a.n. don't forget to comment and vote

• • •

Harry Styles

There are certain things in life that need to be done in order for a better outcome to happen. I always thought that and I still think that. You have got to do what you have got to do and there is no question about it.

"Mr Styles, I looked through the finance sheets three times and there was no error. I'm not sure how this happened," one of my employees tried to excuse what happened but I didn't want to hear it. Excuses never solved anything, they only wasted time. Time that was precious. Especially when something got fucked up and a deadline was under our asses.

"So, you go through it five more times to ensure there really isn't any mistake," I said with a stern voice, busy signing a few papers and absolutely not bothered to look at the folder placed on the edge of my desk. I felt a bit like Renleigh, she was always so tough with her employees and accepted no mistakes. Her work ethic rubbed off on me more than I cared to admit so in situations like this, I was slightly taken aback. However, it got the work done for me so I didn't complain.

"Yes, sir," the man said and moments later, he was out the door. Perhaps my moodiness was needed in order to get shit done.

Then another round of knocks came and I became very irritated all of a sudden. Especially when my door opened and none other than Levi Johnson waltzed in like he owned the place. I dropped my pen on the desk and leaned back in my chair, my fingers intertwined on my stomach as I looked at my best friend with furrowed eyebrows.

"You forgot, haven't you?" he asked as soon as he sat down in the black leather chair, situated in front of me.

"No, I have not," I stated calmly.

"Yes, you fucking have," he argued back, a smirk grew on his face then he cleared his throat. "You were meant to pick me up an hour ago, we had a reservation for thirty minutes ago."

"I... I rescheduled. Charlotte must not have been able to get through to you."

"Save your bullshit for someone who cares," he rolled his eyes. He then leaned forward and tapped on my desk. "Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Three course meal. Now," he then stood up and walked towards my door.

"Hold on—what makes you think I have the time?"

"Because you always have time for your best friend," he shouted, half way out the door.

I huffed and closed my eyes for a few seconds. I needed to get out of this office. I sat in my chair since I got in at eight, it was now one in the afternoon. That is five hours on my arse, without a break yet it felt like five minutes. Whenever I drowned myself in work, the time seemed to just fly by—then again, this was my first time where I really jumped head first into everything. Something I took pride in was the way I worked. Following a schedule was important for me so that no little detail got lost within all the major ones.

"Johnson! Wait up," I shouted after him just before he got in the lift. I locked my office and jogged up to him, my hand pressed down on the tie I randomly decided to wear with with my shirt today then pressed the ground floor button when I was inside. "I don't know if I have time for a three-course meal but I am definitely hungry so we're going somewhere."

"Whatever is expensive," he sighed. "You will make up for missing out on our lunch."

"You sound like you're my girlfriend."

"Yes."

"What?" I laughed.

"Yes, I will be your girlfriend," he sighed dramatically. "Since you're single and too pretty to be single, I will take you off the market."

"I don't need you to take me off the market," I mumbled.

"Why is that?"

"Because I don't want to be in a relationship," I said as a matter of fact.

"Bullshit," he scoffed. "You can't tell me that's true..."

"Well, it is."

"Okay. We haven't talked since you got back from New York and that was two weeks ago. The only thing you told me about what happened is that you're single and that still makes no fucking sense to me," he rambled as we got outside and in my car. "It really confuses me how you two ended it when I genuinely thought you were going to propose to her any day now. Bro, you literally picked a potential location for where you will have your wedding and now, you're telling me you just broke it off?"

"The distance was too much, okay?" I tried to shake him off, not a fan of the topic of our conversation. It was still somewhat fresh and it didn't do me any good to talk about it.

"Is that what you are gonna go with?" he mocked me.

"Can we switch topic?" I asked although I already knew the answer.

"I can't tell if you really are such a dumb fuck or if you are pretending. Please, do enlighten me."

"To me, it feels like you want me to admit to being a dumb fuck so—yes, I'm a dumb fuck," I replied honestly. "Now, can we drop this conversation before I lose my appetite and drop you off at the side of the road?"

• • •

The tiniest part of me really believed that my best friend wouldn't press the girlfriend topic any more after he was told to forget about it. But Levi was not that easy to flick off if he annoyed someone. Especially me. He saw through me, he knew the ways I bent and he wasn't afraid to push me to my breaking point.

He made me leave work for the day to get pissed at his place and since going back home was too hard, I gave in. I think I needed it since I pushed the whole break-up as far from my brain as I could since it happened. Which was not good for me and also very unlike me.

But I just didn't want to deal with it. If I pretended like nothing ever happened, it didn't hurt as much as thinking about how I broke it all off.

"Listen, we're almost half-way through this bottle... how long is it going to take you to open up?" Levi questioned, although he knew the whole of it had to be gone for me to spit anything out. I was way too stubborn to do otherwise.

