Hey everyone! I'm very sorry for how long it has taken to update but with everything going on, I've been doing extra hours at work so I just haven't had the time to write. I hope you're all well and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
Donna never once looked back as she walked away from him. Her eyes were stinging, tears threatening to fall, as she made her way inside the cabin and towards the safety of her bedroom for the weekend. She opens the door, closing it behind herself with more force than she had intended and as it clicks shut, she leans her forehead on the cold wood and she cries. She's hurt and she's confused and she is exhausted. Donna allows herself to let all of her emotions pour out, tears staining her cheeks in the process, breathing unsteady as she pulls away from the door and moves towards her bed, collecting the silk pyjamas that she had packed, a small cami-like vest top and a pair of shorts, both pastel pink in colour and perfect for the weather, something Donna would have stopped to re-appreciate had she been in a different mindset. Instead, she moves towards her en-suite bathroom and changes into them. She stares at her reflection in the mirror as she washes her face and brushes her teeth. Her eyes are red, her cheeks are displaying blotches of pink and Donna can't help but feel alone. She prides herself on being a strong and independent woman, someone who rarely relies on the presence of others, but right now, all she wanted was for someone to hold her and tell her things would be okay. That someone being Harvey. And that wasn't going to happen. Ever. She rinses her face once more and climbs into bed, allowing the weight of the duvet to comfort her and steady her breathing.
What a mess, she thinks. As she closes her eyes, desperate to fall into a sleep that would be deep enough to clear her thoughts, she hears the doors to the cabin close. Harvey. She opens her eyes, lifting her body slightly as she props herself up onto her elbows, listening intently to his footsteps in the distance, followed by the sound of a cupboard door closing and then silence for a moment. She hears him move again. Footsteps nearing closer, heading in her direction and her heart rate instantly heightens.
And then she remembers. His bedroom is directly across the hall from her own. He was heading there. As the footsteps become louder and louder, until it sounds like he is right outside, her breath hitches at the pause. She knows Harvey, knows he will be considering talking to her and she holds onto the hope that he might, secretly wishing to hear a knock at the door. But again, she knows Harvey. She knows that he hasn't got the nerve to come and speak to her, and so she isn't at all surprised to hear the sound of Harvey's bedroom door opening and closing with a thud. She closes her eyes again and silently begs for the night to swallow her up into a deep slumber. But it doesn't come.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Harvey doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, deafened by his own thoughts, alone in the garden. He can't help but think that this is all he deserves and he succumbs to the loneliness, allowing it to smother him and deflate him. But he's angry. And he's exhausted. He wants nothing more than to tell Donna how he is feeling but he can't seem to do it, and every time he tries, he says the wrong thing. He thinks about the day and his mind works overtime trying to piece together the events of tonight, more specifically, the conversation he had with Donna. He thinks about the conclusion he arrived at earlier, that Donna was it, she was all he needed, but he was still unsure about what that meant. Does it mean he wanted more from her than friendship? Or had he just allowed himself to become too reliant on her that he was unable to be himself without her? He was confused, and overwhelmed and as he takes a deep breath, decides he won't sleep until he knows the answers and knows how to fix things with Donna.
He stands up, at first a little uneasy on his feet, undoubtedly due to the amount of alcohol in his system, and moves towards the cabin with more balance than before, but with an obvious drunken stagger. As he enters the cabin and closes the door behind himself, he moves to the kitchen, arriving at the conclusion of needing more alcohol if he was going to sort his shit out. He grabs a bottle of Macallan from the counter and takes a glass from the cupboard. He pours himself a drink and downs it a second later, instantly appreciating the distraction of the burn at the back of his throat. He takes the bottle and the glass and heads to his room, arriving at the door merely a minute later. He pauses. Lingering in the hallway between the door to his room, and the door to Donna's room. He thinks about speaking to her, even raises his hand to knock on the door. But he can't. He doesn't know what to say. Not yet anyway. So he lets his hand fall back to his side and he turns on his heel, heading into his own room, closing the door behind him, and closing the door on another opportunity to make things right with the most important person in his life.
