When He Holds Your Hand

"Jesus, Harry!" I clutched my chest with an attempt at a casual laugh. "You scared the shit out of me."

I walked over to the sink near where he stood and tried to hide the fact my hands were shaking. He didn't say anything, just watched me wash my hands and then dry them; the silence was agony.

"You look nice." His eyes were fixed on me with such intensity that the flashback of how he'd looked at me with disgust in my dream hit me like a hammer to the skull. I'd felt good, I'd gone blonde and lost a little weight from Rose bullying me into going to a spin class with her. My dress showed off all the things I knew Harry liked, but now I felt repulsive.

"You too," I gave a weak smile then nodded to his crazily patterned monochrome shirt, "that's
very...jazzy."

The corner of Harry's mouth pulled up knocking me out with a dimple and teeth filled grin, "I like it."

We stood in silence once more. I was expecting something from him, anything! But I got nothing.

"Did you want something? I have to get back to Rose and you have a show to do."

As if he was reminded he was meant to be performing in half an hour, he took a step closer to me and touched the hand I had balled into a fist as it steadied me on the counter.

"Are you coming for drinks at the hotel later?"

I moved my hand away from his and asked with a smile, "And why on earth would I do that?"

"I was hoping you'd be able to sneak away so we could talk?" Harry's moment of realisation had come: he had done too much damage for me to fall into his arms asking for his room number.

"Talk? Talk about what?"

"Uh-us?"

I let out a laugh and shook my head; turning toward the mirror I checked my make up. "There stopped being an us when you blocked my number, Harry."

"I can explain why I did that, Layla." He tried once more to touch my arm but I pushed him away.

"Don't touch me." Stepping back out of his reach I held my palm up flat to him so he couldn't come closer. "You don't get to explain. You made your choice by fucking someone else. I get enough shit from Will, I certainly don't need it from you."

I had to leave before the full extent of my anger flooded out, I couldn't believe he was expecting me to listen to him. Reaching the door I paused and looked at him: he was surprised by my anger, and a little hurt; despite the crazy shirt and the red, sniffly nose, he looked breathtaking.

"Good luck for the show."

I practically vibrated my way back to the private box, the adrenaline coursing through with such power I momentarily considered running as fast as I could to see if I'd take off. Everyone else was there when I arrived, the support act was on but nobody apart from Rose was really paying attention; the others were patting themselves on the back for a job well done on how the set looked.

"Are you ok?" Rose asked in a low voice. She handed me a glass of prosecco and added,

"Thought you might need this."

"I definitely do", I breathed, taking a large gulp of my first drink in months. "Harry followed me into the toilets."

Rose’s cheeks puffed out as she struggled not not spit out her drink; luckily she managed to swallow it down before checking me over with her eyes for any hint of wild, passionate kissing.
"I told him to stick his explanation where the sun don't shine, and it doesn't shine there despite what people think." She was surprised and that fuelled the fury I felt with myself for falling any of his bullshit lies. "He wanted to talk about ’us’ like he hadn't ignored me for months, and I just don't want to hear it."

Rose wrapped an arm around me back and pulled me to her side.

"I know you're angry," she whispered, "but this isn't the place." Looking over her shoulder I was reminded that with Will in such close proximity, she was right; even if Mia was stood right next him flipping her hair back and laughing at everything he said.

I zoned out, pretending I was anywhere but here. I didn't care about how many people were here, that Harry was able, with the others, to sell out a legendary venue like Wembley or that when they did come out I felt like he spent most of his time facing towards our box, I just didn't give a damn. Rose was enjoying herself and despite her many previous insistences that she didn't know many One Direction hits, she knew a lot of the words to a lot of the songs.

Watching her dance and sing gave me another reason to be angry with Harry, and I was now in no mood to enjoy a rare evening of just being with my best friend. I wanted to be jumping up and down and shouting one of the other boys names’ as a personal fuck you to Harry but no, all I could manage to do was stand perfectly still whilst glaring daggers at him, thanking the Lord the glass in my hand wasn't real because of the death grip I had it in.

*You don't understand, you don't understand*
*What you do to me when you hold his hand*
*We were meant to be but a twist of fate*
*Made it so you had to walk away*

He was looking up to where we were. I doubted he could even see me but I covered my face as it finally gave in and crumpled up, tears blurring my vision. Rose’s hand was on mine, squeezing it tightly as she reminded my quietly to try and keep it together.

