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[looselucy]

Thirty Four - H

Harry’s point of view. I was totally lifeless as the tour bus travelled to our next destination. My mind had become a bit of a blank slate, I wasn’t at all aware of where we were actually going. Usually, I kept track of it in my head, marked where we were and where we would be going next, but I was finding it increasingly difficult.

It had been a week since I had been around to Anna’s and ended things. Maybe even more importantly than that, it had been a week since I told her I loved her. I wished I had let her know sooner, that I could have told her that in a way that didn’t make the whole encounter seem twice as agonizing. Hearing her say in back was utterly excruciating. It felt like someone had thrust their fist through my chest and pulled my heart from its place. But instead of wishing I hadn’t said it at all, I just wished I had said it earlier. The day had been awful, the entire day was one I was desperate to forget. It started fully when I was released from the shared cell I’d spent my evening, cameras flashing in my face as I kept my head down and just walked to my private car, security trying to block the photographers from me, but the men did their jobs incredibly well, getting enough pictures to satisfy those who were interested in my misery. I told the driver of the car to drive me home, but our management had different ideas. I was drove to a building in the centre of London, one I was all too familiar with. Luckily there were no photographers there as I went inside, completely glum. They told me straight away I had to break up with her, that I had to end our relationship. I spent the whole day fighting them about it, the entire day trying to explain that she wasn’t who she was made out to be, and it wasn’t because of her that I’d lost my mind, but that didn’t make a difference to them. “If her image is bad, so is yours.” They’d said. When it came to her, I couldn’t have cared less if my appearance was dire, I couldn’t care less what anyone else thought, because I had her. I tried to explain that the attack I made on her prick of an ex was entirely of my own accord, that it had nothing to do with her, but they barely listened to me. Ignoring the awful aftermath of my actions, and the fact I didn’t have her, a part of me still couldn’t help but feel content that I had done what I did. If I could go back in time and change things, I would, she was more important than my anger. But the way things stood, fuck, it felt good to give that little prick what he deserved. I had this insane protective instinct when it came to Anna, and I couldn’t control it. I noticed it right away, as soon as she met the other boys I felt something overrun me, even Louis giving her a kiss on the cheek made me feel rather uncomfortable. The feeling was strange and foreign to me, I tried to brush it off, but I knew I was going to be very protective of her. She was mine to touch, and hold, and love, and the thought of anyone else being that way with her made me feel physically sick. I wouldn’t have been violent with that protection if there hadn’t been pricks that made me that way. It was something that happened in the parts of my mind and my body that I couldn’t control. It wasn’t my fault, and it definitely wasn’t hers. I tried to explain all of this to them, I tried to explain that people didn’t even know we were together and that it could stay that way, but they were having none of it. They knew about us, and it was enough. I began yelling, telling them they could go fuck themselves, telling them there wasn’t really anything they could do, it wasn’t like they could physically break us up or take me out of the band, we were earning them their money. But then they passed me a copy of the contract I had signed eagerly when I was child, and began explaining what they could do as I skimmed through the pages, my heart sinking as I did. They began to explain that they could stop paying me; they could literally, legally, get away with not giving me a single penny if I broke their rules. They could stop me from tweeting, stop me from associating with the fans in any way possible. They could stop me having time off, make sure I never even had the opportunity to see my family. And they were deadly serious. They didn’t care about me, they didn’t care at all. They just wanted their money. I wondered if general human decency ever entered their minds, even if it was just for a moment. My health and my wellbeing and happiness, were not factors they were going to take into consideration. They just cared about the money. The distant sound of someone saying my name made me lift my head and let her slip from my thoughts for a moment. Niall was sat across from me, concern plastering his features. “You okay?” He asked. All I did was shrug. I preferred it when we were busy, or when I was onstage and I could just take my mind off the scenario I had found myself trapped in. Being on the road with nothing to do made me crave her. “Talk to me.” He encouraged. “I don’t want to.” “I think you need