Incandescent | H.S

Part Forty-Six: Absentminded Oaths & Afterthoughts

T.W: Mentions of anxiety.

Does the heart replace what pieces have been stolen? Do the little chunks grow back, young and tender, reserved from trauma unlike the rest of the muscle? You wondered if those parts that were taken had started growing back. Perhaps more prone to pain, because every time Harry took a part of it, it never hurt any less.

That's what it felt like to see the spare key you'd given him sat on the counter. No longer attached to his set of jingling keys. No more key to the safe haven of you and your home, or the heaven you'd built together.

It haunted you. A silver token of what was once something of love. Of letting him in, of wanting him to associate your existence with safety.

It was a breakup gesture, and you wondered if that was his true intention. How were you meant to know? He'd left you nothing else.

Did he need to distance himself from you? Did he not find you to be the safe space he once had? Whether he'd done it for himself or for you, it stung a lot.

Did he leave it so you could potentially gift it to him once things had righted themselves if they ever did?

One key turned into five, your vision a kaleidoscope through your tears. They bubbled and brimmed over the edge, streaming down your cheeks and onto the counter where the rest of your heart had splattered.

While your pain had not lessened, you'd quickly snapped from your overbearing anguish once you caught on to the fact that Harry had left. As devastating as it felt, you knew that you two had exhausted all forms of conversation when he left. It was simply two lost souls running in aimless circles.

He had been right to leave when he did. Before you really snapped and things got irreparably ugly.

But how could you go on leaving things like this? It left an unsettling sensation in your chest. You worried for him. For what you'd lost and how he viewed himself because of it. Tonight didn't offer any form of closure. You'd both laid your fears on the table, bouts of honesty.

You knew where he stood now. Abundant with self-doubt and uncertainty that developed stronger and stronger every day. It scared you, the troubles far past something you could help. You knew that from the beginning but now as they had made themselves a very apparent presence in your relationship, it was hard to ignore.

And maybe you hadn't been perfect. Although he'd argue that you were, he'd said as much. You were patient with him. And so understanding. A warm and kind soul that he didn't think could possibly exist. You'd retracted from him because he did it first. You often withheld things from him to protect him. But your self-preservation kicked in and you chose to put yourself first.

You felt like you'd been fighting a battle that had been destined to defeat. Now you were just a shell of who you were. You wanted to fight for him, you just didn't know how to. He wasn't even willing to defend himself. Just berate and excuse but you could tell overall he was just as tired of his bullshit as you were. Maybe even more.

You let him leave, as much as it had hurt to do so. There was nothing that could help the pain aside from time apart. You had to revise your strategy, strengthen your armour.

A horrid, sick feeling settled in your stomach. A rock-solid poison that weighed you down. There was no way you could simply leave this until tomorrow. The thought of putting this off wasn't an option. You had to fight for him. He thought he'd fucked it up so much that he didn't think he deserved you. That's why he'd left.

He'd accepted the loss of you and it shredded open a cosmos of otherworldly pain in your chest. How could you send a beacon to him when all he saw was the never-ending darkness of his mind? So far from any twinkling universe, no glittering of stars. Swallowed time and time again by black holes, lost forever.