"You know... whilst we're on the topic... you never really told me any more about your little girlfriend... Steffi?" I cocked my eyebrow in question, all my power pushed towards the goal of changing the subject from me to him. Or anything or anyone else.

"We're fine. Casual sex works well for both of us," he concluded easily. "Now, what about you and Renleigh?"

"What about me and her?"

"C'mon mate... what happened?" he questioned. "I know you're devastated; you look sad and I can only look at you for so long until I crack and start to laugh at your face."

"Be my guest," I scoffed as I took another sip of my drink. He gave me a look of annoyance and I sighed. "I don't know what you want me to tell you. We broke up. That's it."

"Okay. Why?"

"Because of the distance."

He laughed at me and shook his head. "Neither do I or you believe that shit excuse. There is clearly more to the story and you are keeping it from me."

"Why would you think that? Why are you so invested in my private life? It doesn't affect you."

"You are unbelievable."

"Why, thank you," I smirked.

"Alright, Renleigh-,"

"Harry."

"-drop the cockiness. I need my best friend to break down in tears for me and explain what the hell is going on with him."

"I'm fine. There is nothing to talk about," I rolled my eyes. "You know, you are stretching this conversation out longer than it needs to be or it could be. We broke it off due to the distance this opportunity brought between us and that is it."

"And she was okay with that?" he asked me seriously.

"Yes. She told me to get out of her car and I did. There was nothing left for me to do," I replied in one breath.

"Okay. I can see that happening. I would tell you to get lost if you broke up with me on the spot," he hummed. "Wait a minute—you said you're going to New York to apologise to her and you come back single. Something doesn't add up. Did she dump you?"

"No," I replied. I bet he would have expected that. Hell, I even expected that at the beginning.

"Will you tell me the real reason you broke up?" he asked after a while, quietly, and he sounded like he really did care. It caused me to sigh, too, and I swallowed whatever was left in my glass.

"We've been together for a year and it would have been two in a week."

"Wait... really?"

"Well, I count it from May because that's when we started talking. Then I wasted my time on trying to befriend her all summer of 2018 until she proposed the contract around the end of September-start of November. We had that going on for a while then that ended just before Christmas. Didn't see her for a few weeks then we somehow ended up hooking up at a party and it all just went from there," I explained. That made me sound kind of foolish for thinking all that time together counted towards the length of our actual relationship.

"So... this year January marked your official one-ish year anniversary and you broke up with her four months later?" he asked back in a shocked tone, his math more accurate than mine.

"My point to this whole thing is that we've been together for so long and she was just unable to reciprocate my feelings," I said. "She is emotionally damaged and I can't put anymore effort into trying to fix her because she sucked it all out of me."

"You're not serious, are you?" he looked at me with squinted eyes and his glass lifted by his head. "So why waste time on her at all? Why go to all those lengths to make sure she was healthy and happy if you knew all along just how emotionally damaged she was?"

"I was naïve, I shouldn't have stayed with her for so long. My fault. I will learn from this experience and not fall for anyone head over heels again," I concluded as I sounded rather robotic, perhaps my many hours of practice came in handy.

"I have no clue what to say," he laughed from the shock he felt at what I had said and honestly, I completely understood him.

"Nothing. You wanted to know, I told you, now our business here is done," I stood up from the couch after I put down the empty glass. "I'm calling an uber and I'll come pick my car up tomorrow. Night, lad."

I was so close to getting out of the living room to put my shoes on when he spoke up.

"You lied to me twice."

I straightened up and chuckled under my breath.

"You have the chance to tell me the truth or I will find out myself."

"Why are you so bothered?" I asked as I turned around. I felt like I sounded evil as I popped the question and the possibility of him saying something that could indicate he had a thing for her, somehow got higher and higher.

"Because you are my best friend. I have known you for a long-long time and trust me, I have never seen you half as happy and content in life as you were with Renleigh. She brought out a side of you that you never dared to show—the vulnerable one. It finally seemed like someone got to you on a level that no one could ever manage to do so and I will admit, I didn't like it at first," he said honestly as he slowly walked closer to me, his hand now holding a glass full of whiskey. "She took up all your free time, it felt like all you ever did was work and hang out with her. Somehow, I completely disregarded all the phonecalls you made or all the texts you sent me about her, all the help you were seeking to get under her skin."

"Is there a point to your speech?" I sighed whilst I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"My point is that you finally found a person who you could put all of your love and care into because they so desperately needed it. It made you happy to make her happy and it was never about wanting anything back in return," he explained with a small smile in his eyes. He was always great at showing emotion in ways that couldn't be figured out easily. "I specifically remember the time you FaceTimed me and went on and on about how much you love her and how happy she makes you and how you see your future with her. Do you remember that? Do you remember how long we were talking for?"

