Chapter 20.

Live by Billie Marten

I want to go places that I've never been

Rome, California, Paris, Berlin

I want to see things that I've never seen

Quietly happy and live by the sea

They say don't go out

Don't get lost in the dark

Don't go in too deep

Don't swim out too far

They say don't go out

Don't go out too fast

'Cause I feel it all and I need to live a little at last

I wanna stay out all night say hello to the dawn

Creep back to bed they'll never know I was gone

Write songs through the day be alone with my thoughts

Spend time with the ones I've always adored

They say don't go out

Don't get lost in the dark

Don't go in too deep

Don't swim out too far

They say don't go out

Don't go out too fast

'Cause I feel it all and I need to live a little at last

Make my own mistakes

For a lesson really hurts

I am not afraid

I will let down my guard

I sat almost motionless on the other side of the bed. Speechless as well. The typical version of speechless, I despised. But this was only a beautiful realm of silence.

"Darby! Harry!" Someone called from somewhere outside of the room. "It's Dead Poets Society tonight!" I could only muster a smile in my trance of awe, hopefully getting my feelings across.

"That's..." I still was a little out of it. "...one of my favorite movies."

He continued to fiddle with the strings. No thoughts about the words really hit me yet, just how it made me feel. He looked at me in wonder, questioning silently what I had thought. All I could think to really tell him something was to kiss him, and it wasn't a rational thing to resort to. And I surely knew it wasn't going to end perfectly and the more I resorted to such things the less likely it was that I would be alright. I didn't think about any of that then. It was only the details that ran together to create the lips I'd grown so oddly fond of.

I pulled away before he had any chances, taking a second to even just hardly process it. Immediately I ran out of the room, which seemed to also be an innocent tactic of mine, to let him chase after me. It seemed to be a reasonably unreasonable thing. But they were all waiting for us to start the movie, so I hurried.

"Hi everyone!" I said, obviously extremely cheered up as I literally slid into the room after running too fast. Harry came soon after me, sporting the same cheesy grin. When I saw his I tried to wipe mine off, to no avail.

"Hey..." Mitch said, confused but he pressed play. Harry sat next to me. He whispered over in my ear as it started, "You seem to have a thing for kissing me after I sing you a song."

"Sorry." I whispered back.

"No, It's motivating." He laid his head down lazily on my shoulder.

...

Dead Poets Society. A film that praises words straight off the brain to translate feelings and give them away. My favorite of favorites. At this point, Harry would say, "You say everything is your favorite. Movies, music, everything, it's all your favorite." And he might even say that he loved that about me.

"Neil Perry. Wow." I said, not as quietly as I planned. I heard a small "Agreed" next to my ear. "What track are you thinking of making it?" I hummed quietly, the song still ringing in my mind.

"2. But only if you love it."

"...I do... I love it." I wasn't... hesitant, necessarily. I'd always had this stigma built up, possibly out of all the stubborn in me. That if someone told me to love anything that I hardly could do it. Or even was looking for me to say it, expecting it, The song was perfect. He was. It was something inside me that nearly pushed the words back down my throat.

It was sweet, the way his last album began in bliss, continued in grief, and ended in healing. This one would emerge out of that healing with gentle dreams. He showed me the song before anyone else, it was sweet. The ones I've always adored, I am not afraid, Quietly happy. They kept replaying in my mind, slowly becoming more than just words. And hadn't H lived in California? He's definitely been there before.

There was no need for uncertainty, and I still continued in it. How weak of me.

I stuck my attention to the movie, distracting myself as I nudged myself onto Harry's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me, something that made the thought disappear in my head as I smiled up at him. It was simple, I know it. But he always would hold my pinky and it was a continuous promise to me and there's no way he didn't know what he was doing. Uncertainty was not a doubt in my mind as long as I pushed it away. Pushing it away would have to do.

"You're kind of like him, Darby." Harry said aloud to everyone. I immediately shook it off. "Harry was boasting about your writing earlier, Darbs. You're a poet." Sarah answered.

"I'm no poet." I laughed, I felt Harry's fingertips start to graze my arm. "Pshhh." He said as I looked back at him, his hair was already drying into tight flopping curls, which amazed me. My hair was still a naturally waved spaghetti noodle mop. "You must surprise yourself a lot." He wondered aloud.

"I guess I do."

...

I sat motionless as the movie ended.

I'd seen it before, plenty of times. But it felt much different.

"Are you okay, Harry?" I asked, my voice shivering. He was sniffling a lot, pulling his hand away from me to wipe his face. I wiped the tears off his cheek with the side of my thumb, collapsing softly next to him the more I thought about the movie.

"And he was so pretty too." Ny Oh wailed. I giggled through the small tears that ended up gathering onto H's shirt. Picking my head up, I stretched my arms. Harry was limp on the couch, looking up at the ceiling in thought.

