Resolution

Epilogue

"Turn around, put it down and see, that this is really the place to be. I'm not you, nor you me, but we're both moving steady." 

Song: Resolution

Artist: Matt Corby

Harry’s POV

Time is a strange thing; sometimes days can feel like years, while other times whole weeks seem to pass in a blink of an eye.  People can change, grow together, and drift apart in a series of moments that run together in a seamless string of events, sometimes without even being aware.  Sometimes it’s easy to pick out a moment and think, ‘That’s it- that’s when it all changed.’ Other times, you find yourself a completely different person without even being aware of the conversion. 

One day, life is the same as ever, and you go about your routine in monotonous actions, then suddenly, your world is turned upside down.  There’s color where before it was only dull grey, light where there were only shadows, and love where there was nothing but hollow gaps.  Things you never noticed or thought about before suddenly seemed more important that the things you valued previously.  You find it impossible to go about doing things without thinking of that person, what they’d think or do, how they’d react.  They become a part of you, intertwined into your very soul so much so that you can almost feel them physically with every breath you take. 

My change was a mixture of both: an abrupt, specific moment I could point to and recognize, and a gradual, slow change I didn’t even realize was happening until it was already done.  Things I never imagined I would think or feel had become a part of my daily life- things that suddenly felt so right and normal that it seemed impossible I’d ever lived without them.  How had I ever been content before, when it had been only me and a string of random girls I didn’t care about?  How had I ever felt alive before that moment when I knew everything had changed?

The truth was, I hadn’t been.  I’d been a shell of a person, going through the motions as I always had because I didn’t know any better.  I didn’t know what it was like to love someone and for that person to love you back.  I didn’t know what I was missing before I felt the satisfaction of holding her to my chest in the middle of the night, her warmth flooding through my body while she slept without a moment’s hesitation.  I didn’t know what it was like to have someone look at you the way she did, her gaze full of love, understanding, acceptance and compassion so strong and pure I couldn’t doubt it for a second. 

I didn’t know what love felt like until Halle.  It was strong, so strong that it nearly knocked me over when it took hold of my life.  The hold she’d had on my heart was stronger than any I’d ever thought possible, and I had no shame in admitting I let her take it.  The love was crippling beautiful, unparalleled in strength and devotion, and more exquisitely captivating than anything I’d ever felt in my entire existence.

It took me two years to do what I’d known I would do for a very long time.  Two years of living together.  Two years of fights, most completely pointless.  Two years of undeniably rare love between two people.  Two years of moments building up to the one I would remember for the rest of my life.

It was a Saturday morning and the sun had peaked through the windows long ago.  Halle was nursing a bit of a hangover from our night out to celebrate graduating university with Maggie and Jay, who had somehow managed to stay together despite it taking them nearly a year to finally become an official couple. 

I stood in the kitchen, preparing a pot of coffee in hopes of easing some of her suffering when she woke up.  It had taken everything in me to slip out of bed and pull her from my arms, but I could tell by how heavily she slept that she wouldn’t be up for a while.  She’d never had a particularly high tolerance for alcohol, and Maggie had insisted on taking shots for ‘old time’s sake,’ as she’d called it.  Poor Halle had never stood a chance.