North Road {HS}

32. Kitty

Harry was at his perch. Where I often found him on nights like these. Nights where the house was quiet and we were both busy pretending that Pierce and Adelaide hadn't snuck out somewhere.

I was relatively confident he was on his way to drunk. A half empty bottle sat precariously by his side as he sat, both palms planted firmly behind him on the flat shingles with his head thrown back staring at the stars over the bay. Everything about the familiar situation took my breath away.

It was a beautiful September night. The wedding was tomorrow. We hadn't experienced any storms off the water yet and the air was hazy with the remnants of summer. But the storm within me could no longer be contained. The rains needed to come so that the remnants of pain that made the air hang heavy around me could be washed away.

"Harry," I whispered and my voice held the notes of my pain, my frustration- my love.

He didn't turn to me but I knew he was listening.

"Why?" I pushed knowing I wouldn't get an answer. My heart played with what question to ask next. Why are you here? Why are you drinking again? Why are you pretending I don't exist?

But I knew none of those questions would bring the answers I needed.

"Why do you hate me?" I whispered. I was desperate. Maybe I wanted to plant a seed- to get some sort of reaction out of him.

His head whipped around to where I had planted myself beside him. His eyes were red and watery. I had seen pain before. I had seen agony. These two had been my closest companions for a long time. But there in his eyes I saw so much more and my chest ached for all I didn't know about him.

"Why the hell would you say that?" he whispered back.

"I don't know," I admitted, "because you kissed me like I was the very thing you needed to breathe. You made me feel alive for the first time in so long and I so desperately want to be angry at you. To scream at you every time you entered a room and pretended I wasn't there," my voice was rising as I spoke, "For as long as I can remember I've belonged. So much so that no one even noticed me in a room. That no one noticed the ways I bent backwards to make life livable for people. And yet, there were moments when I caught myself in the reflection of your eyes and saw so much more. For a moment I could believe someone saw me as something more than a part of the household- that maybe I wasn't disappearing into the walls as I tried to hold them up. But then it stopped and I couldn't help think I was wrong about it all. Why? Harry, why?!"

I had started yelling by the end. Letting things pour out of me I couldn't hold in. The rains were falling and it felt good.

"That's the problem," he whispered after a moment.

"What's the problem, Harry? How the hell is that your problem?!"

He was silent for a heart beat as tears fell down both of our faces- the rains of our hearts pouring out.

"You are the only thing I can see when I enter a room. You captivate every one of my senses. So much so that I nearly believe I can forget all of the rest of it," he began to explain and I swear the sound of two pounding hearts like thunder could be heard that quiet evening, "But I'm not allowed to forget."

In that breath his tears broke into sobs and the heavens broke into full on torrents.

"But, Harry, you can," I spoke.

"No, no I can't," he shuddered, his body shaking, "I don't deserve it. I've let everyone I've loved down and- and... I can't love another just to let them down too."

I thought my heart couldn't break more, but it did right then.

"But what if they loved you back?" I asked, begged really.

He had been looking out at the bay as he cried, but with those words he turned to me and his eyes bored into mine until in one body wracking sob I watched him breathe out more pain than one person should ever hold in their entire live and breathe in clean air before lunging at me as we sat precariously on the flat roof. Our tears were married with each other as we pressed our mouths together in urgency. His need was obvious- he needed comforting. But so did I. And for the first time I didn't think I was afraid of what that meant.

After a few moments he lead me into the small attic room that had become his home and I lead him into my heart with the promise that he could call it his new home. There he whispered promises of devotion, of love. Things that sounded like prayers as he worshipped me with love and adoration in ways only our bodies know how. It was new and foreign but at the same time familiar. Like this was what I was made for. Why I was made a woman. So that on that quiet, September night, right in the midst of the storms in our hearts- Harry could love me with all of the words he didn't know how to say.
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A lot going on!
Update on my life right now: I am spending the rest of the month in the US because of the holidays and my sister is getting married. Then in January I'm hoping to spend a week or two in the UK. I've spent a lot of time off and on there in the past few years but if anyone has any suggestions of places I should go I'd love to hear! Then after that I return to the grind with my job in Tyre, Lebanon. Love to you all! Let me know how you're doing!