The Knight in Leather Armor

ch.41 Made us whole

“Daddy!” I screamed as I reached for the figure in the distance. My hands shook and my voice broke.

“Angela?!” Harry asked and his voice was heavy with worry and distress.

The tall figure fell to his knees on the grass in the distance. My heart fluttered in my chest before dropping like an anchor to the pit of my stomach.

Harry searched my eyes with a heart-broken concern.

“I have to go! I have to leave now!” I cried hysterically as I tried to escape his grasp.

The butterfly on my finger jumped off and fluttered its wings so rapidly and so suddenly. Then it stopped. And drifted to the ground.  Lifeless, but golden.

I managed to wriggle free from Harry’s arms in his momentary state of utter confusion and suppressed fear.

“Angela, what’s going on?” he demanded and he took my face in his hands, attempting to make sense out of my insanity.

“Harry I have to go! I have to.  I have to!” I chanted in a frenzied misery. My voice cracked and my hands shook uncontrollably.

I started to run towards the golden figure that had collapsed out in the meadow.

Harry stood there a moment, momentarily torn between following my wishes and following his own.

He decided to follow his own.

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him so fast that I slammed into his chest.

“Angela, baby, what’s wrong?” he asked as he held my face in his hands. His marble like eyes had melted into a pool of painful torment and was drowning my heart.

I shook my head and started to push at his chest, but he held on tighter.

Harry shook his head quickly.

“Please, Harry. Let me go” I cried and I pushed at his chest again and again.

“No! Angela, I won’t let you leave” he declared in a resolute but shaking voice. There was an unwavering determination and fear in his eyes.

“Please! Harry!” I begged. I felt my knees shake under me and I waited until my hysteria took me over completely and I fainted or died or something to end this misery.

“No! Angela. You can’t leave. You can’t leave me!” he shook his head violently. His dark curly locks bounced with a delicate vigor.

Harry held my face in his slightly trembling hands and wiped a few tears with his thumb.

“Please” he begged.

My heart officially crashed and burned deep in my chest.

He thought I didn’t love him. He thought I wanted to leave. I don’t want to. I have to. I would rather bury myself alive, right here, where they killed my dad, than leave Harry on my free will.

We were both hysterical. Neither one willing to let the other, have their way.

My knees finally gave way and I collapsed to the ground.

I started to crawl toward my dad’s lifeless body.

Harry reached his arms out to me, trying to lift me back up, but I shook him away.

“I have to fly away. He told me to fly away!” I repeated over and over. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my heart leaped out of my chest.

“Who told you to fly?” he commanded with a mix of heart-wrenching concern and frustration. 

Harry looked into my eyes and searched my face for answers. But there was nothing. Nothing.

“The man! The man at the jail!”

Harry watched my face with a horror-struck concern.

He got down on his knees.

“They killed him” I whimpered helplessly.

He wrapped an arm around my waist, tugging me to him.

I pushed his hands away.

He leaned with his knees on either side of me and held my wrists down.

“Angela” he demanded as he stared down into my eyes.

I shook my head, refusing to look into his eyes.

“Please, Angela. Let me help you” he begged of me.

I looked into his eyes. I wasn’t just driving myself insane, I was hurting Harry as well. He looked at me as if it were his fault that I had completely lost it.

I took a deep breath.

“My dad. They killed him right here in this park. Harry, they murdered him and I saw. I saw everything” I told him in between heavy breaths.

Harry’s eyes widened and he stared at me in awe.

“Oh, Angela, I’m so- so sorry” he said with a quiet sincerity.

He loosened his grip over my wrists and gently lifted me up from the ground, cradling me in his arms- like a newborn.

And I was just as weak as a newborn: a mass of emotions and a jelly-like body instead of hard bones.

“I’m so, so sorry, Angie” Harry consoled me quietly. He kissed my cheek and rubbed my back softly.

My throat closed in on me and I gave up fighting against Harry. I gave up trying to save my dad. He was gone. He has always been gone.

“I’m a complete idiot” he blamed himself.

I shook my head.

“No, Harry. You’re not. You didn’t know” I defended him.

“I should have realized. I should have known. I- I” he started to list a thousand impossible regrets he felt he should have known and been aware of.

“Harry, it’s ok” I spoke quietly.

He nodded and pulled me closer to his chest.

I just sat there, trembling in his lap, burying myself in his arms as the tears continued to fall.

I hid my face against Harry’s chest, never ever wanting to leave his comfort.

He took my hands and kissed them. Then he pressed his lips to both my cheeks, my forehead, my heart. And I felt myself regaining some form of sanity.

“The man at the jail. He knew him. He knew my dad,” I spoke after a long interval of silence.

Harry looked down into my eyes, stroking my cheek carefully.

“He said he didn’t deserve what he got.”

“Nobody deserves that,” he told me softly.

I nodded and another tear slipped from my eye.

Harry kissed every single tear, as if trying to taste my pain so that he could relieve me of it. He unbuttoned his jacket and pulled it around us both. The armor pressed our broken souls together. It made us whole. It held us together, like the old puzzle that we were.