limerence (harry styles)

A sixteen year old. You remember being sixteen, with the same fidelity and ache as an old, untended wound. You remember, and you know Harry remembers that you remember. He listens as you describe your new client, his eyes skimming over the details in a file that could just as easily have your name on it. The air in the office feels dense, more so than usual, and you shift under its weight as you talk about the young girl's assault, the trauma, the steps you're taking to help her. There's a palpable discomfort in the way you struggle to keep the words from tangling with your own history, with what you know he knows.

"No, not EMDR. Trauma focused CBT," you clarify, eyes fixed on the grain of the table in front of you, not daring to look up. It sounds empty, something less than an intervention and more like a petition. Your voice trembles over each syllable, like a child playing with a knife. Harry doesn't respond, just watches with that infuriating, calm demeanour. Your fingers trace the edge of the file, paper that feels heavier than lead, a weight you thought you'd shed long ago. You inhale sharply, as though the air in the room could fortify you. "Not EMDR," you repeat. 

Harry shifts slightly, the creak of the floorboard almost like a sigh. You hear patience in the way he waits, a gentle pressing without words. You don't know why it's so difficult to speak, why your tongue feels swollen and foreign. It's only Harry, after all. You try again, shaping your sentences with precision, like delicate sculptures you know will eventually crumble. "The therapeutic alliance," you say, holding on to clinical terms as if they're a lifeline. "Rapport. Whatever." You can feel him nodding, a movement that resonates with unspoken understanding. His silence asks more questions than words could ever achieve. You feel yourself unraveling, the loose threads of your resolve tangling around your fingers, around your heart.

You freeze, your thoughts an unruly knot of past and present. This room, with its heavy silence and the comfort of the closed door, becomes more suffocating with each passing second. You force yourself to look at him, at the man who holds your secrets as carefully as he holds your heart.

Harry seems unbothered by your silence, waiting with the patience of someone who has never had to wait long for anything. "What are your initial impressions?" he asks, tilting his head just so, just enough to remind you of the past you've tried to leave behind.

You swallow, trying to push down the sudden swell of memory. "She's angry. Hurt. Hypervigilant. She doesn't trust anyone."

He nods, the movement slow and deliberate. "And the family?"

"Complicated," you say, your voice barely above a whisper. It feels like an admission.

There's a moment where neither of you speak, the air filled with unsaid things. You shift again, trying to ease the tension you can't escape. You want to talk about your client and nothing else, want to bury the other questions you feel building between you.

"She's withdrawn. But I think she wants help," you continue, your words stumbling over one another.

"Good." Harry's eyes linger on you, as if measuring the distance between your professional detachment and personal history. The look is unsettling, too knowing, too kind. "And you're comfortable treating her?"

The question lands like a stone. "Of course," you say, a bit too quickly, a bit too defensively.

His gaze doesn't waver. "Even with the...circumstances?"

"I'm not—" you start, but the protest dies on your lips. You take a breath, steady yourself. "It's not the same. I'm not like her." The admission shatters the air between you, fragile as spun glass.

He says nothing, just watches you with a calm intensity that makes your skin prickle. The depth of his presence, once so consolatory, feels like a spotlight you can't step out of.