Nightingale

forty-three

"I didn't expect it to look like anything. I never thought I would see this place again. I'm just surprised it looks like I never left. Kinda figured all of my things would be packed up in boxes or giving to Callie."

"She took a couple of your things. Just some jewelry. I wouldn't have changed much either way, I like it how it is." Harry says while keeping focus on his rings covering his fingers. God this is brutal.

"Right, well I'm gonna just grab some clothes and go shower." I say standing up and making my way towards the closet. It physically hurts to be so close to him yet feel so far apart.

I rummage through my clothes that remain hanging in the closet and grab pretty much anything I put my hands on so I can get out of this awkward situation. While grabbing things in a rush I grab one of Harry's dress shirts but stop myself, staring at the item for a long moment realizing that it had become a habit for me to wear his dress shirts as if they were my own clothes, sometimes sleeping in them if I was too lazy to change. I slept in Harry's shirt that I took from the house almost every night after I left, so much to the point that the smell of him was replaced with my own. I run my fingers along the sleeve of the expensive silk dress shirt before hanging it back up and walking back into the room.

Harry is now standing on the balcony with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Both of his elbows rest on the railing as he leans over it, the fading sunlight making him less visible but still beautiful nonetheless. With my clothes in hand I walk into the bathroom and lock the door behind me before quickly stripping out of the sundress I was wearing and turning on the shower. I stick my hand under the running water to test the temperature before fully stepping in, the hot water running over my body is not helping ease the tension running through it like I thought it would. All the thoughts rushing through my mind aren't being put to rest. I lied, he lied. I got left heartbroken and so did he. I thought he looked at me like I was the sun but now maybe he looked at me like I was a prize, something for him to win.

What hurts the most is knowing I've been used once again, and yet I still fucking love him. I still have so much love for him that it makes me hate myself, to love another person that has caused me pain. Everything in me wants to just act like nothing happened, like my heart isn't in a million pieces but I will never be that woman again. One who is so quick to forgive every wrong just for one right. I want to forgive him but I don't want my forgiveness to be seen as foolishness, the woman who continually lets her heart get trampled over. It's really my own damn fault, all of the signs were there when I think back on everything. The fast paced relationship we built, how quickly he confessed his love to me, constantly being around after we met, how intrigued he was to know about me the first time we talked and like a true addict I immediately got hooked. I was entrapped in his beauty, his words, his love, too blinded by all of that to see what was truly going on.

Feeling water running down my cheeks I can't distinguish if it's water from the shower head above me or tears coming out of my eyes but I know that I'm crying. Wishing I was still naive to everything, because now I'm feeling so many things that everything else is going numb. I lean forward, resting my head against the tile of the shower wall, my hands above my head as I continue to cry. With every harsh inhale and shaky sobbing exhale my body continues to go numb, heartbreak and withdrawals leaving my body. I slam my hand on the tile a couple times just to feel something, anything. Anything is better than this mind numbing pain. I kept it together while we were in the room but talking to him like the sight of him alone doesn't make my heart flutter and break at the same time was so difficult. I feel angry, heartbroken, misery, all of it. Every single fucking emotion, I feel it all so strongly right now. I had spent most of my life not feeling anything so feeling all of these emotions I don't know how to handle myself, I don't know how to continue to function.