Troubled [h.s.]

38

We wake up around ten and the house is empty, peaceful and painfully hot. We turn on the A/C and Harry cooks for us.

"Babe wash the strawberries please?" He asks as he stirs the pancake batter. I open the vintage fridge and find a brown bag that contains bunch of fruit. Jacob and Tim didn't even bother to take them out their bags. Probably because they never eat them.

I wash them after finding a bowl and hand them to Harry. He puts them in a small pan and adds syrup and butter to it then cooks it to form a strawberry compote.

I make coffee and we sit on the kitchen table, pancakes with strawberry compote and whipped cream with delicious coffee.

"Its so nice to have a home." Harry quickly huffs and then starts eating vigorously.

I think about it for a moment. Me, Harry and Rose in a house, both of us going to work, Rose going to school, coming home for dinner, buying groceries on the way... Like a real family.

Maybe Harry and I can get married and have kids. I laugh in the inside. Me? Married? Pregnant? I'd rather kill myself. I may be a little bent to the right direction but I am not a saint and I never will be a soccer mom or a person whose only entertainment is a romantic comedy tv show or box wine on Friday nights. I am a free soul and I can't be tide down nor get used to a routine.

"I plan on taking you to the statue of liberty today then we can tour the financial district, we can buy some takeout and head to Pier 17. Thats great at night!!! We can even walk the Brooklyn Bridge!!" He thinks out loud, excited like a little boy and I get excited with him.

Harry's POV

I was thrilled to show the girl I loved the city she loved. New York is fantastic, don't get me wrong but she is more excited about it then I am. I lived here, I know its dirt as well as its beauty. I think its overrated. However, there is the joy of being somewhere familiar. I like routine and I like familiarity that brings a comfort zone.

"Its so nice to have a home." I huff my desires. Its nice to have a kitchen, a purpose to wake up to, familiarity and love. This house holds so much memories and love in me. Its my youth here and my chaps, my love in this house and its my home.

I look up at Sky and she is holding this morose yet humorous expression on her face. Its weird and I wonder what she is thinking. I worry what I said saddened her. What if she doesn't wanna have kids or get married? Thats what I see when I take a look at my future. I see her, and three other kids, curly haired like me but blonde like her. Her blue eyes in our boy and my green eyes in our girls. We have breakfast together then we drop them off at school and head to work. None of us went to uni but there are jobs we can work in to support our family.

Then after work we pick the kids up and go back home which is a small house in England. England? I hadn't realized all of my future plans were set in England where I am not wanted. I do miss Gemma sometimes but her face crying and telling me to leave pops up in my head and I am revolted by her.

I tell Sky about our schedule and she seems amused by it. I wonder how much changed in this place.

We get dressed, me wearing black skinny capris and a red button up over that. Sky wears jean shorts and a baggy tank top over, her bralet showing when she lifts her arms.

We hold hands and I grab the metro card from the very back of my wallet as we start walking down the street.

"Take a picture with me!" I say as we walk up to the subway deck. She makes a face which means no. I want to remember this moment. This happy, warm and sweaty moment we are sharing.

"C'mon Skyler!" I say and she gives up, and smiles for the camera. I take it then look at it. I am smiling like an idiot, both of us wearing sunglasses, her hair is tied up weirdly and its perfect.

We go underground after that and take the E line to the Financial District and get off at the One World Trade Center stop. I tell her I will take her up to the observatory too but tomorrow and we continue to walk out the architecturally magnificent yet incomplete building.

There are many people wearing liberty hats and selling tickets.

"Lets just buy one here!" She yells excitedly when I grab her hand and make a right uphill.

"No baby. They'll sometimes con you. Besides, do you wanna get on the island? Its bunch of crap and you need reservations from like six months before to get inside the statue. We can take a free ferry to tour around it." I say as we reach the main street and take another right, this time downhill.

We pass the Saint Paul chapel and get on Wall St. to battery park. We come to the bull and she is jumping up and down for pictures.

"The horns bring money and the balls bring joy." I say and she starts laughing as we cross the road and come to the crowded bull statue. I give my phone to one of the people there and have him take a photo of us grabbing the horns. Then we walk to the back and she can't stop laughing.

She crawls under the bull and holds both balls as both of us start crying from laughter and me taking bunch of a pictures. She is laughing so much she can't pose.

"Oh my god! I can't breathe!" She says as she crawls back out the bull and we start walking downhill to the park. There, we fill our water bottles from the fountain and go up to the shore and start walking to the left.

"I am loving this trip." She says as we joke and walk down, holding hands.

When we reach the free ferry we get on and she is all smiles. I know she loves ferry boats.

"Tell me about it" she says as she looks across the water and I know she is talking about the liberty statue. I read about it somewhere so I start telling it to her.

"So when the states were first discovered and the colonies were forming, they need a work force to build the country. They brought immigrants for that. Ellis Island, that island in the distance were for them to stay in. So some people say that lady liberty was built to indicate the idea of freedom to the incoming immigrants but its a gift of the French so that might be false. At first, the Americans hated the statue and the governments went bankrupt after finishing the arm only. So what they did was they promised people to publish their names on the New York Times in return for donating some money for the statue. Eventually they finished it and it has touristic purposes only today." I tell her as the ferry circles around the island then moves to Ellis island and circles around that too.

I watch her most of the time instead of the sights we are seeing and I don't regret it. She has this confused look on her face thats so cute. I lean on the railings of the ferry, my back to them, Sky to my left and I watch her hair flow in the wind and her face as she gets excited by what we are seeing.

When its time to get off I am right behind her as she goes down the stairs. I hold her waist and give her support since the ferry is not stable and rocks on the water.

"Where to now pickledick?" She asks me giggling as she walks away from me on the deck.

"Come here! I told you not to call me that!" I yell trying to be serious but fail and start laughing as she starts running I follow close behind and catch her, kissing her madly when I wrap my arms around her.

"Lets go!" She says giggling and unwraps herself then intervenes our fingers as we continue to walk in the same direction as we did to get here along the river.