She was right once again but I couldn't stop the memories of my birthday with Harry: how wonderful he'd been and how I'd woken up to him singing those exact lines, that he'd said the song was about our situation and then how he'd ruthlessly fucked me on the bathroom counter to cover him telling me the song was about loving me. It felt like someone else’s life, like I was experiencing somebody else’s memories.

When the song finished I was able to regain my composure. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed my meltdown but if they did, none of them were acknowledging it. Suddenly this huge arena was tiny and claustrophobic: I wanted to run away and lick the reopened wounds seeing and hearing Harry had ripped open. I wasn't entirely confident that I hadn't undone all the hard work I'd done to forget Harry Styles, and my broken and fragile heart was definitely threatening fall apart all over again.

The end of the show was like reaching the surface of the water, Harry leaving the stage and me finally breathing again. Rose was perfectly OK with leaving straight away, but Will had other ideas.

"You and Rose follow our car to the hotel, we'll meet you there," he commanded before going to walk away. I'd obviously lost my mind because I reached out and grabbed his forearm, yanking him back with a jolt.

"No. I'm going home, I have work in the morning." Will blinked at me a few seconds, but I was running on fury and met his disbelief with a refusal to back down.

"This isn't up for discussion," he tried, an arrogant smirk on his lips as he tried his usual line which normally had me give in and do what he said for an easy life.

"Well, William, I think it is." He flinched at the use of his whole name, the only person to use it being his witch of a mother. "I'm not going for drinks, I'm going home."

Everyone in the room was now watching, or rather trying not to watch too obviously. As far as Will’s business contacts were concerned, I was sullen and occasionally rude but I was obedient and well behaved, my flat out refusal to tow the line was outside the image Will presented of his life and his wife.

"Layla, you ar-" red faced, my husband stepped into my personal space and hissed until Terry and Rose appeared either side of us.

"Those fireworks have given me a headache too, Lil," Terry laughed loudly. "You head home and rest up."

Rose pulled me away and I was glad to know Terry was always on my side. I could hear him telling Will, "You're making a scene for no reason, she wants to go home then let her!"
In my car I screamed at the top of my lungs to release some of the rage.

"Better?" Rose asked after I'd finished. I was panting and suddenly sweating. "I have never seen you like that with him."

Resting my head on the steering wheel I replayed the incident in my head over and over.
"I've never been like that with him before, but I wasn't going to back down and, I'll be honest Rose, it felt amazing." I sat back up and looked at her. There were still people queuing to leave the car park so I wasn't in a hurry. "Is this it then?"

"What?"

"Is this me reaching the end of my tether?"

"With Will?" Rose turned the radio off which had been playing loudly to try cover my scream.

"Probably. Let's face it though, it's definitely been a long time coming."

"You're not wrong. Right! Let's go cause I need a drink."

We drove to Rose’s in relative silence. My phone was beeping away like crazy which cause anxiety to swell in my chest but I focused on the road and tried to block it out.

At a light I took the opportunity to put the phone on silence, but expecting to see threatening and angry messages from Will I found several pleading messages from Harry, asking me to come to the hotel or to let him come see me. But I put the phone on silent and threw it into the back seat.

He would have to wait.

By three in the morning I was laying on a sofa bed in Rose’s living room, staring up at the ceiling and listening to my heart thump loudly in my chest. I couldn't believe what a night I had had, and things back in Rose’s place had made everything that bit more fucked up.

I'd lived in a cloud of worry and fear for years, even before I'd met Will, but when Harry came along, and I was reluctant to give him any credit for any decision to made, he set in motion a different way of how I saw myself. It may have been bullshit, or it may have been real, but Harry reminded me that I wasn't this thing that was there to be berated or teased while equally being taken out and paraded like a trophy wife. There had been a moment, or rather quite a few moments, when I thought I'd never get over Harry, but I did, and that was the key to why I was desperate for morning to come.

I'd survived my childhood, and I'd survived someone I deeply cared about using me, making me believed he loved me then tossing me to one side. I had gotten through all of that.

And I was going to get through this. I was going to get through being on my own and divorcing Will.

Notes