Chapter 14.

I'll Be Fine by Palace

I woke to soft music playing. And I was in a bed, which caught me off guard. I was too out of it to get up and care. Instead I shuffled around to face the other direction.

Of course, there he was, still sleeping but staying to his side of the bed. He held onto his pillow sideways when he slept, so that his arms were wrapped around it and his head rested at the top. I giggled to myself.

He shuffled to face me too, but I don't believe he did so consciously. His eyelids still fluttered slightly whilst closed.

I was too sleepy to think of the words that would do justice, but he was beautiful. I closed my eyes again, taking a couple deep breaths. There was a balcony, one much bigger than mine, opposite us in the room. Outside it miles and miles of land, met by pretty mountains that were the exact same color as the sky above them, only a darker hue.

He must have left the curtains open of purpose, the sun was shining directly through, leaving patterns and shapes on the walls around us. I wouldn't ever think otherwise. He wanted to see the sky, of course he did. Sweet boy.

"Good morning." He groaned with a cheeky smile, catching me off guard as I was observing. I chuckled, breathing heavily, "Goodmorning, Harry." He wiped his eyes, attempting to get out of bed but it resulted only in his plopping back down next to me.

He positioned himself to face me directly, carefully finding my fingertips and placing his own on them. "Was it you that brought me here?" I asked as he brushed his fingers against mine. "It was, I hope that's alright. I tried to give you space--" I smiled at his thoughts, they were so careful and intricate, like everything that he did had a purpose.

There would always be a time where I was skeptical, of relationships and committing to a person, despite the fact that I found commitment to be one of the most beautiful things a human is capable of. But there would never come a time where I would forget one such as this. A time like this where I felt like the present was worth any undesirable outcome.

How wondrous time is to have such a great effect on people. One like myself, one with fears of the same souls I desire to reach, can only hope to have even the slightest bit of that impact. And as I sit in agony, time is working away with its blessings and its curses on people who wish for more as they wish it away.

"What are you thinking about?" He nudged, pulling the covers up to his eyes like a child. I blushed watching his messy curls fall down around his eyes, brushing up against his lashes. He pushed them out of the way once again. I smiled as an answer.

"You can tell me, Darby." He said, yawning. His eyes were puffy, we had gone to sleep only a couple of hours before.

"I know I can." I poked at him, my eyes crinkled up in the corners. He looked at me, holding awe in his expression.

"What I'm thinking is that we should get out of bed." I said as I watched him making a skeptical face.

"What I'm thinking is that we should not do that."

"Sarah and Mitch?" I asked, wondering if they'd care. "They won't care." He mustered, yawning yet again. We laid flat on our backs looking up at the ceiling. Occasionally I'd meet his eyes looking sideways. Occasionally I'd find myself smiling at the ceiling. And occasionally I'd move closer to him. It felt familiar. Like we were in the rose garden again, looking at the stars. A testament of how far we had come.

In his arms once more and here I am with my thoughts again. And my thoughts weren't as dreadful a place to be as before.

...

"Hi mum." I smiled though it was over the phone. I stepped out onto Harry's balcony, he began putting a shirt on while I called my mum. I wanted to start calling her daily. It was a little difficult at first because I had to deal with setting up plans and wifi and such.

"Hey, Darbs, how are you?"

"I'm really good, mum." I gushed. I think she very well read my tone of voice. "How is your search for destined inspiration going?" I laughed at the apparent irony in her question, running a hand along the stone balcony rail.

"Better than I think I could have imagined."

"Impressive considering the fact that that is what your brain is so wonderfully good at." Yet another massive compliment I hardly felt deserving of. I giggled before taking a deep breath.

"How is Harry?" She asked me.

"Yeah, uh... yeah I definitely like him." I blurted. Turning around, I peeked into the wide glass doors to find him cheesing at me from behind the closet door.

I heard her little giggles from the other side of the phone. It was then that she knew, but I was not yet there. "You're there right now?" She asked and I replied with a 'mhm' sound. I paused a second. Took a couple of breaths.

