White Eskimo ~ Harry Styles

Now

August 21st, 2010

It feels like a comet has ripped through my chest, a hole growing and growing and growing until the grief consumes me.

I’m not sure why, or how even. I just know that everything… everything… everything about Lauren a-and… My thoughts aren’t even working properly. Muffled sobs racket through the dark, dank street. Muffled sobs tremble through my rib-cage messing up my breathing, turning it into short, sharp exhales and inhales. My chest is hurting with each intake of air. And I can’t think. I can’t think for the fear of thinking of her. I don’t want to think about her, yet I do. Each single memory that I have of her slams into my mind, provoking overwhelming emotions.

Like a flood the tears choke me, rushing down and suffocating my sobs. And I can’t get Lauren’s insipid face out of my head. In my mind her hair is floating as if she is lying down on a bed of water. Her eyelids are closed. And she doesn’t open them. She won’t open them. She’ll never open them.

Never, ever, ever.

Cotton forms in my throat and I release a choked shout. I clamp my quaking hands over my mouth – over my throat – to try and stop it, stop it. The anguish is so thick my oesophagus feels cloggy and maybe if I keep pressing hands over hands onto my neck I can stop the feeling. There is a squeezing in my chest which tightens with each jerk. I can’t imagine what I look like, but I know no one should ever see me like this. My weeping transforms to ugliness with my face blotchy and fists white, struggling, trying so hard to hold together the fragments that are left of me. Maybe it is better that I leave myself in pieces. Better if I shatter and turn to nothing.

I lose idea of direction; lose any idea of where I am, what time it is, what day it is. I forget where the sobs start and where they pause. Everything flows together like one bubble melding with another to eventually create a massive sphere of soap. I don’t even feel like I’m myself. Instead I feel like I’m detached from my body. I can’t see anything or hear anything or feel anything but the sobs. My lips quiver and my knees buckle and I can’t tell whether my arms are wrapped around me or pressing against the bitter ground. I think I curl into a ball, but I have no idea. My surroundings seem washed out and blurry. A pressure forms on my temples and my head aches every time I try to focus on something. So I let everything sweep past in a haze.

I can’t believe what happened to her. I can’t believe that even happened. Why the hell did it happen? I don’t accept it. I don’t. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. But it’s already happened. It’s happened and nothing can stop it. It’s been months. Months, and I still can’t forget it. I still remember it. I still cry.

I slam my fist against the pavement and let out a small shriek of anger. It boils up inside of me and spills over, pouring out of me. Pouring out and out and out and out. All the hurt. I should have told her I loved her. I should have. I’m so stupid! So bloody stupid. The images in front of me swirl and I reach a hand out, suddenly delirious. A dementing twinge shoots through the side of my head and I press my palm to it, to try and heal it. But the pain isn’t real. It’s just my imagination.

Science proves that humans have no reason to shed tears. Physically, our body doesn’t need it. As long as our cornea is moist, we don’t need to release any more water. I think that, sometimes, we are so overcome with emotion that we ridicule what science and fact and reason tells us. Science still doesn’t know why we do it – whether there is a part of our brain which triggers it. All I know is that we do cry; we do shed something of ourselves in a vain attempt to lift that weight off our chest.

I cry and I cry and I cry and I cry.

Soon,

The sobs stop.

The crying stops.

The pain numbs and leaves like the summer, a season rolling forward into the next.

Soon,

I let go of everything.

I focus on now.

I focus on my life, and what she wanted me to do.

I focus on the dream.

I focus on the happiness.

I forgive. I even start to let go of the memories of the hospital. I even start to get over it, as if that is even possible. I could forget the whole time she was here; I could forget that she even existed.

But I don’t.

And I won’t.

A figure approaches me but I'm too tired to bother. In the light of a streetlamp I find Louis - hands in pockets, shoulders hunched and a sympathetic smile. He meanders towards me, stepping slowly and calmly closer, in a way which wouldn't frighten anyone. Louis doesn't say anything but holds out his tan palm. A hulk of silver has pooled out on the surface of his skin and it takes a few seconds for me to recognise it as her necklace - my necklace. I stare up at him, unaware of how I look. To him I probably seem as if I was in a tackle with an elephant. My hair is askew and my face spotted with tears. Louis doesn't mind. He just waits there patiently until my shaking hand picks the necklace out of his. I let it rest on my palm for a while. Metal is normally cold, but the pendant is warm from Louis' body heat. The heat it radiates is minuscule, though somehow it brings me back to life.

I sit up. I wipe my tears. I drink some water. Louis helps me stand as I wobble on my feet. We move slowly back to my house, silent and perfect. And then once we get back home, no one questions my absence or the wreck I look like or the object that I am clenching in my fist. I see Zayn and Liam and Niall. I smile.

I will move on.

But I will always remember.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N

5000 reads. Like, you all are amazing! Thank you so so much everyone - anyone who has commented, voted, fanned or even just added this story to the reading list, thank you. There is one last chapter after this one, which I will try and get up soon, though the past few weeks have been quite busy so I'm not sure when the next (and final) update will be.

Please remember to vote if you liked this as it is greatly appreciated! Also, what's your favourite quote of the chapter? Any other thoughts or feedback? What you had for breakfast? Drop it in the comments below!

Love, Nando's and Harry Styles' Hair,

HopeSilver