Begin Again

MISSING YOU

That night, Delano fell into a deep slumber as soon as the black cape veiled the sky, his heart too exhausted from all that drama during the day to remember his little rooftop rendezvous with Belle. 

When the city was silently asleep, she was sitting alone at their spot, smiling to herself on her way up as she peeped into his window to find herself looking at him dozing off like a little baby.  Everything seemed to fade away when she was near him, all the questions and answers she had buried in her heart for all these years would eventually resurface one day. While he wasn't sitting next to her at that particular moment, she felt comfortable in their secret spot, as if they shared something special that no one else knew. 

They had first met only days ago, but it felt as if they had known each other since they were crawling in diapers. 

I miss him already. She thought to herself, though she knew that she shouldn't have those kind of feelings towards him. It was wrong. 

So she adjusted herself, hugging her knees closer to her chest, her hand running along her delicately carved silver locket, as if she was much safer that way. 

***

He was rummaging through his father's desk, cold sweat dripping from his face. He knew that he was searching for something, but he didn't know what it was. The shape of the Pegasus hanging from his neck was glowing lilac and pulsing every second there was, as though he could not differentiate it from the heavy beating of his heart. 

The slippery knobs on the drawers and his sweaty palms were not making his job any easier, though he has heard footsteps closing in from the outside. He turned his head frantically towards the door, his whole body trembling from the adrenaline rush. 

There was the turn of a knob and a pause later on, his father was talking to someone outside that door and would come in and see him any minute now, but he couldn't stop his hands. He had already came so far. Suddenly, his fingers grabbed onto the yellow edge of an old photograph, and he pulled it out from under the thick book that had been sitting on it, his mind racing though the possibility that this might be the thing he had been looking for all this time. 

But just before he turned the picture around, the door swung open. He turned to look at the face of his father and his heart skipped a beat. The photograph he had been holding, fell from his hands and landed on the cold floor, both pairs of eyes in the room followed its feather-like motion. Everything seemed to stop for the split of a second, and then the whole room started turning into a spiral, the voice of his father was heard in the form of inaudible words, his head was spinning hard and he felt his lost of balance as he plunged downwards. 

'Delano, wake up,' a familiar female voice rang through his ear. He sat up with a bolt, and there were confusion and panic in his eyes, as though there were huge waves in the deep blue sea. Opposite of him were the same eyes he had inherited from, looking at him with a slight frown and deep concern. 

'I had a nightmare,' he said, choking in his own shortness of breath. 

Corinne placed her hand on his head and said softly, 'Everything's alright. Go back to sleep.' And she smiled before walking out of his room, switching off the lights so that he was surrounded by the pitch-black silence as before. 

Delano looked at the time, it was one in the morning. He made himself wonder if Belle was still waiting for him on his roof, and if she was, he would blame himself for not telling her in advance. 

I couldn't sleep either, might as well test my luck. He thought, before climbing out of bed. As he opened the window, he heard his mother coughing from downstairs, and there was the sound of the kitchen tap turning. 

After what seemed like the hardest decision to make, Delano crept silently back into the position he had been lying in. Half of his heart was already making its way up to the roof, but the other part of it didn't want his mother to find him gone in the middle of the night. 

And as he had guessed, his door had creaked open minutes later where Corinne peeped in to check on him. His eyes were shut, but he wasn't asleep yet. 

I'll see you tomorrow, Belle. 

***

The wind was cold at night, but the eerie silence of the city -- the one that always disappears when morning arrives -- was enough to keep Belle awake. She looked at her watch, and it showed the time of one thirty. She had been sitting in the same position for hours. 

In the past thirty minutes, she had heard voices from Delano's room, and she guessed that he was awake then. 

But he wouldn't possibly come up here at this hour. She sighed. 

At two in the morning, she left the spot with a quarter of disappointment, a quarter of loneliness, and the other half of her heart ached from missing him. 

***

Two different places. Two different people. One lonely night.