he was right, too, so you couldn't even play dumb about it. The inside of your cheek laid victim between your teeth as you harshly bit down, as to fight against the swelling of tears. Anything to take your attention away from what was disappearing further from your grasp right in front of you.

Fuck.

He didn't say anything else as he walked out of the living room. You didn't say anything either as you watched him fade out down the hallway before eventually disappearing behind the door. The click of the door closing triggered the inevitable stream of tears to fall down your cheeks, allowing your emotions to finally burst through the seams. You buried your face into your hands as your muffled cries were the only things heard in your empty apartment.

You cried until you couldn't cry anymore—until everything felt numb.

Since then, it had been nothing but silence as you sat unmoved from where he left you. It was as if your eyes had glazed over, forgetting how to properly function. There was no need to blink, to breathe, to feel.

You did all of those things enough. It seemed your world stopped moving around you, so you stopped moving along with it, too. It was only fair. It was what you deserved, right? After what you did to you two's relationship? You knew it. Even Harry knew it.

Your fingers tightened against the side of the couch, as if igniting yourself back to life. Your head drooped between your shoulders with your eyes squeezed shut. It felt painful to move as everything appeared to be working against you. Your bones didn't want to contort with your muscles, your lungs didn't want to expand, and your heart didn't even want to beat.

"Fuck," you whispered harshly under your breath.

A familiar twinkle of silver glistened in your direction, catching your eye immediately. It was Harry's "S" ring that was supposed to be returned to him. It was the hardest to part from as it felt like the last piece you had left of him that meant anything anymore. His last name would really never be yours, would it?

You didn't blame him. You couldn't.

But why did he leave it? Those initial rings meant so much to him. You figured he would be happiest of all to get that back, but it was all he left after his disappearance. And you knew he had to have seen it before he left, he looked all around for missing items. You were just too awestruck to notice him potentially glancing over anything.

Did he do it on purpose? Did he just want an excuse to talk to you one more time? Or were you too wrapped up in wishful thinking that you were becoming borderline delusional?

You reached over to the coffee table where the ring laid, mocking you. Mocking the fact that someone could be so close in one way but farther than ever another way.

You never realized how depressing it would be to hold something so small. The coldness of the material cooled against your fingertips as you examined it closer. Emotions began to flood to the surface again as you held it tightly in your palm.

This is what you wanted! You did this!

His words cut deep as they repeated throughout your head, serving as even more of a constant reminder of how you fucked up everything good in your life. You just never thought Harry would get caught up in it, too. Now all that was left was the painful twirl of jealousy running through you, even though you felt like you didn't deserve the feeling at all.

A tear fell down suddenly from one of your eyes, and soon came the downpour all over again. Your knuckles turned white from your intense clutch against the couch as your breath sputtered from the influx of sobs.

Your lungs strained to keep up, and it burned. Oh, how everything burned. You might as well have torched your insides with the way it all felt. It might have hurt less that way, too.

Loneliness was at the forefront of your mind. Harry was always the one who would help soothe your worried mind, your sad mind, your overwhelmed mind. Now, it felt like you had no one. You felt so isolated all because you were too scared to talk to one of your best friends over this.

But, you were desperate. You knew she needed to know, and through your own self pitying—you needed her to know, too.

You needed to talk to her before it was too late.

For the past twenty minutes, you had been parked in front of the coffee shop you told Lana to meet you at this morning. It hadn't even been a full 24 hours since what had happened with Harry, but it wouldn't have felt any better if you waited any longer anyway.

You got there early knowing that it would take you awhile to will yourself out of the car. You were proud enough that you got out of bed and into a fresh pair of clothes, but that was only one step out of the many. You had a whole mountain to climb in front of you.

When you invited her to grab coffee with you this morning, you did it impulsively. You had to. If you thought about it, then you wouldn't have sent the text to begin with. Deep down, you knew you had to just get it over with. You didn't want to do it, but you had to. If she was in your situation, you would want her to talk to you, too.

But that didn't help the anxieties you felt inside your body. You had never been so scared—scared that you would lose another important person in your life. You were victim to your own active mind. Constantly.

