Harry glanced at the clock again on the night stand. He had come up to bed awhile ago. His mum and Gemma had left and gone back to his mum's house which was only a short drive, and he figured he'd give Julie some time with her friends. Gregory had gone to bed before he had, so he figured he'd leave Julie with Jaime and Marcus for awhile. Let her enjoy some time with her friends alone. It was now almost 2 am though, and he was wondering how much longer she'd be. He was hoping they could talk before they went to sleep. Niall, Amanda, and Julie's parents were flying into Manchester early tomorrow afternoon, well, this afternoon now that it was 2 am, and he wanted things to be clear between them by the time everyone arrived. Since Niall and Amanda were set to land only 45 minutes prior to Julie's parents, they were going to drive to the house together so Harry didn't have to go pick them up. But still he wanted this holiday to go well, and people would notice the tension between them right now. He was just contemplating going and seeing if she would come talk to him when he heard the door open. "Hey, you guys must've had a lot to talk about."

"Yeah, sorry, lost track of time I guess." Julie apologized walking over to the dresser to grab something to sleep in.

"No need to apologize. I brought them here so you could spend time with them." Harry closed his journal and set it aside.

"Right, of course you did." Julie paused for a second and then turned to go towards the bathroom to change.

"Julie, we need to talk." Harry watched her walk towards the bathroom. She never went to the bathroom just to change anymore. There really was no need to. Things were definitely wrong, and they needed to fix them.

"I know. But I don't think now is the time." Julie stopped and turned to look at him. "After everyone leaves, I guess."

"So, we're just going to pretend everything's ok until everyone leaves? Julie, everyone can tell things aren't ok." Harry looked at her. "Please."

"Things are, just, difficult. But I'm not sure 2 am the day my parents are arriving for Thanksgiving is the best time to get into everything." She shook her head. "You knew things were off before you invited everyone here, Harry. If you thought they needed to be dealt with before the holiday, maybe you should have thought of that first, before you changed plans all on your own." She shrugged her shoulders and went into the bathroom.

Harry sighed and went and looked out of the big picture window over the lake. He thought bringing her friends here would relax her a little more, make things less tense, show her things weren't changing completely, but things seemed more tense than they were before. Even after her talk with Marcus at the lake. Harry chuckled sarcastically to himself. Marcus probably had used that time to try and turn his wife against him. He ran his hands through his hair and pulled on the ends a little. When he heard the bathroom door open, he turned and looked at Julie as she walked out. "I thought having your friends here would make you relax a little. Help calm your worries."

Julie looked up from putting her clothes in the laundry. "Did you ask? Did you ask if I wanted to have everyone here? Did you ask if I'd like to have Thanksgiving dinner here at the house? Did you ask if I wanted to have a huge Thanksgiving dinner at all?"

Harry turned fully towards Julie and crossed his arms over his chest. "You love Thanksgiving. The meal, the friends, and family. The tradition."

Julie shook her head. "I do. But did you ask? Ever? The first Thanksgiving we were together? Or the next we were together, when you put your mom up to asking me to help her make the meal." She raised her eyebrows when Harry just looked at her. "Yeah, I know you asked her to. Or this one? Have you ever asked?" When Harry didn't say anything, Julie just took a deep breath. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She walked over to her side of the bed and pulled down the covers. "I just want to go to bed."

"I just wanted to make you happy. To make Thanksgiving memorable." Harry said walking over towards the bed.

"Yeah. It's always been that." Julie said as she sat down on the bed and adjusted her pillows so she could lie comfortably. "I really just want to go to bed." She repeated.

"Talk to me. Please, for fucks sake." Harry walked around the bed and sat next to her. "What is wrong? You say you're not mad at me, but I sure feel you are. Why all of a sudden do you hate Thanksgiving and spending time with friends and family?"

