Fading.

When I woke up the next morning, I expected the tears to return once the fog cleared from my mind, but instead I felt motivated, renewed. Like I was on some sort of mission. I got out of bed and had an odd urge to clean. I headed downstairs and no one was around which should be good since I really needed to be alone.

I looked around and unfortunately, our house was clean, and so I had to search hard for something to keep me busy. I hit the bathroom first, and started scrubbing. I scrubbed the toilets, the floors, the shower, and the sinks. It was clean.

I moved on to the bedrooms where I organized, made beds, re-made beds. Next, I hit the living room where I dusted and vacuumed. I mopped the bathroom floor and wiped down every surface I could find. I ended up at the kitchen sink where I washed the only two dishes in the house; mum and dad’s glasses.

It was almost five when I heard dad’s car pulled up. He and mum walked in the house and came to a halt when they saw me sitting in his living room floor.

“What are you doing?” Tristan, my brother was the one to break the silence.

“Alphabetizing,” I replied.

“Alphabetizing what?” Dad asked.

“Everything. First I did the movies, then I did the CDs. Mum, I did the books in your room and Dad, yours too.” I pointed to the piles in front of me. “I didn’t know you have started to collect recipes, mum. I’m going to alphabetize them by category then—“

“Take everything to the kitchen,” Mum said to Dad as she continued to look at me.

I continued alphabetizing though I knew they were all looking at me. Mum sat down on the couch in front of me followed by Tristan.

“Should I put ‘Baked Potato Soup’ behind potato or soup?”

“Stop,” Tristan said. He seemed moody.

“I can’t stop, Tris. I’m halfway done. If I stop now-“

“Stop!” He sounded firmer. I jerked my gaze from the piles in front of me and looked at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

My eyes moved to mum and she had a sympathetic look displayed on her face. I decided then that I hated it – so much. I didn’t want them to sympathize me.

I ignored them and continued to alphabetize.

Tristan eyed the living room, then stood and walked into the kitchen.

“Honey, you don’t have to do this.” Mum said as she kneeled in front of me.

I shook my head. “I just need to keep myself busy.”

“You color coded my closet?”

I looked up and saw that Tristan was not smiling. I thought he would be happy about it.

“Tris, it wasn’t that hard. There are like, three different colours.”

He glided across the room and bent down; snatching up the recipe cards I had organized into piles.

“Tris, stop!” I snatched the cards back out of his hands as fast as he took it from the piles.

Before I could sit back on the floor, Tristan grabbed my wrists and tried to pull me up, but I started kicking at his legs. “Let me go! I’m not.. done. Tristan!”

“Tristan..” Mum’s voice interrupted us.

He turned to look at mum and released my hands. I fell back to the floor and picked up the recipe cards and started re-organizing them back into piles. Because of him, I was back to square one. I was nearly done with the soup categories when suddenly I was drenched in water.

“What the hell!” I screamed.

I looked up and Tristan was standing over me with an empty pitcher in his hand. I lunged forward and started punching at his legs. He backed away and I started hitting at him, trying to get off of the floor.

Why the hell did he just do that? I was so going to punch him in the face. I stood up and tried to hit him but mum caught my wrists and turned me around to face her. My chest heaved up and down as I tried to force oxygen into my lungs. I was so mad I wanted to.. cry.

Mum began to push me toward the hallway and into the bathroom. The next think I knew, she lifted me up, pulled the shower curtain and shoved me in. She turned the faucet on and a stream of ice cold water splashed across my face. I gasped.

“Take a shower, Skylar. You’ll feel better afterwards.” She closed the bathroom door and left me in there alone.

I jumped out of the shower my clothes were drenched. I tried to open the door but it was locked from outside.

“Let me out!” I was beating on the door and trying to turn the doorknob but nothing worked. “Please.” I slid down the door until my butt met the floor and I rested my head on the door.

“Skylar,” her voice was so calm as she pronounced my full name, “You’re not going out of the bathroom until you get in the shower and wash your hair and calm down.”

I took off my wet clothes and climbed in the shower. The warm water felt good against my skin. I closed my eyes and let the water trickled through my hair and down my face.

Damn it. My mother was right again.

*

I turned the water off and stepped out of the shower and dried off. I twisted the towel around my head and put on my clothes that were on the sink. My mother must have brought it in when I was taking the shower. She always had everything organized her way.

When I got out of the bathroom, my parents and Tristan were standing in front me; they stopped talking and all of them looked worried. I looked from mum to Tristan and saw that she nodded at him as if it they agreed to let Tristan talked to me instead.

I hated him.

I backed up to the wall and shook my head. I was afraid that he was going to push me back into the bathroom.

“I’m sorry I did that, Sky. You were just losing it.” His voice was dripping with sincerity.

Losing it? Maybe I did. I had no idea what had gotten into me when I alphabetized everything – I had never done that before.

