Saving Styles

Parents & Trees

Harry's POV

I laid awake, staring at the ceiling as Hannah slept on my chest. I ran my fingers absentmindedly up and down her arm, feeling her soft skin on my fingertips as I thought about everything that happened the night before.

There were a million things she still didn't know, what happened with Griff probably being the biggest one, but I had told her things I'd never told anyone. Things I'd never actually said out lout before. Gemma had asked me a million times what had happened that day with our Mom, and I'd never told her. Mainly because I didn't want her to have the details, the images in her head, although I knew the social workers had told her as many details as they had. Nobody would ever have the details I did though, the sound it made, the smells, the look on her face as she laid there.

But for some reason, it just came out. It all came out in my attempt to push Hannah to the point of leaving, to make her realize just how fucked up I was and how far she needed to run. Originally, I had been upset that she knew about Tollenworth when I had worked hard to keep it from her, to protect her from the knowledge that a place like that exists, to find out she'd found out anyways enraged me. All of my attempts to protect her and her innocence had failed, but it was that failure that opened my eyes to something that I obviously needed to learn. Hannah was innocent, she believed in the good in people, but in no way did that make her naive or weak. She was in no way incapable of standing tall in the face of my pain, even though it was obvious to me that it was killing her. She was strong, stoic even, as I fell apart. I was terrified I'd lose that look, the one in her eyes when she looked at me and saw good in me, and I couldn't even look at her.

I don't even know why I started listing it all off, explaining everything or trying to push her. I have no idea what came over me, but it all poured out of me like a fountain as she stood in front of me. I gave her more and more information, each detail more horrifying than the last, waiting for her to burst in to tears and run away, but she didn't. If anything, she moved towards me, and it had confused me more than anything in my entire life.

I was telling her about the demons inside me, the monster that I worked every day to suppress, the anger that boiled inside deep within me. I told her about the scars inside of me that would never heal, why I was incapable of loving her the way she deserved, and the only thing she had to say about it was that she loved me.

I hadn't heard that from many people in my life. My sister was the only person who had ever consistently said that to me when I knew she meant it. We lived with my grandmother for six months after my mom died, and she would say it every night before bed. She'd dance with us in the living room to Frank Sinatra and make us snacks for after school, it was much like what I imagined Hannah's childhood to be like. She was a wonderful woman, who did her best to make up for my parents shortcomings, but I was already too fucked up by then and she died shortly after we got there. I've wondered many times in my life how different my life would have been if she had raised me, what kind of person I would be, but I'd never know.

I'd always been someone who expressed my feelings through actions, since I could never say them out loud. The only people I loved in my life were Gemma and the boys. I'd done my best to protect Gemma my whole life, looking out for her and comforting her whenever I could, trying my best to let her know how much she meant to me. The boys and I had all saved each others lives on numerous occasions, taking beatings for each other or jumping in on a fight when necessary. We'd proved our loyalty through our immense protection of each other in life and death situations, and I knew without a doubt that any one of them would take a bullet for me, just like I would for them. The odd time one of them could tell me they loved me, but it wasn't often and I sure couldn't say it back. I just hoped they knew I did, and I think they do.