"I don't hate it. It's my favorite meal of the year. I'm grateful for friends and family. But have you listened to anything that I just said or asked?" Julie looked over at him. "You invited my family without me knowing the first time we were together, and look how that went, because you didn't bother to ask if it would be a good idea. You never ask. You just do, because you always think you know what's best. But you never listen to me. Or hear me. Or let me decide what's best."

Julie closed her eyes, clenched her jaw and ran her hand into her hair squeezing it tightly. She didn't want to get into all of this right now. "I don't want to do this now. We have a lot we need to talk about. But I still don't think now is the best time for this."

"I think now is the perfect time, because obviously things have been bothering you, and you've been hiding them. Apparently for a long time." Harry looked at her. "Can't quite figure out why I'm getting hell for wanting what's best for you, and trying to make sure you get it. I brought Jaime and Marcus here to show you that you don't have to make a decision on where to live only because of them. They can come visit whenever you want."

Julie shook her head. "And there in lies the biggest problem. You don't see anything wrong with that? Not even a little bit?"

"What? Why would I? There are more important reasons to make decisions. Your friends will still be your friends no matter where we live." Harry stated getting a little bit frustrated.

"Haven't you already made all the decisions? This was just to show me that you've already made up our minds and you've fixed my problem, so now I don't have to worry about it anymore, right?" Julie asked getting up from the bed. "Don't you get tired? Ever? From plotting and planning my life for me?"

"What the hell does that even mean?" Harry asked standing up. "Plotting and planning your life? I'm just trying to make things easier. If you love it here, then yeah, their being able to travel here to see you should be a relatively easy solution."

"I never asked you for a solution. I never asked you to fix anything. Or me. I don't want or need to be fixed. I don't want or need you to decide every detail of my life for me either. I don't want to move here permanently, Harry. I don't want to have Grace here. I want to have her in the States. I'm not asking you to find a solution to that. It's not a problem. It's what I want." Julie tried to take a deep breath to calm herself down. She didn't want to get upset. She didn't want to cry or get angry, but she had a feeling he wasn't going to hear her now either. "You don't hear me. You hear a problem, and you immediately go to fix it. I don't want you to."

"I wasn't trying to fix a problem, or make a decision. I was trying to show you that you had the option if you wanted it. You were concerned you wouldn't have the important people in your life around if you had Grace here and stayed here more often. I was just showing you that wasn't the case, and that it was an option." Harry explained. "I wasn't forcing anything on you."

"You don't even notice you do it. And I just go along with it before I even realize it's done." Julie said quietly. "I've been controlled before Harry. I don't want to be controlled again. I want to know when I get equal say in our relationship. When do I get to make a decision for myself?"

"Controlled? You think I'm controlling you?" Harry was angry now. This was getting out of hand. Where was she coming up with this bullshit? Fucking Marcus. It had to be. "What has Marcus been putting in your head? Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have been so open to your friendship with him."

"You can't blame Marcus for this." Julie bit her tongue literally to stop herself from saying more. She counted to 10 silently to calm down before she spoke, so she didn't say something she would regret. "Marcus actually LISTENED to me when I spoke. Something my husband apparently has a hard time doing. And he actually encouraged me to talk to you. Says you deserve a chance to hear me out. Seems he has more faith in the fact you'd actually hear me than I do."

"Yeah, I'm having a hard time believing that." Harry sputtered. "Everything I do, I do with you in mind. I want you to get what you want. I want what's best for you. What makes you happy. I love you, for fucks sake. More than anything. I'm not trying to control you. I'm not Johnny. I think we've been through this a dozen times or more."

"I'm not saying you are." Julie sighed. "I just want you to listen to me. I just want to be an equal part of this marriage, and I'm not. Not in any way. You make all the decisions. You make everything happen. You don't even ask me before you make the decisions that affect our lives the most."

"What the hell is happening?" Harry asked maybe a little bit aggressively. "I don't even fucking know what is happening right now."

"I'm trying to tell my husband I feel worthless in our marriage, and just like always, he refuses to listen to me." Julie shook her head. "I'm gonna sleep on the sunporch. I told you I didn't want to do this now. And instead of listening, you're just getting angry and defensive."

