Harry needs his bestie (Patreon)

Getting cheated on isn't very fun is it? 

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It’s a terrible feeling. 

All of it. That much was clear, when someone cheated on you, it wasn’t meant to feel good but sometimes there was just additional information that scrubbed salt into the open wound. His stomach soured with it, his eyes burned, bile threatened his throat as the extent of it all made him feel sick. It was too much for him to deal with, and the one person who could mollify the heartache and melancholy that he felt, he had pushed away. 

Y/N told him. She had shown up at his flat about half past eight, the day that Harry’s girlfriend took a raincheck on their movie night because she felt ill. He remembers her shaky hands clutching her water bottle, that she brought to her mouth several times like her throat was dry. An amalgamation of worry and pity dripping across her face, and with a wavering voice she told him what she saw.  

“She was cuddled with some guy -- they. . .I thought maybe they were just friendly but they started kissing, and -- like touching, and some other stuff.” 

When he thinks about it now, it must have taken a lot for her to say it. Nobody wants to be the one to break it to someone, and Y/N had never been one for confrontation. The look she was giving him would have suggested that she might be the one who started crying. It should have been him though. . .it would have been him if he had taken his head out of his arse and listened to her. 

Instead of hearing her out though -- instead of thanking her for telling him something so difficult to express to another person, he reacted adversely to it. Told her that she was lying, and threw something in her face that he had no right to to throw. 

A few weeks earlier, a mutual friend had expressed to him that Y/N opened up about her feelings towards Harry. That she had been harboring them for a while and how it wasn’t fair for Harry to rub his relationship in her face at every chance he had. Which he hadn’t thought he’d been doing -- he and Y/N were really good friends, she was his best friend definitely -- and he had noticed she’d been more distant since he’d gotten in a relationship. He hadn’t thought anything about it though when he was cancelling plans, or pushing things off, or doing things and taking Cora to places that Y/N and Harry had originally marked as their own. Hadn’t questioned when she started peeling off from him, because he was so enraptured -- so preoccupied by his relationship that he wasn’t concerned. And even after the friend had shared this piece of information with him, he didn’t believe it -- Y/N couldn’t like him, could she? She had seen every bit of him, all the good and all the bad, all the pristine and all the nasty. . .for her to have feelings. . .well, hell, he couldn’t imagine it. 

But he took it -- he took her feelings, he balled them up, packed it with ice, then slung it right at her. 

“You’re lying.” 

“Wha--?” 

“Listen, you’ve got feelings for me and that’s okay but you can’t go ‘round saying shit like that, just because. . .just because you want me all to yourself.” 

The thought of it makes his heart hammer and his stomach turn, how her face had almost immediately bittered and was laced with hurt. She was disgusted with his response, he could tell as much, the face she gave him is the same face she gets when a bloke tries to chat her up after she’s already declined him (Harry knew that when they were hanging out almost every night prior to his relationship. . .Y/N was such a reassuring, comforting, fun presence -- he could be himself around her, so they saw one another often -- he didn’t realize how much he was missing it until everything had blown up), “Why in the fuck would i make something up like that? And what do you. . .what do you mean feelings for you?” 

“Adam just told me that --” 

“Oh for fuck sake,” she shook her head in disblief, looking disgruntled and upset, “You think I’d -- you know what, Harry if you think I would lie to you about Cora cheating on you because of my own feelings then maybe you aren’t the person you let on, yeah? Fuck you.” 

That had been the last time he’d seen her and that was a week ago. What she had said had been nagging on his mind so insistently that he had finally brought it up to Cora, who soon then broke down and told Harry that she had been seeing her ex for the past month and didn’t know how to break it off with him. “You love with your whole heart. . .I just didn’t want to hurt you.” 

So here he was, cheeks sticky with tears standing at the door of her flat and hoping that when she looked through her peephole she wouldn’t turn him away. But she wouldn’t -- she never does -- but he worries that what he’d done may have pissed her off so severely that she would ignore him. Her car is outside and it’s a Tuesday night. . .she’s home Tuesday’s because those are the nights she watches Love Island reruns while she finishes her UNI course work. 

After a minute or so, the door swings open and Y/N is staring at him with her brows deepened and her hair mussed, eyes puffy from sleep, “Harry?” Her voice was tinged with confusion. 

“You were right.” 

That’s all he’s able to get out apart from a weak sob that drags from his throat -- he had driven directly from Cora’s to Y/N’s, she would be the first person he told, the first person he would be showing his emotions about it to. His shoulders shook, his chest heaved and shuttered with each breath he was able to muster through quivering lips, “Oh, Harry,” she murmured, the same pity that had taken her face overcomes her voice, and despite the last time they had seen each other she sent him off just short of a spit in his direction, she drags him into a cuddle. Her arms wrap around him the best they can, she guides his face where he can bury it into his throat, her hand hidden in his hair as she gently scratches at his scalp and rubs up his back, “Come on, come inside.” 

