In which a shattered soul finds friendship-and a bit more-in a temperamental, red-haired Gryffindor.
Delilah Harrington considered herself a living cliché. She loved dancing around in the early mornings, listening to her favorite vinyl's while sp...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Delilah Harrington, daughter of Marie and Clarence Harrington, was considered an "old soul" by her parents and schoolmates. Nobody could understand the passions and ideologies she would describe, and why she would obsess over novels until she just had to put them down before she tore the pages right out. Nobody could understand why she thought petrichor and chrysalism were home, and why she played the same songs over and over until the words were memorized.
Growing up, these misunderstandings led to the dwindle of friendships, and the inadvertent isolation from her family. Despite just wanting her former relationship with her daughter, Marie continued to praise Delilah for her uniqueness, and listen attentively to all of her words.
Delilah never truly realized what her mother did for her until she was gone. Marie Harrington died at 11:32 on a Tuesday morning in a car accident, while her nine-year-old daughter was in school. Delilah remained oblivious until she was called from class to the office, where she trembled in front of her Principal's pitiful expression.
That day and many after, Delilah was met with grief-stricken expressions, but the most haunting was her own father's blank stare. All the young girl wanted to do was crumble and never get back up, but for her father's sake, she stepped up to take care of him. Completely disregarding herself in the days and disintegrating in the nights.
Delilah never cried after that first day when she got the news, not even when she watched her mother's casket get lowered into the ground. She vacantly watched the other people around her, mascara running down the faces of women she never met; unmemorable men lowering their heads in respect.
Not a tear escaped her eye when "Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's came on softly after the burial, the song her mother used to sing to her every night. The song she hasn't played—and will never again—because his voice didn't feel as familiar as her mother's.
Every day was a repetitive cycle. Delilah just learned to suppress her feelings; they weren't important anymore. As time went on, she began to pick back up on her old habits. She listened to music in the mornings once again, wrapping herself in old sweaters, many of her mother's. She even played her guitar once again, the instrument her mother practically forced her to try—with good intentions. Delilah, again, hadn't realized the influence her mother had on her life, but she was gone, and Delilah had to find a way to make it through alone.
At the age of ten, Delilah still cared for her father. But she never complained, somehow believing losing the one you fell in love with surpasses losing the one who gave you life. And although she found a way to get her old lifestyle back, her once faraway smile turned wistful.
And of course, came the nights. The ones where thoughts overwhelmed Delilah, who curled her pale body into the pillows for warmth and tugged on her dark chocolate curls until the headaches went away. The ones where she remembered that she absquatulated to school, the absence of her mother's warm hug that day. The ones where all she could feel was monachopsis, wondering how her mother was ever able to fill up the emptiness. She wondered if a ten-year-old was even mature enough to feel such things.
One thing that stayed constant though, was her inability to keep friends. She supposed it would never change, that either they were thinking too mundane, or she was thinking too unrealistic. And the accidents happening around the house definitely didn't help her to deny that belief. Like when she caught a loose thread of her mother's sweater on a stray nail and almost broke down but found it later to be sewn perfectly back into place. Another being when she almost walked from the kitchen, forgetting to do the dishes, but turned back around to find them sitting sparkling clean on the countertop.
Her wild accusations were finally disheartened in the form of a letter, one tied to the leg of a brown-speckled owl.
