Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

27ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                                   27ᵀᴴ CHAPTER               

                      “All things truly wicked start from innocence”

“I think I’m in love with you,” she says suddenly, cutting through the silence of only pens dancing on the papers. Her head is down still, eyes trained on the numbers she keeps scribbling on a mostly filled with words sheet.

Harry’s just the same, basically, but the moment the words leave her mouth his head snaps up and his eyes widen until they’re close enough to leave his orbits. “What?”

Only then Elisha looks up as well, greeted by this sense of panic flooding the air and an expression that looks just the same. She wrinkles her nose and furrows both eyebrows in confusion, looking down on her sheet again to make sure she’s written nothing wrong. “Song or singer with I. ‘I think I’m in love with you’ by Jessica Simpson,” Leesh states simply, eyes trained on him the moment he acknowledges the title.

“Oh,” he mumbles shaking his head out of a trance. “Oh, right. I put Iggy Azalea, so that’s a ten.”

She smiles sheepishly at him and then the laughter comes building within herself until she can’t hold back anymore, bursting into cackling sounds in front of him. It’s Harry’s turn to frown, but Leesha is too caught up in the scene to stop, focusing hard not to let the tears blossom in the corners of her eyes and blurry her vision. It is amusing, though.

“Oh my God, Harry. Your face,” she babbles, hands cupped around her mouth to try and make the words less loud. Her voice is high-pitched with held back chuckles and her knuckles are turning white as she presses them against her skin tightly. “It was like you’d seen a ghost, for God’s sake.”

Harry rolls his eyes and grabs back his pen, writing a small ‘10’ next to his singer and shrugging at Elisha. “Animal?” He questions then, avoiding the subject. Leesh lets it slip for the second.

“Iguana,” is her response, and she’s still looking carefully at him when he nods his comprehension and mutters back a ‘same. Five’. After registering the punctuation, she taps the pen rhythmically against the table, opens and closes her mouth as if uncertain of what to say next. “Is it really that bad?” is what comes out, and it’s not that amused anymore. Just curious. “If it were true, I mean?”

Harry takes in a deep breath and waits, only looks at Leesh long seconds after, cautious. “You’re an incredible person, Leesh,” he says quietly, holds her gaze for a while more and then ducks his head down again, his mop of hair held back by a grey beanie. “I truly can’t believe there are still people like you in the world; someone who knows what they want and where they should stop. Knows the settled boundaries.”

Elisha moves on her seat, pulling her legs up and locking her fingers under the hinge midway her thighs and calves. “That doesn’t answer my question, Harold.”

“Yes, it would be terrible, Elisha,” his voice is almost panicked, quick and rough. He clears his throat. “I’d hate to ruin this friendship. So just let me know if you, you know.”

Leesha sighs at his uncertainness, putting both her palms sprawled over the surface of the table and standing up with a last glance at her sheet. “I’m not in love with you, okay? Also, I got 65 this round. Next is letter ‘n’.”

Harry hums and Elisha doesn’t feel his gaze behind her back as she turns off the boiling water and pours it into the carafe, separating the cups already and starting to think of the words she’ll need for this round of the game.