EPILOGUE
"Every ending is a beginning. We just don't know it at the time"
Harry stands at the altar like he can’t quite get a grip. His fingers are twitching and his foot keeps tapping repeatedly on the floor, his hands fidgeting with his own wrists as he bites down on his lips and lets out tiny gasps of air.
Elisha wants to laugh, honestly, from where she watches him on the fifth row, behind Zayn’s huge family and Harry’s own. At some point Harry’s sister has come to talk to her, make sure her little brother hasn’t thrown any fits of instability, at which Leesh merely laughs softly and denies.
The field is packed with people she doesn’t know one bit, only a few familiar faces here and there, but as she sits next to a lady and her five-year-old daughter – who keeps combing through her doll’s hair –, she doesn’t feel one bit misplaced. It’d been her own suggestion to stay behind, even when Harry had told her it was fine to sit with his family. She doesn’t think it’s fine, thinks is maybe too early, now, and sees behind Harry’s eyes how much he’s still scared of closeness; scared of letting someone in and having to watch not only himself, but his family say goodbye to such.
Leesha knows that if things keep going the way things are, right now, they’ll have enough time to sort that out. For now, she settles on watching the little girl next to her, smiling down at the doll and fixing her dress carefully.
Zayn’s biting back on a smile that crawls up his lips every time he glances at his friend behind him, making small talk and teasing each other – Harry shoves Zayn on the shoulder at some point, looking murderous – until the sound of the wedding march silences all bantering circling around. Even the birds somewhere up the canopy of the trees shut up, leaving room for the gentle breeze to sweep through and shuffle some leaves.
As Perrie surges up at the end of the white extended carpet, all heads turn to look at her on her wedding glory, nearly glowing from the happiness on her blinding smile. Harry goes back to fidgeting and Zayn looks calmer than ever, staring ahead of him with the subtlest of the smiles; one of pure contentment.
Somewhere behind them all sets a lingering sun, dying the sky warm tones and taking with it the remaining heat of the afternoon. The breeze only turns colder by the second, but no one seems to particularly care.
Harry’s still shaking from where he stands – and that’s got nothing to do with the weather, she knows –, keeps staring ahead with eyes so big that make him look even smaller, terrified.
It’s not until the ‘speak now; or else for ever hold your peace’ lines come, offering no protest from the crowd, that Harry releases the breath he’d been holding, letting the stiffness of his shoulders drift away, a relaxed smile softening all of his features.
--
Harry’s pleasantly drunk, just slightly tipsy, and he hasn’t got to the point where he knows – well, as well as someone highly drunk can know anything for sure – he won’t remember one single thing the morning after. Actually, he hasn’t drunk all that much at all, just enough to lighten the knots all over his body, leave him buzzing with excitement for his friend under the scrutiny of a chilly night air that, persistent, doesn’t stop hitting against his skin.
He’s got alcohol on his veins, though, so he’s not that bothered by it as Elisha seems to be. Or start being, because, really, it hasn’t been this long since the hair in her arms has stood up on end.
“Y’want my jacket?” he asks, his words slow but not much more than the usual.
Leesh smiles up at him where she’s pressed against his right arm, leaning over his shoulder and reaching for the hand that’s holding his glass of beer, stealing it for a sip.
“Hey,” Harry protests weakly, making no move to stop her. “You said you’d drive, no alcohol.”
She snorts against the rim of the glass and hands it back after downing the liquid, looking at Harry like he’s stupid, but like she’s fond of him nonetheless. He smiles wider just because- because he can, actually, and turns to the side to press a kiss to her temple as if to say “I’m fond of you, too”.
Their table is empty if not for the two of them, Harry’s family having wandered off to the sea of heads swimming under and around a big, bent tree, all lit up with paper bags of light, or whatever that is. There’s soft music playing in the background, one all bodies as swinging to, but Harry’s never been one to dance.
It’s like he’s got two left feet, and balancing on such long legs it’s a challenge even for walking, let alone dancing. He absolutely hates fumbling with his steps, hates not knowing what to do with his hands whilst he focuses on his feet, hates thinking too hard. Dance shouldn’t involve thinking. So, he hates dancing in general.
