Crush [H.S]

3. Just Us

The quiet pitter patter of a gentle rain slowly cascaded down the glass of her window, reminding me of the way tears rolled down her cheeks only moments prior. Welcoming the chattering of my teeth and the sickly blue hue of my pale lips, my fingers trickled across the petal of a wild rose, plucking at the beautiful plant until it was nothing more than a bud, a stem, and blood thirsty thorns.

My mother had been back at home drinking and injecting her arms, washing her life down the drain as she watched me struggle to keep my head above water. I succumbed to the feeling of drowning, to the feeling of suffocating beneath a ruthless killer's hands. Except my ending wasn't a homicide and I wasn't dying, I was only struggling. Not against a murderer, but against myself.

I hated it here, hidden behind billowing trees and low clouds, mistaking the perspiration on my face for tears, though the sight of Venus and Zayn on the bed, tangling tongues and tangling fingers, tangling hair and tangling limbs, was too enthralling to resist. Everything looked so rehearsed; the way their skin glowed like fireflies, the way their cheeks synchronized as they flushed pink. Everything about Zayn and Venus was surreal, even when it was right in front of me; all of the proof I ever needed.

I knew of the pain I'd summon, the tears that I'd be responsible for, and the rage that'd brew, all from I and the camera phone clutched tight in my shaking hands, but I didn't care. My mind had gone from bad to worse in a span of mere seconds, and maybe it had to do with the way Zayn was trembling beneath Venus' flashing body, or the brisk wind freezing my fingers together like frostbite, but I felt it strong and I felt it full, throbbing through my veins like a snake's venom. I wasn't thinking. My thumb twitched. I snapped the picture. The flash drew their attention instantly.

Ducking behind an arrangement of shrubs, I held my heart in my hand, catching the feverish bearings of arteries as the panic slowly weaved its aura around my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply. The rain fell harder. Colder. Longer. I made a mad dash away from the window and away from the city, slicing through trees taller than giants and grass slicker than ice. My blood ran cold in my veins. My tongue grew dry and rubbery between my lips. My breath was erratic and temperate, clambering past my teeth like the fog steadily curling around my ankles. I didn't stop to look back, I didn't stop to see the mortified looks plastered on their faces, I ran until my legs were weak and my hands were trembling. I ran with a picture on my phone and the thought of making you happy again as my only fuel.

Is this what euphoria was supposed to feel like? Fear and paranoia and angst? Were the tears streaming down my face from joy or from something else, were the words trapped in my throat brimmed with apologies or with spite? I never knew anymore, Harry. I only knew that I'd done it for you.

School was spent rehashing on last night and trying to control the quivering of my fists clenched tight around my bag, especially since it had a special present placed inside, just for you. Seeing Venus for the first time that morning felt like a sharp slap across the face, stormy, gray eyes, thunderous blonde hair, and all. The look on her face was permanently branded to my brain, especially after she captured your lips in a kiss with her bottomless orbs trained solely on mine. She knew who I was, who I used to be. She knew what had happened and why my life had suddenly turned to shït. Everyone in this fücking school knew my business, and for that, the sickening temptation to scream and cry and defy grew stronger by the day.

The feeling of rejection was imbedded into my thoughts. The look on your face after I told you I was in love, the anger in your eyes when I begged you to stay, and the restraining order, signed with black pen. They were all components of this fücked up life and these fücked up scars and these fücked up people, tormenting and ridiculing as if they knew the full story the way we had.

I couldn't think straight. Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't speak. It didn't feel right if you weren't there to keep me warm, or to tell me food would keep me strong. Not if you didn't care whether I starved to death or set up a miserable high school life for myself, no. I needed that again, I needed you, and if I wanted you, I had to get rid of her.

Because they didn't know it was deeper than falling in love with your best friend, and being given the cold shoulder. They didn't know about my father in prison or my mother, ruining her teeth and her skin with meth. They didn't know about the shït I'd gone through with your voice feathering against my ear, there to guide me through my uncle's meaty hands or my sister's death or my own lethal thoughts, there to remind me that anyone could easily wrench their way into a weak-minded head like mine. They knew only of what they heard. They only knew what you'd told them.

I thought of the way you always told me you wanted something real, something genuine and something that felt like home. And then I thought of her, leading you away from everything substantial, screwing her way out of dilemmas that were questionable at the time but over-looked after she'd given you another taste of her skin. I thought of the way her hips molded with Zayn's so fleshly and so carnally, as if they'd been so familiar with how to drive each other to the edge. I thought of their eyes as they made love, so lively and so foolishly brimmed with adoration.

This wasn't you. She wasn't you. You were Harry, quick to be the bulwark between life and death, hard headed and too nice for your own good. You were Harry, scarily oblivious, ridiculously enchanting, and irrevocably tantalizing, from the ink on your skin to that beautifully, old soul. A friend, a lover, an acquaintance, a need.

To hell with it, right?

Planting the camera was easy. Ruining your relationship, easy. Ruining Venus' life, easy.

And then it was just us, so far yet so close, drawn together like a moth to a flame, anticipating the moment I'd be able to call you mine again.

- - - -

Besides the fact that you're all probably mortified by how batshit crazy this chick is, how's the story rocking with everyone so far? Updates are going to be slow for a little while, I'm sorry. :(