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On the next day he came back to my house wearing the same exact outfit of the day before. I smiled to myself when I realised he'd done it not to mess with the part of the drawing I'd already done.

As I walked up the stairs followed by him I couldn't help but feel like something had changed after the conversation we'd had the day before. If so it could be called. Harry had told me something personal, and he hadn't pushed me away when I'd asked him about it. One one side I was happy because we'd made progress, but on the other I knew that Harry and I were way too different to nurture any kind of friendship. But I still couldn't help but feel glad that he'd trusted me with that little information, it meant more to me than I would've ever let him know.

He sat down on the bed, unintentionally smoothing down the white blanket with a finger. The day before I'd drawn him lying down on the sheets, but I had convinced myself I couldn't do the same after I'd slept on that bed. Harry was just too much for me to think of making him lie down where I'd lain down too. Which didn't necessarily make sense given he'd lain down on the grass just a week before, but that was just details.

I walked to the bed and turned around the pillow, smoothing it out and wrinkling my nose as I discovered a trace of his smell was still on it. "Lie down" I told him, and he did as soon as I let go of the pillow. I straightened myself up fast, getting away from our sudden closeness, before escaping the room and going into the studio. I always kept my works in progress there, since I often didn't want other people to see them before they were done because they would've looked awful. I couldn't keep them on the desk in my bedroom since sometimes my mum came in to talk to me, so I kept them all in my studio, since I was the only one who ever entered that room.

I opened the door and walked straight to the desk, taking the folder of my last drawing from where I'd put it on the chair. I turned around and made my way to the drawer on the opposite side of the room, opening it and taking out a bunch of coloured powders, pencils, tissues, rubbers and everything else I needed. I took them all in my hands and walked out, closing the door with my elbow. When I entered my bedroom I discovered that Harry hadn't moved at all. I left everything at the bottom of the bed, next to his feet, taking the chair from my desk and sliding it next to the bed, putting all the powders and everything that could've potentially destroyed my blanket on it. Once I was done I sat on the bed, my back against the wall and my drawing on my lap like always, and started my drawing.

I cleared my throat to momentarily break the silence that had been created, the only sound being the eventual almost inaudible scratching of the paper tissue on the paper sheet.

"We're so different" he said after a while, sitting up and staring at me in the eyes from my same height.

I just looked at him, not knowing what to reply to something like that, mostly because I didn't even know in which way he meant it. Was it a positive or negative thing to him? I couldn't decipher the look on his face.

"Doesn't that excite you?" He mused all of sudden, his voice coming out in a low purr.

"I-" I stopped myself, realising that I had no idea of what to say.

He bit his lower lip, his tongue peeking out to wet it. "We're opposites" he continued. "I attract people's attention, but I'm empty. You hide in plain sight, but you aren't."

I cleared my throat, looking down to escape his magnetic gaze. "I don't think that's true. Everybody has something inside" I said softly.

"You're yet to know me" he said lowly, the way his lips curved into each word showing he wasn't angry or annoyed at all, but I still decided not to risk anything by asking any further. I'd began to realise how detrimental it was to cross any of his boundaries when we were trying to make conversation, which made it quite difficult to do the latter, given that he was way more closed off than anyone I'd ever encountered.

He lay down again, looking down at the way the tip of the pencils grazed the paper sheet on my lap in silence.

"Sierra?" He called out softly after a while, and I looked up when I heard the sound of my name coming out of his lips from the first time, abandoning the paper tissue I'd lifted up back on the blanket.

"Yeah?" I said faintly, immediately feeling incredibly stupid because of the answer I'd given him. It was as if I couldn't even think when I was around him, as if he was too enticing for me to pay attention to what left my mouth.

"A truth for a truth?" He asked, staring up at the ceiling with a somewhat detached gaze.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What?"

"You can ask me a question and I'll answer truthfully. But you'll have to answer a question from me too" he explained, his tone low.

