TW: self harm and abuse
~Harry~
The walk home seemed to be an entirety. It was as though as soon as the house came into view, the block simply elongated until he was right back where he started. He walked and walked until he couldn't anymore. The bag slung over his shoulder becoming heavier by the minute, only weighing him down more as his feet slowly tread along the road. He tried his hardest to pick up the pace, to get to Gemma as her screams echoed through the wind and into his ears.
"Harry," she shouted, causing him to shut his eyes as he blocked his ears. "Help me!"
"I'm trying," he cried, crouching down onto the road underneath him as he yelled in pain.
His heart was breaking, now matter how hard he tried he just couldn't get to her. It was as if he couldn't move, like all time had frozen and he was just mere steps away from saving her... but he couldn't.
Because now he couldn't move.
His feet were stuck to the ground. No matter how hard he jerked his body forward, he would just get ricashaded back into his original position. He twisted his body any way he could to run, he bent his knees, twisted his ankles, he did everything. But nothing was good enough. All he could hear was the screams of Gemma getting louder, and the hits from his father growing harder.
He closed his eyes once more, trying his hardest to cancel out the screams of his sister with the nail biting one of his own. His throat became raw due to the yell escaping his lips, his hands cramping due to the tight grip he had on his hair. The tears streamed down his face quickly as he prayed that he could move, that he could save Gemma.
His eyes snapped open when everything went silent. His ears rang loudly as the once daylight turned into complete darkness. He looked around, his mind cloudy as his vision was still blurred by the tears. There wasn't a soul in sight, nothing other than complete and utter darkness. He raised to his knees, his eyes quickly falling down as his foot lifted off the ground. His heart leaped with joy, he could get to Gemma.
He took off faster than the speed of light, running until his feet felt as though they were on fire as he roamed aimlessly through the dark. He stopped suddenly when he felt a strong gust of wind, whipping his body around to find the source as he realized he was in fact still outside. There was very little light, only a dim glow from an object that appeared to be impossible to touch. He reached his hand out, his feet following subconsciously as the light grew brighter with each step he took.
The silent ringing in his ears soon faded, only to be replaced with a silent hum of a voice he knew so well.
"Marley," he called out, his voice shaky as he spoke for the first time in what felt like years.
Her voice got louder - but the louder it grew, the more inaudible her words became. The light of the object in front of him appeared brighter, like the sound of his voice was giving it the power to glow effortlessly.
"Marley!" He yelled, moving his head around as he desperately looked for the girl.
It was silent for a moment, the slight pant leaving Harry's lips filled the air that consumed him as he continued his search for the girl. But then it hit him, he knew exactly where the girl had been.
Marley was the moon.
He looked up once more, the smile bright on his face when he caught a glance of her beauty, shining the brightest and most beautiful of light to the shadows surrounding him. He laughed lightly, because for the first time he had felt happy.
"Marley," he whispered, taking another step closer to her as he ran his fingers through his hair. "I've missed you baby."
There was a silence in the air as he waited for her to respond. It felt as though he hadn't seen her in years. Like he had been patiently waiting for this moment to finally arrive. He knew she wasn't going to respond, but for some reason he felt as though he knew exactly what she was going to say to him, and his heart broke. The smile on his face turned into a frown, the tears that had just left his eyes returning in an instant as he shook his head quickly.
"No," he sobbed, walking back towards the moon as the glow started to fade. "Please don't leave me."
In an instant the light from above him dulled out into nothing, making his heart completely break. He couldn't stop the tears burning in his eyes at the realization she was gone. She was gone and was never coming back.
He sat down onto the ground, a sob escaping his lips as the world around him turned back into nothing. Complete darkness taking over as the screams of his sister that he had finally lost came back, only to be louder than ever before.
He cried as he covered his ears once more, rocking back and forth as he begged for her to stop. Because there was nothing he could do, he couldn't save Gemma, he couldn't save his mother, and he couldn't save Marley.
"Please," he yelled, trying to find the words to say as he cried. "Stop, please."
Soon the screams of his sister became too much, his body feeling as though it was stone as he cried through the pain. Each cry for help felt as though he was being stabbed over a hundred times, each one growing louder as the pain intensified.
"Marley!" he yelled, the darkness seemingly swallowing him whole as he sobbed.
He woke up shocked, his body slightly shaking as his upper half glistened with sweat. He was panting heavily, his mind wandering wild as he looked around his room. Only he wasn't in his room.
The bed he had quickly sat up from was resting on the floor, the posters that were covering the wall were ones of not his own, and the cards that seemingly jumped out at him when he looked to his left made him remember where he was. His vision was still slightly blurred from the tears, and his heart was beating so quickly he couldn't even think straight.
