The Beast (Harry Styles)

Chapter Thirteen

 Back in the town,

John mopes around,

Angered at things he cannot control,

Or a specific someone he thinks Harry stole. . .

~.~

"What is the matter with that girl?" John smashed his hand against the table, everything flying in the air with the impact of his fist.

He was drunken, angry, and feeling the unavoidable wrath of a wounded ego: a lethal combination.

"She leaves this village without my permission and plans to live with  Harry in the woods for the rest of her life! How selfish!"  He stood up, his chair falling down as he marched to the fireplace on the other side of the bar. 

"Lighten up, John!" Leo walked over to John, putting his arm around his shoulders. "You've just killed six birds and two deer; this is a celebration! Forget about Adele, or Adelaide, or whatever her name is!"

"Adeline," John yelled, slipping from Leo's arm. "Her name is Adeline and she is mine."  John continued to the fire, squatting in front of it.

The flames seemed to illuminate his face and fuel the spark of anger that had been ignited when he heard of Adeline's selfless exchange of her freedom. Only John could not see past his pride, and he saw this endeavor as a way to ruin him.

Everything Adeline did was in spite of him, or so John thought. His reputation of  popularity among the townsfolk, particularly his desire for attention from the ladies, and oh-so charming personality was more than Adeline could handle.

Yet if Adeline had only a glimpse into John's earlier years, she would have ran into the woods long ago.

The man, if you could call him that, John is now was not built overnight: he was an American tragedy born into wealth, slowing burning anything that could possibly be good in him until he was nothing more than a paragon of the need for power and the greed-infested stigma that is the human race. 

John yearned to be the best, but when he was tossed from his high horse in attempt to salvage the lingering fragments of kindness in his heart, he seemed to have hit his head, his vision skewed even more towards the encasing, suffocating, and overtaking vice of a sadistic hunger for the wealth he had lost.

And it was this exact persistence to triumph over any feat just to have glory glitter over his name that allowed John to be the selfish, true human being that he was today.

There was so much more to John, but he himself tried to block out the honest thoughts of self reflection because they spoke no words that he would want to hear. 

He stood up and kicked the base of the fireplace, the flames growing larger.

"She just about rejected me! For what? The life of her brother?" John paced around the carpet in the area where the flame's warmth touched. "What is that idiot going to do for her?"

"Nothing!" Leo answered the rhetorical question.

"Disgusting! I'm sickened by such a thought!" Falling into his personal seat with a loud thud, John moped. 

"Why don't you have another drink, you know, to take your mind off things?" Leo innocently suggested.

"What's the point? It won't bring Adeline back or heal the wound her departure has left me," John said emotionless, contrary to his words.

"Oh, come on, John!" Leo shook his head disapprovingly. "You have the world in the palm of your hand, a few ladies on your lap when you call, and an endless supply of fame! Isn't that what you always wanted?"