"...Played the fiddle in an Irish band..."

Finding the keyhole inside the apartment had so far proved to be more difficult than unlocking the door from the outside.

"But... fell in love... Irish man..."

The moment I got it and was finally able to lock the door, I frowned at my own words. "No," I mumbled. "Not Irish man. English man?"

I dropped my bag on the floor with a confident nod to myself. "Yeah, English man. Fell in love with an English man... uh..."

"Are you singing Ed Sheeran?"

Despite the mostly dark apartment, the voice didn't scare me—there was a very weak light coming from the living room, either from the TV or a computer screen that immediately told me I wasn't alone. Additionally, I was three tequila shots deep into numbness, with all of the receptors in my brain fried for the time being.

I kicked off my shoes and piled my jacket onto the mess on the floor, not sparing a second glance at it as I sauntered toward the living room. "They were playing him at the bar."

Harry, in a different, more homey loose T-shirt and sweatpants combo, moved to the side so I could walk through the doorframe. I wasn't entirely surprised that he was here, probably due to the hope I had that he would be. His hands were on his hips, the stance accompanied by a worried but curious look on his face. "Ed Sheeran was playing at a bar? Wait- why were you at a bar?"

"Because I'm twenty-one." The light in the room was indeed our TV, and it illuminated the hair clip on the coffee table that I was looking for. The low volume of a commercial was the only background noise while I put my hair up, and I finally turned to Harry after—his hands were still on his hips and his eyes were a bit narrowed, suggesting that aside from experiencing never-ending worry for me, he was also studying me. "And you're not."

Not even a muscle twitch at my mocking tone. Tough crowd. "Where's Violet?"

"She stayed."

"Really?" My brows rose. "With your friends?"

"Yep."

Back exercises rang through my head as I nodded. "How come you didn't stay?" I asked, knowing I couldn't have been at the bar down the street longer than half an hour. That and the bus I caught to this side of town right as I got out of Miles' building, forty-five minutes tops.

"I left right after you. I went up and down the street looking for you, but you were gone."

"I told you, my friend needed me."

"You just said you were at a bar."

His statement suddenly made me self-conscious as I stood in front of him with crossed arms. "Oh." I pursed my lips. "Oops."

The wooden floor creaked as he took a few steps toward me, assessing me like a concerned parent—but there was no anxiety rising in my chest at the look in his eyes, or at his repeated close proximity. The shots probably took care of that part of my brain too. Or maybe it was the fact that this was Harry, and Harry's presence never brought me panic. An upset heartbeat, maybe, but I never felt unsafe.

"What's going on, Evie?" He shook his head, speaking softly. "You- I mean- I don't know. You locked yourself in the bathroom after I kissed you, then you fled. I couldn't find you anywhere or reach you on your phone. And now you're telling me you went to a bar? To get drunk? What, was the kiss that horrible?"

The kiss wasn't horrible. At least not what I remember of it. The panic attack that followed, however, was so not cool. It always evoked a fight-or-flight response, and I always chose to flee, often leaving people around me confused and worried. Years ago it had been my mom, now it was whomever I hadn't managed to push away yet. Cue the alcohol.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

I blinked and released my bottom lip from my teeth, unaware I was chewing on it in the first place, and eyed him from head to toe. Sharing my depressing thoughts was a big no. "Just wondering if getting on your lap and giving you the best ten minutes of your life would shut you up."

Harry's parted lips closed, and his face fell from a tense expression into a completely neutral one. "Or however long you last," I added, getting no reaction this time. His eyes stayed on me with that same nearly bored look, his mouth closed, breathing slow and steady.

Then he cleared his throat. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"What's the consensus?"

My bottom lip was between my teeth again as I fought back a smile, my body getting permission to feel the temperature rising after my remark was reciprocated, despite his face staying unamused. "I don't think you could handle it."

"Oh, absolutely, I'd bust in ten seconds," he said, matter-of-factly, "but I also think you couldn't handle it. Mentally, I mean. I think you'd freak out if we had sex. What you could do, as an alternative, is let me put my face between your legs. I wouldn't need ten minutes."

The temperature was no longer rising comfortably. He gave the room an awkward sidelong look before adding, "Alright, maybe I'd need ten minutes the first time. I don't know what you like yet. But I think you'd benefit from it."

