"Come on. I'm taking you home."

You looked up from your seat to find Harry staring back down at you with an unreadable expression and his lips in a tight, thin line; he was pissed. Deciding the best course of action would be to just follow him, you stood up and began to make your way out of the bar, muttering a few thank yous and goodbyes to your few friends, Emmy, Niall, Louis and Frilly, that still remained, their faces a mask of worry and sympathy.

The car ride back to your apartment was deathly silent, the atmosphere extremely tense, a complete opposite to your journey there earlier in the night. Harry sat away from you, his hand holding his chin as he glared out of the window, the other hand clenched tightly in a fist in his lap.

You fiddled anxiously with the makeshift bandages that adorned your sore palms, unsure of how to feel. Now that you'd had some fresh air and more water your thoughts had a lot more clarity, even though things were still quite hazy around the edges.

In total honestly, the only emotion besides nervousness that surrounded you because of Harry's silence, was pure anger. Firstly, and most prominently, towards Damon. How dare he turn up unannounced, drunk, and ruin the perfect night Harry had organised for you? His little 'see you later' made so much more sense now and it only angered you further. You knew this was it now, nothing could ever convince you to give him any more of your time, and although this finality had maybe come a bit later than it should have, it still felt good to realise.

Secondly, you couldn't help but feel a slight inkling of anger towards Harry. The way he had spoken to you had only riled you up further, when all you'd tried to do was help!

Your phone buzzed in your bag, breaking you out of your thoughts, and you carefully managed to get it out. Looking at the sender of the message you scoffed and rolled your eyes.

Cecu, I'm so sorry, olease forgive me, I srear I didn't men to hirt yoi

Do not contact me ever again.

After taking a beat longer than usual to type out the message, to ensure you made no drunken typos like the sender had displayed, you swiftly blocked and deleted Damon's number and put your phone away, glad that was over with.

You glanced over at Harry then, and was surprised to see him already looking at you, only his head turned in your direction as he surveyed your actions. His glance moved down to your hands and the look in his eyes flashed with guilt for a moment, making your eyebrows furrow. But then, before you could think of something to say, he was looking back out of the window.

With a sigh you lent your head back against the leather seat of the car, not looking forward to the inevitable strained conversation that you were sure you'd be having back at home.

But all too soon Harry was murmuring a quiet, "We're here," making your sleepy eyes open quickly.

You exited the car, thanking the driver as you did so, not waiting for Harry at the bottom of the steps, but instead walking up them and unlocking the door. You assumed he was following, but the sound of his footsteps on the wooden flooring of the corridor confirmed it.

Slipping the key into the door of your apartment you pushed it open, ready to burst at how intense the tension was between you both. It was like seeing grey storm clouds approaching, but knowing there's nothing you can do to stop the oncoming thunder.

As soon as Harry shut the door you turned on him, "Right, have out with it then."

"What?"

"Don't play stupid, you know what."

You watched as he ran a ran through his already unruly hair, sighing in frustration. A few drops of blood were spotted on the lapel of his suit, the sunshine colour of it suddenly seeming very ironic in the current storm brewing between you both.

"You just had to get involved didn't you? I told you to stay back, but as stubborn as ever, you didn't listen -"

"Because I know how to deal with him Harry! I wasn't going to just stand back when he was trying to beat the shit out of you -"

"He wasn't beating the shit out of me Cecelia, don't be daft -"

"Me, daft? Don't insult me Harry, your anger just riled him up even further -"

"I was trying to fucking protect you!" His hand flew out in front of himself, gesturing towards you as if to emphasis his point, it seemed his anger was slowly morphing into upset frustration.

"I don't need you to protect me -" your hands curled into balls at your fists, fingernails digging into your palms in exasperation.

"Cecelia, I -"

But you cut him off instantly, "- especially not people like you!" You screamed, "You sit on your high fucking horse, acting like you're the good guy in this situation when the last time you tried to protect me it ended up with you shagging some fucking model!"

Harry's hooded eyes, framed by creased eyebrows, stared you down before flashing with hurt and looking to the floor, "You know I didn't mean for -"

"Harry just stop!" Your throat felt hoarse from all of the shouting, but that didn't stop the next words from tumbling out of your too honest drunken mouth, oh how she just loved to put her twopence in, "Damon might be a fucking pig but at least he never threw his ability to just drop me for something shiny and new in my face like you did!"

And then the room fell silent. The only thing that could be heard was both of your ragged breaths.

