Note To Self (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter Sixty Eight.

Aubry's first words to him after 'I love you' were, "Excuse me."

Muttered lowly, lips hardly moving while Harry was stood in the doorway of the Anatomy classroom. She'd stayed behind to speak with Mrs. Violet, and Harry had trailed at the end of the line filing out into the hallway. He stopped just before he stepped into the sea of bodies pushing and shoving their way through to their next class, and he waited. Just for some sort of acknowledgment, because he'd begun to feel like a ghost. Invisible, a nuisance, and dead. Her words and the shove when she pushed her way through the tiny space leftover in the doorway showed he was still very much alive, even if he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to be.

Being alive meant everything was real and he wasn't in hell. Her touch felt like electricity, and that was how he was certain he wasn't living in purgatory. His nervous system tingled with residual energy after she'd vanished, both singeing his insides with the disgusted fury he clung onto, and with the slightest inkling of bliss ringing in his ears following the sweet sound of her voice. He didn't move from his spot in the doorway until Mrs. Violet's voice burst through the echoing sound of Aubry's reverberating off the interior of his skull, asking if he needed something from her, and he scampered off to his next class.

Lunch infuriated him when he caught sight of her from across the room once again. Except, instead of the lacrosse girls, she'd weaseled herself into a table of boys. He could've sworn she just wanted to rub in his nose the pile of shit that made up his life.

He'd grown tired of chasing her. Tired of being ignored, and he was fed up being forced to keep his mouth shut. He had some things to say, and those things she refused to listen to or even give him a chance to utter a single syllable of the many, many ones he needed to get out. It was day two of the silent treatment, and after hours and hours of constantly going over the facts, he'd come to the conclusion he didn't deserve what was being given to him. Or, what wasn't being given to him, rather. The lack of human decency, respect, or just a basic explanation wasn't fair. He didn't deserve to feel like he'd been punched in the gut, he didn't deserve the unknowingness of what would happen next. His love didn't deserve to be tossed aside like nothing, even as insignificant as it was to her. Harry deserved to be treated like a person, and she refused to give him even a moments notice out of her day.

Still, he waited around even more. He waited after school, when the lacrosse team filed into the locker rooms and he stood waiting for her to walk past. Not a glance in his direction, and had there not been hardly clothed girls behind the door, his anger would've had him running in to chase after her and force her to listen.

Instead, he waited at home going over the same list of thoughts countless times for two long, long hours.

How dare you?

How could you?

Why would you?

The two hour wait came to an end the moment four thirty displayed on the clock, when lacrosse practice was ended and the massive pair of balls Harry had psyched himself into believing he'd grown disappeared completely. Nerves and fear settled into his bones, but he still forced himself out for a walk. One that certainly had a destination, but he wandered off path with anxiousness and suddenly he was even more fearful of her than he had been ever before.

4:45 came when Harry finally forced himself to suck it up and follow through with his plan, because he knew if he didn't, he'd never get the closure. The soles of shoes pattered against the pavement until he stepped onto the curbing in front of the grey house that had been haunting him each time he drove by. The sky was clear and bright, unlike his somber mood, and the driveway was empty and showed no sign of life coming from inside the home, much like his heart.