A.

Mason's apartment building was big - huge, actually - with polished doorways and pristine floors, his sneakers led the way as I chewed on my lip in anticipation.

He glanced over his shoulder at me, shooting me a look similar to the one Harry often did, "I barely know my brother, and I dunno how he deals with his drink, so.. if he kicks off, s'not my fault."

"He's been drinking?" I raised my eyebrows as he pushed the door open, "fucking hell."

I stepped into what looked like a guest bedroom, the unpleasant smell of smoke immediately filling my nostrils, and an aroma of alcohol overtaking my senses. I blew out a defeated sigh as I lay my eyes on a familiar head of brown curls against the pillow. I glanced back over my shoulder at Mason.

"Can I have a minute with him?"

"Huh?" he straightened up, tearing his eyes from me and stammering, "o-oh, uh - yeah, I'll be out here." Weird.

I took slow steps towards the bed, Harry not moving in the slightest. I crouched down to his level, bringing my lip between my teeth - I knew he would still be upset with me. Harry could hold a grudge, I knew that - and I couldn't exactly blame him. Trust was always a major component for Harry; he had betrayed mine only once before, and it had eaten away at him and bothered him ever since. I had betrayed his, now, and I knew it would hurt. His whole life he had struggled to trust people, and he had lay his trust in me - only for me to break it.

"Harry," I murmured, hovering in a crouched position beside the bed, tilting my head a little. His curls were over his forehead, his eyes closed and his face erased of all stress and worry. A beautiful blank canvas, marked only with the faint dent of his dimple and the odd dark freckle on his skin. "Harry," I repeated, and he replied with a low grumble, clearly beginning to stir from his sleep.

"Ana Grace, go away," he rasped tiredly, burying his face into the pillow in hopes of shutting me out once more. I immediately felt a tug at my heart - his nickname for me was back in use, thankfully. Maybe, hopefully, he wasn't so angry anymore. I sighed, beginning to contemplate whether coming here was the right thing to do, before I spoke again.

"Scoot over," I took a risk by saying, gently nudging him. I'd half expected him to give me a straight 'no', and to tell me to fuck off, among other things - but instead, after a few moments of what seemed to be his own contemplation, he shuffled over to the other side of the bed, leaving enough room for me to slip onto the mattress beside him.

"I'm far too hungover for you to give me a lecture right now, Ana Grace, so if that's what you're planning, then don't bother," he mumbled, and I rolled my eyes, bringing my knees to my chest as he remained on his side, eyes closed. "Shouldn't you be at the airport right now?"

"Shouldn't you?" I retorted, and he opened one eye to look at me.

"Pass me a cig from behind you, will you?" he asked, before adding, "Please." I did so, reaching for his pack of cigarettes and his lighter, passing it to him. He sat up in the bed, lighting the tube and bringing it to his lips, as I could finally look at him properly. His eyes were tired - he'd clearly been up drinking late, and had little sleep. I hated the sight of him like this, unable to quite meet my eye, and though he wasn't exactly acting distant - the distance between the two of us was undeniable.

"I'm sorry," I broke the silence, and Harry shook his head, blowing some smoke away from us.

"You lied to me," he said matter-of-factly, tapping his cigarette between his fingers.

"I know," I nodded, "and I wish more than anything that I hadn't, but I did. And I'm sorry, Harry." I watched him carefully, and though he didn't allow his eyes to meet mine, I watched his eyes narrow momentarily as I spoke.

"Then why did you?" he pressed, and I bit my lip. This would be the moment to tell him that I'd lied on Celia's behalf, but I couldn't possibly blame her.

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"Ironic, that," he pursed his lips as he took another drag from the cigarette.

"Harry," I said quietly, shuffling over so that I was facing his side-profile, "I know that you know I'd never do anything to purposely hurt you."

Harry exhaled slowly, hesitating before he spoke, "I know."

"I don't expect things to be perfectly fine," I bit my lip, "I know you're hurting and I know you trusted me, but all I can do now is tell you I'm sorry, and I wish I'd never lied."

"I know I probably sound like a broken record to you, Ana, and I wish I could just drop the situation, but I just bloody can't," he pressed his lips into a fine line, before parting them again to balance his cigarette between them. Harry's eyes then darted to his suit jacket from yesterday, thrown over a chair in the corner of the room. He stood up suddenly, creating distance between us once more as he lifted the jacket into his hands, reaching into the inner pocket. He barely glanced back at me as he fished something from it I couldn't make out. I squinted as he wandered back to the bed, sitting back down on it.

It was a note book, a tattered brown leather and I knew I'd caught him with it before at some point. Yet he'd never revealed to me what was inside, only hidden it from my eyes and gently insisted it was private. But now it lay in his lap as he sat beside me, and he took a final smoke of his cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray beside the bed.

