Harry stayed in the hospital for twelve days.
Even though I tried, I could never tell him the truth about what had truly happened at my apartment with Callie that afternoon.
I'd only told him we'd had an argument, that she'd said a bit too much while the police was right out of the door and got arrested. I couldn't find it in me to tell him she had a knife, especially because he was still hurt in those first days so I didn't want him to freak out, and then it'd always seemed to be too late.
Before I knew it ten more days had passed and I'd never told him, and I knew that if I had then he would've just gotten mad at me for not telling him sooner. So I never did.
I got to talk to Indigo, but it was a quick call over the phone. She told me not to worry and to stick with what she'd told me, because she would've found the best way out.
I wasn't sure if I believed her, but I didn't have a choice.
I didn't get to deal with the reality of what had happened that night in the woods until the stress and suffocating foreignness in my chest disappeared about three days later, and then I was crushed by it.
I was crushed by it and I hated myself because of that, because I wasn't supposed to be. I was supposed to be happy that Joel was dead, after all the pain he brought us all. I should've been happy, because he was a murderer. He was a murderer, and he'd almost killed Harry too. I should've been happy he was gone forever.
But I wasn't.
I wasn't, because when I'd first walked into my classroom on the first year of school, he'd invited me to sit on the empty seat next to him. I wasn't, because he'd spent so many afternoons at my house when we were in middle school and high school. I wasn't, because he'd always been there for me when I was upset. I wasn't, because we'd been best friends.
We'd been best friends for so, so many years.
And then I'd skipped a party.
All it'd taken was one party. Would it have been different, if I'd been there? I didn't know. But I hadn't been there, and he'd drifted away, just like everyone else.
But Indigo had come back. He never had.
He'd let himself be taken away by the craziness of everything that was going on and for months, I'd still considered him my best friend, not knowing the reality of what was going on. He'd sat next to me, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, like I was seeing things that weren't there.
And then I'd found out everything, we'd drifted even more apart, I'd sneaked into his home, and then that night had happened.
He'd killed two people, one intentionally, he'd threatened us all for months, he'd tried to stab Harry multiple times, he'd kidnapped me, he'd shot Harry, and deep down I was still aching, because he'd been my best friend. I'd cared about him for so many years.
And while I knew that the person I used to be friends with had gone away long before he'd died, I still mourned that loss. I'd never allowed myself to do so before, I'd just pushed it aside because it hurt too much to deal with it.
But now it was real, it was definite. There was no coming back, not ever, not even by accident. It was over. Done. Erased, maybe, one day. It was the end. It was the end, and only in that moment I was starting to understand what it truly implied.
The past few months had been absurd, and the worst thing was that I couldn't even tell if I considered them negatively. They'd been both the best and worst period of my life.
Best, because I'd gotten to meet Harry and I'd gotten to fall in love with someone so annoyingly adorable that I hadn't even known existed until then. Worst, well, because of everything else.
The end had come, and I was only left with confusion. I didn't like it, but there was nothing I could do to change it.
Harry was the only thing I'd been left with that didn't leave me thoroughly confused. He'd always been there with me. I'd feared to talk to him, I'd feared to be with him, I'd feared to kiss him, I'd feared to argue with him. I'd feared to lose him. He'd been the only constant in my life. He'd never told me things that weren't true or left me alone to deal with what was going on. He'd always been there, next to me, in first line.
He'd been there for me and I'd been there for him, we'd gone through those months together. It was a bit ironical that I felt like I knew better someone I'd only met six months before than the people that had been with me for my whole life.
But it also wasn't something that could be forgotten. The situation we'd been in had brought us much closer than we would've been otherwise. We'd been brought together by danger then, and by silence later on. It was clear to the both of us that we could never tell anyone else what had truly happened. It was our secret to keep, our facade to uphold.
We'd just come back to Harry's apartment, and it was weird to be back there with him. We'd come to the agreement that even though it wasn't dangerous for me to go back to my apartment anymore, I should've stayed with him for a little while to help him out and make sure he was alright.
I didn't mind it at all, I felt more at home there than I did at my place anyway.
"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" Harry's mother asked when she was already one step out of the door. "Will you call me if you need any help?"
"Don't worry, we'll be fine!" I replied, "and of course we'll call you if we need anything."
