[ One more night --- Linkin Park ]

Harry walks silently beside me; there is a light wind that shakes my hair.

"You met Stephan." he says then, breaking the silence.

I sketch a smile. "He was the first helpful and kind person I met at school."

Harry nods, smiling too. "He's a good friend."

Then I ask him something that I felt pinched the tip of my tongue until it slipped out. I turn slightly towards him as we continue walking. "You and Tara instead? How long have you been together? "

"For nearly two years."

"There are many," I reply, but deep down I've always hoped for it with Jake. That he would stay with me, that we would make it together.

"It is, but we've known each other for much longer," he replies. "She is my best friend."

I smile and then inevitably think of Liam and how everyone lived with the belief that we would end up together one day. I think I would never be able to see him from a different perspective, like someone who would no longer be Liam for me.

"What's up?" Harry asks me and I shake my head weakly.

"Sorry, you reminded me of a person."
I feel Harry's gaze on me as we slowly walk.

"What's his name?"

I sigh and then smile again. "Liam."

"And he's your ..." then stops when he sees me and hears me because I laugh hard and hard, but in a sincere way. In a way I had almost forgotten.

Harry looks at me without judgment, smiles with me. "No, he's like a brother to me."

But Harry decides to go deeper, tries to get the same answers from me that I asked him. "Don't you have anyone waiting for you on the other side of the world?"

"No," I say quickly, and Harry realizes how difficult it is for me to talk about everything that binds me to that part of the world that I struggle to call my home.

"I'm sorry, but that's one of the reasons I'm here."

Harry smiles at me anyway, he doesn't make me weigh it. Two dimples build up on the sides of his mouth when he curves his lips more. "Don't worry. "

Then we walk as at the beginning, we continue in silence. "Here we are," I say when we are standing in front of the building.

Harry is in front of me. "Thanks for joining me."

"It was a pleasure," he whispers looking at me, then he takes a step closer and lowers himself almost until he reaches my face. "Goodnight, Ariel Green."

"Goodnight, Harry," I say when he has already turned around. I keep watching him walk away for a while, until he turns the corner at the end of the street.
I enter the building and this time I take the elevator, I don't have the strength to face the stairs. I look at my reflection in the mirror and I seem to have a different outline, more defined and broken in many places. It may be a simple feeling, but a part of me can't help but think of Harry, about the way he always manages to keep me more towards the surface and less towards the bottom even though I am not aware of it.

And from the first time that happens to me. I thought I would never see him again after that day at the airport, and instead there seems to be a red thread to always intersect our streets.

The elevator doors open and through the floor at a slow pace.
The apartment is dark, so I find that my father has probably not returned yet. I change quickly and then go to my room; I take my cell phone and notice that there are three messages. I click on the icon and open it.

I still have it for a while, have a nice evening.

I'll be home by midnight.

The first two belong to my father, and when I check the timetable I realize that he should have already been here. Except that the times with him are not enough, you cannot rely on it completely, because even if he had already gone out and was returning home I know that if there was an emergency in the hospital he would not hesitate to go back and run to save lives. Yet he failed to save his wife, the woman of his life. It slipped through her fingers right under his gaze, and from that moment on he stopped questioning himself.

I open the last message: it's from Stephan.

I hope you had a nice evening, and I hope it wasn't the last.
Goodnight, American girl.

I quickly write an answer confirming that I have been well, and that there will be others.

At the moment I only have them to count on, and after the way they have behaved with me from the first moment I can't turn my back on them. I don't know when it will happen and now I don't want to think about it again; I just want to live and go on day after day. I made too many programs, and in the end reality did nothing but fall back on me.

I also write to Liam before leaving the phone on the desk. I know he probably won't read my words right now, but I still feel the need to try.

I miss you.

🌹 H A R R Y 🌹

I keep walking towards my apartment, while the background of the vitality of this city accompanies my thoughts.

When I first met Ariel at the airport I saw so much in her, I felt something that brought me back to when those who stood by me for a time saw me that way. Her gaze was empty, lost, and no matter how much she may try to hide, she is always there, even if not everyone is able to catch it.

I thought I would never see her again after that time so I shifted my attention to her, even though it kept my mind busy for days. Then we met again at Selston, and that wall was still in front of her.

I understood even before asking her that she wouldn't tell me more about her story and her motivations, but I knew that I would see her again because I often go to the Selston for Tara, i just didn't imagine it would have happened so soon.

I was serious when I grasped that it is as if fate somehow pushes us to meet. Somehow I feel that we are bound by something, and I am sure that she has realized it too.

She spent almost the entire evening in silence merely listening to others; I looked at her a lot. I hoped she would open up more, that she would start to trust just enough, but then I realized that maybe it's still too early for her, that whatever the motivation for which she is here now, she needs time. She surprised me when she asked me about Tara; all I can do is stay by her side and her family since her mother saved me that night.

She also mentioned a person and what I had reminded her of. But it was when I asked her if she had someone waiting for her that something went off in her. Her response was firm and decisive, different from all the others in which she remained vague and detached, almost as if she was afraid, as if she had been afraid of it.

One thing is certain: I want to see her again.