Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

52ᴺᴰ CHAPTER

                                         52ᴺᴰ CHAPTER 

        "One day you’re here, one day you’re there, one day you care, it’s so unfair" 

Anne doesn’t dare to bring the topic back, leaving Harry to simply be on the two weeks he spends there.

It’s only him, Anne and Robin, most part of the time. Except for when a few of his mother’s friends show up by the end of the afternoon to catch up and don’t react at all to Harry’s presence, if not for a quick ‘oh, hi, dear’, or ‘how’ve you been doing?’ that doesn’t sound half as judgmental as he’d expected. In fact, it doesn’t sound judgmental at all.

Maybe Harry had been expecting his mother to yell at all four corners in the world how shitty of a son he is, but maybe it was just overreacting. And even if she did – something he considers completely dumb, now – her friends don’t seem to care; it’s like he’s never left.

He sneaks out to the garage more often than not, sitting on an old stool and watching as Robin washes the car, or tries to fix a broken lamp. It’s easy being around him, offering help he knows it’s useless, but are taken up by his stepdad anyway. They chat about his and Anne’s anniversary trip plans, about the upcoming football match, or how winter is promising snow, this year.

Robin makes it easy to forget he’s already nearing his thirties way more than his twenties – he’s fucking twenty-eight years old, for God’s sake. Twenty-eight! –; that he’s not a child anymore and that he’s got a whole life to sort out back in London. Here it’s easy to forget he’s got to put his head in place because he’s already missed his best mate’s opening exposition, and has got a wedding to attend in a month or so. Maybe less.

Obviously, though, his mother is there to remind him, and after two weeks of waking up at nearly two in the afternoon and sneaking silently into the kitchen to already cold toast and tea, Anne nothing but shoos him out of her house, burying the tickets to the train in his front pocket and pressing a kiss to his forehead as gently as her hands push him out the front steps.

The walk to the station is cold, and his mom doesn’t offer a ride; just some shitty apology and something about ‘cleaning up the house’. The streets are too silent, and the drizzle hasn’t stopped for the past three days – even when physically gone, the smell still remained. It’s weird, because the trees are already baring, and he doesn’t remember going through summer at all.

He probably missed the sun against his skin during his endless trips around the country, too busy stuck to hostel rooms and dark environments so he could sort out his photography.

Now autumn is coming back again, and last time it was around, he was busy travelling with some woman, visiting the most endearing places he can think of. He vividly remembers walking down gardens that should be filled with life, but were covered in leaves instead; remembers feeding birds with Leesh and having her sitting next to him on a bench, remembers the moment he realised he trusted her more than he’d trusted anyone since rehab.

This time last year, he was telling her about a lost family and lost hope, and now, here he is.

He sighs as his train finally arrives, settling down on a seat next to the window and closing his eyes as soon as he does so. The light tap of the rain over his head and the feeling of the ground shaking beneath his feet are not distracting enough to pry him from the loud echo of his thoughts, but they’re distracting enough to give him space to sleep.