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FEBRUARY

Harry stares at the door, his heart hammering in his chest. His hands are trembling, and he digs his nails in his palms to keep it from showing.

He hears steps coming towards him and has to  grasp the side of the door to keep himself from running away before it's too late. He knows that he has to do it now or else he never will.

I can do this, he tells himself, even though he can't believe his own words. He's always tried his best to seem stronger than he truly is. Showing his emotions has always been the equivalent of telling his enemy his weaknesses, for him. Yet, today he isn't able to keep his restlessness at bay, to hide it behind his usual façade. He's always felt too much and loved too little, a part of him wishes he'd never let his guard down.

But he did, and here they are. Harry feels like a child. His nose is red and his fingers stiff, it's a cold evening of February and he isn't even wearing his coat.

The golden light of the front porch is turned on, and he knows it's too late. It's too late. It's too late. It's too late.

The door opens, and Sierra is standing on the other side. Her auburn hair is a bit messy, and he has to choke back a chuckle. His eyes sting, but he blinks the sensation away before it can be shown on his face and clenches his teeth, trying his best to look like he doesn't care.

She takes some steps back and he enters her house, closing the door gently. Sierra looks at him with fear in her eyes, and he knows she knows. She might not know the details, but she can read his behaviour too well. She knows he's about to flee.

"This, is a mistake," he says between his teeth. He can't look at her in the eyes. "You were right."

"No I wasn't, I was just—" she tries to cover up, but he doesn't need her to.

Harry knows it's cruel of him to lean on what she accidentally told him all those months ago. He should find his own words, she deserves at least that, but they get tangled in his throat and he can't let them out.

"You were." His voice is calm, but his mind is screaming at him to shut up and take it all back, because there has to be another way. Maybe they aren't as doomed as he thinks they are, maybe they too will get their happy ending. But they're all lies, and if he believes them he'll hate himself more than he already does.

His hand reaches for the door instinctively, and he wonders how despicable it'd be of him to run away in that moment, just like that. He could hide somewhere and never face the world again. Let her understand he isn't coming back to her in time. But he owes her at least a breakup— a proper ending to that mess of a love story is the least he can give to her.

"Harry stop, talk to me," she interjects, putting her hand on his arm. It stings where she touches him, and he doesn't know if he wants to linger into the touch or shake her away from him, because she's making it harder and harder for him. "What is going on? We can get through this."

Harry shakes his head. "No, we can't." He frowns, finally daring to look into her chocolate brown eyes. The way she's staring at him knocks his breath out of his lungs. Heartbreak has transmuted into a physical pain, and he wonders how high the chances are that he'll die of a broken heart. "I don't want us to."

"I don't understand," she says in a whisper. He can hear her confusion and he hates that he's hurting her. He hates it so much, but he knows it's better to do it now than later on, when they'll be even closer and he'll prove himself to be even more of a disappointment than he already is. Sierra's always been destined for better, greater things, while he's always been that boy that will never get out of the quicksand— and it's what he'll always be.

He wishes he could explain it to her, but he lacks the words to tell her how unhappy he knows he'd make her.

She lets go of him, the disappointment flashing through her eyes hitting him like an arrow straight through the heart, and he takes a step back.

"I don't have my shit together right now, Sierra," Harry tells her. "I'm not saying it to justify my own poor actions and decisions, I'm saying it because it's true." He looks away from her, her gaze too much for him to hold. "I'm not that kind of person, I can't be that kind of person."

He told himself those same words so many times they've become his mantra, now. Somehow, though, they never truly reassure him.

"What kind of person?"

"The kind that relies on someone else to fix their mess." He focuses on a strand of hair that's curling around her neck not to have to look at her. It looks brown in the light coming from the other room. "I just can't, I'm sorry." The apology leaves his lips unexpectedly, and its inappropriateness angers him but saddens him at the same time.

"What?" She sounds like she can't believe him. Harry can't blame her. He can't even believe himself.

"You were right. I can't handle a relationship right now, Sierra. I thought I could, but I can't. I know I will end up hurting you if we keep this up and this isn't fair to you nor me." He's surprised his scattered mind managed to put together such a long sentence, but he knows it isn't good enough anyway.

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm breaking up with you."

It takes all of him to keep his voice from cracking. He pushes the sentence at the back of his mind instantly, trying to forget he spoke it in the first place, knowing that if he gives himself enough time to register what he said he'll crumble to the floor right there and then.

"Don't." There's urgency in her voice, and she takes a step forward.

Harry stares at the wall behind her head because he knows he wouldn't be able to handle the sight of her in that moment. "I have to," he says, his words choked. "You deserve better than to be dragged down by my shit, and I deserve better than to only be fine because you're with me, Sierra."

