Un-Tying the Knot {h.s.}

Chapter 45*

*mature content.
If this bothers you,
don't read it. :)*

By the time I get back to the offices of Eleanor Baker, it's 7:30pm, and I cant help but sigh — completely exhausted from fighting traffic in LA rush hour. Only Eleanor would send me across town at 5 o'clock on a Thursday to handle an issue with the wedding announcement in the Los Angeles Times. The front office is now quiet, the computer screens from my now-absent co-workers are completely dark. The jealous part inside of me wonders how long they've been free from this jail cell.

I drop my purse next to my desk, cursing at how hideous it is before sinking into my chair, head tipping back with a heftier sigh than the last. All I can do is close my eyes and wait. Harry and Eleanor are at some kind of tasting — wedding cake, wedding food, wedding wine. Wedding, wedding, wedding — I can't help but let the bitter thoughts burn into my brain, hands reaching up to rub my temple in attempt to rid myself of the self-imposed heartache. I mean, headache.

The past two weeks have been absolutely miserable. If I'm honest, more like a time-warp. It was as if none of it happened — the kiss, the sex, the last five months of our extremely close relationship. But apparently, I was nothing compared to Eleanor in Harry's eyes; his sudden, quick-bolt absence from my life so quickly after he slid between my thighs made that fact abundantly clear, as if it wasn't before.

It was almost as if the last month had never happened — as if he had never confessed any feelings of doubt or entrapment, that he never angrily vowed to turn things around and command his future wife to actually listen and care about him. His determination and anger after his birthday party had disappeared so suddenly, it was almost like it was never there to begin with. He somehow slipped quietly back into his emotionless ambivalence — but even on the rare occasion I did see him these days, which I tried my hardest to avoid at all costs, I noticed his smiles were few and far between.

And honestly, his devil-may-care attitude wasn't lost on Eleanor either. She was cautious at first, almost gentle — to the point that I thought maybe she really did love him, and maybe he really did get through to her. But with every "whatever you want, babe...", I realized that she had won. She had broken him. And it only made my face twist in disgust every time a look of triumph splayed over her face when Harry caved.

But here I am re-playing Harry's love life like a lost puppy dog, one who — like an abused lover oft does — keeps coming back for more, even though she knows she deserves better.

I know that I deserve better.

I can't tell you how many times I wanted to quit. Even before I knew Harry would ghost me like I was lower than the pebble under his shoe, I wanted to tell her off — merely because she was a terrible person. But for the last five months — I didn't, because of him. Harry's birthday was the best example of that. She was absolutely horrid. Yet, still I stayed — for what? To protect him?

After he disappeared from my bed, the feeling was worse. I wanted to curl up into my shell and pretend that Harry Styles and Eleanor Baker never existed. I wanted to quit, because after abandoning me the moment I gave him the most intimate part of me, there was no reason not to leave.

But I couldn't.

I just couldn't bring myself to quit. I'm not sure if it is my inane need to prove to him that he can't break me so easily, that I won't just run away like he does for everything that matters to me — or if it's the inexplicable tie I had to him that won't allow me to sever the chord my brain was begging to sever. Part of me knows that even if I never saw him again, I just had to know he was okay.

And I hate that he makes me feel this way.

So I showed up to work. I avoided him like the plague, sending other assistants to do my normal errands for him instead of me. I kept my head down, and just tried to do my job like I should have done in the first place — you know, before I fell in love and slept with Harry Styles. My bosses fiancé.