Empire of Deception (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter 31

I follow her up the stone pathway and into a town square, complete with fountain located right in the center. A breeze blows against the water, sending mist towards our direction. She looks at the architecture around her in complete awe and I don't think I have ever seen her at a loss for words. My hands grasp the camera which hangs from my neck and I pull it up to my eyes and capture the moment. It hangs once again before she can see and criticize me.

We travel amongst lively alleyways, stopping to literally smell the flowers that are an explosion of color against the all grey background of the stone that surrounds us. I look at the beautiful things. Fresh. New. Vibrant. Full of life. Although it is only downhill from here for the flowers, they still are a strong representation of life for me.

I half expected the man selling them to suggest me buying it for Victoria, as if we were two people in love, but maybe it was the way we were standing or the way that we didn't really speak to each other that hinted him that we weren't together. As we were walking away I would have sworn that there was sadness in his eyes, but when I turned around again he was already approaching an actual couple who were behind us.

I am not a photographer in the slightest but I constantly found myself being compelled to record everything. The structures, the people, Victoria, the skyline. Everything about this Italian town was inviting and warm and so, so, so beautiful. It was like anything I had ever seen before.

A melody of beautiful language surrounded us wherever we went in the form of locals chatting amongst their friends or shopkeepers inviting us inside. Life was everywhere around me and it was so different than the drab grey skies of London that I look upon every god-forsaken morning.

A massive cathedral looms high above our heads and we stand in the shadow of mass. As it was the entire day, Victoria stands in front of me for I am always the one trailing behind her. She turns her head and asks me if I would care to go inside and I am taken back at the idea of her even asking for my input.

"Sure," I say.

The darkness is penetrated by the beams of colored light that cut through the sheer opacity of the stained glass windows that have probably been there for generation upon generation. The pews of the church are made of an old and worn wood that feels smooth beneath my finger tips, whispering words of history and knowledge about the thousands that have been here before me. People who have sat in these rows, people who have took communion and confessed Jesus is Lord.

I wonder what it is like to believe in a higher being. To have that optimism that everything will be alright because your life is in the Lord's hand. To not be able to worry about problems because the Lord is taking care of it. I do not have that luxury. I have grown up in an environment that makes you your own savior. You live by your hand and you die by your hand. You don't have the time to wait for the Lord's direction, you must weigh your options and make a decision. At first I think bitterly of the naive people who have prayed on their knees to a God who has never shown himself to me and probably a God who has never actually shown himself to them, but I take it back. Maybe it is I who is naive because the idea of hope and the weight it takes off of me is something that I want. Maybe the people and the families who spend their Sunday's in this cathedral are actually living right. Whether or not this God does exist, at least it takes away their fear and certain aspects of pain that we must face everyday.

I look upon the massive carving of Jesus on the cross, hanging high above the pulpit with a crown of thorns on his head.

"It's almost more haunting than it is beautiful," Victoria marvels, her voice soft but loud enough to echo down the halls of this empty church. "The way you know that these walls have seen tears, and hope, and justice, and sorrow, and brokenness, and every imperfect thing there is to being a human. This place has seen generations and generations of sins. It's weakening because you are in a state where you are so vulnerable but at the same time it's empowering because God is supposedly on your side. But even evil eventually finds it's way into the church through corrupt leaders and manipulation. Maybe no place is ever fully sacred." She pauses as she ponders over something before looking all around her, finally waking up from a trance. "It's Sunday, where do you suppose everybody is?" she thinks out loud, manicured hands grazing over fleshly situated flora.