regrets ⇝ hs

xx. vivid

BROOKLYN'S POV

Harry and I had returned to work that evening and, fortunately, had not run into any more people threatening to kill us.

Harry had advised me against being scared, but I couldn't help it. Every night since Kayden had showed up at the supermarket, which had already been three days ago, was filled with constant nightmares of what he was plotting. The fact that three days had already passed and he had been completely silent had my nerves on complete edge. Everywhere I went, I was extremely paranoid.

The only good thing that had come out of the past few days was that Harry and I had earned enough money to last us a bit longer, and we had even been able to go out for lunch one of the days. Given, it was no fancy meal, just Wendy's a few blocks down, but it also wasn't the room service we had been living off of.

It was now Thursday evening, and Harry and I had just returned from our second shift at the supermarket. The two of us were beyond exhausted and wanted nothing but to lie down and relax.

In the past few days, every time I saw Harry's face, I felt as if it was more and more familiar to me each time. Not because we had been spending so much time together lately; I felt like the familiarity went back to before we even met that first time at 79 Club Paris. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the fuzzy picture in my mind was becoming clearer each day.

"I'm beat," Harry grumbled and fell back on his bed, throwing his arm over his eyes and yawning.

"Good thing we're off tomorrow," I replied, sitting on the edge of my bed and slipping my Toms off, shrugging off the sweater on my arms.

Harry nodded in response and sat up, kicking his shoes off and sliding down his jeans, crawling up his bed and leaning back against the headboard.

I looked over at him for a moment before doing the same thing in my own bed and flicking the TV on- the same thing I had been doing for the past week every time we got back to our room. "Harry?"

He looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?" I mumbled, nervously playing with my fingers. There was something I had been wondering for a while now, but wanted to wait until Harry and I seemed close enough before I asked him. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to know the answer to the question due to how Harry had reacted to a similar question a while ago. Though the nerves were practically eating me alive, I felt a burning need to know the answer to this one question.

"Yeah," Harry answered with a shrug, looking back at the TV with his arms behind his head. "Shoot."

I took a deep breath and kept my gaze focused on Harry as the words came out of my mouth. "Who's Scarlett Delacroix?"

I watched as Harry's body visibly tensed. It seemed as if all those nerves that had been eating me alive before were now clawing at my skin. He brought his arms down slowly, dragging one hand through his mop of messy curls. I could feel goose bumps rise on my arms as he set both hands on his lap and clenched his fists, taking a deep breath. His chest rose and fell once, twice, several more times before he finally opened his eyes. "Don't worry about it."

I swallowed thickly, and though my mind was telling me to nod and look away, I knew I had would not be satisfied without an answer, and I intended on getting it.

"You can tell me, Harry," I said quietly, biting my lower lip and continuing, "You know I won't judge you or anyth-"

"Don't worry about it," He interrupted harshly, clenching his jaw and looking over at me. The words had a deep, dark undertone that he had never used with or around me before, and I didn't like it very much. His familiar bright green eyes were now a deep, dark shade of green, almost a black, even, that made my stomach churn. The sight was all too terrifying to me, so I nodded and looked down at my fingers, playing with them nervously once again.

"Sorry," I mumbled quietly, shaking my head and laying down, my back facing Harry as I closed my eyes. And even though the blackness of behind my eyelids was all I could see, my mind wouldn't push away the image of Harry's furious self. I now knew that whoever Scarlett was, she must have meant something more than I could ever imagine to Harry for him to get so worked up at just the mention of her name.

I heard a sigh escape from Harry in the other bed, and I knew him well enough now to know that he was running a hand through his hair, yet again, messing up further what I already considered the mess on his head.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled and shook his head. "It's just not something I like to talk about."

I turned over in the bed and opened my eyes slowly before nodding at Harry. "I understand," I said softly and tucked my hair behind my ear.

Harry nodded, and the silence that followed was quite unbearable. I felt obligated to try and rid us of it, seeing as I had, indirectly, been the one who had brought it upon us.

"Want to hear a story about my past?" I asked, biting my lip and laying on my back. "It's a stupid little story, but it's something."

"Sure," I heard from Harry, probably only agreeing in order to break the tension in the room, just as I had only offered to tell my story for the same reason.

I exhaled softly and nodded. "I met my best friend when I was five years old...I-I lived in the UK at the time, actually. My father's job had transferred there," I began, smiling slightly at the memory. "We went to kindergarten together. One day, on the playground, I was sitting on top of the slide and I just wouldn't go down. I was terrified. All of the kids were shouting at me and trying to push me, and all I could do was cry. Where the teachers were or what they were doing is beyond me, even to this day.

"Then, this little boy came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I was literally trembling at that point, because I was so sure he was about to push me. But, he didn't. He leaned by ear and whispered 'we can go down together'. I didn't really know him, but I nodded anyway and he sat behind me so I was between his legs. Obviously, I didn't really pay attention during the whole 'don't talk to strangers' speech. Anyway, he counted to three an-"

"I-I don't want to hear anymore," Harry stopped me and shook his head. "Sorry."

I swallowed hard and lay down with my back towards Harry once again, pulling the blanket up to my chin and closing my eyes. I didn't speak anymore, because I had put in the effort to make conversation once, even offered to share an important piece of my life with this boy, and he didn't care one bit.

All I had wanted to do was share a piece of my life with Harry so he would feel more comfortable with sharing his with me. Instead, I was cut off and brushed to the side. And I didn't appreciate it at all. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter to prevent any tears from finding their way out and curled up under the blanket, pushing all of my hair behind me and letting sleep pull me under.

HARRY'S POV

The minute Brooklyn's story began, everything in my mind seemed to click.

All the hours I had lied awake in this damn hotel room bed with her face plastered in my mind as I tried to remember it all, all the staring at her and analyzing her features; all of it finally made sense. All the hazy memories with the young girl and I became clear - quite vivid, actually. I could make out every detail of her beautiful self; the freckles that dotted her face, almost in a perfectly straight line under her eye, then over her nose and under the other eye, the faint specks of green in her bright blue eyes, and that one crooked tooth at the very end of her smile.

It seemed all of these things had vanished since I last saw the young Brooklyn Reese.

(WOW YOU ALL PROBABLY HATE ME FOR NOT POSTING SINCE 500BC BUT IM SO SORRY I JUST GRADUATED AND THINGS WERE SO HECTIC SO YEAH I APOLOGIZE ILL TRY TO POST MORE OFTEN NOW THAT IT'S SUMMER.)