She shakes her head, staring at him in disbelief, and suddenly he can't look away anymore. "You can't just..." Her voice drifts away. "You said you loved me."

There's hurt in her eyes and it makes him feel like he's suffocating, but a masochistic side of him revels in the pain it gives him. He deserves every bit of the heartbreak. He deserves nothing good.

"I do, that's why I can't let this happen," he tells her so honestly that he even surprises himself. "This is not what I want us to become."

"I..." She doesn't know what to say, and Harry can't blame her. He supposes he'd be speechless too if he was given such a sudden insight into the fucked up ways his own mind works. It's like self-destruction is its fuel. His soul won't be happy until he'll have ruined everything in his wake. That's what he does. He hurts whoever gets too close to him with his coldness and screwed up habits, and he never truly minded until now.

He can't stay away from her anymore, and takes a step towards her. Sierra closes her eyes and he reaches out to touch her, but decides against it. He doesn't deserve it.

"Hey," he whispers gently. For a moment, he lets himself believe he isn't destroying everything between them, but reality crashes down on him again way too quickly. "I suppose this is the moment in which I should give you something of mine, a memento. But I won't do that. Don't hold onto me."

He wants her to forget him, to let him go and never think of him again, because, even though he knows her doing that would shatter him, she shouldn't waste her time with someone like him. She should find someone just as amazing as her that gets to be with her and support her and love her in the way she deserves, and that person isn't him.

She doesn't need him. She'll understand it soon, he just has to give her the chance to.

"Sierra, it's okay."

She looks up at him, and his breath hitches when he realises there are tears in her eyes. He clenches his teeth, fearing his mask will shatter too, right in front of her.

"No it isn't."

"But it is," his voice is gentle, and he gives in. His hand grazes her arm for a moment, but he retracts it quickly, hating himself for his weakness. He has to leave now, because he's about to break. He can't let her see him like that, he can't.

His next words hurt more than anything else he's said until that moment.

"Don't call me."

He turns around and opens the door quickly, and the both of them are perfectly aware that he's running away. He's running away, like the scared boy he is. He lingers in the frame and gives her one last glance from over his shoulder, and then he's out.

He shuts the door and walks down the path that has taken him to her door countless times before— the same one that's now taking him away from her.

He only manages to keeps it together until he gets to his car.

He sits inside and closes the door hard, starting the engine as a sob breaks through his chest. His hands are trembling as he grips the steering wheel and tears are streaming down his cheeks, every hope of controlling them escaping his body the more the pain spreads through him.

He feels so fragile, so breakable. Like a wisp of wind could blow him away.

His vision is more and more blurred, and he stops in the other street, right behind Sierra's house.

He's still so close, so close. If she went after him she'd find him right there, shattered in a thousand pieces in his car, but she doesn't.

She doesn't.

Come here, the irrational part of his mind screams, please come out. Please don't give up.

Please don't listen to me. Ignore what I said. Come out here, tell me you love me, tell me you need me. Tell me I'm everything you want.

He leans his forehead on his hands, his entire body is trembling and shivering and he can't stop the water coming out of his eyes. He can't stop it, can't, and it goes down his cheeks again, and again, and again.

Tell me I'm an idiot, tell me I'm making a mistake. Make it harder. Make me fight for it. Fight for it, too.

Don't let me win, not like this.

I don't want this.

I don't.

I hate this.

Please come out.

He wipes the tears away and looks up at her house, hoping he'll see her walk out in the garden. She'd find him right there, if she did.

I love you, tell me you love me too. Scream at me, shout at me. Hit me, tell me you hate me. Just do something. Anything. Don't let it all end like this.

He's right there, so close but so far away. He's just waiting for a signal. Just a signal.

But it doesn't come.

And she doesn't come out, too.

Tell me you won't forget me.

A part of him will die the day she doesn't think of him anymore, and even though it's what he wants, he knows he won't see it as a win.

He doesn't know how long he stays there for, waiting for Sierra to come out and tell him something, anything that will convince him to find another route out.

When he starts the car again the sun has set, and there's only a pink line in the horizon now. He thinks he might start to hate that colour.

He hates that sunset too, because it's too peaceful, too perfect. Nature reminds him once again that he's just an infinitesimal, useless little part of the world, and that time will not stop for him, not once, not ever.

His tears are now dry on his face and they make his skin hurt when he purses his lips, finally driving out of Sierra's neighbourhood, an aching hollow in his chest at the realisation that she will not come for him, not now, not ever.

She probably knows he's not someone worth fighting for, and he understands her. He does. He wouldn't fight for himself too.

