Roses [h.s]

Chapter 16

"Woah, that's a lot of people." Harry murmurs as the car pulls up to the curb of the only Greek Orthodox church near the town, which is still practically more than a half hour away. I lean over and glance out his window, well aware of his curls brushing my cheek. He's not wrong, there's a lot of people, most of who are distant family, which comes with being Greek, I guess. But it's nowhere near enough for Harry to be nervous in anyway.

"Are you kidding me?" I say as I pull away from the window and stare at him with a playful expression of shock. "You literally perform in front of thousands of people on a nightly basis."

"Yeah, but I can barely see half of them. And it's not like I have to talk to all of them and leave a good impression." He's smiling as he talks, and I can't tell if he actually feels nervous or not. The car comes to a complete stop finally, and the driver turns around to tell us that we've arrived, as if he hasn't heard us talking about it for the last minute.

"You'll be fine Harry."

He smiles at me and gets out of the car, while I'm still making sure that I have my purse and the gift. By the time I turn around to try and fumble with the door handle, Harry has already come around to my side and opened the door for me, with one hand extended for me to hold onto. I smile up at him in thanks and grip his hand, ignoring the phantom shivers that roll down my spine when our skin touches.

We walk across the road, and I'm more than aware of the fact that his hand is yet to drop mine. It's way too easy to read into that, when all I can feel is the cool metal of his rings digging into the creases of my fingers, and with each second of my hand in his I'm reminded that I'm meant to be convincing myself that I don't have feelings for him. I pull my hand out of his awkwardly, under the guise of brushing some loose hair behind my ear, and even then, when he turns to me with a faux pout, I have to physically restrain myself from grabbing a hold of it yet again. This is going to be a long day.

I wish that I could find it within myself, somewhere deep down, to just tell him how I feel. To get it all out in the open, even if nothing comes out of it but the fact that I no longer have to walk around with it weighing heavy on my chest. But there's so much stopping me from doing it. It's not just the thought of rejection, which while it might hurt, would be expected in this situation. I mean, it's doubtful that after years of dating popstars and supermodels that Harry will return my feelings. On top of that, I feel like this whole time that he's been back, all this time we've spent trying to fix everything that was broken, I've been pretending to be someone else. As much as I've harped on about needing him to be honest with me, to tell me everything, I've been doing the opposite. I haven't told Harry anything about what I've had to go through without him, and if there's even a chance that he might feel something for me, I would feel so guilty about it. Like I've tricked him or trapped him. So no, I can't tell him, I just have to keep fighting and pushing these feelings down until he goes away again.

"Maddy!" I'm pulled out of my sinking thoughts when I hear name being called, and when I look up, I see one of my cousins smiling and rushing over to me. I can't help but smile back, it's been so long since I've seen most of my family, let alone Sienna, and even then, the last time my family had met had been at my mother's funeral.

"Sienna!" I smile back, meeting her halfway and pulling her into a hug. After a moment I pull back and look at her. "You look beautiful."

"I look beautiful? Look at you! Where did you get this dress?"

I smile awkwardly and lift a shoulder in a reflexive shrug. Despite knowing that I do look great in this dress, I still feel shy about accepting the compliment. "Aw, thanks. It was a gift. Anyway, how have you been?"

"Oh, you know, same old stuff."

Just as Sienna stops speaking, I feel a hand rest on the small of my back. Immediately, I know it's Harry, partly because of the way I can feel his rings imprinted on my back, and partly because I see Sienna's eyes flicker up at him and widen. I introduce them, and when Harry holds out a hand, I have to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing at the way that Sienna tries to act like she doesn't who he is. It's like a bad soap opera the way she smiles widely and asks him what he does, as if she doesn't sleep in his merch.