Buttercup [H.S]

Epilogue Part Two

I blamed myself, and it'd left me struggling to leave my bed for almost five days. I hadn't felt like that for such a long time. A heavy, dark numbness that I'd forced myself in to to avoid the pain.

I didn't want to feel. Didn't want to think. I wanted to hide under my duvet, to shut my eyes and blink three times and go back in time so I could change everything that had happened so Jason had never hurt a soul.

At first, Harry had left me to the quiet of our room. I think he knew that I needed to switch off for a while. That it was too much for me to process. But when one day turned into two, then three then four, he stepped in. On the fifth day, he got me out of bed and he made me shower and he dried my hair and painted my nails and told me we were taking a trip in Cyndi.

Seven blissful days of the road and sea and sun and rain and music on a crackly stereo with my favourite person in the world.

No court cases, no solicitors, no boxes to unpack and furniture to build.

Just me and Harry and our music; the way it always had been.

So when, this evening, just as the sun burned orange and dipped into the sea on the horizon, I'd gotten a phone call from Marissa, I knew it was bad news.

I felt it in the air that burned my lungs and the tremor that rattled my fingers.

"Not enough evidence."

That's all that had gone in, what other reams of legal jargon she prattled off to me fell to the wayside. He'd gotten away with it. He would live his life, breathing the same air as the ones he'd hurt, with no repercussion, because I hadn't been braver quick enough.

I was aware at some point that Harry had taken the phone from me, and that he was talking to Marissa in a hushed voice, before he came back to me and wrapped me in his arms.

"The other girls," Harry says, stroking his fingers up and down my arm. "They just weren't ready to talk. To see him again."

I nod. I understand. But it still hurts.

"Maybe one day," I look up to him, my words more of question or a plea. A beg for hope that Harry answers with a smile that neither of us believes.

"Maybe one day."

*

Six Months Later

I stare at the dress hung on the back of the door, and I'm not sure I've ever seen such a beautiful dress in my life.

Delicate, swirling lace and crystals and tulle and all things magical that you could ever wish for in a wedding dress.

I catch my reflection in the mirror, and I realise I'm crying.

"Oh Jesus Christ, don't start!" Sarah warns me through the mirror, where Lucy is pinning flowers into the back of her hair. "I've paid a disgusting amount of money for this make up, if you make me cry and ruin it then I'm divorcing you as my friend."

I giggle, and dab my nose on a tissue, careful not to smudge my own makeup.

"You're just the most beautiful bride," I tell her, "And you don't even have your dress on yet."