He turns to Leesha with a bashful smile, sets down his glass and uses his now free hand to ghost his fingers over the side of her face, soothing his thumb over her cheekbones. During the past few months her hair has grown so much it’s now on her chest, the wind blowing on the loose strands of her plat. His smile softens but doesn’t go away; it’s even in his voice when he leans in to quietly ask: “Do you wanna dance?”
She blinks up at him lazily, taking her time to take in his words. When they finally sink, she bites on her lip to supress a smile, doing a rather poor job of hiding it. She knows, also, how Harry can’t dance for shit. At some point these past few weeks, during sneaky phone calls and speakers, Gemma managed to talk to Elisha about every embarrassing fact about her young brother, and Harry couldn’t do much but sit on the side and watch as his update phone call to his sister became a way of reaching out for Leesh and taking her in until it got to the point she found out too much to be able to leave. It’s both terrifying and heart-warming at the same time.
When he comes back to reality, she’s nodding at him, sliding her hand between his as self-invitation to stand up. He takes it, standing from the chair and bringing the small woman with him. Harry guides them to the emptiest place in the crowd he manages to find, which isn’t that much empty, but will do for now.
When the beat slows down, she presses flush against his chest, wrapping her hand around his neck and resting her head on the juncture of his shoulder and neck, stays there.
“You okay?” she asks in a murmur, like it’s meant for him and only him.
Suddenly, Harry knows where to place his hands, knows how to do ‘two steps to the right, two steps to the left’ without tripping over his own feet. He sways gently with her, pulling her bare feet over his own to see if she can reach higher on him. With his fingers splayed over her hips, he nuzzles on her hair.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
--
This is how the following months unfold: Christmas finds Leesh and Harry with their respective luggage struggling in the tube on their way home. At midnight of the twenty-fourth to the twenty-fifth, they’re snuggled up on Elisha’s living room couch with a quilt thrown over both their bodies; the TV on with some Christmas specials flicking through the screen as the few people crumpled into the house chat silently. This year is much like the year before, her two (still single) aunts and grandmother helping Leesha’s mom on the kitchen, her father and the same friend of his from last year’s Christmas dinner (he’s a divorced guy, she’s learnt. He gets to spend New Year’s with his children, but Christmas is apparently with his ex-wife, and he’s got no one else but Leesh’s father to rely on on this cheerful night) on the couch opposite them talking about footie, meanwhile (much to Elisha’s surprise) her grandfather from Scotland sits speechless at the rocking chair besides the fireplace.
He keeps blinking lazily to fight off the need to sleep, catching himself between slumbers every now and then as he rocks slightly, head hanging down and abruptly lifting up again on the verge of sleepiness and awakeness. It’s depressing, maybe. Shouldn’t be, she says to Harry at some point, but also confesses that the only reason why he’s here it’s because his days are becoming short enough to start being counted down on fingers, and her father doesn’t want his father to pass away lonely and miles away from the whole family.
This is for sure his last Christmas.
Both the words and sentiment are shadowed by the loud cheering from the kitchen as all the women come out with one more bottle of wine and the statement of finally being able to have dinner, and as they all rise from their seats, their souls blend into one.
The father of Elisha’s father can barely move, staring down at his plate with nothing but a few grunts leaving his mouth every now and then, although the mother of her mother is still one of the most cheerful old ladies she’s ever seen – the spark of youth livid in her eyes even after so long.
All in all, dinner goes great. Her family loves Harry – has been waiting to meet him since she mentioned him the year before, and her mother looks at her with that superior gaze of ‘I told you so’. Afterwards, they turn all lights off and go back to the living room, Leesh and Harry taking the carpet as they wrap around each other and leave the couch for the elders. They chat until one in the morning, but there’s only so much talking you can do before feeling exhausted and demanding sleep.
It’s weird being all over each other in Elisha’s childhood bedroom, trying to be quiet with their touches and gasps, but it’s a good kind of weird, and they fall asleep easily with their limbs all fusing into one unique body rather than two distinct ones.
The morning after they leave the house and catch the tube yet again to Holmes Chapel, where they have Christmas lunch with Harry’s family, a much more pleasant one. There’s more people their age to talk to, with Gemma’s easy provoking and Harry’s cousins’ loud bantering, his grandparents sitting by a corner sharing their love stories with Leesh, even though everyone around seems to be saturated with it.
They stay for two more days before they go back to London, and New Year’s at Zayn’s. It’s loud and filled with friends only, much drinking and no need to hold back because neither Harry and Leesh are leaving the day after, having sort of a sleepover instead.
