Finer Things // h.s.

Take On The World, Together

January 3rd, 2020

In that moment, everything for Matilda Jackson stopped, for this time, she knew Harry wasn't joking around. He wasn't throwing the concept of forever around like the small yellow tennis ball they tossed between one another in the backyard as children on a sunny afternoon. This time, Harry had never been more serious about anything in his life, nor had he been so sure of anything else than spending the rest of his life with the one person he had gifted his trust to from the moment he met her as a young boy; looking into the brown eyes of the small girl with messy braids and a school uniform that hung off her body, two sizes too big. Tilly felt as if the hundreds of rain droplets around she and Harry had frozen mid-air, waiting for her response to Harry's proposition of forever.

It wasn't that Tilly was scared or nervous, in fact this is something she had dreamt about for years and although she had imagined it on the green before the Eifel Tower or on a beach somewhere in the Maldives, this was better than anything she could have imagined when she would lay awake in the crisp early mornings before the sun were to embrace the land and before the moon had whispered it's silent good byes to the sleeping creatures beneath her. As Tilly looked into Harry's eyes, green and glowing in the pouring rain she came back to life. Reborn as someone she wasn't sure she'd realised she wanted to get to know, for she had only ever been acquainted with the surface of what she really longed for which was Harry. Of course, she had always known she wanted him; she just wasn't sure how badly, not until right now. Looking at Harry's face, small droplets racing one another to the tip of his chin, every memory came flooding into her mind and as the beautiful memories danced across her consciousness, she smiled at the fondness she endured in this moment.

Growing up running through the backfields of her house, kissing Harry for the first time as she leant up against the old oak tree, running to him as a small girl in a black dress after she had lowered her mother into the earth and experiencing his warmth, despite the fact neither of them really understood death. Every night spent dancing into the early morning together to Fleetwood Mac, every pillow fight, every drunk call, every moment spent longing to know where he is and yearning for his call. Every teenage hook up, trying to forget him, knowing she'd go home to an empty bed and think of him and what he was doing and whether he thought of her. The way he touched her skin so delicately when he made love with her for the first time, seeing him in Paris and knowing she'll never love anyone more than him, Harry's button up hanging loose from her shoulders as she ran along the beach in Rome, every moment she missed him when she asked the stars where he was, being carried on his back as they ran through hundreds of intoxicating sweet smelling wildflowers in Amsterdam, confessing her love to him and realising he felt the same, every moment she fell more in love with him when that small dimple rose from his cheek.

No longer would Tilly feel so small when the man before her loved her so, and although she did not depend on his love for her to feel big, it made sense that she would spend forever with Harry growing as artists, as people and as lovers.

Tilly's POV

"I know I don't have a ring right now, but I'll get one, I promise and-"

I press my lips to his and grip the collar of his tee-shirt in my hands as we stand in the pond, waist deep in water, inhaling deeply as I kiss him like it's my last chance in this lifetime.

"Yes, a thousand fucking times, yes. I don't need a ring, as long as I've got you." I say, panting and he mirrors my smile. I nod quickly and I feel my eyes begin to water.

"I love you, Tilly." Harry says as he picks me up and holds me in the air and I rest my hands on his shoulders. He lowers me to him, and he kisses me with everything he has, all of his love, all of his friendship and nothing feels more right than this. It's as if he pressed play again and I'm me once more.