He leaves her house behind, even if he knows he won't be able to erase her from his mind anytime soon, if ever.

He has no fight left in him and he drives straight to Zayn's home, knowing that going back to Niall's house would kill what's left of him.

His teeth clench as he drives and he cries again, hazing the world around him in a blanket of water. His foot presses down on the accelerator harder and harder, and he doesn't even realise he's speeding down the streets at well over the limit.

The houses and trees at his sides have disappeared into a grey wall and air is hissing through the partially open car window. He pulls them all down, welcoming the freezing cold inside, hoping it'll burn his emotions and sedate his soul, but all it does is making his hands hurt.

The cold and the speed, the cold and the speed. For a second he believes he could drive to the end of the world. He wishes he could drive to the end of the world and then fall into the stars and let the chill of the universe freeze him forever. Maybe in that way he'd know peace.

He wonders what would happen first, if he'd freeze to death or burn into the sun.

It's all over in a second and he realises what he's doing, violently stopping the car in the middle of the road.

For an instant he fears it'll flip over and he has to tighten his hold on the wheel not to be sent flying right through the windshield by the hit.

His heart is hammering in his chest, and for an instant he can't even feel the air move.

His breath comes out of his lips in white clouds, the cold of the night making little droplets of water condense on the glass.

He isn't sure he's alive anymore, a deep, dark hole is where his heart used to be, sucking every bit of him into nothing. That part of him that had started waking up and drying its wings over the past few months is now choking on air, speared beyond saving by his decision as if it was an arrow, lying on its side as it takes its last dying breaths.

He shouldn't be feeling like this, Harry knows that. He shouldn't be choking on his own tears in the middle of the road, he has no right to. He brought it upon himself.

Harry knows he's the evil character in Sierra's book now. He knows she'll likely never forgive him, that she won't want to see him ever again. He wouldn't want to see himself either. He doesn't want to see himself.

He looks like a ghost, the dark circles under his dull green eyes do nothing to compliment his fair complexion. He glares at himself in the rear-view mirror, hating the person he sees. He wishes he could stop existing, disappear in that very second and never be again.

It was the only way, it had to be done, he tells himself over and over again, hoping it'll make more sense the second, third and fourth time around. He knows he'll agree with his decision again later on, but right now the pain in his chest is too strong for him to focus on the rational reasons.

He grips the wheel harder and starts the car again, glaring at the starry sky above him as he drives to his destination.

He can't go to Niall's house, he just can't. He knows he'd only need to look at him in the eyes to know he won. He doesn't want to give him that satisfaction, he doesn't want him to know that, despite all he did to bring him down, he brought his demise upon himself.

Harry has never been a stranger to self-destructive behaviour, but he thinks he's just reached a new peak, one he won't be able to come back from. And that's exactly why it had to happen, because he was too fragile and scared to be with someone like her. Because he's about to crumble in a thousand pieces and needed to save her from himself before it was too late.

She would've fallen to the ground next to him if he'd only asked, she would've tasted dirt and made a home for them out of sand and leaves if he'd only asked.

But he couldn't ask that of her.

How could he ask her to live among dust with him while she was destined for so much better? It's unacceptable to settle for less than you deserve.

But it's also shameful to take more than you deserve, and he's guilty of the latter.

He can see her eyes, her beautiful brown eyes stare at him from the corner of his mind. There's anger in those hazelnut hues, and his interiority cowers away in shame. How can someone ask for forgiveness for doing the right thing?

How does he deal with the knowledge that he hurt her and she'll never forgive him for it, when he did it for her? He ripped both his heart and hers to shreds with only a few words, but he's glad that it was only their heart and not their soul as well to be harmed in the process.

He's just about to speed down the road again when he gets to his destination. He slams his foot on the break and runs out of the vehicle in the instant it comes to a halt.

When Zayn opens the door, he looks like he's just seen a ghost. Harry knows he must be looking like a mess, with his red eyes and pale, shivery frame standing in the door.

Zayn doesn't ask anything. He doesn't need to. He knows what happened, he can see it all over his friend. And so he just stands there, not saying a word.

They've never been the kind of friends that have heart-to-hearts, or that talk about things such as feelings. Their whole friendship revolves on finding a thousand different ways to avoid feelings. That one time on the beach was an exception, because Harry knew Liam wouldn't get it. He wouldn't understand, from the height of his perfection, what it means to be a fuck-up, what it means to be scared of relationships because they bring out only the worst in you. Even though they've been friends for many years, that's always been a cloud above them.

Liam may be the reliable one, but Zayn is the one that pics up the pieces. Zayn is the only one Harry allows himself to be seen, truly seen, by, even those nastiest parts of him that he wouldn't uncover with anyone else, because he knows he doesn't judge.

