Strangers

Chapter 40: Literally Cannot Wait

25 Days

I didn't feel hangover sick when I woke up. Instead, I felt sick at the thought of my interaction with Matt. I felt sick at the fact I haven't heard from Harry in days. I felt sick to death of this stupid arrangement. We're not even half way, and I can feel the threads of our relationship starting to come loose.

I reach under my pillow for my phone. 3 missed calls from Harry makes me heart skip about three beats. Finally.

Alice must've gone for breakfast because her bed is messily empty, meaning I don't have to leave the room before I can call Harry back. The call rings out without an answer. Seriously? I only just missed his calls.

Before I can get too resentful, my phone starts to ring and I waste no time in answering it.  "He's alive! He speaks! He can use a phone!" I don't hide my amazement at the prospect of a phone call from him.

"Hey," He says with a slight chuckle.

"I almost don't recognise your voice it's been so long!" I joke, the butterflies in my stomach basically dancing to the sound of his voice.

"What did you do last night?"

"Nothing much, went out for a few drinks with Alice."

"Oh yeah. Did you get drunk?"

"Not at all." I say, casually.

"Anything interesting happen?"

"Nope, relatively uneventful." I shrug, before realising he can't see me.

Lola!

"Really? Nothing at all?" He asks again. Fuck.

"Nothing worth mentioning." Because it isn't. It isn't worth mentioning something that is only going to start a fight.

"Hmm...see imagine my surprise when I went on twitter to see my mentions full of people saying you're cheating on me." My stomach falls. His voice isn't accusatory, it's more hurt but also curious.

"What?"

"Well there's these pictures going around, and I don't know they look pretty suspicious Lola..."

Pictures?!

"What are the pictures of?"

"I think you can take a pretty good guess." He grumbles. Oh fuck.

"Harry, nothing happened. He came over, talked to me and I told him to go away. Seriously, you have nothing to worry about." I defend, pretty annoyed I'm even getting accused of this.

"How can you say I have nothing to worry about when you didn't even fucking tell me you saw him last night?! I gave you the chance to tell me Lola and you didn't, you deliberately avoided it and that's bullshit. I'm over here pining for you and you're there having fun with your ex like that's absolute shit, isn't it?" The combination of anger and disappointment in his voice is enough to make me want to cry and vomit and catch a plane to wherever the hell he is all at once.

"Harry why would I tell you? Nothing happened. I knew if I told you I saw him you would get all defensive and chuck a hissy fit and we really can't handle another fight at the moment."

"No, Char, you just didn't want another fight because you knew you wouldn't get to be the angry one in this one." He says, so matter-of-factly it's extremely infuriating.

"Oh I'm not worried about that, I can get pretty angry at you for not trusting me." I bite back, scoffing.

"Don't fucking play that card! Can you blame me? How could I trust you when I see pictures of you holding Matt Healy's hand!" He shouts and I pull my phone away from my ear as I cringe. Shit.

"I was trying to walk away and he pulled me back Harry I wasn't holding his hand, if I was going to cheat on you do you really think I would do it in public? Do you think I would do it at all? After everything we've been through, do you really think I would cheat on you? I have never given you any reason to believe that I would. When I was with Matty last year, I was not in a relationship with you. That was perfectly clear so stop acting like you have reason to doubt me when it comes to him, I have never cheated on you and I never will, and honestly I feel like everything is falling apart in front of my eyes if you can even think I would do that to you!"

"Lola there are pictures of him kissing your cheek and whispering in your ear! What do you expect me to think?!" He argues, his voice full of exasperation.