subside. // haylor au

seven

After that night, I borrowed a book. A simple book and that made our friendship stronger I guess. I borrowed Pride and Prejudice. I forgot my own copy at Dad's company in Portland. Although I've read it a thousand times, remembered some lines, I still miss the little complications and the simple, but deep meanings behind Elizabeth's thoughts on Mr. Darcy, most were dark, curious and intriguing. She wanted to know a lot more than a name and that was no different to me.

.

My alarm sounds and I hurriedly stop it before it can produce more of its annoying tones.

I groan as I force myself to get off of my comfy duvet. After showering and getting myself ready, I head down, again, the same time as Harry. And if he's not willing to have me with him, I'm just going to drop it. I've made process and I have absolutely no intentions to break it whatsoever.

Washing the dishes alone was now a normal task, but back in Portland, I'd wash them with my friends who work at the publishing, but as of now, I live alone with an annoying next door neighbor who I seem to like.

After being done, the clock shows the right time to leave and sure enough, I meet him right in front of the elevator. Work wasn't a problem for today, I called in and the manager generously let me off.

"Good morning," I say to him and he responds the same. We wait awkwardly for a while until the elevator doors slid open.

He goes in first and holds the door for me, chewing the gum in his mouth ever so slowly. The elevator was quiet and the atmosphere was crowded, even though there was just the two of us. I could here the sound of crackling from Harry's mouth as he continues to chew on his gum, popping it once or twice.

I can feel the motions of the elevator slowly go down floor by floor and all I do is stare at the numerals on the screen, decreasing one by one, taking quick glances of him.

Suddenly, the sounds of the elevator starts rumbling and the motions of the smooth elevation stopped at an abrupt jerk. Lights flickered on and off and eventually, it was all dark; the elevator had stopped working.

"What-" I shout and press against the elevator buttons aggressively.

"Shit," He cusses, loud enough to produce an echo throughout the space in the elevator. Within minutes, I was already feeling the sweat forming on my back through the thin fabric of cloth.

"What are we gonna do?" I turn to face him after several minutes of thinking and staring at the dark metallic color of the elevator door.

But instead he didn't answer, his face wasn't clear do to the soft exposure of light, but I can sense that he's shaking. I quickly scurry to his side and put my hands on his forehead, sure enough, it was wet and his hair was soaked in sweat.

"Oh my gosh," I gasp as I try to calm down his breathing, but it didn't even effect him in the slightest way or make him feel better.

"Hey, hey, calm down," I try again, doing as much as possible to make him focused on one thing. His breathing wasn't calm at all, instead his breathing was suddenly at an erratic pace.

All of a sudden, he gets up and starts banging on the doors, making me flinch by the abrupt sound that he produced. He slams the doors with so much strength that I can almost see it budge at the slightest motion.

"God damn it!" He yells and I attempt to touch him, but he flickers my hand away from him aggressively. That's when fear creeps into my mind.

"Harry, if you could just calm down-"

"Don't tell me to calm down," He growls, his voice low and raspy. This doubles the amount of fear in my mind and I feel small, he could possibly beat me right now and I wouldn't be able to help myself.

"If you could just stop-"

"I'm trying to find a way out of here and it's really nice to see you not doing shit!" He shouts once more and that shuts me up. I have no valid points to argue with him and that concludes that he is indeed, the right one.

"Where's your phone?" He asks, still shaking. Without hesitation, I quickly hand him my phone and he unlocks it without further ado. "Great. No available service," He says, right when he looks at the screen.

I let out a long sigh and let my hands slam on the buttons once more.

"I guess we're stuck here," I say when I realize that nothing will do apart from patience. Harry, on the other hand is still shaking. But, the symptoms match something at the back of my mind and that just might be it.

He's sweating, panting, his breathing's surely heavy and I can almost hear his muscles tensing; he's claustrophobic. After all this time, I never thought of that idea, but now that I have, my anger lessens and sympathy takes over me.

"Hey, calm down," I reach up to his chest and before I know what I'm doing, I slowly motion my arms around his waist and rest my head on his chest. There was no response to that, but it was a long hug. He didn't put his arms around me, but I didn't care. I just wanted him to calm down, so I won't be the only calm one in this situation.

After several seconds or what seemed like minutes, I pull away to the opening of the elevator door.

Light shined through the gaps and sooner or later, the doors opened fully, showing security guards clumped up at the front of the elevator.

"Sir," He looked at Harry and then looked at me, "Miss, are you alright, are you hurt?" The guard asks and I nod. The security guard nods back in response and dismisses himself. I can hear Harry swallowing hard next to me, before he starts to move.

"Where are you going?" I ask before he can proceed further on.

I don't even know why I would expect a proper answer because that should be the last thing I expect from him, I was just thinking that there could be a possibility of that chance happening, but of course, it doesn't. He continues walking out of the elevator and mutters, "You've learned way more than enough today."