Zayn gets it.

Zayn doesn't run away from it.

He isn't like Niall, that knew who he was and his every fault and grew to hate him. He isn't like Liam, that treats him like a broken toy and tries to fix him every time he opens his mouth, as if some kind words would be enough to settle the ache his soul has been doubled over because of for far too long. He isn't like Sierra, that would destroy herself just to make sure he isn't hurting.

Zayn understands. He understands what he's like, and doesn't try to fix it or make it better. He's just there. Harry feels free to hurt when he's next to him, because he knows he doesn't risk to shatter him. He stays by his side, but he knows when to say stop, when it gets too much. And Harry has no doubt he will throw him out on the street in the second the white flames of his pain touch him as well, way before he'll make his first casualty. There's freedom in that.

He allows him to come inside and Harry does, a shell of a shell.

"You did the right thing," he tells him in a whisper, but he can't bring himself to agree.

Maybe tomorrow he will, or the day after that. Or whenever the sharp pain in his chest will subside.

He'll agree then, but for now, he lets himself mourn the loss of a relationship he never truly had to begin with.

They knew each other for six months, but he was only able to call her his for some weeks, if not days. What a waste of time it had been. If he hadn't been as much of a coward, if he hadn't spent the first months coming up with ways to run from her again and again—

It's too late now. It's always the same story for him, it's always too late. He was too late when his mother left to go to the supermarket, he was too late when he never noticed his father wasn't happy. He'd known he wasn't, but he hadn't realised until it was too late.

He was too late when he realised he loved her.

He was too late when he asked her to be his.

He was too late when he left.

Sitting on the couch, his mind drifts to her. He wonders how she's doing, if she's taking it as badly as he is.

He could never stand to see her cry. He would go to the end of the world and beyond to make sure she doesn't ever again, and that's the problem.

She's always had complete control over him, but she never realised it. He spent so long pushing it away that at moments he didn't realise it either.

But now he knows.

He knows that if she'd come out and begged him to stop with his nonsense, he would've. He knows he would've gone back to her and then hated himself for it, because he's weak.

That's what people usually don't see. They're too focused on his exterior to realise that if he falls to the floor he'll shatter in a thousand pieces. But now, even a whisk of wind will be enough to destroy everything he is.

"How did she take it?"

Harry looks at his friend, a pained look in his eyes, and the other hums.

"How did you take it?"

"I considered driving my car in a ditch with me in it."

"Jesus Christ, Harry," he hisses.

"I decided against it."

"I can see," Zayn replies. "You can stay here as long as you need."

Harry stares into nothing, not replying.

He's heartbroken. He's never been heartbroken like that before. It hurts a different part of his heart, choking his breath all the same. He knows, he hopes the ache will subside soon, and then it'll all be cold rain on a glass surface as before— but his glass is now creaking and cracking. It won't be long before it shatters whole, bringing him down with it.

Harry spends the entire night awake, staring at the dark shadows on the ceiling as he lies down on Zayn's couch. There's a sour taste in his mouth, a painful dullness in his chest. He knows there's a bottle of vodka in his friend's kitchen that's calling out to him like a siren. He should get so drunk he can't even remember his name, maybe then he'd be able to face the fact that he's a fool in love and in the process of breaking up his relationship he broke his heart as well.

Lying there, he thinks about Sierra. He wonders if she's awake as well, if she's cursing his name. If she regrets ever letting him in, loving him. She does. He doesn't need confirmation. He knows she does, and that knowledge brings a new kind of pain. In the end, he turned out to be the disappointment he knew he'd always be to her.

Scared, fragile boys don't get the girl.

It would've been wrong of him to keep her by his side even when he didn't deserve her.

Yet he wonders if it was right to make her hate him. It's the only way to make her stay away from him, but he likes to torture himself and wonder what it would've been like to let himself be loved by her for a little longer.

He could've been in her bed right now, if he hadn't ruined everything. She would've been drawing him for no reason, because that was what she always did. If he closes his eyes, he can still feel her touch on his lips, his jaw, his neck, his back. He can almost pretend he's still there with her.

That night, he fears he finally took that step off the cliff. The water is cold, and he doesn't know if he'll reach the surface before he suffocates and parts from the world for good.

For the first time in years, he's scared.

Back by popular demand, the breakup from Harry's point of view. There will be some more extras both on this book and Aquarelle coming out throughout the month of December, so keep an eye out for them if you'd like. If you enjoyed this extra (and possibly this story), it'd mean the world to me if you checked out my two ongoing stories, Lux and Interlude.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter x

Miki

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