Daddy issues || h.s

2.4

His hair floated like a halo around his head, and his face was turned towards the magnificent sun. But his eyes were closed and a frown knitted his dark eyebrows together. The cool water of the swimming pool kept him floating, but in his weightless state he had never felt heavier.

From the inside of his eyelids, he could see Adelaide's eyelashes fluttering as he kissed her forehead the day before, but he could also feel the marks of the blood red fingernails digging into his back later that night. She had come into their bedroom when everyone else was gone, and Adelaide had gone to bed, complaining over how her sister's kid had thrown up all over her flowerbeds.

"That kid is no good," she had said, and Harry had imagined Charlie's laughing face as he pulled his curls. But he didn't speak up to her, he never did. So when she ran her fingers through his hair and whispered things in his ear, he did nothing to stop her. And when she lay back in the bed, he got on top of her, and tried not to imagine Adelaide in the next room while the bed slammed against the wall and made a sound that rolled through the house like thunder.

The butterflies in his chest had all landed, and now they huddled together, trying to survive the winter inside of him. The flowers in his lungs pulled their petals together, their heads sinking while they screamed for water. He wanted to water them, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not do it without her. But they still screamed in thirst, and so he sunk his head beneath the surface and let his body fall to the bottom of the pool.

There he lay, looking up at the silvery surface, and the twisted mirror of the sky above that. He could not breathe, and the flowers in his lungs still screamed for more water.

That's when he heard it, a soft giggle. He knew it wasn't real, that she could not possibly be there. Yet he couldn't help but turn his head. And under the water, he could see her.

She was smiling, her eyes constantly blinking, trying to keep open under the water. Her hair floated in the water like silk, reflecting the sun like liquid gold. She giggled again, and reached out a hand for him to take. But just as his skin was about to touch hers, he felt a pair of thin arms wrap around his torso, and ten red nails digging into his skin.

He turned his head and saw Abigail. She was whispering in his ear, trying to pull him even deeper into the water. He was torn between the two women: one of them trying to bring him up to the surface, while the other tried to keep him down.

The more they tugged at him, the less he resisted. He found himself wondering whether it was possible to drown yourself in a pool. If it was possible to weigh yourself down by your own will, or if your instincts would kick in and lift you to the surface in time.

Of all this he wondered there at the bottom of the pool, and he thought to himself that he was about to get his answer when a million silver bubbles appeared above him.

They danced in front of his drowning eyes, and as they disappeared, he saw a body above him. It was small, and a golden crown floated about it.

Adelaide.

She was not real, how could she be? She was yet another fragment of his imagination, coaxed forth by the lack of oxygen in his brain. But then she reached out for him, and when her fingers touched his chest and the butterflies inside of it took to their wings, he knew she was real.

He kicked himself up from the tile floor, and as his head broke the surface, she coaxed the water out of his lungs and the petals of the flowers reached towards the sun once more.

"Are you trying to drown yourself?" She asked, a strange smile on her face, as if she was only half joking. He smiled at her, but found himself unable to answer, simply because he did not know the answer himself.

So instead, he splashed his hand down into the pool, causing a fountain of water to pour over her head. She squealed, and splashed him back. "You're going to regret starting this," she laughed, and threw her arms about herself, trying to get water into his eyes.

He laughed, but his laughter got stuck in his throat when he heard a sharp voice say: "Adelaide! Stop bothering Harry with your childish behaviour." It was Abigail who had spoken. She stood in the open glass door, sending her daughter a poisonous look. She watched them for a minute while Adelaide apologised, and then she turned around, quite possibly running to make a call more important than her daughter bothering her lover.

"Did you hear that?" Adelaide said the moment her mother disappeared. "I'm bothering you with my childish behaviour." She swam over to him as she spoke, her small arms wrapping around his shoulders. "Am I bothering you now?" she asked.

His back hit the wall of the pool, and her legs wrapped around his upper body. She was pressed against him, and he couldn't help but rest a hand upon her thigh, making sure her body didn't leave his.

"Yes you are, but please don't stop." He whispered in her ear, and she felt goose bumps rise on her wet skin. She ran her fingers along his neck, and stopped when she saw the red marks on his back and shoulders. Something flickered in her eyes; an emotion he could not truly decipher.

He waited for her to pull away, for her to scrunch her face in disgust by the evidence of last night's actions, but in stead, she lowered her face and kissed them. Her lips touched every mark, every scratch, before leaving a gentle kiss on his jaw.

"One day," she whispered in his ear. "I'm going to be the one leaving scratch marks on your back, and when I do, you'll never want them to fade."