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He’s 6 when he first meets her.
She’s standing in front of the classroom, eyes wide and her fingers holding tightly onto an older looking girl as she stares back at the class. Her eyes meet his for a few seconds and she turns away when she realizes he caught her looking.
He watches as the older looking girl pulls her hand away gently from her sister, and tells her to sit down, and that she’ll come pick her up when school ends, and that if ever needs anything she’ll only be one two rooms away from her. He watches as the sister leaves, and he watches as the curly haired girl with the green wide eyes makes her way shyly to the back.
It takes him a moment to register that she had settled down next to him, and had offered him a small smile and a hand to shake.
He takes it.
.
He learns that her name is Allie, and that she moved from New York because her dad got transferred to Connecticut and that older looking girl is her sister Cassandra, and that her house is apparently across from his and they both have rooms facing each other so how cool is that.
By lunch, he decides her laugh is his favorite thing about her, especially when she’s up in the air as he pushes her swing, her laugh floating through the air contagiously as she swung high.
When the bell rings, Allie pulls Harry by the hand to introduce him to Cassandra, who has a twinkle in her eyes when Allie tells her that she has a friend now, and her mom just laughs and shakes his hand when he offers is shyly.
His dad meets them halfway on the playground, introducing himself like the good man he was to Allie’s mom, and promises Allie that she could have play dates with him whenever she wants, just as long as they both finish their homework first.
They leave school together – Harry in his car and Allie in hers – but they wave to each other on the road during traffic light and Harry sticks his tongue out at her making her laugh.
(He can’t hear it because how loud the wind is blowing and because his dad is playing one of his loud music but he already has the sound memorized in his head from lunch so he does it again, just because.)
.
They’re assigned reading groups later on in the year, and he finds out then that Allie has this disorder called ADHD, and he knows it means sometimes she has troubles focusing on the words when reading, and he knows that she hates feeling weak, especially when he’s put in a higher level of reading group, leaving her behind.
She told him it was okay, because Harry had this worry look on his face when it first started, and she had pushed him to his group because that’s where you belong, you idiot, but then he watches her excuse herself out of the class when she couldn’t catch up with the teacher reading so he runs out without thinking to catch up with her.
He stays beside her and offers her his shoulder silently until the hour is done, like the good friend he is, and she looks up at him with a thankful expression on her face when she calms down.
(He gets his first detention then, but he promises Allie he would come by her house after so he could help her with her book, and Allie gives him the biggest hug before whispering to him that she’s thankful she has him as her best friend, and he knows instantly that it was all worth it.)
.
Allie’s parents throw her a birthday party in second grade, and he’s the first one she tells, because of course. It’s the only thing she could talk about for weeks, and he calls her a dork for choosing a princess themed party but she just sticks her tongue out at him and kicks his foot under the table.
He doesn’t tell her that that he has saved up 6 weeks of allowance so he could buy her a small locket that he had saw in the city once – and with the help of his mom, he goes and buys it, and buys the fanciest box he could find in the bookstore.
Suddenly he knows why she had chosen a princess themed party, because she shows up in the most Allie entrance ever, twirling her big dress with her curls fluttering in the air, her smile as warm as usual. She looks like the kind of princess he used to read for bed time stories back when he was four.
(He tells her that, and she lets him have the biggest cut of the cake.)
He doesn’t give his gift later on with the rest of their friends, because in a selfish way he doesn’t want to share what he had given her with the rest of the group so he pulls her to the side before he goes home to give it to her.
She loves it, judging by the gasp when she opens the box and she’s beaming at him when she wraps her arms aroudn his neck, thanking him silently. And he’s pretty sure he has the biggest smile on his face as well when she asks if he’d clasp the locket from behind.
(She doesn’t want to share what picture did she put inside it, but she kicks his foot again under the table and whispers It’s a picture of my best friend and I and he hopes he had kicked her hard engouh to let her know she really is the best.)
.
She skips school sometimes, and he learns that it’s because she has to go with Cassandra to the hospital for her regular check ups and sometimes for her surgeries.
“I don’t know what the sickness is called,” Allie had said once. “It’s a heart disease, that’s all I know. I just know it’s really bad for Cassandra and I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.” he learns that she doesn’t like to talk about it, not if she can help it, and he knows better than to ask her more questions.
(So if he ever comes to her house on one of her day offs and she’s in a bad mood, he doesn’t comment and let her lean her head on his shoulder while she listens to him talk about what their dumb classmates had done that time.)
.
