.Perfect Fantasy. |H.S.|

Chapter 47. Confirmation.

. HARRY.

I shouldn't have asked.

Faint sunlight seeped under the heavy curtains, slipping its way across the pristine floor, towards the bed. His voice left no room for argument, solemn and steady, ringing in my ears. We're running out of time, he said, as if time was the kind of thing you could run out of, time certainly moving on even when we do not.
A silence ticked on, both of us lost, or perhaps trapped, in our own thoughts.; just needing the search for peace and contentment, to find joy without interference from the outside reasoning that kept pouring over and over again— that one last dinner together, the refills of coffee in the morning, Sean smoking outside with a beamy Natalia by his side. Other memories came back, a bit spottier — running into a half-destroyed bedroom, windows, and the balcony door resting there, wide open, while the unmistaken shape of someone crawling from under my bed moved forward to get me.

A shudder worked its way right through, heart leaped and sank at the same time, and now it felt like I'd slept forever, as I stared at the tiny particles of dust dancing in the stream of light and reaching the folds of my white socks.
I wasn't sure I was ready to be awake.
Not yet. Not fully.

Things didn't get any worse, but they didn't get better either. The anger faded into protectiveness, reminding myself bleakly with the thought of all of us being trapped with that deranged person, even worse while being severely drugged—horrifying truth because I knew from experience what that would've entailed, how easily everything could have been taken away.

I moved my head slowly from side to side.
Sean was really gone.

"H?" Jeff held up his hands. "Never mind. Forget I said anything." His voice finally reaching my grief-filled mind. "Seriously, I'm sorry—" It took several minutes for his repeated words to penetrate the disbelief bitterly filtering through me, covering my face with my hands as it all came back to me with merciless clarity.

I jerked away and stared at him in confusion.
I shouldn't have asked.
My head whipped in the direction of the door, but the view was still blocked by him, just standing there holding my vans in one of his hands, gesturing them to me. "H?" He said in a smaller voice, and kind eyes, one last-ditch effort to spare the inevitable misfortune as he signaled with urgency for me to wear them.

"We've been through a lot," I whispered. "We all have a lot to deal with."

"Trust me, I know." As frustrated as he was, there was no mistaking in the worry of his expression. I could feel myself wavering on the edge of control. What I really needed was a moment by myself and a room to get my head together—which was hardly likely to happen any time soon­.
Stuff was all over the news and social media, people coming and going, asking questions, and I realized that for years to come I'd still have horrible nightmares.
Maybe I would until the day I died.
I'd still wake from sleep, full of panic that I was back there, with a foreign person staring me down from across my kitchen, and that sound, that horrible voice echoing my weirdest most vulnerable dreams.
Like heartache, I just knew that kind of dread wasn't going to go away easily.

I swallowed against the sudden knot in my throat, and I folded one arm behind my head, my palm ruffling my hair and fingers pushing the strands as he stared up at me. "I don't want to feel this way anymore." Drawing in a shaky breath, I exhaled slowly. "It's just . . . when I think about what else could've happened, what did—it's a jolt to the system. It takes me back to that very second, but it doesn't hold me there long, it's like my own mind fights back." I trail off as the fingers on my right-hand ran across the white sheets, my voice still not entirely my own.
It's too rough, too broken, and I don't want it to be like that anymore.
I shouldn't have asked.