With January, comes Harry’s gallery opening, and Zayn’s first exposition in it. It isn’t Harry’s first because his art is ‘still incomplete’, as he says, and so he lets his best friend open it for him instead. It becomes successful, then, and throughout the month Zayn exposes his own art a few times.
On February first, it’s Harry’s turn. The crowd isn’t as big as Zayn’s – mostly because he hasn’t gathered too many (or any at all) admirers with working on his paintings, drawings and photography in private, but he starts then. Leesh knows that from there on his reputation will only grow bigger and better, and Zayn’s also a very supportive friend, so part of his crowd tags along and becomes incredibly supportive.
To celebrate Harry’s twenty-ninth birthday and ninety percent of his art being sold, Harry, Leesh, Zayn and Perrie gather at the last floor of the gallery, staring up at the glass ceiling with glassy eyes and light heads, smiling and laughing for no other reason rather than they can.
With Harry’s arms around her shoulders and his scent so mixed with hers to the point they became undistinguishable, neither he nor she thinks the night – and life in general – could get any better.
March means Harry’s career sudden spurt of growth, both he and Zayn working on shared expositions that each time attracted more and more people. In a short period of a few more months, they would have tickets sold out in a blink of an eye.
Somehow, the movement on the gallery brings movement to the café, with Harry’s indication and all, and finally, after years, it comes back to life and crawls up the walls of such a deep hole. Unfortunately, Bridgit finds that moment appropriate to quit and try to find a decent job before she’s done with college, so she can move on with her life in a way Elisha never really did after finding out this quiet café.
April is possibly the worst month of the year, having that they’re still struggling to find a cook and keep living off of Harry’s skills and some professional cook friend of Zayn’s that sometimes has free time to help them out. Some days, they have to completely shut the café during daytime and only open it at night, making up menus with mostly pasta, since these are Harry’s specialty; and even then, the money they make is more than it was before the whole fuss.
Elisha’s birthday is possibly the worst she’s had in years; the day before Edwin having a cardiac arrest and falling to the floor just before Luke’s and Harry’s eyes as they talked at the convenience store across the street. (Harry still worked there on afternoons, just to lighten himself up, get rid of the hard work and remind himself he loves the simplicity of it all as much as Elisha loves the café’s).
Luke had run across the road shouting for Leesh and Dora who were already crying by the time he spilled out the news. They called emergency but it was useless, his time had expired.
So on the thirteenth, they are all dressed in black and trailing down the saddest path, not even the weather helping their sorrow. Contradicting, the sun shines almost as yellow as Ed’s truck, not a single trace of cloud in the sky offering the slight opportunity of rain. Leesh thinks it would maybe be more comforting, but as she slides past the door and into the worn-out upholstery of the seats, dropping her head onto the wheel, she thinks maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe this yellow sun is a sign he’s there looking for them, making sure things will turn out fine – as bright as he’s always been.
When Harry closes the door to the front seat behind her, and squeezes her thigh gently, breathing out a “Happy birthday” so quiet and apologetic, like this is actually his fault – which totally isn’t –, she feels hollow.
Hollow, but hopeful. Hopeful that things will get better.
The rest of the month isn’t better. It’s empty and quiet, filled with grief and a too-thick silence that isn’t nearly as comfortable as it used to be on common days. Now the sight of the carwash across the road is dreadful, and when the clock reaches six, there are not bright smiles with a huge gap between two front teeth and loud cheers and wise, comforting words.
Also, since Bridgit has left to live her life, their dinner nights are over, and only once Ed passes away is that everyone realises how much things have changed.
May sums up in a lot of crying, too. It can be described in sour tears and breath-taking sobs, Harry’s and Elisha’s bodies tangled up in messy hugs, too tight so that maybe if they squeeze hard enough their chest will loosen the grip on their hearts. It doesn’t, but they try.
They are not really sure how others are dealing with it, but Harry’s sure Elisha’s way is possibly the unhealthiest of all.
Having no one left, Edwin had left the carwash, his truck and all the rest of his few belongings to Leesh, Dorothy and Luke, and it’s mutual agreement when the three of them decide they can’t keep up with the carwash anymore. It wasn’t successful before, and now with Ed gone, they wouldn’t manage.