I understood her worry, since it was the same one I felt when it came to Harry. I knew that he was doing much better now and that nothing would happen to him, but I couldn't shake that deep fear, that what if, that something would go wrong. That he would fall down and hurt himself again, that he'd get sick and it'd be made worse by the period of convalescence he was in, even that Callie would go after him or that Joel would find a way to get his revenge on him, absurdly enough.
It was hard to shake away the fear I'd felt when he'd got hurt. I'd thought I was going to lose him, and it'd crushed me right there and then. Ever since then I'd been trying to move on and forget that feeling, I'd told myself so many times that he would be alright, that it would all turn out to be okay, and even though I believed it, I still couldn't push that feeling away.
It was always lurking in the back of my mind like a ghost in the corner of a room, staring me down and forcing me to remember it day after day. Being around Harry made it all better, though. He wasn't afraid of telling me when I was being ridiculous, and he was the only one I could trust when he told me everything was fine.
We weren't the same people we'd been before that night, that was a certainty. We were a bit broken, but we were so together, and we seemed to match like perfect puzzle pieces.
We were learning what it meant to go on with our day with nothing to worry about if not trivial things, and there was sweetness and a bit of longing in that. It was weird to sit on the couch and wonder if we preferred to eat pizza or chicken wings for dinner, instead of wondering when Joel would strike next.
But even though I could understand his mother's worry, I also really wanted to spend some time with Harry. We'd never been alone at the hospital, there had always been a doctor, a nurse, his mom, even the police around or right out of the door. I just wanted to be properly alone with him, and I knew he wanted it too.
"I'll go now, then," she said, "but don't hesitate to call me if you need anything, okay? Whatever it is."
"Alright," I replied, throwing my arms around her. "Thank you so much for everything."
"It's all fine, don't you worry," she told me, hugging me back. "Goodbye."
I smiled at her, saying my goodbyes as well. Harry had already done it while they were talking in his bedroom, so I was alone when I closed the front door after she walked to the stairs.
I let out a deep breath, glad that we were finally alone after so many days, and went back to Harry's room to find out what he was up to.
The door was slightly ajar when I pushed it open, and I let out a sigh when I took in the scene that was in front of me.
Harry was sitting at his desk, that his mother and I had moved from the living room to his bedroom some days before since there was a better light in there. To be fair, she'd known what her son would've ended up spending his evenings doing in the second she'd got off her phone call with our uni.
"Why are you already studying?" I told him with a hopeless sigh, "you know they'll let you retake your exams a month from now."
Harry turned his head to glance at me, a pencil in his hand. "Which is why I should start studying now."
I let out a groan, throwing myself on his bed. "Sometimes I wonder how I even got with a boy that studies so much," I mumbled, "besides, that position can't be that good for you right now."
He chuckled. "It's called needing a scholarship to continue my studies," he replied, "you're right, though. It kinda hurts to be sitting like this after so long."
"See? Studying is bad for your health, I've always said that. Come here, now."
Harry rolled his eyes, but stood up and walked to the bed, putting his pillow against the headboard before sitting down and leaning against it, letting out a deep breath when he finally relaxed next to me. "How are you?"
I gave him a little shrug. "I'm fine."
He sighed, twisting his body so that he was facing me. "Raine... I know what happened with Joel affected you, even though you haven't talked about it."
"Are you playing psychologist with me?" I teased him, rolling my eyes, but the little smile was wiped off my face right after. "I guess it just feels... wrong to talk about it with you, you know? I mean, he almost killed you."
"You used to be best friends, Raine," he replied seriously. "It wouldn't make sense for me to expect you to not care about what happened to him. You can talk to me about it."
I looked down, straightening the bedsheet under me with my finger. "I guess... I guess I just wish it'd ended differently. That night, I mean. I wish he hadn't died. I know it's stupid for me to think this, that he did so many terrible things and brought it upon himself, trust me, I know. But at the same time, I don't know..." I went quiet, not knowing how to express what I was feeling. I felt like an idiot, sitting next to Harry and telling him I wished that the man that had almost killed him would still be walking this earth. He probably thought I was an idiot too, because why wouldn't he? What I was saying was simply outrageous.
"I wish nobody died, too," he said, and I looked up in surprise. He was frowning, staring at the movements of my finger on the bed. "But if Indigo hadn't shot him he would've killed me, or worse, he would've killed you." He shook his head slightly. "It was one of these situations in which it was impossible for everyone to turn out okay. At the same time though, and you can say I'm cynical or everything you please, I'm glad he's dead. He would've never let us be, otherwise. It was the only way."
