Chapter 13

                                    

                                          
Elena, will you please talk to me?”

Today is the seventh day Harry hasn’t been home. Not that I’m counting or anything, I just happen to know that it has been seven days and sixteen hours. He left angry on the Monday morning after our fight, angry at me or angry at himself, I have no clue, but he was overly upset. He slammed the front door before I even had time to apologize and he hasn’t been back since. 

Well, he has. Every day, except for one, on that Monday morning. Every day after that I came downstairs with new food in the fridge, a fresh breakfast and an apology note. I’ve tried staying up or waking up early, I even slept in the living room and by the door with a pillow, but those two nights I woke up in my bedroom comfortably wrapped under my comforter and I still don’t remember how I got there. And both days there were pancakes and French toasts in the kitchen, along with a note written on a napkin. 

One night that I knew I would fall asleep after crying all the tears my body held, I tried writing him a letter on a napkin, too. ‘I miss you. Come back’ was all it said, and I left it on the table where he usually leaves his. The next morning the letter was gone and his replaced it, but he still wasn’t home. I kept his letter too. 

I collect all of them, actually. All seven of them. I’ve glued them on the headboard of my bed with some scotch tape I managed to find after searching the house, all in order. I add a new one every morning after eating the delicious homemade breakfast he’s made me, wondering if one day he’ll be eating breakfast with me again. 

The two first days I was extremely upset that he’d slapped me and still had the guts to show up and apologize. The first letter simply said, ‘I’m sorry, Elena. Love, Harry x’. At first I balled it up and threw it in the garbage, but I ended up taking it out and flattening it under a book for the entire afternoon so it would look nice again. For the next four days I looked at them wondering what to do, what to think and I tried reading between the lines but I just couldn’t find a hidden message. They were simply apology letters that somehow meant nothing but so much at the same time.

Even after seven days and now seventeen hours, I still have a yellowing bruise on the side of my left eye and Harry’s fingerprints dotted on my skin. It was probably the hardest slap I’ve ever gotten and the damages it had done to my face were unforgivable. The first day I had a black eye and half my face was as red as a bad sunburn. The top of my eyelid was slightly swollen and my eye couldn’t open completely, which scared me at first. When the swelling decreased, thanks to Harry and his ‘Put some ice every ten minutes and take an Advil, it will get better’ note, my sight came back to normal and the discoloration was the only problem. 

I also replayed the night in my head over a million times, wondering if it had been my fault or his. I provoked him and he reacted. Without my provocation, Harry and I would’ve had a good night sleep and I would have been eating breakfast with the man I thought I was slowly falling for. So it was my fault. 

But the slap was simply a step closer to death. Even if I do want to see Harry, I don’t know if I can actually face him. The last image I have of him is his angry figure, his hand stretching back to take his swing at me and his quick pace as he walked past the front door with his black jeans and brown coat. He left nothing behind but his scent in every room, which was both overwhelming but comforting. 

Zayn tries to make me talk but I can’t. Not a single word comes to mind when I try to explain how I feel because I don’t even know myself. I want to believe that maybe slapping me is Harry’s way to tell me he cares and wouldn’t want me gone. Maybe it’s his twisted way of telling me he loves me, by hurting me so bad that I wouldn’t forget him. 

If that’s it, then it’s a fucking bad way of showing it. 

The last letter was as simple as the first one. Just a few words to say he was sorry, then his signature with the trademark ‘x’ at the end. Was he giving up already? I don’t want him to. I don’t want to forgive him but I certainly don’t want him to stop trying.

“Please, Elena. Just tell me you’re okay,” Zayn whispers, the arm around my shoulders pulling me closer. “For Christ’s sake, Elena. You haven’t said a word in three days.”

I look up, my eyes gazing into his dark brown orbs, slightly nostalgic that they aren’t the emerald ones I’ve grown to love. He watches me sadly as I try to make a noise but I can’t even cry. Ever since he saw the bruises on my face, he wouldn’t leave me alone. He leaves after dinner and comes back early in the morning, just after I glue the newest message to my headboard and claims that none of the boys or him has seen Harry. They think he’s staying at his mom’s, but he hasn’t answered any of the text messages Zayn has sent. Not even the one I wrote asking him to come back. According to Zayn, Harry’s mother lives about three hours away from London, and I don’t know how Harry would possibly be able to drop food every night if he was there. 

Zayn leaves after cooking chicken. I stay sat on the sofa while he fixes dinner but I can’t eat. I haven’t been very hungry lately and I feel nauseous everytime I see food. Harry and I were eating cupcakes the night he hit me and I haven’t been able to eat much ever since.

I bring my pillow downstairs and lie on the sofa with the television on. If Harry comes tonight, I need to stay awake and see him. I put some ice on my eye like Harry told me to and watch the time pass by on the small digital clock above the television. I doze off a few times but everytime I wake up, I’m still on the sofa and there isn’t any food in the kitchen. 

I hate him. I hate him so much for doing this to me, for hitting me and then leaving me like this. For days he had been nice to me, making me feel wanted and more home. I had almost forgotten about my friends, like Camilla who must’ve been dead worried, and Jensen too, if they were still together. My best friend from Boston, Amanda, who I hadn’t even thought about once until now. Harry had brainwashed me, made promises, and then cowardly left. 

Hatred is all I feel about him. But I’m betrayed by my own body when I hear the door open and close in the living room, the familiar sound of his footsteps being the only audible noise in the house. I’m awake this time, and I need to see him. 

Harry dims the light in the living room when I pretend to be asleep. He approaches me slowly, effortlessly picking me up bridal style and carrying me up the stairwell to my bedroom, where he deposits me carefully on the bed. He jogs back downstairs to grab my pillows, I suppose, because when he comes back to my room, I’m sitting in the middle of the bed and he’s holding my pillows. 

He’s wearing a Ramones shirt with washed black jeans, brown shoes on his feet and an olive beanie on his head, pushing his hair back from his face. He smells just the same, a mix of his shampoo and his deodorant. I did have to bury my nose a few times in his sheets this week to remember his scent, but I now realize that I would’ve never been able to forget him. Not even if I had tried.

Harry stops dead in his tracks, halfway through the doorway, and he watches me watching him. He looks surprised that it took me seven days and twenty-two hours to manage to stay awake long enough to see him, and I’m surprised that I managed to. His lips are as pink as always, his eyes greener with the green beanie, his chest longer than I remembered, or maybe I’m just crazy. He looks just the same, yet so different. 

“Hi,” he whispers, walking forward with an unsure expression on his face. Each step he takes seems to ask if I’m okay with it, but I can’t respond. 

His eyes leave me for a second, only to look at all the messages on my headboard, and then he meets my gaze again with sad eyes. I expect him to apologize but he doesn’t, but I don’t mind. He sits next to me on the bed, carefully making sure that his booted feet don’t touch the comforter, and he faces the doorway like I do. However, my head has turned in his direction, while his still looks forward, avoiding my stare. 

None of us are able to speak. I haven’t spoken in days, I even wonder if my vocal chords would be able to handle the rubbing. But the way his eyebrows imperceptibly move up and down in a frown every two seconds, I know that he’s replaying the scene in his head and he probably feels extremely guilty. I reach forward to take the hand that’s sitting on his lap and intertwine our fingers, doing all the work since he leaves his hand numb and limp. 
                          
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Hope you like the chapter :D I know it's a bit boring....but the next chapters will be alot better promise ;D
                          
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-Katexx