"You're not sleeping on the sunporch. You are going to explain to me what the hell is happening. I need to know what's going on." Harry reached out and grabbed her forearm and then looked down at her. He released her arm and took a small step back. "I'm sorry, I'm frustrated." He shouldn't have spoken to her like that. Told her what she couldn't do when she just got done telling him she felt he made all her decisions for her. "Please, just, talk to me."

Julie took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, ok, I'm sorry, too. But can you please, just try and listen without trying to change the way I'm feeling, or fixing the problem?"

"Yeah, ok, I'll do my best." Harry replied, forcing himself to calm down sitting on the end of the bed as she sat in the chair by her vanity.

"Harry, I can't do this, if you're not going to take this seriously. If you're not going to hear me out and try and understand how I'm feeling." Julie rubbed over her stomach. "This isn't some hormone-filled rampage because I'm pregnant. I'm trying really hard to control that. I don't want to fight, and I don't want to have the tension. I just really need you to hear me right now."

Harry watched Julie closely. This was a side of her he hadn't ever seen. Not really anyway. Maybe in small doses. She had a temper. She didn't lose control of it often, but when she did lose control of that temper, no one was safe. He could tell she was fighting that control now, but she was winning. "Ok, I'm listening. Just, tell me what this is about."

"I've been TRYING." Julie took another deep breath. She honestly wasn't sure how to do this without making it seem like she was angry, or ungrateful, which is why she'd never brought it up in the past, but it just kept happening, over and over. And at first she didn't even notice. "Harry, I love you, more than anything and I know that you love me. You have been my sanity for the past 4 years. Even when we weren't together. You've been with me through every high and every low, and I don't know what I would have done without you. You've been my rock, my strength, my biggest supporter."

Julie took a deep breath as she ran her hands through her hair and sat up on the edge of the chair. "But you take over, everything. Try and fix everything without giving me a say in it. Even when it directly involves me. Even when it only involves me. From that first NDA with Johnny, to now with trying to get me to move here by manipulating when my friends and family come."

Harry sat back and listened to what she was saying. He tried to really listen. He almost interrupted her a couple of times, but tried to remember what she had said and how she wanted him to hear her. "I wanted to protect you from Johnny. I wanted him to stay away from you. You left and moved across country to get away from him, and I wanted to help make it easier on you. I already told you that. And I'm not trying to manipulate you now, I promise. I'm just trying to give you options."

Julie shook her head and swallowed the lump in her throat. She knew he wouldn't understand. That he wouldn't truly get what it felt like. "You always do it, Harry. You always try and fix everything, or make everything happen. It's always a surprise or for my own good or because I would never do it on my own. But I never have a say. Ever."

"That's not true." Harry stared at her, shocked. "How could you say that?"

"Harry, from the beginning I never had a choice about when things happened. I didn't know I was meeting your family until I was already boarding a plane to London. I didn't know my family was coming to Thanksgiving dinner until they showed up at my door. To more recently, I didn't agree to move in with you, so you built a house to please me to push me towards that decision. And even our marriage. You planned a whole wedding, and didn't even ask me until a couple of hours before, because you were afraid I'd say no. So you planned it with friends and family before I knew anything about it."

Julie started to cry. "And the house is perfect and the wedding was perfect and beautiful, and both are exactly aesthetically how I would have wanted, but I had no say. In two of the biggest decisions of my life, I had no say. It was all done for me. Every little detail was planned, every decision made, and controlled. And now, this. Now, you're trying to do this for me because YOU believe it's what I want. Because YOU believe it's what's best, but you aren't even listening to me when I tell you that it's NOT what I want."

Julie stood up from the chair when she started to feel uncomfortable. When she got upset, it caused Grace to be a bit more active. Grace was definitely in tune with Julie's emotions. "I already feel so insignificant in this marriage. You have all of the money, you pay all of the bills. I barely bring in enough money to say I even contribute. And now, I'm not even sure you respect me, or hell, I don't even know if you like me. Because you never even ask my opinion or what I want, or my help in any decision in our lives."

