Cherry Weekends

Chapter 15

No trigger warnings for this part :)

"So, you spent the whole holiday with Harry and his family," Niall couldn't help the knowing look upon his face and Harry rolled his eyes, all too familiar with the implications.

Nicole on the other hand was confused and a bit upset, for she knew the look as well, but she couldn't tell if it was regarding the story of what had happened in the past or if he could possibly see something between the two people sitting before him now. If he did, what did that mean for the two of them? And why was she not more upset about the possibility?

"My family loves Nic and everyone was really happy to see her. In fact, my mom got mad at me for not bringing her over on Thanksgiving."

"I'm sure she did."

"She did," Harry defended. "Look, I didn't want her to be alone," he practically shouted. "It was Christmas, and she didn't have any family," he mumbled quietly and peaked over to see that Nicole wasn't listening to them but lost in thought.

"True," Niall began to speak but Harry's look cut him off. He nodded his head toward Nicole and hoped that Niall could figure her out the way he could. Niall looked over and noticed Nicole's state, immediately assuming she was upset over the mentioning of her lack of family and Harry shook his head fearing that he really had ruined their relationship.

Harry was picking at his food and staring at the pouring rain out the windows of the lunchroom. He sighed as he dropped his fork upon his tray and ran his hands through his hair, already annoyed with the day and unsure why. All morning he had been dragging his feet and something had felt off, but he couldn't place his finger on what it could be. All he knew for sure is that, for some reason, he was dying to see Nicole.

He closed his eyes and attempted to shake away the crazy thoughts as Jimmy sat down next to him with two slices of blueberry pie covered in ice cream. "You haven't touched your food," he commented as he began eagerly digging into his desserts.

Harry sighed again, "Today sucks Jim."

"Umm, alright... anything to do with that English test you had this morning?"

"No," he groaned. "She canceled class actually. I guess she got pretty sick last night. Good thing too cause I wouldn't've even gotten the date right," Harry mumbled as he picked his fork back up and began poking his food once more.

"23rd," Jimmy informed him.

Harry's eyes went wide, the fork dropped from his hand, and he instantly swung to the side to face Jimmy, "What?"

Jimmy eyed him carefully, filled with confusion over his strange reaction. "It's the 23rd," he repeated slowly, unsure why this information warranted such a reaction.

"Of April," Niall spoke knowingly for what he felt was the first time that day.

Nicole's eyes widened and her jaw dropped, "How...?" but her eyes were upon Harry in an instant, questioning the boy who searched his memories as though they were spread across the table in front of him.

Niall eyed Harry carefully, "The first April you were at the frat house was probably a year after this, right?" Harry nodded slowly but that hadn't been a good time in his life, he had been drinking quite excessively back then and a lot of that first year at Wellingham was nothing more than a blur. "You had always been rowdy and drank a lot but that April 23rd, I honestly thought you were trying to kill yourself. You started drinking the night before and lost your phone in the shuffle of one of the parties. You wouldn't stop," Niall shook his head and Nicole could see how much even the memory was shaking him. "You tore apart the frat looking for it and kept screaming at everyone that it was the 23rd and that you needed your phone. None of us were sure why," Niall met Nicole's eyes and she could see how upset he was over Harry's state back then. "I finally asked Deveron if he could trace it, he was going for IT and was really good with computers," Niall explained to Nicole. "I don't know how, but you managed to get it on the roof of the sorority up the street," Niall almost chuckled but was still downcast. "It took us forever to get it down and when we did, I brought it back to you."