Atlas Hands by Benjamin Francis Leftwich

"Mum, he's so kind to me." I felt a sting at the back of my eyes, the sentence hitting me a little too hard.

It sent a wave through my nose and a lump in my throat. I'd never been treated like that before, not as if I were important. Worth something. No one but my mother and Anna, of course. Josh, he'd— he'd treat me like— like a child more than most of the time, and...like I was some sort of object that could be possessed. It wasn't anywhere near healthy. And I was too young to have any idea.

She knows everything about me. I told her everything about him, of course, the silly boy whose name tasted rotten rolling off my tongue. But not until it no longer pained me to. That was just one of my mistakes, not telling her until after it was over. She knew that he was yet another thing that hurt me, and that it was that broken heart that created me. She was too wise, she knew too much pain and knew how to bear other's too well. "You deserve it, Darby. Every bit and you know it."

I heard the door creak open with the footsteps following behind it. Before I could turn to face him he rested his head on my shoulder from behind, the shoulder opposite the ear I held my phone to. I lifted a hand up to his cheek as I watched the horizon as far as it could go, stroking his hair softly.

"I know I deserve it, Mum." I smiled.

...

"Love you, Mum. Have fun at the market later," I started to say my goodbyes. "Oh wait, Darbs?" Her voice did not shake one bit, which is why I knew she switched on her be-strong-for-darby mode. "Yes?"

Harry stood up and wandered a couple steps away to leave me some space.

"Tomorrow starts July, and I know that's difficult with- uh, it coming up- especially with you away again. I just- I just want you to keep calling me, okay? Everyday. Even that day, alright sweetie?"

"Oh-, yeah of course. Sure mum. I'm so sorry I can't be there." I remembered how she normally handled it. Coming to cuddle me in bed or constantly doing things around the house to keep her mind off of it. I didn't want to worry, she was getting so much better at it the past couple years. It'd been so dang long, but she was recovering now that she allowed herself to. I hoped me being away wouldn't set her back again.

"What are you thinking for breakfast?" He asked me after I hung up. "Harry I want to tell you something. Not right now but I do want to tell you, okay? It's not anything you need to worry about so don't let it worry you please just-" I paused to regain my breath. "I just need to."

"Hey," he brushed my hair out of my face, seeing that I had begun to slip into my state of mind that was the opposite of everything I'd just felt only a couple of minutes ago. "Don't force yourself into it, okay? But also don't be afraid to talk to me. I'm here for you, you know that right?" I nodded my head. "Don't ever be nervous about that, I want you to be comfortable." He grabbed my pinky with his own, oddly enough, and he held onto it. It made me laugh a little bit.

"I'm not nervous about that, and there is no way to progress without feeling uncomfortable." I looked down at our pinkies.

"Doesn't comfort signify that a person is— the right choice? Feeling stability and... safety?"

"I think it does, yes. You always have to grow as a person before coming to love someone like that."

"It's a fine line."

"Between the lines of different loves, yes. Self love and all else."

"So you do know what love is then, don't you?" His eyebrows furrowed with suspicion, a little crease forming in between his eyebrows that I realized I adored. Letting go of his hands, I walked towards the door. I turned back to catch his glance again, pulling my hair behind my ear. "I'm a writer, Harry. Of course I do." I grinned.

I hadn't been sure before but I felt like I had a well-educated guess now. And of course writers knew love. For most it is a feeling of swelling warmth. For the artists, it is a sculpture. For the musicians, it is lyrics. For the writers, if they are lucky enough, it is a poem.

...

Vampire by Sean Nicholas Savage

"Oh, forgot to mention," Harry started, throwing strawberries into his mouth as he passed through the kitchen. "Anna invited us over for dinner."

I raised my eyebrows, "And she came to you with this invitation instead of me?" I giggled, spreading cream cheese on two bagels, one for me and one for him. I caught a glimpse out the glass doors that connected the kitchen to the backyard, it was starting to get a little cloudy outside.

"I think we know who the favorite is." He joked, pulling out a chair for me. I sat down and pushed one of the plates with a toasted bagel over towards Harry's seat. By the time he had sat down next to me, he'd already eaten all of the strawberries that were meant to go on it. "I don't know where they went?" He tried to plead innocent.

