Matilda | Harry Styles

FORTY-TWO

I let the words linger between us, running my hand over my own arm in an attempt to keep my breathing steady. I pressed my lips together, swallowing. 

I knew Harry's mind would already be racing to connect any minor tidbits I'd dropped over the previous months, and to match them with the sentence I'd just said. He knew my father was dead - he knew I didn't want to be a lawyer; it threw me to know that he'd figured out the latter within mere moments of knowing me. That should've been my first clue that he was different.

"I told you I was too young to remember him," I said, then, unable to mask my sadness as I recalled one of the several lies I'd told him. "That wasn't true..." I trailed off, biting my lip.

The room still felt like it was spinning, but Harry's patient eyes kept everything still. I'd started, now, and I had to keep going. I could hear the tremble slowly evaporate from my own voice as I talked more, as I managed to revert back to how I always harboured these things; without so much emotion, but merely for what it was. I carried it as facts, and burdens - but I didn't let myself break down at the thought of them, every time - that was what I needed, now. To hold myself together, for the sake of saying this properly. I needed to be blunt.

I cleared my throat, trying to steady my voice, "He wanted me to be a lawyer, too. He'd practically drilled it in my head from the moment I could talk," I said, pausing to bring my lip between my teeth. I felt sick. "Then, one day, he told me it was useless, because I'd never be able to be one. Because I was too stupid, and too irredeemable."

Harry almost flinched at my words. I watched his lips part, before he quickly firmed his expression to a blank one, again. It was like he was trying not to startle me by showing too much emotion of his own - he was letting me have the floor; he was giving me space, here.

I drew my eyes from him, wondering if it would be easier to spit the words out if I didn't have to look the one person who appeared to be aching to help me, in the eye. I chose to face my own lap, instead, where my hands were nervously shaking, my fingers interlocked.

I closed my eyes, knowing I'd said the easy part, now. Now was the hard part. Now was the part that would have Harry staring at me like I was his favourite painting, now with a gash through the front of it. I'd be ruined in his eyes, surely. I'd run out of performance, and pretence - I'd run out of lines to say, with this character who had never been so brutally hurt before. It was me, left, now - it was just me.

"I can't tell you the first time that he hurt me," I said, suddenly, blurting the words out, "because I don't think I can really remember a time where he wasn't... hurting me..." I trailed off, swallowing thickly. Just say it.

"I think the first time I remember would be when I was four... maybe five," I continued, my eyes still fixed on my lap. "I was playing with my sister too loudly, and so he threw me against the stairs."

I knew my sentences were harsh, but now, I finally felt numb again. I'd clicked back into the habits I'd spent years teaching myself - and arguably doing the opposite of perfecting - and my entire body felt numb - like this wasn't mine. If I could disassociate, then I could get through this. I knew I needed to feel it to properly deal with it, but for the sole sake of getting the words out - I had to separate myself from it. It was only when I finally looked back up at Harry, that it stirred me from the façade my body had been aching to click back into, and I realised I couldn't be numb, in his presence. I felt far too much for him, and for everything we stood for - there couldn't be a numbness with somebody who made my body feel like it could float with butterflies. I had to feel this; every step of the way. My old habits couldn't co-exist with who I was, with him. That was why we'd found ourselves at this crossroads, in the first place.