"No matter what, someone somewhere out in the world loves you, and that someone is me."
"What the fuck is he doing here?"
My legs seemed to move on their own as I rushed in front of Harry's staggering body. Elijah was stalking forward, fury prominent in his eyes as he glared down at me. "Move out of the way, Alice," he growled, but I only threw one arm out, the other still supporting my towel, in some kind of blockade. I had no intention of moving away from Harry.
"Alice." I felt Harry's hand lightly touch my shoulder but I shook him off. I knew that he wanted me to move out of the way. I was sure there was some sort of pride and ego thing about your pregnant girlfriend protecting you from said pregnant girlfriend's older brother, but I didn't care. The last thing that I needed or wanted was for Elijah to hurt Harry.
When Elijah realized that he wasn't going to be able to get me away from Harry without forcing me, which he clearly didn't want to do, he switched tactics. "You fucking prick," he spat angrily, his gaze focused on Harry behind me. "You think that you can just show up here after not contacting Alice for days? Weeks? Months?" As my ears focused on collecting all of Elijah's words, my other senses seemed to slacken and suddenly Elijah had grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Harry, who seemed to be putting up almost no fight even when Elijah's arm went to his neck, lifting him just barely off of the ground as he shoved Harry into the wall.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Elijah seethed as Harry struggled slightly beneath him. "I can't believe you honestly have the nerve to even show your face here after all that you put Alice through! Do you even know how fucking hard it has been? She nearly went and--"
"Elijah!" My voice was anxious, and I was grateful when suddenly the boys were all filtering into the room, Liam and Zayn immediately going to remove Elijah from Harry, who fell back against the wall, gasping for breath. Louis hurried forward, helping Harry to regain his balance while Elijah continued to shout profanities at him before Zayn eventually quieted him down enough to talk at a normal volume, though I could hear the rage lacing every word as he went on about how Harry wasn't any good for me and that if he knew better he would have stayed away.
I couldn't really focus on Elijah's harsh words though as Harry's gaze was abruptly on me, his mouth moving to form a question that had me feeling sick. "What did you nearly do?" he whispered.
"Nothing," was my instinctive response, and I squeezed my eyes shut, taking deep, slow breaths to try and calm my rapidly beating heart. I didn't want to talk about this, especially not with Harry, but it seemed that he was looking for an answer. I froze when I heard his voice right in front of me. "What did you nearly do?"
"Harry, now's not the time," I heard Niall say quickly, and I reopened my eyes to see Harry's stormy expression. The sight was short-lived though, because suddenly Elijah was practically attacking Harry, the two falling to the floor. It took all of the boys to pry the two apart.
"Alright! That's enough!" Louis yelled above all of the commotion.
"Come on, Alice, you don't need to be in here right now." I reluctantly listened to Niall's murmur, allowing him to lead me quickly from the room as Elijah began yelling again, only this time Harry was shouting right back. The loud noises only made me move faster, something like relief flooding through me when I found Gemma in the living room. The television was on and she was looking at it, but it was clear that she wasn't paying attention. She looked up when I entered, a sad smile on her lips.
"Are you okay?" she questioned softly as I walked towards the couch and sat down beside her. I simply shook my head, feeling rather numb, and was surprised when she abruptly pulled my head down onto her shoulder, her arm moving around me in what was obviously supposed to be a comforting gesture. I didn't expect it to turn out that way, but oddly enough, I did feel somewhat better here with Gemma.