I sighed, knowing that he was right. “It’s okay. I sort of had a rough night.” My parents sighed in relief as they realized I was not going to fight back.

I was tired. The whole time I was cleaning I felt the anger inside of me and when I took the shower, it sort of melted away. Away with the water.

“Come on, let’s get downstairs and eat. You’ve been in there for too long.” Tristan nudged my shoulder and we walked down the stairs with our parents following behind.

“How’s Haley?”

“She’s good. She wants you to go dress shopping with her tomorrow. Would you go so I could do something else?”

Against my better judgment, I told him that I would. Anything that could take my mind off of Harry, I was up for it.

*

A week had passed since the day I decided to clean the whole house. I had spent most of my time locked up in the room though my mother would occasionally tried to talk me out and told me to go out and have some fun.

I didn’t want to have fun. It felt wrong to have fun when I was supposed to be sad or depressed.

According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, there are five stages of grief a person passes through after the death of a loved one: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Everything that was said above were what I felt all at once when Harry told me that he was letting me go. I was in denial when he said he wanted me to find someone better because he couldn’t give me what I wanted because it was me who couldn’t give him what he wanted. I was in stage two – anger – when he laughed at me and blatantly agreed with me that love was not enough. I was practically bargaining at him when I told him to picture himself walking in my shoes and I was in stage four a week ago when I cleaned the whole house. However, I stopped at stage five. Was I already accepting this whole thing? I guessed I did the second I left his house.

Did Harry go through any of that? I bet he didn’t.

“I’m taking you out.” Tristan said as he barged into my room. He had the habit of not knocking before he walked into a room.

I looked at him and he was dressed in blue shirt with its sleeves rolled up until his elbows. He cocked his eyebrow at me and waited for me to response. I won’t.

“Which part of I don’t want to go out that you don’t understand?”

He rolled his eyes and sat on my bed. “Haley and I are going out so we’re taking you with us.”

“I have to be the third wheels? No, thanks.”

He tipped his head back and groaned. “Just.. Ugh please? I hated seeing you like this.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew that I had to go out eventually. I couldn’t be in this room forever. I needed some changes in the scenery; I had been staring at this ceiling for days.

“Fine, give me ten minutes.”

Tristan nodded and left my room.

*

He brought me to a club.

Out of all places, he chose the most crowded place in town and brought me there. I hated him.

Tristan was about to order me a glass of coke when I stopped him. “You brought me here and I get to choose what I want to drink.” I turned to the bartender and told him that I wanted a glass of beer.

He looked at me as if I was going to break – I really hated that look. “Go. I don’t want to ruin your before-we-married-date.” Haley smiled and took Tristan’s hand. Before he left, he shot me one apologetic look. Why?

It was not like I was going to break down in front of everyone or maybe he thought I would do something stupid such as cleaning this whole club. I laughed at myself at the thought of that. What was I thinking?

“Here you go,” the burly man handed me my drink. I thanked him and drank.

Oh God, when was the last time I drank?

*

One and half hours later, I had lost count on how many glasses I had drank. Tristan and Haley were nowhere to be found and I could not care less. I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone.

I downed the drink and closed my eyes to relish the burning sensation on my throat.

“Well, that’s hot.” A voice approached. I turned around too quick that it caused my head to spin. “Easy, girl.” He had his hand wrapped around my wrist as he tried to steady me. His hand was warm and soft.

Easy.

“Are you okay?” He asked, looking me in the eyes.

I nodded and leaned against the bar.

“You’re alone?”

I wanted to tell him that I was here with my brother but that would have sounded stupid so I told him yes and his smile grew. It could be my blurry vision but I swore he had leaned closer to me.

His scent immediately hit me like a tidal wave. He smelt just like Harry. Except that he was missing the Harry scent.

“I would buy you another glass of beer but I could see that you’ve had enough.”

I shook my head and put my hand on his shoulder so I could look at him. When I did, he looked like Harry too. I shook my head twice and blinked my eyes couple of times. He didn’t. No, he didn’t look like Harry.

In fact, he looked so much different from Harry. He had light brown hair perfectly styled in a quiff and his smile was sweet. He didn’t have dimples but still, his smile was sweet.

“Please do,” I finally managed to squeak out.

He chuckled and ordered two glasses of whiskeys instead.

“I thought you’re going to buy me beer.”

He smiled. “It’s not safe for you to be here alone.”

From the corner of my eyes, I felt like someone was watching me. Turning around, there was no one. But when I returned my gaze back to the man in front of me, I sawhim.

Harry was standing few feet away from me, his eyes filled with sadness. He was chewing his bottom lip as he looked at me and I tore my gaze away from him. I couldn’t look at that face. It added more pain to my heart.

However, I found myself glancing back at the same spot I saw Harry and there was nothing. No one.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Dance with me.” I took his hand and led him to the dance floor.

