𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤 || 𝓗.𝓢

7.𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦

𑁍Multomedia: Luke Hemmings
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𝐆𝚠𝚎𝚗 𝐃𝚊𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜

Screaming. That's how I got up.

It was always the same nightmare: over and over again I saw Harry turning around and leaving me, stranded in that hallway, in the middle of the airport. He never looked back. Not in the dream, not in real life. I wanted to reach for him, grab his hand, scream his name. But something always held me back –handcuffs, Jared, Sunny, my brother even- and I never could. The desperation like a hand revolving my intestines.

This time, though, was different, I realized while cleaning the traces the tears had left on my cheeks. It was myself who was holding me. Or someone who had stolen my face. The girl looked at me with red, glowing eyes and inside them, flourished a madness unlike no other. She moved like an unoiled machine, built out of bones, a walking skeleton with the strength to move a mountain. She didn't hold my hands, or dragged me from my ankles farther and farther away from Harry's blurry image. Instead, she covered my mouth with her bony hands, looking straight into my eyes. All I could see, was hate.

Screaming, sweating, crying, scared to death. That would the complete description of my waking; still in the library floor, surrounded by the smell of old books and the darkened halls.

It took me about a second, after looking at the watch tick-toing over the door, to realize it was four-forty-eight in the morning. As soon as this hit me, I jumped and hurried my way down the halls.

As I walked, the emptiness of the building and its ageless design, made it feel like the nightmare wasn't over, like I could turn a corner and be face to face with this wicked version of myself.

I hurried my steps, crossed the yard, bordered the forest –there was no chance in hell, I was travelling through them at these dark hours- and kept my walk fast and low, towards the dorms.

~

After showering at speeds I had no idea I was capable of, slipping as quietly as ever into my uniform, I tiptoed back down to the yard.

The sun was barely rising over Brooklyn, tainting the sky orange and pink and I wondered if that meant my brother was already up, getting ready for another day of doing nothing, before university started. I wondered if Alana was still sleeping, or if she was up, working in the garden; if Jared was working, smiling back at the office, like nothing had happened.

Back in London, sunrises were blurry, a miracle hidden behind the mist. It was no spectacle, only the action of a day turning into another, like they would as long as the eternity continued to exist. I thought about California, about how I never watched the sun rise over the skyscrapers, and I asked myself if it meant something; the fact that as many days as I saw die helplessly at my feet, I never saw a new one arise.

That thought stuck with me as the hours passed, and the halls begun to fill up with students. I thought of how most of my days ended up in crying, how I woke up late, feeling exhausted and consumed, never to be able to see the sun peek over the sea. Then, my mind travelled back to the only three days in which "happy" couldn't even begin to describe the way I felt. Perhaps, I didn't see the sun, but Harry's eyes in the morning, a green so clear it seemed almost transparent, were a view that no one in their right mind would belittle.

Opening the doors of the cafeteria, was a whole new challenge. I did it as quietly as I could, hoping for no one to look at me.

For a change, things went like I wanted them too, and the overcrowded room continued intact with chattery and laughing, indifferent to my intrusion.