Song: If I Told You - Jason Walker

It doesn't surprise me to see Harry looking down at me, when I finally decide to look up to acknowledge him. He doesn't look anything like the version of Harry in my nightmare. There is no evil grin upon his beautiful face and his eyes only show concern, and for that I am truly grateful.  I take the cup of coffee from him as he sits down next to me in the sand.

"How did you know I was here?" I ask.

"Good guess?" He answers. "Nova was in a panic and sent me to find you." He takes his phone from his pocket, fingers moving quickly across the screen, sending a text to who I'm assuming is Nova, telling her he found me. A few seconds later, his phone is dinging with what I'm guessing is her reply.

"I told her not to—She really shouldn't have—You didn't need to get out of bed." I'm feeling nervous and I can hear it in my shaky voice. "Thank you for the coffee."

"Are you okay?" He asks. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don't look at him. I simply keep my eyes forward at the sun rising over the ocean, letting out a long breath to calm my nerves.

We sit in silence, every once in a while I take a sip from my cup, breathing in the aroma of it as I do so. This is the first time we've been alone since he said we needed a break, and although I'm unsure as to how I feel that he is here with me right now, I decide it's not really the time to run away from him like I have the last few days. Maybe we need to talk. Maybe things wont be so bad in my head if we do.

"Can I ask you something?" I ask, finally looking at him. There's no doubt in my mind that I need some kind of answer, and there's no better person to ask than the actual person who changed the course of my dreams, even if it wasn't really him.

He looks at me curiously, fixing the pink beanie on his head. "Anything."

I find myself staring at him for longer than I probably should, wondering if talking about it, will give anything away. At this point, I really haven't a clue as to if I even care, because his words in my nightmare have to mean something. I know that Harry is a smart guy. I know that he has answers and opinions for just about everything and it will surprise me if he doesn't have something to say about this. "Do you think that your subconscious can send messages through your dreams?"

"Yeah, for sure," he answers. "But I don't think we're always meant to find out what they are. They are just dreams after all, and could just come from our imaginations. I don't think there's a way to decipher if they're really messages or just something we've made up. Does this have something to do with your nightmares? Do you think they're trying to tell you something?"

"Not usually." He has tried asking me a few times what my nightmares entail, but I have brushed him off every single time, that I'm sure by now he knows just not to ask. "But something was different about this one."

He looks at me as if he wants to ask, but is questioning himself if he should or not. I don't give him the chance to, before speaking again.

"Do you think that everything happens for a reason?" I ask. He keeps his curious eyes on me, and I know I look back at him with a similar expression on my face, simply because I'm really unsure as to what I'm really trying to say, or what I want to ask. This dream has really stumped me and I'm at a loss as to what questions I should be asking him. Because in all honestly, I know that I've never done anything all that bad to Harry—not as bad as my dream made it out to seem. "Like if we do something wrong, something bad will happen to you?"

"Like karma giving you what you deserve?" he questions.

"Exactly!" 

His whole demeanor changes instantly, the second his words fall from his lips, almost as if he didn't want to say them and didn't like that I agreed. He starts to shift uncomfortably in the spot he's sitting and I watch him scratch the back of his neck before taking his beanie off and running his hand through his hair.

"I've never done anything to you, have I?—That you think is bad enough that you'd want something bad to happen to me?"

His eyes widen and he clears his throat. "I—ugh, think you would know if you—did something bad to me, Paisley," he mumbles. "And I don't want anything bad to happen to you. You're being weird, are you sure you're okay?" He gently presses the back of his hand against my forehead, giving me a smile. "Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise. Whatever it is that you think your subconscious is trying to tell you, it's probably wrong."

Although I can tell that he's trying to brush this conversation off, and in the nicest way possible, I can't help but think how weird he is being about it. I know he's right though. I haven't done anything bad enough to him that would cause karma to bite me in the ass. I promised myself to never do a single bad thing in my life again, and so far, I've done pretty well with keeping that promise; I don't think lying about things to Harry, or keeping my secrets from him are what I would call a bad thing, at least not in the sense that would make karma want to get back at me. 

Maybe it means something entirely different that I'm completely unaware of. Or—maybe it means nothing at all, that it's just my imagination fucking with me. Fuck, I'm too exhausted to think straight anymore.