I got up to put my plate away as he said that. I stopped behind him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, "I think I know." I laughed, tapping my fingers across his tummy as he tried to grab me before I easily slipped out of his hold. Butterflies fueling the giggles that kept escaping my lips, I nearly slipped and fell on the kitchen floor. My socks were light blue to match my previous outfit and had absolutely no grip.

"Passion is a painful thing, my friend." I sang sweetly under my breath to the song Harry had playing over a little bluetooth speaker that resided in the kitchen. I started to wash a couple dishes sitting in the sink.

"Passion is everything in the end." Harry sang back to me, his voice ringing soft and low. He took a couple dishes from my hands and dried them with a tiny rag he picked up off the sink's edge.

He picked up my soappy hand to examine it, "Your nails are pretty. You should paint them." He furrowed his eyebrows, but smiled with his lips pursed together.

"I would but I always just chip it off when I get anxious." I shook it off. I glanced over, "Yours aren't even painted right now, Harry, what a hypocrite." I smiled, turning away as he kept his eyes fixed on me.

"Perfect we can both paint them at the same time then." "...Deal." I said shaking my head. I could try to hide my grin all I wanted but I'd never succeed. I watched Harry dry his hands. He had no rings on, his fingers looked so bare.

...

"We're here, Anna!"

We spent the day being lazy at Harry's, watching dumb movies and making fun of them. I did show him The Boy Downstairs, though. He loved it, the realism and unfiltered emotion. I expressed my love for Zosia Mamet, and he expressed his love for rom coms, it was a win-win. The film is such a pretty one, visually as well. It's soft and gracefully chaotic in an awkwardly comforting way.

Harry painted my nails and his own, I was horrible at it. Mine were a dull yellow-green color that I had my heart set on. His were a mix of like seven different colors, I wanted to try out as many as I could. Which is also why the majority of his nails looked a mess and the other were flawless. He wouldn't take it off to fix it though, he said it was art.

"La cena é out here!" Anna called from her back patio. We followed her voice, "There's pollo e prosciutto, then some spaghetti on the stovetop that you can put that on." Her voice had a hint of italian in it, a remainder of her youth. She grew up in Amalfi, her mom from America, actually. Her parent's story is I think my favorite of all time. She then moved to London when she was an adult. And she lived there up until I was 19. I went to university and promised her I'd follow her back to Italy once I was finished. I finished an English degree that I absolutely hated, I worked in a couple of restaurants trying to find the money to live here. It was a long journey but it felt like nothing now that I was actually doing something with my life. And I felt my strict bounds loosening from right under me as I watched Anna and Harry there on the balcony.

...

Storms by Fleetwood Mac

Anna left us alone in her living room, I wasn't completely sure why but when Harry asked to help clean up dinner she refused. I sat on the ground flipping through Anna's collection of vinyls that were packed in a small cabinet. The record player itself sat on her floor, I pulled out a couple different albums and asked H of his opinions.

"We have Ladies of the Canyon, Parallel Lines, Tusk, Light Up the Night, and Station to Station. Oh and here's Let it Bleed." I reach behind me, picking up the Rolling Stones album. "God, your grandma has good taste." Harry exclaimed. I smiled. "You must get it from her."

Harry moved down from the couch to sit next to me on the floor. He hummed a tiny melody and then raised his eyebrows. "Tusk."

I carefully moved the needle over the second song on side B. "This... is my favorite Fleetwood Mac song."

"Thought it was Sara?" He tilted his head in confusion, smiling nonetheless. "I changed my mind." I said, furrowing my brow as well. He stood to reach out a hand to me and I took it.

"Every night that goes between..." Harry hummed, he pulled me close to him to dance. "...I feel a little less." I answered him. I looked softly into his eyes, smiling as I saw so much in them. Comfort.

I kept my arms wrapped around his shoulders, and he swayed us back and forth. His hands found my back, fingers playing with the tips of my hair for a couple of moments.