Inside of his room, Harvey sits in the chair in the corner with another glass of Macallan, unsure of how long he's been there, and unsure whether it is his 3rd or 4th shot because he is entirely lost in his own thoughts. He thinks about Donna, how he hopes she is ok, wondering if she is awake or asleep, wonders what she's thinking, what she's feeling. He hates that he's hurt her because he wants only to make her happy. He hates that he's lonely because he wants only to be with her, but most of all, he hates that she thinks he doesn't love her, when he wants only to tell her he does.
He loves her.
And it's taken a whole lot of arguing, and an unmeasurable amount of drinking, but he knows what he wants and he wants her. And yet he doesn't feel happy. He feels sadness. Harvey swirls the amber liquid in the glass as he falls into a state of self-destruction, the drink numbing the pain of his thoughts. I don't deserve her, I could never be enough, I could never make her happy, I've hurt her too much already, I'll only push her away and lose her forever.
And he cries. Not a lot. And not for himself. But he cries. A silent tear for the hurt he's inflicted on Donna, the only person to have stood by him, the only person to have ever made him feel real happiness. So he reaches for his phone, because he can't face her again. He squints his eyes at the blurred names on the screen until he finds hers. He types out a message, that he hopes makes sense, because at this point, he can barely see the keyboard, and he hits send.
And he waits.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
She's staring at the ceiling when she hears it. Her phone vibrating slightly on the bedside table, alerting her to a text message. She turns over and see's the time before she sees the name. It's 3:06am. And the text message is from Harvey. She sits up immediately, heart beating out of her chest. What does he want? She's scared to open it, and a part of her wants to delete it without reading it. This is so Harvey, she thinks. Of course he would text instead of crossing the one metre distance between his room and hers. But she can't. She slides open the phone and clicks on the message, her heart aching instantly.
H: I'm sorrt for hurtimg yoi
He's drunk. This isn't the first time Donna had received a drunken message from Harvey, but they're usually about something silly, and so she doesn't struggle to understand what he means. She can read it clearly even with the spelling mistakes. Harvey doesn't drunk text often, and he definitely does not make spelling errors often, and she knows instantly that he's carried on drinking. She doesn't know what to say, but she sure as hell knows she isn't having this conversation with him in this state.
D: Get some sleep, Harvey. You're drunk.
As she presses send, she stares at the screen. She sees that he has read the message instantly, but there's no reply. She locks the phone and puts it beside her, only to pick it up a minute later and see that there are still no new notifications. Maybe he's so drunk it takes him longer to reply? She thinks. Or maybe he's fallen asleep. She hates how desperate she is for a reply, how desperate she is to speak to him, even if it means working out the riddles he sends via text. After checking her phone for the fourth time, she gives in, placing her phone back on the table and pulling the blanket right up to her chin.
It's merely a second later that she hears a knock on her door. She knows its him. It could only be him. She moves swiftly to answer it, adrenaline masking her fear and her nerves. She opens the door and his sad eyes bore into hers. They stare at each other for a moment, both unsure of what to say. It's Harvey who speaks first.
"I'm not drunk" he slurs, eyes taking in her presence. He is amazed by her beauty and her ability to look no less than perfect in anything she wears.
She sees his drunken eyes ogling her body and she wants to laugh. But she doesn't. "Yes, you are"
"Ok a little bit. But I meant it. I am sorry. If I've hurt you" he smiles sadly, and she knows he means it. But this isn't the time, or the place.
"Let's not do this now, Harvey"
"But I want to talk to you"
"We've talked. And we couldn't fix it" she says sadly
"But I want to fix it" he says it so desperately that Donna longs to embrace him. But she doesn't.
Instead she offers a small smile and some hope. "We can fix it another day" she states
He isn't satisfied. He's spent the past hour thinking about her, thinking about his feelings and how he needs to talk to her, fix things with her. He doesn't want to go to sleep until they've tried to talk things through. "Can I come in?"
She hesitates. "I don't.."
"Please Donna, I'm not that drunk and I just want to.." he interrupts a little louder, slightly stumbling as he tries to regain his balance at the door.
She interrupts him then. "Shhhh, get in". She moves to the side, allowing him to enter her room, which is almost identical to his own, the only difference being the artwork above the bed. He sits in the chair in the corner of the room, and she sits in her bed, the blanket pulled back up to her waist. And it's silent.
It's her turn to break the silence. "What do you want, Harvey?"
