" Darling, for you to feel this sad
You must have once felt so happy,
And you will find that again
And it will be beautiful. " -E.K., Via Tumblr
__________
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl..."
The story as old as the seas, the Red Riding Hood. The last thing I expected Darren to be doing is reading a children's tale, but it doesn't seem far fetched. I sit on the opposite metallic bench, not interrupting his reading session. Not that he's that busy in a prison cell, but hey, he gained my respect for him. Last talk was actually helpful...sort of? But yeah, it was great.
I nearly zoned out a few times, my mind going to all the random places and avoiding last week's particular event. I kept focusing on the little details of the cell, stains that are yet to be scrubbed, the weird metallic bloody smell, dull shimmering light that doesn't seem to get stronger nor dimmer. My mind listened to the story every now and then, not really interested, until Darren reached the last chapter, which happened to be twisted from the one I knew since my childhood.
The wolf ate the Grandma, then the granddaughter.
Huh, lovely.
He closes his book, setting it beside him. A few moments of silence passes while I stare at his unchanged appearance. "Hello, Mr Styles." He speaks up after a few moments.
I shrug and stand on my feet, my hand searching in my coat. "Thought we're past formalities, Darren." I remark quietly, walking over to him with the photo. He doesn't seem to listen as he shifts from his lying position to sitting cross-legged legged.
He takes the photograph from my hand. "Ah, yes. The pretty little ballerina. How is she related to your situation, though?" He looks at me with a suspicious brow raised.
Make up something, quick. My eyes dart to the wall behind him, then remember something. "She was in a picture with Lawrence, she works with him." I think I sound convincing.
Daren stares at it with a blank expression, then starts chuckling. "Not everyone related to the ones involved are a part of this, Mr Styles." He looks at me with an expectant look. "And I think you you know that."
I shrug. He's good. "Doesn't mean she doesn't know anything." I retilate.
He shakes his head. "You may be dead, but you're a terrible, terrible liar Mr Styles." My eyes widen, is he serious? "Now, tell me what you want to know about Ms Swift."
"That's her last name?" I raise a brow.
"Mhm." He leans back against the wall.
I'd like to think that sometimes I see things beyond what people see on the rough surface. But now, the tables turned. Daren sees right through the surface of my lies and he's waiting for me to come clean, he's making it fucking obvious too with the ridiculous facial expression he's wearing.
"What exactly does she do? Other than dancing." I cross my arms and frown in interest.
"Not that I stalked her..." he snorts at his own joke. "Well, she sings too. Writes songs. Composes pieces for the ballet acts. That's pretty much it."
She sings and writes...
I guess I'll have to look into it from that side. The ballerina may dance her sorrows away, but she also sings and writes songs. "Mr Styles?" How come I never heard of her? She's got the looks, and her dancing is exceptionally astounding from what I remember in her studio.
" Harry?"
I look at him slowly, not realising I zoned out on him until now. "Yes?" I awkwardly speak up.
He has a smirk on, then he chuckles and shakes his head. "Any other...possible questions you may have?"
I ignore his stupid smug expression. "When did she start doing...all this?" I raise a brow, softening the frown I have had on for a while now.
"Four years ago, I suppose? Wasn't famous nationally until she played some big role in a ballet show. I think people know her for her music mostly, although she never toured around. She just played shows here and there, dropped singles. That stuff." He shrugs.
"But she went to a dance college or something? Why does she sing?" I keep asking like my life depended on it.
Pfft, what life?
"Dear boy, why did you used to sing? Why did you ever bother with music?" He retilates.
"Because..." I look at the wall he's leaning on blankly. "That's what I wanted to do."
"But what made you want it?" He presses. "Think before you answer."
What made me want to make music? Wasn't it because I enjoyed it?
I remember when I was fourteen, I had all these records of much admired artists that I fancied so much. I had imagined the stars gazing back at me as I sang. I had dreamed of being on stage. But as a musician, as a singer. As someone who wrote their own music. Why? How? I had all these emotions driving me off all these years, I didn't know how to get them out. Then I just somehow shaped them into a story, into something I could use as a song. Sex wasn't the only thing I sang about. Girls weren't always the main focus of my songs. I wrote about freedom. I wrote about reality, and how people really are. I wrote about stories I made up in my mind or real ones I've witnessed or heard about. I wrote to voice out my thoughts in a way no form of casual speech could. I sang with emotion. I sang to share all these things with the world. I sang to remember. I sang to forget. But most importantly, I sang to feel.
However, I also sang in hopes to find someone in the world who had the same feelings and view of the world as I did. I never did.
"Yes boy, there it is."
I look down at Daren, feeling as if I just been sucked back to earth. I catch myself making that face when I'm usually struck by something-which is rare.
