Dark Gray (Harry Styles)

Chapter 2

        The next morning begins like usual. Nova wakes me up by licking my face, paws kneading into the blanket next to my head and a soft purr resounding from her chest. I open my eyes to bright sunlight shining through even my darkest curtains.

        This sunrise seems different though. Usually it has a yellow or orange hue to it, but today it’s a pure gold. The kind of gold you imagine a king’s throne would be made of.

        After about thirty minutes of laying in bed, I manage to finally throw my legs out and stand up. I walk immediately to the bathroom and look in the mirror, analyzing my blue eyes and my light brown hair. I have a generally round face and I’m lucky to be able to say I have no skin issues, except that I’m extremely pale. But my mother always told me that was a blessing and not a curse.

        I throw my hair up in a messy bun and walk down the hallway to the kitchen. Unlike Harry’s house, mine is pretty small. Sufficient enough for one person, and only one floor so I didn’t have to bother myself with walking up and down stairs.

        After a delicious bowl of cereal and an hour or two of watching cartoons, I decide to head over to Harry’s. It’s almost 2,  since I never wake up earlier than noon, so I figure he would most likely be up by now.

        I spend about five minutes putting on black shorts and a black tank top. The heat in the California summer is just short of unbearable, and I’ll do whatever I can to keep cool.

        lock my front door to my shabby house behind me. It’s a small one story house, a modern style. White with a grey roof, plain windows, and a small front porch with a roof. On the porch there’s a simple porch swing with blue pillows.

        It takes me about ten minutes to reach Harry’s door, as he lives on the complete other end of our road.

        I knock, and just moments later I find the door open with him standing there on the other side. Today he is wearing dark wash jeans and a deep forest green t-shirt.

        “Hey there creeper.” He says with a cheeky grin, stepping aside so I can enter.

        “And I thought you would’ve gotten over that by now. How wrong of me to assume.”

        He chuckles and for some reason I find myself immediately joining in.

        The air in his house is a cool contrast to the sun’s skin destroying rays that pound down at the world outside. It’s easy to say I’m glad to be indoors, especially after walking in the heat for even the smallest amount of time.

        “So I was rummaging through my basement this morning,” I internally cringed at the thought of all the spiders and other revolting critters he must’ve encountered during that adventure. “and I found some interesting things that I thought you would find interesting.”

        “Oh really?” He began walking to the kitchen and I followed close behind. “What kind of ‘things’?”

       “Just some old artwork and a couple hundred books. That’s just an estimate, though I’m sure it’s much more than that.”

        “Is your family one of those hoarder families, except you guys hoard books and not useless junk?”

        “Well if you don’t consider books useless, then yes.”

        Resisting the urge to reprimand him for basically calling beautifully written works useless, I watched him reach a door that resided on the far end of the kitchen. He opens it to reveal a dark narrow staircase leading down into who knows what. He starts to walk down a few steps before I stop him.