His parents start to fight in third grade, during nights when they think he’s asleep aslready.
(He couldn’t of course, because they were supposed to tuck him into bed and tell him that they both love him very much before going to sleep, but they waste their time bickering about some bills his mom had forgotten to pay, or a broken tool his dad had forgotten to fix until they’re both tired of arguing, and he hates it, and he hates the way they pretend like nothing happened in the morning.)
He starts coming over to Allie’s place everyday, partly because he wants to help her with her reading and grades but mostly because her presence calms him down in a way nobody else and she could make him feel better just by smiling at him.
(It’s not because he misses the feeling of having a whole family who talks to each other and jokes around with each other again, and the Pressman gives him exactly that, and he pushes the feeling of envy away from his stomach as he watches the girls hug their parents before saying goodbye to Allie.
.
They start doing sleepovers in fourth grade.
It was a dumb idea, but Allie loves it, and so does he, and now that his mom starts working until late nights in the office and his dad so early in the morning, he could try and pretend his family is okay.
(They still fight, but not on the weekends Allie comes, and he hates himself for always looking forward for his turn to host it.)
It’s not until Allie decides to have a sleepover in Harry’s house duirng her turn to host it – because Cassandra has some friends over and she doesn’t want to be a burden – that Allie finds out about his family’s situation. They’ve fallen asleep on his sofa while watching cartoons, and they both wake up in the middle of the night because his dad just swore loudly to his mom upstairs and he swears he could hear his mom crying from above, his heart is pounding because he hates hearing them like this.
(If she moves closer to him to hold his hand and squeeze it in comfort before going back to sleep, she doesn’t say a thing about it.)
.
They fight when she’s going up to fifth grade.
She, because the school had thought that Harry was smart enough to skip fifth grade and had given him a scholarship to finish elementary school early and start his sixth.
He doesn’t like the idea of having to leave Allie – not when she had worked really hard these past years to catch up to him and now he’s going to leave her there alone – but his parents are so proud of him that he couldn’t just turn the offer down.
So when his parents told hers about it during a joined dinner between the two family, Allie excuses herself out of the house after throwing a surprised and accusing look at Harry.
“Allie,” he runs up to her. “Allie, please let me explain.”
“No,” she wouldn’t turn to him, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Leave me alone. Oh, that’s right, you already did,” her voice trembles slightly and he loathes himself for making her voice tremble like that because he gets reminded about how his dad had made his mom’s tremble every time they fight.
“Please, Allie, it’s a great opportunity for me, and my parents are so proud of me. Can you please just be happy for me as well?” he pleads to her, grabbing her wrist so she would turn around.
But she wouldn’t, and so he squeezes her wrist before letting go and says his goodbye quietly.
(She comes up to his room the next day to apologize, hugging him the second he opens the door to let her in, and he wraps his arms around her almost immediately, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders knowing she’s not mad at him anymore.)
“I really am happy for you, Harry,” she whispers into his shoulder and she’s so genuine about it he feels like he’s going to cry. “I’m going to miss you in fifth grade.”
(He promises her that they could still hang out despite him being in sixth grade and that he’s still there to help her if she ever needs it, but they both know it’s an empty promise so she just smiles at him and tells him thanks.)
.
Sixth grade is far harder than fourth for him and he despises his whole class because they’re not like Allie – who is kind and smart and would be there to clap him on when he feels like shit. He misses her, but Cassandra tells him that Allie is doing okay in fifth grade and even made some new friends so he ignores the feeling away.
His parents also stop fighting, and it’s a miracle really. He loves having his family back whole again so maybe everything isn’t really that bad in sixth grade.
(Cassandra had told him that it’ll also be better for Allie if he wasn’t there all the time to be with her and he thinks that was one of the reasons why they eventually become enemies during the year.)
.
She spends her summer in New York with her family and he spends his holed up inside his house because his parents had to go to work.
When she comes back, she brings some of her old friends with her for a sleep over so he stops himself from knocking on her door to ask her if she wants to go and have one of their sleepover like the old days.
(He misses her more than he’d like to admit.)
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Cassandra doesn’t come to school three days in a row during the seventh grade and even though he knows she skips sometimes, she never skips three times in a row so something must’ve happened to her.
His heart pounds a little faster than usual when his mom tells him Allie called him when he was at school, so he frantically dials her number to ask her what’s wrong, afraid to know the answer to his own question.
“She had a scare,” her voice is small and faint, like she had been crying for hours. “She’s supposed to go back to school today, but I think she fainted and I found her lying on the floor, and now she’s inside for surgery and my parents are inside with her and-“ she stops talking, like she’s hesitating to continue her sentence.