Truthfully, you didn't think that she would be angry enough to never want to speak to you again, but you were terrified to get your hopes up that that wasn't still a possibility. You wanted to prepare for the worst. Just in case.

Your eyes darted to your car radio, letting you know that any minute now you would get the inevitable text that Lana had arrived. You parked a bit towards the back of the parking lot in hopes that it would slightly conceal your early arrival. It also gave a perfect view of the lot's entrance, so no surprises could happen.

"Here."

There it was in all its glory. All four letters glared back at you in a blinding manner. You stared for so long that it almost didn't feel real, as if the letters were either dancing or playing a disappearing act like the previous morning. It almost left your mind that it was Lana who had texted you and the reason why you were in a parking lot in the first place. You needed to get up. There was no going back now, no matter how much your body didn't want to move from the position that it was so comfortably in—hidden.

Before you stepped inside the shop, you made sure to give yourself a quick once-over in the mirror. A quick swipe of mascara was caked onto your lashes, which was a slight change to the withered look it had grown accustomed to for awhile. You tried to cover up the dark circles underneath your eyes, but concealer could only do so much for the puffiness of crying. It was good enough for the time being.

And while your appearance was more put together than it was last night, you still didn't look like yourself. But, you didn't feel like yourself either. Everything that had accumulated between those few months of separation had seemed to wear away at your character, your personality, your self-respect.

Everything.

The worst part was that it wasn't always like this. It wasn't like this initially after your breakup, and it wasn't like this even a month or two after the breakup either. Granted, you never quite got rid of that little voice in the back of your head whispering that you made a mistake, but you were able to push it down. You ignored it. Or at least you thought you did.

It was her that made everything tumble underneath itself. In reality, though, none of it was her fault. You knew that, too. It was like playing a broken record, but it still hurt the same as every other time. That pain of acknowledging your fuck up didn't get any better. You were even tired of repeating it back to yourself.

I did this.

How could he find someone new so quickly?

Why is it bothering me like this all of a sudden?

What did she have that I didn't?

I did this.

It was always the same, but it never went away after seeing her for the first time.

Maybe there really was a point in the whole "don't bottle things up" rhetoric that people talked about. You were finally starting to understand it now, because it felt like a volcano that was ready to erupt at any moment. It didn't even matter the consequences anymore, because there was no other option other than to talk about it. That voice in the back of your mind was no longer a whisper, it was yelling at the top of its lungs saying, "Do you believe me now? I told you that you still loved him! He was always the one!"

It was also what made you realize that you had more than just Lana to talk to. You had to talk to Harry again, too. You tried yesterday, but you knew that conversation hardly went anywhere. Nothing was solved and you felt just as bad as you had to begin with. Honestly, you felt worse. It only teased the feeling of having him around again in the home you once shared together. It reminded you what his skin felt against yours, how his body once towered over you with his hot breaths against your cheeks. That was all it did—teased you.

The thought of talking to him about it all made your stomach do flips that you didn't even know it could do. That was genuinely the last thing you wanted to do. You didn't even know what exactly to say. Did you truly believe you were making the right decision at the time? That you thought you had lost feelings for him? Yes, you did. You thought a lot of things, but somehow it was missing the point. You thought it was about your surroundings and relationships outside of you, but that was way too simplistic. You never stopped loving him, but in the midst of losing yourself in a funk, you thought you did.

But, like you said before, you just needed to take it one step at a time.

Things are capable of being fixed, right?

Right?

Your heart felt jumpy as you braced yourself for the front door. The large windows that were aligned along the walls showcased the variety of individuals inside. Each of them looked busied with their tasks in their own little world. Some were laughing amongst their table, others had their brows furrowed into their laptop screens. Your eyebrows furrowed on their own accord as you walked closer, unable to see the familiar person that had just texted that they were inside. Your eyes darted to each corner as you approached the door, swinging them open to welcome you inside.

That was when Lana walked from the back, presumably from the bathroom. You heard the faint echo of an employee welcoming you in, but you were too zoned in on the girl who had no idea you were across the room from her. It only took a couple more steps inside for her to be alerted, and a wide smile immediately plastered on her face as she waved.

