Left. Right. Breathe. Left. Right. Breathe.

His fists collided with the punching bag, ragged breaths falling from his lips. This was something Harry Styles knew and understood; the swinging of the bag on its chain as his knuckles made their impact, the heavy rise and fall of his sweat-coated chest. His mind could wrap around everything in that moment.

He could not wrap his mind around Carmen, though.

She was so difficult to comprehend. She was like a game of poker he could never win no matter how goddamn much he tried. One minute she was smirking haughtily at him with those black, sardonic eyes, and the next moment she was crying while they were fucking in front of the fireplace.

What. The. Fuck.

He could vividly see the image of her tear-stained cheeks in his head, imprinted in his memory like a fucking brand on a cattle's hip. It had pained him to see her cry, just as much as it joyed him to experience any sort of vulnerability from her. He hadn't decided yet if seeing her cry was better or worse than her being emoitonally closed off.

Surely, if their relationship was normal, he could have asked her about it and she would've responded truthfully. He could've told her he loved her, and maybe she would have reciprocated the feelings, and they could be happy. But their relationship wasn't normal, it was far from it actually. It was always back and forth, with Carmen either pulling away from him or taking his hand and pulling him closer. It didn't make sense to Harry. He was getting more and more tangled in her web with each day, each minute, and it was suffocating.

The question of whether she was worth it or not would occasionally seep into his thoughts, but he would always dismiss it. Of course she was worth it. She was the only thing that made him feel alive. Angry, infuriated, annoyed- but alive. Before Carmen, Harry felt absolutely nothing. He felt no desire to be anything or to better himself as a person; he still didn't have much of a desire for anything but her, but that was better than nothing, wasn't it? She was his life, his world. She was the pools of morning light that sang to him when he woke up. She was the air in his lungs that he could never seem to keep. She was the alcohol in his veins that made him drunk with love and lust and every other feeling she imposed on him.

He needed her, but she would probably never need him.

"Fuck!" he seethed, grabbing the punching bag to stop it from swinging on the chain, and pressing his dampened forehead against it. He took deep, labored breaths in attempt to let out all the built up stress inside of him. This was too much. Love wasn't supposed to be this complicated and tiring, was it?

Harry grabbed his bottle of water and brought it to his lips, the cool liquid easing down his throat. He knew Carmen was waiting at his apartment, but part of him wasn't ready to see her yet. Even after his workout, his mind was still obscured. He grabbed his discarded shirt and wiped his forehead with it, collecting the clammy sweat over his skin.

What he needed was a drink.

As if on cue, Harry's eyes drifted to where a familiar face was standing before him. Crook smiled, his hands casually slung in his pockets, and his hard features soft with amusement.

"Are you stalking me?" Harry questioned with a breathy laugh, tossing the sweat-dampened shirt to the floor of the gym.

"Perhaps," his friend shurgged. "Seems like the only way to get ahold of you these days."

Harry frowned as he took a tie from his wrist and pulled the hair away from his face, something he had made a habit of doing when it was too hot. It was also noticeable that he would do it more often now, since Carmen always seemed to laugh at it, and there wasn't much Harry wouldn't do to hear her laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always... occupied with that girl of yours."

That's right. My girl.

Harry brushed away his possessive thoughts and shrugged his shoulders. "You'll understand when you find someone."

"When I find someone?" Crook scoffed and shook his head, not believing that these were the words coming from the cold-hearted man he had known for years. "What has happened to you? You sound like a prick."

"If you've come here to be a dickhead then I'd rather you leave," Harry snapped. There were many things that could easily anger him, but the topic of his odd and not even real relationship was definitely at the top of the list. It was something he even got frustrated with himself over.

Crook's hands rose defensively. "Fine, fine. I came to ask if you wanted to talk about Caranza over a drink, anyway."

"There we go," Harry breathed and grabbed a clean shirt from his bag, pulling it down over his head. "Now we're talking."

***

"No, that's not right," Carmen murmured to herself, tapping her long nail against her chin as she observed the new arrangement of the bookshelf and desk in Harry's room. She padded over to the mahogony shelf, and pressed her hands against the side of it, huffing out a breath as she pushed with all her strength.

After moving it about two inches to the right, she stepped away and observed.

"Better," she smiled proudly and nodded her head. If she was going to be around here more often, she decided, things might as well be to her liking. Besides, there wasn't much to do to entertain herself while Harry wasn't there. Most of the adjustments she had made around the place were minor; moving the furniture a tad to the left or right, rearranging the contents of the cupboards in the kitchen, and picking up some of the dirty articles of clothing that Harry had tossed thoughtlessly onto the floor. His messiness was certainly one of her least favorite attributes.

