One Week Later

Harry's POV

She was sitting in front of me again. So close yet so far away. It was almost taunting me to blurt out who I was just in case she could remember, but I kept my mouth shut as she spoke to me about the emotions that were bottled up inside her. She spoke in such a monotone voice that I barely took in anything she said, and I couldn't believe that all the life had been sapped out this voice.

In her lap was a sheet of paper that she had brung in with her, and I was itching to see what was on the other side that she was so cautious about but she was still speaking so I didn't interrupt. It had only been twenty minutes, but it felt like hours as I grew more and more miserable seeing what had become of my childhood friend and love.

"I just don't understand what's going on up there," she pointed to her head to emphasise her point, and I smiled weakly at her.

She looked more nervous than the week before, but she kept eye contact with me which had not happened last week. They were the same eyes I had often admired many years before, but the glint in them had dulled.

"What do you have in your lap Phoenix, if you don't mind me asking?" I asked hesitantly, and she flinched slightly as if the words had struck her.

For once her fingers lay still as she looked down at the piece of paper in her hands as if she had just noticed it.

"A drawing," she replied back, not daring to look me in the eye. She seemed to have reverted back to a child-like state, and her words were muffled and quiet.

"Can I see it?" I said slowly, forcing a smile onto my face to make her feel more relaxed.

Nodding, she turned over the piece of paper and I sucked in a breath at seeing the image on the other side. She had drawn an eye, a scarily large eye, and had painted the background with black paint. The more I looked at the pairing, the more unnerved I felt until I wanted to rip the thing to shreds.

"It's very beautiful," I replied to her and her face softened for a moment, and in that second I thought I saw her again. I thought she had come back.

"Keep it," she handed it me, her fingers trembling as she did so, and I placed it in my lap.

"With your last therapist, what did you talk about?" I asked her to change the conversation from the drawing that seemed to be staring into my soul.

"How I was feeling, and he told me why I was feeling that way," she spoke nonchalantly, but I knew she was lying. Her file had said that she rarely spoke and when she did she gave back simplistic answers.

"Why do you think you're here Phoenix?" I asked her, pleading her with my eyes to speak about the Summerlea centre, about me, anything that would indicate that she remembered me.

"It's because of who I am Dr Thomas," she said, and once again my heart sank as she stared at me with those glassy eyes.

It felt like I was speaking to a completely different human. One that seemed to stare right through me.

***

The drawing Phoenix had done lay on my kitchen table, and I grabbed a glass of water before going to analyse it. There was something disconcerting about it, something that didn't sit well inside me whenever I looked at it. 

The eye was enlarged and gaudy, staring straight into your eyes no matter where your head turned. It was drawn at a mediocre standard, but yet it was hauntingly beautiful. The blank paint was smeared around the eye, careful not to touch the actual drawing, creating a sense of obscurity. My fingers traced the line of the paper, imagining myself drawing, trying to find some reason for it.

Bringing the paper closer to my face, I tried to find any detail that might indicate that the real Phoenix was still inside that lifeless body. That her fire had not died so easily. But all I saw was the grey of the graphite pencil and the dull cover of paint.

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about the way she had held that picture in her hand like it was a secret that the world was not able to know. She had been reluctant to even show it to me, I could tell that by her eyes. Maybe she had feared I would've reacted in a different way. Maybe she was nervous about her work being seen.

It was one in the morning when I went back to my dining room table to look again at the picture. There was only the warm, yellow light from my lamp to illuminate the picture, and for a second it looked less menacingly.

My eyes scammed over it again, when I noticed that on the left hand side of the picture the paint was not so thickly applied. In fact there was so little of the paint in that small section that you could see the white paper beneath it. Squinting my eyes, I noticed a hint of grey underneath the solid blackness.

Grabbing a torch hastily, I shone a white light onto the picture, showing the scribbled message beneath the paint more clearly. My heart skipped a beat, but I told myself to not get too excited.

Bringing it closer to my eyes, I tried to make out the hurried letters under the paint. It was difficult at first, her handwriting being messy and partially-covered, but eventually I could make out letters.

'They are watching us. I love you Harry'.

Oooohhhhh so Phoenix recognised him all along? Who is watching them? How will they be allowed to reunite properly?

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