One Month Later

It’s two a.m. when I bolt upright on the couch in the living room, sweat dewing up on my brow and spilling down in tiny rivers of salt. My ear buds are tangled around my neck, music still playing softly. My heart was beating fast, too fast, like I’d gotten up and ran a mile sometime after my head hit the pillow for the night.

I wanted to leave the flat, go out somewhere and just walk around and breathe fresh air, but I couldn’t. Last night, Harry and the boys showed up for an impromptu get together; just watching movies and ordering Chinese food. Each and every one of us passed out on the couch. Harry’s arm was looped around my waist, and he was still sound asleep. That boy could sleep through anything.

He shifted a bit, adjusting his body on the couch to account for all the space he had now that I wasn’t stretched out beside him.

We’d been dating for a month now; one hectic month that was filled with moreeverything than I had ever gotten in the two years of my past relationship. I should have told Harry about the night terrors, but we were both falling so deep so fast that I wanted – almost needed – one little thing to remind me that I was my own person. I didn’t want to depend on Harry, because there was always that small sliver of doubt whispering in the back of my mind that he could leave. He was world-famous, and though I realized he was just a person with normal wants and needs, not everyone else did. Waitresses and baristas would flirt with him like there’s no tomorrow right in front of me.

It only reminded me again and again that even if he didn’t want to, he was more than capable of leaving and finding someone else. Anyone else, really.

Gently, I lifted his arm up and placed a pillow beneath it, stifling a giggle when he latched onto and it and pulled it close to his body as if it were me.

Now I had to find my way past all the sleeping famous people and to the door without stepping on any of them. It was like a maze.

Carefully, I made my way to door and wrapped my hand around the cold door handle, turning it as slowly as possible to avoid the tell-tale click. Everything seemed louder when you wanted no one to hear.

I eased the door open a crack and slipped out, my bare feet slapping against the wooden hallway floor. A quick glance at my iPod screen told me it was nearly two-thirty now, and I wound up taking the staircase straight to the roof.

The air outside was crisp and cool, though beginning to warm as the sun prepared to rise up in the sky. The streets below were quiet, a lone streetlight illuminating a patch of sidewalk every now and then. My breath formed a little cloud in front of my face, and I pulled the loose bits of Harry’s jumper closer to me. Soft and peaceful music drifted into my ears, diffusing until it was just a smattering of sounds my brain forgot to process.

Then a flash. A bright light whose source was from the nightmare that pushed me up onto the rooftop.

I’m nervous. The feeling is twisting up my gut and maiming my stomach, threatening to force everything I’ve eaten back up and onto the floor. The school must’ve called Dad by now. It was the third test I’ve failed in three days; lack of sleep and zoning out when I did manage to stay awake caused that.

It’s strange, how wanting so bad to keep Dad happy is causing me to fail. Anxiety and nervousness and fear never give me a moment’s rest; they rob me of my unconscious hours when I need them the most and give them back in increments when I don’t want them at all.

There’s a familiar sound a car engine shutting off in the driveway, and my pulse spikes as I prepare for the worst. I can only hope for that, that what happens now is the worst and there isn’t something horrible lying in wait.

The door bursts open, and it doesn’t even take a minute before Dad starts shouting. “Three tests, Carlineae. THREE! Are you looking to fail? Do you know what colleges see when they look at things like this? They see that you’re lazy. That’s your useless, worthless. As a matter of fact, why do I even bother trying to get this through your thick head? It never works, because we always have the same. Issue. Every. Year.” He pauses, leveling a glare at me and catching his breath. My eyes have already glazed over, and I don’t want to cry in front of him. I don’t want to give him another reason to hate me, or yell at me. “You might as well kill yourself,” he snarls, and then pulls a hand back. His ring is still on.

I scream.

“Carly? Are you alright, love? Talk to me, please.”

Tears run down my face, and I’m crouched down low on the cement, clutching my body as if I’m trying to hold the pieces of me together. No one should have to be that afraid of their father. No one should have nightmares about bad grades that force them to wake up crying in the middle of the night.

There are worse things in the world that could happen to me.

“Carly, love, why did you come up here? It’s cold, please stop crying.” Harry took my face into his hands and wiped away a tear that had squeezed out of my eye, his own filled pain because someone was upset and he could not fix it.

“How did you know I’d be up here?” I asked, hiccupping a little. My breathing began to calm a little bit.

“I felt it the moment you got up, and then I followed you. A pillow can’t substitute for a human being, y’know,” He said, grinning a little. He adjusted his arms to wrap around me, flooding me with warmth. “Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asked quietly, watching my face as I gazed up at the stars. They were dwindling in number as the dark night began lighten up, the edges fading to violets and purples and oranges.

“Nightmares,” I said simply, my voice already wavering. “I get them every night, and they never go away. I can never get any sleep because of them.”

Harry pressed his lips to my neck, and I shivered, but not from the cold. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked into the bend were my shoulder met my neck.

“I didn’t want to worry you.” That’s what I said, but it wasn’t the truth. Not completely, anyway.

“I’m worried about you all the time, Carly. I need to know that you’ll be able to talk to me when you’re feeling like this, or when you have a nightmare.”

“I’ll try. But I’m warning you, I’m used to bottling things up inside. It’s how I operate and that’ll be hard to change.”

“At least you’re trying,” He said, and then brought his lips to mine.

Now, I would be lying if I said kissing Harry didn’t affect me. My reaction to him was immediate; I leaned closer into him and wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers curling up in his hair. His tongue brushed up against my lips, asking for entrance and I let him, losing myself in the process. It was wonderful feeling, no matter how much it scared me.

I didn’t know how long it was, but eventually he broke away. I looked up at him, confused. Harry was never the one to end the kiss, it was usually me or Louis being a knob and interrupting. He gave me a cheeky smile.

“I would love you keep on snogging you, Car, but if you don’t want to lose any of your toes to hypothermia, we should probably go back to the flat.”

I giggled. “What if I don’t feel like going back to the flat?” What was it about Harry Styles that gave him the power to reduce me to a ditzy thirteen year old girl?

“Oh yeah?” Harry said mischievously, raising an eyebrow. I nodded, wondering where he was going to go with this.

He ducked quickly and scooped me up off my feet and into his arms, bridal style. He kissed me a few times, before heading towards a propped open door that’d bring us back down the stairs and to the flat. Damn him.