Shockingly, you couldn't help but smile back just as wide. There was always something about her that made you feel so at peace, even in your most vulnerable and uncomfortable state.

"Hey lovey!" She said as she walked closer to you, pulling you into a hug. You couldn't help but notice the warm scent of perfume mixing with the coffee shop's fragrance as she held you close.

"Hey Lana." It took a great amount of effort to sound as chipper as you could, and in your opinion, you thought you did pretty good. It must have been good enough for her not to question it, because she pulled away with the same smile that had yet to fade since seeing you. She even walked with you to the counter as you observed the drink menu.

"I got the matcha latte. I heard their recipe is different from the one across from my house that I always go to, and I was never a big fan of their matcha anyway so I wanted to give this one a try." She continued to mindlessly ramble about the differences between the different matcha undertone flavors and other things you didn't quite understand, but you nodded your head accordingly to seem like you did. Anything to shift the focus off of you for as long as you could.

"I think I'm just going to go with a regular blonde roast coffee. No creamer or anything," you said with a smile towards the cashier. You could feel Lana's eyes peer at you from the side that she stood and you pretended you didn't notice it. It didn't last long as you handed your money in exchange for the receipt. You figured Lana wouldn't mention anything after ordering her own, perhaps she wouldn't think twice about it, but that wasn't the case.

"Black coffee? Since when did Y/N order plain black coffee?" Lana scoffed with a scrunched nose. She reached the back of her hand up to your forehead as you continued to walk to your booth. "Are you feeling alright? Because the Y/N that I know would rather drop dead than have a unsweetened coffee." She paused for a moment, almost dropping the topic but turned back around again. "Like not even one packet of sugar?"

"Light roast isn't that strong anyway." You cracked a small smile as you shrugged your shoulders, slumping yourself into the booth. "Just not feeling it today I guess."

She eyed you carefully, but averted her attention back to her own creamy, green drink on the table. She hummed softly into the cup, peeking back up at you slightly before holding it close to her chest.

"Everything okay?" She asked in a cautious tone, like she was trying to not pry but also knew something wasn't right.

You sat there silent for a moment, using your drink as an excuse as to not have an immediate reply. You took multiple sips as you thought. How were people supposed to talk about these things? What was the first thing that you were supposed to say?

You placed it down on the table with your hands still wrapped on either side of the mug. You could feel the caffeine already taking affect inside which was the little boost you were in desperate need for.

Just say something.

"Have you talked to Harry recently?" Was all that your brain thought to blurt out. Her eyebrows twitched suddenly but relaxed back to normal. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed her fingers fidgeted together from her lap onto the table, and she suddenly looked like she was nervous. Or maybe it was a face of concern, you weren't sure. She did have a tendency to pick at her cuticles when she got nervous, which was exactly what she was doing as she looked at you. You hated having her eyes on you this intensely; she was trying to read you and your body language. It even made you nervous—or at least more nervous than what you already were.

"Haven't since yesterday, why?" She had neglected her cup from her hands as she adjusted herself in the seat. It was as if she had forgotten you guys were even there to drink coffee, completely engulfed in your new topic of interest now. The previously anxious appearance across her features had been replaced by an unmistakable look of concern now. You weren't sure who or what she was concerned about entirely yet. That was the most anxiety-inducing part of it all.

Your attention had focused on the table, looking along the lines of the wood as a distraction. Your words weren't forming in the way you needed them to. You were at a loss on how to keep going, but you had already started digging the hole, and there was no way to get out of it now.

"Y/N?" Lana edged her head lower to meet your gaze, causing your eyes to trail up to her. She had a soft, reassuring smile on her lips as she reached a hand out to yours. "What's up?"

You bit at your lip as you felt your heart begin to race. You shrugged your shoulders again.

"I've done something stupid."

It surprised you slightly when you heard her laugh, but you relaxed when the tone of her laugh didn't resemble a mocking tone.

