Whatever Chains (Sequel to Where Your Heart is - A Harry Styles fanfiction)

Part Twenty-Tree: May have f*#%~^ up a little.

He made the connection. And I can't believe how naive I was thinking that he wouldn't.

I could play dumb; pretend that I have no idea what he's talking about, and that would maybe buy me some time to find my way out of this.

But I can't do that. I can't insult his intelligence any more that I already did. Not if I don't want to piss him off any further.

And he is pissed, alright. Pissed and sad and disappointed, all wrapped up in one hell of a ticking bomb. I can see it in his eyes, I can feel it in the air and I can definitely notice it in his body.

"Harry, please, listen to me."

His arms are still up in the air, urging me not to get any closer. And I don't. Not out of fear that he might hurt me because he would never do that, but out of pure respect for his wishes.

"He called me a manwhore, Lea!" He blurts, clearly disregarding my previous petition. "And he treated you like a child who doesn't know any better while he was as it."

He is furious and hurt. And I know that there won't be any getting through to him. Not until he gets it all out, at least.

"I know." I say shortly, holding his gaze not in defiance, but to prove to him that I am not going to refute anything he says from now on.

"He was a world class asshole. He made me punch him, which I had never done before and to make things worse, he made me like it!" He continues, and his voice seems to raise and crack with each word he articulates. "He insulted me, he disrespected you, and dared to belitte what we had like it was nothing but a whim; fleeting and superficial."

The detail of him using the past tense doesn't go unnoticed by me, but then again, I'm sure that it wasn't supposed to. And that is when I really start to panic.

"I know." I repeat, begging myself not to lose control.

"Do you?" He asks me rhetorically, and he continues: "Because even after that, when I was desperately trying to find you, to get at least a sign that you had not been erased from the face of the earth, he knew... He got the chance to know where you were, to contact you. And what did I get? Absolutely nothing!"

I can feel him slipping through my fingers. I can feel his love for me draining out of his body, and being replace by the most bitter, impenetrable resentment.

"I thought we were passed all this, Harry." I desperately say, moving towards him, despite the fact that he doesn't want me to. "Can we please be passed it? I love you."

My hands reach for his face, cradling with enough strength to force him into looking at me. Tears are welling up in his eyes, although they seem to be tears of anger; and I can feel the itch of my own.

"I love you." I repeat, as though I am trying to carve those words into his brain. "He doesn't mean anything to me, Harry. I haven't seen him, I haven't talked to him, I haven't even thought about him since I left school. I love you."

His face is contorted into a grimace of pain, and the war waging inside of him is evident. His love for me is desperately trying to find its way back through all the rage and disappointment, but it is failing painfully.

"You told me you were running away from that life, from that world; I understood that and I let it go." He says, pulling my hands away from him and taking a few steps back, as if what I just said to him didn't mean anything. "But it seems to me now that I'm the only one you were running from. I am the the only one you left behind."

From the tip of my toes and all the way up to my scalp, my whole body is tingling in high alarm.

I am losing him. And I don't know what to do.

"But I came back, didn't I." My voice cracks, and I don't give a damn. "I'm here, we are here."

He lets out the saddest, most heartbreaking laugh; filled with irony and disdain.

"But that's the thing, you see? You didn't come back. I found you." His voice sounds calmer and more restrained. "So let me ask you this; what would have happened if I hadn't been there that night? Would you eventually have tried to contact me? Would you have tried to make things right?"

I stare at him in shock; my brain feels like it is screaming at me to say something. To tell him that I was going to do all of those things.

But I don't know if that's even true. I went on a date with another guy less than a week before he showed up, for crying out loud. I was moving on, or at least making a pathetic attempt to do so.

"Yeah... I didn't think so." He scoffs bitterly, walking around the coffee table and making sure to avoid both physical and eye contact with me.

I watch him grab the bag I never noticed was lying on the floor by the front door, and hanging it across his shoulders with a slow, defeated movement, he turns around to look at me.

Why can't I open my mouth? Why is my body so still and unresponsive? I am literally watching him leave and not a single muscle in my body seems to be able to respond to any of my brain's commands.

*****

"What did you do this time?"

Louis is handing me a bottle of beer after I refused the tea he offered me, and I take it.

I suppose I could come up with a bitchy comeback to his assumption, but then again, he did got it right.

It's been almost a week since Harry left, and after countless unanswered texts and phone calls, I finally got the idea of tracking him through the only person I could reach.

I must have looked insane when I practically demanded that little kid to summon his brother to the school, but at that point, I was definitely at the end of my wits so I didn't really care one bit.

I take a generous gulp at the cold liquid, letting it soak my dry mouth, and I hang my head backwards letting out a long sigh.

"I was a total idiot, for a change." I say lamely, and he drops heavily next to me. "And I need your help."

I don't want to look him in the eyes. I am too embarrassed as it is. But other than the remark he just made, he has been really nice and welcoming towards me.

"I honestly don't know where he is." He tells me, and I have no reason to believe he's lying to me. "But since I was the matchmaker, slash mediator, slash savior of this relationship once, I don't see why I can't do it again."