Introspective Strangers [h.s.]

Chapter 38

This is stupid. It's a room.

My throat felt tight with every step that I took.

It's a room. It holds nothing over you.

"Are you–"

"I'm fine," I said, a little too quickly and then threw an apologetic look toward Harry, who I now realized was standing right inside the doorway. With a small sigh, I added, "I'm just... sorry. I know this is stupid."

Harry was back in front of me in under two steps, his hands on either side of my face. He tilted it upwards until I was looking directly at him and, for a moment, I forgot all about the room a few feet behind him as I just looked into his eyes. His thumb brushed over my cheek, while his other hand tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Never apologize for what you feel," he murmured. "I'm here with you."

He leaned down, brushing his lips against mine, eliciting that same spark through every nerve in my body. I nearly cried out at the familiarity of it, of the comfort that the gesture gave – a comfort that I hadn't been able to find in this house for so long.

"Side by side," I said softly as we pulled apart.

Harry reached down to link our hands together. "Side by side, Mayflower."

This time, I took the lead in pulling us into the room. The door was ajar, though I knew exactly what lay on the other side whether it had been open all the way or not. With a gentle shove of my foot, I pushed it all the way open and stepped inside.

It was the same as it had been when I was 16. The same as it had been when I was 8, when we first moved here.

"My mom's dream house," I murmured aloud with a small smile, as I looked around at the pink paint and flowers adorning the walls, at the heavy blue comforter and pillows still on the bed. My head angled to the side as I stepped another few feet forward into the room, running my hand over my old vanity and bookshelf – the novels I had read so many times over, long forgotten.

Harry's hand was still in mine and he gave it a small squeeze as if to tell me to continue.

"We moved here when I was 8," my words were soft and I wasn't even sure if he could hear me, or if I was speaking more to myself than anything else. I took a seat on the edge of the bed, pulling the pink dress that Eve had left out into my lap. Harry took a seat beside me. "We looked for months for a house. My mom hated every single one that we toured. Said that we would know when we found our forever home,"

I ran a lazy hand over the material of the dress in my lap and continued with a small smile, "She said that it would be like shopping for a wedding dress. That we would know when we found the right house."

"And this was the one?" Harry said quietly, though his voice lacked no affection.

I laughed softly. "This was the one. Who would have thought? Some shit house in the middle of a stupid suburban neighbourhood." I gave him a sad smile. "I loved it though when we got here. I loved it because she loved it. It wasn't..." I swallowed, "It wasn't until she was gone that I grew to hate it. That I realized the only real reason why I had thought it to be so beautiful was because of the beauty that she had brought to it."

Harry and I were both silent for a few minutes before he put a hand over mine and said, "I can see that there was beauty here. That there is beauty here."

I let out a small snort and gestured to the room that I had once slept in, danced in, cried in, lived in. "This is how 8-year-old me lived."

Harry gave me a small grin as I turned to him. "I thought you said that you moved out when you were 16?"