Toxic (Harry Styles)

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

You can't put love on a scale. Either you are or you aren't.

SHAY'S POV

I pushed the food around on its plate with the fork that was provided with it by Regina. It would make sense if I were hungry seeing as I haven't eaten all day and most of yesterday. Everything just seems unappealing to me as I wait, and I most likely won't be able to keep it down if I tried. Now it's nearing dusk but you could never tell with the dark sky looming over the city and the rain making it hard to see anything.

But Steven tries. He's been "standing guard" for the last few hours, ever since we arrived at the flat. As it started to pour down he stood in place and has barely moved except for the occasional pace, the glances at me─ which I don't return ─or the mutter of words.

I've never heard what he said, though. The past while has been hard for me to stay sane. My mind has ventured too many times to a place where dark nightmares and gory events happen. And they were all centred on one boy.

As these concepts formed unwittingly in the deepest part of my head, I would stare harsh at the wall, or out the window, and I almost come to the conclusion that I'm ADD. I would see everything that's around me, but I couldn't register what they did, or who said what. Sometimes I'd watch Regina move about the home, almost subconsciously, picking up miscellaneous things like knickknacks or papers and move them somewhere else. She's been down the hallway once or twice, but for no more than five minutes─ I'm afraid that if she'd stay down there for even longer she'd go missing too. But she always came back with a small smile for me, and it seemed compulsory. I could only guess she's trying to make me feel better. It didn't.

Regina went into the kitchen about forty-five minutes ago and came out with two plates of food and bottles of water for me and Steven. Neither of us have eaten.

I'll admit that my thoughts have turned to not so kind things that included hurting people myself. I've mainly thought about different ways to make Evan cringe and beg for forgiveness that he would never receive. I want to see him suffer like I am now, but tenfold. Make him feel what I've had to go through ever since he's turned everything upside down and then some. Make him pay for the pain he's put Harry, and Jess, and probably Regina in. We all live in constant fear now with Evan's omnipresent threat.

These are not thing a girl my age should be thinking.

Regina comes to sit beside me at the dining room table. I wouldn't have noticed if the floor didn't shake the chair I sit in with two uneven legs, making me wobble back and forth. I focus on my fingers too intently, picking at the fingernail as best I could without breaking the small, uniform nail.

"Are you okay?" Regina cuts to the chase. I've coming to know that she's not one to beat around the bush and whatnot. She's straight forward...and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

But am I okay?

No.

"Are you worried?" I ask her back, ignoring her previous question. Maybe if I don't answer it, I'll feel better. No, you won't.

Regina sighs, intertwining her hands on top of the table. "All the time," she answers sincerely. "Listen, Shay. If you're going to be with Harry for a long period of time you'll have to learn to live like this. You will have to live with worrying every day Harry goes out to work, or is in the field. On many days you wake up, he'll be gone. He may not call you all day, until he comes back that night. He could be gone for weeks at a time─ God knows it's happened before. But you'll live with it. You have to. We all have to or else we can't live properly if we're always scared."