The car ride was quiet, but I liked it this way.
Harry's hand held mine over the center console, his fingers warm, his touch comforting. I felt as if I were lost in some blissful, catastrophic world. While there were a million reasons that I shouldn't be happy right now, I had one that overruled everything else: Harry.
Harry was so many things--so many incrediblydifferent things.
He was darkness: a never-ending void of intense feelings and risky decisions. I knew that this was what corrupted him. It had taken over his entire being countless times. It was what had ruled his life for so long, what had pulled him into a world where life-and-death situations were nearly all that he dealt with and weapons weren't terrifying things that you kept for defense up on a high shelf, but instead vital objects to survive by.
He was gentle: something that contrasted greatly from his darker side, Harry possessed a softer angle to his multifaceted depth. It was buried deep inside of him, hidden behind the barriers that he held up to everyone except for, as he had told me recently, me. It brought out the person who was willing to hold me close while my tears wet his skin, the person who had let a whole day go by out at the mall, simply to give me a good Christmas.
He was imperfectly perfect: a flawed man who had, for some reason still unfathomable to me, allowed me to see past the walls he blockaded everyone with. He had a constant battle within him, between the light and the dark. The darkness was all that he knew, but the light was slowly filtering through the cracks in his icy foundation, shedding color on his black-and-white world where love didn't exist and men wielding guns was a normal occurrence.
Harry was the reason why I could, and would, stay happy, at least for this brief moment. I wanted it to last forever. I wanted to stay here, in this little space of time where I could live on Harry's kisses and touches as if they were air.
I watched as he stared out the windshield, his eyes alertly scanning the dark crossroads as we moved swiftly through town, dim streetlamps and the bright moon shining overhead guiding us in our path. He looked relaxed, leaned back into his seat with only one hand on the steering wheel.
I shifted my gaze to our interlocked fingers, and sighed softly at the sight of them, my skin just a few shades paler than his. I had noticed that he had lost his tan complexion in the past year, and I had put it down to both stress and the fact that I highly doubted he was one to travel during the daytime. I was sure, too, that his summer was uneventful, so why would he feel the need to get a bit of color?
But, despite this, his skin still seemed to glow. I suppose everything about Harry glowed though. His eyes, in particular, crossed my mind as I thought over this.
The familiar streets that led to Harry's house began to become apparent to my eyes, and that's when I remembered that I still was unaware of how Harry had gained such a massive place.
"Harry?" I said quietly, my voice breaking the silence.
"Yes?"
"I have a question."
"Go ahead."
I took a deep breath, opting to just dive in and ask it. I wondered immediately what kind of reaction this would provoke from him, but the words were already past my throat. "How did you get such a nice house?"
Harry stiffened visibly, his hand tightening in mine slightly. His breathing became a bit forced as he attempted to keep his calm, evidently thinking hard on how to reply to this.
"You don't have to tell me," I mumbled a bit reluctantly.
"I inherited it from my mum," he said abruptly. His tone was clipped, and I knew that he wasn't going to provide me with anymore information on the subject tonight. I nodded once in acknowledgement. When he was ready, he would tell me.
