Flicker (H.S)

25.

heyy... i'm back. sorry, this chapter is sad. and short. :( everly's on the side with blue eyes instead of brown (oops) , but imagine her however you want to. could you blow up the comments because i'm back? i'd appriciate it :)

25.

“She gave me her yellow gummy bears, I gave her my heart. I started to wear a tie to school because she always looked so beautiful in those dresses, with her hair in those pigtails. Up until the day she died, whenever we walked together, people always looked at us oddly because they know she deserves someone better than me. She does. She did. Until she was found swinging from the ceiling fan in her bedroom.”

-Autobiography of Harry Styles [Read October 1st, 2016]

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HER tangled hair is a halo around her head as she sleeps, her chest heaving up and down unevenly, like her body hasn’t quite caught up yet. The beeping of the heart monitor is the only thing Harry hears besides the loud ringing in his mind as he thinks about her wrists and her legs and her eyes and her mind and what’s left of her heart and he starts to cry.

Because he ruined her.

Beep, beep, beep.

She smiled before she met him. He saw her in the hallways- smiling. She had a beautiful smile. Everly was beautiful, period. She had thicker thighs back then, and he could see the gold of her eyes more clearly. But now he has to look really hard to see his favourite colour, and it only shows on certain days when Harry thinks that maybe, just possibly, she has stopped acting and her heart has let him in. But then the clouds come and the rain falls and her eyes are dark again, locked up so tight that no one could possibly gimmy their way in.

Beep, beep, beep.

Ethan resides in the room next to them, awake and happy, awaiting discharge so he can go home. Harry doubts that Dana let her son know that his sister has tried to end her life, so he assumes that’s why he hasn’t visited yet. The first time he met the little French boy was a couple days ago when him and Everly couldn’t keep their lips from each other, the day that came before the night that came before the love and the realization and the colliding and they collided. They collided into each other’s chests and it wasn’t until the morning that Harry realized that colliding might be the single most thing more dangerous than love.

It’s supposed to be the same thing, really. But she has skinny legs and cloudy brown eyes and-

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

Tears streak down his face as he rests his forehead on the side of her mattress, stroking her hand. She’s alive, but there are bandages on her wrists and the holes in her heart have began to bleed. Her scars have re-opened and there are bandages on her wrists.

Bandages on her wrists.

Bandages on her wrists.

Bandages on her wrists.

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

Scars, scars, scars.

Everly, Everly, Everly.

Bandages.

Love.

“I love you.” He whispered through his tears, grasping her thin fingers like they were his lifeline. “I love you, I love you, I love you! I love you!” Harry’s voice raises as he grows angry at himself, at the situation, at the bandages on her wrists. He stands from his chair and kicks it so it skids across the room, letting go of her hand and allowing it to hit the side of the hospital bed. Why is everything so grey? Why are hospitals so grey? The walls are grey, the ground is grey, the bed is grey. It’s so grey. “I love you!” He screams, trying to cough out the words that have been stuck in his throat for too long. “I love you!

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

“I fucking love you, Everly Green!” His throat is being torn up but he welcomes it. If these were his last words, he would be more than content. “I love you!”

Sobs escape his sore vocal chords and as he collapses on the floor, his arms cover his head and his heart, bent in on himself. The door opens, and he thinks he sees a grey uniform and a grey mask but really he just sees tears, and sadness, and Everly bleeding out on the floor with the phone holding his fear hanging from it’s chord beside her. He sees depression and green crayons and broken shutters and an innocent face with a not-so-innocent situation and ceiling fans, lots and lots of ceiling fans. There are flashes of blonde hair and yellow sundresses and yellow gummy bears but he can’t remember why he doesn’t like them, why he gets sad when he sees gummy bears that aren’t yellow.

Why yellow? Why not red, or blue? Why yellow?

Harry wants to flail around and scream like a child when someone grabs his forearms, hauling him to his feet, but he’s too exhausted. Loving someone who has bandaged wrists and skinny legs is exhausting. Loving someone who is a good actress is exhausting.

Why yellow? Why not red, or blue? Why yellow?

“Sir, please.” Someone pleads, but all he can see is grey and green crayons and ceiling fans and blond hair and yellow gummy bears and bandaged wrists. “You have to leave, I’m sorry.”

“I love you, Evie.” He sounds broken. He sounds like cracked mirrors and divorce papers and…. he sounds like Everly. “I love you, I- I love you too much, I l-love you.”

“I’m sorry, sir. You aren’t permitted to be in this room.”

Beep, beep, beep.

“Can you tell her I love her?”

Beep, beep, beep.

“Please? All I see is grey and I need you to tell her I love her.”

Beep, beep, beep.

“Please, I love her.”

Beep, beep, beep.

He’s exhausted.

And when he sits up straight in bed and rubs his eyes, he wonders if Everly’s wrists are scarred. He wonders if his front door opening would wake his parents, or Luke, or Mel. He wonders if he can steal someone’s car keys. He wonders if hospitals are really grey or if they just are in his dreams.

And he loves her.

So he gets up and stumbles down the stairs, staying true to form by grabbing Mel’s car keys and hoping that he remembers how to get blood out of carpet. Just in case the skin on her wrist isn’t perfectly clear. Just in case the phone hangs by the cord, dangling by her beautiful face. Just in case her beautiful face goes pale.

Just in case he sees green crayons and ceiling fans and bandaged wrists.

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Silence.

much love,

el xxx