Royalty

Trust Issues

hes-words

A/N: this is angsty (i think???) anyways, hope you enjoy it!

Requested: @dunkkirkk-ish

Feedback is always greatly appreciated :) x

2793 words.

Trust.

Funny word, don’t you think? The firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strengths of someone or something.

One would still think that after months of being in a relationship with a respected and loving other, trust would’ve been conquered by now.

Unfortunately, not for them. Not for Harry.

Harry’s been in a relationship with Y/N for 9 months and a half now and to say they had grown pretty close to each other was really something else.

He adored spending his time with her, going out for dinner, waking up to her sleepy figure every day he was home, going out for a walk, or even just sitting or lying in comfortable silence with her. He absolutely loved sleeping cuddled up to her body when she’d stay the night and wake up to delicate kisses on his nose, and being greeted with a big and happy smile once he opened his eyes.

He was wholeheartedly and undoubtedly smitten with Y/N. He tells himself everyday that he has never met anyone like her — and he’s so sure of it. Harry has never admired anyone more than he does her. He’s never felt such intense feeling of respect and sincerity. So why can’t he trust her? He knows that from his past experiences in relationships or with his “friends” in general, the word ‘trust’ was empty to its meaning, for the people he actually trusted and put faith in, broke every promise made and took back every word once given to him. Of course not all of them were like that, but they were just the right amount to make him change his point of view on certain aspects of life.

After so many years of mistrust and back-stabbing from those who were supposed to love him and be there for him through every step of the way, Harry has unintentionally grown suspicious and doubtful to every situation and person he met. He didn’t mean to but who could blame him? He had gotten hurt so many times, he felt as though he had to do something about it, and, (un)fortunately — he really doesn’t know — he had. He’s changed. No, not to the degree no one would recognize him anymore. No. But his brain and his heart chose to keep a safe distant from the people that came into his life, so if they were to hurt him, it wouldn’t hurt as bad. Or at least, that’s what he thought.

To Harry’s dismay, Y/N wasn’t oblivious to any of it. She was catching up onto how Harry would always shut her out when he was upset, or how there were times he’d spend days off the radar without telling her anything that’d explain his absence.

Although Harry’s a smart kid, and rationally speaking he knows Y/N is too kind for the world to purposely harm him or anyone else, he just can’t bring his heart around it. His brain knows he can trust her. After all, she’s been nothing but reliable, good and kind to him. She never gave him any reasons to doubt her. However, his heart had been broken and deceived one too many times. He couldn’t possibly force himself to trust somebody. That’s not how things work and he knows it.

Y/N was becoming aware that Harry did not, by any means, trust her. At all. And it hurt a whole damn lot to know that the person you trust most doesn’t trust you back.

And she really did. Trusting him was as easy as the blink of an eye for her. Harry has always been kind and considerate towards her feelings, always respecting them. He never invalidated any of her emotions. Y/N was so delicate and precious to his eyes, he feared breaking her trust with every fiber in his body. He was well aware of the importance trust has and he also knew how much it meant to give someone else your trust.

Although she adores him dearly, she absolutely and utterly hates how he never shares his true self with her. Not that she thinks he’s fake, not at all. She knows he’s one of the most genuine person to ever set foot on earth. Metaphorically speaking, to her, he’s a big, vast ocean, in which both of them are floating in the surface of the water, instead of diving in and submerging in his true colors and seeing all the beautiful and the not-so-beautiful things too. And the best part? She wants to get to know exactly who he is deep inside. Harry has always fascinated and intrigued her in such way that not even she can explain it. She wants to get to know exactly how his heart looks like and know who hurt him this bad he refused to let you see him; through him. But Harry neglects her of every sort of emotional contact that goes deeper than his liking towards her, any form of contact with anything that’s within his heart deep down, whether they’re his insecurities, fears or even his sadness. Hell, she knows he’s not perfect —nobody is— and not for a second that’s what she expects from him.

Truth be told, not even Harry himself liked those deep and dark parts of himself, so why should he let anyone see it? It just didn’t make any sense to him. specially when so many people in his past have took advantage of his vulnerability and most fragile parts.

