Anchor {h.s}

one

Fifteen years later

Harry was beautiful. A beautiful mess.

In the past fifteen years that I've known him, I've seen him grow up, I've seen him change. I saw his ups and his downs, although it seems like I've witnessed more downs than ups. Especially in the last few years, since his life turned to chaos. I witnessed him trying to navigate through his life, fighting against the current while trying to keep his head above the water. And because Harry meant so much to me, because I loved him more than words could fathom, I tried to always be by his side. Through the years I had become his anchor, strong and steady, holding him onto reality. I was his anchor and he was mine. But while I tried to save him, he seemed to make me sink deeper into madness.

I don't know how it all started, why we both started to rely on each other so much. How, even though Harry was a raging storm destroying everything in his way, I fell for him. He had hurt me, countless times. Because I didn't give him shit, because I told him the truth, a truth he sometimes couldn't handle. I loved him through it all.

My happy moments with him were rare, because Harry was a beautiful mess and didn't believe in love. Still, they were precious to me, the reasons why I kept putting myself through the pain and sadness he sometimes inflicted me. I craved his presence. Even if it meant that I would often have to pick him up and put the pieces back together, I wanted to be with him. I would crawl through misery to have a single moment of happiness with him.

But we weren't dating. We were friends and I knew better than to tell him what my true feelings for him were, the results were predictable. He couldn't love and couldn't handle being loved. Yet, I seemed to be the exception to the rule. He didn't love me the way I loved him, but he craved my presence as much as I craved his. However, while I craved his presence psychologically, he craved mine physically.

Our relationship was complicated, he needed the physical closeness and I willingly gave it to him, because I loved him and it seemed like the only way to see him bare. Not his body, but his soul. During the nights I let him have me, I could see him whole, his walls were down, too concentrated on the physical pleasure he gave me and felt himself. These were the times I felt closest to him, because majority of the time he seemed to keep me at an arm-length distance. Consequently, I would take anything he would give me. Time, a touch, a kiss, a fµck, anything.

It was no surprise to me when he showed up at 1:20 am, a Friday night. When I opened the door, I saw a sight that I had gotten used to. Harry, my beautiful Harry, was staring at me with bloodshot eyes and a sweaty forehead. His eyes betrayed his emptiness.

"Em," he said my name with his deep raspy voice and it stirred something inside of me.

As usual, he was high, but I still thought that he was beautiful. His curly hair pushed back and slightly dampened by the sweat. He breathed heavily, like he had run all the way here.

I sighed because there was no other appropriate reaction. There was no way I was kicking him out because the first and only time I had done this, I had found him the next morning in a alleyway close to my apartment in a condition much worse than I had witnessed him hours prior.

Plus, I loved him too much to do that to him. He was lost and hurt, he needed me to take care of him the way I always did.

Harry rested his head against my door frame and looked at me with his beautiful green eyes. The sparkle I had noticed as we were growing up together wasn't there anymore. I had known him for a long time, and the Harry that stood in front of me was not the same as the Harry I had come to know when we were younger.

His hands rested in his jacket's pocket and I reached for his forearm. My hand glided down towards his hand and he pulled it out of his jacket. I intertwined my fingers with his and pulled him inside before closing the door behind us. His body followed me lazily, still affected by the drug that was running through his system. Still his hand held mine tightly and it felt as if it wasn't my hand that he was holding, but my heart. I felt it squeeze in my chest and a mix of emotions ran through me. It pained me to see him so broken and I hated that he always sent me mixed signals.