London

11 - "I love you the most."

Alex

He looks a bit scary from down the bed in the way he hovers over me. It's been awhile since I've seen him angry with me. For some reason it makes me smile, but that pisses him off even more.

"Don't you laugh at me! I'm serious. You are such a little bitch, telling them my plans when I just warned you what a pitbull she is. She'll want to help, make it big, a franchise or something."

"Little bitch?" I repeat sitting up straight. "She was clearly aiming at me because she thinks tattooing is beneath you. I only said it to prove her wrong! To stick up for you."

"Don't make me laugh," he spits, "from the moment you stepped foot inside you made it your goal to have her on your side. You don't understand."

"Clearly I don't. I thought I did alright! For fuck's sake Harry, I did my best for them to like me. Or am I just a trophy just like the other girls you brought to meet them? Do I have to piss them off, get drunk or start crying because this time of year sucks?"

"Don't make this about that! You know it isn't like that, but you could have made it a little less obvious that you want them to like you. You lied about your drinking and about your work here."

"So, you wanted me to tell them that I have problems with alcohol? That I work in a store? Why? To make me feel like a fool in a mansion ten times the size of my old house? To make them loathe me which clearly would please you more than them liking me?"

He sighs and leans against the desk. I only now notice that the way this room is set up is similar to our rooms in Palas. Only the furniture and colouring is much more modern. There's no old school TV either, but a plasma hanging against the wall. The two people inside of the room are still exactly the same. Always fighting.

"You don't understand what I mean," he says after a short silence. He pinches the bridge of his nose and keeps his eyes closed.

"Then make me," I threaten, hoping to sound as angry as I am.

"It's just frustrating that I had to fight for her appreciation for all my life while she thinks it is okay for you and Liz to just live off of other's people money. My sister never worked a day in her life and it's all fine while I worked hard for almost ten years and she can't recognize that!"

"She's trying to, I can see that," I tell him, feeling more and more on his mother's side since she was nice to me tonight, and Harry hasn't shown me anything but disrespect. "And what would be wrong with her helping you?"

"Everything! If I ever do it, I want to do it by myself not with her help or money."

"There's nothing wrong with help, Harry. You should be fucking happy you still have her. Honestly she looked rather fragile and she has been very sick. What if she's just trying to get closer to you and she doesn't know how else to do it, but through helping you with something she knows is very important to you?"

"You think too much of her," he mumbles. "I guess that's mutual."

"What do you mean by that?" I ask standing up, getting really frustrated now. "That she thinks too much of me too?"

He keeps quiet but the way he looks tells me everything. Grabbing my coat I want to storm out of the room as tears fight their way out of my eyes and I don't want him to see me like this again. Crying, weak, not much worth.

But he stops me like he always does, his hand on my arm sending electricity through my body that I haven't felt in a while. When I look up to his eyes I can see he felt it too.

"It felt like you didn't have my back," he whispers and a tear leaves my eye. I hate for him to feel like that when I felt so precious in his arms and he did everything to make me feel great again.