asset [h.s.]

fifty four // 5 stages of grief

A.N.
I loved reading all your reactions from the last chapter, they're exactly what I expected haha. I can't wait to see what you guys think of the next few chapters

Harry

They say there are 5 stages of grief.

The first is shock, which is the only thing I felt as I stood out on that driveway with Alicia. It was the only thing I felt as I read that letter, as she spoke to me in that cold, emotionless voice, as she told me she didn't love me. It completely took over me, putting me into a stage of paralysis as I just stood there, watching the car drive away, and it's what's kept me standing there for about an hour afterwards.

The second is denial, which is what I was going though when I was finally able to move again and I began pacing up and down the house. I told myself there was no way this was happening, there was no way that she meant that, there was just no way any of this was real. It was during my stage of denial that I called Liam and told him to come to the house because I needed someone to help me figure this out, which he eventually agreed to after about twenty minutes of my rambling.

I decided that what Alicia said and everything that just happened had to be a lie, some sort of twisted plan. Even though she looked and sounded serious, I still couldn't bring myself to believe it. I had never heard her sound so cold and hollow before, just the mere sound of her voice chilling me to the core. She was almost unrecognisable, showing a side of her that I've never seen before, a side that I never want to see again. She was cold and cruel and dangerous, as unlike herself as she ever could be.

That wasn't her. That wasn't my Alicia.

It was after this that the third stage, anger, began to set in.

The denial faded away and was replaced by a series of tortuous 'what ifs'. What if that was her, that she's always been like that, and she was telling the truth when she said she had been trained?  What if the Alicia I have fallen in love with isn't her at all, and just a persona she had to play in order to survive? Even if I didn't want to believe it, it did make sense, especially seeing as that's what Owen and I originally thought, but she managed to make us change our minds. What if that was also part of her plan?

Before I even knew what was happening, I found myself in a complete fit of rage. I was angry at Alicia, angry at Owen, angry at myself, angry at everyone and anyone. I started breaking everything within a few feet of me, screaming and shouting, throwing things around the room, smashing anything I could get my hands on, punching my fists against the walls until my knuckles were torn and dripping with blood.

The fourth stage is depression, which is what I fell into after my fists were bleeding too much from smashing everything around me and I eventually had to stop breaking things. I managed to pull myself up into one of the bathrooms and I locked myself in there to have a shower, but as soon as I felt the water trickling onto my body, I was reminded of when I had Alicia in the shower with me, and suddenly the anger was back.

I was slamming both my head and my fists against the shower wall until the white tiles were tainted in the blood from my knuckles, and then I cleaned them underneath the shower, wincing as the water washed over the cuts, watching the red ribbons disappearing down the drain. After that, I slumped down onto the shower floor and just sat there for what felt like hours, unsure of whether water droplets or tears were rolling down my cheeks.