When I put my hand on his shoulder, I heard a voice telling me to stop. But I wasn’t going to.

“Easy, girl. You’re so fast.”

Easy, easy, easy.

I wanted to know how it felt like to be easy. Guys liked their girls easy, weren’t they? Harry liked his easy.

I turned my back to that man that I had no idea what his name was and started dancing the way I would have never danced if I was sober.

Easy, I reminded myself. Tonight, I was going to be easy and see how Harry liked it.

Stop that, the same voice whispered.

Instead of stopping, I did the opposite. I threw my arms around the man’s neck and leaned forward until our lips were only an inch away. His breath smelt like mint and whiskey – a combination that I would have never thought would smell good. He smiled as I swayed my hips to the rhythm of the music, his hands slid down to my waist and he stopped there. Good.

“You’re really drunk.”

I didn’t argue.

I swiped my tongue against my lips before I crashed my lips against him. Easy. This was really easy.

He pulled away and looked at me. “I didn’t know your name yet.”

“You don’t have to.” And I crashed my lips against him the same way I did before.

He was taken off guard by my action but he kissed me back. Our lips moved against each other so easily and I granted him access into my mouth easily, too.

His kiss was nothing like Harry but I pushed the thoughts away from my mind.

He pulled away from my lips and attached his lips against my neck. I grabbed a handful of his short hair and tipped my head back and let him kiss my neck the way he liked.

He didn’t tell me I smelt good like Harry did, he didn’t kiss the spot behind my ear like Harry did – he didn’t do anything that Harry did if he was kissing me. I was both glad and sad. I missed the feeling of his lips against my skin, the way his fingertips danced against my skin, the way his thumb made circles on my back, I missed everything.

You disappoint me, and that caused me to snap back to reality. I pushed him away from me and took in a breath.

“Hey, did I do something wrong?”

I shook my head. “I just.. I need a drink.”

He looked at me, confused but he nodded and led me back to the bar.

“God, I thought I’ve lost you!” Tristan jumped off the stool as I came in view. His eyes darted to the man that was holding my hand and raised his eyebrow at me.

“Tristan, this is..”

“Will.”

“..Will. Will, this is my brother, Tristan and his fiancé, Haley.”

They exchanged handshakes.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” Tristan said as he grabbed Haley’s hand. “And you too.”

I didn’t want to go home but I didn’t want to stay here either.

“I can drive her home, if that’s alright.” Will piped in.

Tristan was skeptical about this.

“Yeah, Will can drive me home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

So they left.

I exhaled and ordered myself another glass of drink. Will occupied the empty seat next to me and smiled. “I didn’t know your name.”

I was reluctant about telling him my name but I thought better of it. He looked like he didn’t know me. “Sky.” I said and waited for him to say something that relate me to Harry. But he didn’t.

“I like Sky.”

“Yeah, I like it too.”


I woke up to an empty bed. I could only assume that he was out to watch the sunrise. I got out of the bed and wrapped a robe around my body.

I walked over the large window and enjoyed the view. He was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that were on the floor last night.

“Come here,” his voice was raspy as he turned to look at me. The corner of my lips turned up as I walked over him. He immediately wrapped his arms around me and I leaned into him. “You’re early.”

“You’re not in bed.”

He hummed in response.

I looked up and trailed kisses all over his jaw. “What are you doing out here?”

“I was just looking at the sky.”

“You could have just looked at me,” I joked.

He chuckled. “Yeah but you were snoring. That was ugly.”

“I did not.”

“No you didn’t. You actually made this adorable purring sound and I had to distance myself from you before I did something else.” He smirked and kissed the tip of my nose.

“You really like to look at the sky, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I have to thank my parents for giving me this name.”

“Funny,” he said and rolled his eyes. “Do you like sky, Sky?” He smirked, trying to hold back his laughter over his stupid joke.

“I do.”

“This might sound stupid but I look at the sky when I miss you.”

It didn’t sound stupid at all. It was one of the sweetest things he had ever said to me.

“That’s sweet. What should I look at when I miss you? My hair, Hairy?”

His chest vibrated as he chuckled. “You could have just googled my name.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Or you could just look at the pictures of me you’ve taken.”

“Yeah, I would do that.”

*

When I was back, everyone was asleep. I was glad because mum would have questioned me why was I out late.

I brushed my teeth and changed into my pajamas. Before I got to my bed, I took one look at my phone and saw there were several texts from Daisy, two texts from Bennett and one from Louis.

I immediately opened the text from Louis and read it.

I didn’t know what happened between you and H but he’s fucking miserable.

Good, at least I wasn’t the one affected by his decision.

Stage five: Acceptance.

I was so certain I had reached that stage until another text popped out.

I’m sorry. H .x

And just like that, I was back in stage one: denial.

Notes

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