Needle and Thread

5

"Lewis! Over here!"

The ball thuds against the arch of Harry's foot, flying across the grass before it lands an inch or two away from Luke's cleats. He offers Harry a grin that's a little sharp around the edges - not that Harry can blame him.

The morning has been odd to say the least, right from the very moment the sun rose and Harry's eyes fluttered open. Well, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that Harry has been very odd. The morning is just a consequence, a victim caught in the line of fire of his oddness. Unable to blame himself, he has simply decided to place the onus of his misfortune on the time of day coinciding with it.

He thought his friends wouldn't notice. He thought they didn't pay enough attention to figure out when he is acting like himself, or when he is acting very much the opposite. In all honesty, he thought they didn't care. The sharpness of Luke's smile neither confirms nor denies these thoughts.

The air smells damp in a clammy way, like half-dried laundry rather than rain, and Harry feels off. Not right. It's an inexplicable feeling, one he can't fully describe. Ugly, is the closest he can think of, but not in an aesthetic way. More so, Harry feels ugly on the inside, a self-loathing for what rests beneath the surface of his skin. There isn't one, distinct part of himself he dislikes, choosing instead to round up his fractions of hatred into somewhat of a whole.

Harry can't tell if he hates himself, or merely hates the version of himself he presents to others. These days, it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two, and at this point, he isn't sure he wants to.

Football practice ends without much fanfare, and he still feels unusual. Ugly.

"Good game, today," Alex says, looping a long arm around Harry's shoulders. It's a lie, far more sugar coated than Luke's smile, but a lie nonetheless.

"I guess," He mutters noncommittally. He wants to shrug Alex's arm off and seclude himself in a shower cubicle for five minutes, but he also doesn't want to be rude. If it's not already too late, that is.

Another arm appears in Harry's line of sight. This time it bends, and the elbow nudges his own.

"Harry, are you alright? No offence, but you were kind of dead on the pitch."

Brandon isn't known for his delicacy at the best of times, no matter how fragile the situation, so Harry simply chooses to do as he's told.

"None taken." He does shrug this time, causing Alex's arm to reluctantly fall. "Just tired, I guess."

A beat passes, too lengthy and too loud in its silence. Harry knows his friends are far from convinced, but he thinks he might not care. Or he cares too much. Harry's emotions have all melted into one, big, indecipherable blob he can't separate. A tightness forms in his chest, the breathless kind that crawls up your throat and holds your tongue tight in its clutches.

"See you guys tonight," He mutters, a half-hearted farewell, brushing between Brandon and Alex to make for the showers.

A familiar sense of dread begins to creep in as Harry strips himself of his grass stained kit, hidden behind a flimsy curtain that does little to protect his dignity. The feeling is familiar in a way he wishes it wasn't, like the scent of rotting fruit or the lyrics of a song attached to bad memories.

Sometimes, but always at the most unpredictable moments, there's this unpleasantness that overcomes Harry. It's less worry, and more anticipation for something that he knows will never come. Unfortunately, the logical part of his brain and the irrational seem to disagree on the validity of his anxiety, battling it out until one side wins. More often than not, it's the irrational half that comes out as the victor.

He wishes that was the end of it. The thumping heart, the ringing ears, the tightness of his lungs. He wishes that was the end of it, but he can only wish.

There are moments after these strong waves of panic, when nothing seems quite real. It's like Harry's viewing the world through a window, hazy with condensation, a divide between himself and something he can't see or reach. It's like everything he once knew turns out to be a dream, a surreal imitation of what he once thought to be his reality. It's like life has become an empty space in time where Harry is the only living thing. In these dreamlike moments, he feels so terribly alone.

The water that spurts from the shower head is icy now, chilling Harry to the bone. His heart pounds so loudly that he can hear it thundering in his ears, like a legion of soldiers lives within him, awaiting a raging battle - and their inevitable deaths along with it.

It's difficult to find an equilibrium, to benchmark a place in which Harry can both hate himself and be happy, because neither one nor the other seems to want to take centre stage.

Why can't he have both? Why must he choose?