redemption: harry styles

Chapter Sixty One

It was 2010, and a sixteen year old boy was standing by a bus stop alone. His hair was damp from the rain that poured down upon his football team as they fought to win. He smiled at the memory of assisting his last minute goal.

He heard footsteps getting louder and turned to find three teenage boys who were all unhealthily skinny. The tallest one stepped forward. He had hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, his hands were big and bony and he had a hood covering his forehead.

"You," he said. "Got any joints?"

"What?" the boy murmured, his brows burrowing.

"Cigs," another said.

"No, sorry," young Harry Styles said and turned his gaze back down the road, hoping his ride home would arrive soon.

The three boys approached him silently, their hands in their pockets.

"Money?" the third one asked quietly.

"No," Harry said, annoyed. Clearly; the other boys noticed.

"If you can afford a taxi ride, 'think you can afford a pack of smokes," the third one sneered.

Harry said nothing.

"Just hand us some fucking money or something," the tall one said calmly and grabbed the backpack on Harry's back in attempt to search for loose change. Harry jerked back and shoved the stranger onto the dirty ground.

"Fuck off," he snarled just before one of the boys ripped the bag off of him and the other grabbed his arms. The boy tossed the bag to the side and helped his friend hold Harry against the glass wall of the bus stop. Harry grunted as the glass cracked beneath his head and stopped fighting as dark circles began to eat the edges of his eyesight, like mold.

The tall boy pushed himself off of the ground and raised his arms, showing his soaking sleeves and shook off a bit of the water.

"You asked for it," he said, pointing, and rammed his fist into Harry's stomach.

It was 2014, and a twenty year old man was standing against a brick wall in the rain. His leg bounced in impatience, his jaw locked. His friend stood by him, his eyes sweeping across the road.

"That one," Harry Styles whispered as a drunk body moved towards them. His friend whipped his head to watch a young man stumble passed them.

"Why?" Louis asked, his eyes still on the man.

Harry pursed his lips. "Nobody will care if he died tonight," he said, then trailed behind the clearly stoned man who just exited the bar.

In ten minutes, Harry, Louis, and Liam, who had recently appeared from his hiding spot, were all watching a body squirm in the air. The drunk man who had pleaded for his life and resisted the suicide request now hung from the ceiling in the abandoned school. His body twitched once more, then stopped moving completely, his face in a frozen snarl. Harry motioned to the wall, and Liam grabbed the spray can from his pants' deep pocket. He wrote on the wall May God forgive my sins.

"Harry Styles commits suicide," Louis said. "Genius." And then they left, because their job was done.

-

Harry was to pick me up at three, and it was almost one. I couldn't sleep after lying in bed for two hours--maybe it was the adrenaline that I might actually be considered a criminal; I did take somebody's life, and saw others die in front of my eyes but did nothing but fall in love with the man who caused it. So I took my duvet and pillow downstairs and decided to watch television until I fell asleep on the couch.