Insane

//Nightmares//

Harry's POV

I woke up breathing heavily, and frantically searching for something to grasp on to. Anything.

This happens every night. I know this because I have been keeping track of the days you've been gone.

It's been 364 days. Almost a year. Crazy to think about, right? You've been gone for almost a whole year, and I'm still getting these ridiculous nightmares of your smile, your hair, the way you would squint your eyes when you laugh. I can't forget about the way you laughed. It was so distinct.

But you're gone. All I have left of you are memories. Memories that bounce around in my head from the time I awake from sleep, and the time I decide to go back to sleep. It's contradictory, really.

By the time I'm finished getting ready for work, I have gone through my morning ritual of thinking of the way you used to wake me up. How you made me breakfast every morning because your UNI classes didn't start till noon, and you always said there was no better way to spend your mornings anyway.

As I grab my keys off of my nightstand, I take a second glance of the photo I have of you the night we got drunk and took a thousand pictures off of your Polaroid. I'll never forget that night. Even though you always thought I never remembered it in the first place.

On my way to work, I saw a newspaper and magazine stand. I always told you that you could be a model, with your cheekbones protruding. You would just laugh and punch me in the arm telling me 'I don't want to be one. I enjoy pizza every Friday with you.'

I know you wouldn't want me moping around like this. But I miss you dearly. This is my only way to think of you. I need you to come back to me, somehow, anyhow. I just need you here.

Once I get to work, I sit behind the cash register waiting for our first customer to find this dusty old bookshop this early in the morning. They always go for the adult fiction section, even if they're not really adults in the first place.

That was my favorite thing about you, though. You never grew up. You always told me you would be immortal, that Peter Pan never grew up, so why should you? You were a child at heart, forced to grow up way too fast.

Although I bash on this place a whole lot nowadays, it's only because this is the sanctuary in which our first meeting was held. I remember you walked in, your hair was completely out of place due to the wind. You had your purse clutched to your shoulder, and a very wondrous and adventurous look on you. Like you discovered a magical place, that no one would ever know about besides you. You were youthful. It shone out of you, and every person you met saw it.

You went straight down the adult fiction section just as I thought you would. You picked out the cliché 'To Kill A Mocking Bird'. It's always been my favorite. Maybe that's why I had grown on to you so quickly, our love and fascination of books had been almost identical.

You brought it up to the counter, and handed me a ten. It was scrunched up, like the scarf you were wearing. You barely managed to pull it out, seemingly like you didn't expect it to be in there at all.

When I rang you up, I handed you my phone number I had written on the receipt. You eyed it and glanced back up at me. You just giggled and blushed, just as I expected someone as innocent as you to do. As you walked out, I knew you weren't just someone. I knew you were placed in this exact spot with me at this exact time for a reason. But I didn't know at the time that reason was to just rip you from under my touch.

When the door bell sounded, I was ripped from my continuous thoughts. It was a young woman, maybe eighteen, nineteen. She went straight for the adult fiction section, as intended.

When she came to the desk, only that was when I noticed her cheekbones. Just like yours.

I didn't give her a second glance.

This continued for three weeks.

Each time she entered, she went down the adult fiction section, just like you did.