(we're a) Fine Line {HS}

L - Bandages {Epilogue}

The sun lights up the clear sky as bright as it must in summer time. And everyday I keep cursing at it mentally as soon as it touches my skin. Today particularly, it really burns it and makes it hard to lift my gaze to what's in the distance. Inside the store it was cold like a fridge, though, and now as I step outside I can immediately feel myself sweat and being blinded by what I don't even look at.

I scrunch my face and look down, focusing on having strength in my hands to grab the two bags full of groceries each of them carry, trough across the road and take it home. Thank God I'm not doing it by myself, though. I could never. The purest creature walks beside me, simply grabbing my wrist but claiming to be helping me in my task.

Four years have passed since I first gave the world the privilege to host such being and those same four years have passed since I heard the last note of the piano in my head. I kind of despaired a little bit at first, when I realised I couldn't hear Harry play anymore, and when I was forced to be away from my child, because, after all, I was still paying for the crimes I didn't mind to make mine.

As I was told, they had found the knife I left on the ground in the driveway of Harry's house, back in Los Angeles, and on it my fingerprints. So, the crime scene, somehow, having none of any other person's, they assumed it was me who killed Jeff. And I too confessed so. Twenty years I was sentenced to be punished, but at the fourth I was released by very good behavior during such.

Four years my mother took care of this child for me. Showed love, educated and, most importantly, spoke of mom and dad in every occasion possible. I made sure she did, I begged her to never stop making us known as if we had never been away, and thankfully, two days ago, I met my daughter as if so.

I talked to her sometimes on the phone, so at least I got to know her voice. A deep one it is, given mine not being much high too and her dad's not even needing mention. And every time I told my mother to show her photos of us, or something that would make her recognize us right away.

She did, my sweet reason of being. She ran into my arms, curious to know my hug at last, as soon as we looked into each other's faces. And so we live together now as if we've been doing it forever.

I admire how she seems to be untouched by the aggressiveness of this sun today. She hops peacefully along with me, the light brown curls of her long hair joining her freedom and hopping by themselves too. Her eyes, dark brown like mine but long shaped like his, seem to curiously look down at how the gown of her yellow dress responds to her movements. Then apparently an itch on her nose, unbelievably similar to her father's, drives her attention away and she looks ahead again after scratching it. Her pink lips as small as mine let out a fresh chant as we continue our small walk to the building of our apartment a few feet away.

I've come to learn she always does when there's nothing to say. And I can swear sometimes it sounds like those I used to hear her father play while she was still being generated inside me. I even wonder if now she's the one hearin--

"Daddy!" She suddenly says with amusement, not even giving me a chance to stop her as she takes off running the rest of the path we are making.

"Mel!!" I call her instead, my reflexes not being able to cooperate properly given the load I carry. However, she doesn't go far, stopping at hugging someone else's legs at the entrance of our building. What did she say?

I stop too, or maybe I has stopped already and stand under the sun that seems to have gotten worst, suddenly. My eyes go from my daughter to recognize the hairy legs taller then herself, with small tattooed words on the knees, and my aching arms lose the strength for good. With fallen groceries at my feet, I try to come up with the striped shorts evidencing a thin waist, framed by sharp knuckles at both sides.