Enticing (Harry Styles AU) #Wattys2016

Chapter 16

Ryder's POV

After explaining the depth of my adoration of Romeo and Juliet to Harry on the phone last night, along with why I chose photography to be part of my major, I noticed that we both have similar thoughts.

We both agree that Romeo and Juliet is the most beautiful yet tragic love story ever told, which is what everyone else in the world also thinks; along with the idea that it's also the most cliché. However, Harry and I don't see it that way.

Others see that Romeo is just a boy with raging hormones that fell in love with a beautiful girl until he saw a better looking one. What Harry and I think is different. We look past all of that, we see the pain and running they had to deal with by the hatred between two families. We see that they wanted their love to be as real as anyone else's despite only knowing each other for a brief time because that is what love is. Love is fighting against everything, sacrificing things for one another no matter the odds.

I twirl my pen in my hand, gazing down at my textbook with Harry sitting across from me at the wooden table in the large, quiet campus library. My eyes move upward fixating on Harry, who was scowling in concentration flipping through a textbook.

"Hey, Harry?" I mutter.

"Hmm." He hums in reply, flicking his green eyes up to me.

"When we were talking last night," I began. "You spoke as if you knew what it's like." I pause. "Have you ever been so in love with someone that you had to run?"

Harry's face falls a little, his eyes moving down to the table and it makes me realize that I have overstepped but he relieves my anxiety by speaking.

"Um, no. Not technically." He says shaking his head. "It just didn't...end well."

Harry's POV

"But it's been a few years so," I shrug. "I'm over it." I lie, giving her a small smile.

"No you're not." She says shaking her head. I frown, removing my gaze from the textbook in my hand.

"Why do you say that?" I ask, perplexed.

"Because I can tell, when you spoke it's like you were trailing off somewhere."

"I just don't like rehashing the subject." I shrug. Ryder narrows her eyes at me.

"Don't blame yourself for it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't your fault."

"How can you say that? You don't know me." I say, sounding a bit defensive and I think my sudden change in tone might make her sink back in her chair and close the subject but I'm proven wrong.

"I may not know every detail about you but I can tell you're not a bad man." She shakes her head. "You're just a man that has had bad things happen to."

I blink at her.

Suddenly, it's like her soft warm brown eyes can see right through me. It's like Ryder can see every secret that I have tried so hard to conceal and strangely it doesn't scare me like it should. But the fact that it doesn't worry me...does scare me.

"Right, well, I'm going to go look for another textbook." I mutter closing the one that I was reading setting it aside before standing up from my chair. "I'll be right back."

Ryder's POV

I bite my lower lip, seeing Harry turning around walking away from me before stepping into an isle of book shelves.

Great Ryder, now you made him upset.

My determination to go and apologize to Harry was quickly put to the side when my eyes shifted to the entrance of the library seeing Evan striding in wearing his usual dark attire.