witness || h.s.|| ON HOLD

fifty-six || war of hearts

the song for this chapter is "War of Hearts," by Ruelle :)

***********

I can't help but love you
Even though I try not to
I can't help but want you
I know that I'd die without you

***********

Harry

Abel and Niall sat with me in the car while Tate and Will ran up to our hotel room to get our things and pay for our stay. I could tell they were trying to avoid talking about any wounds I had, but I didn't care. Normally, I would try and act tough, but I couldn't even lie to myself...I felt like shit.

I don't think that anything was broken, but you don't have to break physically to break emotionally...and emotionally...I was exhausted.

Part of it was due to the pain I felt from being roughed up by those three fuckers, who I gathered had a collective two brain cells. But the other part of it was the turmoil going on inside my head as I thought about the thing that had been playing in my head on repeat...

Love.

The last person I think I ever truly loved was my mother. As cliche as it sounds, I had spent the last few years protecting myself from the death sentence that was love, disguised with rose petals and chocolate, but to me, it was really just something that was waiting to suck you in, just so that it could tear you apart.

There is a monumental difference between physical pain and emotional pain.

With physical pain, you have a time frame in which you usually heal, and if not that, you have medications, and treatments, doctors whose sole purpose is to repair any damage within your body.

But with emotional pain?

There is no time frame, no pill you can take, no medical advice that anyone can give...you just have to sit there and take every last painful tear and pit in your stomach, breaking you to the point that you truly wonder if you will ever recover from it.

Especially in this line of work, having little to no attachments was a key factor in your success. And a few months ago, I had no attachments. I had nothing and no one to come home to...I was at the top of my game.

But now...

Not a moment went by when I wasn't thinking about Tate. When I wasn't concerned with her safety, or how beautiful her laugh sounded when she was happy. How her lips involuntarily spread into a smile when she was reading a good book, or how her eyebrows contorted into a sad expression when she saw that someone else was in pain.

There was no free time within the confines of my mind now, every second, every breath... was completely and utterly consumed with her.

I had some of the best sleep of my life when she was in the bed next to me, the only times I was not able to sleep is because I didn't want to shut my eyes, I didn't want to fall into some dream, why would I? I had the best dream in the world right against my chest.

These thoughts battling in my head stuck with me throughout the entire drive back to the safe house, and Tate kept staring at me, and I guess it made sense, seeing as I had been the one to stare first.

It's like I was trying to read those big hazel eyes of her, trying to trace the patterns within her irises, hoping to find an answer somewhere in between the streaks of brown and green blinking back at me.

"What are you staring at?" She asked suddenly, her lips quirking into a grin.

I smiled softly as I scanned her face, each drop of blood that tainted her skin a screaming reminder that everything that she did today, she did for me...because she cared about me.