"Yeah, you're right," I whispered, sighing. "But hey, it looks like we won't need to run away as soon as we're done with uni, now."
He laughed a little. "Yeah, that's true."
I let out a chuckle, looking at him with a little smile on my face.
Over the past few weeks his hair had become a little longer, enough for it to be annoying, so he'd tied it back with a black hair tie that suspiciously looked like one of mine. He'd finally got back his nose ring, too, and it was a bit weird to see him wearing it after so many days, but it made me feel at home, too, weirdly enough. He was glancing in my direction and his eyes were of a bright, clear green in the sunlight coming from the window, like the new leaves of a cherry tree in spring. I didn't know if he was aware of it, but there was a little, soft smile on his lips as he sat there, leaning his head against the wall, wearing only a pair of shorts and a black t-shirt.
When had summer even come around? It seemed like winter had only been there the day before.
I really did love him. He had to be the best person I'd ever come across. I didn't know what I would do without him, and I was so glad I didn't have to find out, now.
"You said you wanted to move to England once," I asked him gently, a bit of worry bubbling up in my chest as I spoke.
The thought of him wanting to move on the other side of the world scared me, especially now. What would it have meant for us? I wasn't ready to say goodbye, I didn't want to. I knew he still wasn't done with uni so that moment wasn't close at all, but it terrified me to think that one day he would've just... left.
Harry tilted his head. "I did, didn't I?"
"Would you still want to?"
He hummed. "I don't think so anymore."
"Why's that?" I asked, giving him a curious look.
"I kinda like it here," he replied, looking at me attentively, and I let out a little laugh when I realised he was referring to me.
"You almost died here, though," I pointed out. There was no way he'd want to stay in our city after that, was there?
He shrugged. "But I didn't die, did I? And he did. I think I won that fight."
I gave him a tight smile. "I'm pretty sure nobody won that fight."
He shushed me, the corners of his lips turned up a little. "Let me have this one."
I laughed. "Sure thing, then," I replied. "Besides, you have a pretty cool scar now."
"I can't wait to tell people a shark bit me," he said playfully. "So that I'll look tough, you know."
"Can I tell you a secret?" I murmured, moving closer to him, and he nodded. "You already look like the strongest person I know," I shared quietly, before leaning in and pressing my lips against his.
He returned the kiss right away, a bit forcefully than I'd expected him to, sneaking an arm around my waist and pulling me closer to him. I put my hand on his shoulder, not wanting to hurt him, tightening my grip on the soft fabric of his shirt when his tongue grazed the seam of my lips.
I'd been ages since the last time we'd kissed properly, and now all the feelings I'd bottled up were all tangled up in my chest and I felt like I was about to lose my balance the same way you feel when you look up at the sky. I was about to fall off the earth and into the stars, and take him with me.
"God, I fucking love you," I muttered into the kiss, tangling my fingers into the little curls on the nape of his neck, and I felt him smile against my lips.
"Not my preferred nickname, but it works."
I broke away from the kiss at his statement and let out a laugh, a bit surprised by how stupidly ridiculous that situation was.
Despite everything around us having changed we were still the same when we were together, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
The truth was, I'd come to realise that nothing truly mattered when we were together, but us. We'd been through a lot, done some of the craziest things together, run and fought for our lives, and we were still there. As long as we were together, nothing could get us. We were stronger than we'd ever been.
And I knew that our adventure wasn't over yet, that there were still all the trials and so on, but none of that scared me while he was with me.
"You ruined the moment," I whispered to him, still not moving away, and he shrugged.
"I made you laugh, I wouldn't say I ruined it at all," he replied. "I hadn't heard you laugh that loud in days."
"What can I say, you're cute sometimes."
He pretended to be offended. "I'm always cute, thunderstorm."
"Sometimes," I repeated, leaving another kiss on his lips.
"I fucking love you too, by the way."
I chuckled when he repeated my words, watching him as he playfully tilted his head, a little smile curving his soft pink lips.
"I don't think I ever want to be without you," I murmured, realising what I'd said only in the moment the sentence left my mouth.
I widened my eyes, feeling a bit embarrassed. He wasn't supposed to know like that, he wasn't supposed to know at all. He probably thought I was ridiculous, or that I wasn't being serious. But I meant every word, just like I had when I'd first said I loved him. It looked like I had a knack for oversharing at the worst times.
But he didn't seem to mind.
"I feel the same way."
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! The next one will be the last x
Miki