Red Velvet (indefinite hold)

Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

On Saturday morning I was awoken by the pounding of rain on my bedroom window and the deafening rumbles of thunder shaking the whole city. It was far too early to get out of bed so I grabbed a book off of my wooden bookshelf and began reading.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you have a mental dialogue going on inside your head that never stops. It just keeps going and going. Have you ever wondered why it talks in there? How does it decide what to say and when to say it?” I immediately recognised the book and realised I’d picked up ‘The Untethered Soul’ and my mind shot to Harry. I’d read this book and re-read it many times and even underlined certain quotes but I’d never valued it as much as I did that day.

The whole book is about understanding your emotions and thoughts. You are the main character and it’s about realising you control your life and it’s up to you whether you live it the way you want to and be happy. My mind had decided to reject Harry. The voice in my head had. Was that what I really wanted inside?

I flicked through the pages reading over the quotes that I’d underlined or highlighted months or even years ago. “Events don’t determine whether or not you’re going to be happy. They’re just events. You determine whether or not you’re going to be happy.” Every quote that I’d chosen to underline related to Harry perfectly. I hadn’t even met him when I’d read it. I didn’t even know he existed and yet I felt my mind made me choose these quotes on purpose, knowing that one day I would be reading them and thinking of Harry. Every sentence opened my mind to something new and I began to understand that despite the events that had happened with Harry, I believed he could make me happy. Deep down inside I believed he could. As Harry had left the day before his last words were ‘I’m not giving up’ and I hoped he wouldn’t. He could make me happy. I just had to let him.

“You truly can reach a state in which you never have any more stress, tension, or problems for the rest of your life. You just have to realize that life is giving you a gift, and that gift is the flow of events that takes place between your birth and your death. These events are exciting, challenging, and create tremendous growth… Learn to stop resisting reality, and what used to look like stressful problems will begin to look like the stepping-stones of your spiritual journey.” Harry was my reality and I needed to stop resisting him and instead embrace him. Harry could be part of my life if I let him and he could be a stepping-stone in my life. He already was, but I needed to accept it.

I finished looking through the book and my mind was filled with a thousand new thoughts. “When you feel pain, simply view it as energy. Just start seeing these inner experiences as energy passing through your heart and before the eye of your consciousness. Then relax. Do the opposite of contracting and closing…. Relax your shoulders and relax your heart. Let go and give room for the pain to pass through you. It’s just energy. Just see it as energy and let it go.” If Harry really wasn’t going to give up then I would accept him with open arms because even if he did hurt me I could grow from it. No one wants to feel pain but you have to accept that it’s a part of life and pain helps to form your personality and who you are going to be in life. If you choose to see pain as hurting and not for what it is, a form of energy your body feels, then you can’t be happy. If you decide to let it go you can move on with life and be happy with yourself and others.

The way you live your life is decided by no one but yourself. You make the decisions. You know how you feel. You can make yourself happy. You just need to realise that. And I finally did.

As I got out of bed I already felt happier. It’s funny how you never realise how messed up what you’ve been feeling really is until your past it. I was ridiculous to push Harry away when I’d never given him a chance. I was pathetic trying to hide my emotions when deep down I knew how he made me feel. I needed to make sure I saw him again. I needed to find him and apologise for the way I’d acted. I was rude, immature and I wanted to try with him. Maybe things could work out between us after all.

It was soon early evening and the rain had seemed to relax outside in the now gentle wind. All day I had been thinking about Harry and I couldn’t help it. I wondered whether he’d visited the shop in search of me or whether he’d decided to finally give up on me. I quickly shoved the thought from my mind and hoped I’d see him again. Soon.

I had to work the next day and I couldn’t wait. I missed seeing his face. That smirk on his lips and his burning eyes. It had only been a day since I’d seen him last but every minute that past made my body ache for him even more.

I decided to have a shower to speed up time until the morning. There was no certainty that Harry would return to the shop again but I really hoped he would. If he didn’t I had no idea how I could find him again. I would have to ask Rachel if she could speak to James for me and see what Harry studied and when he had lessons. I sounded like some kind of stalker planning how I could track him down but I’d made a big mistake turning him down and I needed to fix it.

When I returned to my bedroom my phone was loudly ringing on my bed. I gripped the towel around my body tightly and ran to answer my call. It was an unknown number and I slid the phone up to my ear. I softly coughed before speaking “Hello?” I asked the stranger on the other end.

“Scarlett?” the almost too familiar voice groaned through the speaker. My heart skipped a beat. “It’s Harry.”