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ineffablywriting · 1 year

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break my heart again

an angsty one shot about overheard conversations, Grammy awards and a girl who just wants to be loved

“I’m sorry,” Harry apologised, regret etched into his face.

“Don’t be,” Bella replied, not turning to look at him. “I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.”

“It’s the Grammy’s,” He implored, reaching out and tugging on her shoulder to get her to look back at him.

She shrugged his arm off and took a step further away before sucking in a deep breath and turning to face Harry once again. “I know. And I get it. I really get it, Harry. This is a big opportunity for you and you have a real chance of winning.”

“Yes, exactly!” He said in relief, allowing a small smile to curl his lips. But Bella didn’t smile back and his own slipped off just as quickly as it had appeared. “There’s a but,” he stated.

“There’s a but,” Bella nodded. “My sister’s wedding is on the same day. You knew this.”

“I know,” he agreed.

“But this is more important to you,” Bella continued for him.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Harry replied sharply, his lips turning down as he tried not to snarl. He hated when people accused him of things when they had no idea what was going through his head.

“I’m not,” she shrugged. “I heard you on the phone to your manager,” she took another step away from him.

“You were listening in on my phone calls?” he glared at her, feeling a pinch in his chest. He ignored it, refusing to acknowledge the trickle of guilt forming in his heart.

“You know I wasn’t,” Bella shook her head, already so disappointed she couldn’t even find herself feeling angry at his accusal. “I had come over cause we were meant to go to dinner that night. You were the one who gave me a key to your house, remember?”

Another step back, and this time Harry’s eyes flashed as he stomped across the room and stood right in front of her. “Why are you slowly stepping further and further away?” he asked her, his voice a low growl. “We need to talk about this. You can’t just decide to leave.”

Bella swallowed back the lump in her throat and looked away from him, her eyes landing on her shoes as she tried to draw up enough courage to say what she needed to say.

“This isn’t working, Harry,” she told him.

“What do you mean?” he took a sudden step back, his voice once again back to its normal decibel.

“I mean, I think we need to stop pretending this, whatever this is between us, is working. Your career is always going to be more important to you. I will always be further down that list. I don't even come in second,” she scoffed bitterly, wrapping her arms around her stomach to try and hold herself together as she felt herself fall apart inside.

“What the fuck are you on about, love?” he scoffed right back. “You’re talking rubbish. We’ve known each other our whole lives, no one else works as well as we do.”

“Harry,” Bella sighed, looking up at him once again. “I know.”

“Know what?”

“I’ve known from the start. This thing between us was never real for you.” She lifted a hand and rubbed away the lone tear that had escaped. She hadn’t even felt them building.

“What?” This time Harry took a step back, fear of what Bella was saying and worry about what she was about to reveal, causing his heart to race.

“I heard you talking to Jeff that day over a year ago, before you asked me out. How dating me would be great for your image since we’ve known each other longer than almost anyone else. How dating someone who wasn’t famous would be a better brand for you, to make you more relatable to the fans. How it would make you more endearing,” she spoke, not taking a breath and letting out all the words she’d buried deeper and deeper in her chest for the last year of her life. “I’d hoped maybe, just maybe that you’d fall in love with me too. I thought maybe when you gave me a key to your place it meant that you cared just a little. But I was wrong. And I don’t blame you,” she continued. “It was my fault. I knew what I was getting into and I did it anyway.”

“Bella,” Harry paused and took a deep breath then started again. “I…fuck. I should have told you from the start,” he began, hating the heartbroken look on her face. “But you have to know that I do-”

“Don’t,” Bella stopped him, anger written all over her face. “Don’t lie to me,” she told him. “Not anymore.”

“Did you even realise that I also got the email Jeff sent to you and your management and PR team?” she asked him.

“No,” Harry looked horrified, feeling sick at the reminder of the words he’d read and the words he’d typed back, hitting reply all in the email.

