The Castle of Gold [Bk 2]

ch.63 To heal

[Harry's POV cont'd]

My hands trembled. They were soiled with blood. They were filthy, filthy hands that finally stuck up to my monster of a father. They didn’t just stick up to him, they killed him and even after those 14 years of hatred and bottled fury, I-I felt even worse. I felt like I had become him.

Gemma took small, hesitant steps away from me, until her back hit against the wall. She stared at my hands as if they were the most shameful objects in the world.

“G-Gem” I stuttered. I bit my tongue. Stuttering wasn’t against Sergeant’s rules, but Sergeant was gone. He was gone. I-I killed him.

I took a step towards Gemma.

She took another step back and shook her head.

“H-harry, you’re- you’re hands” she commented in such quiet horror, she might as well as denounced me as her brother.

“I-I”I stuttered again. The one chance I had to finally say whatever was on my mind, whatever words I ever dreamed of screaming or singing, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

“G-get away from me!” she shook her head furiously and grabbed mom’s keys.

“Wait!” I pleaded, but she was already half-way down the steps.

“Please! Gemma!” I begged. I wiped my hands on a towel and ran after her, but she was already in mom’s car, hands firmly on the wheel, not daring to look at the monster behind her.

I needed her, I needed her so badly, but she was terrified of me, what whoever I had become.

So I ran back into the house and rubbed my hands enough to have taken off layers of skin. I kept scrubbing, until they were white again, splotched with ink stains, but still white. But they were still red. They were still bloody red!

I went to Sergeant’s closet and I saw his old uniform, his black leather jacket. I put it on, hid my hands in the pockets and I never looked back.

***

Harry stared at his hands and his fingers trembled slightly. I took them in my hands carefully.

He jerked back as if unwilling to let me share the burden of his pain. But I was far from letting him wither in this torture alone, not even if he had already been suffering on his own all these years.

I reached for them again and kissed his knuckles.

“Harry” I spoke up softly. I moved back a loose, side-swept curl from his eye.

He scrunched up his nose, sniffling back tears that I knew he hadn’t released since that day. Then he looked up at me.

“Angie,” he began carefully. He took a few slow, deep breaths before continuing.

“If you want to call of the wedding, I will understand. I don’t know what I will do to myself, but I will understand” he told me solemnly.

I stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Harry” I shook my head so quickly that I felt dizzy for a moment.

Harry swallowed hard and stared at the ring he had given me. He looked like he wanted to super glue it on my finger as much as he wanted to pull it off and throw it away.

“I would never, ever leave you, you should know this by heart” I told him honestly. Then I brought his hand up my lips and kissed it before placing it over my heart.

He stared at his hand as if it had done some unthinkable crime by touching me and he moved it back, but I tightened my grip. I wrapped both my hands around his and kissed them again.