I hummed, biting my lower lip in nervousness. I wasn't the kind of person that held any secrets. What did I have to lose? "Okay" I replied. "But you'll have to be the first to answer" I added fast, knowing perfectly well that he could've decided not to reply to mine after he'd satisfied his own curiosity.

He shot me a glance, the hint of a frown on his face, but didn't question my words, probably knowing as well as I did where they were coming from.

I put the drawing aside and I brought my knees to my chest, thinking of what to ask him. The question I should've asked seemed to me as kind of a given when it popped up in my mind. "Why are you so closed off?" I murmured.

He sat up again, leaning against the headboard, before replying, a slight hesitance in his voice. "I don't trust people easily." He looked at me, as if he was trying to see what my reaction to his words would've been.

I gave him a slight nod in reply, which must've satisfied him since that he removed his gaze from me, staring out of the window for a few seconds before looking at me again, that time with a more concentrated look on his face. Something in the way he stared at me made me feel as if he knew he'd just cornered me, but I couldn't make sense of that sensation until I heard the next words that left his mouth.

"Why did you push me away when I kissed you?"

I widened my eyes, not expecting him to say something like that at all. I thought we'd come to a mutual agreement not to talk about that afternoon ever again, but apparently the only agreement I'd made was with myself. "I..." I started, trying to find something to reply to him. I stared at the wooden floor, knowing that if I'd looked at him in the eyes the truth would've come out on its own, and I knew I couldn't allow something like that to happen. "I don't like you in that way" I said in the end, hoping that he would've let it go.

But he didn't.

"Liar" he murmured, narrowing his eyes at me.

I sighed, starting to play with a strand of my hair nervously. "I don't trust you" I whispered so faintly that I almost doubted he'd heard me at all.

"Fair enough" he said, moving his gaze out of the window again.

I lowered my knees and I resumed my drawing, not caring that he'd sat up since I was only trying to get all the colours right.

"So you do like me, but you're scared?" He said after a while, surprising me.

I looked at him, but didn't reply. Given that he barely talked, his ability to read me surprised me to no end. I didn't think he was that attentive, but thinking about it, it was kind of a given.

The corners of his lips turned up imperceptibly, as if he'd found in my silence the answer he needed. He scooted closer to me, and I leaned backwards slightly as his perfume hit my nose.

He stared me down, grazing one of my cheeks with his fingers, the feeling of his touch on my skin making my breath hitch in my throat. I widened my eyes, the realisation of what was about to happen settling in my chest, making me feel as if I was paralysed, unable to move away from his touch.

When he leaned in I felt as if the time had slowed down all of sudden, mixing with the rhythm of his breath escaping from his lips and hitting mine. The cold tip of his nose brushed against my cheek a second before his lips grazed mine. He pulled imperceptibly back and waited for me to pull away, but I didn't. I couldn't. A low hum reverberated down his throat, lasting no more than a couple of seconds, before he pressed his lips to mine, more forcefully than before.

My breath died in my throat as he caught my lower lip between his, one of his hands cupping my cheek. His tongue swept between my lips, parting them and making me surrender to his tender touch and I leaned forward slightly, feeling as if I could've melted against his lips.

He broke away from the kiss, breathing against my mouth for a couple of seconds. "I am too" he whispered before returning in his previous position, staring at me from where he was sitting next to me.

I looked at him, a shocked expression on my face at what had just happened. "This shouldn't have happened" I croaked, feeling as if I was about to faint.

His tongue came out to wet his lips, his green eyes burning into mine. "Why?"

I stared into his eyes, trying to understand what was going through my mind and to find out what to reply to him. The truth was, I couldn't find one single reason why it shouldn't have happened, but one. "Because I liked it" I whispered, my eyes widening as soon as the words left my mouth.

Artwork is over 30k now! Thank you so much for your support, it truly keeps me going and means a lot to me. x

Miki

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