Amnesia!Harry part 6 (Patreon)

We are getting closer to the truth being spilled which is both :D and D: 

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vi. 

The third date had been a sunny one; they'd gone out for ice cream before he’d invited her to another party, promising that this one was much more intimate than an after game rager, and how he wanted her to meet his friends. She remembers going moony eyed at the thought of it -- the knowledge of him wanting her to meet his friends met that they were this much closer to him asking her to be his proper girlfriend. It met that maybe she would finally get the kiss he had mentioned that very first night when they’d been talking. The one that she still felt the ghost of his breath promising over her mouth. She’d been so stupidly excited, jittering and shimmering, especially when  Elsie had been gassing her up, telling her that it was the three date mark for her and her boyfriend before things began to officialize.

“I hadn’t even met his friends yet, so Harry must really like you.” 

She’d gotten a ride that time and met Harry outside like how he told her, where he’d offered her a drink and when he went to go get it, one of his friends -- a blond bloke called Niall -- had swooped up in his spot, “You should go,” he had said urgently and when Y/N’s brows tilted inward, he tried to continue, “He’s going to --” but another boy (Y/N didn’t know his name just yet) came over just before he could. Said he was needed at the keg or summat and Y/N hadn’t thought twice about it. 

She wishes she had. 

Harry came back with her drink and a buttercream cupcake and Y/N ate it happily, not having a clue that that night would not turn out as she planned. Not when he was still sweet talking her but looking over his shoulder, not when he was giving her these worried little smiles but promising nothing was wrong. . .that she just made him nervous sometimes… and not when she moved forward, pressing her mouth to his in a burst of confidence in a sweet kiss. Her first kiss. 

Drawn from her reverie by a rapid knocking on the door, Y/N nearly jumps from her skin as a plate clatters in the sink. She’d stayed behind at Harry’s place while he,  his mum and dad went out for lunch (Harry had offered but she had declined, mostly because they needed to spend family time together, partly because she did not feel like she belonged at that table since she wasn’t technically with him), cleaning up the mess her and Harry had made the night prior not only making 12AM tacos, but attempting to construct a cozy fort as a change of scenery from their usual couch sitting. The living room had already been a damning feat in itself -- they really did a number on it -- and she barely wanted to deal with the kitchen by the time she’d finished, but she encouraged herself with one of his pricy energy drinks in the fridge and got started. 

She was on a roll, which makes her answer the door in a bit of a huff (she couldn’t stand being sidetracked while she was cleaning because it’s hard for her to start back up again), looking through the peephole and seeing a brunette but that’s all she could make out. When she opened the door, recognition dawns upon both of their faces in a sweep that has Y/N’s lips parting to speak but he beats her to it. 

“Y/N?” Niall -- an aged Niall, with brown hair instead of his high school box blond, dressed in a light blue button down and black slacks opposed to his athletic wear -- looks just as shocked as he feels, “Holy shit, it’s been so long.” 

Niall -- even after what had happened with Harry -- she kept in contact with some. He had followed her out of the party after it had went down, offered her a ride home and when she didn’t take it, he called her a taxi so that she could get home. I was trying to tell you, he had murmured regretfully, looking like he wanted to do more -- wanted to coddle her sobbing form, with his hands hovering over her shoulder (she had tutored him prior to all of  this in their creative writing class and while they weren’t drinking buddies or anything, they did get along well enough and did a small nod to one another in the halls), shaking his head, I really tried to tell you but they didn’t want me to say anything. 

“Yeah,” she nods, agreeing with him, “Yeah, s’been ages.” 

His brows furrow, “What are you and Harry together or summat? I thought he was with Sheri? Is this why she’s been so sad?” 

“I -- um, it’s a long story.” She had prefaced, as she has with everyone who is confused why she is around suddenly, “Harry’s not home, he’s with his mum.” 

“Well, I have time to spare and need to chat with him, so let me know the long story in the meantime.” 

So she does, from the very start to where they are now, only she includes everything this time. All the nitty gritty stuff that she’d left out for Sheri and his mum, finally able to let it all out for someone who had witnessed what he’d done to her, so he understands her conflicting views. His eyes go wide, his mouth falls open, he mutters things aloud and asks questions the whole way through. He seemed just as thrown by this as she was and it makes her feel less batty about all of it. Even fills in with his thoughts that mirror her own like, “You couldn’t have just left him at the bloody hospital, how fucked would that have been?” and, “I wouldn’t be able to leave even if he asked me to, the bastard has such a good puppy dog face.” 

By the time she’s finished retelling this to him, she had downed an entire glass of water and he had eaten his way through a box of thin mints he’d taken from beneath the coffee table. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders almost -- she hadn’t known how badly she needed to tell it to someone until right then. 

“That’s fucking nuts,” he shakes his head, adjusting himself in his pants, “Wish I could say I was entirely surprised you were still floating around in his head after the fact though. Think he thinks about you more than you think he would.” 

Y/N’s face contorts, “Huh?” 

