Dunkirk: Evergreen (Harry Styles)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1
   
1932
    Emily Bradshaw is eleven when she meets and despises the only boy she had ever met aside from her older brother. Harold Styles.
    It was a sunday morning, and her family were struggling through an all time low for the American economy.
Her house was in a run down part of her small town of Klaus. The atmosphere was gray, and the air was chilly around the small house that only had one bedroom and five residents living under the roof.
    Today, Emily and her brother, James, were walking along with their mother to church. If there was anything that her mother always told her, it was that one had to have faith, and their faith was in God. Her father was looking for work out in the fields this morning, and he wasn't in attendance. Her grandmother, who was too sick to leave the house, was also not by their side.
    "Remember Emily," her mother said as they walked up the stairs of the packed church. "I want none of your horse playing."
    "Yes, Mama."
    James was what a big brother was supposed to be: annoying, protective, and overly bossy. He was also a fighter, and being that he was a fighter and three years older than her, that meant that he taught her how to fight. This also meant that Emily and James might have gotten a little too rough with each other when it came to sitting still in church, and James just had to poke Emily every two seconds.
    "It's not my fault that James is a an egg." Emily huffed with her nose in the air.
    "Emily Marie Bradshaw," her mother sighed. "We do not go around speaking such language."
    "She's just being difficult, Mother." James let out a light laughter. "She's just upset that she has to spend a sunday morning praising something she doesn't know anything about."
    Mrs. Bradshaw turned to her two children with her hands on her hips. "Well, maybe if you two would actually pay attention you might learn something. Now, I've said it before, and I won't say it again, but I want zero horse play out of both of you. Do you understand me?"
    "Yes, ma'am." The two said in union.
    Needless to say, Emily fell asleep halfway through the service. She couldn't keep her eyes open, and with all the people crowding her, she found herself warm and resting her head on a boy's shoulder.
    She thought it was James, but she got a rude awakening when her brother shook her awake to her left. She had been sleeping on a boy to the right.
"Emily," he sighs. "Get off that boy's arm. The service is over, and it's time to go home."
    Her brown eyes drifted to see a boy looking down at her. He must have been James' age. He definitely wasn't a little boy that Emily would've seen at her school. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him around Klaus at all. This boy was completely new to her world.
    "Um . . ." Emily stared into his green eyes. "Sorry."
    The boy let out a small laugh, tilting his head back a little bit. "It's alright."
    "I'm Emily," she beams up at him.
    The boy rises from his seat as people begin to file out of the church building, and Emily follows suit. She watches as he crouches down slight and holds out his hand.
    "Hello, Emily," he smiles. "I'm Harry. It's very lovely to meet you."
    "Your accent is funny," she feels herself say innocently. He flashes her a smile at the comment, and he lets out a laugh to follow it.
    "I'm not around here, actually."
    "Where are you from?"
    "England."
    "That's like . . . Far."
    "Emily!" James rushes over to his little sister. "I didn't even see that you weren't with Mom and I . . . Who's this?"

1933
    Emily is twelve when she meets her best friend, Liam. He is a sweet boy, and he is one of James' schoolmates that stops by to help James in reading. He's a year older than James, who was now fifteen.
    He doesn't shy away from Emily when she asks him to listen to a short poem that she's read. He smiles and tells her to keep it up, and that she'd make a great author someday. Then, he goes back to helping James when James barks at her to play outside.
    Liam come back around though. She likes that he comes around.

1934
    Emily is thirteen when she remembers Harry coming over for dinner for the first time. He's sixteen and just becoming a man as she's just entering her teenage years.
    James and Harry had become best friends throughout the past two years. She had seen Harry more often than she ever thought that she would after that Sunday morning in church. She even hated to admit that she had developed a slight crush on Harry, but she'd never tell anyone that.
    No, Harry was a man. He had stubble, and he was looked at by far prettier girls than what she was ever going to be. He was something that she could look at, but she could never touch.
    Nevertheless, she enjoyed when Harry came over. He was athletic, and he played soccer outside the house with James. Emily watched from the sidelines on the front porch steps.
    She watched as his eyes lit up from the exercise of the activity, and she watched as James laughed at him when he tripped and fell to the earth below.
    James was a strange character. He was her brother, so that gave her the first indication of weirdness, and secondly, he only wanted to be around Harry. She started to wonder why that was.

