runaways || h.s

fifteen;

a/n: this is late and way overdue, but it's a bit short and i'm sorry about that. but on the upside, this is a fairly "happy" chapter. next one should be longer. let me know what you thought in a comment :)

It was cold out and a cigarette was propped between her chapped lips. She kept walking and walking until she was in the middle of a park she’d never been in before. Dim lights illuminated the thin, cobblestone path she was walking on. Her vision was blurred and her head hurt, but she could see a small fountain at the very end. So she began to run and she ran all the way to the stone figurine of a mermaid resting on a rock. Water was flowing all beneath it and from the gills on the tail.

Lola reached her hand out far enough so the water ran over it; as cold and brisk at the air. She should have pulled back, should have gone back home where it was warm and safe, but she couldn’t. Something was pulling her here and she couldn’t make herself turn away.

Her hands were trembling from the cold, goosebumps rising on her pale skin. She let the water run over her hand for a few minutes longer until it seemingly went numb and she could no longer feel the coldness. Her breaths came out in steamy puffs and it circulated in the air a bit before blending in with the rest.

It wasn’t for another hour or so that Harry came sprinting into the part, clad in only a pair of jeans and a tee. He yelled Lola’s name over and over until she came in to view by the pond.

She kept her eyes trained on the running water as he approached her, breathing heavy but still cold as stone when her touched her arm lightly.

“Why’d you leave, Lo?” He was desperately saying over and over, trying to get a response out of her.

She couldn’t seem to form words, though. She’d mentally say her answer every time he’d ask, but no words would slip from her lips except a small “I’m sorry.”

Harry got her to walk home with him, his arm around her as if it’d warm her cold bones. But her coldness was permanent, now, and it was never going to go away.

The next morning, Lola was sitting on the balcony with a cigarette propped between her lips by the time Harry woke up.

“You’re up early,” he said against the skin of her neck where he placed two light kisses.

“Never went to sleep,” she said with smoke blowing from her mouth. “Couldn’t.”

“You could’ve woken me up. I would’ve stayed up with you, y’know.”

“I didn’t want to bother you. You look peaceful when you sleep, like none of this shitty world bothers you. I couldn’t take that away from you.”

Harry wanted to argue that even in his dreams he couldn’t escape the hell that followed the two of them wherever they went, but he didn’t. Instead, he leaned over and took a puff of Lola’s cigarette and kissed her forehead before heading back inside. Lola went in ten minutes later when he called and said he made tea.