《Stranded [harry styles] ✓》33 - The End
Advertisement
I jump out of my seat and throw my arms around Harry's neck before I even have a chance to think about it. He just about manages to hold the plate of pancakes out to the side before they can be sandwiched between us and huffs as I hit his chest. The back of his white t-shirt is warm from the sun and he smells like aftershave.
"Hi." He breathes in my ear and his free hand curls around my back to secure me to him.
I feel almost dizzy with emotion. "What are you doing here?"
I can feel our hearts thudding against one another; so frantically that they may burst. "I came to find you." He says three weeks too late. "And I remembered. Sundays were for Marley's and blueberry pancakes."
I want to cry.
But then I remember.
I'm mad at him.
I drop my arms and stagger backwards. My face has slipped into a frown and Harry swallows uncomfortably... just like he had on the television.
"I definitely plan to".
He darts his eyes in my direction before turning to where my mother and Jules are sat, open-mouthed and staring at us as if we're some alien life form. Other customers have also ceased in their eating and are trying to subtly get a glimpse of Harry; still carrying the plate of pancakes and looking like he wants to disappear. He places them down on the table where I was sat and clears his throat.
"I'm so sorry for interrupting your breakfast. I'm Harry, by the way." He tells my mother and Aunt, as if they didn't already know. "It's nice to finally meet you."
My face is burning scarlet. I feel like this is some sort of awkward boyfriend-meeting-the-family-for-the-first-time situation. All we need is my father and some awkward handshaking and we're basically there. Jules is now trying not to smirk and my mother looks like she's about to burst into tears.
Please, not now.
Jules - spotting that my mother is in no fit state to speak - places her fork onto her plate and smiles. "It's nice to finally meet you. I'm Jules - Sarah's Aunt - and this is Helen, Sarah's mum. We owe you quite some gratitude, Harry."
He's probably wondering what on Earth I've told them and I pray that he doesn't ask because the last time we discussed who was the better survivor, it resulted in days of awkward tension and me almost drowning. "It was a team effort." He tells them, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. "Honestly."
My mother is sobbing now and frantically trying to unfold the napkin her cutlery was resting on so that she can dry her eyes. I know I should probably comfort her or something but my feet are rooted to the ground, my eyes fixed on Harry's face. I need to know why he disappeared on me like that.
Harry clearly doesn't have a clue what to do either. He keeps looking at me out the corner of his eye and I suspect he knows. He knows I am disappointed. But this is not a conversation to be had in front of prying eyes and overemotional relatives.
"Mum, it's ok." I say eventually and bite my lip. "Why are you crying?"
She dabs under her eyes and inhales shakily. "That was the happiest I've seen you since you came home." I think we're all blushing now. "And Harry, as my sister just said - thank you for what you did for my daughter."
Advertisement
He runs a hand through his hair and gives her his best, dimpled grin. "You don't need to thank me." He assures her. "She was brilliant."
I drop my gaze to the dated tiles on the floor as Jules comforts my mother. I'm not hungry any more and I seriously need to get out of this emotionally suffocating atmosphere. However, I do hope that perhaps my mother will have gained some of her own closure by finally getting to speak with Harry. Seeing them converse seems to be another weight lifted from me today.
"I was wondering if I might be able to borrow Sarah for a short while?" He asks them as if reading my mind. My mother is already nodding frantically as if thrilled I'm finally getting the chance to be sociable and Jules is gesturing for us to run along.
"Go. I'll speak to you later." She says to me and I smile, remembering that she's flying tomorrow. I know our house is going to feel empty without her in it and I almost feel resentful towards myself for having spent the last three weeks in my bedroom rather than making the most of her company.
Harry gives them both an awkward wave and then turns in the direction of the door. I hurry after him, embarrassed by the looks we're getting from everyone inside but also terrified about the conversation we're about to have. He pushes the door open and we step out; washed over with sunshine immediately.
"It's not quite the same is it?" He says, looking down at where I walk beside him. I smile to myself, relieved that he gets it.
"Not really." I agree and we continue to the end of the road in silence before turning the corner towards the city centre.