(Elisha only pleads to keep the truck to herself, where she sits at and drives away for several nights, wandering off to unknown roads and sleeping at the back of it with a blanket, some beers, and a whole lot of repetitive crying).
For their surprise (not so much for Harry, since it was his idea), on that month, Zayn buys the place and puts it down. With Harry’s help, they start building another gallery there. It’s stupid, possibly, after so long of working at his that Harry decides to move all of that to some terrain just across the café, but it also feels right, much better than the warehouse a few blocks away, too distant from the soothing rhythm of this long-forgotten road; from somewhere that feels so much like home.
Dora and Elisha are in full agreement with the idea. Luke hugs them one last time and then says something about moving back to his hometown with his family, because London’s standards are too high, and now he’s got nothing left to do here. Another person leaves, and it’s all hollow.
In June, they find a new cook. Harry’s gallery becomes more successful, he says he’s opening a bigger one, share it with his best friend. His art grows in recognition, someone writes an article about it in one of the most read newspapers of London. The gallery keeps growing.
In June, also, PJ gets his head around his talent and puts it to full use. He gets a promotion, and gets to tour Africa for a few months to work on a masterpiece. He leaves the month after that, happy and accomplished, and Elisha feels like the world’s crumbling down.
It’s a bit pessimistic, possibly too-dramatic, but she had been living with the same group of people for the past (toughest) years of her life, and now most of them are gone. Harry’s good, great, and he’s here, all the time. There’s also Zayn and Perrie, now, always around, but she feels like a part of her identity is lost, and she can’t gather strength to find it.
July is still empty, with PJ leaving and their group drifting even more apart, but also, things start to fall into place. Leesha feels a slight pang of jealousy towards her friend, living her dream of being a great journalist, but it fades soon. She loves the café to death, still, and in July Harry and herself put together their economies and shut down the place for a few weeks for a bit of change.
It looks awesome when it’s done: still cosy and calm, home-ish, with the scent she wouldn’t trade for the world; but with air-conditioner and a bigger kitchen, rustic yet new tables and a whole new mural of photography against the wall. It’s a separate one in the back of the shop, a wall they painted black themselves one night, smudging paint all over each other and kissing like they couldn’t get enough of each other’s companies.
The wall contrasts with the otherwise light furniture of the room, but it calls attention to Harry’s photos of all over the country, the photos they snapped together and others he did on his own. Some of Elisha’s even, much more amateur-ish, but just fitting.
It is a great mural, it is. Black and white pictures, except for a specific one right at the middle, with a bright, vivid yellow truck and a smiling nearly bald man next to it; all big teeth and big gaps and white hair, where it still hadn’t fallen.
Leesha looks at it and bites down on her lips to hold back never-ending tears, feeling Harry’s hand around her waist tugging her closer and squeezing her tight, kissing sore spots on her neck and mumbling swift words in her ear.
It’s still hollow, like there’s a black hole caving into her chest, but it’s slowly filling up, as the gallery across the road keeps building up and taking form each day; as PJ’s letters keep coming with postcards and describing sceneries; as the café she so much loves switches into life in a way she had never seen before; as Dorothy smiles brighter despite the lack of her best friend that had been there long before Elisha did. But mostly, as green eyes keep gazing deep into hers every night before sleep, as huge, slender fingers wrap around her wrist and don’t let go, as soft, plump lips kiss her forehead in loving gestures and as a rough, lulling voice puts her at ease with the most appropriate words.
Elisha loves a lot of things, she knows. She loves writing about empty roads and busy people, loves London’s quiet streets and the short walk to and from her shitty room in an old hostel, loves this café ever since she first stepped into it, loves the routine she got used to, loves the people that are now leaving, but mostly, she’s learned to love Harry, too.
And everything else might be completely shifting, but he’s a constant, now. And as long as he’s around, she’ll still have a reason to feel at home.
More than everything else through these past years, more than the shelter she’s made out of these people, she’s made Harry her home.
And the scenery might change, but home is still home.
--
The second time they go to Paris, it’s summer. The sun is high up in the sky, the heat rising blurry waves from the floor, hitting every single bare stretch of skin.
There should be at least a breeze to help them not melt, but there isn’t, and Harry is sure half his weight is dripping down his forehead. How the hell do people live with this?
