fight for us ↠ harry styles [b2] ✓

CHAPTER 38

tbh pretend that the bmw is black bc harry's is black

• • •

38—Harry Styles

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to process the news. I didn't know how to move on. I didn't know how much more I could take. I didn't know if it was even worth finding out.

I had no idea how I got home from the hospital. Frankly, I wouldn't have cared if I was left alone on the chair for the rest of my life. There wasn't much in life that terrified me because I was okay with most things. Perhaps that's why when my lonely fears presented themselves before me, my brain and my heart failed to deal with it. They didn't know how. My mind was blank and my eyes represented death which was exactly how I felt on the inside. Ache spread through my heart and squeezed it until it forgot how to function, how to beat, how to keep me going and alive. I felt my biggest fear overwhelm me because it was present and it was going to haunt me.

It took my sister from me.

Laying in bed did nothing for me. Sleep refused to come to me, no matter how much I begged for a bit of release. It felt like I couldn't cry, my tear ducts were dry yet my eyes burned. The shock stage lingered on and on and that made me wonder if it would ever end. Parts of me hoped it would stay like this forever, living in this bliss didn't hurt as much. I found spots, moments, where I completely left my body and watched myself from an outsider's point of view. It felt peaceful, then. Like nothing mattered and nothing could harm me. I liked that state. I wanted that state to remain.

Renleigh checked in on me from time to time. She'd lay with me in silence and I'd breathe her in, hoping to find comfort and distraction in her presence but nothing came. She was there and she didn't help like she used to. It wasn't her fault and it wasn't mine, the pain was much too great to swallow and push away. When she was there, I felt warm and when she left, I was cold. I missed her touch but I didn't go out of my way to reach for it and she didn't know what to do with me because I wasn't responsive at all.

It could've been hours later when she came back upstairs, her steps so gentle, they failed to make a sound. My back was to the door. The only reason I knew she was approaching the bed was due to her perfume, which immediately curled up my nose and I inhaled deeply. She picked something up from the bedside table and then turned to me. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she was unsure of what to do and what to say. She sighed and let me know she'll be picking up Leila from her brother's place but if I need anything at all, I should call her without a second thought. For a while, I listened attentively, seeing the way she moved around the house in my mind. Renleigh always walked around the house, making sure everything was turned off, starting with the kitchen, then checking the lights in the downstairs bathroom, the living room and the storage. She'd make sure the glass doors to the garden are locked then she'd put her shoes on, pick up the keys and leave. It was a habit she picked up during her pregnancy, now embedded into her veins to the point where it became second nature for her and began to rub off on me, too.

The window in the room was cracked open, the cool air filling the room with ease, and it made it possible to hear the car engine starting and Ren driving off. That's when I rolled on my back and planted my legs and arms into a star shape. It took me five seconds to find all the cracks in the paint on the ceiling and they became much more accentuated than they really were. Some of them ran from corner to corner and there was a mushed spider to the right. I remembered that day and it was funny when it happened but reminiscing it did nothing for me. It didn't manage to make my lips curl upwards into a smile or shake my chest with a laugh. I laid there with my face set as though I wasn't even real and let the memories flood through my brain. Both Ren and I screamed when we spotted the creature on the ceiling, it was too big or maybe we were too drunk. It was higher than we could've reached and the only way of getting rid of it was if we threw things at it.