Bloom

Our Beginning

I tried to go to sleep, I really did. But the photo albums and diary sit heavy on my mind. It's like a bright light shining in the corner of my room where they lay. It doesn't matter how many blankets I pile them under, they creep back into the forefront of my mind. Before I know it, I'm sitting on my bed with the diary open in front of me. The soft warm light from my lamp makes the writing and drawings on the worn leather feel like they're floating off of it.

One and Only

Who's one and only?

She doesn't deserve his heart

I run my fingers over the words. Why doesn't she? Were these my Grammy's words? Where they H's words?

Please

Please. Please. Please.

Please what?

"Don't do it, Darc, it's not yours," I mumble to myself, but my hands must not be listening because they're undoing the string that holds the diary closed. And there it is. The first entry.

🎞

August 1951

L. You're all I think about.

Every waking moment is filled with you, love. I know better than to write your name, but God to I want to. Everything is you, every color of the day, every album that I play, it's you.

In the morning when I wake, on the nights you stay much like this morning, as I write when the sun is just beginning to shine through my bedroom window, you look golden. It's the end of summer, fall is coming fast, but you are still golden.

You seem unreal, L. The way you're so sure of yourself. The way you're so confident. You shocked me when we met, the way you knew me. The way you saw right through me. You knew things about me that I didn't. Maybe I did know, deep down, but I could never let myself think about it, not until you.

Meeting you last year was the best day of my life. I didn't know it at first. You were so... loud. I didn't like you at first, I thought you were too much, but now, L, now I can't get enough. You're everything. You fill my lungs with sweetness when I can get close enough to you. You fill my head, my entire being with you.

I look at you now, in my bed, taking up most of it, mind you. You look so free and comfortable here, with me. You never ask me for anything, you never push me farther than you feel I'm comfortable with... I wish you would, sometimes, if I'm being honest with you. But you don't and even though we haven't been more than close mates for a few months, you still stay over some nights. You still sleep in my bed. You still drink wine with me. You still take your shirt off before we go to sleep.

That's my favorite thing, L, the confidence you have. Of course, you should have that confidence. Your tanned skin and honey scent is everything I want to be. You're beautiful. I wonder sometimes if you're real, if all of this is real, or if you'll slip away and never come back.

You're waking up now, never an early riser, but can I tell you about our beginning again? Just before you have to go?

🎞

A/N: These parts (in italics) are H's memories, Darcy isn't reading this, it's a look deeper into the diary from his perspective

Our beginning:

Harry lays on the sand, his beach towel tossed aside. He's always been one to want to feel the world around him without distraction. It sounds silly, he knows that, but it's nice. The feeling of the hot sand sticking to his wet skin, the slight irritation of the grains sliding under the hem of his swim shorts. The sun burning his skin, his chest is sure to be red by the time he decides to open his eyes and head home.