Nowhere In Particular // H.S.

Thirty-One: Heartbeats

It's nearly two in the morning and we're in a diner eating nachos, still in the full outfits from our fancy party that ended a few hours ago. The only difference is my hair isn't nearly as put together now, my makeup is smudged under my eyes and my head feels slightly buzzed with alcohol we tricked our way into getting.

Harry's decided to wear my faux fur coat, swapping it with his slick looking black one that's currently resting on my shoulders, and we're far too amused by the new look with the purple fur. He tries to act serious about it, pretending it was decision of his since the beginning, but then seconds later we're cracking up together.

The diner is somewhere between the hotel that the party was held at and the hotel we're currently calling home, but if I'm being honest I'm a little lost on where we are right now. After leaving the toilet paper party, the both of us a little buzzed, we walked along the sidewalks laughing heavily and dancing our way through people in a happy state that was caused by our successful evening.

Harry accumulated enough funny conversations of toilet paper with old men to give us at least an hour worth of belly laughing material and I'm still trying to wrap my head around our ability to pull something like that off in the first place.

We're not the only ones in the restaurant. There are plenty of other people eating food after their evening out in the bars who are occupying the rest of the tables. But we're in a back corner, almost hidden away from everyone else who is much more wasted than we are. It works out well because this way we have a good vantage point to watch people attempt to act in a civilized manner and horribly fail at it, earning plenty of laughter from us.

"So tell me, Greta," Harry smiles as he pulls a chip from the plate in between us, sticking it into his mouth. "How was your birthday? Do you feel like a twenty-year old now?"

"It was wonderful," I nod back at him, returning the smile. "Not sure it could have been much better. But no... I don't feel like a twenty-year old. I don't feel older or more wise or anything like that, but I do feel happy and I think that's a lot more important."

"Very important," he says the words quietly, his eyes lighting up. I can tell he knows how big of a deal this statement is, knowing that this is something I've been aspiring to reach for quite some time now. It's obvious to me that he's proud he could be a part of that.

It's not like I haven't been feeling this until now. It's just that my happiness grows a little more every day that I get to continue this crazy, unexpected adventure. And it feels like this is one of the first moments that I am able to express this feeling for what it's really worth.

Sometimes it doesn't feel real. Sometimes it feels like I'm going to wake up one day in the bed I've had since I was fourteen years old and realize everything about these last months was actually just a dream. Even if everything I feel for Harry, everything I feel about this time on the road and all of the places I've seen, feel real. I can't help but question it sometimes.

I'm not entirely crazy for thinking this. There are a lot of things that happened in such a short amount of time that I think any logically thinking person might start to second guess. Harry feels real, every single thing about him does. From his touch to his laugh to the look in his eyes when he wakes up in the morning to see me lying next to him, that all feels real. But this new life of mine, even with the bumps along the way, feels a little too perfect when I think about it too extensively.

"Have you ever read Life of Pi?" I ask Harry as he takes another chip from the plate, continuing to make a dent in our nachos. "Or watched the movie? Do you know the story at least?"

"Yes... to all of those," he answers, his face appearing confused by sudden choice of topic. "Read the book when I was in tenth grade, liked it a lot. How come?"