Come June [ h.s. ]

8

8
.

It must've only been about 5 in the morning. Harry sat comfortably against a great white log with his toes buried deep in the sand, the darkness of night fading before him. He'd woken a few hours prior covered in sweat; ever since he'd moved, he'd started having bad dreams. He couldn't remember what exactly took place during them-- only that they jolted him awake, and left him feeling rather empty.

On this particular morning he couldn't seem to fall back asleep, so he decided to walk down to the shore and watch the sunrise.

When he was a boy, his father would set out early in the morning and bring Harry with him-- back when they owned a beach house, and took family holidays together. He loved the way it looked right when the sun broke the horizon. The far point of the sea became a delicate golden sliver which cast its glow across the sky, glinting in places where the water touched. It had been a long time since he'd watched one of those sunrises.

The air around him was cold. Harry zipped his coat tighter, so that the collar covered his lips and the lower part of his nose. He let out a few strong breaths to fill the pocket with warmth; whenever his nose began to run, he'd wipe it with the sleeve of his undershirt.

It had been a few days since he'd last seen Eileen.

Two, perhaps. Maybe three.

He planned on walking by around the time she watered the tulips, just so it wouldn't appear that he'd been avoiding her. He often replayed their conversation in his head; remembering the shape of her face as she spoke, and the inflection of her voice. A feeling caught between guilt and confusion would consume his body.

Maybe he was scared because he'd found someone who knew nothing about him, and had no clue what to do about it. He could finally be whatever he wanted to be, like a blank canvas of a person. He was afraid of ruining that. Besides, Eileen had no idea who he really was.

How could he ever be real with her?

What was he supposed to say about his life, where he came from?

Nothing.

As he wiped his nose again, Harry found himself wishing that he could lunge into the past. He tried to imagine how things would be if he were able to start over somehow, and never have to hide.

His fingers moved along the surface of the sand as he thought. Though he wasn't much of an artist, he drew shapes that were meant to resemble shells; and after giving up on that, smoothed them down until there was no trace of their existence. His hands continued the destruction for longer than they needed to.

Shells aren't anything special, he figured.

They hold things in.

That's all they do, they hold things in with all their might and never let anything come too close.

.

By 10:30 that morning, he was sitting in his underwear, alone on the couch, with a bowl of chocolate ice cream in his lap and a tall glass of wine on the table. Clad only in a pair of not-so-white socks and a gray t-shirt, he felt like a woman going through some sort of mid-life crisis. It probably would've humored him, had it been any other day; but at the moment, he felt strangely numb.

He didn't walk past her house like he thought he would.

There wasn't any particular reason why.

He just didn't do it.

As a matter of fact, Harry couldn't really bring himself to do anything. He wondered if his early morning trek to see the sunrise had thrown everything off somehow; which was cruelly ironic, since the whole purpose had been to clear his mind and maybe set some things straight.