Redemption [h.s]

sixty-nine

Grace

"I was thinking... maybe we could eat out tonight" Harry said during breakfast, making me look up at him. "We haven't done that in a while" he added when he saw my confused glance.

I took a sip of my coffee while pondering the idea, aware that that day would've been a busy one for me. But his eyes were so green and hopeful, that I knew I could've never said no, even if I had had the worst day possible. "At what time?" I asked him, enjoying the way his eyes lit up at my words.

"Would 7pm be fine?" He replied, and I smiled at the almost hesitant way he asked, as if he wasn't used to that kind of thing anymore.

I nodded. "That would be perfect." I took a bite out of one the chocolate cupcakes that I had bought that morning, easily falling back into my old habit. "I should... go to work today" I said, glancing up to see his reaction, if he would've shown any at all.

He pressed his lips together and his jawline became sharper, his hand letting go of the cup as if it had burnt him. He cleared his throat, looking at the coffee moving slightly inside his cup, the fall not being big enough to make it spill. "That's... nice" he said, trying to cover up his momentary loss of words.

"Yeah" I replied faintly, feeling a weight set on my chest at the simple thought of going back. "I've already skipped quite a few days."

"I'm sorry about that" he said softly, but I shook my head to show him that it wasn't a problem to me.

"You have nothing to be sorry about, I chose to." It was true. In the second I had stepped into the house that night, with a freezing Harry next to me, I had known I would've not went in for a while. And while I liked to tell myself that it was because I wanted to take care of him in the best way possible, I hadn't been able to suffocate that part of me that said it was also because of me. The thing was, I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to step into that place again, waiting tables day after day in front of the balcony pretending that nothing had happened, I simply couldn't. And before I had even realised it, two weeks became three and the three weeks became a month, and I had let too much time slip between my hands. In other words, I was lucky my boss was friendly enough.

"Alright" he said, letting the conversation drop mid-air.

Another thing that I wouldn't have told him anytime soon was that I had started to look around for a new job in the past few weeks, while I was going to meet Liam or buy groceries. Just casually, nothing too serious. I had tricked myself into believing that it wasn't that urgent, but as time went by I couldn't help but realise that I would've had to go back sooner or later, and that keeping to delay my return like that would've done nothing, if not raise my chances of being fired. And that was why I had called my boss that morning, telling him that I would've come back, hoping that I could've handled it.

"I'll come get you with my car when you're finished, if that's alright? I need to go out anyway, so it wouldn't be a bother" he suggested, making me freeze and look up at him.

"You don't have to" I replied, not wanting him to ever step back into the place he had tried to take his life in, playing nervously with the black hair tie around my wrist.

He looked down at my fingers, observing the way I tightened the hair tie around my wrist before stretching it a bit, being that caught up in my actions that he slightly flinched when he saw it snap back against the inside of my wrist. "I want to" he said looking up at me.

"Alright then" I replied giving up, "just know that you really don't have to. You can call me anytime and tell me you changed idea, I won't mind."

"I know" he replied with a small smile, before standing up to put our empty cups in the sink.