1938
When she's seventeen, she asks Harry to take her dancing because Liam is out of town for the weekend. He's twenty, and he is now truly a man. His eyes had wisdom in them, and he had grown taller over the years. Now, he truly towered over her at six foot with her five foot stature.
She hadn't seen much of him over the past year. He had been working hard to support himself and his own family three streets over.
"We should go dancing!" She beams as they walk down the busy street of Klaus' Main Street. He had been a gentleman and walked her home from school when she had to stay after for some extra tutoring in math.
He was carrying her books at his side as they walked together in the heat of the early summer.
"Dancing?" He asks as he shoves his hands in his trouser pockets. "Why?"
"Why not?" Emily challenges as she feels herself laugh. "It'll be fun. And since were you ever one to turn down a chance at dancing?"
Harry rolls his eyes slightly and laughs at her.
"Come on!" Emily frowns. "You're as much of my best friend as you are James'. We should do more things together before you go off working again and I don't get to see you for another couple of months. Please."
Harry stares at her and sighs. He begins walking again, and Emily has to pick up her pace slightly to catch of to him.
"Alright," he agrees. "We'll go dancing."
Emily's lips form a grin and she can't stop herself from jumping for joy in her high heels. She feels her arms wrap around her friend, and her eyes widen as she feels his broad muscles tense under the contact. She quickly pulls away, and she clears her throat.
"This is going to be so much fun!" She beams.
She rushes up to her room to get ready as soon as he drops her off. Her mother looks at her worriedly as she opens what little makeup she had. She applies red lipstick to make her look womanly, and her red dress was slightly wrinkled but she hoped it showed off her curves all the same.
"Where are you going, doll?" Mr. Bradshaw questions as he stares at his daughter.
Emily stares at her father nervously. "Harry is taking me out dancing, Daddy."
"Harry?"
"James' friend."
"How old is this kid, again?"
"He's twenty, Fred!" Mrs. Bradshaw calls from the kitchen.
"Isn't he a little old for you, sweetpea?" Mr. Bradshaw asks.
Emily frowns and runs her fingers through her curled brown locks. "It's not . . . A date. We're just going as friends. That's all we are."
Emily doesn't see it, but Mrs. Bradshaw shakes her head slightly and gives a warm smile to her mixing bowl.

1940
Emily doesn't go with Harry to register for the draft at the age of twenty-two. She refuses to. It's a peacetime draft, but even at the thought of having a draft meant that he could be taken away from her. That's the last thing that she wanted in the entire world.
They had just shared their first kiss last summer after she had cried when he brother left for the service. She was a mess, and she had run down to the beach at the edge of town. She plopped down in the sand and began to cry. That's when he found her.
Now, he was twenty-one. He was now going to be in the list of young boys from the ages of twenty-one to forty-five who might be raffled into a possible entrance into the war.
He promises that he's not going to leave her, but she knows that he has no control over that. Truly, he didn't. 
James was already gone, and now he was going to leave her too.

1942
He's twenty-three and she's twenty.
He promises to write. He promises that he'll think about her everyday. He promises that he'll write. He promises he'll come back alive.
She can only hope.

Hello everyone! This is my new fan fiction! I hope you all enjoy and I apologize for any historical inaccuracies! It's my first time writing something that has to do with history.
Just as a little side note, I pictured Emily as Anna Popplewell from the tv series Reign and the movie franchise Narnia!
I hope you all enjoy! Leave a comment and like!
Much love!