You Feel Like Home [h.s.]

When It Goes From Worse to Maybe Okay

In the days that follow, Harry's never felt so alone. It's an odd thing to say, considering he's spent every day with his son the same way he has for the past five years. But there's something missing this time—something that makes him feel less than part of a whole. The loneliness is deep in his chest now, and the emptiness echoes through his body until he feels a shiver run underneath his skin until he's nothing but hollow.

He's never felt so cold in his life.

The hollowness grows deeper when Harry thinks about how most of this is mainly his fault. Because he has become so in tune with Ryan's feelings in such a short amount of time, sensing her unease before she even knows she's started fidgeting in front of him. And maybe that was his problem—he spent most of his time making sure she was okay, and in turn, forgot how to even act in front of her.

It's not like he didn't try to speak to her on more than one occasion. After Ryan left his flat with his tea mug, he couldn't stop thinking about her. He could barely sleep that night, going back and forth in his mind of whether or not he should just knock on her door and kiss her. And the restlessness didn't stop—the next morning he heard a crash on the other side of his bedroom wall, and his mind started reeling, wondering if she was on the other end of the abnormally thin plaster. Was she up all night thinking of him, too?

And then when he knocked on her door and she was wearing big glasses and her hair was a messy knot bound together by a flimsy pen and she looked so cozy, he's not quite sure why he didn't kiss her then, either. Because he wanted to—it was all he could fucking think about. It was as if his body movements were in sync with his heart, because they moved closer towards her on their own accord without asking his brain for permission, and it was only when he could feel her short spurts of breath on his neck when he realized he could kiss her right then and there if he truly wanted to. But her brown eyes were blown out and her bottom lip was quivering and her hands were shaking, so he backed away. He figured she was uncomfortable and how could he kiss her when he was asking her to watch his kid for a few hours?

He was a blushing mess that entire afternoon. And when he finally had the entire flat to himself and grabbed his guitar, plucking strings and making melodies that faintly sounded like Ryan's giggles, he never wrote a song faster in his entire life. Harry found himself scribbling dark eyes and olive skin and scraped knees, messy hair and big jumpers and hallways in his leather journal. And when he pieced them together and finally started singing, the song was so obviously about her that he couldn't even believe it. Has she always subconsciously been in every lyric he's written since he's met her?

Harry couldn't stop thinking about the song until he was standing right in front of her a few hours later, looking into her dark eyes underneath big lenses, her olive-skinned shoulder poking out of her oversized jumper. His heart took over again, and when they prompted his lips to blurt out an invitation for dinner, he couldn't even be angry with his head for not kicking into gear. He had never been more nervous for a date in his entire life—was it even a date? Did he even say the word date?

His mind was in overdrive. Harry cleaned his already spotless flat twice over, and when he looked at the clock and saw that he only had thirty minutes until she was knocking on his door, he panicked and jumped into the shower. The entire time he was shampooing his knotted hair, he couldn't help but wonder if she was panicking, too. Was she staring at herself in the mirror, deciding what shade of lipstick to wear? Did she change her outfit three times? Did she want him as badly as he wanted her?

After changing out of jeans and a corduroy pair of trousers, Harry knew he was fucked. His confidence was slipping, and he almost laughed at how much of a teenager he was being. It felt like he was fourteen again getting ready for his first date—giddy and nervous and practically shaking at the knees. Ryan felt like a lot of firsts for him, if he was being honest with himself. Did he feel like that for her, too?