Chapter 27.

He stood up quickly, very obviously preventing himself from spilling the words on the tip of his tongue.

...

Celadon & Gold by Maggie Rogers

My hand started to cramp up. One the best worst feelings in the world. I shook my hand to loosen my wrist. The verses began as little promptings, ideas, things I'd word-vomit onto a page. But now they were starting to take a shape, to run smoothly into filling a mold my mind created... they created a feeling now. One that could altogether maybe make sense to someone enough to change them in some way. That was really satisfying to me.

Once I started thinking about it too much, I ruined it. Publishers... editing... big companies... competition... I might as well give a public speech about the knowledge I gained whilst studying law on pluto.

I haven't been recently writing as much as I should be. It takes up so much of my brain power now... now that I think more about what I write. Things normally just come to me. It shouldn't be this hard.

I don't think it'd be all too difficult for my brain to function if it weren't so busy. Harry's played me 9 of 12 songs he says are on the record, he seems to be decently happy with them, but I know he's secretly mad at himself for not doing better. He overworked himself often, if it wasn't perfect in every aspect, he wouldn't let it go until it was. But... the emotion got lost in that... I hoped it was just me and that it wasn't actually that obvious that he wasn't proud of his work.

.

"Eh, it's been okay." I mumbled into the phone I held onto with my shoulder.

"Yeah? You haven't talked excitedly about your writing since the letters." He sounded sincere. It hurt.

"Letters... right. Those were good. But I can't send them."

"Why not. It sounded like they were really meaningful." I heard slight talking in the background behind his voice.

"Exactly." I rummaged through my fridge for anything to eat. "I need to go to the market later, do you want to come?"

"Y-" Before he could answer, the thought came back to me. "The letters would change too much if I gave them out. It's too much of me, if someone knew that it'd be... I'm sorry, were you going to say something, I cut you off. I'm sorry."

"What about me?"

"Well duh, I'm asking you to go with me." I heard a tiny little "Uhm". "Oh you mean... okay yeah. You're just... different to me. Than regular humans."

"Quite the compliment, you sure you're a poet?"

"Pfft," I laughed it off, "I never once said I was. Anyways golden boy, when are we to go to the market."

"...What?"

I laughed again. "You can go to the market with me right?"

"Yeah, I can. I wanna know where you got that nickname from." He was very up front about something I hardly even noticed. "Nickname? Golden boy...?"

He paused for a moment. "Hello...?" I asked. "I won't say it... I won't. But... you're incredible. Literally everything to me. Bye!" He hung up so quickly after that, I would think out of excitement...

I dropped my phone onto the counter. I had a shift in an hour. Nothing else to do until then and even after it was over. I could've written, but I couldn't find the need to write like I used to. I made my way over to the couch and picked up the guitar from the stand. It hadn't been used since Harry played it last. I didn't know anything completely, but I picked up easily. E... this shape... slide this shape up two frets... It was Two Ghosts. This song always surprised me. I only knew the three chords. So I ended up putting it back on the stand and going to Anna's early.

...

Bennie and the Jets by Elton John

"You're here early?" Anna asked me. "It's been a busy day, tiring me out. Thank goodness you're here."

"Of course... you can take a break if you want. I can stay here alone and close up tonight."

"Harry said he'd drop by."

"And how'd he tell you this?" I giggled at the thought of Anna and Harry talking, even just over the phone. I'd believe it. They're definitely best friends. "He came in yesterday looking for you, I told him your next shift was today."

"I can tell by the way he speaks, Darby."

I flipped my head abruptly away from the table I had started to wipe down. "What??"

"I can tell that you haven't told him you love him. Poor boy looks like he's still hanging off the last thread of his shoelaces. And don't go saying to me that you don't love him, I don't care."

"Anna, I don't think that I know how to know that." She rolled her eyes at me. "I may not be married now but I was once. I know things, not how to define love or the exact moment it falls upon you, but I do know things. Darby, no one can define it, at least for someone else. It's all up to you of course."

"A very good point."

"But I am a wise person. Wise people know that that boy and you have a real friendship that manifests itself in the form of love. And I like him, he's a genuinely good person."

"He is a good person." I said, thinking. I refused to think about loving someone just like that, that was not something I wanted to realize. I never ever wanted to take that lightly. For if I did, there would be room for the chance to ruin something in between the cracks in our pavement.

...

