Song: Mariana's Trench - Ever After 

---Harry---

It's hard to tell what Paisley is going to think about what I'm going to give her. The fact that she still doesn't remember me and who we were together in high school, makes it all unknown to me. Either way though, I think she'll like the thought I put into it. She always said the small things in life matter the most, things that come straight from the heart mean the most, and something that tells a story without having to say anything at all, is the most important thing of all.

I know that this little piece means so much more than meets the eye. It stabbed me right in the heart when I first saw it, like it was meant for me to find. It holds so much more significance than I think she'll understand right now, but I know that one day she'll get it, and maybe that's all that matters. Maybe it doesn't matter that she wont comprehend exactly the value behind it, or even feel what it truly means. I just know that giving it to her, is giving me some peace of mind; Some sort of clarity that I need. 

As I walk back to her from my car, carrying in my hands the treasure she's about to receive, she looks at me curiously. I can tell that she's intrigued, as she stands up and puts her coffee down, not taking her eyes off of me.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asks, taking it from me and admiring it.

"I found it on the beach at one of the stops we made," I explain. "It was right on the shore, like it was waiting for me."

"And it really has a message in there!" she smiles. I love seeing this smile on her face. It lights up her eyes, and I couldn't be happier that I'm witnessing it right now after not seeing it for the last five days.

"Two messages," I tell her. "I added one to it."

She looks at me, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine. "This is amazing! I always wanted to find one of these!"

I watch as she takes the cork off the bottle carefully. The smile on her face remains, clearly excited to read the messages inside, as the rolled up pieces of paper slide out into her hand when she holds the bottle upside down. She unravels it, to see the typed message first. The message that was already inside the bottle when I found it. The message I felt was written out just for me to find, to remind me that, with her, I'm exactly where I'm meant to be.

She clears her throat before reading it slowly. "Luck has found you today, with this message in a bottle. If this message finds you, it is to remind you that it takes guts to fall in love, but it takes nerve to go back to the one who broke you."

Until she remembers who I am, and what happened to us in the past, I know that this is something she wont fully understand. But that's okay, because I do. I loved her then. Back when we were young and I was naive, I loved her more than life itself. No one could ever fathom just how much she broke me, and although it hurts to think back to that time, seeing her now and knowing she's still the same girl she was then, but without popularity resting on her shoulders, allows me to see that everything is different this time around. I know that it took guts to want to be with her again, knowing she has the capability to break me all over again.

"Wow, this is pretty powerful," she says, looking at me. "I thought messages in bottles were supposed to be letters, but I really like this. It says so much in one small sentence."

When she looks down and places the one I added on top of the typed one in her hand, it's hard to decipher her facial expression as she clearly reads the words in her head before saying it out loud to me. 

 "I could be your perfect disaster. You could be my ever after."  

"That's the one I added," I tell her, even though it's more than obvious, since it's written in my handwriting instead of typed up like the other one. "Please tell me you remember what it's from."

"Marianas Trench," she states. "No one could forget a line like that in such an amazing song." Her eyes don't leave the little piece of paper, as if she's reading it over and over again, trying to figure out why I wrote it to her. The good thing about this particular lyric, is that we have listened to this song in my car on many occasions over the last few months, because our love for this band is something we strongly agree on, especially when it comes to this particular song—Ever After.

But what she doesn't know, or remember, is that even in high school, it was one of our favorites. We spent some nights, laying in either her bed, or mine, with one headphone in my ear and the other in hers, listening to this song. I'm not sure if this particular lyric during that time ever held any meaning to her, knowing that she was going to be my perfect disaster in the end, but it surely plays a meaning to us now.

I know I hold the ability to make our relationship crumble. I carry it in the palm of my hand, and if I really wanted to, I could break her just as easy as she broke me. I could make her feel the pain I did. It was my plan after I first saw her sitting at the picnic table by the dorms—to get my revenge on her. The reason I tried so hard in the beginning, the reason I wanted her to trust me so much, was so that I could watch her fall and know that she finally felt the pain I did.

