.
(small mention of abuse in the chapter. for any of you who feel uncomfortable with this topic, you can proceed to the next chapter and message me on wattpad. I'll happily full you in on what you missed!)

mia

.

  Within two days, Harry and I had gotten all the way down to Florida. He was determined to go to Seaworld and do some sort of protest and we were both determined to get as far away from Matthew and my family as possible.

  "Orlando here we come!" Harry cheered as we crossed into Florida. I scolded him for not sitting still as I braided his hair. He loved when I played with his hair and told me that the only way he would be able to drive us to Florida in a short amount of time was if I frequently braided it, claiming that it "soothed him as he drove".

  "It's one in the morning." I yawned. "Are we stopped anytime soon? You must be beat."

  "I am." Harry admitted. "But I could drive for days if it meant you would do my hair as I drove."

  "You're obsessed." I laughed lightly. "Find the nearest rest stop so I can get my ass to bed, please?"

  "Only because you have a cute arse." Harry smirked. Luckily for me I was standing behind him and he couldn't see my face that was now tinted a light shade of pink. "I'm going to drive us just a few more miles near International drive and tomorrow we can do tourist things."

  "Sounds good." I complied. "Can I please go to bed now? My hands are getting sore from braiding your hair."

  "Only if you promise to cuddle me once I come back to bed." Harry smiled up at me before returning his attention to the road in front of him.

  "Harry, we end up cuddling every night." I laughed. "I'm pretty sure you pull me to your side of the bed once I've fallen asleep."

  I sleepily stumbled into the back of the bus to get ready for bed. Once Cat saw me enter, she hopped off the couch and rubbed herself against my leg, meowing happily. We hadn't had any accidents in the bus with her so far, and I was hoping that it would stay that way. Harry had been working on making sure she always peed in her litter box and literally changed it every time the cat would take a piss.

  I grabbed my toothbrush and brushed my teeth as I sat on the toilet. Usually when I went to the bathroom I went on my phone and scrolled through my Twitter feed, but because Matthew could potentially be tracking my phone, it was practically confiscated from my use, which made my bathroom breaks much quicker.

  After finishing up in the bathroom, I went to the bedroom to get changed for bed. Cat trailed behind me lazily and fell into me as the bus came to a stop. The bed was still a mess from this morning, with various pillows and blankets strung about. To anyone else it probably looked like the aftermath of a wild night, but it was actually because Harry couldn't sleep without rolling around in the blankets, causing us to always wake up in a tangled mess.

  "Knock, knock, hope you aren't naked," Harry's scruffy voice called out from the other side of the door.

  "I'm not." I said as I threw on one of Harry's comfy silk shirts that he let me wear to bed. I hopped into bed and pulled the sheets over me on my side. Cat pawed her way up through the sheets to lay right next to me as Harry rummaged through his clothing to find something to wear.

  "I parked us at a small campground just near the tourist place I wanted us to go to tomorrow." Harry sighed as he got into bed. "Sometime this week we can go to Disney and SeaWorld."

  "Are we really going to protest?" I asked.

  "Or talk to administration. Whichever comes first."

  "You're crazy." I chuckled sleepily. "It's not a bad thing, though. I think it's good to go after something you feel passionate about. You just don't want to get any bad press for it."

  "I understand." Harry said.

  Not too long went by before Harry was basically holding me in his arms. This was always the position that I would wake up in, and I always had to keep telling myself that the only reason we did this was because it was comfortable. Whenever the possibility of Harry and I floated into my head, I immediately had to shut it down. If I ever grew strong feelings for him it would turn into a messy situation that wouldn't work out. My world was too complicated for him to be a part of.

  Sure, his was complicated as well. Some might even say more complicated that mine- the fame, the media, the girls. But that was mostly positive, my life was not. My parents would never approve of us together and they would put so many restrictions on me that it would make anything impossible. Besides, I also had Matthew to worry about. If anything happened between Harry and I, my parents would completely cut me off financially, and I depended on their support.

  "Have you heard from Matthew at all?" Harry asked, breaking the silence.

  "No," I sighed. "But apparently he's opening up about our relationship in an interview exclusive. It says that he would talk about our intimate relationship, which is mortifying."

