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h4rr3h · 6 years

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Harry and Evan were as platonic as platonic could be. Living together does that. You see their unlivable quirks; like how they always leave the toilet seat up, or how they never rinse their dishes, or how they never fully close the chip bag so they end up stale. And after six years of living together, Harry and Evan knew each other’s quirks well. The pair were long gone from their college days and fully immersed in the confusing reality of adulthood. Navigating your twenties is hard, but with your best friend by your side, it makes the whole disarray just that much easier. But, Harry has a secret, one that he’s been hiding from his best friend since the day they met, and she’s about to find out. Especially now that Niall spilled about the “Ohio Incident”. A lesson on facing your fears, being too old for college parties, cronuts (are those even still a thing?) and finding things out just a bit too late.

ohio is for lovers, prologue harry styles and the runaway bride

It’s quarter past twelve and everyone is running late.

Saturday, March 27, 2019

185 Bleecker Street, Apartment 11B, New York, NY

It’s quarter past twelve and everyone is running late.

“Who the hell in their right mind decides to have a winter wedding outdoors in New York City?” Louis complains, buttoning the sleeves of his white Oxford shirt.

“The ceremony is outside, it’ll be like twenty minutes and then there’s an open bar inside the reception. Relax.”

His girlfriend Polly eyes him from the mirror where she’s layering mascara on her lashes. Louis fumbles with the knot on his tie and she groans, closing the tube of makeup and setting it back onto the bathroom vanity. She undoes the tangled knot he’s managed and adjusts it for him, “how do you think Harry’s doing?” She asks.

“Niall and I were going to stop over before we head to the wedding. Kid needs an intervention,” Louis sighs.

“I heard my name!” An Irish accent rings in the living room.

Louis and Polly roll their eyes in unison. They meet with the others, and by others, they mean Niall and his bottle of Smithwick’s because god damnit, just because he’s Irish, does not mean he always has a Guinness in his hand.

Although there is a six pack in the fridge.

“So Polls,” Niall inquires, “do you think she’ll really go through with it? Now that she knows everything? I’m surprised we were even still invited to the wedding.”

Polly shrugs and sits on the arm of the sofa beside him. She takes a lengthy sip of his beer before handing it back, “I think she will. She loves Jake -”

“She also loves Harry,” Louis interrupts, followed by a swift jab to the ribs by his girlfriend.

“She loves Jake,” Polly states again, “and yes, she does love Harry but not in the same way he loves her. Maybe if he hadn’t hidden it from her for six fucking years, things would be different but there’s not much we can do about it now, can we?”

The two boys stay silent, now it’s Louis’ turn to take an unwarranted sip of Niall’s beer.

Polly glares, fists resting on her hips, “oh please don’t tell me you two are going to ruin my cousin’s wedding all because your friend can’t get over the fact that someone doesn’t like him back.”

She’s fed up, she’s late, and they must really be getting a move on.

“We just need ten minutes with him. That’s all. Maybe if he sees her truly happy that will be enough,” Louis negotiates to an annoyed Polly.

“- truly happy,” Niall snorts under his breath, bemused with himself.

The other two scowl for a moment and he puts his hands up in surrender.

“Fine, you only get ten minutes,” Polly cautions, “any longer and I’m leaving. This is supposed to be the happiest day of her life, do not screw it up.”

Thirty seconds later, the two blue eyed boys are across the hall banging furiously on their best friend’s door.

“MAAATE!” Louis hollers while his fist slams against apartment 11A’s door.

There’s rustling on the other side of the door, the shifting of various takeout boxes and empty cans and bottles. The chain lock slides against the plate, the deadbolt clicks in protest.

“What?” Harry glares through the slight crack he’s made in the doorway.

Niall and Louis can smell him before they see him. His hair is a mess, and the bulky old man cardigan he’s wearing is stained and wrinkled, his bottom half has only a pair of shorts and fuzzy slippers that look eerily like a pair of Evan’s that she can’t seem to find.

“Harry,” Louis spoke gingerly, his heart dropping into his stomach and trying to find the right words to say, “you look-”

“Like shit,” Niall proclaims, shoving past the two of them and pushing the door open to the apartment, “you have got to clean this place up. The neighbors are going to think you’re hiding a corpse in here.”

Although he’d like to, Harry doesn’t have the strength to raise his middle finger.

Louis shoots Niall a look but he’s busied kicking around the various takeaway containers scattered about.

Harry stumbles back to the couch and the other boys follow. He’s not drunk, but acts it. He’s far too drawn into himself lately. He prefers the quiet static of the television, played just loud enough to block out the downstairs neighbors screaming at each other for the twelfth night in a row. He orders takeaway because it was Evan who used to cook and now all the pots and pans go untouched in the cupboards that are empty for the exception of some random leftover spices and a box of macaroni and cheese that even Harry doesn’t have the vitality to make. He gets home from work and eats and watches the telly until he passes out on the couch and wakes up with the morning sun to start the process all over again.

This was the first time Harry had sat straight up on the sofa in weeks. It made his back feel funny, less tense, he supposed. Louis sits beside him, although careful not to step on the mess of clothing and boxes and whatever else had made it’s way into the living room. Harry hadn’t slept in his own bed since the thunder storm the night after she moved out. There were too many memories of humid summer nights when the fans just weren’t enough and the sticky air stuck to the walls and the sheets. The lightning would blind the night’s streets below their apartment and he’d know it was only a matter of minutes before Evan would quietly tiptoe up the hallway into his bedroom.

