New York [harry styles au]

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE - SMALL NOTE
The first time I met Harry was in the summer of 1972. It is now December 1979 and will be 1980 in mere minutes.

I moved back to Idaho after three years of more mindless travels, never finding the same comforts I found in New York. Harry once told me that he was moving towards the future, 'to the wonderful 80s', but that whole idea now seemed bittersweet. Sometimes I pretend he is here right beside me, thinking about what I would say to him, what I would tell him. Though, I don't even own a photograph of him; he is a distant memory that I will never regain. He could be anywhere now. But one thing I do know is that he is always in my nightmares, of which I have three to four times a week. It's always the same night, when he killed Jonathan; it plays over and over in my mind until I have no other option than to get out of bed and have one of my mother's old herbal teas.

I'm unsure of what an epilogue really is; for this story was real, and the people were all real people with personalities and filled with love - lives meant to be lived.

The clouds, in the deep night sky, I can see right now from my porch seem similar to the ones I saw over Harry's apartment in 1972; but I think that about every cloud. Here's the thing, what if they are the same clouds? What if they have travelled around the world in 7 years and he has even seen them, possibly thinking of me too? I cry over that idea sometimes.

Harry, if you're out there somewhere, reading this, don't take this as a second-hand confession of your wrongdoings. I just miss you more than any woman could miss the man she loved and adored. My love for you drifted to another level, ethereal almost, a level that causes the memory of you to automatically enter my mind when I wake up and even in the darkest nights, when I have nobody else to think about in solitude.

I kept up with the news in New York ever since I left. I never saw whether you had died or even if you had actually ended up in prison; unless it was in a small story of a side column.

Thank you for everything, Harry. You were the first person I truly loved, other than my mother, which indeed speaks volumes. You were family, like the rest of the group in New York, whom I will never erase from my memory either. Where is Angelina now? It strikes a chord deep within me that I will never know her fate. Did Beatrix and Smith ever marry?

You said that everything happened to us because of fate, but answer me now, was this fate too? I truly believe that this could have all ended much differently, a wrong time – wrong place scenario. You did absolutely everything out of goodwill, Harry, so much so that you ruined our lives. I lie in bed sometimes, thinking about how different my life would be if you were lying beside me, our children sleeping in other rooms nearby. I've had other men lay beside me, but those relationships never worked out because to tell you the truth, I never moved on. Deep in my heart and soul, I long for you and only you and it hurts so harshly that I will never know if you feel the same.

I'm a firm believer that we all have a soulmate in this world, but I fear I may have eternally lost mine.

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AND... it is finished.

Love it or hate it (you're entitled to either), this was the most experimental piece of writing I have worked on. I really wanted to see how far I could go with the first person format before it became too unbelievable. I wanted Winona to be both a spectator of the activities in New York and a relatable POV for the reader. Time was also a huge part of this story as I believe it is a huge part of life too: does everything happen for a reason or is it our nature as human beings to take control of our lives? The ending was also experimental. Open-ended novels always fascinated me, I loved having the freedom to think about the characters of a story - where they ended up and where they would be now. It adds a flair of realism that I don't see in many other stories. As well as this, I didn't want a happy ending for these characters because sometimes happy endings aren't true. Sometimes, the depressing endings cause the reader to think more about it and relate the ending to their own lives a lot more. Questioning things is good.

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. If so, voting and commenting would be lovely! I'm going to miss writing more of this story but I will get started on some more stories as we head into 2018.

Happy Christmas and New Year. Whether 2017 was great or awful for you (mine was the latter), don't give up and remember that we're all human beings so treat each other with kindness. Nothing separates us unless we let it. Another important thing to note is that 2018 is another year thus another chance to find happiness and gain experiences, go a day without using your phone or start going for walks and write about them in a journal - whatever simple thing you find, do what makes you feel good. At the end of the day, you are only ever going to be you. Whoever you are, you can't change that: so accept yourself, care for yourself and love who you are because you are always stronger and capable of more than you think.

Thank you. x