"Levi..."

"Do you remember?" he pressed me to answer. But I didn't want to because it was only doing one thing:

Breaking my heart.

"Yes," I gave in, just above a whisper.

"So you also remember how my phone got overheated because you wouldn't shut up about her and therefore didn't let me sleep. I had to lay in my bed and listen to you swoon over a woman who you just broke things off with because 'the distance was too much' and because 'she didn't say she loves you back.' Do you see where I'm going with this?" he asked me with a stern voice. He was drilling this out of me one way or another and I didn't know if I liked it.

I didn't want anything worse happening.

"Should I?"

"Yes, you dumb fuck," he slapped my shoulder with the back of his hand as he walked past me. "I just can't seem to wrap my head around why you would give up someone who you thought so highly of and always dreamed of. It makes absolutely no sense to me."

"Listen."

"I have been," he interrupted me. "I have been listening to you, Harry. For as long as I can remember."

"Then you must know that my actions are always based on more than is said, right?"

"So you did lie to me before and the distance and her inability to say she loves you were not the actual reasons you broke it off with her."

"Like I said, my actions are always based on more than is said."

"Quit playing this tough act with me, lad," he sighed in frustration. "Tell me whatever is going on in your life or just put me in my place and tell me to lay off of it. But don't lie to me, man. I hate people lying to me and you know that."

"I'm sorry... I know you don't like being lied to but I just..." I couldn't finish it. The thumping of my heart mixed with how fast my eyes welled up. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat but it wouldn't budge and it gave me the impression that it wasn't going to until the tears that were forced back were all let out.

"C'mere, kid," he brought his arms around me and allowed me to cry. Probably for the tenth time this year and we were only five months into it.

This year alone, put me through more than I ever thought would happen. Crying seemed like the only way for me to get it out of my system and although it was never something I thought was embarrassing or made me any less manly, I did wonder how I managed to have so many breakdowns.

Did you really wonder, though?

True. The answer was right there, underneath it. I didn't have Renleigh and it showed. I was a total mess, emotionally and mentally. I never truly realised how dependant I became until she was not around anymore.

And she most likely never will be ever again.

I did some terrible things in life however this one seemed to outdo them all. Mostly because it was a personal loss and one, I never wanted to think about. Perhaps I should have because that way, it would have been much easier to get over her.

"I lied because it was easier than to explain the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life," I sounded hoarse and croaky from the crying but perhaps the most honest I have been in a while.

"Which was breaking up with the love of your life," he sighed. "Look," he sat down on the couch and picked his glass up to take a sip. "If there is more to the story than the bullshit excuses you gave then I think Renleigh should know. What does she know?"

"Everything that happened with my family lately and that I can't deal with the distance."

"Okay so let's say you somehow get her to talk to you. You tell her the truth this time. Then you pray she forgives you and we all go back to how things used to be," he explained and it sounded like a smooth and straight road. But I knew Renleigh and the turns and roundabouts life just loved to throw at me so I was aware that things could never go back to normal.

"No. I don't think I could ever just walk up to her and ask to talk," I replied. "You didn't see her face... she-she really did tear up, man. The quickest I have ever seen her. I don't know how she managed to tell me to get out of her car twice without breaking down in front of me."

"What did you expect her to do when you broke up with her? Laugh and smile or some shit?" he stifled a laugh and shook his head. That made me sound like a right idiot. "Of course, she was upset. That woman loves you. Like, really loves you. Even April told me how sickly you two are."

"I know she does... god, I'm such an asshole. She didn't deserve me breaking it off with her like that."

"No she didn't. Which is why you need to figure out a way to get her to listen to you so you can explain yourself."

"That'll be harder than anything I have ever had to do. This time I know I hurt her more than I have when the contract ended," I said. When the contract ended, she didn't have any deep feelings for me. I would have known if she did. Obviously, the things that we said were really out of order and hurtful but I knew that me breaking up with her, did more damage than any of our other fights.

"You didn't want to break up with her, did you?" he questioned and the fact that he had to, made me chuckle. He really asked me such a stupid question. One, that I never thought anyone would ever have to.

"No," I whispered. "Never."

• • •

a.n.

[narrator]: and the plot thickens

WELL HELLO LEVI WE HAVE MISSED YOU YOU WISE LITTLE MANS istg he's always there to pick harry up he's lit rally best friend goals

but anyways how are we all doing? are we missing henleigh yet hehehehehe i wanna say i'm sorry for what i did but i'd be lying and that's not something i do so <3

also i reckon i'm gonna make ffc a 100 chapters without an epilogue cos i never wrote a prologue so it wouldn't make sense and also i feel like the ending i'm thinking of would be better without something going after it so . 100 chapters n henleigh is done .

oop

also i'm gonna update every other day from now on so next update is friday hehe

xoxo