Still Sleeping Next To Me

eleven

When Lennon wakes up, it's to the gentle sound of rain pattering against the glass. "Morning," she yawns, reaching out instinctively towards Harry. Always towards Harry.

Harry isn't there.

The space beside her has long since gone cold, but it wakes her up, spreads goosebumps on her skin. Lennon sits up, shifts out of bed with the comforter pulled across her shoulders to keep out the chill. The bathroom light is on.

"Well look who's finally awake," Harry mumbles when she peeks her head around the door.

That's the first thing that's wrong. More than the bottle clutched in his hand, half empty, amber liquid sloshing around. More than how small Harry looks sitting in the bathtub, buried in his sweater, his pale complexion washed out against the porcelain backdrop. It's enough to make Lennon's own heart stop, all of that.

But it's Harry's voice that gets to her. It's heavy and clumsy, going up at the end, almost guilty. Even when he presses his lips together, palms to his eyes, knees to his chin, he can't keep the trembling in. There's something in his voice that's unsure, something that Lennon catches onto.

"Yeah, I." Lennon blinks. Harry stares at her, bloodshot eyes narrowed while she stumbles into the bathroom and leaves the door cracked behind her. "I woke up and you weren't there."

"Can't sleep without me, then."

Lennon curls her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms where Harry can't see. It seems like such a private thing, to be talking about this, something she wants to keep hidden in the space in her chest where she doesn't have to talk about it. Something she's kept there for years.

"No," she forces out. "I can't. Not anymore."

Harry stares at Lennon. His sweater rests gentle on his collarbones and his sweat damp dark curls are matted to his forehead. There's determination in the tilt of his chin, how he meets Lennon's eyes and just stares. His eyes are sharp and pale green despite the sleepless smudges underneath.

"Well can't either," he says eventually.

Cry me a fucking river, Lennon wants to say, scream, in his face, you can't even fucking imagine. She wants to hurt him, wants to give Harry little cuts with her words. Wants him to know what if feels like waking up to an empty space instead of a person. "Please come back to bed," she says instead.

She loves him so much.

"No." Harry stands, stumbling as he climbs out of the bathtub. He's too skinny, too pale, stumbling too much. "I don't want to do that."

"It's okay," she says, and she backs up to the wall when Harry takes another step toward her.

"Why can't I sleep?" There's a pause, and Lennon hears a thousands things in it – why aren't you taking care of me, why can't I sleep, what have we done to each other, friends, friends friends – so many things that she can't tell what's Harry and what's in her own head. "Why?"

Lennon swallows hard. Harry's too close, lips too red and eyes too wide. He smells like smoke and spice heat. Like Harry. Like the same thing she's been smelling her entire life that makes her feel like home in a way that hotels, houses, and even beds could never manage.

Home seems stupid right now when it's five thousand miles away and Lennon feels like she can't breathe.

"God, you can't even talk around me, can you?" Harry's hand comes up and he rests it against one of her cheeks, his thumb catching on Lennon's lip. "I do this to you. I make you like this. You're not even breathing, God."