Catching Red Eyes

The rest of the car ride was quiet as we both just sat, molding into each other. I must have dozed off for a bit because Harry moved and I startled awake.

“Sorry, love. We are here,” he said laughing at how I fell asleep. I yawned and wiped the sleep from my eyes.

We made our way to the front of the hotel and Harry quickly grabbed a brown hat from his bag and placed it on my head before I realized what was going on. I pushed the hair out of my face and straightened the hat when I heard the screams and saw the flashes from the photographers’ cameras. I quickly pulled the hat down on my head and felt Harry’s arm tighten around my hip.

Before I even could comprehend the madness, I felt people around me pushing and shoving to get closer to Harry. The screams were in my ear from the fans and from the hotel security as well as Harry’s bodyguards. I lost my footing and my face collided the ground and I felt shooting pain on my cheek. It felt like my front teeth were knocked out and I quickly covered my mouth as I tasted the blood. I ran my tongue over my teeth and thanked God they were all still intact but the stinging in my mouth and my nose were killing me. As my eyes were just about to clear, I felt someone pick me up and carry me. Inside the hotel lobby, we were hustled into an elevator. I saw that Harry was the one carrying me when were safe inside the elevator.

“Only me, I swear,” I said while chuckling even with the amount of pain I was in right now. I looked up at Harry and he was fuming. As soon as the elevator doors opened, he carried me down the hallway before his guards could even catch up. He slammed the hotel key into the door and waited until the hotel staff carried his bags inside and left. He then put me down on one of the couches and told me not to move.

I didn’t say a word and watched him. He was texting furiously on his phone before it began to ring and there was a knock on the door. He went to answer while talking. A tall man with dark hair and glasses walked in carrying some kind of bag and was heading right for me.

“Aye, yea, they brought us to the front. No idea. Tell him he better hope she’s ok. It’s a bloody mess,” I heard Harry say into his phone before ending the call. He threw his phone on one of the side tables and ran over to me. The man with the bag opened it and put on green medical gloves.

“Hello, Rowan, I’m Dr. Caldwell. Let’s take a look here,” he said, while moving my face back and forth. “Ah, this may hurt a bit so I am going to give you something to numb your cheek, ok? It might sting a bit but you do have a cut and you have some gravel stuck in it and I need to get it out.”

My eyes went wide as he pulled out a needle and filled it with some kind of liquid. I quickly shut my eyes and felt Harry’s finger interlace in mine and I squeezed it when the doctor began administering the needle in my cheek. Instantly, I felt my whole face go numb and kept my eyes closed as the doctor cleaned my wound. The doctor also took a look inside my mouth.

“You must have bit your tongue when you fell which is the cause of the blood but that will heal quickly. Now, for this outside cut I am going to give you some antibiotic cream and I am going to bandage it. When you wake up tomorrow, you need to replace it and clean the cut out. It shouldn’t take long for it heal, it’ll just be irritated because I had to clean it out. Also, take these,” he said, handing me two small white pills. “It’ll help with the pain.”

Harry went to grab me water while the doctor left the cream on the coffee table.

“Thank you Dr., here, Rowan drink and take the pills.”

I did as I was told as Harry escorted the doctor out of the hotel room. He rushed back over to me and dropped to his knees in front of me and put his head in my lap. I was startled by his actions and lifted up his face.

“Harry, talk to me.” It felt weird to talk with my face numb and a huge bandage on my right cheek.

“Rowan…you must hate me…I am so sorry and now look at you…hurt because of me because some idiot couldn’t follow the rules and keep everyone back when we got here…”

“Oh no Harry, stop. Listen to me, I am a klutz honestly. It was no one’s fault that I tripped. I probably would have tripped whether they were around us or not. Remember when I tripped and fell on the road and then proceeded to faint?”

He chuckled and I felt him relax. “Really, I am fine,” I told him again even though my head was throbbing and my tongue was still bleeding. I went to get up with Harry’s help and suddenly got very dizzy but for some reason thought it was hilarious. I pulled his hat off my head and put it on his head. It covered his eyes a bit so I pulled it back off and flung it across the room.

“Let’s go skydiving.”

Harry steadied me and slowly looked up at me and a smile played on his lips as he pushed his hair back from his eyes.

“Please? Like now? I also would like some spaghetti,” I said with no hesitation. I was also fighting a fit of laughter for some reason.

“You, my love, are a bit high off those painkillers,” he said, finally letting himself fully calm down and laugh.

“Harry, I am a mummy. Look at these bandages on my face. Go grab some toilet paper so we can finish wrapping me up. It can be Halloween. Let’s get candy.”

Harry couldn’t control his sweet laughter as he held onto me in the living room of his suite. I pulled myself back and held onto his hands and starting humming something. I swayed back and forth to the sound of my humming. I twirled myself around his hand and almost tripped over my own feet. Harry grabbed a remote and quickly found more suitable music then my humming.

“I LOVE this song! It’s so cute!” I recognized the Ed Sheeran song, Thinking Out Loud, and pretended to dance like the girl in the video. “Come on Harry, dance, dance, dance!”

As I commanded, Harry began dancing with me around the room without ever letting me go of his hand. I felt like I was floating and I knew the medicine was somewhat responsible but also the way I felt for Harry made me feel more alive than I ever felt in my entire life.

Notes