ALWAYS

"Why are you standing here if you're going to be a quiet guy?" Brynn sounded even more exasperated with me.
"Made a promise to a three year old." I replied softly to Brynn. I caught Enola smiling a little bit. "I try not to lie to children." I added with a bit of an attitude. How could she smile at me when my best friend's arm was around her? How could she act like she didn't rip my soul apart? Sophia gave me a disappointed look as did Liam and Niall. I hated that they were giving me that look. They knew what breaking up with Enola had done to me. They knew the state I was in. Why were they so upset with my reaction to seeing her again. I was the one who got broken.


Three days. Seventy two hours. That's how long it'd been since I'd seen Enola last. We were in another hotel and I was barricaded in my suite once again. Refusing to let anyone in. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't even want to look at anyone. Not unless it was Enola. I wanted to see her loving blue eyes more than anything. I wanted to ask her why she left me. Why she decided to stay with a man that abused her. I wanted to ask her if she ever really loved me. But she had to. We said things and did things that we could only think of if we were really in love.
I grew angry as I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. Enola had me wrapped around her finger. She would apologize over and over for the things happening. She would look into my eyes and tell me that her heart was breaking when she thought of life without me or continuing on the way we were. She played with my emotions. She made my world fall apart then built it back up. She would turn on her charm and use those blue eyes to lie to me. But if it wasn't love, how could she say what she did when we were completely alone, when she was crying at the end of the bed. Enola couldn't have been that cold to just make me apart of a show. My eyes welled with tears. I spent a year lost in the dark. I just couldn't take it anymore. But I never thought it would end the way it did. I turned onto my side and hugged the pillow tightly. My heart shattered all over again thinking of the look of love in her eyes as she told me she didn't love me. Was she just trying to protect me from Charles? Should I have taken hints or told her she was off her rocker if she thought I believed that load of shit? I could've made her stay. I should've went about it differently. I should've actually thought it through. But wasn't that what I was doing in the five hours I spent waiting for her to come to me? I should've done what I did the rest of the week: gone to bed alone and woke up to her soft kisses on my face and neck. She could still be in my arms...had I not fucked everything up.
My shook with sobs as the bedroom door opened. I quickly pursed my lips and held my breath. I didn't know who was coming to rouse me from the bed but I didn't want them to hear me crying. I just wanted everyone to think I was sleeping my way through the pain.
"Harry. I'm not deaf. I heard you crying." Louis spoke softly, sitting down on the bed behind me. I hugged the pillow tighter and stayed silent, letting the tears cascade down my face. "Harry, you have to talk to one of us. This isn't going to get any easier if you don't talk to us." Louis pleaded. Along with shutting myself in my room, I hadn't said much. The only time I even felt like myself was when we were on stage. No one could ever guess that I was falling apart when we were doing a show. "Harry." Louis pleaded, resting his hand on my back. I shrugged it off quickly.
"Just go away Louis." I grunted, my voice filled with my tears and broken heart.
"Harry. Talk to me. You need to tell someone what you're feeling." Louis begged.
I sighed quietly, "She's the reason I feel like this and all I want to do is run to her and sob to her like I used to. I wanna call her and tell her I was a fucking idiot and I don't want to be apart. But we both know that she's not going to answer her phone for me. I can't breathe. She's not here and I feel like I can't breathe, Louis. And it gets worse when I realize that all of it was a lie. A beautiful fucking lie." When I looked back at Louis, he just stayed silent. "Is that what you want to hear? You want me to tell you that I feel like this is worse than dying?" I nearly shouted at him.
"Harry, it's okay to feel like that." Louis spoke softly still.
I started to cry again, "But I don't want to! I want her! I want us to be happy! To be the way we were!"
Louis gripped my shoulder, "I know, mate. I know." I looked into his eyes and saw that he was going to start crying as well. "But you have to know that she did love you. I know she did. There were so many things that she could've done differently that would've meant that she didn't but she always stayed with you. She treated you like you were her everything. She didn't treat you like a torrid affair. She loved you, man."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" I snapped. "Because it doesn't. It makes it worse. I should've tried harder, Louis. If I tried harder, she'd still be here." I cried as I turned over to hug the pillow once again.
"Harry." Louis sighed.
"Just leave me alone." I grunted. I was done with talking. Talking wasn't going to help anything. They didn't understand. They would never understand.