He looks the same as when I last saw him and yet different at the same time. My island Harry is still there, only a little neater around the edges and with a healthier glow than he had before. It's strange seeing him dressed in something other than bright yellow swimming trunks.
"I can feel you staring at me." He observes and his lips curl into a smirk.
"Yeah, I just realised you were more attractive in the middle of the Indian Ocean." I jest and he elbows me lightly on the arm.
"How have you been?" His voice is quieter now, more reserved as if not wanting anyone to overhear. I know he's buying some time while I pluck up the courage to call him out on what he did.
"It's been hard." I admit and shove my hands in the back pockets of my jeans. "I've had some difficulty readjusting." I hate that I sound like Dr Thestle but she was annoyingly correct, despite her methods. "What about you?"
He grimaces as if he doesn't really want to say but I really want to hear. I nudge him. "It's not been great. It's been frustrating because everybody wants to help but nobody can because they weren't there. They don't get it."
I draw my lower lip into my mouth and bite down on it. This is my moment. "I was there." I tell him. "I get it." Harry doesn't comment, he just stares straight ahead with his nostrils flaring. "Why did you leave without saying goodbye, Harry? You promised you would come and find me."
Advertisement
It's almost painful having the words leave my body and I find my hands hovering awkwardly over my chest as if I might have to hold myself together at any moment. There's a part of me that doesn't really want Harry to know how much his actions upset me, but at the same time, I need him to know that I was hurt. That I trusted him. That for those three weeks - he was my everything. And he couldn't even give me the courtesy of saying goodbye.
He stops walking and turns to face me. His hands come down on my shoulders and suddenly his right hand is curling around the side of my face. Instinctively, I lean into his palm. He still feels so familiar.
"I promise you, Sarah," he sighs, frantically searching my eyes. "It was not my decision and I didn't want to do it. As soon as someone contacted my Mum, she decided they were flying out to bring me home there and then. My agent said it wasn't safe or ideal for anyone if they met me at the hospital. The doctor cleared me in the medical examination and before I knew it, reservations had been made at a nearby hotel and I was being ushered out through the back door. I asked if I could see you but they said you weren't finished and there was no time to wait."
I can't help my face scrunching up into a frown. "You could have gotten someone to pass on a message."
His face falls. "I know, I'm a complete arse. I was just so overwhelmed with the fact that my family knew I was alive and everything was so frantic and I just panicked. It's the worst thing I've ever done and I'm so, so sorry, Sarah."
He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear as he waits for my response. It was chaotic in the hospital and it was most definitely overwhelming. I just can't get the memory out of my head of the moment I discovered he had left; how I'd fallen into Jules as if I didn't have anything else left. All I'd wanted was to see his face again...to make sure he was ok.
"I saw you on the Late Late Show." I inform him and he grimaces again. "It was a lovely sentiment but the words I definitely plan to have been ringing in my ears ever since."
He releases a strangled sob and suddenly he's crying in the middle of the street. I look around, panic-stricken, and pull him into my arms. He's trembling in my hold and I can feel his tears soaking into the thin material of my sweatshirt. I'm taken back to the numerous times I've held Harry as he's cried and if I close my eyes, I'm sure I can hear the ocean or the wind blowing through the palm trees.
I know he's sorry.
"I forgive you." I tell him in a whisper. "I was always going to forgive you."
He cries harder and I clutch him tighter.
"I've missed you more than I ever thought possible." My voice wobbles against his chest. "I just wanted to make sure it was real. I wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten me."
He pulls away; eyes red-rimmed and blotchy and presses his lips against my forehead. "As if I could ever forget you, Sarah Starnell."
I know what conversation is coming now. I know it's the serious stuff. I know it's the figuring out. We were stranded and we made it home. We've come full circle, Harry and I.
So what now?
The daily struggle is written on both our faces. We are tired and we are frightened. In some way, we are traumatised. What happened should never have happened to us; it brought us together but that doesn't mean it was meant to be.
Harry is familiar to me. He is warm and kind and safe. For three weeks, he was my home.
But I am home now.