She escorts him to her couch, sitting him down and taking a seat down beside him, continuing to rub up and down his back as he let himself feel it all. He felt hopeless; all of it was for nothing, really. All the time he spent with her, all the love he had given, how he had opened himself up and taken a chance with her. It left him feeling broken. . .he’d felt this way before, but nobody had ever cheated on him. Was it him? What had he done? Did he not -- was he not enough? That’s what it felt like. 

“I just -- I just --” he shook his head, dragging his knuckles over his wet face harshly, “What did I do?” 

“You didn’t do anything, Babe, don’t you dare blame yourself.” She shuts his question down immediately, “It was her decision to cheat, and no matter what you had done, that part of her wouldn’t change. There’s people who value being faithful and there are people who don’t.” Squeezing his shoulder, she shakes her head, “Do not for a second think that you had any hand in this, okay? From what I’ve seen and from what I could tell, you were something of a picturesque boyfriend. You’re kind and you have such a good heart, you’re open -- you don’t lie. You can mope and you can feel sick and upset about it, but you have to tell me you understand, this has nothing to do with you. This was her choice.” 

He takes in a shaky breath, grossly rubbing underneath his nose, “I’m so sorry,” his face warps into a deeper frown, “I was so mean t-t’a ya I should’ve never said --” 

“We don’t have to talk about that right now,” she peels the back of his shirt up -- she hates the feeling of the cotton fibers against her palm, so she always did this if she was rubbing on him -- her fingers warm against his skin, “Have a cry, get it all out, and then you’re going to take a shower, I’ll dig out some softies for ya and we’ll have a cuddle, watch whatever you want. That sound good?” 

Harry nods before another odd, whimpery cry leaves him and he dips his face into her chest and lets another sob rack through him.

He does have a good cry. . .a good long cry, that Y/N rubs his back and pets through his hair during, shushing him, cooing at him until about forty five minutes goes by and Harry’s tear ducts feel empty. As he withdraws from her chest with a snuff, he sees the large wet stain on her shirt, and hiccups, looking at her face. She looks like an angel in the soft glow of her warm lighting, bestowed before him. She was always there for him -- always made him feel good. . .even after what he’d done, she’d brought him in, comforted him, and spoke sweetly to him.

Harry’s heart felt too big in his chest, and suddenly it seemed imperative that he needs to do something. Needs to show her how grateful he is. 

And so he leans in, he presses his lips to hers tenderly, but it only lasts two seconds. Y/N pulls from him, shaking her head, “No, Babe,” she murmurs, “That’s -- we can’t do that right now. Not when you’re sad.” 

Then his lips begin to wobble once again, a fresh wave of tears pool over his waterline but her eyes widen and she uses her thumbs, stroking the tears away, “No, no, none of that Sweetheart, it’s okay,” she coos, flipping her hands over to swipe against his cheeks, “It’s okay.” 

“I’m sorry,” it wasn’t fair for him to kiss her -- if her feelings for him were real, it wasn’t fair for him to lay his lips against hers because he was sad and soft, “I’m so sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing, yeah? Come on, let’s go get you in the shower, hm?” 

The shower water is hot, searing as it pelts against the skin of his back but it soothes him. It feels like it’s cleansing him, sloughing off the day he’d gone through, the seven months he’d spent with her, the fight with Y/N. . .all of it, slurped down the drain. She let him use her special apple scented soap, the silk shampoo and conditioner, and the exfoliator that leaves him feeling like a baby’s bum. After he leaves the shower, softening with her moisturizer. He smells like her and it brings him a great deal of comfort, even more so when he’s shrugging on the worn, oversized Weezer shirt and boxers that he had left here a long while ago. Y/N pats at his bum when he enters her room, knuckling at his tired eyes, exhaustion weighing him down heavily. 

“On the bed with you,” she nods at her mattress all done up for him, and Harry follows her orders with no fuss. He peels back her covers, snuggles his head into her mountain of pillows and Y/N crawls up onto the bed beside, “Do you want your hair played with? Little spoon?” 

He nods. . .he’d forgotten how nice it was to be a little spoon, to have his hair played with, to sink into the comfort of another body without he himself having to be the reassuring comforting one. Y/N cards her fingers through his hair gently, threading the soft, damp strands and scraping gently at his scalp. Harry slides his arm around her waist, lying his head on her chest and letting the steady thump of his heart soothe her. 

Harry sinks into that pleasant place, when he knows he’s falling asleep, his muscles relax into the mattress and into the warmth of her body beside him. He breathes her in, lets his eyes flutter shut, and with a marbled, muffled voice he murmurs, “Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it,” she responds, “What kind of bestie would I be if I left you all alone, hm?” 

As he slips deeper, he wonders if that was a dig at him.