"We all do stupid things, Y/N," she said with her hand still rested on your arm, "I'm guessing this is about Harry?" She drew back suddenly, laying her back against the booth. You looked up at her, watching as she brought the steaming cup back up to her lips. The smile was hard to fight against. Her soft eyes looking back at you was like a breath of relief. While you hadn't said anything specific, it was a nice reminder that she was still one of your best friends. Even if she was also one of Harry's.

She was still one of yours.

"You still love him?"

Her words caught you off guard, and you were fortunate that you hadn't taken a drink of your coffee when she said it. You would have surely choked on it, causing a scene for the whole coffee shop to witness.

You nodded your head, "Yeah."

"I know."

You raised an eyebrow, "You do?"

She laughed again, "I mean, yeah. Just because I'm drunk when I see you guys around together at parties, doesn't mean I don't see the look in both of your eyes still. The love never left, just...," she trailed off for a second, trying to find the right words, "...got misplaced."

Misplaced.

That was a word for it. Misplaced meant it could be found again. Misplaced meant that it didn't have to be lost forever, but just for a time.

"We almost had sex yesterday," you blurted out. You didn't look her in the eyes when you said it, but instead brought the cup immediately to your lips again.

A small, choking sputter came from her. "Wait, really? How'd that happen? Doesn't he have a girlfriend?"

Just hearing the word girlfriend made your stomach twist for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason being from pure jealousy. You finally came to terms that that was the main culprit to how you were feeling. You were never really one to feel that emotion, let alone let yourself get overwhelmed by it. You figured that was why you thought you were okay the first couple of months after the breakup. There were always little twinges of it here and there when you would see how well off he was doing, but you had never felt the punch in the gut like you did when you saw her face with his for the first time.

That was when you knew.

"I had some of his stuff still and he came by to get it," you replied plainly. You withheld some of the more interesting details, knowing she was going to ask about them anyway. The way her eyes met yours told you that as well. She raised her eyebrows at you, as if to silently command you to keep going just like you expected.

So. You told her. You didn't leave out anything. You didn't leave out the fact that he had texted you while you were getting dinner with her—which she made a loud "aha!" noise to. She swore that she noticed that something was off that day that was more than just a normal hangover. You even confessed about the Noah thing, which she was not at all phased by. You weren't surprised by that, though. You were a creature of habit and that wasn't your first instance.

But, she listened. She heard you without accusing you of anything. It was exactly what you needed in that moment. Your problems didn't seem as colossal as they did originally because of it. It was your breath of fresh air amidst the inner chaos.

But that breath was halted the second you looked up.

You had to be seeing things. Of course the second you finally felt a brush of relief, it was interrupted by the familiar brown waves of hair currently getting swept by the gust of wind as he opened the coffee shop's door.

"Lana?" You voiced in a hushed, but stern, tone.

She looked down at you with a bit of skepticism from your change in demeanor. "Yeah?"

"Please tell me that's not fucking Harry coming in right now," you quipped through clenched teeth, lowering your head down behind hers as if that would properly conceal your identity.

You peeked your eyes up at her and her face had changed from the last time you had seen her moments ago. Instead of the empathetic and understanding look from before, it was now replaced with something of confusion. Her attention whipped behind her and her skin tone looked paler than it did before when she turned back around.

You propped your head back up from hiding as you looked at her in disbelief. "Did you do this on purpose?"

She paused for a second as she darted her eyes back and forth between yours. She looked just as shocked as you did as she shook her head no.

"No, I had no idea," she spit out and looked one last time behind her, presumably to make sure she also wasn't seeing things, "He asked what I was doing this morning and I said I was stopping by here. That was all. I didn't tell him to actually come here."

"Did Harry tell you all of this already? Did he know I was going to be here with you?" You spoke roughly. You could tell from your peripherals that Harry had started walking in the same direction, and you were unsure whether or not he knew you were there yet. Maybe hiding behind her head was working after all—except now he was about to be just as surprised as you were moments ago when the door opened for the first time.

