Honest || h.s.

Rembrandt

A/N: hiiiiiiii lovely reader,,,,

i've been thinking a lot about this story and what it means to me, and honestly i'm infatuated with it, i'm just stressed about portraying it accurately. i'm sorry if for some reason you lose interest. :(

but anyway, here is another chapter, and seriously--thank you. so much. for reading. there's a lot going on everywhere, and if you're here, at my story, of all places, i am gratified that you took the time to stop by.

until next time.

xx

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Harry.

Mara isn't okay, and Skylar isn't on my couch watching Stranger Things with me, and the porch is cold.

I am alone and staring at the empty pavement. Nighttime noises--cars, bugs, the wind moving leaves, a stray cat--they fill my ears and then my brain and then my chest. I don't jump when there is a crash of broken bottles down the street, and fear doesn't move me from the inside out like it should when a figure moves against the shadowy backdrop of our neighbourhood. I watch my grumpy neighbor, Phil, a guy from Indiana in the United States, lumber away from his trash bin and back into his house. He doesn't see me, and I hug myself a little, looking back at the driveway and the sidewalk and letting my eyes rest, drooping, in the dim, yellow wash of the street lamp. It must be late. Clouds cover the moon, or maybe it's just not visible because the earth is blocking the faraway sun's reflection. But I can see some stars. My lungs feel like they're taking meek amounts of cool England air between the sky and me. I wish I had on some slippers. My feet ache in my trainers. They're cold. Come to think, I am relatively cold. All over. I'm sort of trembling everywhere that my limbs thin into smaller limbs, and I can't really focus on anything in particular, but I think I either need to throw up or already did.

It takes minutes for me to realize I'm crying, and only then because I start to taste saltwater in the corner of my mouth. My lips hang open slightly, numbly. I feel that my mouth and eyes are pink and swollen, and now I'm crying and it makes sense, I guess.

The wooden boards underneath me rumble softly. I look down, and a blur of a phone screen peers up at me from next to where I sit. I fumble it. I don't know why I answer, because I can't even speak, but I thumb the button anyway.

"Henlo," my voice is thick. I sniff.

"Goodness gracious, Harry--"

It's Mum. I bury my face in my knees, a sob looming to shake my shivering frame.

"Sweetheart, are you okay? Goodness--I--Sabrina called me." Sabrina is Jackson's mum. "She told me what--oh, Harry, where are you, love?"

"I'm--I'm home," I mumble, but my tongue and lips feel off, as if I'm under the influence. I low buzz resonates through my skull, seeping into my shoulders and down until my whole body is pulled so strongly by gravity and nothingness that I can't feel my own feelings raging at each other in my stomach anymore. It's sort of a relief. They wouldn't shut up about the sirens, the images of blood dripping down his chin, the way his eyes weren't actually looking at the sky even though that's the direction they were pointed...

"They took him to the hospital and he hasn't come to, but he'll be okay," Mum pauses, then repeats herself, as if I hadn't heard. "He'll be okay, love..."

She sounds more relieved than I feel. I try not to worry her.

"...That's... good," I mumble, moving my wrist sloppily across the dip under my nose. "Good..."