Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

35ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                        35ᵀᴴ CHAPTER 

           "Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it"

The morning next she wakes up to the sound of steps trudging into the kitchen. She’s not even thinking before standing up abruptly enough to make her head spin, vision still blurry and completely out of focus.

It’s still too early and too dark, but she can feel the last remains of the night fading out. Patrick is just in front of the fridge, shrouded by a blanket and soft socks peeking out the bit that doesn’t cover his feet. His posture denounces he’s still feeling like hell, though.

Elisha sighs then, tries to concentrate enough so she can regain control over her tongue. “Ya’lright?” she mumbles out sleepily, mouth dry and chapped lips.

Her nostrils miss the swift smell of Yorkshire tea filling the air, a thing that’s become common through the past months. Harry somehow always finds a way to make it smell more than it should, just so it will knock on Elisha’s door and wake her up like no alarm clock has ever had, it seems.

And, oh. Harry.

She feels guilty, sort of. Because Harry seemed like he’d drunk a bit too much, too, and wasn’t in proper state of mind to walk back home on his own. However, PJ had been in one of his worst nights; there was this prick at his job trying his best to get Patrick to be fired; he somehow ended up getting into a fight with that one and had a few bruises on his chest that weren’t there a week ago, and as the final strike, he decided he wanted Elisha back (by the time he admitted that, he’d been a few drinks in already).

She’d completely left Harry to his friends as she tried to convince PJ that things would be fine, that he really didn’t mean his words because the both of them were over and it’d been a mutual agreement. He’d cried at her ear and confessed stupid words she’s not completely sure he really meant.

In the present, Patrick turns to her with dark, giant bags underneath his eyes. He’s got a bottle of water in hands and hair dishevelled on his head, his heart on his sleeve. When she looks at him she’s sure she reads the regret inked all over his eyes, the fear showing through the irises as if trying to reach out to the woman and apologise.

She feels even worse then.

“I left you water on the nightstand,” she admits quietly, pretending to look for something on the floor as she still sits on the carpet.

“I know,” he replies dryly, his voice rough with sleep and exhaustion. Closing the fridge, he walks into the living room, feet careful on the floor like he’s having a hard time keeping his balance. “I’m done with that already.”

Leesha nods slightly, tugging the blanket she stole from his wardrobe the night before. She watches as he takes a seat on the armchair to her right, sinking down into it as if it is a shell, ready to swallow down his body.

“You could have taken my bed, I wouldn’t bother,” Patrick says again, seeming more alive this time around. It only lasts a second, though, because then he’s coughing and going back to his sorrow.

“Where would you sleep, then?” Elisha retorts calmly, shifting back and leaning against the couch. Patrick stays silent and it says it all; the way he looks down at the bottle cautiously as he uncaps it. His fingers are so tight around the plastic that a bit of water splashes out once it’s open; PJ curses silently.

“It’s not like I’d care,” he says even more silently, the words barely audible enough.

Leesh sighs, absent of words. It tugs at some strings attached to her heart and she has to close her eyes as she tries to mumble out some sentence, something. “PJ…” she starts off, and he doesn’t let her go much further.