Rewind

Chapter 17

Addalie’s POV

 We walked into “Pedal Car Café” and took a seat in a booth towards the back. When Harry slid into the booth first I decided to sit across from him rather than right next to him. My mind and my heart were still battling on what was right and what was wrong in this situation. Blair sat next to me, and Niall next to Harry.

 All throughout dinner I fought not to stare at him. We made eye contact a couple of times but it was too awkward. Every time I looked at him, I only saw his eyes and the way they looked when I was so close to kissing him. When the thought would come to mind I could feel my cheeks get hot. I took a drink of my water and tried to cool myself down.

 Even though it was pretty awkward, we had a great time. We were all laughing and really enjoying ourselves. It had been a long time since I’d had a night out with friends. Everything was Logan, Logan, Logan, all the time. The more I thought on it, the more I realized that Logan did push away my friendships. Whenever I made plans with someone he’d make plans for us, and I realized what a jerk I had been to always choose Logan. Eventually my friends stopped asking me and I lost them completely. But tonight, I felt like that 16 year-old girl who would hang out at the lake on Friday nights with her friends and eat junk food with Carter and just have fun. I used to be so carefree, but that changed a lot my senior year.

When we finished our food Niall spotted the jukebox in the corner of the room. “Come on Blair, let’s go pick a song.” The two of them got up and headed towards the old-fashioned music box.

“Have you had a nice time tonight Addalie?” Those green eyes met with mine.

 “Yeah, I really have. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun with friends.” I replied.

 His eyebrows furrowed and he frowned slightly. “Your friends aren’t fun?” He asked.

 “It’s not that my friends aren’t fun, it’s that I don’t really have any friends.”

 “What? You don’t have friends? Well what about Blair?” He asked gesturing towards her with his thumb over his shoulder.

 “I didn’t really know Blair until today. We’d gone to school together but I’d never really talked to her.”

 “Really? You guys seem like really close friends.”

 “Yeah we get along really well, and we hit it off really fast. She’s such a sweet girl though, it’s hard not to like her.”

 He nodded. “I just can’t believe that you of all people don’t have friends.”

 “Well Logan pretty much controls my life.” I blurted without thinking. That sounded terrible.

 Harry frowned again. “Why’s that?”

 I didn’t mean to have this conversation. This was a very bad idea.

 I shrugged trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal, but I could tell that he saw right through my lie.

 “Addalie, I hope you don’t ever let anyone control your life to the point where you’re unhappy. You deserve to do what you enjoy, and be with whoever you want to be with.”

While he was speaking I had my elbows on the table and my fingers were messing with a straw wrapper. My eyes were focused on the wrapper, not really wanting to look him in the eyes, because I knew that I’d either spill everything or break down crying if I looked at him.

 He noticed that I was trying to avoid him, and he reached across the table and gently placed his hand over mine.

 “I’m sorry if I’m being to forward Addalie, but even though I’ve only known you for a day, I care about you. I hope you know that.”

 My eyes met his and I believed every word he said. I trusted him. I cared about him too. I never wanted this moment to end. It was as if everything around us had frozen and there was no one else around. He removed his hand from mine and I slightly re-entered reality.

 I sat forward and leaned onto my elbows. “Harry can I trust you with something? It’s been bugging me all day and I don’t know what to do.”

 I had no idea what I was doing.

 He nodded and leaned onto his elbows too. “Of course.”

 “Okay, well yesterday Logan took me on a date out to an old barn and he set it all up really nice and we had dinner and talked and then fell asleep. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I guess we stayed out to late and I was really tired. Anyway, when I woke up this morning Logan was still asleep. He was murmuring weird stuff and then I heard him say ‘Mailee stay.’ Mailee’s a girl that went to school with us. She’s a total slut and…wow that sounded really mean. But it’s kinda true. She gets around if you know what I mean.” 

 Harry nodded again, and all of his attention was on me. He was listening to me, and really hearing me. I kept talking.

 “Well I got really scared about why he would say something like that and so I grabbed my stuff and left. It’s been bothering me all day. I’m really scared and I don’t know what to do. I never thought Logan would cheat on me but it seems like that’s what might be happening. Why else would he be asking Mailee to stay with him in his sleep?”

 I didn’t realize I was crying until Harry gently touched my cheek and wiped away a tear. “Don’t cry.” He whispered.

 I gratefully accepted his comforting touch and took a deep breath.

 His hand remained on my cheek and he brought his other hand to hold the other side of my face, forcing me to look at him. When I looked in his eyes I saw hurt and anger. However, I knew they weren’t pointed towards me.

 “Addalie, if Logan is cheating on you, he’s an idiot, and he doesn’t deserve you. If he’s been with this other girl, I will personally beat his face in for you, although for some reason I believe you’d enjoy doing that yourself. I would do anything to take away this hurt that you’re feeling. You shouldn’t have to be worrying about this. He shouldn’t ever make you feel this way.”

 I felt more tears coming, but these tears weren’t from sadness, they were from pure happiness that someone cared about me so much. I accidentally let one fall down my cheek, but Harry used his thumb to wipe it away.

 “If you want me to do something, if there’s something I can do to help fix this, I swear I’ll do it.” His eyes were completely honest, and I knew he would.

 He seemed so different in this moment. All day he had been friendly and sweet and charming, but now he was angry, caring, and passionate. I liked this side of him as much as I did the other.

 “Thank you Harry. It means a lot to me.”

 His thumb ran over my cheek once more before he removed his warm touch.

 “But I need to work this out on my own. I have to talk to Logan about it, I just really don’t want to.”

 He nodded. “I understand what you’re feeling, I really do.” He looked down at his hands and then looked back at me. “I’ll be here for you if you need anything.”

 I smiled and thanked him once more.

When I looked up I saw Blair and Niall approaching the table again. I quickly wiped my face to be sure and erase all the traces of tears on my cheeks. Before they got to the table, Harry looked to me and said,

 “Our little secret.”

 I quietly thanked him for reading my mind.

(So I was going to update last night until my wifi shut off. But anyways here ya go, I'll either update again tonight or tomorrow afternoon! Thanks for those of you who have left me nice comments on Instagram! I love you all! xoxo )