Sure he prophecies words of adoration to her, embraces her in loving hugs, kisses her oh so tenderly, to all which both of them enjoy very much. But that’s pretty much it. As much as he wish he did, Harry doesn’t trust her. He can’t. He really wishes he could because he knows she’s it for him, but he just can’t. He doesn’t wanna be let down and hurt again due to giving people his trust way too easily. And at this point, it’s not even something he voluntarily does, it’s just his new reality. He doesn’t mean to shut her out but he does. On the other hand, he knows Y/N would never even dream of doing anything like that on purpose to him. Frustration doesn’t even begin to describe how he feels about this whole situation, so he rather simply avoid facing it at all.

Only if he knew beforehand that this was definitely not the way to deal with this.

Y/N has caught up on to the fact that Harry has been in one of ‘those days’ again. Sometimes he’d stay at his flat the whole time, or even leave, heading somewhere else and be radio silent for a while, until he returned home.

It’s safe to say she was never one up for confrontation. Those types of things scared her to the point she’d feel the need to throw up or even open a hole on the ground and hide in there forever. But she knew she couldn’t do that. At least not when the matter of the subject was Harry and all of his ‘shutting her out’ behavior. Y/N wanted things to change but how? Could she even do it? She’s well aware she can’t go around changing people and their demeanor, but that’s not what she wanted to do either. She just wants Harry to open up to her and let her in, just like she had let him.

Y/N also knew she couldn’t just shoot questions at him either, since they’d only make him more anxious and possibly more closed off, if that was even possible. So she chose the best way—her best way, at least. She’d try to do it slowly and on his pace too, trying to coax small bits and bits out of him every chance she got, with the intention of showing him he could, in fact, trust her.

She didn’t want him to feel pressured or uncomfortable. But, she wonders what went wrong.

Y/N had driven to his house a couple hours ago and got herself in with the spare key Harry gave her a couple months ago.

Thinking about it now, she thinks it’s funny how he trusts her with his home, but not with her with her home — his heart. She’d rather Harry trust her with something as big and important as his feelings and emotions than with his spare key. Of course she’s also thankful for the key. She likes how it makes her feel closer to him; however, just not as close as she wished to be.

After what felt like hours, she finally heard his car being pulled up to the driveway and immediately paused the episode of The 100 she was currently watching.

Harry entered his house as quiet as ever, looking down and with slumped shoulders. Y/N’s heart immediately squeezed at the sight before her: her sweet love was upset, sad or even hurt and she couldn’t do a single thing about it.

She let out a “hi, H,” followed by quick strides in order to reach him. Once she was just a few inches away from him, Y/N embraces him in a tight hug and, to which he gladly complied to. He might not trust her with his feelings yet, but knowing she was there for him made him feel a whole lot better; even if she couldn’t see it. Her company, overall, was just very pleasing to him.

Harry often finds himself distracted from his own feelings whenever she was around. It’s not like it was her fault, just as it wasn’t his either. He thinks that’s the mechanism his brain has created so he doesn’t have to deal with his painful reality when times get hard for him. He knows that’s not the healthiest option nor that’s what he should and must do. Harry knows he should at least try to bring himself out of his distracted state and face his real feelings, his real demons. The only way he’ll get through this is by coming face to face with them—all of them. One can only run from their own selves for so long. He’s been bottling up his feelings all to himself, and only he knows how bad that is for him. Harry thinks that the perfect metaphor to explain himself is a balloon, in which each blow of air symbolized one of his darkest feelings he did not want to face. They’d keep filling the balloon until it exploded. And trust me, it got bad, really bad when he exploded like that.

“So, how was your day, handsome?”, Y/N asked sweetly, hoping he’d give her more of an answer then a simple “good” or “the usual”. Of course that’s exactly what she got. Usually, she would’ve stopped right there, but not today. Not when she knows fully and damn well he’s hurting and all she wants to do is help him and show him he can trust her with every fiber of his body. So she pressed, hesitantly, “H,” she waited for his attention to fully turn to her. “Can we talk?”

“Sure, love. What about?”, he asked sweetly.