  "But you guys didn't..." Harry trailed off. It was funny that he couldn't say the word.

  "I know." I bit my lip. "We... well, yeah. I don't know."

  "Alright, there's something that you aren't telling me." Harry decided. My face became hot instantly- I hadn't known Harry for long and he expected me to open up about everything that I did in my past relationship. Maybe British people were just extremely comfortable with that sort of talk?

  "You can tell me," Harry said in a sing-song voice. "I once told an interviewer about this stuff. It's casual." I shook my head. He didn't understand.

  "It's not casual, it's embarrassing and private." I whispered.

  "It's not like you're with him anymore. If he's gonna dish some dirt about you to some interviewer, don't you wanna dish some dirt to someone too? And I'm not talking about Cat."

  "You don't get it." I sighed. "It's more complicated than that."

  "So explain it to me." Harry pried.

  My face felt like it was on fire. Why did I feel like I had to confess this to Harry? I should just be able to dismiss the conversation entirely and move on, but the words that I was about to say were already burning on my tongue. I had spoken to nobody about this before and now was my chance.

  "Harry..." I trailed off. "I didn't want to do anything with Matthew."

  Harry frowned.

  "I'm not following." He said. "You didn't want to do anything, so you didn't? And there was nothing that went on between you two? Because if that's the case, you can release that statement to the press."

  "No, Harry." I said. "I'm done talking about this. We never went all the way, anyway."

  The color from Harry's face drained as realization of my words took hold in his brain. This whole time the blush that had crept onto my face never faded, and now I probably looked like the equivalent of a human tomato. I had never said these words out loud, not even to just myself.

  "Oh, Mia." Harry said sympathetically. "Mia, no. Tell me it isn't true."

  "It's done and I'm over it." I mumbled.

  "I... I don't know what to say." Harry whispered. "What did he make you do?"

  "I don't want to talk about it anymore." I decided. "It's over, I've forgotten about it."

  "You can't just forget about it!" Harry sounded angry. "If he assaulted you, Mia, it can get him in serious trouble if you were to just say something about it! You have to tell someone!"

  "Harry, no." I said. "Don't you see? He's Matthew Miles! If I released a statement against him it would fire back in my face. He's made it out to the world that I'm the bad guy who stood him up, and nobody is going to believe me if I said anything."

  He was quiet for a while.

  "I'll kick his ass." Harry grumbled angrily. "I'll do it, Mia. I don't care how far I have to drive this damn bus just to get to him, but I swear when I do I'll kick his ass."

  "I just want to forget." I whispered. "This trip has made me forget."

  "I'll kick his ass so hard-"

  "Harry," I stopped him. "Can we talk about this another time?"

  "I just want to hit something." Harry growled. "How could someone do that? You never deserved anything like that and yet it happened to you! Mia, that's so wrong!"

  "I know it is," I kept my tone hushed, trying to calm him down. "But the best thing that you can do for me right now is just be here. Having you by my side on this trip is enough for me. And when it's over, then maybe I'll tell someone. I just don't want the fun I'm having now to end because of Matthew."

  Harry sighed. I could see his hand shaking and recognized that it was purely from anger. Having someone become so protective over me made my heart swell. Where was Harry when all of the terrible things were going on with Matthew? I was just thankful that Harry came into my life when he did.

  "Sweet Mia," Harry whispered in my ear. "You deserve so much more than what you were given." He pressed his lips to my forehead and held me closer than before.

  We stayed silent for the rest of the night.

.

.

  The next morning was quiet, too. I could tell that Harry wanted to say something, but he was afraid of pushing my buttons. We ate our breakfast with the only noise being the television and we got ready for the day without saying a whole lot. Harry was taking us to a big tourist place with lots of souvenir shops and restaurants.

  "Ready to go?" Harry asked.

  "Yeah, almost." I said as I grabbed my small bag from the bedroom. I was wearing khaki shorts and a plain white shirt. It was supposed to be hot out today, so the plan was too avoid all dark colors completely. Harry, on the other hand, obviously hadn't gotten the memo considering that he was wearing dark skinny jeans.

  "I want to take you to a barbecue place my friend told me about, 'f that's alright."