to.” “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!” I spat bitterly. Niall looked disheartened by my tone, like he’d taken it personally. I had never really spoke to him like that before, I never usually spoke to anyone like that, but my patience was wearing thin. I had no idea how I was going to get past this, how I was going to move on. “I’m just trying to help.” He drawled. I ran my hand over my eyes, trying to wipe away this constant sense of anger I’d had for the whole week. I really needed to try and move on. “Sorry.” I breathed. “I just don’t know what to do.” “I don’t think there’s anything you can do. But you can’t keep it bottled up, that’s what you did when you got scared of the fame, and when you were with Kate, and that was a really dark time for you. I don’t want to see you back there.” He was both stern and soft, having to be stern to show me that he was being very serious, that he didn’t want to see me fall back into a place that had made me very weak in the past, it had made me into a really horrible person, and the four lads had been the only people who could pull me out of the spiral. It wasn’t easy for them, either. “I just... I can’t believe I can’t be with her.” I sighed. “I’m not allowed to be with the person I love. It’s a fucking joke.” “Do you really love her, or did you just say it because you knew it was ending?” Niall asked. A part of me was angered by the fact he had questioned it at all, but then at the same time I understood where he was coming from. He knew I was upset, and he knew my relationship with Kate had no feelings involved whatsoever. He was just asking me because of what he had seen from me in the past, I couldn’t really be mad about that. I had to take a deep breath in before I replied to him. “I love her. I know I do.” “Holy shit. That’s rough.” Niall stated. “I know. How do I… How am I supposed to get past this?” “I guess... you just try to forget.” “I don’t want to forget.” “I know you don’t, Harry, but that might be the only way you can… be okay again. Right now, there’s not much else you can do.” I glanced out of the window, seeing the orange lights of the motorway pass by us in a flash, travelling through the dark night at a dizzying speed. I really didn’t want to forget about Anna and what we had shared. I didn’t want to forget her touch, or her skins reaction to my touch, or the beautiful XIII tattoo on the back of her neck. I didn’t want to forget anything, in fact I had promised myself that I would remember everything about her and what we had. But it occurred to me that Niall was right, I was torturing myself with memories and thoughts of her. If I wanted to get past these feelings, I was going to have to get past the feelings of love I had for her, and that meant I needed to try my best to stop thinking about her, to forget the way she looked when sleeping, forget the slight curve of her kiss, forget that I only cared to hear my own name when the sound slipped from between her lips. The task seemed impossible, but I had to try. “I’m knackered, man.” Niall began. “I’m gunna go to bed. You okay?” “Yeah.” I nodded. “Thanks for being here.” “Don’t mention it!” I was taken in for a hug, something that was often shared between the five of us. Sometimes it felt like they were the only people in the world I could rely on fully. They would always be the only people who could fully relate to me. We were the only ones who had gone through it all, and felt it all, right from the start. I would have been totally screwed without them. Niall eventually freed me from his tight embrace and said his goodnights, moving into the other section of the bus where the beds were, leaving me alone to become entranced by the passing orange lights once more. I’m not sure how long I sat there for just looking out of the window, but my mind was blank once again, nothing seeming to cross it as my eyes were flashed by the beams of light every few moments, crossing my eyes and leaving slight trails behind them, printing my vision for a second even when we had passed them, then slowly fading to nothing. I think I could have stayed that way all night if I hadn’t felt my phone vibrating against my leg, signalling someone was trying to get in touch. I wasn’t sure of the hour but I knew it wasn’t your average time for receiving calls, pulling the phone from the tight pocket of my jeans lifting it to my face, seeing who the caller was. Alex Turner. I wasn’t really sure why he was ringing, but I automatically predicted it was going to be something to do with Luke. I questioned in myself whether I should answer, I was trying to leave everything to do with Anna behind, just to help myself, just to make sure I got through these feelings. I ignored the call. But to my surprise, he rang again just seconds after his first attempt. I knew then, something was wrong. I swiped across the screen and then brought the phone up to my ear, sighing heavily before I did so, only now realising that I had become tired as the hours had passed. “How’s it going, Alex?” I asked right away. Silence pierced the other end of the line, making me lower my brows in