"And that's why she sings too. And writes." He adds with a brow raised.
"But..." a frown settles again. "It can't be. Everyone has their own reasons for what they do."
"True. You're a smart person. Not everyone is the same. But if you truly think of it, whatever reason they lead on for pouring their emotions into lullabies, it's all for the same thing. They need someone. They need someone to understand them and share their mind with. Wasn't it that for you?" He raises a brow.
Oh he's good. Too good.
I walk back to the cemetery, having ditched the place for a month now. I go to my sanctuary and look at all the now faded papers and photos hung up; as much as I keep telling myself I had been back tracked, I cannot deny the progress I made. I found names and faces I hadn't known before. I found places. Secrets. Documents. I could ruin all these people. But only one is my target, I don't care about the others. They'll get their karma.
"Jonathan! Get back here!"
My head snaps toward the noise, a few bushes start moving around and I immediately cover up. I lay low beside the table and pole, looking at where the movement is in the darkness between the trees.
Laughter is heard, male laughter. "You suckers, weak. Come on, are you scared?"
A lad comes out from between the dead branches, looking like a college Frat Boy.
"Jonathan! That's what they say in every horror movie and then something happens!"
Yeah Jonny, listen to the girl.
"Pussies." I hear him mumble.
Moron.
I consider traumatising him. Leaving him scarred forever. Never wanting to be alone again. Not even when he goes for a piss. But I'm not in the mood for him, I've got things to do.
I snap my fingers, changing my location. I was supposed to be at the mansion, my house. But instead, I'm in a studio. The studio. And there is the damsel, playing something on the piano on the other side of the glass. The place is empty, it's just her in there and it's just me in the recording area here. Wasn't I thinking of my own home...?
Pretty sure I was.
I shrug anyway, and press a button to hear whatever she's playing and put on the headphones. The tune she's playing, I don't know what it is, but it sounds good. Really good. But something for a fucking funeral, Jesus this girl is hopeless.
Suddenly she stops, her hands lifting off the keys, and she grabs the sheets off it and stood up, picking up a pen from where the music sheets were and scribbled something on them. I take off the speakers and walk as she moves to the door, and I walk through the one in front of me.
She keeps walking in the hallway, right towards the elevator, and I stand by her in it. It's awfully quiet in that floor, I wonder if it's the same case with the rest of the building.
We reach the floor she chose, which happened to be the ground one. I hadn't seen much of it apart from the lobby since the last time, therefore I trail behind her as she nods toward the same guard and goes to the right side in the brightly lit place. Why does she look so stiff? It beats me. I tell myself not to be reckless and keep my hands to myself- it'd freak her out anyway.
We reach a pair of double doors, and she pushes the one to the left, entering a dark place but then I notice the lit stage. We're in an auditorium. Oh.
"Scott!" She suddenly calls as she goes down the steps in between the seats.
I now notice a bloke standing in front of the stage, with a piano beside him. She seemed to have interrupted his phone call as he hangs up after a few seconds.
"Yeah?" I hear him ask.
"I think...I think this is it." She says hesitantly, handing him the sheets.
He takes them and takes a quick look at each one. "Alright, get up there star." He turns to the piano as she heads to the side of the stage and I hear fast steps on the mini stairs echo in the theatre. She disappears behind the curtains, and I turn my gaze to 'Scott' who is motioning for something with his hand gestures, and I turn around to see what he's looking at.
There is a man inside a small room up above the very back seats, and I'm guessing that's where the lights are controlled, as they're turned off. With that, I blindly walk back up to the far behind seats, sitting at the one beside the double doors.
Five minutes must have passed until a light was slowly and lit up gradually toward the middle spot on the stage, and towards it walks into it Taylor. She had changed her clothes into a short dress, and wore that ballet shoes thing.
The piano started playing, and I'm guessing that's the beginning of whatever she was playing back at the studio. She was still for a few seconds as the music started slow, then she started moving her hands, and I watched the show unwind before me.
The low sound of the keys felt as if it was somehow blindly moving her hands and feet with the lighting trailing over her, each move she's making is precise and tight; a routine she'sd likely had practiced many times in advance. The difference between this dance and the last one is obvious, as no one was watching her then, and she did what her body wanted along with the song. Right now she's following a certain protocol, although looking just as sad and vulnerable as last time if not more. It's actually astonishing seeing how she can focus on this entirely, making it look effortless when I know that shit is hard as fuck. She's doing with her soul, but also like it's something she's forced to do. How'd she manage to combine these two contrasting things bewilders and astounds me. I only wonder if she composed this certain melody, and if I'm ever going to hear her sing anytime soon.
