Shadows

Harry's POV
I stand outside Annalise's house, my hand ready to knock on the door. The memories of last night keep replaying through my brain, seeing her at the party, dancing with Louis, and then in the kitchen crying her eyes out. I just want to help her and I hope that I did by bringing her home last night. After I dropped Annie off here I went back to the party to find Maggie.

"I don't want to go," Maggie groans, her voice slurring from the insane amount of alcohol she's ingested.
"Come on," I say gruffly and pull her through the party, she struggles in my grip but can't help stumble along after me. "You should take your shoes off," I suggest as we leave the party. She glares at me and trips on the sidewalk, falling forward. I easily reach out and catch her before she hits the ground, lifting her back to her feet.
Our eyes meet and I see a newfound curiosity in her big blue eyes as we stand close. I quickly remove my arms from around her and step back but the curiosity doesn't leave her face as she willingly follows me to my car.
"Where are you taking me?" She asks lightly as I help her into the car.
"Home," I say, my voice gruff as I slam the car door in her face.
I jog around to the drivers side and start the car, ignoring her open stares.
"Your home or mine?" She asks, her voice low. I look over in surprise to see her slowly unbuckling her seat belt.
"What are you doing?!" I exclaim and refocus on the road in front of me as opposed to the girl sitting next to me.
She giggles in response and I glance in shock to see her lifting her dress over her head.
"Maggie stop!" I exclaim, trying not to stare at her half naked body.
"Why?" She whines and throws the dress at me. I toss the fabric back at her and thankfully she doesn't return fire.
"I'm taking you home, your home. That's it," I demand.
"But I want to go home with you," she slurs.
"Maggie I am not going to have sex with you," I command.
"You have sex with everyone else though!" Her voice is angry, startling me. "Why not me? I know what you all say about Annalise but you guys don't talk about me like that!"
She's right, we don't talk about Maggie the same way we do Annalise. In fact, most of the guys and I's conversations about Maggie have revolved around why she's still even friends with Annalise. I feel the guilt set in my stomach. I can't believe I've been so horrible to Annalise, she didn't deserve any of those things. If only I'd taken the two seconds to actually get to know her, maybe I wouldn't have been such a dick. She deserved better from me, from everyone.
"I'm not going to take advantage of you," I respond, keeping my voice controlled.
"What if I want to be taken advantage of?" Her voice is nearly a whisper.
I sigh before responding. "Trust me Maggie, if you have sex with me tonight, you'll regret it tomorrow."
The rest of the ride is silent, I don't know if it's because of the words I said or if Maggie simply lost herself in a drunken haze. I pull up to her house and she struggles back into her dress before climbing out of the car, her heels in her hand. I wait until she shuts the front door behind her before backing out of the driveway and finally heading home.

I knock on the door slowly, rapping on it three times before stepping back and waiting. Almost instantaneously Annalise's mother answers, her brown hair pulled back into a slick ponytail, not a hair out of place. I take note of how much Annalise looks like her mum before Mrs. Grey speaks.
"Harry!" She exclaims in surprise. "What can I help you with?"
"Is Annalise here?" I ask slowly.
A grim expression crosses her face at the mention of Annalise before her eyes soften. "You brought her home last night, didn't you?"
I nod and stare at my scuffed shoes.
"Well she's here but I don't know that she'll want to see you," Mrs. Grey says with a sigh. "Come on in anyways though."
She leads me into the foyer and I take in the photos of Annalise and Catherine hanging in neat black frames. Some of the pictures are probably from back when they lived in America. A photo of the sisters at the beach catches my eye, however. It looks recent. Annalise and Catherine are both smiling and laughing, their eyes bright and mouths open as they stare at the camera. Their hair is blown out of their faces and forever frozen in the photo the way the wind whipped it at that exact moment. They both look so extraordinarily happy that it breaks my heart. I haven't seen Annalise smile like that in all the time I've known her, especially not in the past few months since Catherine went missing.
"Follow me," Mrs. Grey says warmly, drawing my attention away from the photo. She leads me upstairs and down the hall to the room that would be directly across from mine--Annalise's room.
Mrs. Grey motions for me to wait as she walks into Annie's room, leaving the door open a crack. I creep closer and peek in, watching as Mrs. Grey gently shakes Annalise's figure, in bed.
"Lisa sweetie there's someone here to see you," Mrs. Grey says softly.
In response Anna simply groans and turns away from her mum. Mrs. Grey looks back at me helplessly.
"Uh hey Annie," I say and walk into the room tentatively.
"Let me know if you need anything," Mrs. Grey murmurs before walking out of the room.
I move closer to the bed, Annalise's long brown hair is in tangles covering her face that's smashed into the pillow.
"I came by to check on you," I say softly and pull the desk chair over so that I can sit next to her bed.
Her room looks much different from inside than it does from my bedroom. The pale yellow walls and light wooden floors seem larger than the small piece I could see from my window. The bedspread Annie's curled up in has tiny colorful flowers on it, I never noticed that before. I look around at the various pictures she has of her and her family or her and Maggie, all cheerily displayed on the walls.
Her room is neat and tidy, I don't think Annie has a messy bone in her body, all her clothes are tucked away in the closet or dresser, even the dress she wore last night is no where to be seen.
"Clearly you still aren't okay," I say, trying to urge a response out of her still figure. The only thing I get is the steady rising and falling of the blanket as she breathes, letting me know she's at least still alive.
With a sigh I pick up the book off of her night table. The Great Gatsby. There are multiple pages tagged with small sticky notes but one large one is placed in the middle of the book, no more little notes are placed after that. I flip to the page that the first little note is at and a highlighted quote catches my eye. A quick examination of the other bookmarked pages reveals that all the little sticky notes are marked pages with highlighted quotes in them. I flip to the last note, the big one. No highlighted phrases. I remove the note and stick it to the small table before settling back into the chair and beginning to read aloud to Annalise, making my voice loud and clear.

