Daddy issues || h.s

4.4

They say it was the warmest summer that had ever graced the land, but the sun rarely kissed his skin, and so he grew as pale as snow, while his fingers grew as black as coal. For this time, his mind was not closed, it was wide open, as if someone had torn away the rosy glass painting in front of his eyes, and he could finally see clearly. He filled white pages with black hearts and dying trees, grey mountains and bruised lips, burnt down houses and broken ribs ripping through white flesh. 

Sometimes he would look at himself in the mirror and laugh, for he finally matched; Coal on his fingers and coal in his chest. Coal on his cheeks and coal in his mind. It was all so black. Black. Black. Black.

It would stain the sheets at night, and she would yell at him for it, but he didn't care. He just pressed his grey lips against hers, and touched her face until she sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. Every evening he would kiss her, and every night she would moan his name. In the beginning, he had pushed her away, avoiding her red lips, but then he had seen the purple tinges on her neck, and he'd gotten scared of losing her. 

So now he kissed her every night and made her coffee every morning, wishing the days would pass quickly.

And they did. They flew by on rusty wings, barely ruffling their hair as they went. Day. Night. Day. Night. Turning into weeks and months, ripe fruit growing on their branches, slowly decaying because no one plucked them. 

Why did he stay? The question may have been formed in your mind by now, slowly crystallising into words as you ready yourself to let them spill out of you mouth. But the truth is; I do not think he knew the answer himself. I guess some small part of him still believed she would come back, that she would one day stand in the doorway to his room, biting her lip as she smiled at him. She never did, and so his hope grew smaller every day.

It wasn't all bad. There were still moments when the dark haired woman would rest her head on his shoulder, quietly inhaling his smell as she handed him a cup of tea. There were still moments where he would kiss her head and smile at her in the early morning light, his sleepy lips wrapping around the words: "Have a good day," before she left for work. 

One moment, in particular, smiled with rosy lips though the memories of that summer. 

Once again, an old vinyl had spun lazily on the recorder, the characteristic hum of the needle scraping against the disc filling the living room. The afternoon sun had sent its golden rays through the curtains, and shadows had played upon her cheeks. Their lips were tinted red, the wine having loved their mouths so much it had left little love bites all over them. He had put down his glass, and his hand had reached for hers, slowly pulling her out of her chair. The music had wrapped around them, an iridescent bubble that would burst if they moved too sudden. So they moved gently, and he spun her quietly around the living room as he hummed along to tones he had never heard before, and would never hear again.

But there were bad days too. Like the day his hair touched his shoulder for the first time, and she asked him to cut it. Or the day he had wandered too far into the forest, and not come home for dinner. But the worst day of them all, was not a day at all, it was a night.

It was the night he woke, the weight of her absence pulling him out of his dreams. The sound of her breathing had quieted, and the warmth of her body beside him was fading away. He was alone; the pale sheets clinging to him like the ashen arms of a corpse. He did not know where she had gone, or why she too had left him. But soon the faint sound of her sobs reached his ears, and he felt the violent waves inside his mind crash into shore once again. 

Abigail lay sobbing in her daughter's bed, clutching her pillow as she tried to inhale the last traces of smell. But it was all in vain, for too much time had passed since Adelaide had last laid her head on it, and eternity would pass before she did again. The dark haired woman wailed, trying to stifle her cries, but her heart was aching; the diamonds in her chest shaking beneath the crippling pressure of maternal love. 

At first, Harry did not understand why she was crying, but in the morning, when the tears had dried upon her cheeks, and she was quietly making breakfast, he saw the date circled in red. And then suddenly he understood why this was the worst day of them all.

Why? 

Because it was the day he realised why Adelaide was not coming back. Because it was the day he lost all hope. Because it was the first day of her nineteenth year, and the day she turned eighteen.