"Wait. Stop. Please." Harry stood up. He walked over to Julie and put his hands on her shoulders. "Julie, you can't believe that. Baby, you can't truly believe that." He had a hard time controlling his emotions right now. His chest felt heavy, his heart hurt, his head was spinning with all of this information. The house and moving in with him, the wedding, everything else. Did she really think that he did all that just to get what he wanted? Did he? He knew that the best way to get her to do something was not to let her think too hard and too long about it. So, was everything he did a manipulation? A means to an end? A way to get what he wanted without having to wait or fight her?

"God, baby." Harry moved a hand up into the hair on the back of her head, sighing heavily. The tears filling his eyes were evident in his voice. "I didn't mean, I never wanted you to feel like this." He couldn't quite grasp this. He never meant for her to feel this way. He never wanted her to feel insignificant. In fact, he wanted her to feel the opposite, but the more he thought about what she just said, the more he saw her point. As much as he said he did everything for her, was it just an excuse? He wanted her to agree to move in, so he thought giving her a house she would love, in a quiet place she would love would help guide her to that decision. And he wanted her to agree to marry him, and he was afraid she wouldn't be ready, or she'd think he'd only asked because of the baby, so he wanted her to know he was serious. He had planned it all out, showing her he knew what she'd want, to get her to say yes.

Julie closed her eyes as Harry gently pulled her into his chest. "I know, Harry. I know you're not purposely trying to disregard me. I know you think you're doing what's best at the time, but sometimes, it's not. Or sometimes, it'd be nice to have a say in decisions that affect me, or us, or our family. Like I'm actually a part of it."

"You really feel like you have no say? Like I don't care about what you think? Or how you feel?" Harry asked her. God, that hurt him. How could she think he didn't care about her feelings? How could she think that he would cast her aside like that? "Julie, why wouldn't you say something before now?"

"I don't know. I just, I never thought you were doing it out of a bad place. I believe you do it because you think it's right, and you believe it's good for me, or us. I know you're just trying to make life easier." She pulled back and looked up at him. "But it's too much now, Harry. It's all of the time. It's like I don't even have to have a mind of my own. I just walk around minding everything you say. I don't need you to fix everything. I don't need you to fix me. I just need you to give me the opportunity to be your wife. Your equal. Let me have a chance. I'm broken, we know that, we've always known that, but I'm not helpless."

Harry pulled Julie back to his chest and rubbed over her back gently. He was angry. But he wasn't sure it was at her. Maybe it was at himself for not realizing what he was doing. Well, he knew what he was doing. He knew building this house would give him a hand up in getting her to agree to move in with him. He knew having everyone there and it being in Tahoe, and having a plan and doing things quickly would help him get her to agree to marry him, but he'd told himself it was because he knew her and that they loved each other, so it should be that way. But deep down, he realized he should have thought more about her feelings. Tried to see all that he was doing from her perspective. He would never want someone to make all his decisions for him, but that's exactly what he was doing to her. "I'm sorry. I should have realized. You should have said something sooner."

Julie but the inside of her cheeks. Was he blaming her now? For not saying something sooner? For things getting this far? For them having this time of tension and uncertainty? Why not? Wasn't that just how it went? She tried to gather her emotions and stepped back from Harry's arms. "Yeah, sorry, my fault. I should have realized it sooner." She walked towards the bed. "Can I just go to bed now? Or is that asking too much?"

"That's not what I meant." Harry watched Julie go to the bed. "That is so not what I meant. You know that, too."

"Yeah, guess it's just bitchy pregnancy hormones. Just get what you get with those, I guess." Julie climbed into the bed and lie down on her side.

"Julie, I listened, and I understand. We did rather well with this discussion. Why are you getting all snarky and nasty right now?" Harry asked. She was putting up that sarcastic wall. The 'I will just take the blame, and pass it off' to end the discussion.