He shook his head slightly, his body still feeling stiff from the nightmare as he tried to calm himself down. His pants grew louder as it became hard for him to breathe, the troubling images of the darkness from his nightmare almost becoming too much to bear.
After what felt like hours he finally felt a pair of arms wrap around him, they held him close as he shook his head, only to bury it in her warmth seconds later when he realized she was okay. She hummed softly in his ear, shushing him quietly as he cried.
Usually after a nightmare, he is lonely, tired and scared.
Lonely because he truly believed as though no one could possibly know what he was feeling. That he was the only troubled soul to carry the burden of the guilt he had been feeling since he was nine years old.
Tired because he just wanted it to be over. He wanted to believe the words that people like his sister, his mother and Louis were telling him. He wanted to believe with everything inside of him the words that Marley had promised over and over again were true. He was just so tired of feeling as though he would never be enough.
Scared because he never truly knew if he was awake or not.
When he had realized that it had taken a second after he had opened his eyes for her arms to pull him towards her body, his followed as if it was second nature. He curled towards her, trying his hardest to not let the tears fall as she tried her hardest to calm him down.
"It's okay," she whispered softly, pushing the hair out of his face that had fallen as he hugged her. "You're okay Harry, it was just a dream."
It was just a dream, it was just a dream.
He repeated her quiet words in his head over and over again as she continued to whisper soft, loving nothings into his ear. Her dainty fingers that were stroking his hair made a chill run down his exposed back as her soft hands touched his clammy body.
He wanted to tell her how different it was from any dream he had before. How this time, his dream wasn't a flashback to something that had already happened. It was a world where he didn't want to live in.
A world where she wasn't there with him.
He simply held her tight as she comforted him the best way she could. Only she didn't need to try. Because for Harry, waking up with her being there was all he needed. For it was then when he realized that that was all he ever really needed... Marley there with him.
They stayed like that for what seemed like forever. Simply having her hold him as his labored breathings turned into calming inhales as she counted to three. They were silent, neither of them saying anything to one another except for when he started counting her heartbeats aloud. Surprisingly, it was calming to him, to hear the one thing indicating to him that she was in fact there with him, holding him tight with the intention of never letting go.
"Hey," she said softly, pulling him out of his thoughts as he slowly raised his head off of her chest. "You're okay, baby."
For some reason, hearing her say baby did something to him. It made his heart stop in its tracks, made his breath hitch in the back of his throat as he looked into her bright blue eyes. She had said it before, but there was something about this moment that made Harry's head run wild at her words.
"Yeah," he nodded, bringing his head next to hers and nudging her nose with his. "It was just a dream."
She smiled softly at him, pulling the sheets off of their bodies as she pulled him out of the bed. His head was still fuzzy as he followed her lead, watching in silence as she stopped in front of the record player and small cubby that was filled with vinyls.
"Do you remember the first time you saw me at the club?" She asked, catching him off guard as she looked back at him.
"Yeah, it was after that guy knocked the tray out of your hand," he recalled from memories, wiping the dampness that was on his cheeks as she shook her head.
"I mean the first time," she said.
He simply stared at her, the confusion he had been feeling must have been present on his face because she simply laughed lightly, shrugging her shoulders as she opened the record player.
"It was a few months before Woodgate," she said, pulling out a crate filled with older vinyls, ones that seemed to date back anywhere from the 50's up until the late 80's. "You had a fight at the alley across the way and you came with a few people to celebrate your win. I was terrified when I walked outside and saw you sitting on the curb, I didn't know what you would say to me at the fact that I had been working there."
"I don't remember that," he muttered, looking down at his hands as he sighed.
"It was the first time we had a conversation that didn't end in us about to kill one another," she teased, knocking her shoulder into his as she continued. "I will say I'm quite hurt you don't remember."
He could tell she was joking, the smile on her face making one appear on his own as she continued.
"Once I realized that you probably won't remember anything in the morning I figured I was in the clear," she confessed. "But somehow - despite my attempts of going unnoticed by you - you saw me. You were rambling on about how much money you had just won, bragging about how I 'probably have never even seen the amount of money you have in your pockets' were your words exactly."
They laughed at the memory, one that Harry wished he could recall as she said, "But somehow you convinced me to sit down with you, saying how it was only fair that I was graced with your presence because you were always cursed with mine."
"You know that's not true right," he announced, watching her as she turned her head towards him. "No matter how many times I tried to convince myself that I hated you, that I hated being around you... I could never keep myself from staying away from you."
"I know," she said, taking a seat on the ground in front of the crate as he followed. "Because I found myself doing it too."
