As you might imagine, despite Harry's comforting hold on me, I have just a bit of trouble sleeping. The raging storm of worried thoughts that had been temporarily driven away by Harry's touch has returned with more ferocity than before. With every puff of air Harry breathes against the back of my neck, I find myself delving further into the chasm of my anxiety, and no amount of reasoning I try to offer myself seems to be working to pull me out. Sleep evades me as I desperately attempt to let the night take hold of me, but every time I feel myself slipping into the darkness, my pesky subconscious reminds me of Harry's presence behind me and I am suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of distrust.

It's funny that I should feel this because I literally told Harry that he shouldn't go to bed without settling things with his mom, and now here I am acting directly against my own advice like an idiotic hypocrite by not talking to Harry about Gabrielle's text. Clearly, it upset me, so I really should have mentioned it before Harry's mumbling turned into soft snores. But alas, I did not and now I'm being eaten alive by my paranoia and frustration. I really should start practicing in my own life the advice I give to other people.

After an hour or two of sleeplessness, I come to realize my tragic error in judgement and begin to wonder whether or not I should just wake Harry and get this conversation over with. However, my rationale convinces me that having such a serious discussion so early in the morning would only lead to disaster, so I refrain from trying to wake him.

Instead, I slip away from Harry's grasp and grab my iPad from the side table before making my way to the bathroom. This is probably going to sound a little crazy, mostly because it is, but sometimes when I can't sleep, I do a little online shopping. It's terribly unhealthy to deal with stress or restlessness in this way, and I'm not even going to get started on the damage it does to my bank account. But however much I know I shouldn't do it, buying things I don't need brings me such calm and satisfaction that it makes me forget about my problems. Let's just say, the last presidential election resulted in an ungodly number of purchases, none of which I returned. Honestly though, it was totally necessary.

Shutting the door behind me, I flip on the bathroom light and sit on the floor with my back against the cabinets. When I unlock my iPad, Amazon is already pulled up so I begin the endless cycle of scrolling for things which couldn't possibly have a use. I don't really know how much time goes by, but by the time I actually feel myself getting tired, I have added probably about seventeen things to my checkout cart. As my eyes begin to flicker shut, I decide to scroll down one more page of authentic Italian leather journals before I go back to bed.

However, in the spirit of inconvenience and embarrassing conversations, of course, the bathroom door opens and Harry is standing there in nothing but his boxers looking down at me. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Harry manages to keep one eye open to actually see in front of him, but keeps the other one mostly shut as if he his holding onto sleep for as long as possible.

At this point, I'm too tired to react much to how sexy Harry looks right now, what with his toned body and disheveled hair, so I end up just turning my face towards him with an awkward smile. I really don't know how I'm going to explain myself, so I'll leave it to Harry to ask the questions.

"What are you–" Harry begins groggily, squinting at the brightness of the room and forcing both eyes to stay open. He appears to be understandably confused, but once he sees the Amazon logo on my screen, he seems to be in a state of disbelief.

Harry sighs, already knowing the answer to his question, "Are you shopping again?"

"Uh, yeah," I shrug, feeling the embarrassment of the situation beginning to take hold of me. But more than that, I realize that with Harry awake and aware of my terrible habit of stress-shopping, he might question me to the point where our little conversation happens right now.

Bring it on, universe. My sleep-deprived, poor-judgement-having self is ready.

"Do you care to elaborate?" Harry proceeds to ask me, crossing his arms over his bare chest and leaning against the doorframe, his eyes still drooping shut just a tad.

With the way he is standing right now, he looks so fucking attractive that I can't help but get a little frustrated. How come he looks like the most beautiful human in the world when he's tired, but when I'm tired and have just woken up, I look like a starved bear crawling from its cave after hibernating all winter? Riddle me that, because it really doesn't make sense and it lowkey makes me angry. It's not fair that Harry looks like a sex-god ninety-seven percent of the time. The other three percent is when he looks like the cutest cupcake ever, so really, it's not fair.

