bathroom
Penelope must hate him wherever she is. Harry feels guilty and dirty and disloyal and he feels disgusting.
He thinks he hates Rory a little more. Because it's three in the morning now and she's probably sleeping because that's what normal people do at this time. And Harry is choking on water and coughing up his dead girlfriend's name over and over again. It burns but he's going to burn either way.
Whether it be here now in the tub of an apartment that makes him feel lonely, or in hell. He's so tired, but the pressure in his head doesn't let him sleep.
His lawyer tried to send him to a doctor when everything was set for him to leave the holding cells, but Harry disagreed because he didn't think anything was wrong. He stands corrected now.
Now Harry is coughing up blood from a dry throat that's been deprived of oxygen. There's water everywhere on the floors and his skin looks like raisins because the water washed out most of its natural oils and left him raw.
His heartbeat is rapid and hard against his ribcage. He can feel it in every pulse starting from the one at his neck and ending at his wrists.
He kissed Rory.
Harry wants to drown so maybe he'll feel clean and not so dirty with the fact that he kissed somebody who wasn't Pen. Not that he ever kissed Pen.
He's still breathing out her name in spurts of water and blood, and exhaustion and guilt. He wants all of it out of him. Out of his body and out of his mind.
But then he remembers that nobody else will care about her now that she's gone. Nobody else can carry the burden of Penelope's shadow that she left behind, and Harry can't let go because he's too in love to find a way to do it without feeling like letting her down.
Pen wasn't strong enough to carry her own life and Harry thinks he is. But he kissed Rory and now he doesn't feel good enough.
He shouldn't have time for other people. Shouldn't have space in his head for thoughts that don't revolve around his dead girlfriend.
Harry wants to rinse her away and down the drain, but the guilt burns just as much and he's screaming and she's all that he's got. He tries to make a promise that it won't happen again, and to prove it, he reaches for his phone and dials the most recent number.
It rings twice before he hears Rory's voice, slow and hoarse, and he envies her for being able to sleep. "What is it?"
"Don't kiss me again," he says, hostility clear in his voice. He hopes he doesn't sound as tired as he feels.
"What's up with you?" It sounds like she's waking up.
"Tell me you won't try that again."
"Is it really bothering you?"
He uses his shoulder to support his phone against his ear, the biting cold making him rub his hands together for a warmth he won't find. He didn't get the reassurance he wants. He hopes he wants this. "Tell me you won't kiss me again."
"Do you ever sleep when you're suppose to?"
"Please." He sounds desperate now. Feels desperate, too, and he has no doubt she hears it. He's so distressed and tired and he can't sleep because he thinks he forgot how to.
Sometimes he takes small naps but then he's jolted awake by the feeling of cold all over. He barred his windows shut but it still seeps into the cracks and finds his skin.
Harry tries to catch his breath by standing still, closing his eyes and pretending he isn't in his bathroom proving a point to somebody who's dead and never coming back.
"Harry," Rory's voice is soft. He wants to learn how to be like that. "I'm sorry I kissed you. It won't happen again, okay?"
He breathes in once and holds it.
"Now...are you okay?"
He breathes out once and holds it.
"Are you still there?"
He opens his eyes.
"Harry?"
He sees Rory.
"Tell me what's wrong and-"
Harry hangs up and tosses his phone somewhere on the tiled floors. Then he opens the bathroom door and stalks out, grabbing a towel before dropping himself on the mattress that's in the room that's suppose to be his bedroom. It doesn't feel like it yet, but he's too patient for his own good so it will.
Somewhere in the bathroom on one of the tiles of the floor, his phone continuously rings and he stays up all night working on his breathing and opening and closing his eyes until he sees dark, mossy green eyes instead of dark brown ones.
[This is a fill-in chapter so it's pretty short. Thank you to the people still reading this. It really means a lot.
If things get confusing or I'm not describing things well enough, please tell me, maybe?]