But I don't feel that way anymore. I don't want to watch her break. I don't ever want to see the girl standing before me, even shed a single tear, because somewhere along the way, my heart changed its desires. It changed the way I saw her, and it so easily went back to feeling the way I did about her in high school. I haven't completely fallen for her yet, but I know that she could be my ever after.

And even though she doesn't know what my plans were before, this lyric still says so much, because I know that somehow she knows we could be each other's perfect disaster. Our relationship has been nothing but a storm, held together by nothing but strings. But it's obvious to me, that the knots in those strings are what binds us together so tightly. Every time a new storm comes, it makes more knots, bringing us closer together, leaving us, in the end to be each other's only ever afters.

"So, will you let me drive you home now?" I ask, after a long silence.

She finally looks away from the paper to look me in the eyes again, and I realize now that her eyes are glossed over with tears. They haven't fallen down her rosy cheeks yet, but they want to, and as soon as she blinks, one does and I don't hesitate to wipe it away with my thumb. It's clear to me that she understands it. The way it brought her to tears, says everything. And although I don't want to see her cry, knowing that these tears aren't because she's sad, but because she knows the great meaning behind the words, makes these tears mean something to me.

She lets out a small embarrassed laugh, as she wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. "I would love for you to drive me home."

When her lips meet mine, I feel whole again. Because for a moment, when I got back today, and I saw her look at me the way she did, with hatred in her eyes, I thought there was a chance that I lost her. That leaving the way I did, was the last straw and she had enough. I didn't mean to just leave her that way. I really did just want her to sleep. I really did just want to call her from the road and explain why I left, but I couldn't, and I knew when I came back, that I would have to pick up the pieces again.

The way she kisses me, takes me back to Friday night. How she so passionately moves her lips with mine, the way she did then. I will never forget that night. How she showed me just how much she trusts me, even after not talking to her for a week. We needed to not talk. We needed to figure things out on our own, and I needed to think about how she lied right to my face after I told her we needed to be honest with each other. 

I'm still not sure why she lied about being a virgin. I lied and said it was one of the two theories I had about her hesitance, but that was because I already knew the truth about that and wanted to know what she would say—to see if she would lie to me. I know that my knowing the answer already was sort of cheating, but I had to do it. I'm sure there's a good reason as to why she said she was, and even though I'm not one hundred percent sure why, it probably has something to do with the fact that she knows me. She knows that I'm someone who has one night stands and doesn't care the next day what the girl thinks of me leaving, and I don't think she wants to be one of those girls. If we were to ever have sex, she wants to make sure it's the right time, that we've waited long enough for it to mean something. I know girls like that, I just never thought she would be one. But after giving it a lot of thought, it's the most probable answer. She's just protecting herself from getting hurt, even if she does trust me, which I think on her part, is pretty smart.

We've got many miles to drive, many hours in this car together, and knowing that I wont be with her for a whole two weeks when we reach her ending of this road trip, makes me not want to take this time with her for granted. I already feel like we have so much lost time to make up for, and this drive just doesn't feel long enough for that. But listening to her laugh at some of my stories about the workshop and seeing the way she keeps her eyes on me the whole time I'm talking, like she's taking in every single word I'm saying, makes me feel like the luckiest man alive.

We've listened to Ever After now about ten times, along with the entirety of the album, and it baffles me that it doesn't make her somehow remember me. I've let it slip a few times, almost giving away that I already knew her, over the last few months, but she's never caught on, thankfully. But watching her sing along to the lyrics, makes it feel like old times, and I can't see how she doesn't feel it the way I do.

Something about giving her the message in a bottle, somehow made everything shift. Everything feels lighter, like I don't have to question her trust in me anymore, because I can just feel it radiating from her. The way she looks at me even feels different. The smile on her face never fading away, even for the smallest of moments. It's like every bad thing that's ever happened, just drifted away and all that was left was this girl sitting next to me, holding my hand, reminding me that the same girl who used to sing and dance down the street to songs on her phone, the girl who showed confidence in her eyes when she looked at you, the smart, bright girl, who wasn't  ever afraid to be exactly who she was, with me, is the same girl I'm looking at right now. She doesn't have a sadness to her eyes anymore and I couldn't be happier, feeling like I am the reason for that.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that I'm staying in Victoria," she tells me, after she's turned the music down. "We're staying at my Aunt's house until the day after Christmas."