The melody becomes more intense, more keys playing through it, and her dancing becomes faster. I've never thought anyone could look more naked to the world, but there she is. Almost as if she's about to leave her body and escape this horrendous place. I want to know what's tying her down, what's drowning her, and making her look like a human forced to live while being completely dead in reality. I want to demand an answer for every question that keeps swerling in my mind revolving her life. So far I'm not that interested in her past as much as I am in her present. What's happening to her now, now what happened to her back then. What is up with those bruises she had the other day, and why was she in the woods alone? I recall her having a 'boyfriend', so where is he while she's like this? Did they break up? Did she hurt him, or did he hurt her? How did it end? How did it even begin?
What felt like an eternity later, she finally finishes at the last few notes, her body caving down to the ground like a dead flower. I wrinkle my nose, feeling an invisible, faint clench in my chest that sends me stumbling backwards after I stood up on the steps.
What the fuck was that?
I could have sworn something just twisted something in my chest. I shrug it off, my body must have been decomposing or what-fucking-ever. I'll have to ask the angel on that.
I appear at the front of the stage, the lights now turned on normally, and this Scott guy says he'll be right back as he jogs toward the exit of the auditorium. Taylor stands up now, pushing her oddly golden hair over her shoulder. Does she ever smile? Was it like that before? Grumpy hundred and ten percent of the time? Well she must have been happy at some point in her life, to feel such major disappointment and lack of motivation.
She's staring at her hands, and I can't see her expression properly from here. I make myself visible, ignoring every sanity left in me.
"Taylor? That you?" I speak up.
Her gaze spots me, her eyes somehow having this really hypnotising shade of night sky blue. Jesus it's so stunning. "Ed...Edward?" She raises both her brows.
I nearly ask who the fuck is Edward until I remember my little white lie. "That's me." I mostly say for myself. I smile anyway, and the gesture is foreign on me.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" She asks.
Oh, of course she'll ask that first. "I just came here looking for some producer with the name Jack, and walked into the wrong door I guess. " I shrug sheepishly. "That was some...really good dancing." I change the subject. "You work here?" I sound stupid to myself but I hope I sound normal to her.
She nods, her hands grasped behind her back. "Jack isn't here though, he's on a holiday. Christmas is just around the corner, so..."
"Oh, right. Should've called first, but I'm glad I found you here." Too forward. Too fucking forward.
My body would be on fire if I were still alive, but I keep my expression friendly and smiling. What am I even trying to do?
I might have caught her cheeks turn rosy, but I can't be sure from this distance. "We should probably get out, Kale wants to go home." She nods up and looks at the lighting guy.
I look too to see him gesturing something foreign for me, but apparently familiar for her. I look back at her, catching her staring at me and looking away to her feet right away. I would have smirked in other circumstances, but for some reason I feel awkward. Or I might be mistaking it for being flustered. I don't know.
I clear my throat, " Well come on then, wouldn't want to waste his time." I step closer to the stage and hold out my hand.
She eyes it for five seconds, and I question too if that's a good idea. She hesitantly walks over, and reluctantly holds my hand. I pull her over and grab her waist with my other hand securely, her free hand on my shoulder. Her skin is just as warm as I imagined.
T A Y L O R
Like slow motion, my eyes never left his dark ones. My feet touched the ground, and I almost forgot to pull away as I had been in a sudden trance.
His eyes are wondrous, somehow hiding their true form. It's like they were never alive, their light had diminished, and now it's this really dark shade of green, like a palm tree's leaves.
"Want to grab a coffee? It's not too late." He requests, as we stood there for a moment or two.
I nodded, not thinking much of it. I rather not go home anytime soon anyway.
We walk out the theatre quietly, heading to the reception and I stop there. "Uh...just wait here. I need to grab my things." I quietly tell Edward.
"Okay." He replies.
I head to the elevator and go to the studio, where the clothes I was wearing are sent there and I quickly change here, then keep the dress in my bag. I'll return it later or something.
I find the man with the bun standing alone with his hands in his pockets. I'm convinced his skin is abnormally pale and sort of dull, but that's none of my business and he's not having it anyway. He notices me from the echoe of my shoes and gives me a small smile, that I oddly return. We walk silently out the glass doors, and I wrap my coat tightly around myself as the cold wind blows. I detest this weather, simply because of every coldness it ever brought upon my life.
"Uh Taylor?"
I look at him. "Sorry, what?"
"Erm...how are you?" He asks.
Depressed? Bored? Feeling like I'm worthless? "I'm alright. Been better, however." I decide, and keep looking forward. "How about you?" He always seems stoked up or something, but it's a bit obvious that he only puts that facade on for show. One of the reasons I'm keeping two feet safe away from him. Also, I like my personal space.