"Hey, baby, sit up." I said softly, slightly tugging at his arm. "HA!" Sarah and Mitch said nearly in unison. I looked at them in complete confusion. "Wh-" "So it's official then, ay?" Mitch questioned, "I knew it. We all knew it." Harry perked up, finally coming to his senses.

I immediately said it. "We're not." I watched Harry's eyes as I said it. He shrugged, mumbling. "Soon enough".

"God, we've all been waiting so long." "Wait, they aren't?" Charlotte asked. I imagined Harry making some remark about it, but he only calmly said, "We're taking our time. We have time." Though we didn't really have time. But that would continue to be pushed away for some other day. Harry's oddly dull and simple response kind of released everyone to go to bed, so I gathered my things and Harry was going to take me back home.

22 (Over Soon) by Holly Humberstone (Cover)

It was a quiet drive, but I assumed only because it was almost the morning. Even the sky was getting lighter by the minute, but the sun didn't show just yet. I wondered to myself if it was more than being tired.

"Harry do you want to maybe come to my apartment?" I said, remembering the first time I said just that. It made him giggle too. "We're on our way there right now..." He pulled around a corner casually, resorting to one hand on the wheel to give me his other. I looked at his hand in my hand. How in the world did I get here. In what realm of now did I even deserve it.

"I'm just asking you to stay. What you said about time... we don't have that much--" "I'll stay." He cut me off purposely. I leaned my head on the window once again. "I'm so sorry I can't find it in myself to rush anything--"

"It's alright, darling. Don't worry about it right now."

I took a deep breath and allowed myself to listen.

...

A record player in the corner of my living room played an old and skippy record, one Anna let me borrow full of 40's french music. I turned the volume down low. It's still dark outside, I found Harry on the balcony. I couldn't sleep if I tried. And if I did try, tomorrow would come much sooner. Tomorrow was not a day that I wanted to come at all.

I walked out slowly to where H was sitting. He was alone, I didn't think until now that I shouldn't have let that happen. He doesn't like it, I don't mind it, it's just something you have to work though when you have someone you're willing to work for.

"Hey." He said, knowing that I was behind him. It was then I saw a peek of the light in a far distance. "The sun." I smiled as I sat down next to him. "You." He said gently. I shook my head, adding yet another smile that I had no idea what to do with. Silence was all that was really needed then. "We should go inside." He said, sleepily. I knew he was so tired. I didn't want him to stay awake for just me.

"You should sleep." I said. "I can't. Not tonight." He shook his head.

"Harry, it's not even night anymore. And you have no reason not to--"

"Anna told me." He started to cry, and crashed right into my arms. The reason he reacted like this was completely unclear to me, but as my head pieced it together I started to cry too. "Harry, I'm okay. I'm okay." All I knew to do to comfort him was run my fingers through his hair, it's what my mum did.

"I want to be here for you-- And what if you're not okay and you're just trying make me stop-- I- what if- can't help- You-" He stuttered so much, my hands wrapped as tight around him as I could.

"Do you trust me?" I asked.

"I do." He seemed to be looking for more words to express that but he broke to simplicity. "Then I am okay. It's why I wanted you here."

"The whole night, me bringing you to the house I- wanted to distract you. From it, but then we... watched the movie, I got into my feelings and then I couldn't help you? God, I'm... selfish— I'm so recklessly self-centered, I couldn't even put it past me to be there for you no matter how much I- screamed at myself to." He couldn't look me in the eyes and it made me stomach twist. He was talking so quickly, it was so unusual.

"Look at me please."

He heaved his head up as if it were the burden on his shoulders, giving it every bit of him to be there for me. I knew what he perceived himself to be was never him. "Do you not see it?" I asked, putting my hands on the sides of his face.

"What, how wonderful I am? I can never be really convinced because all the possible reasons are just as selfish." "No, Harry." I watched as he kept fighting the tears pooling in the crease between my hand and his cheek.

"... If you never care for me in any of your remaining breaths for all of the rest of them... Harry please just take it from me that you... just the fact that you think that... You aren't selfish, you care so much about other people." I corrected myself, "It takes a toll on you sometimes and that's okay."

"Aren't I supposed to be helping you?" He said calmly, putting his hands on top on mine, though they were still on his cheeks.

"We're meant to help each other." I said, thinking that it was close enough to what my mum had said to me. I felt oddly comforted and my eyelids began to be extremely difficult to keep open.

I stood up, giving him my hand to do the same. "Sleep?"

"Yes please." I could hardly see his eyes anymore, they were already half asleep. I walked slowly to my room, his arm around my shoulder and laced into my hand. Though tired, I was proud of myself. I was at peace in that moment.

I let him lay down first, he cuddled up tightly into the comforter on my bed. I was sure he was already asleep as I went to the bathroom.

The second I got out I heard his tiny voice. "Are you coming?"

I smiled, wiping off the traces of my sweet tears, shivering with the slight chill in the air and my leftover nerves. "Yeah." I walked over to my window first, opening the curtains before climbing slowly into the bed. I let my head lay gently on his chest, his arms naturally finding a way to hold me just a bit closer.