Harry in Greendale//h.s au

Chapter Two

Harry
My eyes wandered around the crowded room.

I crinkled my nose at the organized chaos. Those who were new to the system sat in chairs whilst they dreamt of the day they would be reunited with the outside world; others, like me, who had been here for so many years they couldn't remember a time where they were in a happy environment surrounded by people who loved them, waited for death to kiss their lips and immortalize their broken souls.

And then there was them.

They lived in their own land, oblivious of the pain around them.

If Rose were with me right now we would be laughing about nothing and everything. She would be laughing so hard that her head would be thrown behind her and her mouth open agape. Her blue eyes would be glimmering.

But instead, I felt nothing but empty.

I wished I was one of those patients.

I wished I could lose my mind so I didn't have to turn a blind eye when bulky men went into young girls' rooms.

I wished I didn't have to pretend the people who went into the surgery room and never returned were alive and had recovered and returned to their devoted family who had not visited once while they lived here.

If I were truly insane, being locked inside these limited rooms wouldn't bother me. I wouldn't care about Rose's death, or my family not loving me. I would be happy.

But I was fully aware of what occurred in the large white building and it wasn't fair.

What I loved about loving Rose was that when I was with her I was someone. I had a future to look forward to. I would be someone to my children and adoring wife. But without her, I was no one. I was just another guy who dreamt about the day he would be released despite knowing deep down, past his throat and lungs, and right down the bottom of his heart, he was never going to tread on the grass outside of these gates again.

It had been seven years since my family dropped me off at the asylum and let the long, bony fingers of fate pull out my heart and soul in exchange for the inability to feel. That was all I wanted at the start. Feelings only made the betrayal worse. Every night and day I cried, and cried, and cried, wondering what it was I had done to be placed in the madhouse. If I had put away my trucks, or cleaned my bed, would my mother have let me stay?

Fate kept their side of the deal. I was lying in bed when it hit me. It started in my toes and made its way up into my heavy heart and chaotic mind. In that moment I got a glimmer of what it felt like to be a defenceless animal. There was nowhere to run. The gunshot was inevitable. And after it had stopped my heartbeat and left a hole in my body, I was left the way I had started life: alone.

I didn't feel sad, or angry, or mad. I was hollow. Someone could have popped me with a pin and I would've burst.

But then I met Rose.

I wiped away the few tears that had ran down my cheek and picked up the pencil. Distraction was the secret to surviving. It was late at night, the wind knocking at the window, the screams from other patients echoing in the halls and bleeding through the cracks in the door, when my thoughts broke through the brick wall I had built and screamed so loud I couldn't block it out with memories of my family, or even Rose.

Scrunching my nose, I shook my head. I couldn't let myself become that boy again.

I looked through watered eyes at the brunette girl. It hurt. The sight of her was equivalent to getting stabbed a million times by the person you trusted most. She had done nothing to me at all yet I couldn't help but despise her.