“Do you think,” he starts, brushing his own hair away from his face and wiping his forehead underneath the scarf around his head “it’d be too bad if we went back to our room, air-conditioned and all, and just hung around until night so we can go clean and nice-smelling to the Eiffel Tower?”
Leesh leans her head back on the bench and lets her eyes slip closed, taking the bottle of water to her lips. At one point it’d been perspiring cold, but now it’s just warm and unpleasant, and Harry wonders if it isn’t burning its way down her throat. It’s either that or nothing at all, though, so he probably understands why she’s taking it.
“Don’t be such a dick, Harry,” she scolds half-heartedly, passing the bottle to him. “Let’s just hang on for a while longer, visit these lovely Paris’ trademark shops, maybe get our faces painted by some street artist, and then we can go back to the hotel.”
He scoffs, gulping the water himself, and yes, it is burning its way down his throat. He makes a face at it, but chugs down the rest and tosses the bottle on the bin. “I can get our faces painted. And if it’s so appealing to you, I can do it in the streets, too. But please, I need fresh air. I can’t breathe.”
Elisha grabs his wrist and starts tracing lights patterns with her fingers before slotting hers with his and holding on lazily. “We’ve already got enough of your paintings of our faces. I want it from a Parisian, Harold.”
Harry puts a hand to his heart and feigns hurt. “Are my British skills not enough for you anymore, Dalton?”
She smiles softly at him and leans forward to tangle her fingers in his hair, tugging gently. She’s close and even though the air is already warm enough without her breathing so near his face, it’s still welcoming. Harry leans into her touch and holds back the need to purr as she massages his scalp.
He puffs out his lower lip and waits until she kisses it, teasing her tongue at the seam of both of his and blows out a breathy laugh against his mouth. Harry doesn’t need Leesh mocking his pouty face right now, so he just rests one of his hands at her hip and pulls her in, completely sealing the space between them. If he’s to crumple down into beads of sweat, he might as well go all the way and take her with him.
They kiss languidly for a while until she is pulling back and smiling down at him, tugging once more on his locks before shaking her head disapprovingly. “Your British cheating skills won’t work on me. We’re going to proper enjoy Paris like we didn’t last time, and I don’t care about the fact that heat is about to kill you.”
Harry growls loudly at that, but clings to her hand when she offers it to pull him up. It’s just a matter of time before she’s walking around the Parisian streets with Harry in tow, not as much forcing him as he willingly gives in to her wishes.
They’re in the city of love, after all.
He should be able to handle the weather for a while more if it means he can go back home with his own plans achieved. He’s just gotta breathe in hard, and not lose his shit for the next hours.
He can do that.
--
“Are you alright?” he asks coming behind her, nestling his head on her neck where it seems to fit so perfectly. Harry can’t quite understand how her smell is so appealing and the mere feeling of her, of her skin touching his in all the subtle places can be so… right.
It’s the only word he can find to describe the sensation of being near Elisha. He’s sure that at some point back in time he’d felt close to Chrissie, had felt like he’d known her like the palm of his hand, but this. This is the sort of grown-up feeling he didn’t have near her.
It wasn’t – isn’t – the feeling of being reckless and excited and young. It isn’t just the churning of his stomach, and his body hair standing up on end. It isn’t the need to touch and kiss and blend into one all the time, it isn’t the need to curl up around her body and hold her close until their warmth is enough to shelter them both from the world.
It’s that, also, obviously – because he needs to touch her and have her fingers linked with his to keep him down on Earth, most of the times – but it’s more. It’s the contentment of simply having her presence, of being able to sit down in pure silence and feel comfortable with it, the ability to know which side of his he should make more prominent according to her mood before he even enters the same room as her.
It’s the unspoken words and unshared looks, the phrases he reads from the way she shifts on bed and how her shoulders talk with the slightest of the movements. It’s how she merely looks at something and he can already read in the lines on her forehead what’s her opinion on the focus of her gaze; it’s how he knows what’s about to come thanks to the leading up combinations of her expressions and acts, and it’s. It’s how each day he knows, more and more, that she isn’t going to leave.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, and even though it’s sheepish and tired, he knows it’s truth. “It’s- Y’know- I mean, so much has happened these past few months,” she croaks out, staring out at the night and the lights of the city beneath them, the sounds of people chattering in several languages around, the clinking of glasses and the faint music in the background. “And this- here. It feels light,” she adds, breathing out.
