United

Harry's Book

I collapsed on my bed. I was exhausted. After I’d fled the cemetery, and Harry, I’d practically sprinted up to my room. 

I’d curled into a ball and gripped my throbbing foot. At least the pain was something real that I could cope with, something sane and of this world. I was so glad to finally be alone.

There was a knock on the door.

I could not catch a break.

I ignored the knock. I didn’t want to see anyone, and whoever it was would get the hint. Another knock. 

"Elena." A worried voice was heard from the other side of the door.

Stella.

I couldn’t see her right now. I’d either sound crazy if I tried to explain all that had happened to me in the last twenty-four hours, or I'd go crazy trying to put on a normal face and keep it to myself. She knows all of my secrets but this one I had to keep it to myself, at least until I understand what the hell is happening.

Finally, I heard Stella's footsteps treading away down the hallway. I breathed a sigh of relief, which turned into a long, lonely whimper. I wanted to blame Harry for unleashing this out-of-control feeling inside me, and for a second, I tried to imagine my life without him. Except that was impossible. Like trying to remember your first impression of a house after you’ve lived in it for years. That was how much he had gotten to me. And now I had to figure out a way to wade through all the strange things he’d told me tonight.

But at the edge of my mind, I kept spiraling back to what he’d said about the times we’d spent together in the past. Maybe I couldn’t exactly remember the moments he’d described or the places he mentioned, but in a strange way, his words weren’t shocking at all. It was all somehow familiar. And I had had these strange déjà vu when I had been around him...

For example, I had always inexplicably hated dates. Even the sight of them made me feel queasy. I’d started claiming I was allergic so my mom would stop trying to sneak them into things she baked. And I’d been begging my parents to take me to Brazil practically my whole life, though I never could explain exactly why I wanted to go.

The white peonies.

Harry had given me a bouquet after the fire in the library. There had always been something so unusual about them, yet so familiar. The pale full blooms of the flowers on my windowsill stood out in the dimness of my room. They’d sat in their vase for a week now, and not a single petal had withered.

I sat up and inhaled their sweetness.

I couldn’t blame him. Yes, he sounded crazy, but he was also right, I was the one who had come to him again and again suggesting that we had some sort of history. And it wasn’t only that. I was also the one who saw the shadows, the one who kept finding myself involved in the deaths of innocent people. I’d been trying not to think about Sebastian and Lucas when Harry started talking about my own deaths, how he had watched me die so many times. If there had been any way to fathom such a thing, I would have wanted to ask whether Harry ever felt responsible. For the loss of me. Whether his reality was anything like the secret, ugly, overriding guilt I faced every day.

I sank onto the desk chair, which had somehow made its way to the middle of the room. Ouch. When I reached underneath me, hand groping for whatever hard object I’d just plopped down on, I found a thick book.

I moved to the wall and flicked on my light switch, then squinted in the ugly fluorescent light. The book in my hands was one I’d never seen before. It was bound in the palest gray cloth, with frayed corners and brown glue crumbling at the bottom of the spine.