Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

37ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                        37ᵀᴴ CHAPTER 

    "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around"

She’s freezing when she finally rings the doorbell, fingertips purple-ish underneath the gloves and heart pounding beneath her chest with the realisation she’s finally here. She hasn’t seen her family ever since her mother’s birthday five months ago; hasn’t properly talked to them for about a week now.

Seems like it takes forever for the door to swing open, cracking slightly under the influence of years of age pressuring over the rangers.

Her mother is grinning widely with huge, open arms even before the entrance is fully accessible. Elisha sprints toward her in a blink of an eye, embraced by the warmth the second she clings to the elder woman’s neck. She smells of blueberries and cheap cologne; also a lot like her grandma’s cake.

“Mom!” Leesh mumbles happily into her ear, mind hazed with the usual comfort she feels whenever she’s back home. Leeds isn’t half as chaotic as London, nor half as beautiful, but here she doesn’t feel so small. Instead, here’s almost like she’s big, someone important, a piece they would miss.

(She keeps growing and growing the more she stays, to the point she becomes too big to fit. She truly belongs to London, honestly).

Her mom guides her in with care, an arm around her shoulders and the other supporting awkwardly a few of Elisha’s bags, pressing them against her waist as if not to fall. The way upstairs to her room takes longer than it did when she was younger and ran around the whole entire house (which is really not that big), but that’s because they keep walking slowly like they have forever to enjoy each other’s company.

And it’s not forever, but it’s a lot of time and she’ll make every second of it worth it. Maybe after sleeping a bit.

It’s good to be home again.

--

Christmas Eve’s morning doesn’t wake her up to the smell of tea and a mop of curls, bare and broad shoulders facing her.

It’s okay, though.

Because there’s no wind reaching unreachable (not that much, apparently) spots on her skin, coming through tiny holes in the wall and sweeping even through the tissues that cover her whole.

This room is completely warm, filled with decent furniture and walls new and fixed. The blinds are just right, obscuring the light that’s threatening to come in just fine, leaving it all still kind of shady despite the dawning on the outside. Elisha comes slowly, bit by bit, to full awakeness, blinking away the haze that settles on her vision.

It takes a few minutes of being completely lost until she manages to focus on where she’s at, until she finally recognises the bedroom different from the one she’s been waking up to for years now, and only then she shuts her eyes completely once more.

Morning feels like torture, like it’s heaving Leesh down on the mattress so she won’t have to ever get to her feet again, and she thanks God there’s no café today, even though she rarely has something to do there. Even if it’s just the theory of being responsibilities-free for a few days, she’s fine. Great, really.

After all the thoughts have sunk in in her head, and there’s barely something she can wrap her mind around, she gets off of bed and kicks off the blankets crumpled around her legs, avoiding movement. It’s chill for a moment, however, her body settles into the temperature easily, only seconds later.