Your heart was pounding so hard you thought it might either jump out of your chest or stop altogether. You had no idea how to react or how to leave the situation without being very obviously spotted. There was no easy exit out of it. You were going to have to either wait until he also spotted you, or leave and have him spot you that way, too.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't expect him to actually come here, too. I thought he just wanted to see if I was free earlier," she whispered quickly in my direction. "Do you want me to tell him to go? I can."

Her offer sounded reasonable, but somehow that didn't seem fair at the same time.

You shook your head, sitting up a little more as you gathered your purse. "No, it's okay. I'm just going to go. I need to clear my head a little anyway," you stammered out. Your fingers trembled slightly as it reached for the cup, but you were moving so quickly that you didn't think Lana could have noticed. The most important thing on your mind was getting out of the building as fast as you could manage.

You were sure that your eyes still had the leftover puffiness from the night of crying fits prior to this. You were supposed to be the one that seemed un-phased by everything and this was completely crushing that façade that you had worked so hard to upkeep. You didn't need to keep up with the act when you were around Lana, but you didn't expect any of this happening either. This wasn't in the plan.

"I'll call you later, okay?" You mumbled under your breath, scooting yourself out of the booth.

Your coffee cup felt heavier than ever in your hand as you tried to weave yourself through the various seated tables. Extra careful steps had to be in place as you attempted to keep yourself steady around each of the strangers—but particularly the person who you had so much history with only a few feet away. He might as well have been just as much a stranger as everyone else anyway.

You darted your anxious eyes to Harry who had stopped in his tracks from your sudden appearance. Your eyes closed for a moment as you gauged the situation on where to focus next. It felt like entrapment, but entrapment that no one was aware of. Entrapment by and to yourself. Your eyes shifted back to the ground just as quickly as you made it towards the door.

You heard Lana call your name once, but when you didn't turn around, you figured she got the message and didn't try again. She sounded worried, but there was nothing you could do in that moment to ease her concerns when you had your own to deal with at that moment. You just needed a breather from it all. Even just for a little bit.

Everyone's eyes seemed to be on you as you walked out with your head down. You were sure not to look behind you even for a second in fear that you would accidentally meet the gaze of Harry's behind those windows. It would have been too much. Even just those few seconds earlier had almost been too much given the surprise of it. You had no preparation beforehand. That was the primary issue.

The bells rang as your pushed through the doors, taking a deep breath of the outdoor air the second you stepped outside. For a few moments, you just stood there right by the door. Each breath didn't feel like a good enough one, constantly searching for the sensation of relief. Eventually, you noticed your heart rate start to slow down and your breathing even back out.

The bells rang again, alerting you to step out of the way for other exiting customers. You offered a hushed "excuse me" as they brushed past, chuckling amongst themselves about something you weren't sure. The couple of friends walked down the sidewalk with their to-go cups in hand and you couldn't help but sigh. Sigh at the sight of simplicity that life could be but often wasn't.

You needed to distract yourself with your art. Something you hadn't done in so long because you had no desire to even look at it. Your paint brushes and supplies had laid dormant for so long, only to collect dust from the neglect. It seemed like a perfect description of how you had taken care of yourself recently as well, if just from the neglect of embracing and enjoying time by yourself—your hobbies.

You considered walking straight to your car and driving to the studio, but it also was only a few blocks away. The enclosure of being in a car wasn't something you wanted to deal with. What you needed was to be surrounded by the freshness of outside, floating you along the way to your destination. Outside had an assortment of distractions, whether from people-watching, animal-watching, or even cloud-watching. The options were endless of busying your mind with anything else that didn't involve the past few months, let alone past 24 hours.

So, that was what you did.

Each pebble you stepped over purposely felt like a boulder underneath the sole of your shoe. Each bird sang a song that had its own rhythm and meaning behind it. Each car fought to get to their destination before the others. Each person had their own back story that you took time to meticulously plan out for them. Each thing had their own story that you curated for it, whether living or not. Nothing mattered, yet everything mattered at the same time.

That was what art was all about. Creating your own realities. It was escapism in its purest form.

There were benefits to wasting so many hours of your life in this studio you now stood in front of. So many hours of passions were built by you inside that building. You got to know the people that also shared the same form of escapism as you in it as well, whether by painting, drawing, or sculpting away in their own style. You knew people by their name, including the owner, Saffron.