But that's beside the point. How do I explain myself without turning this into a thing? I could just tell him I couldn't sleep and leave it at that. However, if I go down this route, he's going to ask why I can't sleep and our little showdown will happen right now. Ooooor, I could just tell him I am taking advantage of Black Friday deals to get my family their Christmas presents. That's believable, right? Yes, I think that might just work.

"I'm Black Friday shopping," I say a little too loudly, and I mentally smack myself in the boob for my stupidity of sounding so defensive. He's probably not going to be too convinced now.

"Oh," Harry says simply, yawning widely and standing up straight. "Have you found anything good? I need to figure out what to get my mom."

To my horror, Harry sits down beside me and looks at my screen with a confused expression. Yep, there's no way he's going to buy my lie now. First of all, cyber Monday is when all the online deals pop up, so that's fake. And second of all, Harry knows I irrationally buy journals when I'm stressed so he's going to know that something else is up.

Unsurprisingly, Harry lifts his head and frowns at me, his squinted eyes finally adjusting to the brightness of the room, "What are you actually doing? You only shop for journals when something is one your mind, and you were acting weird before we went to bed, so what's wrong?"

Feeling my heart beating faster, I begin to panic. Why does having mature discussions about my feelings have to be so difficult? Or I guess, why do I have to be such a little bitch about it? I wish I could just grow a pair and say what I need to say. It's a good thing Harry has me pretty much figured out, then, because he has kind of left me no room to get out of this, so now my stupid, cowardly self can't hide anymore. I hate it, but I'm also thankful for it.

Staring at the floor to avoid Harry's intense gaze, I bite down on my bottom lip and shut my iPad off.

This is it, Cam. He has set the conversation up perfectly; just tell him you're pissed that he didn't invite you to his formal and tell him why. Maybe even mention the paranoia that his reputation has caused you, then you can put this thing to bed once and for all.

"Its your formal dance next weekend," I sigh, glancing up at Harry to gage his reaction. Harry sucks in a sharp breath and I can physically feel his body tense beside me. His brows furrow together in concentration for a moment and he appears to be biting down on the inside of his cheek.

Well, shit. That's probably not a good sign.

"I don't mean to pry," I continue cautiously in attempt to get him to say something. "But my friend texted me about it tonight asking about a dress, and I was just so blind-sighted to the whole thing. I understand if there's a reason you didn't tell me about it, I just– the fact that you didn't kind of hurt my feelings."

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I am shocked at how mature and rational I sound. Maybe it's my exhausted state that is allowing me to be so understanding and so transparent, because I'm pretty sure that me saying something like this is a one-time thing and would never happen if I were more awake.

Harry continues to frown thoughtfully, trying to configure something to say. The longer the silence lingers between us, the more nervous I become. I gave Harry a fairly gracious explanation of my feelings, but his continued speechlessness is making me feel less and less willing to allow him the benefit of the doubt. Nothing good could possibly take this long to say, and I really don't know how much longer I can take the suspense without allowing my anger to take over my rationally-thinking mind and turn this conversation into one with a little less understanding.

At long last, Harry forces himself to speak, his voice even and controlled, "Honestly, I didn't think you would want to go. I have to babysit those idiots the whole time, so it wouldn't be fun for you at all. Someone always ends up in the hospital, and since I'm chapter president, I'm going to have to be the one to take care of it this time."

Bull-fucking-shit. He took seventeen-hundred and forty-six years to respond, and that's the best he can do? Really? He should at least have the brain capacity to lie and tell me that he's not even going or some shit like that, but this? This is just sad.

The question is, do I call him on the bullshit? The raging fire of frustration in my chest votes hell fucking yes. I don't really know what's coming over me, but I know now that I probably won't be beating around the bush for this conversation. Harry really hasn't seen this side of me yet; I just hope he's ready.

"That's bullshit, Harry, and you know it," I spit out, my anger seeping out despite my efforts to contain it. Oh fucking hell, here we go. If he lies to me again, I wouldn't be surprised if I started seeing red because of how pissed I am. I don't know why such madness suddenly has decided to invade my head, but now that it's here, I'm fucking ready for it.

