alive ↠ hs

.29

After cleaning myself, I got underneath the covers, snuggling into Harry's warm chest.

As I laid on his chest, his heart beating against my ear, I noticed a scar on his arm.

My thumb brushed over it, my eyebrows furrowing. "Is that from me?"

He reached to cover it, taking my hand in his. "It's alright."

I looked up at him, his clover eyes shining brighter than ever. "I'm so sorry, Harry."

He sat up, taking my face in his hands. "That doesn't matter anymore. I'm here now. We're here now. Together."

He leaned forward and kissed my lips quickly, pulling me closer to him. As much as I wanted to stay, I promised Asher that I would meet up with him and I had been hours late.

"I can tag along, if you like?" Harry offered as we got dressed.

I nodded, a smile pulling at my lips as he kissed me again.

I knocked on Asher's door, waiting for him to open it. When he did, his face was red and flustered, his blue eyes frantic.

"There you are!" he nearly screamed at me. "I was so worried!"

He pulled me inside, starting to close the door behind me. I stopped it with my foot, looking up at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked me. "And why are you grinning like that?"

I continued to smile, a laugh escaping my lips as Harry stepped through the doorway, Asher's eyes falling on him. 

He looked between us before smiling. "Thank the heavens!" He yelled, throwing his hands to the sky.

I laughed as Harry took my hand in his, intertwining our fingers. "I'm glad you two are friends again."

I opened my mouth to say something but Asher's eyes fell to our hands, his mouth forming an 'O' shape. "More than friends, I see, I'm happy. When's the wedding?"

Asher wrapped his arms around me in a hug as a rush of emotions hit me. "Asher, I'm so sorry for the things I did. The things you saw, I-I shouldn't have put you through that."

"It's all good, buttercup," he smiled, swiping a tear from my cheek. "Just happy you're back."

It wasn't until that night that everything hit me. About all the people I mercilessly killed. Sent a bullet through their brain without thinking, how I killed people because they had more water than I did. I killed people just because they were in the way.

I had shut down my brain so that I couldn't feel anything, but now, I could feel everything. And I was so angry at myself.

Harry insisted that I stayed the night with him. Of course, I obliged. I changed into one of his shirts before getting under the covers, snuggling into his chest.

He sighed, wrapping an arm around me, rubbing circles in my back. We both laid there, just enjoying each other's presence and warmth.

"When I was eighteen, my mother got cancer."

I looked up at his sudden words, resting my chin on his chest. "Harry, you don't-"

"No," he stopped me. "I want to."

I nodded, meeting his beautiful green eyes as he continued. "At first, it didn't seem real. I was about to go to college, about to study music, and then all of sudden, all normalcy in my life was gone. All the money for college was being spent on her treatments, all my spare time was beside her."

He looked down at me and smiled sadly, brushing a piece of hair from my face. "She had hid it from us for a while, years. She only told us at the last minute so we could forgive her. So we could be with her for the last moments. I respected that, she just wanted everything to be normal for the last years of her life."

"After she died, I moved out to America, mostly to get away from all the memories, everything I remembered about her was gone. Replaced by cancer," he spoke, his eyes glistening into the dark. "I started playing music because my mom told me that's what I was good at. It was my calling. She told me to never give up on anything I love. When I played, I could remember who she used to be, who I wanted to be."

I nodded, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "That's beautiful, I'm so sorry, H."

He smiled again, holding me tightly. "I'm just glad she didn't have to see the world now. See the things I've done."

I looked up at him, feeling a need to share a part of myself with him as well. "I killed my dad." I blurted.

Harry looked down at me. "Saige.."

"It wasn't out of spite or anger, he had gotten sick, he was bitten and he couldn't be around Scott," I said to him. "He begged me to kill him, what was I supposed to do? Let him suffer and turn on us?"

"My mom was my best friend, she was the light in the darkness," I said to him. "She was a doctor, guess that's where I got it from. She would spent weekends with us, every moment of her attention locked on us. When we lost her, I felt-I felt like I had lost everything. I'm glad she can't see me now."

"Everything we've done to survive is horrible," Harry said, taking my face in his hands. "Who we are and who we have to be to survive are two different people."

"How am I supposed to know the difference?"

"Saige, you love with all your heart, you are so determined, and so strong," he said quietly. "You know the difference, you know who you are. I love who you are."

I dug my face into his neck, smiling against him. He wrapped his arms tightly around me, drawing soft circles on my back as I listened to his heartbeat.

Harry leaned down and kissed my lips softly before pulling the covers over us and closing his eyes.

"Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, love."