Anchor {h.s}

thirty-five

The first thing I saw was Harry, leaned in over the counter. My reflex was to quickly put my back against the wall so that he or Wendy wouldn't see me. Then I heard whispers, small incomprehensible words that I tried as hard as I could to decipher. Questions ran in my mind, all of them revolving around the fact that they were actually exchanging words, and not throwing knives. Curiosity got the best of me, so I leaned in as close as I could without getting caught, and listened.

"Look, I understand your point," I heard Harry say lowly. "But you have to believe me when I say that Emily means the world to me and that this is real. I'm done hurting her and I'm done playing her." I took in a sharp breath and my hand flew to my mouth to silence the sound.

"You've said that plenty of times before," Wendy replied through clenched teeth. "And yet I've heard her cry in her room more times than I can count. This is bullshit Harry, let her go for good, stop hurting her."

Jolts of pain ran through my veins. I hoped, with every fibber in my body, that he wasn't listening to her, that he didn't consider for a second doing what she was instructing, because there wasn't anything that I wanted less than that. I hadn't gone through all the shit we'd had, only to have him walk out on me because Wendy thought it would be best for me.

It still dazzled me that she still wouldn't support me in this. She knew how strong my feelings for Harry were, she knew that I needed him as much as he needed me, because although I had cried over him way too many times, never had I regretted to good moments. In fact, I valued them more than the bad ones, and that was something I had told her times and times again.

No matter how much Harry had hurt me in the past, when I decided to finally give him a chance, I also decided to leave it all behind us. I didn't want to have the bad memories dangling over us, I wanted us to get over it all and move on to better things. Obviously, I knew that there were things that still needed to be discussed, but I wouldn't let that stop us from moving forward.

I wanted to intervene; I wanted to scold Wendy for suggesting leaving me to Harry, because it angered me to hear her say those things behind my back, when she thought I couldn't hear. But before I could say anything, Harry did.

"Are you crazy?" His voice came out a little louder than before, clearly displaying that he was pissed as well. "After all these years of denying what I felt for her, after everything we've been through together, she still decided to give me a chance. No way that I'm going to waste that, on the sole basis that you think I should."

I closed my eyes, the anger and betrayal I felt toward Wendy slowly being replaced with love and admiration for the beautiful broken boy. Hearing him expressing his feelings out loud, feelings that he had indirectly said to me before sent a wave of relief through me. It was reassuring that he was defending us, because it meant that he wanted it enough to fight Wendy on this. He believed in us enough to hold on.

"Emily values your opinion, and we're already fighting against too many elements right now, I don't want to have to fight with you too," his tone was much softer now, almost pleading for her to agree with him. "I get that you want to protect her, but I need you to believe that I'm in this for real. I won't hurt her the way I have ever again. I will fuck up, she will get angry at me, but at the end of the day I will have tried my hardest to make it work and Em will know that and we'll work through everything together."

It was so hard to hold in the tears that wanted to fall from my eyes. I couldn't believe what he was saying. For once I didn't want to cry because he had hurt me, but because he was being so sweet. Saying words that sounded so foreign coming from him but at the same time, they sounded just right. This was exactly the kind of gesture I needed from him to believe all these words he had said to me, all these promises he had made.