XANNY ▹ Harry Bingham

PROM

mention of alcohol, mental illness, drugs, and abuse. this is a trigger warning. please do not read ahead if you'll be negatively affected.

chapter thirteen

"it's sad because everyone turns out exactly how they promised they never would"

_

Prom night. It was a high school senior's magical way to say goodbye. In a sense, by attending, Eden was saying goodbye... just not to her friends. She would indirectly be waving her farewells to her childhood: the innocence she contained as a young girl, like a little dove carrying an olive branch.

She stood there now, surrounded by her high school peers, fitted in a gold dress with a cream tulle that flowed down to her feet. The ceiling lights soaked the room in bright colours of silver and blue, nicely correlating with the theme 'out of this world'.

"Weird, huh?"

Eden jumped a little at the sudden voice and turned to her right. Campbell was propped up against the wall. She furrowed her brow at the comment, "Not weirder than anything else happening in this town."

"Touche." Campbell used his elbows to push himself away from the wall and approached her with a devious smile. "You look good."

"What do you want?"

"Actually, It's what you want." He casually looked around to make sure no one was eyeing the situation, and slipped something small into Eden's fingers. Once he walked away, she eyes flickered down. It was a new, full bag of pills. She smiled and poured some into her other hand, before discreetly stuffing the rest into her bra. She headed her way up to the drinking bar and crushed up the pills still in her palm to mix in with her drink.

"Eden?"

The girl jumped again in fear of being caught, quickly dusting off her hands before turning around with her cup. "Oh, Harry. Hi." She greeted him with a fake smile and took a sip of the concoction.

"You healed fast." He moved over to stand by her side, eyeing her appearance.

"Yeah."

"Like- you looked like you were gonna vomit in the church yesterday," Harry examined her face for a reaction while he leaned on the table with his elbow, "You looked miserable."

"Yeah." Eden took another long sip and challenged his stares by refusing to break eye contact.

"It's so weird to me that a little concussion gave you such severe symptoms. I mean, that's a hard pill to swallow, isn't it?"

Eden felt her heart drop to her stomach, hard. Fortunately, she refused to let her expression change. She wondered if Harry knew about her problem, but either way she wasn't going to slip up. "It's a concussion, anything's possible."

"These bright lights don't seem to be bothering you, though." Harry gestured up to the blue and silver illuminating down from the ceiling.

"I dunno, Harry. Why don't you launch an investigation? Let me know how it goes, too." She took a large swig of her drink and walked away, not sure where to, but just desperate to escape the conversation.

•

Together, Campbell and Harry sat at one of the small tables, watching their girls dance from a distance. Campbell smirked watching Wren's hips sway with the beat, but the expression faded as he caught a glance of Harry looking down and fidgeting with the corner of the tablecloth. He silently pulled out a small, rectangular pill from his jacket pocket, and slid it across the table to Harry.

Campbell had fed into Eden's addiction knowing fully well that she'd come back needing more, and he hoped to take advantage of the fact via extortion. But, maybe, just this once, he was actually doing something for Harry just to be a friend.

"What is this?" Harry held it by his fingertips, but it didn't take more than a few seconds for his eyes to answer the question. He almost immediately recognized it to be the pills that he assumed Eden to be taking.

"It'll help you enjoy the party." Campbell sat in complete seriousness, before getting up to go join his beau. Harry still sat there, and his eyes found themselves wondering over to Eden, who was happily jumping around with Allie and Cassandra.

The environment around him changed once the music slowed to appease the couples. His vision flickered over to some who had already started to pair up for the slow dance, and he figured it'd be a good time to finally confront Eden about his assumptions, now that he'd put two-and-two together.

He pulled himself up, out of his chair, and approached her with an open hand. "Do you wanna..?" His sentence faded off, awkwardly he hadn't been able to finish it.

Eden let out a quiet laugh and set her hand in his, allowing him to pull her over by the couples already dancing by the stage. She moved her hands out of his and laid them to rest around his neck, while he moved his own down by her waist. Together, the two gently swayed with the music.

He broke the silence first, "I have to talk to you about something."

Eden looked into his eyes without the emotion in hers shifting to doubt or suspicion. Instead, the evergreen planted around her pupils lit up into something else. Something of hope, and light.

Eden moved her head in closer to Harry, but hesitantly, from both fear and excitement. She leaned in to rest her forehead against his and closed her eyes, taking in the moment as it was. Gradually, she leaned in further, pressing her lips against his. For Harry, it was completely out of the blue. He didn't reciprocate, but he also didn't reject it. He let the kiss run its course and as she pulled away, he was left with the aftertaste of whiskey on his tongue.

He stepped back, providing some distance between the two, "Are you cross-faded?"

"Why didn't you kiss me back, Harry?"

He let go of her waist upon realizing this new affection was only the culprit of pure intoxication. "I need to take you home. That was a stupid decision. You don't drink and get high."

"I'm not high." Eden took the situation as a joke, but still allowed him to pull her to the exit by her hand. She stumbled behind with an ignorant smile slapped on her face.

"You are, Eden. You are."