And I think of Jules and the time she has spent here, making sure I am safe and healthy and happy. And how I've hardly spent a moment of it with her. I think of my parents; unsure how to even behave around me. Before, we were so open and close. Now, I feel like a stranger living in their house. I think of my beloved best friend - Addie. How she has dedicated countless hours to making me feel welcome again and how I've spent most of them scowling under my duvet cover.
My job is still waiting for me at the school; the offer floating and waiting for my acceptance. I haven't put an ounce of thought into it. I've been so consumed with getting my closure with Harry. And right now it's like that weight, that weight that's constricted my body since Harry left without saying goodbye...it's like it's gone.
Harry is Harry Styles. He's my island Harry but he's still Harry Styles. And he's going to take the world by storm, I just know it.
And guess what? I'm going to thrive as well.
"I have no expectations." I tell him quickly as he sniffs and blinks his tears away under those long lashes. "Something blossomed between us out there, we both know it. And I feel exactly the same way now but-"
"It's not the right time." We say it simultaneously. It makes it easier somehow. We laugh.
His hands curl around my face again and he smiles at me sadly. "These past three weeks, it felt like a part of me was missing. That part was most definitely you, Sarah. And I still feel the same way as I did as well, I really like you. You know this. But neither of us are in the right frame of mind right now for this to be...something more. We need to take some time; readjust and be with our families."
He's stumbling over his words and it's quite cute really. There are tears in both our eyes, but we're not sad - not really.
Because this isn't goodbye.
Just like Suwen said; Harry and I have a bond. And we'll have that bond for life.
"You're not getting rid of me, Sarah Starnell." He removes his right hand and taps his head with his index finger. "I will come and find you as soon as I've finished up in there, I promise."
And you know what? This time, I believe him.
"There's no end, there is no goodbye." - Wait, M83.
Advertisement
- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153 - In Serial18 Chapters
Heart of Borneo
Onays Mukarram is a mediocre 16-year old who ends up in an unanticipated holiday trip alongside his uncle Tariq and aunt Khairina. He sets off into the thicket, clabbered forest slash oil revenue country that is the Heart of Borneo, Negara Brunei Darussalam. Through the course of his holiday, he somehow duped himself into a problematic situation neither he wants to solve it and wants to get involved. Nevertheless, what could a mediocre kid do right?
8 84 - In Serial21 Chapters
Handcuffs and stripper heels
"So tell me whats a cop doing at a strip club...Or have you come to shut us down?" I ask smirking. "Whats a girl like YOU doing here?" He ask confusing clouding his dark green eyes. "A girl like me?" And he chuckles it wasnt ment to be funny. "A beautiful intelligent-" i cut him off with a laugh.
8 110 - In Serial45 Chapters
Beast fiend
Reincarnation happens so often, when you think of it on the universal scale. It would be weird, if every single one those souls were exactly the same in their circumstances. This story is about a different kind of soul. Each new life starts almost blank, only some bits and pieces available form the past. Each time there is excitement of new discoveries and new love. How would this particular life turn out? Join in, as this soul learns about the world, forges kinship and romance, enjoys the new life and overcomes the obstacles. Our hero's new name is Zern, he is a part of Val tribe, people with strong will and strong convictions. To them, duty is everything, so they safeguard the realm and help those in need. These people have power, power that Zern may gain if he keeps going forward and won't give up.
8 58 - In Serial64 Chapters
Battlefront
All he could remember about his past life was burning pain! Beyond that he has no clue what he was?, who he was?, more than anything why the burning pain!?, when he opened his eyes he was lying on a plane grass field. And he heard a voice and then things changed
8 121 - In Serial36 Chapters
Jealous Lines III NaJ! Paperjam X reader III
(Y/N) (L/N) was always one to take up a challenge. Her confidence and friendly demeanor landed her in the popular side. Not to mention she hangs with jocks and nerds. Anyone who wanted to be her friend, would become one. Her dad was a great athlete and her mother was a police officer. Although both are dead, they taught her self defense, all sports, and much more. She moves in with her brother who is one year older. When she joins Underhigh's basketball team, a certain skeleton wanted to know her more than a friends . . . . And he might not be the only one.Cover: blogthegreatrouge Jock!Paperjam: blogthegreatrougeHighest Rank: #425 in fanfiction
8 189

