Cleo Horan
Harry thought I wasn't noticing the way he was pretty much drooling at me instead of driving the small yacht we had rented for the day, but I was enjoying it a lot.
It was a beautiful sunny day in Capri and I'd been wanting to visit Italy for a while now, and the fact we were actually here was still a bit crazy to me. But well, we'd been traveling around Europe together for the past 2 months and reality hadn't crashed in.
Our first stop was London, so we could decide what our plan was going to be. We knew the FBI would be after us, especially after I burned down Eroda, knowing very well there were security cameras all around, especially in the parking lot, that could spot me there.
Even if Amber wanted to lie and say we died in the fire, she couldn't. The fact Amber was willing to help us at all was fucking surreal to me in the first place, but I was sure we had Zayn to thank for that.
He was way too kind even after we didn't tell him about our impulsive plan and of course he said 'I told you so'... and he had a point.
But if we hadn't done things our way then my mother and Desmond would be alive... girls would've been sold that night and dear Cindy would still be trying to kill us.
To be honest, I had thought about her a lot... and her plan was very fucking smart all along, but there were some loose ends that didn't make sense at
all.
Was she working alone? This seemed like a very elaborate plan just for her, especially since she also had to play her part as Desmond's arm candy on the side.
If I started overthinking about this I would spend hours considering that this wasn't actually over.
Whoever helped Cindy was still out there and I had no idea what that could mean. Harry and I already had a lot to stress about and I was doing my best to pretend things were all good around him.
He wasn't in a very good shape... he was having a lot of nightmares, always saying the same 'Gemma' name, but when I asked him about it he said he had no idea what that meant and he'd cut me off, because he hated talking about it.
He was feeling guilty because he'd lash out whenever I tried to wake him up from an episode, but we couldn't control trauma, especially if Harry kept trying to bottle it all up inside. He was going to end up exploding.
And trust me, I knew very well what that was like.
My feelings were still a bit off, that same numbness I felt when I found my brother dead was still stronger than anything else. And I wanted to keep feeling it because I wasn't ready to face everything that happened.
Niall, my mother, the trafficking... I wasn't strong enough. And I fucking hated myself for that.
Harry had no idea I was constantly having mental battles with myself about this and yes, I was being a hypocrite because I told him how important it
was to not be ashamed of talking about your trauma... and here I was: a fucking mess.
But I was getting very good at pretending and distracting, it became a habit. The thing is, humans get used to things too fast... and sometimes it becomes so normal that you get lost in the way and forget how it used to be.
I was happy to be with Harry, though. His company was the only good thing, actually. That's why I told him he should reach out to Zayn and properly talk to him about what happened after we left.
It wasn't fair to Harry to completely isolate ourselves and not let him call his best friend, and I actually liked Zayn.
I didn't have the same problem though, I had no one but Harry now.