“I’m on my way,” Harry states, answering her silent question.
“Thank you,” he hears her sniffle before hanging up. His mom’s already ready anyway.
(She crashes into him the second he sets foot in the hospital and his heart breaks listening to her sob into his shoulder.)
(He wishes he could make it better for her, but he can’t, so he stays with her during her sister’s entire operation and holds her hand in his and peppers her hair with kisses while she burrows deeper into him until her sister opens her eyes.)
.
They start hanging out again after the whole Cassandra incident, and it’s as if they’re trying to gain their rhythm back as friends like before. The two of them still aren’t in good terms, but Cassandra let Harry come when she picks Allie up from elementary the next day and he knows by the way Allie smiles at him when she catches his eyes that their friendship isn’t lost in the slightest.
(I missed you, she had whispered to him during one of their movie marathons, kicking his foot like she used to do back in first grade to get his attention and despite his heart beating out of his chest hearing her say it, he just grinned at her and kicked her foot back.)
.
Boyfriends and girlfriends become a thing in their school when he starts eighth grade, and it’s not really a surprise to him when Allie tells him that one of her new seventh grade friends had asked her out on a date to the movies on the first day of school.
It’s a boy named Tyrone, and Allie seems really happy to tell him about what had happened during the date when she comes home so he tells her he is really happy for her.
Allie calls him a few weeks later in muffled sobs telling him that Tyrone had broken up with her when they were supposed to go see the new Avengers movie together so he rings her doorbell 2 minutes later still in his sweatshirt and sweatpants to ask if she wants to go see it with him. As best friends.
(She says yes, duh, and it becomes their routine to ask each other out to the movies as best friends after their dates had cancelled on them, and Harry wishes the circumstances are different every time her head is on his shoulder as she tells him not to hog the popcorn she has bought.)
.
They’re each other’s first kisses and even though it isn’t as romantic as what the movies had made it seem to be, Harry couldn’t have imagined it any other way.
They’re sitting down on Harry’s sofa in the living room with her head resting comfortably on his lap as they both watch La La Land for the fourth time that month.
(It was supposed to be his turn to pick the movie, but she pleaded him with her puppy eyes so he just sighed and threw her the remote control.)
“I don’t understand why you like this movie so much,” he comments, poking her dimple with his finger out of boredom. She pouts at him but goes back to her movies. “I mean,” he’s not giving up. “It’s just not realistic.”
“Oh,” she says, giving him her full attention now, grinning cheekily at him like she already knows what he was going to say. “Well what movie do you think is realistic?”
“Harry Potter,” he replies instantly and she laughs because that’s his answer everytime she asks him that question, and she knows the same argument that they always seem to have is coming. “Easy answer.”
“Yeah, and why is that, Bingham?”
And as always, Harry would go and tell her the same arguments he would use to defend his favorite franchise in every other arguments that they had gone through. It’s a predictable game, but they both love it nonetheless. He knows she would laugh at him when he tells her that every one knows the world will end because a white dude with no nose and she would slap him when he says well you’re doomed, Allie, because you’re a Muggle and you’ll die first and she will always tell him that he wins the argument fair and square.
This time, it’s different.
Just as he’s about to make his second argument – “Yes, Allie, chanting spells are more realistic than people randomly singing on the street,”- he feels a pair of lips on his, just a quick one, and when he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is a smiling Allie on his lap.
“I’m sorry I kissed you,” she tells him, biting her lips nervously, “it’s just you looked so cute when you were rambling and-“ he cuts her off with another, and bites back a smile that’s creeping towards his face when he pulls way.
(He wants to ask her a lot of questions, and he wants to kiss her smile again just like before because her lips was so soft and he wants to hear her giggle again when he pulls away just like last time because she has the softest giggle in the world.)
“Kissing me does not mean I’ll let you win this argument, Allie,” he says instead, poking her dimple with his fingers.
(He wants to do the kissing part more than the questions though.)
.
He asks her to his first high school semi formal, because tehre’s no one else he would rather dance with inside the sweaty and hot gymnasium in his mind than her, and so he asks her casually when they’re fighting over the last dumpling that he had brought to her house after school.
(She wins the dumpling but then tells him yes with the biggest smile she could muster with a mouth full of dumpling so really, he’s the one who wins.)
.
His parents surprise him with a car on his 16th birthday and the first thing he does with it is take Allie to her favorite ice cream place in the city after school because she has been craving it all week and he’s whipped, and he would totally drive her again everyday if he gets to see the smile that she has on her face when they get there.