In the nearly two months since she’d been gone, Harry had called out of work four times. The first, was the day after it happened. He’d drank himself half to death the night before and woke up an hour after his first lesson and blamed a family emergency. The second was when he thought he saw her in the grocery store, her honey hair pulled back in a plait in the produce aisle admiring a head of lettuce. But then he remembered she doesn’t like salad, and it was enough to send him back into a tailspin. He’d stayed up all night, staring blankly at the television and trying to think of all the ways he could’ve made her stay. His third call out, when he thought maybe things were getting better, he’d played a gig at the bar with the band and took home a girl who used the same shampoo she did. The fourth one was yesterday, there’s something about a long weekend, the kick start to her wedding weekend.

“We um,” Louis struggles to find the right words comfort his lifelong best friend, he’s never seen him this broken. Sure, they’ve seen each other through the melodramas of growing up, but in this moment, no matter how many pep talks and words of advice he’d given his friend in the past, the word clogged in his throat, and nothing came out.

But that’s why we have Niall.

“Mate this is just embarrassing,” he muses, “we came here for an intervention. You need to get over Evan. She’s getting married today. Either you go and wedding crash, or you move on. But sitting at home in your boxers feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

“You don’t know that,” Harry grumbles childishly, folding his arms across his chest.

“I think what Niall is trying to say,” Louis starts, always the voice of reason, “is to take action, in whatever capacity that is.”

He looked to Niall for support, he was digging at something under his nails, “oh right, yeah. I mean, here’s how I see it. If I was in your situation, I would go after her, life’s too short to and wait for something to happen. Or you could sit here and die a miserable old bloke. Either way, there’s an open bar at this thing and I’m really fixing to get there. So if you could make up your mind that would be great.”

Louis mouth parted at the gall of his friend’s words, Niall always had the least eloquent way of laying the truth down into you, whether you were prepared for it or not, “he’s right.”

“I am?” Niall questions.

Lou nods, “I say we crash a wedding.”

The corner of Harry’s lip twitches at the thought, and then he remembers of the look in Evan’s eyes when their world came crashing down and he couldn’t bare the thought of being the cause of her destruction again.

“Can’t do that to her,” Harry reasons, “I can’t hurt her again. It’s best if I let her be.”

He leans back against the sofa. He’d thought it so many times, to just let go of her, of the feelings and memories of the last six years and just move on. Accepting a life without her was going to be a hell of a lot easier to handle than a half lived life of always wondering what if.

“I was kind of hoping you’d want to crash, but alright.” Niall says, discouraged.

It’s the first time in two months that Harry’s genuinely smiles. He doesn’t feel a lick of change, though. There’s still a sadness that sits like a rock in his chest, weighing him down every day to the point of exhaustion. It’s not a change but a reasoning, he figures, the soft rustle of turning to a new page.

“Just promise me one thing?” Louis asks and Harry raises an eyebrow, “can you please clean your bloody apartment?”

Harry stifles a laugh with his hands. It didn’t feel right to laugh, not yet at least. He composed himself in a half breath and Louis nudged him on the shoulder, “you going to be alright?” He whispers lowly.

Harry nods as his front door slams open.

“Our ten minutes must be up!” Niall exclaims, standing up from the armchair, “time to find me a wifey.”

“We have a big problem here,” Polly says, she’s clutching her cell phone to her chest, “Evan didn’t show up at the chapel to get ready, she’s not answering anyone’s calls. No one can find her.”

Suddenly all three are staring at Harry as if he’s got the answer, “well I sure as shit don’t know where she is!” He defends.

“But you know her the best out of anyone,” Polly pleads, “just think! Where does she go when she doesn’t want to be found?”

It’s not an aha moment when Harry thought of the Diner. The conclusion was just as easy as answering to his own name. He didn’t think twice about it, not for a second, “I think I know.”

Polly sighed, “go find her, please. I need to know she’s alright.”

“That I can’t promise.”

Harry thinks of the last time he saw her in that Diner. It was the last time they had an actual conversation, where she made her decision to leave him and move out of the apartment. Even after she knew the whole truth, and everything he’d been hiding from her for the past six years came to light, she left. Harry doesn’t think he could go back there, and if she was there, which he was sure she was, he knows he can’t go and see her.

“Where is she, Harry?” Polly questions again with desperate eyes.

“The Diner.” He pips.

“That grubby old Diner a few blocks over?” Polly bawks.

“Don’t knock it, that place has excellent chicken kebabs,” Niall quips.

He’s knocked over by a pillow, courtesy of Lou’s spiral throw.

Harry buries his face in his hands. What does this mean? He thinks over and over to himself. The room is spinning and he can hear the tapping tones of Polly calling Evan, he’s memorized the touch tones of her phone number. It goes right to voicemail and the sound of her voice makes him queasy.

“Now it’s not even ringing. She knows we’re looking for her. Sharna is trying to keep everyone calm at the chapel but she doesn’t know how long that’ll last.”

Polly is on the verge of tears now and Louis does the best to comfort his best friend and his girlfriend.

“Let’s calm down for a moment, Polls,” he tries to reason, “she’s not hurt or missing. She’s just taking some time to think about things. Cold feet, it happens. I’m sure she’s just fine, wherever she is.”

Harry finally picks his head up. He pretends to not feel the three sets of eyes burning into him. His heart is racing and it’s the most alive he’s felt in the last two months.

“So what are you going to do?” Louis asks, the silence in the air stinging everyone’s ears.

“I’m gonna go find her.”

Ahh so here it is!!!! A day early because honestly I work tomorrow and have to pack for vacation and I just have too much to do but I’ve been so excited to share this with you guys! My plan is to post every two weeks, so I can get back into the swing of writing, and it also allows me to plan ahead and whatnot.

Please please please let me know what you think. I’m so so rusty on fic writing these days that I’m dying to hear what everyone thinks!!!

#fic: oifl #yayyyy prologue #i'm so nervous but excited about posting this #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #1dff

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