Dust Bones [Harry Styles]

050

n/ hey,

don't lose hope

- zeffervescent

I stood light-headed. Half perplexed and half relieved, I take a seat on the chair in the nearest corner. My lips are slightly parted, though the air that exhales from the crevice is next to impossible to hear.

For those thirteen hours I avoid conversation, even with Marco and our new found "friendship". The term feels strange, because I have never used it to describe anyone. I can't really coincide that label with another person.

I trail the tip of my index finger across the pillows for hours until my eyes begin to feel heavy. The dullness of the hour lulls me to an uncomfortable sleep, where my neck is at an odd angle and my limbs feel like pieces of meat on hardwood.

For how long I sleep is beyond my understanding as I wake and there is no light from the curtains and the lights are off. I have been sleeping for so long, and still I long for it because I've got nothing but the company of my unbearable thoughts.

The door creaks open. I don't react. It's like my body's voluntary muscles are ignored by the nerve signals that spiral down my spine. I hear light, dull footsteps as I shift and lay on my stomach, head rested on the pillows. My cheek pressed against the soft cushion.

His footsteps follow a direct path across the room where I hear shuffling. An almost inaudible groan escapes his lips and I know for a fact that it's one of discomfort and possibly pain. Injury.

He knows I'm awake just like he knows everything else.

I spend the next three minutes listening to his movement until he reaches the bed on the empty side. I lift the blanket for him to slide in, and he soundlessly does so.

We don't speak as he settles beside me, and up until that point I didn't understand what it really meant to feel comfortable with another person. To the point where you don't have to say anything to speak.

My concern sticks through like the only beacon of light in this bedroom. I feel his warm skin beneath his palm and the rise and fall of his chest. He's alive and here with me. I've never had to worry so much over someone else's life.

"Where are you hurt?" I softly questioned, beginning to sit up, though he pulls me down and lays me into him.

"I'm fine. I just want to stay in silence," he murmured huskily. His voice brings the urge to worry to a halt. I only feel his thumb trace the outline of my lips in the dark.

I can't control myself as I lean forward and luckily aim directly to his lips. He kisses me back, and although they're short, and soft, they're those urgent kisses that hold my sanity by a thread; a thread that would be cut if they were to go missing.

My voice falters as I whisper, "I'm so glad you're okay."

Harry silences me with another slow kiss. He pulls the blankets over us and huddles us in the warmth of both of our bodies. I have to feel the physical form of his being to know that he's here, and I can only imagine what's it like in his mind. Though while I try to understand him, I only end up falling more in love with him.

+

Nothing but my body's restlessness woke me up the next morning. I rose and barely had time to question where the strong arms and body that held me disappeared to as someone knocked on the bedroom door.

I got up and waited by the door, feet nearly dragging against the floor in my lethargic state. When I opened the door slightly, I received no one but the air in the halls.

My eyebrows furrowed. I had to be going nuts. I groaned and faintly remembered Harry's arrival in the midst of my exhaustion. Was he really here or did I just imagine all of that?