Guarded

07

He took my hand in his and led the both of us away from the crowd and away from the prying eyes. We climbed at least eight flights of stairs and wandered down endless corridors. We ended up sitting in the emptying stadium in an empty section, far away from everyone so no one would hear us and especially so no one would recognize us.

We sat in the hard plastic seats and I took a deep breath before I could form words.

“Yes.” I said.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes to your crazy plan. Yes to us spending time together wherever that is. Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

His mouth formed an ‘o’ and he let out a long breath, licking his lips as he contemplated my words. “I was afraid this would happen.”

I suddenly felt very nauseous. And stupid. I felt very stupid for acting on a whim and not thinking things out. I would have had another day and a half to think things over and come with a sensible and logical situation. But no, I had to be irrational for once in my life and instead here I was, most likely going to not have the reaction I had planned for.

He took my hand in his and looked into my eyes very seriously. “Annaleise.” His voice was husky and he drawled out the three syllables in my name very slowly. He licked his lips once more and began to chew on the bottom one, contemplating his response. “This is very unexpected actually.”

“Can you –“ He pressed a finger to my lips silencing me. “Hush, darling, let me think.”

He played with the charms on his necklace and it’s almost as if the wheels in his brain were either moving ten times their normal speed or ever so slowly.

“I love you, you know that right? I think I’ve made that quite clear to you thus far.” He drew out the words slowly.

I nodded, attempting to speak, but he silenced me again. “No, not yet.”

He was silent for another minute. “Okay, I got it.” He pulled me up with him, my hand in his as he walked briskly down the hallways and we followed back down the same flights of stairs we had walked up. Instead of entering the backstage area, we walked to the stairs that led to the stage. The stadium had cleared out while Harry contemplated his actions and then led us to the stage.

The crew was currently in the process of breaking down the stage and barely gave us a thought as Harry marched us to the front of the stage. He brought me in front of him and stood behind me, his body pressed very closely to mine.

“Imagine this whole stadium being filled with people,” he whispered in my ear. “The lights are quite blinding of course and it’s so loud and you’re nearly deaf by the time you’re finished performing. They’re all here for you, every single one of those people. They buy t-shirts with your face on it and bring posters and queue for hours to get a decent spot so they can have one chance to possibly touch your hand or have you acknowledge them. And as much as I try to, I simply can’t. I feel more for those in the back seats up in the nose bleed section. We just look like small little dots dancing on this stage and they have to rely on the big screen just to see us. Of course, the bass is so loud it’s hard for them to properly hear us as well. They spend all this time, all this devotion to a group of guys that they really don’t know much about that. That’s dedication if you ask me. There’s just something about a person who is willing to endure that much for someone.”