confusion, only able to distinguish the eventual sound of a sigh, a desperately sad and frustrated sigh. I spoke his name again, signalling I knew he was there, and I needed him to talk to me. Still nothing other than a slight shuffling noise came from his end of the line. “Alex, what’s wrong? Is everything okay?” “No.” He eventually said. A sick feeling clung to the bottom of my stomach as my nerves heightened, my body becoming slightly hotter thanks to the feeling. “What’s going on?” I asked, trying to stay calm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t wanna have to do this. I don’t want… But you deserve to know. I get that things are fucked up, but you deserve to know. Fuck.” “Alex, just fucking tell me what’s happening.” “I didn’t want to have to ring you, I thought it would be sorted by now, but...” He trailed off, unable to say what he needed to say, unable to verbally face the situation. It was like actually saying it out loud was too much for him, it was confirmation that what he had to tell me was actually happening. “Is this to do with Luke?” I spat. “No. But... it’s Anna. Somethings happened. Something… I don’t…” My heart sunk, the thought that maybe she was hurt, or worse. Alex was so on edge, he could barely string a sentence together and I had never once had a conversation with him where he had struggled to hold himself. I was so worried. “What’s going on?” I interrogated. “Anna, she... She’s missing.” He eventually spat out. “What?” “She’s missing. We don’t know where she is.” “What do you mean she’s missing?” I cried. “It’s been almost a week and-” “A WEEK?” I yelled. My stomach was in knots, continuing to tie itself tighter and tighter by the second the more I thought about what he was saying. I blamed myself at first, the thought that a week ago I had ended our relationship and then she had gone missing, I thought she had done something stupid because of me. “We have the police looking for her but they’re struggling!” He panicked. “And I know how you feel about her, and you have the right to know!” “I can’t breathe.” I rushed to the nearest window and opened it just slightly, feeling the heavy wind rush against my skin as I tried to cool down and come back to life. “Has she hurt herself?” I worried, feeling tears form themselves. “No, Harry, it’s not like that. There’s something else. Something I haven’t told you.” “What?” “We found some letters. I thought they were from a fan but...” “But what?” I spoke with anger. “They talk about… watching her. In these fucking letters, this guys talks about… following her... and wanting to take her... and taste her... and...” Before I could even listen to another word my fist smashed against the glass window, the whole thing falling apart around the floor of the tour bus and onto the motorway, which was thankfully quiet thanks to the hour. The bus swerved, making it hard for me to stand for a moment before the driver pulled onto the hard-shoulder, cursing loudly and asking what the fuck had happened. But I couldn’t control it, tears angrily dripped down my face as I collapsed into the mass of broken glass, cutting through some of my clothes and some of my skin as I sunk into it, my heart seeming to be cut by the shards too. The door to the bedroom area opened quickly, the four boys watching me in horror as I cried out in pain, dropping my phone to the floor and clutching at my stomach. I could hear the boys trying to talk to me, Louis nervously stepping over the glass and crouching down in front of me so his eyes were level with mine, trying to get some words out of me and make sense of the situation but I just couldn’t stop crying, groaning out thanks to the agony that was breaking my heart. I had never felt anything like it in my life, I had felt awful enough about the way things had ended between the two of us. Now this. She was missing and they’d found letters that strongly implied that it was someone who had caused that, someone who had taken her, who could be hurting her, using her. If I had known I would have stopped this. I could have stopped this. I would have killed the bastard I would have made sure he could never lay a fucking finger on her. The thoughts then ran my mind of what if he hadn’t just taken her, what if he was hurting her. What if she was dead. As much as I wanted to explain to the boys what was going on, there wasn’t a chance I could speak in that moment, I was far too overawed and I was in far too much pain, my mind beginning to convince itself that she was gone. My own blood covered my hands, cuts being created and oozing the red substance, but a part of my mind still wanted to pick up some shards and squeeze them in my hand, tighten my fist around them, just to distract myself from the pain I was feeling on the inside and feel it outside instead. “I can’t do this...” I managed to blubber. “Someone call an ambulance!” Louis spoke calmly. That’s all I remember really, I think pretty soon afterwards I passed out, a mixture of all my emotions and my loss of blood taking over my body and taking me into a deep slumber, my body having nothing else to give in that moment.