Surprised by my sudden outburst, Harry looks at me with wide eyes, his expression no longer thoughtful but instead, extraordinarily panicked. Here we fucking go.

"I– Camryn, I'm really sorry. If I had known that it would bother you this much, I would have told you weeks ago. I just–" Harry stops himself, and I can't help but wonder what the hell he was about to say that he doesn't want me to hear.

"You what?" I press him harshly, probably more harshly than I should.

Whatever, I'm allowed to have this moment. I've stayed silent on my concerns for too long, and I'm not just talking about this. I'm talking about Harry's supposed player reputation, his weird thing about never letting me meet his friends, and even the way some girls look at him when we pass them by. I hadn't thought anything about any of it, but now that I'm finally allowing myself to be angry, I think I'm beginning to realize that there really is something fishy going on and I really don't want to leave this bathroom without having figured out exactly what it is.

Harry sighs deeply and rakes his hand through his disheveled hair, an action I know him to do when he's nervous.

"I know it's selfish of me, but I don't want you to meet those guys. They're all very vulgar and I just didn't want you to be around it." Harry forces himself to look at me, though I can tell he doesn't want to. He looks too afraid of what I might say for him to have any of the confidence he initially had upon beginning this discussion, and I honestly don't blame him.

What Harry has just told me makes me even angrier than before. Who does he think he is that he can decide what kind of people I am allowed to know? I mean, I get it, he doesn't want his friends hitting on me or whatever, but still, I can handle myself and he shouldn't be so worried about what they might say to me. I'm also kind of hurt by what he has just said. Whatever his explanation may be, Harry admitting to me that he doesn't want his friends and I to interact makes me wonder if he's embarrassed to bring me around them. Does he think that I might ruin his bad-boy, heart-breaker reputation or something? Or even worse, does he not want his friends to reveal some secret that Harry is keeping from me? Honestly, I don't fucking know.

"Harry," I say, trying to calm myself from lashing out at him in spite of my raging emotions. "I get that you're trying to protect me or some shit, and I guess that's sweet, but when it comes to your friends, you not letting me meet them makes me think that you're embarrassed by me or something."

Success. I don't sound like a crazy person.

Harry unexpectedly scoffs and shifts his body to face me, "You don't actually believe that?"

Wow, okay. Way to belittle my insecurities. It's fine; I'm fine.

Raising my brow at him, I try to make my voice sound less offended, but I fail miserably, "Um, yeah. I do. What else am I supposed to think? Either you're embarrassed by me or you're hiding something else."

"I'm not hiding anything, and I'm not embarrassed by you," Harry's says, clearly frustrated. His voice is low and adamant, and I would be convinced had he not changed his statement. Harry is hiding something from me; I'm sure of it.

However, I am distracted from this revelation as Harry continues, his voice now incredibly soft and sincere, "I know this is no excuse, but I really just didn't want to have to share you with anyone else; that's why I didn't tell you about formal. The thought of you spending the whole weekend with those guys makes my skin crawl."

I guess that's kind of endearing, but I'm still mad, though admittedly less mad than a few seconds ago. Still though, his excuse really doesn't make up for the fact that Harry is keeping something from me. I just hope he has enough sense to tell me about it now before I find out from someone else.

"I wouldn't be with them, I'd be with you," I reason with him, despite the ceaseless thoughts racing around my poor brain. "I mean, obviously, I won't ask to go if you don't want me there, but–"

"Don't be silly." Harry interrupts with a sigh, pausing for a just a moment before saying what he appears to begrudge saying, "Of course I want you there. It just worries me seeing you around people like them after what happened at the beginning of the year."

Is he– is he bringing up that hellish frat party that almost ruined my life? Yessir, I believe he is.

My heart rate accelerates even more dramatically than it already has, mostly because I really don't like talking about that whole thing. Getting drugged was so scary and honestly so embarrassing, seeing as how it was my own stupidity that put me in that situation. I hate thinking of it because every time I do, I find my mind going down the rabbit trail of what could have happened had Harry not been there. Each hypothetical situation is successively worse than the last, and if I think about it too long, I usually end up having some terrible nightmare about it. So yeah, in general, I tend to avoid that topic altogether, and up until now, I really haven't had to speak about it to anyone.

