Redemption [h.s]

fifty-five

He divided the cupcake in small pieces and put them all on the table in front of him, glancing at them but not putting any into his mouth.

"Harry?" I called his name softly, and he looked up.

"I'm not that hungry" he said, preventing my words.

"I know, but you haven't eaten anything since yesterday night" I replied sitting more comfortably on the chair. "Do it for me" I added, seeing that he was still unsure.

He picked up one of the pieces and put it into his mouth, munching on it slowly.

I glanced out of the window, it had started to rain. "It's raining" I told him, "looks like we're stuck here."

He looked at me at my words, his eyes so light in the bright light. His fingers were tapping nervously on the table, and he seemed to be in his own world and analyse what was around him at the same time. He passed a hand through his hair, he seemed distressed.

"What's wrong?" I asked him, lowering my voice so that the old woman that had sat on a table next to us wouldn't hear.

"I just... I don't know. I feel like I'm being watched. But maybe I'm just going crazy. It doesn't really make sense. I have no reason to feel like that. I'm just being irrational-"

I put my hand over his, stopping his rambling, scooting closer to the table and glancing around as nonchalantly as possible.

At a table a little far away from us, on our left, someone was looking in our direction. I glanced at them with the corner of my eye, not wanting them to notice I had seen them. He looked around every once in a while, but his gaze always came back to us. I didn't know him.

"Maybe you aren't wrong" I said and Harry, who was eating the pieces of chocolate while looking out of the window, focused his attention on me. "There is someone looking at us. No, don't look around" I explained.

"Is it...?" He asked, dragging on the sentence not to say the name.

I shook my head. "Someone else."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But he's been staring at us for the past five minutes."

At my words, he glanced in his direction for a fast second, and froze.

"Do you know him?" I asked him when he didn't say anything right away, but I got no reply. "Harry?" I called his name, touching his forearm.

He flinched at my touch, sitting back against the chair moving his arm away, and lifting his gaze from the wooden surface of the table onto me. "We should... Go away" he only said.

"Do you-"

"Please let's go away" he interrupted me, and I noticed that the man was standing up.

I stood up and took my coat. "Come on, let's go."

We put our coats on as fast as we could, and made our way to the door. I kept glancing directly at the unknown man, knowing that our cover was blown anyway, and that knew we had noticed him by now. When I saw him starting to walk towards us, I gave up in putting on my scarf and I opened the door, letting Harry and I walk out in the cold rain.

"Home or I don't know, somewhere else?" I asked Harry, knowing that we had to make a decision fast, since he would've stepped out of the door in no time. He didn't reply though, seemingly completely shocked, so I had to make a decision on my own. "Come with me" I said taking his hand, and walking in the opposite direction to the one that would've brought us home. Before turning the corner I looked towards the entrance, and when I saw that the man hadn't got out yet, I turned it fast. I kept a normal pace, knowing that Harry would've not followed me if I had started to walk too fast, hoping that the man wouldn't have turned the corner as well. We walked round the block, and we started walking home, hoping that it would've been enough for the man to not be able to tell where we had gone.

"Who was that?" I asked him, but he gave me no answer again. I turned to him, his eyebrows where furrowed, and he seemed to have no intention to answer me at all. "Harry" I said taking his hand, hoping that it would've been enough to catch his attention, but it wasn't. "Please?" I tried again, but there was no way, he completely ignored my words. I opened the main door of our building for him, and we walked in the warm hall. "It was so cold outside, would you drink tea if I made it?" I asked him, changing subject as we waited for the lift. "Harry?" I called him when he didn't reply once again.

"I want to... sleep. Just sleep" he replied.

We walked into the lift and I selected our floor. "That's okay."

When we got into his house, he took off his coat and walked straight to his bedroom.

I followed him not too long after, and found him lying on the bed, his back turned to the door. I took off my shoes and I lay down next to him. "I'm sorry. I thought it would've been nice to go out. Thinking about it now, maybe it wasn't a good idea at all" I said softly, getting no reply. After a while, I saw his shoulders shake. "Harry" I whispered sitting up, taken aback by the situation. It was the first time he'd shown any emotion, since that night.

In the second I touched his shoulder, he gave up on trying to stifle his sobs and he let them break through his chest. I lightly pushed down his shoulder, making him lie down on his back and cuddled up against his side, hiding my head into the crook of his neck and trying not to cry at the heart-wrenching sound. I put my hand on his chest, gripping his shirt, feeling his fastened up heartbeat under my palm and through the fabric. After a while his cries subsided and we just stayed there, listening to each other's breaths in the room that was turning dark. None of us said anything right away, and we let the silence do the talking.

"Who was that man?" I asked him after some minutes, propping up on one elbow, studying his face.

"Please don't ask" he only replied, not giving me much information.

"Did he have something to do with Louis?" I asked again, trying to retrieve some answers to explain what had just happened.

"Don't" he said staring up at the ceiling. "Thank you for taking me out. It's been nice to feel normal for some time" he whispered after a while.

"Harry, you are normal" I told him and even though he didn't object, I knew that he didn't believe my words.

"Can we just go to sleep, and forget all of this happened?" He asked, and I put his blanket over us.

"Sure."