“Yes,” Bella said sadly. “So I’m saving you the trouble. Here’s my key,” she placed it on the coffee table by the door where Harry had thrown his own keys. “I’ve already told my sister that you won’t be able to make it to her wedding - she said congrats on the Grammy nomination and she hopes you win. So, you don’t have to worry about finding an excuse to - what was it you called it? - an excuse to get out of going to a stuffy event that you didn’t care about?”

Harry flinched at the harsh words he’d used. He remembered being so angry and frustrated that day that he’d been rude in every conversation he’d had, and every email and text he’d sent. Things hadn’t gone right in the studio and he’d taken it out on everyone around him.

“Bella,” he tried again, but she held up a hand.

“Don’t worry, Harry,” she sighed, shoulders dropping in defeat. “Like I said we don’t have to pretend anymore, at least not between us. I know you want to go to the Grammy’s. And I know you want it to go off without a hitch, so I won’t say anything.”

“Say anything?” he repeated, dumbly. “About us being broken up,” she told him, not meeting his eyes.

“Broke-broken up?”

“That’s the next step according to the emails. They all seemed to think I was in on all of this,” she waved her hands around between the two of them. “So they sent me a timeline of when and how we were to break up and all the things I was and wasn’t allowed to say about it.”

“They did what?” Harry asked, and when she looked up at him he looked furious.

“Yeah,” Bella reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled up piece of paper with a list of instructions on it. She handed it over to Harry. “I- I thought you would have helped come up with these.”

Harry was silent for a couple of minutes, reading down the list, his jaw clenching and unclenching as his fingers tightened on the edges. “I would never come up with anything like this,” he told her, looking up. His eyes were pleading with her to believe him. But Bella just shrugged and looked away, and Harry didn’t think his heart had ever ached this much in his life. “It still doesn’t matter,” she told him.

“Of course it matters!” He hissed. “No one told me about this shit,” he waved the paper at her.

Bella smiled a little bitterly, her eyes once again looking so sad. “No one told me about our whole relationship, so I guess that kinda makes two of us.”

He flinched back at her comment and she regretted saying anything. Despite everything, she still didn’t want to hurt him.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” she shut her eyes, counted to ten and then looked back up at him. “I already agreed to all the conditions. You’ll go to the Grammy’s and win your awards and feel accomplished, and I’ll go to my sister’s wedding and spend the day with my family pretending everything is fine between us. Then a few weeks later, your team will let it slip to the media that we’re going through a rough patch and a couple days later we’ll confirm that we’ve broken up,” she told him, not an ounce of emotion behind her words.

Harry hated it.

“No,” Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to break up.”

“Harry,” Bella sighed, this time sounding exasperated. “Not everything is about what you want.”

“I know that,” he said defensively.

“Then you need to accept that this is happening.”

“You-you want to break up?” he asked her, his chest tight. He couldn't breathe.

Bella shook her head and Harry almost felt a little bit of relief until she spoke again. “I want to be loved,” she said sadly. “And I don’t think you know how to do that.”

She took a step forward and gripped Harry’s hand. “I hope - I hope one day you’ll realise your worth isn’t defined by your success and I hope that one day you’ll be able to let yourself fall in love with someone who makes you forget about the rest of the world enough that you put them first. And I’m sorry that wasn’t me.”

Then she turned and walked out the door, leaving Harry clutching hold of the locket he’d given her. He opened it and stared at the two photos she’d placed inside one night when they’d been cuddled on the couch watching a movie.

The two images stared back at him, teasing him cruelly with the smiling faces of himself and Bella when they were ten. The same smiles were on the other side with a picture of them ten years later when they’d recreated their childhood photo.

He didn’t realise he was crying until a single tear dripped onto the locket.

Helloooo, it’s been a while. A lot has changed in my life so I’ve been a bit busy haha. I would love some feedback tho. I haven’t written anything in over a year so I’m feeling a little rusty. Let me know what y’all think! 🫶🏼

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