Misconceptions 》Styles

25.00

      At some point I stop crying and I just stand there with my head against Harry's chest; beating, beating, beating like Rider's should be. My hands are slung across his waist and I lie there, my breath hitching and lips parted. I stop crying, but I don't stop shaking. If anything, the shaking has gotten worse. I try to pull away from Harry because I shouldn't be here, I don't belong here, the letters shouldn't change a single thing. But they do, don't they? He gently releases me, looking down at me for a few seconds, his deep green eyes full of sadness and confusion and underneath it all; hope. Hope for my forgiveness? Hope for our reconciliation? Only Harry knows.

       He guides me inside and shuts the door and just watches me, like he doesn't know what to say. He watches me sit down on his couch; shaking and gasping for air and unable to stop staring at my hands. They are covered in blood. Rider's blood. I see it, caked underneath my fingernails and drying against my skin and the room starts to spin again and I gag, dry heaving over and over again. Nothing comes out because there is nothing left inside of me. The minuscule amount of green beans I had earlier has already been retched into the toilet of the hospital and along with it, splatters of my blood. I know that shouldn't be happening, but I don't care. I would rather throw up blood here and there than to gain any more weight. I am already fat. Too fat. Disgusting.

        I wipe my hands onto my thunder thighs but it is to no avail because his blood is still there and I can't get rid of it and I feel sick to my stomach and I just want to lie down and go to sleep and forget that this day ever happened, that he ever existed. But I can't.

        "My favorite ice cream flavor is cookie dough," Harry offers after a few seconds of silence, sending me a small smile as he sits beside me. "What happened?" He says softly, reaching out to touch me. I recoil away from him, sucking in a sharp breath. I do not want him to touch me. I just want to fade away and get out of here, get away from everything and everyone and crumble into dust and dust again. Harry ignores this, because he takes his hand and sets it on top of my thigh. He rubs circles I'm sure he thinks are soothing into my thigh for a minute, maybe two and afterwards, runs his fingers along my hands. He unclenches my fist and traces over the lines, he sees the metallic red, the blood that has dried along them.

          "It isn't mine," I say softly, because I can see the fear in his eyes, I see the way he is looking at me. "He's gone," I croak out, my voice shaking and cracking all over again. I shut my eyes and inhale deeply, too tired to tell Harry to let me go when he pulls me in for an embrace. He squeezes me so tightly and the bruises scattered along my skin scream in retaliation but despite myself, I find comfort in his grasp. So I stay, I don't tell him to let me go. "Rider is dead." I say the words quietly for the first time aloud. This somehow makes it real, inescapable. 

         I don't want to believe it. I don't want to accept the fact that I left him sitting in a pool of his own blood because I was desperate enough and because he left me the note telling me it was okay for me to do that. That he wanted me to.

     You build all of these memories with someone and then they leave you, either by choice or by fate, and all you're left with is the memories and so many questions but no one to give you the answers. You're left wondering "what if" and if you miss the person, or the memories you shared together when they were pretending to be someone else. I can't tell Rider that I forgive him for putting his illness before me and for making a bet to safeguard his secret. I can't do that. Even if I could, I don't know that I would. Because I don't think forgiveness is a real thing. I think you just move on. No matter what, you will still have the stinging of betrayal in the back of your mind and the next fight, disaster, problem; you'll be full and ready to take their mistake and throw it right back in their faces. So no, I don't think anyone forgives. We just forget until it's convenient not to.