The first time. Yet. Harry's face between my legs. There she was, the same anxiety that led to my car crash of a mental state at the hangout, now causing a milder traffic jam in my brain. I didn't have the upper hand anymore—he saw my bold comments for the unsuccessful distractions they were. "Okay, I think..." I breathed and stepped back, feeling my lungs start to function again only after I turned away from him. "I think... I don't..."

"Do you think I don't know that already?" He said, despite nothing coherent having left my mouth. His soft footsteps grew closer to me. "There's clearly something going on, but you won't talk to me about it. You think I didn't know you'd shut down now too?"

"Yeah, you read me like a fucking book." My voice trembled, even when I wasn't facing him. "Congratulations, Harry."

"Reading you is not the point. I don't wanna predict what you're gonna do, I want to know what you're thinking. Ev, we fell asleep next to each other and then you avoided me for three days. Can I get, like, a sliver of feedback? Some pointers?"

"Pointers for sharing a bed?"

"Pointers for you!" He was at my side, relentless. The bad feeling in my gut was pushed aside while I turned to him, but kept my eyes on the floor. "I thought something was happening that night, when I woke up at, like, three AM and you were squeezing my hand in your sleep- I was so damn happy, I recovered from my therapy right then and there. And then- then, tonight, you said the thing about the ring, and I thought shit, these are all the signs I need."

All the signs he needed to kiss me.

"And then it was the same shit all over again. You wouldn't sit and watch a stupid movie with me on Sunday, you ran away from me to get drunk at a bar on Thursday. Just tell me, am I..."

Heart beating out of my chest, tears just around the corner, but I managed to look up at him, face frozen on an expression that said I wanted him to finish his thought, but I was also scared of whatever might come out of his mouth next.

His eyes met mine and he suddenly seemed nervous to get the words out, the frown on his face indicating anything from confusion to sadness to unease. And then he shrugged. "Did I misread this whole thing?"

The fact that I'd made him question something that was so obvious, so undeniable to me had the tears tipping over my eyelids, despite my best efforts to keep it together until he went to sleep. "No," I replied, my voice barely mine. "But I..."

"What?" He spoke softly and encouragingly, not in a pressuring manner, yet I could still feel my throat getting stomped on by my anxiety.

"I..." I tried taking a deep breath, to no avail. I finally shook my head, wiping away the tears in a futile attempt to hide my face with my hands. "I can't. I can't talk about it."

"Why not?"

"It's humiliating."

"Having feelings for me is humiliating?"

"No!" The dam broke. "It's why I can't act on them that's humiliating!"

My breathing was hard—near panic attack hard—and my eyes burned with the second rush of tears that was about to overcome me. My whole body heated in panic, my chest hurt from the force of my heartbeat, and the eternally locked door in my head rattled with mocking laughter from the ghosts of my past. I raked my fingers through my hair, moving past Harry to lessen the feeling of being cornered, even if it was, by no means, his fault.

"It's humiliating, and it's embarrassing, and it's depressing, and I wish I could completely erase it from my past," I rambled while I paced the living room, voice cracking. "I wish I could forget about it and never talk about it again. I wish I could go back and not do any of it. I wish you could understand without needing to hear it, but I know you can't. And it's not your fault. It's my fault. It's all my fault. I never talk about this shit, I never let myself even think about sharing it with people, but I let it hold me back in every fucking aspect of my life."

My pacing came to a halt when I blindly slammed myself into Harry's open arms. "First of all, breathe." He gripped my shoulders so I couldn't run from him, and squeezed them tighter when I kept wheezing. "Evie. Come on, breathe with me. Look at me."

"No, Harry," I rasped, sliding my hands over my face again in an attempt to preserve some of my dignity, "don't."

"I will."

"Stop."

"I won't."

The first body-racking sob took over me, shaking my body with anguish I hadn't felt in years, followed by a new wave of self-disgust at the realization that he was still not giving up on me when he fully should have. We were at the breaking point, but the door stubbornly stood strong, rendering me hopeless.

"Evie," he called again, hands slipping from my shoulders to my back in a hesitant but firm movement as if he wasn't sure if the embrace would overwhelm me, but not wanting to let me go regardless. "You're safe. You can breathe. Everything is alright."

"It's not."

"I promise it is."

"I had a panic attack when you kissed me, Harry," I cried soprano, but the horrified wide eyes that met mine as I let my hands fall from my face assured me he'd understood my squealing. "Everything is shit."

"Okay, so that's... not alright," he agreed, expression morphing into deep regret. "God, I'm so sorry. I had no idea what I was doing."

