Cover Your Tracks [HS][2014 VERSION]

65. Lullaby*

Smoke rings float through the air like clouds in my subconscious, drifting around the room before dissipating into thin air. They dance in shadows and the morning light before Harry breaks them with his finger, twirling the smoke around. The dull, ghost-like air curls around his skin and I imagine myself moving with it; latching onto him and never daring to stray away.

Broad shoulders block out his angular face. They form some sort of wall between us, shielding him from me as he indulges in the poison pinched between his fingers. The nicotine stick is raised to his lips and then back down again, over and over. The muscles in his back ripple as he moves. My hands twitch at my sides, fingers curling desperately into the mattress.

"Go back to sleep."

The instruction is spoken blindly, green eyes avoiding mine to instead peer out the window. Frozen gaze never leaves the cold, frigid world outside. The grass and leaves have lost their hue, turning brown in the center and shriveling up at the corners. The birds, left to fly and do as they please, have long disappeared for the winter season. Branches vacant and void, the prickly twigs stretch out and claw against the pale blue sky.

"I can't breathe," I tell him coldly, tone dripping with venom. The smoke he absorbs so greedily had made my eyes burn as I slept.

"If you want some air, step outside." His voice is just as bitter, if not more so. The space between us seems to grow deeper as time goes on. "No one is stopping you."

"You'd never let me leave."

He turns sharply. The expression on his face is unreadable but the flame that keeps the cigarette alive reflects brightly in his forest green eyes. I've begun to think that they've gradually been losing their color with the winter leaves, the center of them a pure and daunting black. Irises frozen over, it seems the cold is spreading fast.

His gaze flickers between mine and the door, as if urging me to walk the length of the path his eyes follow. The smoke had long dissolved in the air but it lingered. Suffocating was the atmosphere between us, me not knowing what to say and he not knowing how to feel. He'd always been closed off and it seemed he was now even more so.

"Either go or stop complaining," he chides nonchalantly, inhaling a long drag thereafter. "I can't take your nagging this early in the morning. It's nearly driven me bloody insane."

"What time is it?"

He looks taken aback, as if my response had been one he didn't expect. Tired, frozen eyes move to the nightstand that sits beside the bed. The cigarette in his hand is momentarily forgotten as he fills my request and seeks out the hour. Eyes red as the numbers displayed boldly across the screen.

"Three A.M."

The hour is of the devil. It seems fitting, for there's a man stood across from me with angelic features that convey a dark persona. On the outside looking in, he seems beautiful—and he is. He's even prettier in the early hours of the morning when viewed through blurred, tired eyes. So much so that the cigarette between his fingers melts into the background until there's only him, only the memory of the boy that I've grown attached to and refuse to let go of.

Close your eyes and sleep next to me. The red in them will recede like the sun sinks into the earth after a long day and there will be only us amidst the darkness, and tomorrow you will be you and not this twisted version that you've made of yourself.

I want to invite him back to bed so badly, but I know that all of my attempts will be futile and that no good will come of my pestering. I'd tried before on previous nights and each one ended in much of the same way; me forcing my eyes closed while he remained, sucking the life out of a cigarette. I swore he'd wrapped his lips around bottles and cigarette nubs so much that his cheeks were beginning to hollow from the effort.