The Saint's Lips

Chapter Eight

"Ava? Ava?" A low raspy voice jolts me awake and for a moment I think that I'm dreaming. "Did you fucking go to sleep?"

The recent memory of about half an hour ago comes flooding back into my cognitive mind, and I rub my eyes at the light pouring through the crack in my doorway.

"I thought you would take the hint and leave." I tell Harry who is standing with his arms crossed against the doorway to my bedroom. His thin body leans against the wooden frame, and I need to shake my head to rid it of the sight in front of me. His dark clothes contrast the light pouring in behind him, and it makes him look more innocent that he'll have the world believe.

"You really don't like me do you?" He asks, with the hint of a smile playing on his lips.

From my bed, I can see him stroking his bottom lip with his thumb and I even catch the gleams of light reflecting off of his rings. They seem to overpower his fingers, and it makes him look edgier than I get the impression that he is.

"I don't care, Harry. Can you get out of my house before I call the cops or something?" I tell him and lay back down in my bed, sighing in complete exasperation with this boy.

"Alright, but you might want to check on your father if that's the case." He says, without a single hint that he's joking, or teasing me.

I'm out of bed within seconds and standing in front of Harry at the doorway.

"What's wrong with my dad?" I ask him, all teasing and unnecessary jokes completely thrown aside at this point.

"Nothing, I just heard him mumbling." Harry shrugs, and allows me to pass when I push him to get to my father's room.

I make my way around the square that consists of the open hallways, and rush quickly into my father's room which is located right at the top of the stairs. His monitors are beeping normally, the darkness from outside seeping into the unlit room, as I make my way to his bedside. I've forgotten that Harry is even here when my dad mumbles an incoherent mess of gibberish.

I sigh and brush my fingertips through my messy curls, turning to face Harry who leans on the wall in front of me.

"He does that sometimes." I tell Harry who's shoulders seem to relax once I do.

We make our way downstairs in silence, where I go quietly to open the front doors.

"Can you please just leave now?" I ask him, everything resembling a joke or light conversation fading from my words. Harry takes the hint this time, and he gathers his sweater, baseball cap, and puts on his boots before rushing outside. I'm about to close the door when he blocks it with his arm.

"I'm sorry that he's like that." Harry's eyes are alight with a glossy layer of tears that haven't filled up enough to fall on to his cheeks. The light from the porch accents the clear layer covering his green irises, and I can't find any words to tell him a quick thank you before he turns around, and walks back in the direction of his own home across the street.

Through the haze of this new and unfamiliar feeling in my stomach, I walk numbly up to my room and back into the confines of my bed. I pull the covers over my body and close my eyes. Here I repeat the scene over and over again in my mind before allowing myself to fall victim to the darkness of sleep.

That night, the now familiar recurring dream of a shadowed figure with hauntingly beautiful lips clouds my subconscious memory.

~~~

"You'll need these, definitely need these." Katherine is handing me a different pair of bikini sets every two seconds, and by now I'm just walking around the store with a pile of bikinis in my hand.

"Okay, I don't need all of these so you'll have to choose." I tell her as I look down at my hands that are now filled with a growing pile of bathing suits.

"Fine, go try those on and then tell me which ones you prefer. I'll keep picking while you're at it."

I sigh and go to the dressing room to try on the millions of bikinis Kat has handed me. The man working at the changing rooms looks at me as if I'm a nutcase, and I give him a shrug and a small smile before hiding behind the doors of the dressing room. I try on about seven different pairs of bikinis, three of which I really liked the pattern of. They were plenty colourful, and I knew Kat would approve.

I throw the four pairs of bikinis that I didn't choose onto the judgemental dressing room employee's desk and rush out of there before he sees me.

When I get out of the changing rooms, I go to look for Kat's dark head in the mass of shoppers. I don't spot her first, but instead I spot Harry's tall figure standing next to a girl. When I notice that the girl is Kat, I mentally prepare myself for this encounter, and then make my way over there.

"Hey, how did they look?" Kat asks me as soon as she sees me approaching. I look at Harry who doesn't seem to give any indication that he cares about my presence, and show her the three that I picked.

"Nice." She says and when we're done with our side conversation, I turn to Harry and give him a polite smile. I figure, after last night, I should be a little nicer towards him. For some reason it seemed that his vulnerability opened up for a minute, and I wouldn't want that to go completely unnoticed.

"Hey." I say to him, and he looks down at me, as if he's noticed that I was even here for the first time since I came out of the changing rooms.

"Well if it isn't the princess." He says, and I crease my eyebrows with slight confusion mixed with a little bit of hurt.

Ouch.

After his only comment towards me, he turns back to Kat and continues the conversation as if I wasn't there once again.

"Aren't you going to pay for those?" Harry says with a sarcastic smile, indenting his face with the familiar dimples.

It takes me a while to realize that he's addressing me, and I don't bother answering him. I slug off in the direction of the cash register, feeling a little too much like a puppy with its tail tucked behind its legs. I pay for my three pairs of new bikinis and then walk back to where Kat is still talking to Harry. They seem emmersed in a serious topic and their familiarity with one another appears strange. She's been swooning over him since he got to school, but she hasn't told me anything about actually striking up a conversation with him before. 

When I reach a close enough proximity to Kat I can hear their conversation slowly change subjects. She suddenly laughs and nudges at his shoulder to which he gives a momentary confused glance. It doesn't take long for me to attempt an escape route from third-wheeling.

"Okay, so let's go." I hook my arm with Kat's and she gives a little whimper and quick goodbye to Harry as I drag her off.

"Fuck you." She says and I shake my head as we walk out of the store and into the scorching sun.

"He was being a jerk." I say as we make our way towards her camry.

"What do you mean? He's actually seems really nice if you ask me." She smiles to herself and I shake my head again, attempting to rid my mind of the whole situation.

"Well, I didn't ask you." I tell her and open the car door as she climbs into the driver's seat.

"Geez, what's got your panties in a twist today? Ever since Harry showed up, you became moody as fuck. Why can't you just allow yourself the simple pleasure of loving him like the rest of us?" She asks me before blasting her signature music and pulling out on to the street.

"Because his looks blind you to the fact that he acted like a complete jerk to me." I tell her and distort my face in disgust.

"Ava, he wasn't being a jerk. He kept asking questions about you the minute you left." She looks before turning left on to another street, and continues bobbing her head along to the music.

"He did?" I ask, and can't help the intrigue that forms before I can suppress it.

"Yeah, he did." I can see her smile out of the corner of my eye as she continues to dance in her seat to the tunes.