"Really?" I ask. The excitement inside of me builds quickly, knowing that I will have a chance to see her over the holidays. This feels like I've won the lottery and I know I'm smiling like a childish boy who gets to eat chocolate before bedtime, but I don't care. I'm happy.

"Yeah, we should hang out!" she says. "She lives in Oak Bay, like I used to. Maybe I could show you my favorite place on the beach."

My smile widens—if that's even possible. "That would be awesome. I would love that!"

Realizing we're going to go to a place that used to mean so much to us, feels surreal. I never, in a million years, thought that we would ever go back there together again, and I want that time to be right now. I want to be with her there at this very moment.

"Probably can't hang out too much, but I'd like to see you at least once," she continues. 

"I'll take once over not at all," I say, looking over at her. She tightens her grip on my hand, squeezing it for a second, smiling back at me.

"We should stop for dinner soon," she says. "I'm starving."

It's not long until we're off the highway, sitting in a cozy diner. We're still in the state of California, but finally closing in on Oregon, getting all that much closer to home. We still have a long way to drive, but I'm in no rush to get there, even though I'm excited to see my parents and to sleep in my own bed. There's not very many things that are better than being home, after being gone for a while.

"Should we exchange gifts?" she asks, taking a bite of her eggs. Another fine thing in life. Breakfast for dinner. "I mean, now that things are good with us?"

"No, I don't want anything," I answer. The only thing I want is her. I don't need some store bought present for her to show me that she cares.

"Good, because I didn't get you anything," she laughs. "I usually like to make my gifts. Ya know, something that shows I made an effort and put in time to give something special, and that means something. Maybe I'll do that for your birthday. I have lots of time to think of something."

"I don't want anything for my birthday, love," I smile. I know that now that she's thought of it, there will be no stopping her, and the thought of her making a present for me, doesn't actually seem that bad. I'm actually curious as to what she would come up with, knowing how creative she can get.

"That's too bad, because I'm already thinking of things to do for you," she says. "Hey, maybe you could meet my Dad sometime before we leave for Vancouver? I'd really like for him to meet you."

I shift in my seat, putting my fork down and wiping my face nervously with the napkin. This is one thing I never thought of. There's a good chance her Dad would recognize me, even though I look different now. Just because Paisley doesn't remember me, doesn't mean her Dad wouldn't. The thought of it makes me feel sick. "Oh, I don't know, Paise. Meeting the parents is a pretty big step. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet."

She stares at me from across the table for a while. "Okay," she shrugs. "I guess it doesn't really matter. But if he knows you're close to where we are, he's going to encourage it. Especially since I talk about you so much, and he knows you're important to me and make me happy."

For some reason, I don't think I'm going to get out of this. I have a feeling, I'll be meeting her Dad for the first time, a second time around. I just hope to God, he wont blow my cover. "Yeah, I guess. We'll see."

A/N: This chapter is my absolute favorite so far! I loved writing it so much! I was finally able to reveal Harry's secret fully, and honestly, I loved how I was able to tell you what it was.

Did you already know or have a feeling his intentions were not in the right place in the beginning? I know some of you had your doubts about him...lol

Make sure to listen to Ever After by Marianas Trench, at the top of this chapter! The song is so so good, and one my all time favorites! The lyrics Harry gave to her are more than perfect for them, and I can't even express to you how happy I am, that I was able to incorporate it into the book, with so much meaning to who they are together!

What do you think of "I could be your perfect disaster. You could be my ever after."

Thanks for 9.7K reads!! I honestly can't thank you enough for reading! Please share this book with your friends! And I hope you continue voting and commenting!! I love you guys so much!

Much love,
amberlove
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