Annalise's POV
I bury my head into the soft fabric of my pillow and listen as Harry reads, his deep voice carrying out the words of the book, transporting me back to the 20s and the rich society Gatsby lived in. I find myself mesmerized by his soothing voice, allowing his voice to calm me down. By no means is The Great Gatsby a soothing book, yet somehow, Harry's voice makes it seem that way.
"You can stop," I say softly as Harry announces the beginning to another chapter. I hear him shuffle with the book before he speaks.
"So you're awake," he says finally.
"Yeah," I whisper into the pillow. At first I doubt he heard me until he responds, moments later.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks softly.
I shift into a sitting position, my hair falling around my shoulders wildly. Bracing myself I meet Harry's caring green eyes, finding nothing but genuine concern in his gaze, I decide to speak up.
"Can we talk about anything but Catherine?" I ask shyly.
"Of course," he cracks a small smile and looks at the book on my night table.
"Do you like The Great Gatsby so far?" He asks and leans back into the chair he took from my desk.
"Yeah it's good," I respond vaguely, unsure if he had ever even read it himself.
"It's one of my favorite books," he says seriously.
"You've read it?" The obvious surprise in my voice makes me feel guilt and I stare at my hands, to my shock he let's out a low chuckle.
"Yes I have," he says dryly.
"And you liked it?" I ask, trying to recover from my fumble in assuming he didn't read.
"I did say it was one of my favorites," he points out, making me blush.
I'm about to ask him if he has any other favorites when my mother bursts into the room. Her pressed blue sweater and black slacks wrinkle free as she looks between Harry and I with wide eyes.
"I came to see how things were going," she says in shock. "You're up?!"
I nod slowly, I don't think she would understand fast movement. It might startle her or something.
"But you haven't gotten up all day, and it's past lunch!" She says again, still in shock that I'm actually communicating with a person when all morning I've been comatose. I haven't gotten out of bed since I crawled into it last night after Harry dropped me off, I've been living up quite the pity party.
"I'm aware," I respond dryly and glance at Harry who seems as though he's trying to suppress a laugh.
"Are you hungry?" She asks hopefully, my hungry the easiest thing for her to deal with. It's like she knows that I'm going through too much for her to help me with but maybe by making me a sandwich some of my troubles will disappear.
"Sure mom," I say, humoring her. I'm not hungry in the slightest.
She turns abruptly and walks out of my bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
The second the door closes Harry begins to laugh.
"What in the world could possibly be so funny?!" I ask and glare at him, crossing my arms over my chest.
"I love your mom!" He says as his laughter dies down. "She's like the mirror image of you."
"She is not!" I say defensively. My mother is obsessive and annoying and emotional.




Okay he's got a point.
"Yes she is," he says with a warm smile that gives me butterflies. "But in a good way."
"Then why did you laugh?" I ask insecurely.
"Because it was like seeing you interact with yourself," he points out. "It was very strange."
"Well I'm glad you take pleasure in my mother and I's interactions," I tease, the insecurity I felt at his laughter dissipating.
"Are you hungry?" Boys are always hungry, right?
"Uh kind of, why?" He asks, thrown off by my abrupt change of topic.
"Because I'm not and my mother is going to bring up all of the meals I would need today in about 10 minutes," I explain and he raises his eyebrows, running his massive hands through his dark curls.
"I feel like your mum would kill me if she found out I ate your food," he says, clearly uncomfortable.
"Are you scared of my mother?" The realization dawns on me and I smile. He immediately looks sheepish before replying.
"Maybe a little."
"So that means your scared of me!" I connect the dots with excitement and he looks at me in horror.
"I am not scared of you!" He scoffs.
He totally is! If I'm so much like my mother and he's scared of her than he must be afraid of me too!
"Yes you are," I tease.
"I bench press twice your weight," he defends, puffing out his chest.
I laugh at the display. "So, you're still scared of me."
He chuckles and shakes his head. "Maybe a little," he says with a smirk.

Notes

Kind of a filled chapter but some important stuff happens.
What do you think of Maggie?