You had been there from practically the beginning. Once you started showing up, it was hard for you to stop. Whenever you and Harry had an argument, it was often the first place you went to if you had the chance. The music in the background that looped the same melancholic songs had given you so much solaceness over the year or two that you had started coming. Saffron provided the bridge to find that comfort among the mess. It was found through the art.

They even gave you the keycode to come in any time that you wanted, under the guise that you would clean up after yourself. Not that you would ever consider leaving a mess for others to clean up, but you were beyond grateful that they were willing to trust you with their prized possession of the studio. It had even turned into a small job on the side where they started to pay you for little duties around the shop. It was perfect, to say the least. You enjoyed every last bit to it.

Today was the first day you had utilized the opportunity in so long, even after all the texts you received from Saffron asking how you were doing. Busy was always your excuse, and Saffron eventually stopped sending the texts. You figured she got the message underneath. While you hated it, everything else was too overwhelming to pay it much mind.

The first step inside the building was almost like walking into a faint memory. The music still lulled in the background, dancing around your ears as you took another step in. The familiar clang of the door shutting brought you back completely, consuming you with the remembrance of all the times you had stood in that exact spot with creativity pooling out of you, ready to create.

As you inhaled the air, the different smells of paint skirted around. It was as if you could smell the scent of each of the colors that it belonged to. The reds swirled differently than the blues, but they all morphed together to create their own mixtures at the same time. It was a sense of comfort that you had long forgotten about. You were excited to have that feeling soar back through your body, ready to create something on paper that could encapsulate what you were feeling inside. The fact no one had to understand it besides you was the biggest comfort. It was for you and by you. That was it.

You had the vision in mind, but you wanted the bristles to move on their own accord with their own goal in mind. Your hands would speak where your words fell. It started out as mindless swipes but soon gained shape as they continued to work. The silhouette of a figure that reminisced your own began to form through the rubble and debris in the background. She was floating in the air, untouched by anything around her.

A tired expression was riddled between the muddied features as an arm outstretched down below. Out of frame, another reached for her grasp to help her back down, but something in the distance was keeping the hand's owner planted firmly in his position. The resistance caused the colors to fade, telling the story of a girl who could not be brought back down—led only to vanish into the sky above.

To a passerby, you were sure that it would have looked a mess to them. They would probably rummage their brain through an assortment of questions. It was a quick painting, as if it would have physically pained you if you took your time on it. It was begging to come out of you, so much so that it was like your hands couldn't keep up with the pace of your brain.

It was a mess, but that was a perfect example of what it felt like inside of you.

A mess. A huge mess that was hard to distinguish with the untrained eye.

But that was why you loved it, and why you stood a few feet away as you admired it, in awe with your ability to capture exactly what you felt like. If it was perfect then it wouldn't have felt right. It was meant to have mistakes and smears along the edges.

You wiped a small mist of sweat that had accumulated at the top of your forehead with the back of your hand as you continued to stare at the details of your work. You weren't sure how long it had been, but about an hour was your guess. It was beautiful how such little time allowed you to process your emotions.

It was jealousy. It was denial. It was resentment. It was acceptance of all of the emotions.

"Y/N?"

You shot your focus over your canvas, now towards the door. The guy who you had just practically run away from was standing in the doorway, and you mentally cursed at yourself for leaving it unlocked in the first place. You must have been too engulfed in the idea of painting that it didn't cross your mind. Even more engulfed that you didn't hear the usual noise of the door swinging open.

Either way, it didn't matter. It was too late now. Now you had to deal with it head-on. You couldn't paint this image away.

Before you would have wished that the Earth could have split open to suck you underneath with it, but now you felt more equipped to deal with the consequences of your actions. The acceptance of all of the emotions you were feeling felt like a breath of fresh air in and of itself. Coming to terms with it was something you thought you had done but were actually so far from. It wasn't fully there, but it was the first real leap you had made.

It was progress to get where you needed, whatever that meant now.

