v.
Harry had a friend named Christopher who fell off a swing set.
They were twelve, a little too old to be competing who could swing the highest before jumping off but it was the sort of friendship where home life wasn't the pinnacle of nuclear family virtue, making it imperative that they find something to do. That could be walking Christopher's wrinkly faced bloodhound for hours, swimming at the community pool despite having their own, roaming aimlessly around the shopping mall buying stupid shite that they didn't need, or going to the playground and fucking about until night inked the sky black and pebbled it with stars. If it meant pretending that they belonged to the wild when their dads came home from obnoxiously long business trips only to argue with their mums, loud enough that even music is no longer sufficient to drown it out – then they were doing it.
So they had been at it for a while, at least two hours of dicking around at the park, and Christopher was attempting to beat Harry's farthest, highest jump. He miscalculated, slid and hit his head on the solid rubber surface and Harry let out a gasp so loud that it tore a Nan from her concentration on the book in her hands.
It had happened very quickly: the Nan picked up Christopher with a concealed strength Harry had not expected, ordered him to call Christopher's parents and tell them that they would be going to the nearest hospital. She broke about ten different traffic laws, seeming wild-eyed and more panicked than Harry had originally been, which only proved to intensify his dismay. At that moment, he'd been certain that he had a hand in his friend's death, and the Nan was in such alarm because she knew Harry's life was over.
(Later, when all was said and through, Harry found out from Christopher's mum that the Nan was Miss. Peggy from a street or two over, who lost her second son to a nasty fall that sent him into a coma...it made his heart ache for her – he thought about her often afterward and visited her with chocolates on Wednesday's after class for the next two years until she moved.)
Harry was so scared – his friend was hooked up to all these wires and devices, his head was wrapped up in tannish bandaging, and Harry was anxiously waiting for Christopher's parents to show up. They worked about an hour out, so he spent a lot of time alone in the waiting room (Miss. Peggy was getting treated for a panic attack she had started having once they took Christopher from her), reluctant to let his own parents know where he was. A nurse who had been catering to him, getting him water, offering him food and checking in with him, came around to offer him to see his friend.
"It might be scary Love, but I think it's important for you to see that he's alive, yeah? Might settle your tummy."
It was true – it did help. Though Harry doesn't think the nurse was expecting Christopher to wake up with them in the room, nor was she expecting Christopher's face to pull into a deep frown, eyes beading with tears as he uttered in a raspy voice, "Who are you? Where – where am I?"
Retrograde Amnesia. As the nurse had described to him, Christopher bumped his head hard, it injured a part of his brain and so he forgot a few things...Harry included. In time it would get better, and Harry understood as much, but he remembers just how dejected he felt. His friend was hurt and he didn't remember him, but he had all these memories, and all these thoughts and Christopher was just – a blank slate. Tabula rasa, his mum had said that once.
And while the situations may be far different, he hopes that the same low, dejected feeling he had was not what Y/N felt.
Because he'd kissed her. Stupidly, and drunkenly, he had surged forward after they'd exchanged their gifts with one another from the pure electricity sizzling through him. Harry could lie and say he didn't know why he'd done it, but he knew exactly why. He was hopelessly, irreversibly taken by her; she was gentle but firm, headstrong and smart, and so unbelievably selfless, warmhearted and compassionate. Hell, for the first time in a long time, since Gibson's divorce, since he started drinking himself silly since it was necessary that he go to the hospital and all this shite started happening around it – Gibson was smiling, laughing, similar to the man that Harry had grown up with, and it was because of her.
