Facade [h.s]

fifty-two

The trial came around, and it was way messier than I'd expected it to be.

I'd always hoped, deep down, that everything would go well for her as well. That the judge would understand she had no other choice and let her go, or that she'd turn out fine somehow.

Unfortunately for Indigo, even though it should've been self-defense, Joel's parents had a lot of friends in powerful places and pulled all the strings they could pull to make sure she wouldn't walk away from it.

In the end she got some years in prison, and I was way more surprised by that than she was.

She was taken away before I could even get to say a word to her, leaving me standing next to my seat while everyone else around me got up on their feet and ready to leave.

I blinked a few times in shock, not believing what was happening. My best friend was going away. It seemed crazy to think about that. We'd known each other for our whole life, been together for almost every minute of it, and now she was going away. For years, too.

Where had October gone? I'd had four friends back then, and then one had been murdered, another had been killed, another was in jail for attempted murder and the last was also in jail, but because she'd shot the second dead.

I turned my head when I heard Harry stand up as well next to me, and I moved quickly to get a hold of his black jacket before it could fall to the ground.

"Let me help you," I said when he reached for it, draping it over his shoulders myself so he didn't have to. It'd been a little over two weeks, but it still hurt him to move in certain ways.

I followed him as he made his way out of the law court, glaring at every person that got a little too close to him.

When we were finally out of the building I moved to stand next to him and gently wrapped my arm around his waist, smiling a little when I felt him do the same.

"Should we stop somewhere for lunch before going back to my flat?" Harry asked, "I don't think there's much in my fridge, once again."

I gave him a little nod, still replaying the trial in my mind in an attempt to make it sink in quicker.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied. There was nothing necessarily wrong, I just felt a bit... lost. Considering everything that we'd been through, it was weird to think it was all over, just like that. It seemed anticlimactic, even.

"Raine!"

I turned around quickly and let go of Harry as soon as I heard my name being called, frowning when I realised a grey-haired man in a black suit was walking towards us.

A second later, I realised it was Joel's father. I furrowed my eyebrows. What did he want from me? It seemed odd for him to want to have anything to do with the people that had been there the night his son was murdered and that, in a way, were the reason why it had happened.

"Thanks for waiting," he said when he reached us, a frown on his face as well. "I wanted to let you know, Raine, that my son cared a lot about you and I'm sure he still considered you a close friend, despite everything."

I sent Harry a confused look, discovering that he was looking at the man in front of us in the exact same way.

"I know things escalated between you all and he did things he should've never done, but I only wanted you to know. You meant a lot to him, as a friend."

I nodded slowly. "Okay, Mr. Davis," I only replied, not knowing what else to say. What even was the point of that conversation? It didn't change anything between us.

He nodded as well. "Take care, Raine," he said, before walking away and joining his wife down the stairs.

I glanced at Harry and he gave me a shrug, letting me know that he had no idea of what had just happened as well.

"That was weird," I muttered as we went down the stairs as well, getting an affirmative reply from Harry.

"I was thinking," he started saying when we were walking on the street, giving me a worried look, "I know that with Joel gone there's no reason for you to still live in my flat, but I was wondering if you'd like to keep doing that? As in, do you want to move in with me? Permanently."

I gave him a smile. "Of course I want to move in with you, Harry," I replied, and he let out a relieved chuckle.

"Oh, thank god."

I shook my head at his reply, putting my arm around his waist again. He could be really cute at times, especially when he was nervous - not that he ever admitted he was, of course.

If someone had told me some months before I would've ended up falling in love with that young man with frilly shirts and curly hair I'd met at that one party, I would've never believed them.

But it'd turned out that even though I'd been thoroughly annoyed by him at first, he was way less bratty than I'd made him out to be - to be honest, he was pretty cool, and I was pretty much in love.

We'd been through hell together and there we were, finally on the other side, and the sky had never looked so bright before.

There we were, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. He was one of the most chaotically free-spirited people I'd ever met, and I was completely, irreparably in love with him.

If there was one thing I'd learnt from the past few months, it was that I could go through anything as long as I had the right people beside me, and if there was one thing I'd learnt from Harry, it was that the people that love you are the ones that are there for you.

And Harry definitely was the right person for me.

And he'd always been there for me, since the start, and weirdly enough, so had I. Somehow, our hearts had understood we mattered to the other way before our minds had.

"It looks like we're finally free, now," I commented, leaning my head against his shoulder and letting out a content sigh.

Harry hummed. "We should throw a party to celebrate."

I raised my head and sent him a deadly glare, and he let out a silvery laugh, pulling me closer to him.

"I'm kidding, thunderstorm."

THE END.

This is the end of Facade. Thank you for reading this story, I truly hope you enjoyed it! If you liked it, I'd mean the world to me if you could check out my two ongoing works, "Interlude" and "Lux"! Once again, thank you so much for everything x
Miki