Karma ||H.S||

Chapter 51

—Paisley—

I'm not fully aware of anything right now, waking up from the sleep I desperately needed. I'm unsure if Harry being here is actually real or if my dreams are playing tricks on me. I want it to be real—I think? I think that's what I want. I'm not sure. He hands me a glass of water after we don't say anything more than hi to each other and silence has fallen between us. There's a comfortable aura around the room that makes me believe it's just a dream, but as I take a drink of the cold water, feeling it cool my insides, it wakes me enough to realize that this is in fact real, and I'm definitely not dreaming.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, panic setting in. Harry is here. For real. He can't see me like this. He can't see I'm in the hospital, attached to machines. He can't know that I've just attempted suicide and failed once again. This isn't how it's supposed to be. I can all of a sudden feel that all the truth in life I so badly wanted to hide, somehow escaped without my knowledge and here I am with Harry, who is looking at me like he's seeing me for the first time. I want to run away. To hide from the fact my reality is in clear view, making me feel like I'm in the spotlight, but all I can do is sit up in the spot I'm in. Stuck in this bed. "How did you know I was here? Why are you here? Oh my God, my Dad told you, didn't he?"

Now that I think about it, I don't have a clue as to how Dad knew I was here in the first place, or how I even got here. I wish I hadn't been feeling the affects from the pills I took so I could've known to ask such questions while Dad was here with me, before Harry mysteriously showed up. But I was too busy throwing up the rest of the pills, unable to think of anything other than how much my stomach hurt.

"Calm down," Harry says, putting his hand on mind. His thumb gently caresses my skin and he keeps his concerned gaze on me. He lets out a sigh, his breath coming out shaky, making me realize he is just as nervous as I am right now. "I'm the one who called your Dad, Paise," he finally says, looking away from me.

I can feel my insides stiffen. If he called Dad, he's the one who—oh my God.

"I came to see you, to apologize for everything. There were so many things that I wanted to say to you," he continues. His hand tightens around mine as tears start to well up in his eyes. "I found you in your dorm room. I've never been so scared in my life—I thought I lost you."

His words start to come out muffled in my head as he tells me what happened. It astounds me that after everything, Harry is essentially the reason I'm still here. "I didn't want to be saved, Harry. That's why I came back to school. You should have stayed at home. I don't understand why you were even there to begin with. After all, I don't mean anything to you."

 I start to become more aware of everything. The remembrance of it all coming back to me and hitting me hard, making my insides turn and I want to throw up again.

"You do though," he says, urgently. "I never should have let you leave. I never should have said those things to you, because you mean everything to me."

"I can't do this right now, Harry," I tell him. "One minute you're here and the next you're there, and I can't do this back and forth with you." I take my hand out of his, clasping my own together so that he can't try to hold my hand again. I can't deal with this right now.

"I know about Ryan," he breathes out. My eyes lock with his, and it takes me a second to understand what he has just said to me. "I saw a story on the news, and I put two and two together when their pictures showed up on my tv. Those guys—I recognized them from the day they beat the crap out of me, and when they mentioned Ryan—"

"Stop," I force out. "Don't think for one second you have a clue what I've been through. Is that why you're here? You figured out something horrible happened to me, and you all of a sudden feel bad for everything? I don't need your pity, Harry. Please leave."