He smiled at her words, coming to the realization at the back of his mind that this was the first time he was somewhat okay after a nightmare. And it was only because she was there when he woke up.
"But somehow, during our conversation, you asked me why I didn't drink," she said, moving her body closer to his as he placed his hand on her lap, joining their fingers together as she smiled at the action. "I told you it was because people don't have control when they drink, how those around them always get hurt by the people they become without even knowing it."
He sighed deeply, "I wish I remembered."
"It's okay," she said softly, looking down at their hands before back up at him. "Because you told me that the only reason why you drink is for control. That it's the only way for you to gain back the part of your life that you lost."
He inhaled sharply, closing his eyes at the words she had spoken. Because although she had known all of this, she had never said anything. But yet, a small part of him couldn't help but wonder what else he had said to her that night, scared that too much of his life had slipped out of his lips without his consent.
"What else did I tell you," he asked, closing his eyes as she moved closer to him.
"You said that you would lose the most control of your life when your father would drink. That he would come home, and do things to you, to your sister, and there was nothing you could do about it. You figured that if you used the thing that took the control out of your life and changed it, so that way it was 'for you' instead of 'against you'... you had the control back."
"How come you didn't tell everyone that. After everything I did to you, you had the perfect way to get me back," he asked, genuinely shocked by her confession.
"Do you really think that low of me that I could use the moment when you were the most vulnerable and turn it into revenge? You told me a lot of stuff that night, Harry. Stuff that I wouldn't repeat to anyone with a gun to my head."
"No," he said quickly, cutting her off as he faced her. "I have never thought low of you."
"Then you should know by now that I would never tell anyone what you told me that night. You weren't someone I saw as bait, Harry. The things you told me, I wouldn't wish upon anyone."
"How come you never told me then?"
She sighed for a moment, taking his words to heart before she responded, "I was afraid that you would be angry with me. That if I told you everything, that would have been it. Then you would have never talked to me again and selfishly I didn't want that to happen."
"How come?" He pushed, wanting her to say the words he had been feeling for so long now.
"Because a part of me always knew how much I needed you in my life. Even though I wasn't sure why at the time, something inside of me just knew that you were too important to just let slip away from me."
"And now," he asked, his words breathless as he leaned in.
"I know you are."
His lips captured hers as they shared a sweet, yet passionate kiss. One that he wanted to last for eternity; because he loved nothing more than the way that her lips moved so effortlessly with his. The way that she always hummed into the kiss - a ballad so beautiful that he could listen to it forever. He knew that she had felt the same during the kiss, because when they pulled apart her cheeks held a rosy tint to them that they hadn't had just moments ago.
She turned away from him, her body now fully leaning against his as she spoke softly, "When I have a nightmare, that is when I feel as though I have lost control. And since I don't keep alcohol in the house, I figured you could do what I do when I wake up from a nightmare... only if you want to though."
He hummed in response, leaning his head down onto hers that was now tucked safely into his shoulder, "What do you do when you wake up?"
"I play music," she responded, picking her head off of his body and running her fingers over the lined pressings. "I come to my favorite corner in the world, pick an album that I haven't heard in a while and just listen to the words as I look out the window. It's calming in a way, it takes my mind off of the horrors of whatever I've suffered and allows me to remember that I'm okay."
He brought his body closer to the crate in front of the two, his body grazing her as his fingers sifted through the records.
He came across one that he hadn't known, but something inside of him had told him to play. So he carefully peeled the record out of the box and held it out in front of her to show her. She smiled at the cover before turning to face him, placing her lips back onto his for a kiss that was much too short for his liking.
But nevertheless, he smiled into the kiss, his eyes staying closed for a moment as she pulled back.
"Ricky Sings Again," she hummed, smiling softly as she looked at him. "This is my favourite Ricky Nelson album."
She softly took the record out of his hands, bringing it over to the player as the crackling of the speakers filled the small air. She stood without a second thought, bringing them up to their feet when she reached her hands down to grab his. She guided them over to the window in her room, opening it wider than it had been as she swiftly sat on the edge of it.
"Be careful," he said as he sat down next to her, letting her put her feet up onto his lap as she leaned against the side of the window. She shook her head at him as a laugh escaped her lips, a smile on her face that made his entire body feel warm.
He simply stared at her for a moment, before the words slipped his lips without even meaning them too. He hadn't thought he was ever going to tell anyone the secret he had been keeping for years - but as the moon hit her skin so beautifully, he couldn't help but want her to know every little part of him, even though it was hard to admit.
"When I was sixteen, I realized that drinking wasn't what I needed to do to gain back the control that was taken away from me."