"No. It's not your fault. You didn't know. I didn't know. I haven't been kissed in years, I didn't know I was still a train wreck. You don't deserve a fucking train wreck. I thought I'd be better after all these years. After all the therapy I went to. It's bullshit. I'm bullshit."

Fractions of the truth were coming out, but the main point was still buried deep. Another sob shook me while I tried wiping my face with the sleeves of my sweatshirt, my head staying in my hands. Harry's arms came around me again, pulling me into him more confidently this time, a hand coming up to guide my head to his collarbone. "I'm sorry," he whispered against my hair.

"Stop saying you're sorry."

"I am."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"Neither did you."

"I ruined everything." The lump in my throat and the knot in my gut grew at the thought that it applied to the present too. "I always ruin everything."

"That's just not true."

"I ruined this!"

"Ruined th-? Hey." Hands suddenly on my neck, Harry's thumbs pushed my jaw up so I'd look into his eyes. His soft, warm, safe blue eyes, that had gone from worry to complete understanding. "Hey, listen to me. Whatever it is, whatever you still have to figure out, it's fine. I'm right here. I'll be here. You didn't ruin anything, Ev, you made it all better. Don't you get it?"

He pressed his forehead against mine and continued, "Hey, you were there for me when even my family couldn't be. Whatever happened that you still can't talk about, it's okay, because I'm in no hurry. You saved my life. You are that girl. You're always gonna be that girl. There's never going to be another you and there's never going to be anyone else I'd rather wait for."

I shook my head, too poisoned by my own anxiety to let his words have any effect on me. "I'm broken."

"So we'll put you back together. You put me back together, right?"

"You deserve better," I squeaked, pushing him away being the only answer my brain could conceive. "You deserve so much better. I'm a mess. I don't know if I remember what it's like not being a mess."

"I'll wait for you to remember."

"Harry."

"I'd die waiting for you. I'll wait with you, I'll wait from afar, whatever you want. I'll do anything you want as long as you're at the finish line." He shook his head. "'Ruined everything?' Evie, you are everything."

More tears were my response to this foreign language coming from his mouth. Kissing them from my cheeks was Harry's response, along with gentle whispers of 'breathe,' and 'it's alright,' and 'everything is alright, I promise.'

○○○

I spit the toothpaste out for the second time in half an hour, feeling more confident that this round wouldn't be ruined by another case of sticking my head in the toilet bowl. Despite washing my face a second time as well, I still looked like I hadn't slept in days—partially true, if the previous night was taken into account.

The door creaked when I opened it, and Harry's eyes met mine before I could get out. I assessed the sight in front of myself—dressed in outside clothes complete with the green bomber jacket and white sneakers, the Nike bag on the floor by his side, a timid look on his face.

"Hi," I croaked, clearing my throat afterward.

"Hi. Uh..." He looked down at himself and then back up at me. "Promise I wasn't trying to sneak out like a little slut."

I managed a small, throaty laugh at his words. Our little talk after I'd calmed down last night was unfolding—he was leaving. Yet somehow, regardless of everything life had taught me, I trusted him and trusted he wasn't leaving for good. Just until we figured our shit out.

Harry's gaze stayed on me when I left my spot at the door frame, cautious and a little confused as he watched me stroll over to him. He took a deep breath when I reached inside his jacket to wrap my arms around him, boldly pushing myself into him until his warmth became mine. My head was against his chest, and a faint smile played on my lips at the feeling of his heart rate increasing, but I didn't say anything about it.

"You think you could zip your jacket up around me?"

His hands, very delicately touching my upper arms, left their spot to do what I'd asked. After some struggle, he'd managed to push the zipper a few inches up, getting stuck where my arms began spreading into a hug. "There."

"Okay." My cheek against his T-shirt muffled the word. "Now you can go."

A short but genuine laugh rang through the hallway, and his arms came around me, finally hugging me back. "I'll be back before you know it," he said, planting a kiss on the top of my head. "We already met at the wrong time twice. Third time's the charm."

I thought back to the bus station in February and the hospital waiting room in June. "Still. I'm sad that I couldn't pull myself together for you."

"You will." An answer so simple it made me laugh this time. "And when you do, it's gonna be for you, not for me."

"Not sure how smart it is to have so much faith in me. But I like it."

"I said I'm yours, didn't I? I think that decently shows how much I believe in you."

