17 Chapter 16

Chelseaville February 1976

The daisy fields. The only undisturbed haven that was reserved for the blooming lovers, secretive and their own. Harrison did things he had never imagined he would do like drive out of town for a daisy field which was a few miles away from Fairhope, that was usually secluded from the usual townsfolk. At first he thought it was for Hope but soon it became a place closer to his heart, he could not let go.

Sitting on a patch of daisies made them invisible to the passers on the street adjacent which he did not really mind as long as they were away from the prying eyes back home. The feeling of isolation, the intimacy of it all and Hope’s presence on him eased Harrison’s mind. It felt like a long-battled war was finally over inside his body and all he could feel was quietness and peace. But that was what he knew of himself, not what Hope felt, until that day at the daisy field.

Hope watched Harrison attentively as the first rays of the supple sun touched his face, hands and eyes, exposing his sunburnt skin, the calluses on his palms, lips which was a thin line structured carelessly that looked alive when he smiled, and a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. Grey eyes that looked at her with so much affection, it made her forget her connection to the ground. She looked at him as if she were trying to burn his image in her mind.

Unable to hold back her secret she spilled out the truth about how she had wanted to ease him, help him not feel so terrible all the time, just like she had always tried to help everyone else who shared misery instead of a smile. For a moment Hope thought he would just ask her to leave, but he did not, instead his face contorted into a silent rage and pain at the dawn of her seeing him as a charity case.

They were now standing apart from each other and Harrison knew he never liked the idea of being ticked off because his vision blurred when rage crept in. But as Hope stood there quivering in terror, not of him, but as if she were trying to stop herself from letting something out, or in. All this time he had rage control him and allowed it to take over when things didn’t feel right, but as she remained there in front of him, without running away from him, he moved up closer to her and looked at her eyes. They were stuck in his memory unable to forget, after seeing them multiple times, but when he did this time he saw a striking difference in them. For once she was not the confident Hope, the hopeful Hope he’d seen and known. She was truly terrified, not of anyone but herself. He could pick up that look of fear anywhere on earth after seeing it on himself for years and it did not take him long enough to see that once long-gone part of him in her.

“I am not a charity case anymore…am I?” He asked as realisation spread about him like an unstoppable wildfire. Her breath paced rapidly, and he took her hands which were now cold and rubbed his callused forefingers on the insides of her silky wrists.

“I thought you were, but I was wrong,” she looked down at their hands.

“You’re afraid Hope. Why?”

“I-I never asked for this,” she said sucking in her breath.

He smiled at her for the first time since her confession, the eye crinkling smile.

“Someone I used to be shamefully terrified of, said the universe can surprise you.”

She laughed lightly making the air ripple around them. She shook her head.

“I’m not surprised.”

“No?”

She smiled to herself.

“I knew this would come, I just never accepted it.”

“Well what about now?” He asked in a low voice, patience presiding over him, in a waft of surprise.

Hope took Harrison’s hands in her.

“I don’t know Harrison; this is one of the strangest cases I’ve had to pursue?” She shrugged hopelessly, but the spark in her eyes said otherwise. He laughed in relief at the spark which only spoke to him, and lifted her up in fervour, bringing her down onto a patch of daisies with him as she laughed ecstatically.

“Tell me what ‘this’ is?” He asked knotting his brows. Hope leaned across him, her chest against his and wiped wisps of crushed daisies and leaves off his hair. The moment her body met his, she felt his chest heave and fall lightly, as a flutter of comfort rippled through him.

“Is it possible to feel someone else’s body as if it was your own?” She asked resting her elbows on his chest as he looked up at her.

“Hope Mayfield,” he said out aloud, “risin’ to the bait with another question.” He shook his head with trail of annoyance that only Hope knew how to decipher. Hope breathed in, her breath quivering at the edges.

“To feel your triggered breath from miles away, to hear you mourn in pain at the dark hours, to know the way the world spins in your mind, to feel your pain as if I was to be hurt and to feel your comfort as if it was my own.” When Hope reached the end, her voice broke, but she was not crying, instead she was smiling like she always did, “that’s what ‘this’ is to me.”

Harrison knew his days of living up to his principles were over as day by day he was compelled to betray one of them for his own selfish desires ever since Hope came along. And today was another day as Hope opened before him, nakedly like a bud to its first ray of sun, and he did not want the moment he couldn’t grasp in his hands to end. He gently pulled her into the crook of his neck-which she again and again did not break away from and held her close.

This was Hope Mayfield and he loved her. He loved her more than the ranch and the world combined. It was a selfish kind of love which was also selfless.

“I like what ‘this’ is,” he whispered and buried his face into her dark copper hair and when he did everything that had held him back in chains, didn’t exist anymore as he helplessly let the first tear he had shed since his walk from the church graveyard, burn out his parched, coarse face.

Hope sensed a warm tear trickle through her hair strands onto her shoulder, to which she pulled back to look at. Harrison quickly looked away; he could not be that in front of her. Hope’s kind eyes could see his dark ones brimming with tears which were struggling to fall off their edge. She took his face in her hands.

“Don’t hold those tears back for me now,” she grazed his stubbled cheek with her thumb, and leaned against his forehead. The silvery tone of her voice when she spoke softly scraped Harrison’s chest and he winced at his position. To sob like a child in front of her. But she was not a mediocre nobody either, she was a part of him. He could see that she felt him as she held him tightly, justifying her words. And as she held him, he felt her within him, clear and bright as daylight and that was all he needed at the moment.

The morning was bright and as the sun rose between the dark valleys at the horizon, Harrison once again clung onto Hope and let himself float away to a place he had never dared to, because this time he knew he didn’t have to venture into the darkness alone anymore with an empty bottle for company.