"Because you think I just hid all this for 4 years. I didn't. It just keeps happening. It builds and builds, and finally you realize it's a pattern. A pattern that isn't going to stop." Julie pulled the covers over herself. "Apparently, I should just keep things to myself, just like I told Marcus, because it always is made to be my fault, no matter what. It's my fault I didn't say anything sooner. I didn't blame you. I was only asking you to stop and think before you took over and made life changing decisions without me. But somehow it became my fault because I didn't ask you to stop sooner."

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "That's not what I meant." He stood and looked down at her lying in bed. "I haven't meant anything like you're taking it, then or now."

"Have you listened to anything that I've said?" Julie asked sighing. "I'm asking you to think about it. I'm asking you to include me in the decisions instead of making them for me. I'm asking you to treat me like your equal, like your partner, and like your wife, and not like a business decision. And if that's too much to ask, then maybe we should have thought a lot more about some other things before they happened too."

"Don't threaten me like that. This isn't some fucking game. We're married now, whether you like it or not, you said yes. No matter how I did it, you still said yes. I didn't hold a gun to your head. You're plenty capable of saying no. You said it to Johnny knowing he'd beat the shit out of you. Pretty sure you knew I wouldn't do that if you said no to me." Harry lost his cool. Her idle threat to their marriage pushed him over the edge. They'd had a pretty mellow discussion until the end, but now he was fuming. He hated when she alluded to him being like Johnny. It was a trigger that could always make him lose it.

Julie got up out of bed and grabbed her phone and her pregnancy pillow. She swiped at her face because the tears were flowing down her face, and she hated it because she was crying now out of anger and frustration and those were the worst kind of tears. "Saying no to you, I could have lost a hell of a lot more. Like the man I was totally and completely in love with. Bruises heal pretty quick. I've lived with a broken heart and without the man I loved. That never heals. You like to make sure I know you're nothing like Johnny, but you sure like to throw his beatings in my face every time you try to make a point, don't you? I'm not quite sure what's worse. Suck it up, Harry. You know you've done exactly as I've said. Out of love or protection, it doesn't matter. Either you're able to move past it and start giving me equal opportunity, or you can fuck off."

"Why are we doing this?" Harry asked quietly. He watched Julie walk towards the doorway and then stop at his question. "Why are we now fighting and hurting each other on purpose? Saying things to try and hurt each other when we were doing so well working it out a few minutes ago?"

Julie closed her eyes and shook her head clutching the pillow and her phone, her back still towards Harry, hand reaching for the door knob. "I don't know." She dropped her hand. "I love you, Harry. I just need things to be different, and I was hoping you could understand that."

"Come back to bed, please." Harry walked up behind her and gently took the pillow from her. He took her elbow and led her back to the bed. "I promise to control the asshole. I love you, baby. There is no doubt I will make more of an effort to include you in decisions that have to do with us or our family. I've been so afraid to overwhelm you from the moment I found out about your past, that I guess I did just take over, and then I never stopped. I'll work on it. I promise." He helped her sit on the bed and sat next to her. "For now, can you forgive me for the asshole that just came out, and let us work on the rest together going forward?"

Julie nodded. "Yeah, I think I can do that." She forced a small smile when he gently kissed her lips. "Guess I'm getting used to the asshole that appears every now and then."

Harry gave a brief chuckle. "Well, don't get to used to him. I hope he retires more permanently." He helped her lie down and placed her pillow next to her. He turned out the light and crawled in bed facing her. Things were still tense. He could still feel it in the air between them. But maybe, now that everything was in the open, they could move past it. He just had to make sure he could find the balance. Not over compensate by not making any decision without her, but by making sure to include her in all those that had anything to do with her or them as a family especially. He let out a sigh of relief when she reached over her pillow and covered his hand with hers. They were still learning. Maybe they could figure this shit out yet. Maybe. At least they had the love part down. That was as good a start as any.

Ah the trials and tribulations of early marriage....
Thanks for all your love!!! 😘😘😘