Dear Harry,

I find myself finding you in my thoughts more than I believe I ever intended. If I had known more thoroughly just how much I'd learn to care for you when I first heard your voice, I would have been much too startled and would have likely run away. It's something I can't put words to, the things us people do when someone has a hand in our fate and pushes us to whatever it is that we need the most. I'm not the kind of person to invite strangers into my house, though I take it you might be.

Telling you how I feel is no easy task for me. In fact, I think I prefer many other things to verbally confessing. Which is exactly why I'm not verbally confessing. I am doing it here, on this piece of paper. Laying on my stomach, in the middle of my messy room. I think that's the best place to do it.

To Darby Anna Eden,

I know you hate when I use all of your names but desperate times call for desperate measures. I have no clue as to how else I should start this, so I'll start by saying very simply that you healed me and I ruined this.

I know you'll think that was cliché, I feel like it's the only way to reach you for some reason. I also don't really know how to go about saying this. I miss you? I know that is horrible. This letter will probably never get to you anyways, there's no way I'll let it. I should say that I'm sorry before I miss you. I'm sorry doesn't seem to be enough, and I know only you could find the words to make it powerful enough.

I'm not sure my typical simplicity will reach you, Darby, though this letter won't either, so I guess I can say whatever I'd like, huh. It is quite the torture method but I was told to write letters to come to understanding. I think the only thing I've come to find is that I have no capability of it. I should get back to my point now.

I should never have rushed you. That was sick of me, I let it take over me until I was weak next to my own selfishness. I can't ever sleep, it's been getting bad. I have shows coming up, now that the album is released. I wonder a lot if you've listened to it. You heard a lot of it before, but I changed so many things after what happened. Which I think makes me feel worse, but I at least wanted to capture my feelings. I'm much better at capturing a broken heart than one beyond-words head over heels, don't you think?

Dear H,

There was nothing we could do about it. You're a golden boy with an open heart that would eventually scare me to insanity.

...

I had just walked out from my apartment onto the street, holding the strap of my crossbody bag in my hands with anticipation. He would probably be around here somewhere, but we never really told each other where to meet. I walked down the street a ways. I realized I was close to the florist, and headed there.

Eyes caught mine right as I walked up to the front of the shop. They were so familiar and sweet. That pinched at my chest until it felt like my heart was burning. About ten feet away he was standing, stopped in his tracks the way I was.

"Who are you!" I called out to him, lifting my hand to my mouth to make my voice louder.

"Shh! I'm Harry Styles!" He yelled. The awful paradox made my eyes crinkle up. He didn't even care about the people anymore. He really just... yelled that out. The street was busy enough that not many heads were turned, though I wouldn't have noticed if they did.

He walked to me with no thought in his mind, it was obviously in his eyes that he was oddly determined. I couldn't think it through well enough, or in a fast enough time. In front of the florist, with these people around and quite a few peeking eyes and cameras, I felt his hands graze the side of my face. He kissed me there, which was a dream to me but... it was a step for him. Forward. He would never have done that before. That's almost all I could think about.

When he pulled away, and he pulled away quickly, he pulled us into the florist, away from the crowd of people that I started to notice was thickening. "Okay..." I said. He stood next to me quietly, a little hidden grin on his face.

"What?" He asked, still high on adrenaline and giggles and pursed lips. "Oh nothing," I said, shrugging, still holding tightly to the strap of my bag for some reason.

"Did you want a plant? Or should we head out." He gave a large and cheesy smile, touching the leaf of a short little ivy plant. "I was actually thinking of looking for an Aloe plant. I think they have those here around the plants section?"

"I bet they do."

"Can I help you two?" I heard from behind me, immediately guessing that it was that same lady who helped me the first time I was here. "Hello!" I said, turning to her.

"You two together? I remember you here months ago." Harry did the typical look-at-darby-just-to-see-her-reaction-and-answer. "We're together-ish. Not quite." I said, blandly to hide whatever feelings were there.

"Do you maybe have any Aloe vera plants?" I said before she could keep asking questions that were much too hard to answer. "Of course." She answered. Harry grabbed my hand as we followed her over, but I dropped it subconsciously when the lady pointed out the Aloe vera plants to me.

...

Fragile by Kygo & Labrinth

"I like that chord."

"Which one?" He asked. The air was mellow, dark but filled over the brim with awaiting emotion. He messed around with the chords he'd been playing on my guitar. There was a spot next to him on my couch, I didn't dare take it just yet.

When he played it again I knew, "That one."

"C add 9." He said softly.

"It's mesmerizing." I smiled, but there was something else underneath the smile that prevented it from really counting as one. I set tea down on the coffee table in front of him. "Sit?" He asked me, looking up longingly.

