𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 - 𝘡𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘴

Petrichor

Trigger Warning: This one-shot has mentions self-harm, suicide, depression, and death. As always, my dms are always open if you need some to talk to.

To Zayn:

Fourteen Days. It has been 336 hours. 20160 minutes, living on earth without you. I still remember vividly the day I found out. The way my knees gave up and this overwhelming sense of aloneness washed over me.

I still remember the day I first saw you at the university, the cherry blossom trees lay stark naked waiting to enchant visitors when spring came around. It smelled like rain, petrichor you would call it.

I haven't even gotten around reading the letter you left behind, every time I try I can't make it past the first line. I haven't left the house in fourteen days, let alone take a shower. I can't even listen to music anymore, because every song reminds me of you.

I miss your eyes the most, the way they darkened and lightened, vivid gold woven in your eyes. They were like pots of honey. And sometimes I feel like a demon because I failed you. I wasn't there for you when you needed me.

Because you were always listening, but nobody listened to you. And I did notice, how you always wore long sleeve shirts that you were always tugging down. And I noticed the amber scars you hid from me when you rolled your sleeves up to wash the dishes. And when I questioned it you told me it was just an accident. And I believed you, why did I believe you?

Sometimes I feel surges of anger at you as well as me, how could you just leave me, didn't you know I couldn't live without you.

And I miss it when it rains because I think it would make you happy. You would call yourself a pluviophile I know that because you wrote it down in your little notebooks when you thought no one was looking.

You also didn't know that I knew you would lay in bed for days in the end, and then fake smiles so I wouldn't be sad.

And I know you never wanted to be an engineer and how you paid so much attention during the English elective you took for one semester.

I knew you, but I didn't know you enough.

From: Harry

Tears streamed down my face, as I finished writing my text to him. I never wanted to be left at seen this much. I just needed those four words to guarantee that he knew how much I loved him, so he knew how important he was.

I remember the letter he left behind before he left. I hid it in a large moving box with the rest of his stuff, his cigarettes, his favorite tee-shirt. And a box of notebooks.

I grabbed the loose sheet of paper before analyzing every word he left behind. Cramming up letters like they were the elixir to my well being.

I found the tears stream down my face at a faster pace. Struggling to read through blurry eyes.

It was beautiful, even his words in death were beautiful. Not a single grammatical error and his typewriter handwriting signed off with his perfect signature.

I flipped the page and caught a small word at the bottom of it. Notebooks. His mum gave me the box of his notebooks when we cleaned out his old room. I grabbed it and skimmed through them, there were dozens of them, the box itself was huge as big as a medium-sized moving box.

I picked each notebook out and he had written volumes. Stories poetry, thesaurus, and such. Some of his words could put Shakespeare to shame.

And of course, he organized them neatly with little labels and in alphabetical order. My jaw hung open when I saw what he was talking about.

There were millions of small notebooks, each of them had a label of a friends name. There was a sticky note attached to one.

Give them out, please

Each of them had a name, Louis, Niall, Liam. I vaguely remember us having a conversation about death summers ago.

"I'm not scared of dying, I'm scared of leaving people behind, and not being able to comfort them," That was back when he still had a sparkle in his eye and cut-free wrists. "I would want to write them each a note before I go."

I skimmed through them, there was one for each of his family members. Some being thicker than others. My heart stopped when I noticed the one that had my name on it it was almost triple the number of pages of everyone combined.

It was a green-leather bound notebook, it was the size of a Shakespearean novel, and in his hand-writing. Harry was written on the cover.

I clasped it open, and read. I re-read over and over, savoring every word. He explained everything, he has an impeccable way with words.

He was the master of everything when I had finally finished reading the book. I held it over my chest and gazed outside the window. The sun poured through, he hated the sunshine, he loved stormy clouds and rain. I checked my phone to see if just maybe he had read it.

It was like a domino effect of sorts because those four pretty words collapsed at the bottom of the screen.

seen

And just then rain poured down, endlessly. It was light and pretty almost, and I stopped crying for a second. Because a strange wave of peace came over me, and I could almost feel his soft hands clasping mine.

The rain stopped curtly after, and seemingly the four words disappeared as soon as they came, and the strange sense of peace stayed with me.

I stepped outside for the first time in days and breathed in the rain-altered air.

Petrichor.