Annabel [h.s.]

fourteen

The sky is littered with heavy clouds, ready to burst at any given moment. Annabel is alone and she has no idea where Harry's gone. She's reading Let Me Be by Charlotte Adams and the rain has just started to fall when Harry walks through the sliding glass door.

He's looking at his hands and his entire body is trembling. There's blood dripping to the floor and coating his shaking hands. Annabel sets the book down slowly and tries to determine if the blood covering his skin is his own or someone else's.

By the way that it's dripping she knows that it's his and she wonders why he looks like he's just seen a ghost. She calls his name, but he's not listening. It looks like there are tears in his eyes as he stumbles past her with incoherent words tumbling from his lips.

Annabel's eyes are wide as she stands from the couch and follows him up the stairs.

"Harry."

He's still not listening as he shoves through his half closed door and into his bedroom. Annabel nearly rolls her eyes as she follows and rushes to grab his shoulders and turn her around.

"Harry!"

Now she's got his attention and his eyes are like saucers. His hands are still shaking beneath her fingertips and he's breathing like he's just run a marathon at a full sprint. Annabel turns his hands over only to find deep gashes covering his skin.

Her eyebrows are pulled together in confusion, "What happened?"

There's a wild look in his eyes when he finally looks up at her and it's a look she's only seen one other time.

"You."

And she knows by the undertone of sadness in his voice that he's afraid of hurting her. He's already done it before, but she knows by the look in his eyes that the nightmare he had a week ago had something to do with her death being by his hands.

Harry isn't afraid to kill other women because they're just pawns in his game, but Annabel is different and it's been clear to each of them from the start.

She's not really sure what to do because there's something in his voice that's pleading for her to stay and there's also something in his voice that's telling her to just go the hell away.

Annabel steps back to give him some space because she knows that he's on the verge of snapping. The silence between them is different this time. It's far more tense than it's ever been and it's only getting worse the longer that they stand there and stare at each other.

Harry's breathing has slowed a little and is on its way to normality, but his eyes are still wild and his hands are still bleeding.

For the first time since he'd met her, Annabel actually looks a little frightened. Not of him, but for him. She's frightened because he's never been this way before and it reminds her of a video she watched in her psychology class in high school. It's the look that someone gets before they lose their mind and she's not quite sure what that means for Harry.

She's about to say something, but she stops when his hands fly to his hair and he starts pacing around the room.

"I just-fuck. You do this-this thing to me and it feels like I'm trapped and on fire. Bright and blazing against the dark night sky. It's wonderful, but it's fire and it eats everything inside of me until there's nothing left. And then you leave and it's like someone's dropped me into the arctic ocean and everything contracts so that I'm constantly suffocating. I can't win with you but I can't live without you either."

Annabel doesn't know what to say. Harry's basically just told her that he loves her and that's huge and incredibly terrifying even though she's known for a while. And what's even worse about it is the fact that she loves him too.