"New dad?" The receptionist asks as I rub my eyes waiting for my appointment time. The shadows under my eyes became bags as nights had gone by with maybe a few hours here and there of sleep. Shifts between Keaton, Niall, and I had been rotating through the week. Whenever Keaton wasn't in class she was with Lilah and vise versa. The night was a different story though since it was just me and her most of the time. By most of the time, I mean all of the time.

"Possibly," I reply, "what was the giveaway?" I ask curiously as I rock Lilah's car seat with my foot.

"If exhausted was a living person I think you would be him," the receptionist says peeking down to see the car seat placed in front of me. Her auburn hair is tied into a Kim Kardashian while her porcelain face airs on the more natural side.

"I maybe get 3 to 4 hours a night give or take, my sleep schedule has seen better days," I say cracking a grin at her observation. I'm sure I looked strung out, and unruly with my appearance since the level of care had drastically fallen. The fact that I put on fresh clothes was an achievement on its own.

"Harry?" A nurse voices over the near-empty waiting room. She stands at the door to the office with a clipboard in hand, her blue scrubs reminding me of the doctor's shows on tv.

"Hey!" I greet standing up and grabbing the car seat to bring along with me. I look down at Lilah smiling at me with a toothless grin, her little dimples carving into her cheeks.

"How are you today?" The nurse asks, she can't be much older than I was. Her black high ponytail swings side to side as she takes us back to an exam room.

"I'm alright, a little tired," I respond looking around at the plaques plastered all over the walls.

"I feel you, I've got two of my own!  Trust me it gets better after the 6-month mark!" She reassures me as we come into an exam room that is stark white. Clinical.

"That's encouraging, given I have her for much longer," I say setting the car seat down as she coos and makes loud playful noises smiling at me. She sucks on her hand grinning and kicking.

"That's right, I see you are here for the paternity test today! We've got a blood test ordered so to make this quick and painless let's just get started!" The nurse says peeking in the car seat as she sets down the clipboard to grab her supplies.

"Hello, Princess!" She talks to Lilah who smiles back at her giggling making my heart warm at her surprisingly good mood. "Hi! You are going to hate me in a few minutes but you have such a pretty smile!"

I unbuckle her and lift her up into my arms. She snuggled into my arms as if she was custom-made to lay in them.

I went first, the kind nurse pricking me with the needle to secure my sample. The blood rushes into the tube, spurts of crimson red splatter around in the tube.

"There was so much blood...." She weeps looking at me with those Hollywood eyes. "I've never seen that much blood before and I didn't know what to do I-"

"Hey, it's okay! I'm here! I'm here with you now." I pull her into my arms as her small body shakes. She's like an earthquake within herself as she bawls uncontrollably.

"Harry, I did something bad. I did it... it's my fault!" She wailed shaking her head and sniffling, peeking away from me to look at me with her dark brown eyes.

Her tears cracked down her face like glass on a window. Emotion bleeding through her skin like watercolors on a painting. She couldn't stop her crystal tears that fell furiously.

"We've all done bad things Pen, that doesn't mean you have to give yourself a life sentence of pain," I say as her head falls into her hands.

"You don't understand! If you knew what I did you wouldn't even look at me!"

"There's nothing you could do that would make me love you any less, I love you Pen," my words float within the shallow air we gasped for. Her lungs expand as she takes in a deep breath and collapses into me.

"You have to leave before it's too late, I don't want to hurt you too...." Penelope mumbles sniffling as her tears drip onto my tee shirt. The warmth of her tears soak my shoulder and make me squeeze her tighter.

"I'm not leaving you!" I say defensively holding onto her as if she would fade away right before me. As if she were just a figment of my alcohol-induced illusions.

"I would leave me if I could."
.

"Are you doing okay?" I shake myself out of the film behind my eyes. Blinking back into my current reality where I sat in a room smelling of cleaning agents and latex gloves.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I reply breathing heavily from the intensity of what I had just seen. My mind resurfacing memories that hideaway in the corners of my mind.

Were they reliable memories? Were they even memories at all or rather drug-induced illusions of people? My emotions played out in front of me, creating figments of others in my scattered brain.

I guess I would never know.

It's a scary thing to feel like you can't believe your mind. As if it's playing a chess game with you awaiting for you to make the wrong move. Strategically planning out my downfall into delusions that it had stitched together. Tailored specifically to me.

It was scary to not know what was real.

The nurse takes Lilah and lays her on the exam table. I know she had said something to me but I was too lost inside my own head to know what it was. I was tangled in a jungle of thoughts that slid in and out of the voices in my head. They were racing and I could feel my hands numb and my palms sweat.

Not here. Not now.

I needed to get a handle on my ever-pending anxiety that occurred more often these days. I don't remember ever feeling this anxious all the time, then again I hadn't been sober for this long either.

Was this what my normal looked like? Was I really a panicked 24-year old who couldn't even have a normal train of thought before spinning out?

"It's okay baby girl!" The nurse calms down Lilah as she stares with worry in her eyes. She searches for me and begins to whine not seeing me insight.

I walk over and hold her hand seeing her calm down a little from my familiar face. I smile weakly at her, "It's okay babe... it's okay," I tell her as the nurse holds her leg down waiting to insert the needle.

"I'll go on three." She warns me counting down before she inserts her needles into Lilah's chunky little thigh. I squint my eyes shut refusing to watch as Lilah's face wince and contorts as she screams.

"I know Princess! I hate to do it to you, only a few more seconds," the nurse says frowning as she tries to get the sample tube filled to the indicated line.

Lilah reaches to be picked up with tears rolling down her red face. She holds my finger tight and begs for comfort as she screams from the prick of the needle. I wanted more than anything to pick her up and hold her until her crying subsided.

