Family Ties

City Hall

Hannah's POV

I woke up to find I was alone in our bed, shocked I'd even slept at all after what I'd said last night when I got into bed. I didn't know why I'd said it like that, the thought had just been constantly running through my head like a fucking song on repeat and it just came out. I couldn't do it, I couldn't get ready in some back room of our wedding venue, pulling on the wedding dress we'd picked out and getting my make up done without them. I couldn't pretend that it would be the best day of my life, that I would be as happy as I should be, without my mother and Emma.

Harry deserved that. He deserved for me to be as happy as I should on my wedding day, to not dampen it with the overwhelming sadness I felt. He didn't deserve for me to be nothing but sad when I thought about us getting married. I hated that I couldn't be happy about it, that I couldn't think of it as a joyous event, but that's the way it was. I'd pictured our wedding so many times, both of us so happy and in love as we started our life together surrounded by everyone we love, jetting off into the sunset into a fairy tale life that I knew Harry wanted to give me. I couldn't keep pretending that I didn't dread it, that I was happy about it, and most of all I couldn't lie about it anymore.

I'd known it for a few days, that I just wouldn't be able to go through with it, that it wasn't fair to him to give him anything less than the day he deserved. Harry deserved the world, he deserved to be given the kind of love and happiness that he gave everybody else, and I just wasn't capable of it anymore. I knew I had to tell him, that I had to be honest and open about the way I was feeling, but there was no right way to say it. How could I possibly tell the man I love, the man who bends over backwards every minute of his life to make me happy, who has been nothing but supportive and understanding through everything, that I can't give him the one thing he wants from me?

It wasn't that I didn't want to be married to him. I wanted to be Harry's wife more than I've ever wanted anything. I wanted to love him and take care of him the way he deserved, to show him the kind of life that we both wanted, where we loved and respected each other for the rest of our lives. I wanted to be the wife and mother that they deserved, I just didn't know if I was capable of that. It wasn't the marriage, or the life, I didn't want, it was the big event of a wedding.

He deserved better than the way I'd told him, and it was made even worse by the fact that my words were met with complete and utter silence. He had no response, nothing to say. He didn't ask for clarification to see if he heard me right, he didn't get angry and yell and scream at me, he didn't ask why. He just laid there, silent, and I knew I'd just ripped his heart out and stomped all over it to the point that he didn't have a single thing to say to express how much I'd hurt him.

The thought of hurting Harry, of him being in any kind of pain, immediately brought tears to my eyes. I knew I was wrong, that I should have explained, that I should have given him the respect he would have given me. I knew he was probably thinking it meant that I didn't want to be with him, or that his fears of me leaving him had been realized. I knew he felt like I'd given him hope for our life together and then just ripped it away.

I would have been up all night had I not taken that stupid sleeping pill. I did feel like I'd rested, which just made me feel worse because I had obviously been sleeping soundly while Harry probably laid there dying inside because of what I'd said to him. I knew him well enough to know that he didn't sleep, that he'd been up all night and left early in the morning to avoid having to see me, and I'd never hated myself more.

I was lost. That was the only way I could explain it. I was lost somewhere between who I used to be and who I had to become. The only thing that had stayed the same, that had never changed through everything that had happened, was Harry and his unbelievable ability to make me feel loved no matter what happened. He was my rock, my safe place, and I'd just completely crushed him without so much as an explanation.