Harry's dark green eyes were now completely full of hurt, any remnants of anger now completely dissipated.

You took a staggered step towards him, arms outstretched, the reality of what you'd just said hitting you like a tonne of bricks, "Harry...I -"

"You're bleeding."

"I - what?"

You followed his gaze which currently rested on your hands. You'd been squeezing your fists so tightly as you yelled at each other that your fingernails had broken through the bandages and were piercing the already broken skin underneath.

Staring down at your tattered hands numbly, you looked up with guilt-ridden eyes as Harry grabbed your elbow to pull you gently to the bathroom. The room span as he sat you down on the edge of your bathtub, your level of inebriation hitting you again in full force. You watched in silence, trying to stay upright, as he removed his suit jacket and hung it on the hook behind the door. Rolling the sleeves of his silk shirt up and kneeling in front of you, you couldn't help but admire how beautiful he was.

"You're so pretty," and just like before, the words came tumbling out before you could stop them. At least these ones weren't fuelled by anger though.

He hummed lowly in response, not meeting your eyes. Harry began to gingerly remove the bloodied fabric from around your hands. You couldn't help but stare intently at him the entire time, completely wrapped up in the utmost care he was using as he dabbed the deep cuts with a wet cloth.

The silence persisted as he continued with his work, apart from asking where you kept your first aid stuff to which you directed him to the cupboard where it was kept in the hallway.

When he left the bathroom you raised your head and looked at yourself in the mirror. Your appearance didn't really surprise you that much; disheveled hair, smudged make-up, a light smear of blood on your cheek. But what really got you, was the look in your eyes. It was as though you own reflection was struggling to look back at you, completely ashamed by your recent actions. You knew your words from earlier had been the ones to really hurt Harry, and you cursed your wasted state and the inability to stop the mean words from coming out of your mouth.

Your drunken mouth had gotten you in trouble before - during your years at university you were a pretty good, fun drunk (and still are) - but everyone has their limits, and on a couple of very rare occasions when you drank a little more than you could handle, you had no control over what left your lips. After that, you vowed to never get to that point of inebriation, and had done so successfully for a long time, but with the combination of a lot of alcohol and tonights events, you'd slipped up.

Tears welled in your eyes at the thought of lashing out at Harry, when you knew those words had absolutely no truth to them whatsoever, and now at the fact he was still caring for you even when you'd been so horrible. Comparing Harry to Damon was an extremely low blow, as you knew without a shadow of a doubt that Harry was absolutely nothing like him. The bracelet clasped on your wrist seemed to burn against your skin as a reminder of that.

"You okay? Does it hurt?" Harry's face swam before your eyes, you'd completely missed him opening the door.

"Harry..." you breathed out as hot tear slid down your cheek, "I am so sorry."

"Hey, shhh, forget about that for now, okay? Need you to stay still so I can patch you up."

You managed a timid nod in response, wanting only now to please him in any way, so you made a conscious effort to not move a muscle. Of course, being smashed, you efforts weren't really any good.

Harry applied some healing gel over the wounds, which had now stopped bleeding, before applying a multitude of large plasters over the area. He finished off by wrapping another bandage around your hands, to make sure the plasters stayed in place.

Even though Harry still felt utterly numb inside from your words, forcing himself not to focus on the hollow feeling in his chest, his finger traced the delicate silver that adorned your wrist, extremely glad his present hadn't been damaged in the recent events. He couldn't help but pull your hands towards his lips and place a ghost of a kiss over each of your now bandaged palms. He felt you shiver slightly from his touch.

When he lifted his head and was met with your blood-shot, glassy, remorseful eyes, he knew with every fibre of his being that even though he shouldn't, he'd do whatever you asked of him in that moment.

"Stay?"

So when that single pleading word left your mouth in a hushed whisper, like you were telling him your deepest darkest secret, Harry knew there was only one answer.

"Of course."

◇

You woke up the next morning to your whole body in pain; a splitting headache, sore hands, bruised back and legs, the whole lot.

Rolling over and stretching out to reach for the other side of the bed, expecting to find a warm body there, you were instead greeted by emptiness.

You sat up abruptly, which didn't help the pounding in your head, as Harry's lingering scent and the slight indent left over from his warm body in the mattress caused the memories from last night to come cascading back to your brain.

Each word was like a knife to your chest. A sob built up in your throat when the last blow was delivered and you finally remembered what you'd said, Damon might be a fucking pig but at least he never threw his ability to just drop me for something shiny and new in my face like you did!

