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Harry never thought he’d get to be in love. He had always believed that that feeling of flying was reserved for other people.
Better people.
But now he was flying. But it wasn’t really flying.
Just floating.
Floating through the air, like a stone in the sea’s current. Just floating and floating and floating. This was love, so soft and so sweet like icing sugar dusted across his world.
And he was breathing it in.
Swallowing it.
Suffocating in it.
And Harry was just letting it all happen. He was standing on the edge of the rocks and letting wave after wave of that gorgeous feeling envelope him, swallow him down, and it felt so good.
Falling in love was simply the loveliest feeling.
And he never wanted to give it up.
Harry had never intended to fall in love because falling in love was just something other people did. Not him. But then Tom had smashed into his life, like a bullet launched into his lung. What had once been a carefree existence was now controlled by considerations, constant second guesses at what Tom was thinking. It was a collision. The splitting of atoms as they crashed together; the splintering of everything he’d ever known.
That was Tom.
What made it cruel though, was that Tom was the person that everyone wanted. The one who had all the choice in the world as to who he touched, and who he kissed, and who he loved. Tom was intelligent, polite, one of those rare dreams, wrapped up with a silken bow. Just perfection made into human form. The only similarity between them was their past. Different approaches to the same problem, just an experiment to see which would turn out best.
Tom would of course.
Tom was the best at everything.
But still, that pervading sense of inadequacy did not make the sweet emotion that had flowered in his stomach go away. If anything, the flowers were brighter and more beautiful than they had ever been before, because Harry was happy for once in his life.
And Harry liked being happy.
Liked just sitting on the grass between the clouds and the earth, daydreaming, imagining what it would be like to sit with Tom, to talk to Tom, to just be with him. It made his stomach as fluttery as the butterfly that flapped so close to the ground, to think of how deep down in his heart Tom had buried himself, when, as of yet, they had not spoken a word to each other.
Though deep down, Harry also knew he couldn’t have Tom. Tom was that special kind of perfect: the sacred mix of intellect, beauty and charisma. He could have anyone he wanted in the entire world. Sometimes Harry thought he saw, smiles that lingered too long, eyes that wandered, hands that touched things they shouldn’t. But then he would blink, and those sights would be gone, and he would be simply reminded that the people Tom associated himself with, were far better, than Harry himself would ever be.
He simply never got what he wanted, no matter what it was.
Now though, perhaps he might. For what he wanted was so simple. It was to see Tom smile at him and to feel the heat of his body as they lay beside each other under the sun. He even, and he wouldn’t admit this to anyone, wanted to feel Tom’s mouth against his own. Feel the warmth of Tom’s tongue as it undid the tangled mass of love that clogged his throat. The gentleness of his hands as they ran across his waist because they were both nervous, in their own way.
Harry just wanted Tom.
He just wanted to be loved. To be needed. To be desired just half as much as he desired Tom. Desired to lie beside him and hold his hand and dare to dream of the taste of his lips.
Never before had he wanted something so completely, so honestly.
And it was all because of Tom.
Without him, Harry would still have been drifting, meandering like a dandelion clock across the sky, held down by nothing, dreaming of nothing, meaning nothing.
Now though, he had love.
Gorgeous love.
Now he was lying in the grass staring at the sky. Wanting to know what Tom’s lips felt like to touch, and what his hands felt like to hold. Simply, what it would be like to sit beside him, to lie with him in this grass and talk about the eccentricities of love. Harry wished he could share it, that he could open up his chest, peel back the skin and let the love that swelled against his ribs, out into the world. He wanted to give his heart as a gift to Tom, so that he could see it, see what he did to him, so that he could learn to love him too. Harry wouldn’t even care if Tom was initially sceptical because Harry had so many uses for a heart, and he was willing to show Tom them all.
The crux of it was that Tom had sated him. Filled that emptiness that Harry hadn’t known he’d been feeling. The cavernous entity that his heart had become, was finally filling up like a bathtub does with water, filling and filling and filling until it was spilling out, dribbling over the edge and soaking the floor. Infusing through the mat and the woods and dripping out of every crack. Harry just couldn’t hide Tom was doing to him anymore.
It was a pressure in his head.
And black spots across his eyes.
And a tightness in his lungs.
And a pulsating of his heart.
And a wooze in his brain.
For a while, Harry hadn’t realised what he was feeling, then his friends had identified it, and everything had clicked into place.
It was love.
Gorgeous, beautiful, love.
His friends had all claimed to have been in love, but Harry suspected that they had never fallen in this deep into that sweet molasses sensation. They did not realise, they could never realise, just how fun it was to be in love, just how exciting, just how good it felt.
Because it felt so good.
Love was the light in the dark. A honey perfume that scented the air and filled his lungs up to the brim with sugar. Every day there felt like there were a thousand fireworks igniting over and over again in his stomach, just flying up and releasing a hundred colours, a hundred different chemicals that flowed as though on a river through his blood.
Love was a high.