I slowly went to sit next to him, holding carefully my own mug. I set it down on the table, next to his. "Are you writing something?" I asked, resting my head on my hand. I played with my hair as he strummed.

"I am. It's still missing lyrics." He said, lowly. I got up and went straight to my room to grab my journal. I've never written lyrics, but I've tried my hand at rhyming poems... I think they'd transfer over nicely.

I neatly set the book on his lap. He looked up from the book to me, "You want me to use this?" He unbelievingly asked. I nodded, shakily.

"I've had a couple of thematic ideas circling around..." He flipped through my book and I sat there next to pure horror, becoming it's friend.

"Heal my heart, what I'm asking, I'm asking... Hmm..." He thought, mixing my thoughts into perfect lines fitting into melodies. It was a simple melody, a standstill of an impatient line. "Giving you my lips to kiss them into existence, your sentiment is rough around the edges we're lacking."

"Do you... do you like those, are they good enough?" I asked. "I'm scared they're too good for me, Darby." He chuckled. I laughed silently. He hummed the tune over and over, coming out with the definition of bittersweet in only a couple of lines of music.

"Speak my secrets only your ears know... embracing waters we felt were never good enough to speak for."

"I need a chorus now but I feel too attached to the verses to stop writing them." He spoke so quietly, his deep voice occasionally breaking. I knew nothing but to sit and listen.

"I could heal you, If you would ask, I could heal you, If you would ask. If we opened up maybe this could be an easy task. Does that sound dumb?" I shook my head slightly, and he kept humming just to keep the song going.

"Um... what about something like "Everything is alright until you have to face it again, it's a lifeless ground of a more-than friend." I spoke. He continued it, "...and the face of your lyrics make amends, the sweet holes in our plotlines seem to want to end."

It was quiet as he wrote the words down and held the guitar in between his legs. His face was focused but... but his eyes read plainness, there was next to nothing there. Maybe it was that, or maybe I was forgetting how to read him. "... I'm sorry." I said, standing up.

He wouldn't say anything, he kept writing. "I shouldn't get into this." I turned and left the room, going straight to mine. I didn't expect him to come after me, if he had I probably would have not spoken a word. It was a weird feeling, distant and foggy, and it scared me out of the room.

I decided just to go to bed. It was still generally light outside, but it was an awfully gloomy day and there was no light to nearly bother me.

But I couldn't fall asleep of course. My mind kept racing, on and on about those lyrics. About letting him look into my book. Why I couldn't fall asleep. He was still out there. it's been so long why can't I just fall asleep. This is torture.

"You're not asleep." I jumped at the sudden noise, then realizing I had been crying. I sat up abruptly, my hair completely a mess from my tossing and turning. "I'm not." I cried.

"I feel like I'm coming undone... from everything around me. Unattached... From my surroundings, you— you. I'm so mad at you, Harry." The constant stream of tears was satisfying.

He climbed onto my bed in front of me, as I curled into an upright ball. "Please no..." I mumbled. "...Darby I can help you." I moved further away from him as he came closer. "No— no, I refuse to look at you." I said, sobbing. I didn't know what I was saying anymore. I wanted him so badly, I wanted him to hold me, I didn't understand at all why I was doing this.

"You're not mad at me, Darby." He said, still trying to reach me.

"So what if I- I am mad. I was in- I," I gagged on my words and worsening composure. "I don't care." He went to pull me into him, but I took both of his wrists in my hands.

"I gave you too much. I regret it. Is that enough to hurt you? Is it? You wanted to be loved, and I can't bring myself to." My voice was starting to get too loud, even that was scaring me.

"You don't mean i- it. You don't. I know you don't." How he kept his composure, I don't know. He should have left long, long ago. He could even have slammed the door on the way out, it would have added a nice touch to my story.

I knew exactly what would hurt him, and, in the state I was in, I dared to use it. I was completely undeserving of him and his foolish persistence in me.

I could not say more, I'd lost all my words in my fight. I collapsed onto my bed, and he picked me up from it and let me then collapse into his arms. I can't be pure horror's friend, not today.

If a lifetime of gruesome was equal to one of love, everything would be nearly the same. The only difference would be a couple seconds. And they would be in someone's arms where the allowance of light can transform a couple remaining seconds into forgiveness and forgettable ruins.

I watch Daisies in my free time now. If I look away, it disappears. Today I glanced at a gust of wind, and the Daisy came running after me.

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