A Crazy Thing Called Love (Harry Sytles Fanfic.)

17

"You look terrified."

Harry

I watch Carmen step away from me and walk around the small room. The walls are dark grey and it makes her blonde hair stand out even more. Her fingers graze one of the shelves on my bookcase, which is full of books, pictures, and other random shit that I don't even know what to do with. She takes out one book and flips open the cover, and before I can tell her what it is she's putting it back. She takes a brief glance at my desk and moves onto the next wall, which holds my guitars. She looks at me with raised eyebrows and I just shrug, taking a bite of my pizza. She gently strums one of them and then moves on, sitting on the bed along to wall in front of me. She lays on her back, her head on my pillow. I just have the one. Her bed, however, has like eight million decorative pillows. It's comfortable, I'll admit, but it's unnecessary.

"Please make yourself comfortable. It's not like we have studying to do," I tease. I go to my desk and dig through the drawers to try to find my stats textbook. I tried selling them sometimes, but I never really cared enough.

"Please. You do this every time you come to my house."

"Okay, that's true. But still." I pull out the textbook and try to calm myself at the sight of her laying on my bed, her hair sprawled out on my pillow. I didn't think her just being in my room would turn me on, but apparently I was wrong.

"I don't really want to study," she says, sitting up against the wall. "Can't we just do something else?"

I can think of a few things. "You don't want to fail, though."

"I don't think I'll fail. I'll get the k-test thing wrong and pass the rest." She shrugs and I laugh. "What?"

"It's the z-test." I bring my book to the bed and sit next to her against the wall. "And isn't it kind of important to get good grades? I think someone told me that once."

"All my Dad said before he left was not to skip class and to eat lots of leafy greens," she says. She looks at me and laughs at my confusion. "I don't know."

"Speaking of that, can I ask you something?" She nods and I toss the book to the end of the bed past my feet. "Why doesn't Liam know about your Dad?"

"You mean that I have one?" I nudge her leg with mine and she laughs a little, slouching down against the wall. "I don't know, I just never told him."

"Why? You guys are pretty close."

"Yeah..there's just stuff I don't like to talk about." She picks at her nails nonchalantly, but I can tell that she doesn't feel comfortable talking about this either.

"Carmen." I nudge her elbow with mine and she looks up at me. "Liam is your best friend. Why not tell him?"

"I just..." she sighs and sits up with her legs criss-crossed so she's facing me. "My dad is like all I have, you know? He's just mine and I like that. Liam has met him a few times, but I didn't want them to spend time together. I don't want anyone in that part of my life and when he came this time I didn't really want to tell Liam."

"I get that. He's not around and you want his attention. But why not tell Liam he's in the army?" Secretly I'm ecstatic that she didn't really answer my question because she said she doesn't want anyone spending time with him. But she let me spend time with them. Not Liam, me.

"I didn't tell him the first time and after that it just felt weird to mention randomly. Like by the way, my Dad is in the military. Plus, he's Liam, you know?"

"I don't follow," I say, shaking my head. "Liam is..."

"He worries. He fixes people. He likes to take care of people." She tucks her hair behind her ears and lets out a frustrated sigh. "He tries to do it with me and sometimes I love him for it, but sometimes I just want to slap him and tell him to be my friend and not my parent, you know? If he knew my Dad was across the world fighting in a war he'd worry all the time and he'd always be asking me if I'm okay or if I need anything."