"Harry," she said quickly, her words quiet but held with such compassion as she shook her head. "You don't have to tell me, tonight has been a lot and if it's too much-"
"I want to," he said, placing his hand over her knee as his thumb traced patterns into it.
He stared at the skin that had his fingertips burning as he spoke. "I used to have to kneel on rice for hours when I was a kid. It was the first punishment my father had ever given me and the older I got, the longer I would have to kneel. It was the first time I had lost control of myself, because I wasn't allowed to leave until he came back down to get me. I would be sat for hours, just kneeling as he would blame my mother for the reason I was such a fuck up."
"When did it stop?" she asked, her hand falling on top of his as she sat up.
"When I was thirteen and started fighting back, but it only made things worse," he whispered, not meeting her eyes as he continued. "But for the longest time, I couldn't figure out what I needed to do to allow myself to feel that control again. Until one day I had a nightmare about it. It was more of a flashback though. One about my dad forcing me to kneel on rice as he hit my mother in front of me, before taking her up to their room and forcing her to have sex with him. When I woke up, there was nothing I could do to calm myself down, I just needed something to take the pain of the memory away."
She inhaled quietly, "What happened Harry."
"At first it was an accident," he muttered, his fingers playing with hers as he closed his eyes. "I was smoking when I dropped the cigarette on my leg."
He opened his eyes slowly, turning his head to look at her as she looked back at him with tear filled eyes. She brought the back of his hand up to her lips and placed a soft kiss upon it, causing his heart to leap at her compassion.
"That was when I realized how I could get it back. It all started with my legs. He would make me kneel for so long that I wouldn't be able to walk for hours, I couldn't even move because of the pain I was in. The rice would stick to the blood on my knees, causing them to get infected. The scars cover my knees entirely, never fully healing because just as they almost did, I would do something to make him mad again. Now they're always going to be there, reminding me forever how worthless I am," he sighed, looking up at the moon for the strength to continue. "So I burned my leg on purpose just to see what it would feel like, to see if it would finally give me back the control I had been craving for years."
"And did it?" She whispered, her voice showing that she was terrified to know the answer.
"Yeah," he said softly, looking into her eyes to search for the comfort he had been praying she would give him.
And they did.
His voice began to crack as she shifted her body on the window, causing hers to be next to his as she brought her arms around him, the same way they had started when he woke up, "I couldn't stop, blue. Everytime I felt like my life would start spiraling, I would just light a cigarette and I had the power again. He took so much from me, I just wanted to get it back."
"It's okay," she promised, cradling like a child as they stayed on the window sill.
"They're everywhere," he whispered, motioning his hand down to his thighs. "I just wanted my life back."
"I know, baby."
They stayed like this for a moment, the two basking in the secret that Harry had never told anyone before. The silence that lingered in the air only lasted momentarily as the soothing riff of the acoustic guitar drifted into their ears.
There's a place where lovers go,
To cry their troubles away
"You're going to be okay Harry," she said, her voice filled with such confidence that he couldn't help but believe her. "We're gonna be okay."
He leaned into her touch, allowing his body to feel the warmth she always naturally radiated off of her body to consume him as he closed his eyes, listening to her hum the words into his ear as she stroked his hair. He listened to the words being sung behind him, the smell of strawberries that only ever seemed to appear when she was near overwhelmed his senses.
And the only price you pay
Is a heart full of tears
"Do you really think so," he asked, feeling more vulnerable than he ever had as she held him close.
"I know so," she said as she kissed the top of his head.
They sat quietly, the pair watching the moon and the stars as they held tightly onto each other. Neither of them wanted to be the first to let go. He sat up from her grip, turning his body to face hers as he placed his hand onto her cheek, catching her off guard as her eyes widened.
"I'm glad you selfishly wanted me to stay," he whispered, his lips ghosting over hers with each word he spoke as she smiled widely. "'Cause I'm just as selfish with you Marley Jeen."
"Really," she teased, bringing her body even closer to his as he nodded.
"I am, because even though I know you're too good for me, I can't let you go."
"Good," she said, closing the gap between the two of them as she said. "Because I wouldn't let you."
Maybe down in Lonesome Town,
I could learn to forget
Lonesome Town
~
100,000.
Holy shit, I will never be able to say thank you enough for 100,000 reads. There aren't enough words to express my sincere love and gratitude I have towards you all. Thank you being apart of this little corner of wattpad, I love you more than I will ever be able to say.
Thank you, thank you, thank you <3
The song Harry and Marley listen to is called 'Lonesome Town' by Ricky Nelson and it is one of my favorite songs of all time, give It a listen when you have the chance :)
Hope you guys are enjoying, thoughts on the story so far??
~ Lizzy :)