It wasn't necessarily that Carmen liked things to be perfectly clean and organized, it was simply that she liked to be in control. She was the one who got to decide where things went. She was the one who ran the place, even if she didn't live there. It gave her that extra ounce of power that she bathed in like honey. Harry Styles belonged to her, along with everything he owned.

A knocking at the apartment door startled her slightly, a small squeak falling from her lips and her eyes tearing away from the furniture.

For a moment she was unsure of what to do. She stood there still for a few seconds, listening for another knock to come, and when it did, this time louder, she shook off her uncertainty and made her way out of Harry's room. Harry had never instructed her on what to do if someone showed up at the apartment while she was there alone, not like she would have listened to him anyway. She had a habit of not listening to anyone but herself.

Forgetting that she was dressed in only Harry's shirt, which ended just above the knobs of her knees, she opened the door with a kind smile on her lips.

"Can I help you?" Carmen spoke sweetly to the woman standing before her.

The woman was beautiful. There were wrinkles creasing the skin around her almond eyes and wax-coated lips, but her beauty shown through her age. Brown hair in a tight knot at the nape of her neck, black suede heels on her feet, matched with a pleated skirt and blouse; she appeared rather wealthy and prudish.

The woman's expression contorted to that of disgust as she eyed over Carmen's not so modest appearance. Carmen's friendly attitude faded as the woman's eyes darkened with judgement.

"Leave it to Harry to have his whores in his apartment at two in the afternoon," she said, a venomous edge to her voice that made the heat in Carmen's eyes flare. No one got to talk to her like that, not anymore. She had had enough people speak vilely to her in her twenty two years of living, she didn't need to add this uptight woman to the list.

"Actually, Harry only let's one whore in his apartment at two in the afternoon," the dark haired beauty responded, just as much venom laced into her words as the woman had. She pointed a finger to herself and smirked. "This whore."

The woman scowled. "Don't speak to me like that," she snapped. "Where is Harry?"

"Not here."

Carmen raised her eyebrow defiantly and leaned against the door frame, the hem of Harry's shirt sliding up her thigh to reveal the black lace underneath. The woman's cynical eyes noticed this, and her scowl deepened.

"Well," the woman's lips twitched to signal her lack of patience. "Tell my son that I need to speak with him. Can you manage that?" She spoke with a patronizing tone, and if Carmen hadn't been stunned by the word son, she would've slapped the woman's face right then and there.

His mother.

Harry's mother.

Carmen took a minute step back, as if the realization had literally hit her.

"You-" She shook her head violently, stumbling back away from the doorway. "You're his mother. Oh my god." Her words were mumbled and rushed. She couldn't do this; she practically ran back to Harry's room, the only thing racing through her mind being the fact that she never allowed herself to deal with families. Never. And there was no way she was going to let Harry Styles be an exception.

But you've let him be an exception for other things, her conscious nagged at her. She was right. Harry had already been the first of many to break numerous rules that Carmen had set for herself.

This was different, though. Meeting his family implied there was a deeper relationship between them than there should be. Her unwelcomed feelings for him were already causing enough trouble, she couldn't let something like this slide.

Carmen peeled the musky scented fabric off her body, tossing it to the floor in a rush. She grabbed her dress, cringing at the fact that she had worn it the day before, but put it on anyway. She went through Harry's closet, where her pair of heels were neatly stashed away in the corner, and took them in her hand, not bothering to put them on.

"What are you doing?" came a condescending voice, but Carmen paid no attention to it. When she looked up- dress messily hanging onto her body, heels in her hand, and dark eyes astray- she saw that Harry's mother was standing in the door way to his room. Her drawn eyebrow was arched in a way that would've made Carmen have the urge to dig her nails into the woman's cheek, but instead, she padded past her quickly, not saying a word.

"Don't come near my son again," she threatened as Carmen reached the door. Her body stilled as she wrapped her hand around the knob, her back to Harry's not so friendly mother.

"Don't tell me what to do," Carmen muttered with no eviction. For some reason, part of her felt defeated. She should be staying here and putting up a fight, not letting all of these woman's threats run right past her.

"If you have any feelings for him, which I know you don't," the woman scoffed, "You will leave him alone. He has a future ahead of him that involves a loving, educated wife. Not some cheap street whore like yourself."

Words that would've meant nothing to her only a week ago, punctured her thick skin, all the way to her black heart. It hurt, more than anything, her chest throbbing from the truth which was now becoming painful to accept. It was a wake up call to her, though; no longer could she allow these dangerous feelings to carry on.

"I know," she mouthed, almost inaudibly, refraining from doubling over in pain. With that, she opened the door and fled into the busy streets of London, repeating the same words over and over in her head in hopes that they would become true.

He means nothing to you.

He means nothing to you.

******

meh next update will be better i swear to it over my dogs grave

ily

btw i got a lot to do so im not gonna update until this gets 80 votes.... you can do it i believe in yew