"To talk to you" his speech is almost incoherent and he's aware of that, but he knows she can understand him and he's grateful that she's trying.
"Okay" Donna sighs, a little impatiently. They've been here before on several occasions, one of those occasions being only a couple of hours ago, but she gives him the benefit of the doubt because it's Harvey. And Harvey is her weakness. "What do you want to talk about?" she asks him.
"Us" he states matter of factly. She doesn't respond. She just looks at him in a way that urges him to continue speaking. "I know I've messed up and I keep getting things wrong but I didn't mean what I said earlier. I realise now that it sounded like I was dismissing how much you mean to me" he adds.
Donna looks down at her hands in her lap, too unsure of how she might respond if she looked at him right now. "And how much is that?" she dares.
He doesn't respond straight away, her question taking him by surprise. His drunken mind is struggling to keep up and he hesitates. "I.." he fumbles for the right words to say, and he realises that he hasn't yet answered her question when he hears her laugh. A dry humourless laugh, because here they are again.
She looks back up to him then, and he knows immediately that she is pissed. "You're the one that wanted to talk, Harvey. So talk!" She exclaims. "I'm tired of having to do it all for you"
"What does that mean?"
Donna stands up a little too quickly, she feels the blood rush through her body and her head hurts. She exhales and she stands a few feet away from him. "It means, I'm tired of filling in the blanks when you can't find the words you want to say. It means I'm tired of guessing what you're trying to say when you go quiet and can't bring yourself to tell me what you're thinking. And it means that I'm exhausted of having to manage my own feelings whilst I'm trying to work out what the fuck is going on in your head". She knows she sounds harsh, but it's true.
"What do you want from me, Donna? I'm trying here" he retorts. He had knocked on her door with hope of resolving their issues, but in fact had caused yet another argument. But he couldn't refrain from defending himself. If the only way they were going to talk was through arguing, then so be it, he thought.
"I want you to stop beating around the bush with everything and everyone, Harvey, and just be honest! You're constantly avoiding questions and conversations because you can't even recognise how you're feeling". She feels a pang of guilt at the look in his eyes as she says this. She's really cutting deep, she knows it and he knows it.
"What have I avoided?" he asks, a little forcefully, as if he's daring her to ask what she really wants to know.
"Oh no" she says, turning her back on him and walking back towards the bed where she sits back down, "I'm not making it that easy for you again" she laughs dryly.
"How is any of this easy for me, Donna? You're angry with me because I'm not as emotionally intelligent as you. I'm sorry that we're different people, Donna" he responds, and he's deflated. Exhausted.
"That's not what I meant and you know it"
"Then what did you mean?"
"I just want you to try, Harvey" she says sadly. "You run away from everything that might mean something to you and you're hurting yourself in the process. And I'm not just talking about us falling out"
"What else do I run away from?" he asks. He knows he's admitting she's right by asking this question. He's asking her to spell it all out for him again, but he needs it.
Donna knows he needs this, and that's why she makes an exception. "You run away from your relationships, your family, goddamn it Harvey, you were even scared to admit how much Mike meant to you for years"
She's right.
Harvey sighs and looks down to his shoes, the alcohol still blurring his vision. He thinks about all of the times he's ignored Mike's desire to help him because he didn't want to let anyone else down. He thinks about the number of times he's pushed his family away when he thought he was getting too close to them. He thinks about how many times he's hurt Donna because he was too afraid of messing it up and losing her. He hears her footsteps walking away and as he lifts his head, he notices she's heading for the door.
"It's fear" he blurts out
She stops walking and turns to face him, encouraging him to keep talking.
He looks at his feet again, embarrassed of his admission, but eager to prove that he can open up to her. "I'm scared of disappointing people or giving people false hope that I can be someone they can rely on" he says as he lifts his head again. He looks into her hazel eyes and adds, "I'm scared of losing the people that mean the most to me"
"Harvey.." she starts
"I know I hide behind my thoughts and my feelings Donna, and sometimes I come across as being secretive or reserved, but it's not really to protect myself, it's to protect other people" he interrupts.
"What do you mean?" she asks, genuinely intrigued to hear what he means.
"Like for example, earlier in the hot tub when Mike asked me that question" he says shyly, not really wanting to delve into this but it being the only example his drunken mind could think of so quickly.