I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Enola clear her throat. She looked at me as though she were about to speak to me. My heart tightened in my chest and I felt my breathing pick up a little. What would she say to me? What could she possibly have to say to me? The last twenty minutes had been probably the most awkward of my entire life.
Darcy came flying down the stairs toward us, "Niall!" Her shouting reverberated through the whole building as she ran into Niall's arms. He picked her up with a smile. Niall was familiar with her little girl as well? What in the hell was going on?
"Hiya doing there Darcy?" He asked her with a gentle smile and warm voice. She didn't speak she just smiled and kissed his cheek. Niall chuckled and hugged her close. She wiggled and made a whining noise again. Niall gave her a stern glare then set her down. She ran over to me and held her hands up to me. I stared down at her with a smile. She whined and reached up more.
"Darcy, use your words. You know better." Enola scolded her. Darcy looked back at her, a bit of fear in her eyes.
Darcy gazed up and me and murmured meekly, "Up?" I smiled more and bent down. I picked her up carefully, wrapping an arm around her little thighs. "Harry." She smiled staring into my face as I stood upright. I gave a single nod. She wrapped her little arms around my neck and began to play with my hair. I gently started to stroke her thigh with my thumb. I loved being close to this little girl with dark curls and green eyes. She made me feel content, much like Enola had before we separated. Sophia and Brynn walked over to me, smiling at the precious girl in my arms. Darcy kept staring at me, not noticing that Sophia and Brynn were trying to get her attention.
"Hi there, sweetie." Sophia beamed at Darcy once she finally caught her attention. "I'm Sophia. I'm friends with your mummy. We've met before. Do you remember?"
Darcy shook her head no then whispered, "Hi."
"You're very cute." Sophia smiled touching Darcy's cheek lightly. Darcy blushed and pulled back from Sophia a bit.
"I'm Brynn." She stated taking another step toward me. Darcy just smiled some more. "I have a question for you." Brynn smiled warmly. Darcy looked at her intrigued. "What's your name, honey?"
"Darcy. I'm three but I'm gonna be four soon." Darcy held up three fingers at first but then quickly added another.
"Three? Oh wow. You're really big." Brynn acted completely astounded. I chuckled seeing Darcy's eyes go wide and her smile reach every centimeter of her adorable face. "You're so cute too!" Brynn gushed taking Darcy's hand.
Darcy blushed again, "Mommy tells me I'm cute like my daddy." My brows furrowed. I hated that man. He obviously had no interest in what Enola was doing and he obviously had no interest in Darcy if he wasn't here. I hadn't spotted him since we'd arrived, which I was okay with. Even after all of these years, I felt like if I saw Charles, I would end up acting like an idiot once again.


"Harry, you're a right moron." My dad grunted at me when I finished telling him what had happened when I met Charles. He wasn't happy to hear that the girlfriend my mother had told him so much about was married but he accepted it because I loved her. But now, he seemed so mad because of the way things had been handled. "What did you think was going to happen, son? Did you think he'd just be okay with what you said, go about his evening like it never happened?" My father snapped at me.
"NO! I just...I didn't think about it dad!" I snapped right back at him. He looked stunned. "He was there and I didn't like that he was anywhere near her! Up until I opened my mouth, he never gave a damn about her or what she was doing! He started it anyway! He didn't like that someone else even looked at her. So I told him what was really going on. I'm sorry that I handled it wrong. I shouldn't have said anything but he...he's an asshole!" I shouted. My mother frowned and sat forward on the sofa, like she was ready to get involved.
"Did you apologize to her? Maybe she'd rethink everything if you apologized for what happened." My father stated like it hadn't crossed my mind.
I glared at him, "I tried. She won't answer her phone. I've left I don't know how many messages." My mother took my hand only to have me rip it away like a child. I wanted to start crying then. When I would do that to Enola, she would jump on top of me and make me speak to her. She wouldn't leave me alone until I told her what was wrong. She thought my fits of anger were so cute and endearing but she also knew how to make me get over it quickly. "I'm going back to bed." I grumbled.
"Harry." My mother sounded so disappointed. I wanted to smile at her to make her feel better but I just couldn't. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. "It gets better, darling. I swear it gets better." She murmured to me before I could pull away from her.
"This won't." I replied sadly before stalking back to the bedroom.


"I think you're beautiful like your mummy." I whispered to Darcy noticing that she looked a bit sad. Darcy laughed and held my neck a bit tighter. I couldn't help but smile, her laugh was what pure happiness sounded like. I noticed that everyone was staring at me strangely. They had all heard what I had said to Darcy. It didn't matter how I felt about Enola. A fact was a fact: she was beautiful the day I met her. She was still the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. It was something that would never change.

Notes