Love wanted him to be happy, to finally get what he had wanted for so long. Love was not trying to drown him in sensation, rather, love wanted him to swim. It rushed into his lungs and threatened to sink him down into the depths, because it knew that he could grow gills, and learn to live in its sweet grasp. Love was the simple pleasures of life, the coolness of fresh water as it ran into his stomach, or the floral scent of newly sprung flowers that he would love to give Tom, because he was romantic at heart.
Love made him hopeful.
So hopeful.
And that was the one terrible part of it.
For hope was such a deadly thing. Harry could hope all he liked that Tom would fall in love with him, just as he had done with Tom, but he could not make it happen if it was not destined to be. And there was nothing that he could do to quell the worry that his love meant nothing to Tom.
Harry had tried to ignore it, tried kissing other girls who said they liked him. But that almost made it worse; it reminded him that their mouths were not Tom’s. The threads that made up their hearts, like a ball of wool that a kitten might play with, were not the same as the threads that made up Tom’s. His love for Tom was different; purer, not clouded with the malintent that came with his love for others.
But however much Harry wanted it to, kissing did not make him forget Tom, and every night he was left alone on the edge of his bed with a fuzzy feeling in his mind, like someone had covered his world with cotton wool. The wonderful warmth of love, always hanging on the very fringe of his mind, always ready to stitch him back together and fill that endless hole. It was such a lovely want, that Harry just had to play it out, staring at the wall as he kissed his palm, silently wondering whether it tasted like Tom mouth.
Despite himself, Harry knew what he wanted.
Want love wanted him to do.
For love was giving and receiving.
Angels did it, or so he believed. They gave themselves completely to another, and in return, they were gifted with their lover’s soul; to keep, to nurture and ultimately to bloom. That was divinity. And however unachievable it seemed to mere mortals, to those who had never trusted enough to give everything. He wanted to give Tom his soul. So that Tom could give him his, and together, they could embrace this love.
Harry was sick of lying here in the grass all alone. He was sick of wasting his time, living without Tom when they would just go so well together. Opposites attracted each other, complemented each other, completed each other. And there were no two people quite as opposite in appearance as he and Tom, even if such differences were only ever skin deep.
When he saw Tom walking past, all alone, Harry couldn’t help but stare at the set of his eyes, that determinedness that he was going to get exactly what he wanted, and that half-smile at the corner of his mouth, and the way that whenever he met anyone, he would tip his head back, just a little, and examine them from head to toe, like he could read their life story etched into their skin. It was those sweet peculiarities that belonged solely to Tom, which made him just so wonderful to watch.
He never wanted to go back to the time before he had fallen in love.
Because this was his meaning now, this was his future and he would embrace this lover with open arms.
For he had finally found a purpose.
Of all the times in the world, dinner was the best, because Tom was always there.
And even better.
Tom was watching him.
Him.
Tom must have known he was watching because Tom was always staring. When their eyes met the whole world seemed to melt away and it was just the two of them floating across the sky. Harry could imagine this was a romantic film from the golden age, and that one day, Tom would walk across the room, and take his hand, and they would dance and not care if people stood and stared.
Tom must have watched him dreaming.
Tom saw.
Tom knew.
Tom had these feelings too, whether he’d admit it or not. They were connected. Their hearts tied together with red string, leading to each other since the beginning of time. This was simply meant to be. The design of something bigger, something greater dragging them closer to one another, like a magnet at the centre of their souls.
He was north and Tom was south.
Tom never ate at dinner when Harry was watching him.
He always sat there, eyes stretched wide and his fork between his fingers, pushing food around the plate but never to his lips; never bringing the act of eating to completion. Harry wondered whether he should smile, let that silver mask of apathy fall aside and reveal beneath the burning smile that Tom always pulled from his teeth just by looking his way. Because love was a voracious, virtuous thing and he was a voracious virtuous person. Perhaps, if he could be brave, he could toss aside those feelings that haunted him from lost loves, then he could let this new plant grow. If he nursed it, nurtured it, let it bloom in all the colours of spring, maybe then, Tom would confirm it, and give him his heart.
Perhaps, if he just accepted it, regardless of how scary the idea tasted as he murmured it to himself. Perhaps the way to embrace what love was doing to him, was to just go with it. Let it play a while with his mind, let it tug and pull at his body; fill it to the brim with bliss just so that he could almost drown in its endless waters, before awakening with enlightenment.
If that was what loved craved, then love was truly just a man.
A man with a dream.
Harry hoped that Tom could be satisfied with something mortal. That that brilliance that burned white inside him could be quenched with someone as simple as himself. He wished, truly wished, that Tom liked mortal men with dreams; liked how they could paint a black sky a thousand colours that spilled out across the horizon
Tom would adore simple love.
For that sweetness that was so obvious in Harry’s smile.
He would like to open up himself ever so slow.
And then fall in love even slower.
Harry would make sure he would, because whilst Harry hadn’t expected love, he certainly understood how to share it.