Harry snuggles up closer, nosing at the spot behind her ear and humming his agreement. It’s hardly impossible not to feel light when the entirety of Paris is beneath your feet, the night is chilly and there aren’t many stars in the sky due the city lights; even though those themselves look like the skies have shifted downwards, and all those blurry spots of lights could be mistaken by stars themselves.
He wants to breathe in this feeling and never let go, because it feels awesome.
Elisha turns on his hold, back pressed against the railing, and smiles. It’s one of her private ones, one only Harry gets to see when they wake up together, or when they’re still sweaty and sticky, or when he’s done with some drawing and she’s curled up behind his back with a mug exhaling warmth for both of them between her hands and her feet tucked under his hips as they sit on the floor.
He’s maybe a bit gone, here. But the simplicity of her is what’s been lacking all along.
“Is it weird,” she mumbles as she traces her fingers over his expression lines and settles on the spot on his left cheek where his dimple shows when he smiles “that even though this place is packed, I feel like we’re the only ones in here?” she sighs, leaning over to place a chaste kiss to the tip of his nose. “And if we did happen to be here on our own, it’d feel louder than this, because somehow all of these people talking are contributing to our private silence? Oh God- forget it- It’s-”
Two years ago, Harry would have laughed at all this bullshit. Today, not so surprisingly, he fully understand what she means. He shakes his head to prevent her from talking.
“No- I fully understand, which probably means I have lost just as much of my shit as you have-”
She shoves him on the shoulder with a reproachful look that isn’t truly as stern as she’s hoping for, so he doesn’t take it to heart.
“Shut up,” she mumbles, but she’s already melting into him and turning back again to face the night, leaning her head back to rest on his shoulder and close his eyes to enjoy the feeling.
“The best things in life we don’t see”, Harry repeats to himself as he as well closes his eyes, leaning to the side a bit so his head is pressed against her forehead.
After a few seconds he shifts again, pressing his warm lips to her cold forehead instead. Lids still closed, he feels everything sinking in at once, and the sensation of freedom is overwhelming.
“I love you,” he presses the words to her skin, watches as that lazy smile curls up her lips with pure delight, same one it does every time he says it.
He just loves the fact that ever since he said it first, her reaction is still the same, like she could hear it forty five thousand times in a row and it would still be as satisfying as the primer. Just for self-fulfilment, he whispers again: “I love you”, and no, her smile doesn’t fade; only widens.
“I love you,” she whispers back, biting her lips, and he can’t really hear her voice, not really, but he’s become good at lip-reading, even though he wouldn’t have had to read hers to know those were the words. To be fair, he didn’t. He can feel her whole face as he still hasn’t opened his eyes since she rested her head against him, and it was scary at first, to know such things.
He’s just happy, now. Really, purely, merely happy.
City of love underneath them or not, he knows this feeling bubbling inside him isn’t a result of the romantic aura, not at all. It’s a result of Elisha Dalton, and her alone.
Swiftly, he removes from behind her and waits until she’s glancing at him confusedly, before he bends down on one knee and sees the never-ending sea of emotions flicking through her face. It’s hilarious, how she’s staring wide-eyed at him, losing her breath.
“Harry- what-”
He allows himself one more moment of amusement before he takes her hand and looks away from her face, pretending to look for something on the floor and discreetly sliding his silver ring out of his finger and into his palm, standing up again and using his grip on his hand for support.
“Oops, thought I’d lost it,” he grins, showing his ring at her and sliding it back on his finger.
All the colour on Elisha’s face is drained, her hands shaky, her eyes hinting a bright spark of embarrassment as she thinks she’s got it all wrong. Harry feels for her, feels for himself, too, because he actually thought he could do this in such an environment.
He pretends not to notice the look of sheer bewilderment on her face, a slightly pleased one, and tugs her back against his chest as he kisses her neck softly, appreciating the gold-coloured skin from being so exposed to the sun these past few days.
As they go back to appreciating the view so many already had before them and so many would after, he ignores the tiny black box burning a hole in his pocket just waiting for the right moment. But this one?
Nah, too much of a cliché; even for them.
It’ll come.
--
It comes the morning after when Elisha wakes up to an empty bed and cold sheets tangled around her legs.
The light seeping through the thin curtains is nearly blinding, but it casts beautiful shadows against the wall and warms up the room turning it into some hazy show of flickering lights.
