What Goes Around... || H.S. Harry Styles

42.

"Please stay," Harry whispers, "even just for a minute. To talk."

Tash audibly sighs, "Do we have to keep the door open?" she can't help but smirk and he exhales a soft laugh before he is unexpectedly tugging on her arm and pulling her to the carpet.

They sit facing each other, cross legged in the middle of the room like children on the classroom floor and Tash can't help but feel the waves of nostalgia crashing into her.

So many memories had been created in this tiny room and surprisingly so many in this very spot beside his childhood bed. Her mind casts over the images racing through her head. The moment he showed her his first tattoo, their first sexual experiences, the night they lost their virginities, him consoling her while she cried about test she thought she flunked, their long talks about their future travel plans after school, kisses and hugs and promises of love and eternity.

"Remember when we were meant to be studying and we would just circle all the funny words from our text books?" He questions, obviously having a hard time not dwelling on the past with her in this room as well.

"Mhm, I still have some of them," she confesses and his mouth flies open in shock before single childlike cackle pushes past his lips.

"Of course you do! I can't even imagine what else you've kept," he teases her but his eyes are full of adoration.

"Remember when your mum walked in on us that time?" Tash giggles, her hands flying up to cover her bright red face, the adolescent embarrassment of that moment not yet faded.

"Oh my god, yes!" He chuckles, "We weren't having sex," he tries to justify to her like he did his mother that day the "open door" policy was introduced, and this makes Tash squeal into her palms, remembering how he had chased a mortified but furious Anne down the hallway. "Just had my hands down your pants." Harry bites his bottom lip to hold in his laughter and watch her playful reaction before he rocks back and forth in hysterics.

His nostrils flare as he sniffs in a deep breath, their laughter subsiding but the grin on his face still prominent.

"Do you think we are holding on to each other because of memories? Because of what we were?" She says after a moment and his eyes regard her beautiful face awash with sadness as he debates her serious question which admittedly, he has asked himself a million times.

He licks his lips before chewing the inside corner of his mouth and shaking his head.

"I used to think so, maybe I had started putting you on a pedestal, thinking maybe it was an infatuation more than real love? My therapist said it's called 'idealisation' and I had thought about you so much that I couldn't even distinguish between what was a real memory and what I had just wished for." He looks down at his hands to give his words a moment to sink in.

"But then, by some miracle, Jamie and Alice brought you to the bar and it all came flooding back. The reality of you, of us. I think when we tried to be "strangers" even just for those couple of dates, then I knew it wasn't just the past. We got on so well and... I dunno...I still felt it..." His voice trails off as he tucks a curl behind his ear.

She felt it too.

Her hands rest on his knees and send a shot of electricity up his spine.

"Tell me about what happened with your dad," she whispers, knowing now by his reaction the other day that this was far worse than he had let on by his initial one sentence wrap up of the situation. She is hoping since she sent Des his phone number he had contacted him or try to reach out by now.

A shaky breath puffs from his lips and he runs his hands over his face in frustration and dread of having to relive that time again, he's only ever done it once in detail and it was not only excruciating but in the presence of a professional.