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harlow liked heather better, and that was something i would never be able to change.
i wasn't sure if it was something i could ever fully accept.
but i was trying ; for my sake, for caysie's, i was trying.
i saw them all the time now, harlow's blue, blue eyes flashing down to meet heather's bright gray ones, and it still hurt, it would always hurt. but it was no longer a knife to the chest every time ; it was a passing whisper of pain, something i could live with the rest of my life.
as long as harlow was happy.
i still loved him ; i would always love him, but it was easier now. easier to forget about him, easier to see him, even to speak with him.
i'd started writing songs again, and it helped, to feel the guitar strings beneath my fingers, to hear the notes and melodies slowly coming together to form a collection of songs. caysie was overexcited about it ; she claimed it would make an album, a beautiful album.
but you're missing a song, she always said meaningfully, and of course i knew which one she meant.
the same one harlow had called beautiful, so, so long ago.
and i still owed it to caysie to complete the song, so most of my time was spent in that park under the same tree, playing my fingers bloody, glimpses and clips of possible lyrics flashing in my head, but none of them worked, none of them fit.
which was why i was sitting there now, strumming the guitar part over and over and over. i played it once, and again, and again ; i played until the melody was inscribed into my mind, my memory.
and that's when it finally came to me.
not like something crashing down in realization, but something that slowly, surely materialized ; words and phrases in a soft heather gray that gradually formed into something tangible. i could almost taste the warm cinnamon, could smell the purple-gray color of the rain, as i began to play on my guitar once more.
and despite myself, despite harlow, despite everything, my lips curved into the slightest smile.
