earned it [h.s.]

15. (*)

TW: mentions of physical and emotional abuse.

Genevieve.

Gen.

I couldn't remember the last time someone called me that.

The only people who knew my real name were my parents and Ezra, and he knew I preferred being called Sloane. Ezra, with his huge heart, of course did whatever I asked him to make me feel more comfortable.

We were sitting in the booth again at the bar, on my second glass of wine as Harry had just ordered his third. We had been here for hours, sharing a few bar bites along the way. I was still seated between him and Jeff, my legs continuously falling into his underneath the table.

My skin had been on fire ever since our chat outside.

Running into Harry as I was doing my grocery shopping in Whitechapel, was not something I ever thought could happen. I had the day off today after dancing at Lotus last night, and I had slept in and lazed around. I felt good after my night at Lotus and my confidence was at a high. Overall, I enjoyed Monday with Harry and then my working evening. I was in a good place. So with a skirt and Doctor Martens on, I quickly walked up to the small grocery store around the corner to pick myself some dinner. Old Beyoncé-music was blasting in my ears as I didn't have a care in the world.

I didn't expect to see Harry there all of a sudden, towering over me to reach for the packet of biscuits I was still too short for, despite my platform biker boots.

And then his friend looked so confused as to who I was so I decided to bite the bullet and tell him my name. My real name. Dropping the act. I wasn't Sloane in that grocery store, I looked nothing like her. Yet Harry looked like I was the only woman he had ever seen and it made me burn completely.

His invitation to the bar sounded genuine and I had such a good feeling around him, especially after being in his office together on Monday. It felt like we bonded, like we could actually be friends or acquaintances in real life. I knew, in a normal world, that Harry and I would never run in the same circles. We wouldn't ever have met if it wasn't for Blair, and we'd have never ran into one another. We lived different lives in different worlds, but Mrs. Hilton kind of brought us together.

If she still made him happy, he wouldn't even give me a second glance. Not even on a good day.

But he wasn't happy. So he was giving me glances. A lot.

So I accepted their invite to have a drink with them. I accepted way quicker than I had ever done before. I was an anxious loner who didn't do well with social contact unless I could be just what they needed me to be. I could play into that character, morph myself into whatever perfect version of me they craved, and I thrived on it.

Being myself was not something I was good at, yet I couldn't wait to be myself with him.

Harry's truths out on the street, whispered near directly in my ear, had done things to me that I couldn't explain. I felt like I was about to faint when he admitted to thinking of me a lot, to thinking I was pretty even in my regular clothes. As Genevieve, not Sloane.

As Gen.

Ever since he told me to just be myself, I had been kind of figuring out what he meant by it. Because I had no clue. All my life, people had told me how I was supposed to feel. And with 'people' I meant my parents. There wasn't really any room for exploration or interpretation. It was one truth, God's truth, and that was that.

So when I did things that didn't necessarily follow God's truth, when I dipped one toe out of line, each of my parents had their way to pull me back into the line. In line behind them. Shielded. Protected as they called it, but sadly enough there was no one there to protect me from them.