I know my sudden passion on the subject might sound odd, seeing as how I've never really address it, but as I've mentioned, I'm a huge fan of bottling all the feelings until they go away. And so far for this topic, it has worked. I guess my thing about it is that I just don't see a point in stressing over the possibilities when nothing really happened. The fear is still real though, and I hate when I am reminded of it.

Thus, I am kind of irritated that Harry would bring it up now. But more than that, he's acting like it impacts him more than it does me. I get that he was there and he has a right to be affected by it, but for him to actively use my near-rape experience as an excuse to cover his ass infuriates me. Yeah, he's being protective and I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but given that I feel like he's deceiving me about something else, Harry using my misfortune as a means to make him sound like my defender or something is just not okay on any level. I'm sure he doesn't realize how insensitive it sounds, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm now more pissed than I was before.

Ugh, I thought we were getting somewhere here, but I guess not.

"Don't use that as an excuse," I scowl at him, a feeling of uncontainable rage surging through my veins. Honestly, I'm at that point where I physically can't sit still because of how angry I am.

Harry looks at me apologetically, and I can't help but scoff at him despite the fact that he does look to be genuinely regretful of his words, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean– what I meant to say is that I just care about you so much." Harry pauses and looks deep into my eyes earnestly, and though I try not to let his gaze affect me, I feel my the fiery anger in my chest begin to die down. Damn those green eyes of his, and damn his sexy voice, and damn him for saying exactly what I want to hear.

Like he knows exactly how to extinguish my irritation, Harry continues by further revealing his sweet and caring side of him, "Like, I literally don't know if I could control myself if someone were to hurt you like that again. And so, I guess I thought that if I just avoided putting both of us in a situation like that, then I wouldn't have to risk your safety and I wouldn't have to risk myself doing something stupid to try to protect you."

Part of me wants to be mad at him and tell him that I can take care of myself, but the other part of me knows that he isn't saying any of this to make me feel like I'm a helpless damsel in distress. This is his way of caring for me, and I can't fault him for it. Yeah, it frustrates me that he kind of thinks of me as a child, but his kind words and the way Harry is looking at me makes it nearly impossible to care about my pride.

I want to be angry so badly, but despite my best efforts, I kind of don't think I can be anymore. Harry is being too charming and I'm simply too tired to keep up my frustrated demeanor. I'm by no means less irritated, but I feel like we have exhausted the topic, at least for tonight. Obviously, we still need to talk about whatever it is he is keeping from me, but I really don't think that tonight is the night for it. If I play this right, then I think I can settle this formal thing in the next few minutes. I know this is incredibly lazy, but I'll take one thing at a time for now.

I hate myself for being so weak, but I'm literally so exhausted.

Deciding to give up on this conflict, I groan and pull my knees to my chest. I rest my forehead on my knees and take a deep breath, planning what I need to say.

To my relief, Harry takes the lead by continuing his speech, "I know that's not fair to you, and I'm sorry. I was too focused on my concerns to realize that you might see it differently."

Oh, thank the lord. Now I'm justified in being less mad.

Harry places his hand on my shoulder and I look up at him with tired eyes. Smiling softly, Harry looks at me nervously, "I really would love for you to come with me, though... if you're free?"

God bless. I think this is a conclusion I can cope with. I'm being lazy, I know, but honestly, it's the mood I have right now. I suppose I have gotten what I wanted, so there's no sense in pushing it further. Not tonight, anyway. I'm done.

•••

Lol I actually did purchase like four journals on the day of the election because I was so stressed out😂 does anyone else stress shop or is that just me? Stress eating is also a thing... I hate myself lol

How's everyone doing? Is summer treating everyone okay? We staying suncreened and hydrated? No? Me neither

Anyway, thanks so much for reading, I love you all so much!! Please vote if you can! :)
-kate💖