I take another sip of the hot beverage that rests between my hands and we sit in silence again, neither of us looking away from the sunrise, as it finally makes it's full appearance over the ocean, turning the world around us a bright orange. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun rise like this, but I know it's been a very long time. I try to let my mind think of nothing as I watch the beauty before me unfold, happy that Harry is sitting next to me. Even though we're not in the greatest of places with each other, it's nice that he's by my side, breathing in this very moment with me.

"Can I ask you something?" he asks, breaking the silence. I look at him to see he's already looking at me. The way the orange light brightens his eyes, makes him look absolutely incredible, it almost takes my breath away. "I've wanted to ask you this for quite a while, I was just afraid you'd get mad. So, I hope you don't."

I furrow my eyebrows at him. My heart starts to race in my chest, wondering what it is that's seemingly been on his mind for a while. I'm afraid for what's about to come out of his mouth, but I'm definitely curious. I nod to let him know he can ask what he wants, without taking my eyes off of his.

The silence lingers between us again, as his eyes flick back and forth between mine a few times while I wait for him to speak the thoughts in his head. "Why are you so hesitant with me?" he finally asks. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice to know you're not a girl who just throws yourself at me—or anyone. It's a nice change to be honest, and one of the reasons why I like you so much. I just—I guess I just want to understand the hesitance. I mean—I know it's not as much as it used to be—I don't know. I guess I—please don't be mad. I just want to understand it."

I have no idea how I'm going to answer this question, but seeing as how hard it clearly was for him to ask it, I need to think of something quickly. I had always liked that he never questioned it. It's something that always made me feel a little more at ease with him, knowing he just went with it even though he had every right to question me about it. It's not like my reluctance was normal by any means, even I knew I that. I just didn't think he would ever ask this, and never came up with a relatively good answer for it, if he ever did ask. Now that he's asking, I wish I had.

"I—ugh, you know—I," I stutter, wishing that I would have just kept my mouth shut and not sound like a complete idiot. I smack my forehead in humiliation, adding to it in the process. Get it together, Paisley.

"Did someone do something to you before?—Ya know, like hurt you?" he asks, allowing my humiliation to be forgotten instantly and replaced with shock. Was it really that obvious? Sure, it probably was, but why does he have to ask it like that? I know a question like that would be tough to ask, and I can tell by his wording that he had trouble with it coming out of his mouth. My breath hitches in my throat and I feel like I can't breathe. There's no way he's ever finding out the truth. Not now, not ever. "I mean—I'm sorry for asking, I just only have two theories as to why you could be the way are with me, and—"

"Well, what's your second theory, because your first one is wrong," I spit out. I'm hoping that my defensive answer isn't a dead give away, but I can't take it back now.

He looks at me seriously like he's trying to read me. I hope that he can't hear how hard my heart is pounding, because at this particular moment, all I can hear is it's echoes hammering in my ears. "Are you sure?" he asks. "I mean, I know it's a touchy subject, but if something has happened to you, you know you can tell me. I wont judge you, Paisley. I just want you to be honest with me. I mean, I wanted to take this break so we can start fresh and be honest with each other. I'm just wanting for us to do that right now."

"Has it ever just occurred to you that maybe I'm just shy?" I ask. Yes, that could be it. I'm just shy.

"I guess," he sighs. "Yeah, you're right, I'm sorry. I never should've thought something so horrible. I'd never wish that on anyone, and I'm happy to hear I was wrong."

I give him a half smile as I look back towards the sunrise. His thoughts were absolutely correct and I should have known that he would figure that out. He is very observant. My actions have been made very clear that something bad has happened to me. I hated myself for lying to him again. But even though he really did have it all figured out, and he said he'd never judge me, I still don't want him to know that part of my life. If I ever told him the truth, there would be too many other questions he would want to have answered and I just don't want that. It's bad enough that I have to relive it every night in my dreams, I don't want to have to think about it any more than I already do when I'm awake, and the last thing I want to do, is talk about it. I just want to forget about it. No one knowing will make it easier to forget.

"Is it that you're a virgin?" he asks, breaking me from my thoughts. 

"What?" I ask, looking at him.

"Your hesitance, I mean."