How I had actually managed to function in any way whatsoever was a miracle. I got to the top floor of Anna’s building, my heart empty in my chest as I walked down the hallway towards her flat, seeing police-tape surrounding her front door. I had left the hospital and got a private jet from Manchester Airport straight down to London as soon as I could, making the promise I would be back there in the evening for the show. I didn’t want to disappoint the fans, and I knew there was nothing I could really do when it came to the Anna situation, but I had to be there, even if it was just for the day. I looked round the door which was open, police men and investigators inspecting the room as I silently stepped inside, completely dry of tears, my mouth dropped as I let myself in, sad eyes scanning the crime scene. One of the balcony windows was smashed open, its shards still on the floor. On one of the white walls of the hallway the word ‘six’ had been painted to the wall in red. I next dropped my eyes to two people inspecting a mark on the floor, which I quickly recognised as blood. I hoped the word on the wall didn’t come from the same substance, but I couldn’t be too sure. I tried to run, not being able to deal with the thought that it could be her blood, trying not to give my mind a chance to dwell on the information I was seeing, but someone calling my name stopped me in my tracks. I turned around to see Rachel walking towards me, tears brimming her eyes as she walked past the unwanted guests in her home and bolted to me, quickly wrapping her arms around my waist and bursting into tears, my body jolting back in shock. My arms hovered over her for a second, unsure where to place them or how to react to her body gripping to mine. But I soon placed them down, holding her back weakly. I was completely empty in that moment, my face lacked all emotions. I was drained. “I don’t know what to do.” She sobbed to my chest. “She’s been gone for a week I don’t know what to do!” I few mumbles emptied my mouth, but I couldn’t quite string a sentence together. I couldn’t have said anything to comfort her or myself, I was just as much of a mess as she was. I was losing my mind, I couldn’t even believe I had the strength to keep myself stood. Because of her hold on me, I had nowhere else to look other than the people inspecting the blood, using some kind of equipment to trace the splatters, concern running their faces. I felt so sick to the stomach, I just looked down, looking to the strands of Rachel’s dark hair instead. “They don’t know where she is.” She continued. “They can’t find her.” “I... I know.” I mumbled. “I’m so sorry.” She said, pulling away from me. I looked down to her shivering frame, confused as to why she was apologising to me. If anything, I felt as though I should have been apologising to her. For everything. “What?” I baffled. “I’m sorry. I know you loved her and-” “Loved?” I interrupted. “I love her Rach. Don’t say loved, please. It’s like she’s gone if you say that. Don’t fucking say that. Please don’t say loved.” “I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t help it!” She said with her hand on her chest. “It’s been a fucking week now and we have nothing. What do you want me to think?” I covered my face with my hands, shaking my head, trying not to let her words infiltrate me, but her lack of faith was aching my bones and making me subconsciously agree with her. We both thought she was gone. Then the atmosphere changed even more so, as I coated man walked over to the two of us, a serious look on his face. “I’m sorry, but you two need to leave.” He said. Rachel shot her head round to look at him, still slightly riled up and upset, all her emotions getting the better of her as she snapped at him. “This is my fucking home, you can’t tell me to leave!” “I’m sorry, Miss, but you really have to go.” “What’s going on?” I asked breathlessly. “We’ve finally found some blood that isn’t hers.” My eyes widened, gently being pushed from the room backwards as he ushered us both out. My heart stopped beating for a few moments as I stared at him, my mind completely puzzled by what he had just said. “Wait... what?” Rachel gasped. He finally got us into the corridor, trying to slam the door in our faces but I didn’t let him. Anger crossed my body as I placed my foot in the doorway, stopping it from being slammed shut entirely as I gave him a piercing stare through the gap in the door, my nostrils flaring as I stared at the fully-grown man irately, trying to threaten him somewhat. “What does this mean?” I asked, austere. He sighed with slight frustration, knowing that he probably shouldn’t give me the information we were asking for, but he decided to just be decent about it instead, thankfully. “It means... there’s a chance we can find out who was here. We might even be able to find where they live.” I whispered a thank you, moving my foot from the door as he gave us a sympathetic smile, now gently closing it rather than slamming it in our faces. A slight glimmer of hope glazed over my body, the thought that they could find the sick bastard who had done this to the girl I loved, and he could get the punishment he deserved. And if we were lucky, we could find Anna. Alive.