“Like,” he begins again, checking the time on his phone before clicking it to sleep and tossing it onto the cushions, “Once it’d all went down and you got home, when I went back into the party he seemed off. It took about three or four shots before I was able to coax it out of him but he felt like shit for what he did. Doesn’t excuse it but it’s true,” he purses his lips, “We were roomies in college and I used to catch ‘im looking at your pages. Would tell him to talk to ya but he said you wouldn’t have wanted to hear from him.” 

“He was right, I wouldn’t have,” she answers without any thought to it, “What he’d done had been cruel and evil and it felt like I was in some shitty high school movie. I’d forgotten about all of it -- or suppressed it I guess -- until I saw him again and all of these feelings just bubbled up and. . .” she heaves a sigh, “But part of me remembers what he was like when he wasn’t being a massive prick and that’s what he feels like now, like he’s gentle and looks at me like he loves me and it’s just too fucking much, y’know? S’just too much.” 

Niall nods like he might have gone through the same situation, empathy coating his gaze as he continues, “It’s crazy, I -- wow, I wish I had more on it. The only bit I really know is that it was a bet. . .summat about his girlfriend at the time and a few of his mates thought it might be funny to choose someone at random, so it was whoever walked in through the lunchroom door first and. . .and well, you came in.” He looks off for a moment, conjuring up the image of it that she remembers so vividly, sitting down at her seat and pulling out a hastily made peanut butter and jelly, Harry appearing beside her. His hair had been a bit longer then, framing his face, and she’d reckon he’d looked like a gift from god. Opened his mouth to reveal a deeper voice than she had imagined from him, slow and syrupy, talking to her like they’d been friends for years. 

It was a bet -- she was a bet -- and she’d eaten all of that up. Reveled in his words for days after, showing up to that party, going out on all those dates, deciding that he was the one she wanted to give her first kiss to. And that had been tainted by the night that followed; tainted by her tears, by Niall’s pinched brows and apologetic face, by going home and stuffing her face into a pillow, the sad look in Harry’s eyes when she’d told him off on a loop in her head that she couldn’t cut, and by the sadness she felt sink in her heart when she would see him in the halls. 

Y/N leans forward, pressing her hair from her face and dragging the skin of her cheeks back while she groans, “This is fucked,” she grumbles, mostly to herself, “I have to tell him don’t I? I need to but a sick part of me just wants to forget it happened.” She looks up to him again, “But then I think of his girlfriend and how sad she must be, and he tells these stories with me in her place and it sounds like he really loves her and --” 

“Really loves Sheri?”  Niall cuts her off, sounding amused almost, “Babe, y’don’t know a thing about it. They proper hated each other.” Her confusion must be evident because he barely takes a breath before launching himself into the story, “They met last year at work -- she’s the head of a department at a neighboring building, they would fuck in the bathrooms, and then Harry asked her for dinner one night and their sails were set but the wind never picked up. They fight every other day, their trips and expenditures are mostly “I’m sorry” gifts rather than “I love you” ones, and last I heard they were giving it one more chance before calling it a quits. If anything, Harry bumping his head gave her an excuse to dip out early.” He leaned back, getting more comfortable against the cushions, “Hell, I’d say the both of you had more chemistry in your three dates in high school than they’ve had in an entire year, and that’s the honest to God truth.” 

Y/N feels even heavier -- somehow that made this all even worse. Before it was he remembered and he had someone to go back to and Y/N just fucked off and did what she needed to do to get rid of these old feelings he’s conjuring up. But that. . .that sliver of a chance that they could be something? 

No! No, what is she saying? She couldn’t could she? And if he remembered -- well, what if Niall’s just trying to make her feel better? What if Harry doesn’t have a single ounce of remorse for what he’d done and when he remembers he’ll be peeved that she stuck around more than happy that she did? She’d look like an idiot then, wouldn’t she? It’d just be a repeat of what happened in high school, only opposed to running out of a party crying, she’d be running out of his million dollar home, but the emotions running through her would be all the same. 

History repeats itself, doesn’t it? 

“I would tell him,” Niall notes, “You’re torturing yourself bearing the weight of it. He deserves to know exactly what he did and why things can’t be butterflies and rainbows. After all these years, he owes you something even bigger than an apology.” 

Before anymore can be added, the alarm system along with the chatter of Harry’s parents signal their arrival. 

                                                          .                          .                            .

Y/N chews on their conversation all day. 

She comes to the conclusion that she has to. Niall was right -- it was torture, being the only one to have it looping through her brain. To be reliving these past memories she’d buried deep, deep down, until they were nothing but a shivered thought that she pushed away in favor of snuggling closer to Charlie. To have to look at Harry with those soft green eyes, gazing at her like she’d given him the world, trying not to think about how his face had changed to her after he had done what he did. 

Her heart was aching at the thought of bursting the bubble they’d been floating in, but as soon as Pretty in Pink’s credits roll, she turns to him, where he sat just a cushion away from her. 

“Harry,” she began slowly, and his eyes flickered to her, a small smile at his mouth, “What do you remember of high school?”