(She lets him hold her hand as they eat their ice cream in the park and asks him if she can kiss him again after, and he thinks he’s in love.)
.
He’s at school when his mom calls and tells him his dad just got into a car crash, and everything blurs.
He doesn’t remember what happens next – all he remembers is being in the hospital and Allie is holding his right hand tightly in hers telling him that everything is going to be okay in a cracked voice and his mom is shaking beside him as he listens to the doctor in front of them.
“I’m afraid he’s gone, ma’am.”
(He tells Allie nothing is ever going to be okay again and breaks.)
.
He hates November because it took his dad away from him and he fucking misses him every day.
His mom doesn’t want to do Thanksgiving that year, and he refuses Allie’s invite when she asks if he wants to come over to her house and have some turkey with her family because he doesn’t want her pity or her family, he wants his back.
(He remembers the feeling he had when he was in third grade and he now wishes he could be in third grade again. He just wants his dad back.)
.
His grade drops because he couldn’t sleep at night because every time he closes his eyes a picture of his dad pops up in his mind and he hates it, and he couldn’t talk about it with his mom because she’s always in the office now so he stays up and goes to parties with people he’s not really friends with and gets drunk.
(He doesn’t tell Allie – sweet sweet Allie who asks him if he’s okay every day at school because he doesn’t want her to see him as a mess like this.)
He finds sleeping pills in his mom’s drawer and he steals them every now and then on the days she doesn’t come home to work.
(He finds out his mom is running for mayor and he laughs because at least one of them is handling the grief the right way.)
.
He couldn’t find any sleeping pills on his mom’s drawer one day but he finds a bottle of Xanax one day on his dad’s drawer so he takes it.
(He’s dead he wouldn’t mind, his mind thinks bitterly and the word dead replays in his head over and over again until he pops one pill into his mouth.)
.
It’s weeks of ignoring Allie and telling her he’s fine and that he just needs some space on the phone while he stays all night drinking in parties and stealing pills from his dad’s cabinet.
(He pops another one into his mouth to push Allie away from his mind. She deserve more than him really.)
.
They don’t really break up, not really. But Harry knows it was coming, that they would fell apart on their own someday.
“It’s better for her this way,” Cassandra tells him once when he’s not too lightheaded to come to class, and for once, he agrees with her.
.
The pills ran out on January, and he tells himself to stop drinking the last few pills because he wants to be better. He wants to be better for Allie and so he’ll try.
(It’s his 30 day clean, and he’s so proud of himself he wishes he could tell Allie about it. He can’t.)
.
He befriends a girl from his Biology class named Kelly – who likes him and would smile at him everytime when he talks, and maybe – just maybe – he likes her too.
(Allie has a new best friend named Will, and he tells himself over and over again that he’s doing the right thing.)
.
They meet once during lunch – bumping into each other while he’s talking to Kelly about something that happened in his homeroom today and she’s laughing about something with Will and Cassandra, and when he apologizes, he meets her eyes for the first time in months.
(“I’m sorry,” he says, and he hopes that she’ll understand that he’s not just saying that because he bumped into her.)
Kelly raises her eyebrows, Will and Cassandra both look at each other confusedly, but Allie just smiled. Typical Allie. “It’s okay,” she replies back, her eyes intently staring on his. I know.
.
Kelly kisses him on a Saturday night when he comes over to her house for homework.
(He still remembers how soft Allie’s lips were on his, and he craves it so badly but it’s not fair for Kelly and he just wants Kelly to be happy, because she deserves the world just as Allie, so he pulls away.)
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, expecting Kelly to leave him. “I’m-“
“You still like Allie don’t you?” Kelly just smiles at him. The guilt in his eyes is apparently enough for Kelly to confirm her question.
“I’m really sorry,” he says again, and he means it. “If you don’t wanna be my friend anymore-“
“Oh shut up, Harry,” Kelly laughs. “I do. It’s okay.”
(She tells him later on during their friendship she kissed him that night to see how it feel like, and that she’s now pretty sure she doesn’t like boys and likes Becca Gelb from their biology class, and they both laugh because their friendship is weird.)
.
He gets his act pretty quickly in his senior year, and suddenly he’s part of the school committee (thanks to Kelly’s push), and playing main roles in plays next to his nemesis Cassandra.
(Allie still isn’t talking to him and laughs along to Cassandra when she insults him jokingly but he notices she claps the hardest alongside Kelly when he comes to the stage and maybe they’ll someday be okay again.)
