Ignorance ➵ h.s. au

fifty eighth

Carter's hand slipped off of her grasp, Dani's fingers reaching out to hold it again, but he wasn't there. Her heartrate picks up speed, lost in a sea of strangers who didn't care, away from the safety of her brother's grip once again. She should've held on tighter. Just because she felt weird talking to him, doesn't mean she has to distance herself? What kind of stupidity even is that? She peered across the line, standing on her tipped toes and looking for any familiarity among the crowd, failing to find any. The line to the altar was divided into two, men and women, and Carter must've branched out to the other side of the arrangement. Milla would not be too far, but even she can't be seen anywhere.

People squeezed against hers, pushing her out of the way in effort to be one with the arrangement. This was exactly where she was about five months ago, and she didn't like it at all. Slowly but surely the void got filled against her will, everywhere she walked flashed memories through her eyes. She was walking across the mall, lost and thinking about Harry, in the brink of crying. She should've just stayed in one place. Should've just sat down a bench and waited for her family to notice she was gone. But she didn't. Instead she wandered off further and further. There she saw Santa Claus by a Christmas booth along with children.

She refrains, her heart falling at the pit of her stomach as realization hit her harder than a truck, her feet coming to a halt on the marble floor of the church. The way he made her sit by his lap and caressed her thigh, the way he promised he would make Harry be there for her. He dragged her into a dark room and touched her in places no one has touched before. In places her mother warned her about. Santa did, and she only stood there, and she couldn't believe she was idiotic enough to actually believe everything that came out of his mouth. The promises and the instructions. It was wrong. Horrifically, utterly, disgustingly wrong. And to think she did that for the sake of having enough confidence to tell her best friend how much she loved him.

She was disgusting. It was disgusting. How could she even bare the idea of being with Harry after she's done that? How could she forget? How could she forget about the way she bit into her sleeves and laid on a couch with her legs spread while he was there? How could she forget his lips stealing her first kiss? And the air that left her lungs trying to catch her breath and kiss back? Fire prickled her underneath her skin, disabling her from breathing as people kept bumping into her. Perhaps that was the reason she forgot, because it didn't deserve to be remembered, nonetheless, right now she did, and she didn't know what to do. That man at the mall. Everything justified why she recalled those blue eyes. That specific look on his face. The whole time she was asking herself where she's seen those before, and she couldn't figure out where.

She saw them looking up at her while she sat on his lap, swallowing the sobs from breaking through her throat. And his name; Nicolas "Danielle, it's me Nicolas!" His voice played through her ears, chills running down her spine. That was the same name Robert mentioned when he called outside the dark room. She wasn't mistaken. She wasn't just being paranoid. He did know her and she was correct.

Dani stumbled upon her feet, still in the chaos of people as the smoothing piano piece punctured through her eardrums, her fingertips numbing and her breath tightening all of a sudden. She tries collecting herself, unable to do so from the tears gathering in her tearducts. She couldn't breathe, and she wasn't quite sure if it was because of the jacket or the fact that she was lost again, cold sweat trickling down her face. Where is Carter? He was the only reason she got out. He was the only reason she felt safe again, and he was the only person who looked for her. What if this time she doesn't find him? What if this time she doesn't find a way out? What if she's stuck there forever? Lingering in the dark with no one to save her? She only got lucky the last time, and luck runs out. What if this time she was on her own and no one was looking for her?