As I'm probably the farthest thing from a virgin, I can't help but think that this is an extremely good reason to be hesitant, especially when it comes to the sexual part of a relationship, where my hesitance has been obvious. We haven't done more than kiss and he hasn't even tried. I'm sure with realizing my trouble with even kissing him sometimes, he just has a great amount of respect for me to make any sort of move on me to take things to the next level. If I am to agree with him, saying that I'm a virgin, he surely would still go along with not trying anything with me anytime in the near future.

"Yeah, I am—I'm a virgin."

"You're a virgin." He doesn't say it to ask, but more like he's just repeating it out loud to himself. He doesn't sound like he believes me. I know he can usually tell when I'm lying because apparently I'm shit at it, but I think I sounded pretty convincing. "Seriously?"

"Is it really that hard to believe?" I ask, raising my eyebrows at him.

He looks at me for a really long time. Long enough to make me feel uncomfortable because of the lack of words being said, leaving me clueless as to if he believes me or not. I need him to believe me. He has to. Because, aside from the fact that I don't want him to know the truth, I can't have him thinking I'm still lying to him when he's wanting to start fresh with honesty.

This, I suppose is making me see that this is the true testament as to why I shouldn't be in a relationship. I will never be able to be honest about what happened to me, with anyone, leaving me to always have to lie. It all of a sudden feels like more of a burden than it ever did before, and I know that it's something that will forever haunt me. It doesn't matter if I get better or not, it's still always going to be something I will lie about.

"No," he finally answers quietly, looking away from me. "It's not hard to believe. Makes sense, I guess." He breathes in a long breath and lets it out slowly. The look of disappointment is written all over his face and I wish I could read his mind. I know that I don't want to continue this conversation because I don't want to be forced to lie anymore, but I wish he would say something else, because I know his mind is going. His eyes shift around to different spots on the sand in front of us, but I don't think he's really looking at anything, as he seems stuck in his head.

I wish I knew what to say to bring him back to reality. But at the moment, with everything that's happened over the last week and how everything played out this morning, I have no idea where we stand.

"I think I'm going to head back to campus," he tells me.

"Oh," is all I can manage to say. His wanting to leave takes me by surprise. Now that he's here and we're talking again, I don't want him to leave, but I watch him stand up without saying anything anyways.

"I'll see you in class." He doesn't wait for me to say anything and I don't try to stop him. As I watch him walk away from me, I feel just as confused as I was when I got here, just for completely different reasons. 

Despite the fact that I'm feeling much better than I have all week, and for the first time in days, I don't feel like I'm trying to hold in tears, I decide I'm going to take the day off from school and just relax. I need to calm down my overly active mind and just forget about everything for the day. I know I'm going to regret skipping classes, because I'll have so much work to catch up on, but I know I need this. Life has been hectic and crazy lately and I'm emotionally drained. I don't think I could handle much more of anything before taking a break and recuperating from it all.

Tomorrow, I'll start trying to figure out how to get Harry back. Tomorrow, I'll start trying to figure out how to get around all the lies. I'll start reevaluating the way I look at things and hope to God, I will just let the walls down with ease. I'll start it all tomorrow.  

Today I'm doing nothing but forgetting. Forgetting about the reasons I lie. Forgetting about the life I used to live. Forgetting about the nightmares. Because if there's one thing that I know I need to do, to move on from where I am, it's to forget and not let anything pull me down anymore. This past week, I have been nothing but weak. But tomorrow, I'm going to wake up a new person. Stronger. With the past in the past, where it should be.

Being with Harry is where I want to be. Right now, it's the goal. To prove to him, and myself, that I trust him. That he doesn't need to work for it anymore. If I can promise myself to never do a bad thing ever again, in the midst of a time I should've been doing nothing but bad things, I can promise myself now, and keep it, that no matter what, I can trust Harry with everything that I am. So far, he has been the answer to everything I ever needed, I just need to remind myself that even if that trust wavers for any reason like it slightly did this week, that he's not perfect. He makes mistakes like the rest of us do, and not all of the reasons he does wrong are to hurt me. Because I know in my heart, that the last thing Harry would ever want to do, is hurt me. I understand that now.

**

A/N: An early update! ☺ Hope it's good enough! It's a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but I hope it was worth it either way!

7.3K Reads!! Thank you so much!! Please continue to vote and comment your thoughts! Add this to your reading lists if you haven't already! Thanks for all the support I've been receiving! Can't tell you how much I love you all for it!

25 Days till Christmas...WHAT!?

Much love,
amberlove
xo