Donna didn't want to have this conversation either. She didn't want this reminder. But she knew what he meant and she didn't want to discourage his openness. "Yeah.." she takes a deep breath, "the one about the best you ever had" she answers, a little quietly.
"Well I knew the answer to that" he starts, his eyes locking with hers, heart racing at what he was about to admit. "I just didn't want to put you in a situation that would make you feel uncomfortable" he admits.
She feels her heart drop. "Harvey. Just because we slept together doesn't mean that you have to avoid talking about all the other women you've slept with"
"That's my point, Donna. I didn't want to talk about any other woman that I've slept with" he says, hoping she finally understands what he's saying.
She doesn't. She looks at him with confusion and he recognises instantly that she genuinely has no idea how much she means to him. It was his turn now to fill in the blanks and help her to understand.
"You're the best I've ever had, Donna" he says.
Donna stares at him, her eyes wide, her mind in overdrive. She doesn't know what to say. What did that mean? Does it mean anything else? She wanted to ask him but she wasn't ready to hear him say anything else, she was too scared to hear him say she was just good in bed. Her mind felt full. She was confused and overwhelmed, her eyes darting around the room to avoid his stare. But she's angry. How dare he come into her room and admit these things when he's too drunk to remember them in the morning?
"Are you fucking kidding me?" she says
"What? I thought you wanted me to be honest" he deflects. He thought that being honest would help.
"You think that telling me I'm a good night makes everything alright?" she snaps.
He shoots up out of the chair and stands firmly in position, arms out the side to emphasise his exasperation. "Goddamn it, Donna! That's not what I meant and you.." he shouts
"and I know it, right?" she finishes the sentence for him.
He moves his lips into a line and looks at her, not saying anything else.
"Yeah, that's what I thought" she says as she shakes her head. "But I don't, Harvey. I don't know it" she says, eyes boring into his, prompting him to tell her what he means. He doesn't speak, he doesn't know what to say, and he panics.
"Donna" is all he can muster.
"Save it, Harvey. You don't even know what you mean, so how the hell am I supposed to know? I need a drink. I'm going to grab some water" she tells him, and with that, she walks away, leaving him alone with his thoughts again.
"I meant that you're the only person I want to have" he whispers to himself as he hears the door close. He slumps back into the chair, his head falling back against the cushioned headrest. He shuts his eyes tightly and allows himself to fall into the darkness, wondering why his words always fail him when he needs them the most.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Donna walks quietly into the kitchen, almost on the tips of her toes to avoid waking Mike or Rachel. That's if her screaming match with Harvey hadn't already stirred the pair. She takes a glass from the cupboard and pours herself some water, the coldness soothing her burning skin. She stands at the window, taking in the first light of the morning and she glances at the clock in the kitchen, sees that it's almost 4am. If she were ever going to put on a brave face and enjoy the rest of the weekend with her friends, she needed to sleep. She's not sure she can argue with Harvey anymore. She makes herself another glass of water, and then makes her way back to her bedroom to tell Harvey to leave. She was too angry with him and too tired to continue their conversation, and if she were honest with herself, she was scared they might reach a place they could not return from. She sits for around ten minutes, taking deep breaths and collecting her thoughts and then decides it's time to call it a day.
She walks back to her bedroom slower than she planned to. She was nervous to see him again, nervous to hear what he wanted to say. She twisted the handle and enters the room quietly. She looks over to him and she sees him slumped in the chair, breathing even and not one sound leaving his body.
He's asleep.
She thinks about waking him but decides against it. She didn't want to argue anymore and he looked peaceful. She crosses the room quietly, puts the glass of water on the table beside him and covers him with a small blanket from the bed. She glances over her shoulder once more before leaving the room and she can't help but think about how handsome he looks.
Donna decides she'll sleep in his room instead of the lounge to avoid any awkward encounters with Rachel or Mike in the morning, and she's hit with his scent as soon as she enters his room. She thinks that maybe this isn't the best idea but she can't bring herself to leave. She hates to admit that every time she had imagined herself climbing into his bed, it would be with him. But here she is. Alone. She closes her eyes and begs for sleep. And it comes, eventually.
Hope you enjoyed this! Leave your reviews, I really appreciate them all. I'm already working on the next chapter and I promise these 2 get their shit together soon! :)
