the year is 1971. he was born with the end of the world in his heart and the hope of a thousand bodies in his soul. he held a chorus of a hundred songs in his voice, and the tall forest elm trees in his green eyes. he was taken away from his biological mother at the age of 2 because she was deemed unfit and unable to care of a child by the child and family services.
he was only 5 years old in 1976; mistreated, malnurished, and matted. the current family that Harry was staying with were very abusive, the father battling an alcoholic addiction. they used Harry's child taxes to buy anything other than the essentials for a child.
it's 1980 when the humble woman finds the 9 year old boy walking alone on the streets at the ungodly hour of night. he thought that she was his luminescence in the ill-lit. soon after that, she became Harry's adoptive mother. Harry was finally living. breathing, blinking, and singing.
1981, only a year after Harry had found his forever home, a little girl named Dahlia was born to a single, hard-working black woman on the other side of town. Dahlia's father was no where to be found after the birth.
around february in 1986, Dahlia turns 5 years old with the innocence of an angel. her mother keeps Dahlia away from the dirty world, schooling her from home and never letting her leave her hawk-eye sight. her father, still not turning up anywhere.
Dahlia's father's body was found some time in late march, 1990. forensics tell that is was cold-blooded murder, his body holding 26 stab wounds along his arms and upper abdomen with a final, fatal gun shot straight throught the brain. at only 9 years old, Dahlia is diagnosed with manic depression and soon after anxiety, yet her innocence still remains untarnished.
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7 years later, in 1997, the troubled Dahlia is turning 16, while Harry is a middle aged adult at 26. the two of them encounter each other for the first time when Dahlia and her mother move in next door to Harry.
the first time that he had seen her in person, she was sitting by herself on a hot summer day. she had made him feel things that he hasn't felt in awhile. he knew in his gut that the thoughts he was having about her were so wrong, but he had loved her- way before they both thought the same thing.
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