He said it half-jokingly, but there was no denying the heat in my face and my jump-started heartbeat. I'm yours. I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm yours. He still considered himself mine. He was going to walk out of my apartment and still be mine.

"Besides, I like to think I'm... something else, compared to other people in your life." He pulled away from me, as much as his jacket would allow him, and I looked up at his serene face. "Like you are to me."

He gave a meek smile while working the zipper, and even when I was free to move away from him, I stood still in my spot, remembering his words from last night. Letting you are that girl, you're always gonna be that girl wash away any bad feelings I might have harbored.

"You are."

Harry's nonchalant shrug was an instant response. "Not to be the guy who thinks you're nice to me because you like me, but I knew that."

I liked him. He liked me. Both established facts. And we still couldn't do anything about it yet. "What are you gonna tell your friends?" I asked, rubbing my now bare ring finger under my crossed arms while I watched him pick up his bag.

"I'm actually going home for a couple of weeks, you know, before midterms," he said casually, but I felt my legs go numb. "After that, who knows? I might move you to New York, finally."

There was a smile on his face as he stood upright, his words a nod toward my non-hometown of Baltimore that he pitched to his parents a while ago. Despite having big feelings about it back then, I couldn't possibly focus on it now. "Okay."

"Okay. Well, uh, I better get going, I should be at the hospital in-"

"Are you gonna see Cece while you're home?"

I wish I could say the words came before I could stop them, but there was no stopping them at all. Harry looked as baffled as I would've expected him to, awkwardly standing with his hand halfway toward the doorknob. "What?" It was more of a statement than a question. "Why would I do that?"

I only shrugged as I'd known I would, looking anywhere but at him; it was completely irrational and made no sense when thousands of other people in his hometown were taken into account. He might have had another ex-girlfriend I didn't know about, and could have just as easily seen her too. But there was no reasoning with my anxiety and the novel emotion of jealousy it hit me with at the mention of Colorado.

"Evie."

"Don't... use that tone with me," I said before I could lose any more dignity points. "I know how I sound."

"I'd love to do something about it, but I don't want you locking yourself in the bathroom again."

He said it in one breath, as if the thought was itching to come out of him since I'd asked the stupid question. I stared into his eyes and he stared back; I didn't look away when I felt my cheeks grow hot, nor did he make fun of me for it. "If..." I paused to swallow. "If I promised I wouldn't...?"

All the green light he needed. His bag was dropped back on the floor, and two swift steps later one hand was on my cheek while the other one pressed against the back of my head, his lips against mine in an equally desperate second-ever kiss.

My heart started a spin cycle as soon as I was aware of his intention to kiss me, but at least my head was much clearer than last night—I absolutely wanted to kiss him back. So I did. Hands raking from his stomach to his chest until I gripped the front of his jacket to pull him closer, I was kissing him back, fully aware of his chapped but soft lips, the stubble that subtly scratched, the hand that went from holding my head to holding a fistful of my hair, eliciting a hum from me.

The other hand found its way around my waist, pulling me against him, the hardness my lower stomach met drawing out another, rougher hum. Yes, that's for me, I thought, not for Cece or any other girl he's ever laid eyes on. I'm yours, he said. Head cloudy and short-circuiting in the complete opposite direction from last night, I pushed my hands into his jacket, over his shoulders, tugging it down, no idea what I was doing, and his hands left my body to let me push it off.

The lock clanged on the other side of the door. Harry and his warmth and his hard-on were two feet from me in an instant, leaving our red cheeks and fast breathing as the only evidence of what had happened—his balled-up hands in his pockets masked any other indicators.

Violet came in and by the looks of her, she wouldn't have figured out what was going on even if we hadn't jumped away from each other. Clothes wrinkled, T-shirt possibly put on backward, eyes halfway open partly due to sleeplessness and partly due to her deep frown. She assessed us from the door frame while we looked back at her, all three silent.

"I won't ask if you don't ask."

We nodded without a second thought, and she nodded back before walking past us toward her bedroom. I cleared my throat while Harry briefly adjusted his pants with the fists in his pockets, then bent down to pick up his bag again. The moment was over.

"I'm leading 2-0 in ill-judged actions," he joked, or tried to, because I didn't find it funny; before I could object with but wait, I kissed you back? he was placing a light kiss on my forehead, thumb gently caressing my chin in a touch nothing like the hair-holding-pulling from thirty seconds ago. "I'll see you, Evie."

