Acylia's Heart

3.

Chapter 3

Aria had always loved the night sky. Something in the darkness, in the soft glow of the moon, the way the stars held strong and constant in a life that was far from it just called to her. Calmed her. Reminded her that her problems were only temporary.

And it was that, the luminescent glow of the moon that this memory took shape around. She is led on sand and shells and pebble stones. The smell of the sea was like a balm, and the sand running through her fingers was calming her frantic heart.

"I'm so scared" she'd whispered to the moon. "Always so scared my sanity is a façade." She'd closed her eyes and tried to wipe her mind clear. Clean of all the lapses that hint at her insanity. Most of the time she is able to remove the lies and delusions, able to separate real from fake. She is able to painstakingly keep herself rooted in reality. But sometimes she has little lapses where she forgets who she is.

"I am Aria Thomas. I am 17 years old. I live on the Isle of Wight, England." She informs the lapping waves over and over again with growing certainty.

She can never make sense of her delusions, they are but flashes of colour and faces she doesn't recognise, she sees magic and trees that sing and castles that do not exist. But in these moments she forgets who she is. Aria Thomas ceases to exist. And there is nothing more terrifying.

She'd been in a car, with Harrison, she realises. She was in a car with a beautiful boy, and she was trying not to tell him she loves him. Too early, too early. They'd only known each other a couple months. She was trying to choke down the feeling, she was trembling. So scared of love and all that it entails. So scared of feeling this way for this beautiful boy who smiles as if there is nothing truly wrong with the world.

She thinks it must be the heightened emotions, they steal away her mask of sanity and let the delusions slip through. She'd panicked so horribly that when the flashes started, when she was seeing things that did not exist instead of his face she'd screamed at him to stop the car and had jumped out to run and run until she found the beach.

Until she could calm herself under the moons careful embrace. But Harrison had come to find her after a while, had taken her trembling hands, and looked into her mortified eyes and told her that he was there.

"What can I do to help?"

And she'd said, "Remind me who I am" and he'd smiled and told her she was the sun at dawn, spilling light into the world.

"You are Aria. You are strong and kind and so stunning it takes the whole world's breath away" He'd brushed his knuckles over her cheek and pushed stray hairs behind her ear and had then pulled her to her feet.

They'd walked and walked along the coast. He'd pulled her back into reality. Telling her his story. The story of a boy with a little sister he adored and a mother as eccentric as she was loving. A story that didn't end in tears. He told her stories from his childhood, of how he grew up with one foot in trouble and the other in mischief. Forever giving his mother grey hairs. Because he loved adventure and adrenaline and pushing his limits.

They talked and they laughed and she fell more in love with him with every breath he took. Until they stopped under that rickety old pier and he pulled her to him – but suddenly it shatters. She shatters. Shatters the memory, because a sharp dread begins to consume her.

~ * ~

The memories are distractions. Distractions from the darkness that is forever lurking behind the four walls she has constructed within her mind, four walls that she is decorating with the graffiti of her life. All the blues and pinks and neon yellows.