When He Holds Your Hand

Harry left around two o'clock leaving me to fully focus on worrying if Rose would ever talk to me again. To top it off I could feel that Harry too was upset with me: his kiss goodbye was brief and there was a vagueness to his answer about when he would message me. In a nutshell, the day was a write off and I was ready to crawl into my own bed and sleep until tomorrow.
Tomorrow however was my birthday drinks and I had to sort things out with Rose before then or the night would be a disaster.
Having been cooped up for days I decided to walk to her place. I texted her I'd be there soon whether she liked it or not, and headed out into the September sun.
My brain was a loud mess with Harry's professions of love and Rose's disappointment fighting for my attention. The truth was I didn't know how I felt about Harry; I loved him but was I at a stage where I could honestly say I was in love? Suddenly I was struck with a thought that nearly stopped me dead in my tracks: it didn't' matter if I was or wasn't in love with him because nothing would ever become of it, since I was married and my feelings were irrelevant. The truth and harsh reality was that even if I was head over heels in love with Harry and my marriage ended, I was not someone people would want to see with Harry Styles. An older, plus size divorcee was not exactly the model material for girlfriend of a world wide teen idol.
By the time I reached Rose's flat I was so lost in thought about what to do about Harry that I almost forgot she wasn't going to be exactly overjoyed to see me.
"So much for I'll let you know when I want to talk" was my warm, loving welcome.
"I know but I couldn't not try to clear things up." I followed her into the living room and sat down. "I should have told you and I'm sorry. Please don't think I did it because I don't trust you or for any other reason than I just wanted to see how spending more than one night with him would go."
"And how did it go?" She folded her arms across her chest reluctant to show any sign of forgiving me.
"Well... that's a conversation for when you don't want to punch me." I desperately wanted to vent my confusion but I wanted sympathy and advice, not to be treated like the whole thing was my own fault for getting involved - and I could tell Rose was in the mood to dish out the latter.
"You know," she uncrossed her arms and came to sit next to me, placing a hand on my knee, "I'm hurt that you didn't tell me and that might take a couple days to get past but I get why you did it. Everyone has been in some form of relationship that other people judge you for and sometimes you would rather stay schtum than face that judgment. But, and I mean this one hundered percent, you can always tell me anything and I will support you."
Tears sprang to my eyes after what had been an intense day and the relief that she didn't hate me was overwhelming. Harry had been right: she forgave me because she loved me but I loved her too and I should never have not told her.
"I might try and be a voice of reason because I worry about you, I worry about what would happen if Will found out. Harry may be lovely and attentive but would he stand by you and support you if everything came to light? He's 19 years old, and ridiculously famous; no offence but would he want to deal with the baggage of being with a 30 year old divorced woman?"
"Yeah, I had those thoughts on the way here," I sighed wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of hand, before finally confessing, "he told me he loved me last night."
"Wow!" Rose grabbed the box of tissues from the coffee table and handed them to me. "Did you say it back?"
Shaking my head I took a deep breath and tried to stop more tears from falling at the memory of how cold Harry had been as he left. "I couldn't say it to him, so you weren't the only one annoyed with me today. I couldn't work out why I didn't feel it but what you just said is precisely why."
Rose looked at me sadly. There was no pity but she felt sorry for me, and I could see she was struggling to find the right words to support and comfort me.
Harry's reaction to me not declaring my love back to him in return only confirmed what she and I suspected: he was mature for his age but any one of any age would struggle with the harsh realities of out situation. I knew deep, deep down that I probably was in love with Harry but there was a wall up for a reason, and that reason was Harry not being ready to deal with the consequences when things went wrong.
I stayed for a little while but left around 9 so as not to push my luck with Rose's forgiveness.
My pensive mood was tenfold and I tried to subdue the worry that I hadn't heard from Harry, which wasn't exactly abnormal behavior. But the day had left me emotionally ragged and I wanted the reassurance that he wasn't cutting me off.
But the reassurance never came. That one night turned into two, and that turned into a week and a week turned into a month and so and so on. Harry cut me off, and I could tell from the way that any messages I sent in moments of weakness went unread that he had blocked my number.
It was agony to deal with at first, to know that I actually meant so little to him, but I took small comfort knowing I'd been right not to let myself fall for him.
Two weeks after last seeing Harry Will had come home from his time managing the One Direction stage set up in Australia in a great mood. He was completely unaware that anything had happened while he'd been away. There was no mention of my birthday but more importantly there was no mention that Harry had lost both his hands in a freak accident rendering him unable to text or call someone.

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