#➊ 》𝕵𝖆𝖓𝖚𝖆𝖗𝖞 : ℍ𝕪𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕒𝕘𝕒𝕫𝕚𝕟𝕖

❀ 𝙿𝚘𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙴𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚎

~ WangXianLovingLotus

"Hello, Harry. How do you feel today?" A dreamy voice whispered in my mind.

I feel... lost. Like shattered glass that doesn't belong on the floor. If only I had told her that I cared... that she mattered...

I sat there on the same bench, legs folded to protect from the moist grass. I wore the same old shirt, the same old sneakers and the same old hair tie.

Fingers tapping the same old watch... waiting there at the same time as always...

I had always waited.

Always cared...

Then why did you not tell her? My mind chastised.

...Coward. I was a coward. Always had been.

Scolding my cowardly heart, I waited... and waited...

"Not having a mother is no excuse for wearing the same old shirt, Harry," she had said.

Her words echoed as I mumbled under my breath, "I wore it again, Grace. Come tell me off."

But she didn't.

I waited for her to come, to sit beside me, and lecture me on hygiene. And healthy food and hair maintenance and whatever it was she babbled every day. She cared a lot. She always had.

"Then why... why leave me?"

KABOOM—

The whispering 'why' that slipped off my tongue, no matter how inaudible, shredded the heavens apart. Down poured the rain, lashing out its force on my shuddering back.

Shaking from the tears, not the cold, I was used to the cold. Living in my drunkard father's old apartment, shutting myself into that dusty and cold little room so he could party with his friends in the kitchen... with no mother to cuddle me close... the cold — never meant anything.

Grace had been my warmth. That sparkly smile, those twinkling brown eyes, rosy cheeks, radiated the purest of energy. Wholesome and caring. The only source of warmth in this igloo of a life. My only ray of apricity. Gone. Off to god-knows-where.

Drip... drip—

Rain. "Angels' tears. Don't cry, Gabriel. I'll get through this," she had muttered — never knowing I heard. Gabriel can cry all he wants. I never cared about others anyway.

Just her.

Her graceful, poetic soul.

"Grace... please don't give up... Don't leave me."

Sniff—

"Who's there?" I jerked around.

Nobody was in sight.

Or maybe I was looking too high...

Sure enough, way down below, hugging his legs with his back against a tree sat a child: sobbing to himself, all alone... not much different to me...

Before I knew it, my feet had taken me towards the tree and my knees had touched the grass. What was my hand doing on a pathetic crybaby's shoulder?

Sniff—

"Who a-are you?"

"Erm..." Tears. Alone. "Someone a lot like you. What's wrong?"

"..." Sniff—

He didn't seem to want to converse at all. Well, I can't leave him here!

...Why can't I? God, I must be possessed—