“Um… It’s just- I’ve just been thinking that- um… well-“, she let out a nervous chuckle. She really did not know how to phrase it to him. “You don’t seem fine these past few days, and I just really wanted to help you, but I don’t really know how I’d do that…”, Y/N’s hands were sweaty and her arms were laying limply down her sides. “So I was wondering, maybe we could talk about whatever has been on your mind?? You’ve been quite upset lately, I can tell”.

Harry immediately tensed at her words. She wanted to talk to him. About his feelings. Nope. No. That just couldn’t be happening. Not now, not when he was doing a pretty good job at avoiding it.

“Love,” he started with a deep sigh, “there’s nothing to talk about. Promise”, he finished, hoping this conversation would drop there. And it surprisingly did. She didn’t push it any farther. Instead, Y/N took his hand with a slight nod of her head and lead Harry to their bedroom together, so they could call it a night.

She didn’t want to drop it but she was afraid of how he’d react if she pushed it. She wanted to give him time but she couldn’t bare to see him upset like that. She just couldn’t.

Harry was still upset and Y/N insisted on asking him every night if he wanted to talk to her, as well as wondering if he was okay, in hopes that he’d eventually say yes to her. At first, he was very appreciative and kind with her effort. He said thank you, soon following with a tight hug, showing her how much he treasured her endeavor. But as it became more frequent, he was getting quite annoyed, to say the least.

Why couldn’t she just stop asking him all of that? It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, so why did she press on it? Why couldn’t she pretend he wasn’t upset just like he did? Harry wanted to appreciate her efforts again, but in all honesty, he was sick of it; sick of saying he was fine when he clearly wasn’t, sick of shutting her out. He wanted his feelings to be left alone, although he didn’t want to be alone.

Since the day she first asked him, whenever he came home to his place or hers, she’d always repeat those words and he really didn’t mean to but he was getting quite angry about it. He even began to act a bit colder and more distant from her, but not to the point it was that obvious.

It was just a day like any other, except he was upset again. Y/N’s heart slightly crushed again at the fact he might’ve been hurt or harmed and there was nothing she could do. It was a feeling that was growing quite frequent to her, but she didn’t want to get used to it. She really wanted to be there for him, but it almost felt like he didn’t want her there. She tried to ignore those thoughts, for they’d only bring her down and perhaps make her stop her efforts.

Y/N felt such tenderness and endearment for Harry. She really did. She just wanted to see him happy, smiling that big, gorgeous smile of his and she knew that wasn’t really their reality at the moment.

By this point, Y/N really didn’t know if she was doing it the right way. Was she pressuring him? Did she make him feel like she was trying to force it out of him? She really hoped the answer to both of these were no. But she couldn’t know; she was desperate by now. Desperate to help him; to have his trust.

“Hi, Harry,” she greeted him with a smile once he entered her small apartment. “How was your day?”, she asked him placing a kiss on his lips.

“Okay, I guess,” he dryly replied with a shrug and walked past her, heading for the kitchen.

“So,” she starts, trying to ignore the bitter tone to his words. “You sure you’re okay?”, she asked, leaning her body against the door frame, intently watching Harry gulp down a glass of water.

Harry put his cup down and shot her a glare, “I said I’m okay”, he answered harshly, not giving her a second look as he left the kitchen and sat on the couch.

Tonight was Friday, meaning that it was their movie night. Usually, they’d watch movies all cuddled up to each other, eating take out for dinner and just enjoying each other’s company. Not today though. He sat on the far end of the couch and when she came to sit next to him, he immediately lied down, stretching out his body, so that the space she once thought of occupying was now unavailable. She sighed at his behavior and sat as close to him as possible, right where his feet met her thighs, only to have him shrunk a little, enough to make his touch leave her skin.

And like that they stayed until half-way through the movie. At this point, the movie playing on the screen was long forgotten as she couldn’t stop thinking about how he was acting and this whole ‘trust’ situation. Before she could stop herself, Y/N felt the urge to ask him again, hoping he’d open up. Again. After all, hope is the last to die, right?

thanks for reading it! let me know if anyone wants a part 2 to this x

Part 2

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