You shut your eyes for a moment before answering, "Yeah?"

"Let's take a walk," he encouraged.

You considered your options again, but this time running didn't overtake your mind. You two used to go on walks all the time together. It was almost a ritual—and one you missed on every Sunday after those three years.

And even though it was a ritual for those three years, it felt like so much time had been wasted but not enough at the same time. The both of you walked in silence for what felt like hours at first, looking around at the scenery passing by. Every now and then someone walking their dog would walk by and you would smile to yourself until you remembered who was only a few inches away from you, completely wiping away that smile as if it never existed.

Deep down, you wanted to be angry. Angry at Lana for not being more specific. Angry at Harry for randomly showing up. But you couldn't. While you didn't want to admit it, in an odd way, you were glad that it happened. Albeit, while it could've happened a little more gracefully, the end result was good enough. Except all you wanted was answers to questions you couldn't quite form yet.

"You didn't tell her anything, did you?" Your eyes followed along the sidewalk that you walked on, watching your feet step on each little pebble and crack that was sprinkled along the way. That was where your gaze stayed for majority of the walk so far, too afraid to look up. If you had known that this would have been happening when you saw Lana, you would have probably made sure that you didn't look as much of a mess as you did. Maybe you could've put ice underneath your eyes or something.

"No" he muttered lowly. You could feel his eyes back on you for a moment when he responded, but he quickly averted it back towards whatever else he was looking at beforehand.

"Why'd you show up?" You brought your head up to his for the first time since without thinking. He caught your eyes for a brief moment before you swiftly shifted ahead of you.

"I just wanted to talk to her. I didn't know you would be there with her. She didn't say that part."

You didn't say anything else after that for awhile and neither did he. You both walked silently side-by-side, pretending like neither of you had anything to say. You knew there had to be more going on in his head. It was either that conclusion or the conclusion that he didn't care and you were the only one going through crazy loops in your head. You couldn't be the only one confused by everything. That couldn't be right.

It just couldn't.

The ring he had left in your apartment yesterday was moving around in your pocket as you continued to place one foot in front of the other against the pavement. Your hand slipped inside, clutching it one last time in your palm before lifting it to view.

"Here. You left this," you mumbled as your hand unraveled in front of you. You looked at the silver jewelry against your skin and you twisted your head to his, dropping them into his hand. The slight brushing of your fingers against his palm sent a shiver down your spine, and you almost dropped it from the surprise.

He distantly peered at the glistening object, almost as if in a faint daze for a moment. Quickly, he closed his hands around the piece and dropped it into his jacket pocket. He kept his hand rested inside and you wondered if he kept it gripped tightly in his hand as you had so often before.

"Did you mean any of it?" Harry softly spoke. His tone was enough to make you want to hide forever if that meant you never had to hear that hurt again.

"Harry..." you trailed off but had to take a deep breath to keep yourself centered, "I have so much to say. I'm sorry. You meant the world to me and you still do. You always will. This was all my fault and I'm sorry."

"Then why did you do it?" You heard him say as he kicked some piece of rubble in front of him. Your eyes darted to the victim of his shoe and let yourself get distracted by it for a moment.

You needed this conversation. It was a conversation you had been begging to have. You wished you hadn't royally fucked it up so much as you did and you wouldn't have even had to have it to begin with.

"I don't know. Guilty maybe," you started but paused. It all felt impossible to get out. You knew once it started, it wouldn't be easy to stop. You were scared what would come out in the process of the overflow.

Yet, you continued. You had to.

"I was a shitty girlfriend and the guilt of it ate away at me, I guess. I knew I didn't deserve you and I still don't. In her, I see everything I should have been for you. I should have never pushed you away. I should've never shut you out. But I did it and I regret it. I thought I didn't, but I did. I do now."

You didn't notice you had stopped walking until you felt a hand rest on the back of your shoulder. Your eyes were squeezed shut and your knees threatened to buckle underneath you. The Earth felt unstable for you to be on. Everything felt unsteady.

Your hands had flung to your face, concealing the identity of who you were.

