limerence (harry styles)

You've gone numb to the threat of exposure. That's why your phone ends up in Matteo's hands, the moment as careless and brutal as the months leading up to it. You step out of the shower and walk right into your own betrayal. He stands there with the evidence, so blatant and so real. The look on his face is more than hurt. It's annihilation. You watch him watch you, feeling more naked than you ever did with your clothes off. You'd wanted this to happen, in a way, but now that it has, you don't know how to face him.

A silence as fragile as glass stretches between you. You think it will shatter at any second. That's how raw it feels. How immediate and cutting.

"Y/N," he finally says, your name a broken sound in his mouth.

"What are you doing?" You know how it sounds. As if he's the one at fault. You want to take it back, but it's too late.

He turns the phone around, the texts blazing from the screen. You and Harry, more intimate than you ever intended anyone else to see.

"I should be asking you that." His voice is low and trembles with betrayal. He searches your face, hoping for something to make this all untrue.

Your hair is still dripping, your body wrapped in a towel and unready, vulnerable. But not as vulnerable as Matteo. His look is pure devastation and fury as he stares at your phone, as he absorbs the texts you left for him to find. As he looks up at you, accusation and confusion on his face.

"Matteo, it's not—"

"Not what it looks like?" He's laughing. You can't believe he's laughing.

"Not what you think," you say, meaning it. Meaning how different this feels from what you thought it would. Meaning how wrong it is, how reckless. You meant for him to know, but not like this. Never like this.

"I'm sorry," he says, but he's not apologising. He's calling you sorry, calling you out. "He's your boss. You're fucking him."

You're silent.

"That's what you think?" you finally manage to say.

"That's what I know."

His face is breaking, shattering, and you can't stop it, can't bear it, can't look away. There's no hiding anymore, no excuse to shield him from the truth. He's found it, just like you wanted. He's found it, and you're the one who's unready, unprepared. He's found it, and you hate how right he is. You're tired of hiding. You're tired of pretending. You're tired.

"Don't I get an answer?" he says. "Don't I deserve one?"

"It's not like that," you say, but you know it doesn't matter. He's seen the texts. He knows what it's like.

"So I'm just making it all up?"

"You weren't supposed to find out this way."

His voice cracks. "How, then? How was I supposed to find out?"

It's worse than you expected, the truth. More devastating, more real. More permanent. His mouth moves, forming words you thought you'd wanted to hear for months, words you didn't expect to cut like glass. "You and me," he says, like he's remembering, like he's mourning, "it's over, isn't it?"

"Yes."

He looks up at you, his eyes so full of disbelief and devastation and disbelief again.

He's quiet. Too quiet. Then not quiet enough. "She messaged me," he finally says. "Olivia. Does that name mean anything to you?"

Harry's wife. You didn't know her name. He never told you, and you didn't ask.

You can't tell him she's wrong. Not Olivia. Not Harry. Not Matteo. None of them. Not even yourself. You want to tell him you're sorry. You want to say something, anything, but the words die on your lips, smothered by his expression. How do you explain to someone that you never meant to hurt them like this?