Anything concerning the kiss died on my tongue, and I smiled back at him. "I'll see you, Harry."

He broke the eye contact, and he closed the door after walking out of the apartment. I continued to stand there in complete silence, arms swinging back and forth, waiting for some tidal wave of tears and fear and regret and my God, why did I do that? to crash into me.

But nothing came. I felt calm, like I knew what I was doing, even if our parting might have suggested otherwise. I had a goal and I had to navigate myself toward it. Hopefully, Harry had the same goal too.

Rather than going to my own room, I knocked on my roommate's slightly ajar door. A grunt was my sign to push it open, and I leaned against the door frame while Violet, wearing Barbie pajamas but also last night's make-up, pushed herself off of her face to her side to peer at me through heavy eyelids.

"I'll tell you if you tell me."

She cried at my words and stuffed her head back in her pillow, while I pulled my lips between my teeth. I knew she'd be too curious to sleep. "You guys fucked?"

"Nope. Just kissed."

"I figured." She lay on her back, voice clear as she continued, "I knew that panic attack wouldn't let you go too far."

I smiled while walking over to the bed to sit next to her—even without having ever seen me have a panic attack, she recognized what had happened last night. "I almost did, actually. He's very persuasive."

"Tell me he didn't actually try to make you have sex with him."

"Nothing like that."

Violet hummed, satisfied. "He's just that good, huh?"

"That good," I agreed. I watched her for another two seconds before relenting, "Your turn."

Violet's closed lids were squeezed together harder as a whine came from her mouth, and she balled up in a fetal position next to me, hands over her face. "I wanna kill myself."

"You guys fucked?"

"Yes." My laugh was short-lived as she added, "But not with Miles."

"What? Who?"

"Scott."

"No fucking way." I hadn't realized how loud I'd gotten until she shushed me, but I couldn't have possibly given a shit about my tone at the given moment. "How?"

"I don't know! He... was looking at me weird the whole night, so I sat next to him and asked what his deal was, and... I don't know. We talked."

"What could you have possibly talked about? He's a twenty-year-old sports major."

"It was a one-time thing! And he... was cute."

"He looks like any guy!" I cried. "Rick and Morty T-shirt! Fade on the side and long on top! Still waiting for facial hair to kick in! You like big, brawny, bald men!"

"Like Miles is anywhere near that."

"He's bigger and brawnier than Scott, that's for damn sure. Where did you even do it?"

"He took me back to their place. Enough about me." She lightly punched my arm as I was registering the fact that she'd seen Harry's place before me. "What's going on with you two?"

I put a pin in the Scott affair for later, knowing I'd die before forgetting to squeeze every detail out of Violet, and cleared my throat. "We..." I shrugged. "Are gonna sort things out on our own first, I guess."

"How come?"

"As you pointed out, I had a panic attack when he kissed me the first time, so... I have some issues to deal with, it appears."

"But the second time?"

I humored Violet's attempt to lighten the atmosphere with a sheepish smile and an exaggerated tuck of my hair behind my ear, making her laugh for a second. She then offered a consoling smile but nodded more confidently afterward. "Probably smart," she said. "I think it'll do you good. He seems alright, and you like each other a lot."

"You think so?"

I knew Harry was alright, and I knew we liked each other, but spending an indefinite amount of time apart at our age could almost certainly lead to doom. I was still high on last night's talk and his words were ringing in my ears, loud and clear, but would I feel the same calmness three days from now? Three weeks from now? Three months, or however long it took us to find our way back?

"Sure." Violet's voice brought me back to the conversation. She thought about it and shrugged. "I mean, listen, I remember being twenty and twenty-one, and that frontal lobe was not developed. I thought a lot of things would go one way and then they went the opposite way. And that's life."

I quietly lay down next to her without interrupting her. "You may end up together, you may drift apart, who knows. I think the most important part is that you're making the progress you were too scared to think about for years, and that's huge. And you should take time to process that. No one is more important to you than you. If he's there when you figure yourself out, then that's great. If he's not, the world won't end."

"Thank you," I mumbled against her ribcage, fully hugging her while she caressed my hair. "You gonna be there if he bails?"

"I'll pick up every last one of your pieces."

I squeezed her tighter. She kissed the top of my head. The sun shined through the blinds, uncaring and unaware of my mortal little life.

○○○

the chapter that's been living in my head rent-free since the beginning, finally here!

feedback is greatly appreciated ♡