"Y/N, it's okay," you heard in a faint coo beside you. He had moved both of you to a bench nearby. You could only imagine how embarrassing the scene you created was. You supposed you would just stack it onto the pile of apologies you already owed him.

"It's not okay, Harry. I fucked up. I hurt you. I lied to myself. I thought it was our relationship that was the problem, but it was me. It was always me," you muffled out into your palm. You were trying your best to not cry in public, which was proving more and more difficult as the more realizations passed by. The tears that threatened to poke out were staying subdued enough for the moment, but you weren't sure how long you could keep it up at this rate.

Harry's hand had yet to leave your back as he rubbed small circles with his thumb. He didn't say anything besides small shushes to calm you down. You almost resented yourself for letting that calm you so well. No matter the severity of the panic attack you had in the past, you found the pure comfort in his touch. He never had to say anything. He knew there was nothing to say in your moments of being overwhelmed. His touch was all he needed to offer.

It was all you ever needed. In this lifetime and the next, as long as he was there to do so.

"Y/N, look at me," Harry whispered calmly. His hand retracted from your back as you heard him sit up more straight. Your fingers twitched lightly against your face, fighting to decide if you wanted to be open to your surroundings again.

"Please," he pressed softly.

You kept your head bowed as your hands drifted back down to your lap. Little remnants of mascara, a mixture of new and old, sprinkled against the pads of your fingers. Eventually, your attention deterred away from your mascara-painted hands and towards the man beside you.

He looked at you as if you were the only person to grace this planet with you. It was as if the people scattered sporadically around you didn't exist at all. They were all figments of your imagination in this reality—all made to be apart of the background of both of your lives. Nothing else would ever matter as much as you two did together.

And indeed did you look back at him in the same way. The swirls of greens and yellow flicks of color between the dark rim of his irises were enamoring. It was the same eyes that you had looked in for as long as you knew him—from the first date to the first time you said you loved him to every moment that led to this.

"I will never love someone like I loved you. Do you understand that?" He crooked his head closer to yours with his eyebrows raised. It looked like he wanted to grab you by your shoulders and shake you as hard as he could to get you to understand.

"You found someone new, Harry. So quickly," you said as you fought against the quivering of your lip. "Nadine?"

He breathed out a laugh and you immediately wished you could have gotten a video of it as to have it with you forever. But, no amount of videos would ever truly capture his smile, his laugh the way that it looked and felt in person. Nothing.

"I don't care about Nadine," he stopped for a moment, "I broke up with her." His face grew serious again and he darted his eyes away, pulling a little further back as he looked deep in thought. Instinctively, your eyes widened. Your ears thought they were playing tricks on you just to get your hopes up.

"You were right," he said as he peeked back at you.

"I was?" You asked, baffled. Everything that you had said, whether yesterday or beyond that, suddenly attempted to replay in your head for some kind of answer you could come up with yourself. You had been so clouded with emotions that it was hard to remember any specifics when it came to him.

He nodded his head and sighed, "I don't know her. I don't even want to know her. I never did." He laughed again but it seemed to be at himself—like he was baffled by himself this time.

His eyes met yours again, and they felt frozen into yours. It was like that was where yours were born to stare and as was his.

"What does that mean?" You were scared to ask but you were desperate to know. Whether you were to be let down or not, you had to know. You would just have to learn to live with wherever it led.

His head drifted down but came back up quickly again as he spoke, "I forgive you. Do you forgive me?"

A smile that you had forgotten existed within yourself appeared. The storm clouds above no longer felt overcast over your head, ready to crash down every weather disaster it could muster anymore. This was one of the first times you felt warmth against your skin, now noticing the sun beating down directly above. Your focus on everything in life shifted in that instance.

"I do," you reassured through your unfaltering grin.

"Good," he laughed shyly. He cleared his throat, standing up from the bench and extended a hand in your direction. You glared straight ahead at his ring-cladded fingers, now with both of his initial rings adorned in its usual spot. The sight of it only made your face hurt from the smile that continued to grow.

Your hand placed so naturally in his as he lifted you up in one swift motion.

"So, Y/N. Where should we have our new first date this time?”

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