BEAUTIFUL FLOWER | MATTHEO RIDDLE

CHAPTER TWENTY

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T R I G G E R
W A R N I N G

SMUT, SWEARING, ED, BLOOD, ABUSE

MATHEO RIDDLE IS YASMINE AMAROS. CALANTHA, KASSANDRA, NICCOLÒ, EPIPHANY, AND ERISED ARE MINE. ALL OTHERS UNLESS NOTED ARE JK R*WLINGS.

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IT was the light that struck me from my sleep, shining in through the window only inches above my somber head, to which was pointed downward at a sleeping Mattheo. I'd fallen asleep with my fingers in his curly brown hair, one hand draped across his then-sweaty forehead, his feeble head leaning against my chest with his back strewn against me.

I knew the chances of his falling asleep in my arms this way ever again was slim, and because of this, I chose simply not to wake him, but to instead watch him. And in watching him, never forget him; the way he looks when he is finally at peace, asleep. Never forget how different his breathing sounds when he doesn't know someone is listening to him.

His lips, and how everytime his eyebrows slightly curved downward, would twitch at the corners, but only for a moment's notice.

I liked to collect these things and store them in my memory, so that I never forgot them. I did this with my Mother, too, and only now have I grown to realize how they--the memories I've willed myself never to forget--are the small, weak, strings that I'm holding on to. I think that, for some reason, Mattheo and I will not have a happy ending.

I think, in some ways, we will ruin each other. He will tear me down and because of my hurt and my pain, I will in some way, do the same to him. Even if I hurt myself more in the process. And even if we don't ruin each other, I think even still, even if we tried hard enough to be good for one another, everything would end up broken.

And that is the reason why I watch him, listen to every little noise he makes whenever I possibly can. That is the truth behind why I trace his silhouette silently with only my eyes and why I memorize how the different parts of his body look and if ever given the chance, feel under my skin.

Because one day, those memories will be the only thing left.

But sometimes, I fall so deeply into a moment I spend with him, that I forget to entrap it.

He stirred again, turning his head to the side, murmuring small words that I couldn't understand, but tried to. Parseltongue, I thought. Of course he speaks Parseltongue, why wouldn't he?

Again, he stirred, his hand moving to my arm, squeezing it. This seemed to awake him, this was his first sense of me since he'd fallen asleep. His eyes jolted open and he sat up, bucking the bottom of my chin with the top of his head.

"Ergh," I rubbed the bottom of my face on the area he collided with, frowning as he stared at me wide-eyed, completely confused. His eyes were droopy and his skin pale.

"What happened?" he got onto his feet, staring vividly around the room. Near the corner was his shirt and he walked to it, making no intentions of being quiet. He threw it over his head, turning around from me and my eyes fell on his scar-strewn back, his shoulder blades becoming evermore defined, only parts of his muscular build being shown in the dull light of the crack in the window. He had no sense of time, just as I, and I could see his eyes drop down to the black mark on his arm before darting straight to the boarded up window behind me.

"Well, it feels like you hit my chin with your head, did you not feel that?" my eyes followed his shadow around the room as he made his way to the window, craning his neck to look out the small piece of broken wood that I'd torn with my fingers.