Ladybug [h.s.]

18*

Harry

~~~~~~~~

I'm not sure whether the build-up in the pit of my chest is excitement over seeing Delilah, or excitement over seeing my ring hanging from her necklace. No matter how desperately I try to quell it, even if just for the sake of not looking so goddamn soft, it keeps piling higher and higher. Ant hill turned mountain range.

All of my innocence shriveled up and died in the palm of my hands the night my parents died. Killed and swept through the street like their essence. Ground down into the concrete. I'd lost everything that night - safety, security, love, family, money, childhood. I wasn't old enough to go through something like that; that shit isn't supposed to happen to children. I wasn't even a fucking teenager yet, and suddenly I was on my own.

I'd never really believed in a God until Jack's mother brought me in. For at least a week, before the state tracked me down, picked me up and threw me in some home, I wandered through streets downtown, trying to find shelter, or money, or food. Anything I could get my hands on. I had just swiped a pack of M&Ms from a gas station when she found me. Running foolishly from the scene of the petty crime, chocolate melting in the heat of my grip, as my heart beat a million miles a minute. Her and Jack were on a walk somewhere - I never found out what they were doing before they found me. Because suddenly I was colliding into her body, my feet driving me way too fast, and stalling immediately in place at the lingering scent of laundry soap on her clothes. It was the same kind Mom used.

She took one look at my face, probably petrified and screaming the grief and exhaustion I tried so hard to hide, and pulled me into her arms. 'Said she recognized me from the story in the paper. We walked back to their house, and Jack talked to me the whole way about his Mr. Potato Head toy. We played with the stupid thing all night long, and Mama made chili, and before I knew it I had my own pillow on Jack's bed and my own seat cushion on the dining room chairs.

Before the accident, we were pretty well off. My parents had had decent money, some greedy state fuckers picking it up once they died. Our house was exactly two streets and one block away from the Butler's. I never asked how they met, or why they knew each other, instead I just had Deli and I was okay with that. All of my childhood - all of the innocence I've ever known - is captured within moments spent with her. A beacon of naive wonder. Secure solace to drop the castle walls. To cross the moat. To enter the palace.

It's like the moment she walked back into my life, I was transported there. Back to the little kid who would sit beside her in the grass, poking through the blades in search of little red bugs. The kid who ran after the ducks at the pond with soggy bread sticking to his palms. Twenty six years old and digging desperately in the dirt for one single Ladybug.

The sound of her front door creaking transforms the mountain range into volcano, the explosion happening the moment her stunning glory steps out onto the porch. One of those rare moments I can see past the walls. Pass over the moat. Enter the palace. Park in the driveway.

"Hey, greaser." Her breathy greeting is just audible over the humming of my bike engine, and I'm grateful in this moment that I already removed my helmet so that I can see her full beauty before my eyes.

"Ladybug." I give her a small smile, watching in awe as she comes closer.

I'm gifted with a solitary, fleeting kiss, before she's taking the helmet and covering her head. I let my pinky finger catch on the chain around her neck, pulling lightly at it and smiling at the gleam of my ring entangled with the small pearl. Once I hear the click, my thumb sneaks up to tug at the buckle and she giggles a beautiful melody.