Hearts Without Chains

37.

~As midnight came, he named every star in the sky after her~

Harry-

After a dreadful dinner with Joeys parents, I'm fucking relieved when they leave the kitchen and go upstairs after clearing the table, leaving the rest for
Jo to clean. We both stay sitting in our wooden seats for a few minutes, my clammy hand still rested on her jean clad knee as we sit in silence, the tv muted.

"That was terrible." I finally grunt out in a breath, the whole night seeming as if it didn't happen, because it's something I never though I would do.

I hear Joey laugh breathily, and do the same.

"I know." She utters back, brown eyes fluttering down to her lap.

"But at least it's over with." She adds on, my hand slipping off her knee when she stands from her chair.

"So now they'll be perfectly fine with you flying all the way out to England to see me, yeah?" I try and joke, but the way her smile fades tells me it's not a very good one.

"Sorry." I shake my head.

She mirrors my action, her lips curving back up forcefully. "It's fine." Joey tells me, walking around the island in the kitchen to reach the sink full of dishes.

I join her, leaning on the granite counter beside her as she busies herself by scrubbing at dishes. Her hair is blocking the side profile of her face, the side of her glasses the only thing I can really see.

"You're going to scrub the pattern off the plate." I laugh half heartedly as I soon realize the slump to her shoulders, but the tense way her hands move.

She lets the plate rest back into the sink, releasing a sigh as she grabs the next one. I gather her thick, waved and slightly frizzed hair in my hand to push it over her shoulder, her blotched cheeks explaining the way she is acting. When her eyes slip closed and her hands go limp in the sink full of water, my eyes flick away from her and my jaw tightens as I see a tear slip down her cheek. Never have I seen her cry, and now, I realize I never want to.

"I'm sorry, I just....." She trails off.

"I'll be fine." She finishes, sniffling her nose as she makes herself resume to washing dishes.

I decide that the right thing to do is take her into my arms, so I do, and even though her hands are wet and drip water, she clamps them around me.

"We're going to be fine, Joey." I tell her into her hair.

"But will we?" She surprises me by muttering back, her hands gathering fabric from my shirt into a tight fist, besides her words that say differently.

"As long as you like me enough to wait." I speak, and this earns a weak laugh from her.

****

The next morning, two days before I leave Washington all together, I wake up to an empty house, all alone surrounded by cardboard boxes which remind me once again I'm leaving for good. I haven't even packed my own things, but I'll put that off until the day of. A note on the kitchen counter tells me that my mother and Jess went to do some errands, probably errands that have to do with putting this house up for sale. I'm just glad she listened about not making a big deal about my birthday, happy there was no big family breakfast awaiting me this morning.

As I sit on my kitchen counter eating an apple, I crumble the note in my hand, tossing it into the trash can across from me. I'm thinking of maybe going to the pool when I hear a knock on my door, hopping off the counter with a half eaten apple in my hand. A smile plays on my lips as I think of the possibility of a messy haired girl being on the other side of the door I open now. But that hope is vanished when I see Daniel on the opposite side, smiling broadly as he leans against the post of my withering patio.