Mint [H.S.]

21

Sea of Love - Cat Power

Come with me, my love, to the sea of love...

ISABELLA 

He was a tattered mess of leather jackets and broken promises. Everything that he said and did was the personification of my beating, cheapened heart. I never thought it was possible to love someone so broken... so needy... so beautiful. Even as I sat here, on the warm beach at The Hamptons, all I can think about... all that my thoughts go back to... is him. It's Harry. 

"Are you alright?" Livia asked in her bubbly speech. Playful eyes covered by oversized glasses and lips painted candy cotton pink. 

A helpless sigh escapes me. Everything that I feel seems to always go back to feeling helpless. That was all I knew right now. 

"No. I'm not," because I wasn't. I was a mix of confused and heartbroken. A mix so deadly that my heart was so certain it was going to shatter. Again. 

"You need to stop thinking about him..."

"I can't..."

"You have to..."

"It's not that easy." 

Because it wasn't. I had him at the tip of my fingers... one click away and I was connected to him, but that connection was lost. It was lost like his love for me, our hopes of happiness, and my dreams of taking over my fears. It was gone like the promises we made to one another that we would always be there. That we were always going to love. Nothing was going to stop us... but it did. They did. It was gone. He changed his number. 

"You will see him again. I'm sure of it," she speaks with too much certainty that even I almost believed her. "The wedding -" 

Except that she didn't know Ben and Harry's relationship. Not like I do. They were a pattern of mistrust and slurred profanities. Heartbreak and regret. A tragic past that Harry didn't want to live in anymore. There was no way that Harry will be there because we didn't know where was... because he left. He was gone. He changed his number. 

I'd be fooling myself if I believed Harry would want to see me again. He left. It was over. We were over. I know him better than I even know myself. He runs away from his problems... his issues. He's the master of avoidance. A wedding where the man that married his mother, that broke his relationship with his brother, me... it was a wedding he certainly wasn't going to be there.

There was no point in believing otherwise.

And I was never going to know if it was my dad or if it was him. I will never know if it was his choice to go away, to leave me, to not stay. 

"You're in a funk. This isn't okay." 

"I'll be fine," I lied. The pre-rehearsed lines falling off my tongue. "I'm fine."

Except I wasn't. I haven't been fine. I can't remember the last time I was fine... when I knew everything was going to be okay. 

Going away to Southampton, a week before I needed to fly out to London seemed like an all-promising plan. I needed to get away from it all. From the mess that my father created... from the splattered mess that has soaked up my heart, my spirit, my love. I needed to get away from the aching pain that seethed through my tattered heart. I always believed that I would never go back to London, but plans always change. Promises you make break. Life never goes the way you plan it to go, and that was just the way it is. 

"You have a dress fitting tomorrow morning," Natalia reminded me for the third time this afternoon. I nodded, too preoccupied with the burning liquid that seeped into my mouth and down my throat... numbing the pain away.