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He decides to host an after party at his house after the play and invites Allie because she’s the assistant manager and maybe they’ll get to hang out again just like they used to.
“A party, Harry? That’s so nice of you,” Cassandra comments sarcastically and he rolls his eyes at her.
“If you want, you guys could come,” he says, and finds the courage to stare into Allie’s eyes so she’ll know he means it.
He hopes the smile in her face is a sign that she does.
.
He doesn’t know what happens but he’s supposed to go on a trip with the whole school but they end up back in town but this time everyone is gone except for them.
“It’ll be fine,” Cassandra had said to calm them down but he rolls his eyes and goes home hoping everything will turn up normal in the morning.
(Nothing ever turns up normal in the morning. He finds out about this when he drives around the town to find all the exits blocked out and he finally let himself panic for a minute.)
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The town decides to have a party inside the church because they’re teenagers and he doesn’t know why but Kelly and him both end up going anyway.
(She gets greeted by Becca and he smiles before pushing her away from him so she could dance with her crush. He’s such a nice best friend that way.)
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Some of the jocks are hosting a fugitive game the next day because, again, they’re teenagers without supervision, and he has a fast car he can drive so he wants to go join.
He asks Kelly if she wants to come and drive with him but then she apologizes and tells him that she’s helping Becca and Sam with inventory stuff Cassandra is doing in secret.
“You should ask Allie,” Kelly nudges him teasingly.
“Are you joking? You want me to ask Allie?”
Kelly just shrugs and tells him he doesn’t have to pretend like he doesn’t want to before leaving him inside his house, and he flips her off because he can.
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He thinks it’s fate when he meets Allie at the gas station while he’s filling up his tank. Or maybe it’s just Kelly and her matchmaking skill, he doesn’t really know.
It takes him a minute before he greets her, and she turns around with a surprised but pleased expression in her face when she realizes it’s him.
“Going out of town?” she smirks at him and his heart wants to burst because it almost feel like their old banter back when they’re still friends and he never realize that he misses it that much.
“I’m playing fugitive tonight,” he says, shrugging. “You can be my partner if you want,” he adds bravely. “Also Cassandra is invited to the party if she wants,” he adds again, because maybe it’ll make a different and she’ll say yes.If she ignores him and walk away, he’s going to pretend like it didn’t happen.
“You say too many things you don’t mean,” Allie quips before leaving and he knows she's not just talking about the game but also about everything but there’s a small smile hanging on her face when she says it so he takes it as a win.
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He doesn’t expect her to show up but she does, and suddenly she’s sitting next to him in the car and everything just doesn’t seem real anymore.
(She ends up getting hit by a car, and he runs the fastest he ever does in his life to get to her but when he’s trying to make sure she’s okay he realizes she’s smiling and laughing with him for what felt like the first time in forever and he couldn’t help but laugh back.)
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, Harry,” she says, rolling her eyes at him but this time mockingly. “I’m the one who got hit by a car and you’re the one who looks like it. Geez.”
He huffs, his body trying to get up but her hand grabs his wrist and pulls him down back to the grass. “We still have fugitives to catch you know,” he tells her unsurely.
“Sit down with me,” she commands but there’s a shy smile on her face so he settles down next to her while she lies her head down on the grass.
(The grass is hard and pointy and he doubts she’s comfortable but her curls are jutting out all over the place and she has the most peaceful smile on her face which he hasn’t seen in a long time so he lies his down too.)
“This is nice,” he says and he’s not sure if he means it ironically or not. She just hums and kicks his foot telling him to shut up.
Later that evening they would sit down by Harry’s pool and they both would confess that they miss each other at the same time before meeting each other halfway to kiss; and even later that night they both would end up in his bed with him memorizing the places she likes to be touched and her whispering his name over and over again just the way he likes it.
.
When he sees Allie at the church the next day for a meeting, she gives him a genuine smile and sits down next to him while threading their fingers together on his knee, and maybe – just maybe – everything is going to be normal again.
.
He notices she gets into fights with Cassandra a lot more often than before back in West Ham, but she never tells him that so he doesn’t say anything.
(She does squeeze his hand a little too tight when Cassandra announces the town’s new commitee and she’s not on the list, so he asks if they wanna skip their first shift and even though she declines, she smiles gratefully at him.)
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She’s the one who asks him to prom, pulling him to the side during their shift and before he could say yes, Kelly apparently had overheard and tells her Allie, please, you don’t even need to ask and he’ll show up outside of your door anyway.