"I want you to know why a lie is bothering me so much," he said quietly, clearing his throat awkwardly. "I want you to know why even the slight manipulation of the trust between us hurts me so much, and why it scares me. A single lie increases any chance of us ever being apart."

He placed the book in my lap hesitantly, dragging his finger tips over the cover as he brought his hand back to his own lap. I looked at him cautiously, as if to ask him if this is what he really wanted, such an invasion of privacy. Harry sent me a small nod as if to reassure me, and so I slowly peeled back the cover of the book.

I eyed the first page, undoubtedly greeted with the messy scrawl of Harry's handwriting, filling the entire page. The odd word crossed out and rewritten, or written bolder than another and underlined.

My eyes trailed over the words written in a blunt pencil, instantly reaching into my chest, gripping my heart and tearing it.

Ana Grace,

I think it stung a little bit to write that. There was definitely an ache of some kind, but I dare call that malnourishment, or self-neglect. I could almost laugh. I know I left you in Seattle, but I think I might have left myself there too. It's been weeks, yet it feels like years. Only weeks since I've seen your face before my own but it feels like fucking years. I feel like I've been forced onto a rollercoaster, and the cart is slowly reaching the climax - but it never really reaches it. It only keeps moving, never ending - and though I'm not ready for the fall, it won't stop for me. The constant build up in the pit of my stomach, where I wait for the cart to roll over the edge, and everyone screams in joy and excitement and realise, 'hey, maybe this isn't so bad.' But it doesn't hit. The buildup just continues, continues, and bloody continues, and for what? That's what the world does, too - but I know you know that. The way that a pain so uncontainable, heart-wrenching and merciless can grip onto you and wring at you - but nobody can see it. Nobody can feel it. For them, the world keeps turning, and life moves on. But right here it stops and loses all meaning.

And you start to wonder, how dare the rain fall? How fucking dare the sun shine, and torment you with such mockery? And how dare people laugh, and hold hands, and kiss in the street and share a meal with one another?

And so I sit at this window, and I think how dare I? How dare I wish my life to be any different from the way I pushed it to be? How dare I sit here, and whine to you for pages on end like a fucking idiot over issues I have no damn right to whine about?

I sit here, weak. I complain because that's all I can bring myself to do.

I miss you and it's tearing me apart.

I know you'll never see this. I don't have the nerve to let you. But I write like you will - I write like you'll walk through the dirty flat door one day, and let me shower you in all the love I never did.

But you don't. You never will.

I don't know how to live until I can hold you in my arms and read you a book you're paying zero attention to.

I still love you, can you tell? That I love you with all of me, until the day I die? And it hurts that I can't see your face and tell you that - but I'm sure somebody else can.

Moving along.

H.

My hands were shaking by the time I tore my eyes from the book, still not daring to look at Harry, though I felt his eyes on me. I turned the next page - it was another letter.

Ana,

Not a 'Grace' this time. I figured taking off one piece of your name at a time will let me forget. Liam tells me it's annoying - how I can't say your name. And it's true, I can't. S'been months since I have - saying it makes it real. Naming you creates a reality that isn't my own - naming you makes you so fucking real, and so not fucking mine. And that isn't a reality I yearn to face.

Did you laugh at the first line? Well, with no intentions of you ever reading this - of course you didn't. But I did. I laughed, and it was like music. But the kind of music that you heard when you were little, and had so many great memories attached to - but now you hear it and it only resonates the bitter truth of it all, y'know? It's like I repeatedly convince myself that I can forget you while you find someone better, and that I'll move on from this.. slump. That's what Mum called it before I chased her out of the room and told her to go fuck herself. I'm regretting that now; you'd probably tell me off for that.

My last letter.. 'moving along'. Another fantasy, I couldn't ever. You are something so unmatchable yet so.. unobtainable. I can't love you, treat you as I should.

Cause I'm here and you're there. And it fucking hurts.

I closed the book, unable to read another word. The rest of the book was undeniably filled with letters, letters to me, each signed with his initial. All containing such hurt, such pain. And that killed me. He'd sat here alone for months wishing he'd been with me, in such pain and torment that he had written to me. Sat alone at the window sill in the flat, and written, because that was all he'd known how to do on those sleepless nights, where intoxication wouldn't do it.

"And I know I'm a sap," Harry said shakily as I finally brought my eyes to meet his, a single tear rolling down my cheek as I struggled to keep my composure, "but that's me without you, Ana Grace," he glanced down at the book in my lap, "that's all I can be when you're not here to love me. And I don't want to be that again."

"Harry," I mumbled weakly, winding my arms around his neck and pulling him into a hug, burying my face into his shoulder, soaking his shirt with tears.

"Tell me 'never', Ana," he pressed so gently that the words barely formed.

"Never," I promised him, the words from his book still fresh in my mind, "never, Harry, I promise you. You are never, ever going to be without me again."