  "Yeah, sure." I shrugged. "I don't care where we go."

  Within a few minutes, Harry and I were out of the bus. Our location was actually right against International Drive, providing us with easy access to all the shops. Harry strolled beside me casually as people tried to sneakily take pictures of us.

  "Doesn't this make you uncomfortable?" I whispered.

  "Just ignore them, they'll go away soon enough." Harry whispered back. "Do you wanna go shopping first or go out to eat?"

  "We can look around some." I suggested. "I don't care which stores we go into."

  "Alright, follow me." Harry clasped his hand onto mine and I looked down at them with my eyes ready to bug out of their sockets. Was he crazy? I quickly snatched my hand back.

  "I'm sorry, I just... with Matthew and all..." I trailed off. "It's not you. I just can't have any more things said about me to the press."

  "No, it's cool." Harry said nonchalantly. "I should've asked first."

  I felt bad. It wasn't like I didn't want to hold Harry's hand, in fact, it was the complete opposite. But after reading all the negative comments online I wasn't ready to get a truckload more just because of a simple, innocent gesture between me and a friend.

  We walked into a small shop called By the Sea first. It was the typical beachy themed souvenir shop that I had been expecting- quiet and filled to the brim with ocean themed trinkets. There were surprisingly a lot of people inside the small area and none of them looked up from what they were doing to notice us, to my satisfaction.

  "Look!" Harry said. "Wouldn't this sign be perfect for our bathroom door?"

  "Harry, it's a picture of a little boy peeing into a bucket. Nothing about that sounds appealing."

  "It's comical." Harry claimed defensively.

  "It's gross, that's what it is."

  We kept walking along various shelves. Occasionally, Harry would point out something that looked like a piece of junk to me and claim that we had space for it in the bus. Seeing his shopping habits actually made me wonder how he wasn't on that show about people that hoarded things in their house.

  Finally, we made it to the back of the store. It was more of a kids section than anything, with rows of stuffed animals stacked high, but they were cute so we stuck around. Beside us was a little blonde girl that couldn't be older than five years old, picking out every stuffed turtle and holding them closely to her chest.

  "Someone likes turtles." Harry blurted, chuckling. The small girl looked up at Harry and smiled.

  "I love turtles." She said. "They're my favorite."

  "Yeah, they're pretty nice." Harry admitted. "Do you plan on buying all of those?"

  "I have to pick my favorite." The girl explained. "But I have ten favorites."

  Harry and I both laughed. I glanced around for her mother, but there were many women in the store and it could have been any one of them.

  "I'm Harry," Harry introduced himself. "And this is Mia."

  "Hi Hally," The girl grinned. "I'm Aimee."

  "Aimee." Harry hummed. "That's a nice name."

  "I got it for my birthday." Aimee giggled. I had to laugh at that one- for someone as young as she was, she was pretty funny. "Can you help me pick out a turtle? Mommy says only one."

  "How about I buy them for you?" Harry offered. "I think ten turtles is much better than just one."

  Aimee screamed at attached herself to Harry's leg at his kind gesture.

  "I think someone likes you." I mused.

  "Thank you, Hally." Aimee smiled up at him. She collected all of the stuffed turtles that had been scattered across the floor and handed all of them to Harry. He carried them to the cash register and purchased them, along with the bathroom sign of a small boy peeing in a jar.

  Once Harry had bought the small girl her stuffed animals, we bid her goodbye. She clutched onto them for dear life as she thanked us, telling us that her mother, who was actually working in the store in the back room,  needed her to go in the back to eat her lunch.

  "Maybe we'll see you again someday, Aimee." Harry smiled.

  "Uh huh!" The small girl said with enthusiasm. "And I'll bring my turtles. Thank you, Hally."

  And with that, Hally and I left the store, carrying our small bathroom decoration that I would have to somehow find a way to get rid of before he noticed it was gone.

.

.

  a/n: yay for aimee making a guest appearance!

  alSO- sexual abuse is NOT ok. if anyone knows someone who is being abused or if you are being abused, feel free to contact me. seriously. and ALWAYS tell someone if it is happening. keeping things like that a secret is totally not ok.

  follow me on twitter- _delilahmae_

ok enough self promo g2g

  -del