"It's alright Lilah, I'm sorry!" I tell her feeling a knot of emotions in my throat. Why I was so emotional I'm not sure. Lack of sleep most likely.

"And done! You are such a brave little girl!" The nurse coaxes pressing down and bandaging where she took the blood from.

I pick her up from the table and she immediately grabs hold of my shirt, making a tight fist as if she's holding on for dear life. I don't bother to zip her jumper back up, rather I rub her back and lean my head on top of hers.

"You know for the record I see a lot of guys come in and out of here. They are all the same, just guys looking for a way out of the "inconveniences" they've caused. But you aren't like them, I can tell you care for her even though it's possible she isn't yours. That says a lot," our nurse says gathering her samples and labeling them accordingly.

"I won't lie to you, she definitely has a resemblance to you. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this all came back positive," She says honestly coming over to me with a smile. She smiles as Lilah again begins to suck her thumb while she lays on my shoulder. "She's really beautiful, Mr. Styles."

"Thank you! And I mean for all of it," I muster up a smile through my tired eyes as my heart begins to slow down again.

"We will call you with those results at the soonest tomorrow and at the latest this weekend,"

.

.

"Hey, are you okay?" Gemma's voice is soft on the other end of the phone. I hadn't talked to her in a week and that wasn't normally like us.

"Just tired with school stuff, I know we haven't gotten to talk much lately," I say to her driving through narrow congested roads. Pedestrians walk in hoards, typing away on their phone or speaking extra loud over their Bluetooth earpieces to sound important.

"Are you sure there is nothing going on? Last week at the wedding you looked like you had seen a ghost the entire night!" Gemma notes making observations of my bad acting job at the wedding. She was right though. There were many moments where I couldn't relax since I knew a secret. That night was all about putting on a show, masking and masquerading around the reality.

"I think I ate something bad, my stomach was in knots the whole night," I lie clenching my jaw at the thought of leaving Gemma in the dark. We didn't lie to each other, she was the only person that I hadn't lied to. Ever since we were kids we made a pact to always be honest with each other and to never have secrets between us.

Secrets kill people and at the time we took it literally but now I knew it was more of a metaphorical sense.

"You know you aren't a good liar right?" I could picture Gemma rolling her eyes back into her skull as she said this.  "I don't know why you even insist on trying,"

"Maybe because I would rather avoid talking about it altogether?" I say in the form of is question arching my brow as my eyes steady on the winding road.

"What's been going on with you H? I'm worried, hardly saying anything to me, when I do see you you seem to be somewhere else entirely? Can you really blame me for being the least bit concerned?" Gemma asks as I tighten my jaw and feel a lump swell in my throat. A sense of anxiety that I was well acquainted with these past few days.

"I'm sorry I never meant to push you away or make you worry... I've just got a lot going on that I didn't necessarily expect," I piece together words like a puzzle to come up with a vague statement. I don't know if it was worth involving Gemma is potentially Lilah wasn't going to be with us much longer. I didn't want to hurt her more than I already had over the years.

Gemma's heart was threaded together with gold, it was sensitive and delicate from the times I had put her heart in the hospital. Each time it had to be mended back together.

"I know it's hard for you to do but asking for help wouldn't be the end of the world! I want to help Harry, anyone would love to help you just have to be willing to ask for it!" Gemma explained in a soft voice that was like a blanket of warmth. She always knew what to say and how to say it, it was an innate gift she has possessed her entire life.

"I have this time..." I start my mind on a one-way track to Kea. She had done so much already that in moments where I got stuck thinking it almost hurt. Like when I came home to Lilah's space being set up while I was away. So much effort and time were stitched into that little space. A tinge of guilt stung my heartstrings for that. "But I know it's no one else's responsibility but my own to handle."

"I wish you would let me in," Gemma says as I pull up to my apartment where I come face to face with the girl speaking gently into the phone.

My eyes widen at the sight and I try to block the visibility to the backseat where Lilah slept soundly in her car seat.

"Have you been waiting here for me?" I ask into the speaker of the phone feeling sweat form against my forehead.

"I came by to talk and you weren't here so I called," she says before hanging up and coming to the door of the car where I stepped out.

"Gem you can't be here-"

"What are you hiding H?" she asks me as I span across the back window like a sticky hand.

"It's not a good time Gem,"

"Will it ever be a good time? Just show me, it can't be that big of a deal!" Gemma says trying to push me out of her way. She does little to my towering stature as she tried pulling me away from the car door.

"Gemma no!" I say sternly as she pushes against my chest with as much strength as she can muster. "You can't,"

"Why? What are you so afraid of?!" Gemma shouts agitated by my lack of transparency.

This fight didn't last too much longer as whines and cries erupt inside the car. My eyes track from her big brown eyes to the ground in the few seconds of sounds coming from the inside of the car.

"Harry....." Gemma steps closer and I scoot to the side letting her open the door to Lilah who was crying for attention. We must have woken her from Gemma and me lightly arguing right next to her.

"I didn't want to get you involved if I didn't have to," I saw as Gemma touches Lilah's rosy cheek admiring the tiny body that wiggled around in her seat.

"This is the baby from the wedding, what is fucking going on???" Gemma's mind is scrambled from the lies we had stitched together to avoid this exact situation.

"Do you want to come inside?" I breathe out heavily and see confusion twisted on her face.

note: Can you believe we are almost at the end of the year?? I don't know if I should be excited or stressed lmao! What I am most excited about though is finals week being over soon! I have one more "real" week of school before I'm all yours! The way I could write and post all day long on here is unhealthy hahaha! Anyways, how are we feeling? Any predictions? Favorites?