Nightingale

forty-three

Hey besties, this is a double update so chapter 44 will be up right after this! 

After a painfully uncomfortable, 45 hour car ride, I still feel this odd tension within myself. Back in Los Angeles, at a place that I call home. A place that doesn't really feel like home anymore. So many happy memories were created inside this house and now, none of them feel real. The rose colored glasses have finally fallen as I realize maybe I never truly knew Harry, and Harry never truly knew me. 2 months of knowing each other and I'd like to think he knew everything about me but once again I knew barely anything about him.

It's an indescribable feeling of being back here after thinking I would never see this place or anyone surrounding it again. As I step through the front door, the memory of Harry leaving it without saying goodbye falls into my mind. Even his house is tainted with pain and heartache. Standing in the entryway, the boys all walk past me, each with a duffle bag in their hands. The floor beneath the stairs is still stained with the blood of who was supposed to be me. While they all pile into the living room I decide to continue to avoid any confrontation and head upstairs.

Taking each step slowly, I feel like I don't belong here but I have nowhere else to go. I canceled the lease to my apartment, making this place my permanent home. I didn't think I would one day kind of regret that decision. Walking down the hallway I see that the staged bullet holes in the walls haven't been patched over yet, another reminder of the fact that I lied. Once I reach the end of the hallway I take a quick breath before opening the door that once used to be our bedroom, my fake death signing away any ownership I had over it. Instantly I'm overwhelmed by the scent of Harry's cologne mixed with liquor, the room looking like it's barely been touched since my departure. The late afternoon sun casting a dark orange haze over the room from the windows and the door that leads out to the balcony. The place where our last happy memory began. I walk in further and see that the clothes I had changed out of that day still reside on the floor, my clothes in the closet still hung up like I never left, Birdies paintings still hanging on the wall.

As I continue to take in my surroundings like they are brand new I notice a piece of paper on what used to be my side of the bed. I pick it up off the desivaled duvet and realize it's my letter to Harry. The pen ink slightly smeared in a couple spots like water got onto the paper. After the funeral I wondered if Callie gave Harry the letter right away or waited to give it to him until he truly needed it. The words on this paper still hold so much truth but they don't belong to the man that is downstairs right now, they belonged to the man I thought he was. A soft knock on the open bedroom door pulls my attention away from the letter to see an uneasy Harry standing in the doorway with his duffle bag in hand.

"Can I come in and put my things away really quick?" He asks timidly, almost seeming afraid to talk to me.

"Yeah of course." I say awkwardly, both of us suddenly not knowing how to hold a conversation with each other.

Harry bids me a tight lipped smile before setting his duffle bag down on the bed and unzipping it, taking some of the contents out and taking them into the closet. I take a seat on the bed next to the letter, my eyes scanning over it once again. I do truly regret all the pain I've caused him, the pain I caused everyone. I should've just killed Alan right then and there, but then I would have been still left in the dark about Harry's motives.

"It looks the same." I speak up but more so to myself.

Harry's head peaks out of the walk-in closet with a surprised look on his face, shocked that I'm actually trying to have some form of a conversation with him.

"Were you expecting it to look different?" He asks while coming out to grab more of his clothes but instead surprises me with his actions when he sits down at the foot of the bed, a small amount of distance lingering between us. I don't think I'd ever admit it to him right now but I would give anything to just give him a hug, to feel his arms around me, to hear the sound of his heartbeat.