"Just great," he answers. He looks down with his lean attire, his back slicked as he walks. It's actually attractive, now that I've observed it. But I swear he still looks familiar. I just can't put my finger on it, where have I seen him before?
The sidewalks aren't as packed as they usually are, it is Christmas eve. It was just some aimless walking, I figured after a few minutes. He's not even looking where he's walking, until he finally speaks up again. "What is the date today?"
He really doesn't know? "The twenty fourth...of December." I answer anyway.
"Oh...really?" He asks in surprise, his brow raised as he glances at me. His pace had slowed down.
I nod.
"Shit, time flew fast." I don't cringe at the use of that certain word, for once. "I don't think the café is open at this time..." he trails off.
Sure enough, we had reached Starbucks, and it is closed. We stand quietly. I look at him. He's biting his lower lip, then he sighs. "I made you walk for nothing. I'm sorry."
"No, it's- It's fine. My place is nearby, I can make some mean hot chocolate if you're still up for it." I shrug. This might be a bad idea, but I really don't want to be alone just yet. Especially when I have someone willing to keep me company.
"Sounds good, if that's not much trouble." His lips curling up briefly. "Lead the way."
And so, we walk to my apartment.
H A R R Y
"You've got a...lovely place." I say politely. It has a warm feeling to it, the decor being of firey colours, with a little bit of blue and green here and there.
"Thanks," she replies, taking off her maroon coat and placing it on the single-person white couch, revealing the same long sleeved navy blue shirt and skinny jeans. "Make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back." She says and turns away to what I assume is the kitchen.
Then I get hit with the sudden realisation. I cannot digest anything. Why the fuck didn't I think of this earlier?
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Okay, technically I didn't test that theory, so maybe it'd be okay. But I'm dead so it'll probably stay in my stomach. I'm such a dumbass. Fuck, maybe I can fake drink it, then like throw it away somehow.
Calm down. Jesus.
I fill my lungs with air, then breathe it out, and sit down on the middle, bigger couch, that has knitted cushions on it.
Hey, these are pretty cute.
I look at one that ironically says, "start your day with a smile".
I look at her once I hear her faint bare steps on the wooden floor; she's holding two cups with whipped cream and thin chocolate bars on each. Not bad.
"Here you go." She hands me the one in her right hand and sits on the same sofa she had placed her coat on. "Now tell me, why were you looking for Jack?"
"I'll tell you; people around you, all those people prepping you up for performances or whatever, they talk but don't really say anything, they hear but don't really listen, they see but they don't truly look , and they touch but they don't really feel," I pause, checking if she's still listening. She is. I look at my knees again as we're sat on the carpeted floor. "But really, you can't do anything about it. You can't force someone to give you that sort of attention, nor can you force their affection on you. It's all about what they're willing to do and their intentions. Um..." I stop for a moment again, trying to get my thoughts straight. "It's like, you somehow gain their respect with whatever you do, and with that comes what they're willing to do for you and to you."
When she sees I'm not going to add anything to that, she puts the cup on the table. "Right. Why..." she trails off, but speaks up again. "Why do you think people come to your life, if they know they're just going to ruin it?" She asks quietly.
I frown briefly, and look at her intently. That question, it seems like a mask for something she wants to ask more specifically. "Well," I sigh. "You never know what someone's intentions are. They could be a daydream, but they're actually your worst nightmare that you didn't even know you feared so much until they showed it." I shrug. "I don't know much about women, I'll give you that. Some may be nice, some may be malicious. However, us men..." I let out a chuckle, easing the tension that somehow formed. "I may not be proud of...things I used to do. Sleeping around, not really sticking to 'relationships'. I mean, it happened once, years ago, like a fling or whatever. I had to buy a lot of shit just to keep her satisfied, and to her I somehow seemed to always fuck up. I don't know. You girls are complicated," I shoot her a glance. "No offence intended."
"None taken." She shakes her head, and urges me to continue.
"I'm not going to lie, first thing a guy would notice about a girl is her looks. But what keeps them around is whatever unseen connection, or this strange force towards her. Each guy has the thing that they like about a girl, and sometimes they'd want to see it all the time. Like a crave I guess.
"Going back to your question, however, is that...well people, by choice, do bad things. They may envy someone, and feel that jealousy burning in them, that they want to ruin someone's life. Sometimes it may be about revenge, maybe a relative of the person they want to hurt, hurt them, and they want vengeance. Of course, that's idiotic. But yeah, men are stupid sometimes. "
"But it's cruel- sometimes. " She remarks, her lips forming a faint pout.
"We can't really change someone's mind. The human mind is a strange world, you could get lost trying to look through it, or you could get your redemption from it."
___