A Lifetime With You // A Harry Styles Au

Chapter IX - Sonnet Eighteen

(Maybe) 15th May, 2020

My lips taste like birthday cake today. You're probably thinking I sound like an utter lunatic but I'm past the point of knowing what's real and what's not. So if I think my lips taste like birthday cake then they bloody well do taste like birthday cake and you can't tell me otherwise. My brain is telling me to come up with a reason. Why do my lips taste so? It must be someone's birthday. But who's?

I think I've been in this hole of a room for somewhere near the benchmark of a week. I say benchmark as if I'd expected to be a rescued damsel by now, but I actually mean the benchmark of dying. That being said, I've done the maths about a hundred times trying to figure out how long I can survive in this room without food and water. A human would only last three days, but my lifespan is over twenty times theirs (I think). If I was a human I'd have died sometime four days ago. What is 3x20? Anyone? I've done enough maths over the past week (maybe) to last me the rest of my life, someone else should have a go.

I'm never going to get an answer, obviously, because I'm here alone. Well, alone besides the fabrications of my family my mind has been cruelly taunting me with. They started showing up on day four... maybe. I glance to my wall calendar, running my finger over the events I've gone through in my isolation (there aren't many). Yep, day four - Mummy mysteriously appeared in the corner under the window with a mean stare and a bit of an attitude. I'd been over the moon to see her, as anyone would who'd been kidnapped and locked up, and I literally tried running to her, annoyingly stopped by my shackles. We talked for a bit about what she was doing and how she was trying to get me out, and it was very convincing, but then she called me... what did she call me? Oh, a tart and a whore. I knew after that it was a joke.

A few hours later Harry appeared, so I was sceptical. But he was very convincing, too. He crouched down but never left his spot just out of my reach, and yet he made me move closer, which was very out of character. I did because I wanted to see his face properly, and then he vanished, and his laughter echoed through the room. That had brought me to tears again.

Over the next few days more and more people kept appearing, like my sisters and their families. But they were growing less and less convincing, and more and more nasty, and I grew aggravated. I became so aggravated, I actually told the fake Tas to fuck off. I've only ever said the 'f' word to Harry, but saying it to a spiteful imagining of my brother-in-law...? It actually felt pretty good...

Now, whenever I hear them, I play deaf. I ignore them.

A crow caws somewhere nearby outside, and my gaze drags from the floor to the window. As usual, I see nothing. And then I hear them... the familiar clip-clopping of Sabine's no doubt over-priced and unnecessary stilettos. I don't know why she insists on wearing them down here to see me - maybe it makes her feel authoritative, but I think she's ridiculous.

I'd seen the sun set and rise twice before she finally woke up again after passing out. I'd been asleep when she did, but she'd come down looking particularly smug later that day. She spent that whole first full day knocked out in the hallway, slumped up against the gate. I thought she was dead, but apparently she'd just properly exhausted herself. Too bad. She visits twice a day - one just after the sun comes up and one just before it goes back down. I have no idea what time it is, I never managed to study time according to the sun. More fool me, I guess.

This is my morning visit. Lucky me.

The disgraced priestess appears in the doorway, looking more put together than she has all week in a white two-piece - a knee length skirt and boxy short-sleeve top that oddly suits her. Her hair is up in a bun with a pencil holding it together like a secretary in a movie with the sole purpose of objectifying women. Her arms are folded and she lets out a scoff.