boys don't cry. [h.s]

three

January.

It was a Saturday night and Isabel was substantially drunk in the bar at The Dome, the town’s concert hall, doing shots with Millie and gagging ungracefully, when she saw him.   He was only about twenty feet away, facing some friends that had their backs to her, clad in a grey t-shirt with a burgundy shirt over the top, black jeans, the addition of a thin white bandana wrapped around his head.

Harry laughed widely at something one of his friends said, his eyes shining as the dimple in his cheek flexed, the skin by his eyes bunching up in the corners. He took a sip of his beer and scanned the room, his gaze eventually landing on Isabel. Eyes widening in horror, he looked away quickly and shuffled so that they were no longer in direct eye view of each other in an effort to pretend he hadn’t seen her. 

During her shifts on Wednesday and Friday afternoon, Harry and Isabel had barely spoken a word to each other, only communicating when they had to. He went back to hunching protectively over the table while Isabel tried her best to get some of her course work done, and when push came to shove and they were forced to interact, he stared pointedly at somewhere a few inches to her left.  

Although she had fretted all of Monday and Tuesday about going to work on Wednesday, by the end of her shift on Friday she was starting to think she could stick it out after all. Harry completely ignored her unless it was absolutely essential to acknowledge her existence, and she was fine with that. This really was easy money – without Harry irritating her constantly, she realised how lucky she was; two out of three shifts she barely had to move at all, and it was basically like she was there alone with how little she and Harry spoke to each other.  

But as she had hurried out of work on Friday to a party Louis’ mate was hosting, Isabel looked over to Harry as he chatted away happily to their boss Dan, his eyes shining brightly above the permanent dark circles, and let the familiar flood of guilt momentarily wash in. She hated being mean to anyone, and clearly she had been rude enough to Harry that she had obviously really upset him. She spent enough of her life being ordered around and belittled by Louis and her friends and her older siblings that she genuinely felt horrible when she made someone else feel that way. But when she’d spilled this to Millie over a mug of hot chocolate in the greasy spoon by the lecture theatre, biting her nails to the quick as she did so, Millie had reminded her Harry was a big boy. He’d live.  

“What are you looking at?” Millie asked, leaning into her and craning her neck in the direction of Harry.  

“No one. Nothing.”  

“No one?” she raised an eyebrow. “Who were you staring at, Is?”   Isabel started to panic. Knowing Millie, she wasn’t likely to let this go.

“Just this dickhead from work. Leave it, okay?”  

“Who? Do you mean Harry?” Millie said eagerly, trying to look over Isabel’s shoulder.

Isabel stepped in front of her, creating a human barricade, but this was a pointless effort and they both knew it.   Millie, if anything, was persistent. She was a Drama student, and seemed determined to apply theatricality to the entirety of her life. She was one of those people where everything about her was interesting and enigmatic; she and Isabel’s friendship was forged when Millie barged into her room and demanded to know whether she liked raisins in her bagels. When Isabel had replied that she didn’t like raisins in anything, Millie knew she had found a new best friend.  

“Yes, Harry,” Isabel hissed, regretting ever telling her about him. “Stop it, I don’t want him to ruin the night!”  

“Ruin the night?” she asked, as if Isabel was crazy. “This is gonna make the night! Plus, luckily for him, dickhead is just my type.”