The pillow next to hers is still seared with the shape of Harry’s head that’d been buried into it – presumably – only a few minutes ago, albeit what she finds there is not a mop of chocolate curls smelling of fresh shampoo; it’s a small paper with a note scribbled in Harry’s hurried handwriting.
‘Morning! Sorry, I headed out to get us breakfast. Be back soon, meanwhile, check under my pillow xxxxxx H. ;)
Leesh squints her eyes at the shifty words, still out of focus, but manages to roll over on her stomach and rise Harry’s pillow slightly to find another torn piece of paper. This one has a simple, single question mark staring back at her in a vibrant and thick black line.
She glances at it confusedly, until she notices a bump underneath the paper and grabs it, finding a shiny round piece of silver metal with a cerulean-blue stone poking out of it discreetly. It takes her a while to put two and two together, and when it does catch up to her brain, her lungs stop working.
Leesh gapes at the silver between her fingers and at the question mark staring demandingly at her, and bites back a smile threatening to split her face in half until he realises she has no reason to hide.
When she tries, the round piece of silver fits perfectly on the finger next to the pinkie one on her right hand. This cannot be happening, but somehow it is.
The past few months were eventful, she thinks. So much changing, so much evolving, people coming, people going, leaving behind empty spaces and blank holes, throwing her behind to figure out how to nurse the wounds on her own. Those were months filled with several, several endings, ones she was definitely not ready for.
She might have not known it then, but now, she thinks, all of what those empty spaces, blank holes and ended stories have really left are bright opportunities to fill new pages with new words, start yet another beginning.
This one is not particularly hard to figure out, so she clutches her hand closer to her chest and relies on the feeling of cold metal against the skin of her finger, reaches out to the pen on the bedside table and decides that the first word of this new beginning is plain and simple.
She turns the question mark on her palm until the clean side of the paper is facing up, and uses her shaky fingertips to spell a tiny, yet firm “YES” on the paper.
Harry’ll see it soon.
THE END
--
Author's Mind (?)
Comments: First things first, obviously, so I'll apologize again. I should have updated yesterday, but I was without wifi connection. Here is the epilogue, though. Hope the longer chapter was worth the wait.
Guys! I cannot believe we got to another ending. This is both exciting and dreadful for me, because at the same time I feel free and accomplished, I feel nostalgic. Obviously, I'll still be writing for you guys, but I know not all of you will stick with me for my next works (no matter how much I wish you all would).
So, THANK YOU. Thank you for reading, for the comments, for the patience, for your dedication as readers and for making something I absolutely love doing even more pleasurable. I am so glad that some of you TRULY rely on this to make your days better, and I feel blessed that I even have the chance to bring you joy the way you do to me.
You're the best readers I could ask for, and there are not enough words in my vocabulary to thank you for the support you've given me.
WARNING:
Okay, so now as some of you may already know, I already have another fanfic planned. It's a Louis one, which means many, many of you won't stick with me *sigh*, BUT, I'm glad to have read a few comments already saying you'll be with me no matter what I write.
I am COMPLETELY excited about that fic, seeing as though I'll be trying to publish it once it's done. I've been given great support from some of my favorite teachers as well, so you can only imagine how I am bursting with antecipation. Please, do read it, even if Louis' not your favorite. I'd like to think my writing can take you to another world whether it's with a green eyed boy or a blue eyed one.
Wind Writing Trailer: Will be out this Thursday, on my youtube account (seekdani) so keep an eye open for that. I'll still come here on Wattpad and post a warning for you guys with the link, so. Maybe you can just keep checking my page.
Dedication: As my obligation, on the last chapter, the dedication is to all of you for being the absolute BEST readers one could have. You have dealt with me on my best and on my worst and I feel like through these words I have bared myself open to you more than I can with spoken syllabes to anyone else, so there's that.
Just because I'm a sap little shit, I'll write you a dedication on my instagram account, too, so if you want to check that also, you can find me on instagram.com/DaniMeloGomes.
Also, the PROLOGUE of Wind Writing has been out there for a while, so if you haven't checked that out yet, you might as well do, and start preparing for my next masterpiece. Hope you'll get into that rollercoaster of feelings with me.
See you in the first chapter of Wind Writing?
Love you all to the moon and back, Dani xx