Out of Time (One Direction AU)

Chapter 27

"You sure you'll be okay here alone?" my mom asked at the door of my room, with her hand on the knob.

I nodded. "I'm alone most of the time, mom."

"I know and I'm so sorry for that," mom said, sympathetically. "They've just been giving me extra hours and it's exhausting. On Sunday, though, I promise we'll spend time together." She smiled and I forced myself to return the gesture. "Okay, I have to go. I'll see you later."

She closed the door behind her and I threw myself back on my bed.

She was feeling a little guilty since she's been having to work more than usual and that meant we haven't talked a lot lately. I realized she had no idea about what was going between Harry and I. And Niall for that matter. I barely knew what was going on myself.

I've been avoiding Harry all week at school; taking different routes to my classes, missing school on Tuesday, actually eating lunch in the bathroom. At work, Harry had come by but I quickly hid in the back room as soon as I saw him pull up in his motorcycle. I heard him arguing with Louis, insisting he get to talk to me. After a few minutes of getting no where, he finally gave up and left but not before knocking over a trash can.

As I was helping Louis clean up the mess Harry had made, I suddenly doubled over and began to cry. I felt terrible with everything going on around me and every time I thought about what decision I was going to make, I felt completely overwhelmed and despondent. Louis had put his arms around me, letting me sob into the crook of his neck unquestioningly. He didn't ask questions, didn't pry about what was going on. And I was so grateful for that.

All week, I've been running over different paths I could take and different decisions I could make and they all ended up with me getting hurt one way or another.

I knew I had to break up with Harry. That was what anyone would do in my place. And now that he wasn't my soul mate, there was nothing keeping us together. So why couldn't I let him go?

I loved him. I really did. In a different way than I loved Niall, of course. In a stronger way.

But was that enough to override all the things he's done to me? And how could I trust him to not hurt me again? I've given him chance after chance and he's only hurt me more and more. It pained me to think that he couldn't love me the way I loved him. He says he does but his actions show me otherwise. What good are words when you can't prove what you talk? When you do things that completely contradict what you say?

"Diana," I heard a voice I knew all too well say.

I sat up abruptly, causing a sharp pain to go through my head and give me an instant headache.

Harry stood at my door, peaking his head in slightly. "Can I come in?" he asked. His voice was slightly distorted but I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I hesitated a moment, pondering over whether I was ready to talk to him yet or not. I concluded on the latter and I began to say, "Harry, I don't think-"

"Great, thanks," he said and came inside, laughing.

"Um..." I was stumped on what to say.

"You were taking too long to answer, babe." He walked over to me and smiled broadly. He sat on my bed across from me, keeping some distance between us.

I squinted my eyes and leaned forward, inspecting his appearance. He was wearing tight jeans, as always, and a slightly see-through white shirt. His hair was messily thrown up into a bun and his eyes red and drowsy.

"Are you..." I stopped, careful to not accuse him of something he wasn't. "Are you drunk?"

Harry laughed loudly and fell onto my bed on his side. "Maybe."