He laughs, but he makes a note to whack his friend in the head next time they see each other.
.
He shows up to her house 10 minutes earlier than Allie had told him to because he’s excited, and when Gordie opens the door for him, she’s right there in the living room with the biggest smile on her face and she’s so so beautiful standing there with her pink dress he wants to kiss her right there on the spot.
(He doesn’t, but he whispers her that when they’re taking their mandatory pictures with Kelly and Becca and she gives him a peck on the lips just as the camera clicks. Harry makes a note to get that picture printed when prom is over.)
Allie and Cassandra gets into a little argument at the prom, and even though she tells him she’s fine, they both end up hanging out at his house with her in his sweatshirt and pants eating ice cream while they both watch a romantic comedy he had found in his mom’s room.
(He doesn’t concentrate on the movie because her arms are around his body and her head is on his shoulder and she just looks so happy and content that he spends more time kissing her hair and forehead than on the movie. It’s a poor excuse.)
.
Cassandra is dead when they both wake up in the morning, and he catches Allie before she hits the floor when she gets told the news.
He doesn’t really know Cassandra, not really, but he feels like even though they bicker all the time Cassandra is a huge part of his life through out the years and he feels a surge of anger going through him when he finds out.
Later on the day they would discover that it was a guy named Dewey who had shot her, not because anyone had told him to, but because he was jealous of her, and Harry thinks it’s so unfair that bad things happen to good people like Allie and Cassandra.
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The funeral is short but tearful and both of them are left upset and so exhausted by the end of the day that they spend the entire day in her bed talking in hushed whispers remembering the things Cassandra had done for them until they fall asleep. She thinks it’s not fair that her sister had lived and fought her sickness through out the years but died because of a fucking gunshot. He agrees with her.
“Do you remember when I first met you?” Harry just hums in reply. “I still remember when I told her that I made a friend and she gives me this weird smile but I realized when I got older that she probably just knows that we’ll stay and be a big part of each other’s lives,” she murmurs.
“You know, sometimes Cassandra is smart after all,” Harry says fondly, and Allie laughs for the first time in nights.
(The word if hangs around them, and he knows she’s thinking about what if she was there during the incident and she knows he’s thinking about what if he hadn’t ask Allie if she wants to skip prom, but they swallow those questions down and hold each other tightly as they drift off to sleep.)
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They hold a trial for Dewey not long after that, and when it was decided Dewey would be given a death sentence she cries to his chest and he just holds her in anger – angry at Dewey for making Allie lose her sister, angry at the commitee for making Allie do it.
(In the end, it was Allie who pulls the trigger and shoots Dewey, and he peppers kisses and reassuring whispers into her hair every night for the next couple of weeks because everytime she closes her eyes, she can still feel her fingers on the trigger as she pulled it.)
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Allie becomes leader, just as he had expected, and she’s doing such a great job but being leader is tough and there are days where Allie couldn’t seem to wake up from her bed and spends the day crying and even though he hates it - he hates seeing her so upset and forlorn - he lets her curl up to him during those mornings and he brings her her favorite tea every afternoon when he gets home from his shift and let her be the small spoon at nights just the way she likes to be hugged.
But there are also days where Allie would come home and look so happy and excited about her day at work that she would climb up to her bed he’s lying on and tells him in whispers about it, and he loves those days so much he’s okay with going through her worsts.
.
Things like food poisoning and a fucking coup lead by her own cousin happen, and it blows his mind because Allie seems to never catch a fucking break but she gets stronger every day and she holds her chin up and at the end of the year she wins the election fair and square and they even find land to farm.
(Allie keeps saying it’s a miracle they survived. Harry says it’s not when it’s all because of her in the first place.)
By the second year, Allie’s work is much easier and she’s truly being the best leader New Ham could have so they get more time hanging out in his sofa and learning how to cook and clean together and it’s all so domestic Harry couldn’t picture them any other way.
.
The word love now appears around them every time they’re together and suddenly they’re swapping love youson the phone and shy smiles every time they pull apart from their kiss become whispers of i love yous. Kelly and Becca both say they’re a cliché mess and Harry hates it.
(Except, not really.)
.
He’s 19 and a half when he realizes that even though they’re too young to get married, he wants to spend the rest of his life with the girl wearing his sweatshirt and is sleeping on his chest because she’s his home and god, he’s such a sap but he loves her so so much and the only person he wants to be with forever is her no matter where they end up in this world.
He’s 21 when she finally says yes.