You curled up in on yourself then, the pain in your body subsiding only to be completely overwhelmed by the feeling of agony that had just settled over your heart.

What had you done?

The sound of your phone ringing broke you out of your self-loathing, and picking the device up, you were marginally disappointed and equal parts relieved that it wasn't the person you really wanted to speak too.

"Hey Frills," you said with a sniffle.

"Celia Happy Birthday!"

At your muffled thanks she immediately knew something was up, "What happened last night? Are you okay?" Worry was evident in her tone and it made your bottom lip quiver.

"I..." you couldn't finish your sentence as yet another sob built up in your throat.

"Oh boo-bear," this was another one of your childhood inside nicknames, and it made you lips quirk up in a brief smile through your tears, "Take a breath, it's going to be okay."

Eventually, you'd calmed down enough to tell Frilly what had transpired once you and Harry got home, feeling progressively worse about yourself as the story went on. You continued to ramble about all your worries before finally running out of words. She was silent for a moment before she responded.

"Okay...now I'm going to be honest with you," you nodded glumly and steeled yourself for what Frilly was about to say, "That was a pretty shitty thing to say," you groaned out loud, "but! And there is a but so try to relax, I don't see why Harry wouldn't forgive you."

"Really?" Disbelief was clear in your tone.

"Yeah, you were hurt real bad after what happened with that girl, and even though you shouldn't have thrown it in his face like that, ultimately you still forgave him. I see no reason why he won't forgive you."

You were about to reply to Frilly's encouraging words, but a loud shuffling and deep voice in the background made you pause.

"Frilly..."

A beat of silence passed before she replied, "Yes..."

"Who's in your room?"

"Um, hold on," there was a lot more shuffling, and you assumed Frilly was moving from her previous position. Some more muffled speech which sounded like - did she just say Lou?!

"Felicity Marie Holland! Is there something you should be telling me?!" You said then, a genuine smile on your face now, as you were pleasantly distracted by your friends current situation, from your own calamitous one.

"Shut up!" She whispered, "Let me just go into the bathroom hold on."

You cackled down the phone, finding the whole situation rather hilarious as you waited for Frilly to fill you in.

"Listen it's nothing okay -"

"Doesn't sound like nothing -"

"Fuck off and let me finish!" She whined, "When we left the party last night me and Louis realised we were staying in the same hotel so we just stayed up for a few more drinks at the bar, and then...well, I may or may not have stayed in my own room last night," she spoke the last confession at a rapid pace as your eyes widened.

"Oh my god! This is fucking amazing, I've got to text Harry, I -" you cut off abruptly, remembering that you were in no situation to be able to message Harry about both of your best friends hooking up.

"Oh Ceece...I'm sorry."

"No, no don't apologise...please just fill me in, I would much rather hear about you and Louis right now."

Unknown to you, Frilly nodded firmly on the other side of the phone, completely understanding what you needed from her right now and being fully prepared to help you through this in any way.

So that was how you spent the rest of the morning, on the phone to your best friend talking about her night that ended much better than yours did. Happy fucking birthday to me, you thought. And you were incredibly happy for her; Louis seemed like a great guy from when you'd spoken last night, and if he was Harry's best friend then he was definitely worthy of yours.

But the whole time, as Frilly recounted her night with Louis, you couldn't help but be reminded of a very similar night that you and Harry had once shared so long ago, and how you would give anything to make things right with him. Anything. 

welp...don't kill me lmao

thought since a few of you agreed about Louis and Frilly I'd add a little bit of cuteness in at the end of this eventful chapter

so, what are your thoughts? where do you think Harry and Cecy are gonna go from here? is it over for them or do you think they'll be able to bounce back?

I think I'm actually gonna try and focus on getting ahead of my writing for this book, as usually I'm a good few chapters ahead in my writing than from the chapter I upload but I've been a bit slow on that recently since I wanted to make sure these last few chapters were exactly how I wanted them! so if I don't update for like a week or something don't say I didn't warn you hahaha

anyway a massive THANK YOU for 4k reads on this book I literally can't believe it I'm so glad you guys are enjoying what I write! I know I say this every chapter but I truly am so grateful :))

remember to keep voting!! and if you wanna check out some of my other writing while waiting for an update, I also have a One Shots book uploaded so go and give it a read!!

lots of love,

Kait x