After the betrayal of his ex and the disintegration of his heart, Harry convinces himself he'll never love again. That is until the bride walks down the isle and she's dressed head to toe in white. Only it's not his wedding, and it's not his bride...
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| CHAPTER SIX |
The flash of my camera pulls me from my daze.
Rain patters down on the stain-glass windows of the church. Inside, it creates a peaceful ambience I'd appreciate if I wasn't wishing for silence. A newlywed couple stands in front of me, posing, smiling, glowing with joy and love. My tired eyes and lack of energy prohibit me from perfecting my faux smile today. I just stand and click my camera, and hope for the minutes to pass by like seconds.
"Alright, one more photo," I say.
I hear the same praises I always do: 'Harry, they're gorgeous', 'Harry, we love them', 'Harry, thank you so much, we don't know what we would have done without you', only this time I don't stop to hear them at the after-party. I leave as soon as the bride and groom appear, and excuse no time for interruption of my exit. I want to be alone. I want to bathe in loneliness and memories that should be forgotten.
Flattery is a false sense of reassurance, and I'm in no mood to be lied to.
The bath is cold, but so is my skin and the icy water surrounding me. I delve deep between the ripples. I scrub my skin clean of dirt, but not of her. I divulge in some wine—all it does is remind me of her, of Rowena, and how much more glorious it tasted passing off her tongue unto mine.
I realise this only when the bottle is hollow, and my mind is a disoriented haze, and I slip further into the bath and wish, somehow, the water would swallow my lungs and rid them of the reminder of her cigarette air still goading me with every breath.
The water is cold, but as I submerge into the ice and my hair conceals my love-maimed eyes from the light above, I am a roaring flame with the remembrance of her.
It's been weeks since I last saw the flicker of her brightness blind me. Still, the fluorescence of her eyes gleaming from the darkness of my room keeps me awake at night. But it's not a nightmare—it's cloud eight, because it is not my cloud to climb, yet I dare to do it anyway. Because I am a mundane soul bewitched by the starkness of angelic white, and help me so if I forget tonight.
It has been weeks since I last saw her. It has been weeks, yet I can't seem to get her out of my mind. Her lips. Her body. Her hips. The jasmine in her hair and the rose on her skin. The caramelised words that rolled so effortlessly off her tongue. I do not crave for cigarettes. I do not crave whiskey, or wine, or scotch. I did not crave any other high. I only crave her.
And it is wrong.
It is all so wrong.
I shouldn't have these thoughts, I shouldn't fantasize with the shadows. But I do. I wear a cross but I am as far from holy as my knees are to the heavens. I am too much of a sinner to be forgiven, and too little of a saint to be damned. I am stuck in a crossroad of wrong and right, and the paths are distinguishable only by the lost tracks of fools before me.
