witness || h.s.|| ON HOLD

thirty-nine || family troubles

the song for this chapter is "Memories," by Lewis Del Mar :)

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Memories
Evaporate
It's been this way since I was born
I'm gon' remember what I want to
Memories
I create
It's been this way since I was born
So please leave me alone

***********

Tate

        I woke up the next morning and winced in pain from my shoulder. I had gotten stitches once in my life before, when I was fifteen, I had accidentally cut into the tip of my thumb while slicing an apple. I know that typically, you are supposed to keep your stitches dry for the first day, but considering the amount of blood that was covering my body yesterday, I think a shower was definitely necessary. When I had cut my finger, the doctor had told me to keep my stitches dry for the first day, and after that, to wash the wound with clean water around two times a day, and then to apply a thin layer of petroleum jelly and a nonstick bandage, and to replace it as needed. I wondered if perhaps since I got it wet on the first day if I would need to have my stitches redone. I hoped not, but I would have to ask Harry.

 Harry.

My boyfriend.

If you had told me at the start of this, that Harry would eventually be my boyfriend, I probably would have vomited on the spot. But now? I couldn't be more thrilled. 

  When this all started about a month or so ago, I couldn't think of anything or anyone worse than Harry. The thought of him alone was enough to make my skin crawl. But that was just my view of the cover of the intricate novel that was Harry Styles. Once I opened it up and browsed the contents, my initial conceptions of him quickly began to change. 

  When Harry kidnapped me, he was doing his job. He was acting on the instincts that the past few years of his life had forced him to develop. He saw everything and everyone as a threat, including me. And knowing the information about my family that I know now, I have no doubt that if it hadn't been Harry who took me, it would be someone else. Someone far worse than him. Harry looked out for me even when he couldn't stand me. 

   He was broken. As cliche as it sounds, it was true. He had to witness his own mother's death at a young age and had no one else to lean on. When I first met Harry, he had the exterior aura of someone who didn't give a shit about anything, but as I have gotten to know him, I like to think that I had been shown fragments of the person that he once was before he became who he is today. 

       He still continued to remind me of a rose. His petals were beautiful, red, and alluring, but came paired with a set of thorns, a protective barrier put up to protect him from further emotional damage. The blood that the thorns produced was an even deeper color than the soft petals proudly displayed at the tip of the stem, but I would gladly prick myself on them a million times over just to inhale his sweet aroma. 

   Harry, my boyfriend, who's arm was slung lazily over my waist as we snuggled into each other in the bed. The arms that made me feel safer than anyone else's ever had. Even more so than my own mother now.

    I couldn't fully register that my mother could have possibly been lying to me for my entire life. I didn't hate her for it, I just didn't understand how she could keep something as important as my father still being alive from her only child. Or how every member of my family had been on a secret except for me. I'm sure there was some sort of logical explanation for it, but that didn't make it hurt any less.