red hair and a blue hoodie // ed sheeran

Chapter 59 - The Finale

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As I waited on the couch with my fingers clenching around my cane, I found myself thinking about home in Australia. My non-existent mother who’s face I couldn’t picture in my head. I was too young when she left. Too young and too innocent but for whatever reason she was out of the picture for the rest of my life. Then there was the childhood murdering father of mine.

Being so far away from him still didn’t settle my nerves when I thought about him. My muscles tensed up and I couldn’t think clearly. The memory of my pain for all those years came back to me, bit by bit and my hands started to clench in anger.

My hands…

With everything else that had happened to me I had become so reliant on my hands to guide me, completely forgetting about how mutilated they were. A hot swell started to form in the bottom of my eyes as I relived the events of what happened.

The staples… cuts… knives… cigerettes… screwdrivers… A tear slipped down my cheek and onto my palm that had now opened wide and revealed to the emptiness of the room how hideous I truly was. As I lifted the opposite hand and wiped the wet sensation away, I felt them… all of the impurities, the scars, the deformities and the plain ugliness.

My finger unwillingly traced slowly down my palm, towards my wrist and as each bump passed under me and past me my breath became harder and harder to ease into a normal in-and-out motion. I had forgotten. How could I forget these ugly markings? What was wrong with me? Just at the exact moment in time a knocking succession sounded from the door and echoed through out the entire apartment, bringing the once silent space to a loud opposite.

“Just a minute!” I called out to the waiting Niall, my voice evidently showing the sadness. Clearing my throat, I leaned across to the coffee table on my left, picking up a tissue and wiping it across my palm and face, removing any trace of what happened only a few seconds before. Once I was happy with the dry feeling of my skin, I grasped my cane in my hand and made my way towards the door. “Coming, coming, coming.”

Making my descent down the hallway I felt something different. It wasn’t a bad feeling and it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was just there and it was pleasant. I made a note to tell Niall later on tonight. When my cane collided with the door at the front of the apartment, I rose my hand up towards the locks and began making short work on them. Once they were done I slid my hand down the gentle wood to find the door knob and turned, pulling as I did.  “Hi!” I greeted with a smile.

Then there was a beautiful assault on my ears that continued for a solid eleven seconds. I smiled as Niall played an instrumental that I knew all too well. On instinct I sung the first verse.

Said I’d never leave her cause her hands fit like my t-shirt, tongue tied over three words, cursed.

Running over thoughts that made my feet hurt, body’s intertwined with her lips.

And then a voice entered that I never thought I would hear again. A voice I wasn’t prepared to hear for what I thought was forever. A voice that I instantly adored as soon as I heard ‘Small Bump’ on the radio. A voice that said things that has made me laugh and made me cry. A voice who’s owner I had connected with as soon as he had asked me that small question when we first met. A voice that I was in-love with even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself.

Now she’s feeling so love since she went solo, hole in the middle of my heart like a polo.

And its no joke to me, so can we do it all over again?

My hands rose to my mouth, my cane clattering on the floor, as I took it all in. Ed was at my door. Ed was singing ‘Over Again’ to me. With my emotions still raw from the memory of what happened to me as a child and remembering how hideous my hands were, everything just broke. Everything was suffocating. My breaths were rigid and uncontrollable. I started taking steps backward but I felt his feet move towards me slowly but surely as he kept singing into the chorus.